Again, there are several Board members who don't see their investment in adherence to due process. Why? Because they don't see themselves as ever having to be subject to the criminal justice process. So they eschew it to assuage their emotions.

It still amazes me how much people (usually the ones who are against the death penalty) bring up the deterrent factor. It's not so much about deterrence as justice. When you consider his crime, and the effects long after the fact, him simply getting life in prison (free room and board courtesy of the state) isn't justice. He needs to forfeit his life.

That would work for me, but how about crucifixion as a deterrent?

Rome may have fallen, but they still had a pretty good run .

How about we have evolved as a people and we have due process now, which needs to extend rights to the guilty in order to protect the innocent as well???

That's a refreshing break from some Board posts which seem to be little more than an opportunity for some to emote. They contribute little or nothing.

D, SC is right. The Third Reich's pogrom (and that's a rather sedate term to use) sought resolution of a perceived problem in murder.

Why do you refer to Nazi-Germany at all?
Are you talking about the holocaust, the pogroms or the death penalty in Germany?

You're the one who used the term "killing as a solution". The Nazis called it the "Final Solution".

I don't agree with the death penalty. I've went back and forth on it for years, but at the end of the day, murder is murder, whether it is committed by a psychopath or a doctor with a needle. I'm not saying that I don't think there are people out there who deserve to die for their crimes. What I take issue with is justifying one type of killing, but not another. It just doesn't sit well with me.

I don't agree with the death penalty. I've went back and forth on it for years, but at the end of the day, murder is murder, whether it is committed by a psychopath or a doctor with a needle. I'm not saying that I don't think there are people out there who deserve to die for their crimes. What I take issue with is justifying one type of killing, but not another. It just doesn't sit well with me.

According to your thinking, a soldier who kills an enemy combatant in war is a murderer.

According to your thinking, a soldier who kills an enemy combatant in war is a murderer.

According to your thinking, a soldier who kills an enemy combatant in war is a murderer.

Yea, that's not even close to what I said. Murder is murder when their is premeditation, when there is intent to kill someone. The vast majority of soldiers who go to war don't go to kill other people. True, they know that they may come across a situation where killing someone is necessary in order to protect themselves and their squad. But I can guarantee you the vast majority of soldiers don't go out on patrol with the intention to kill someone.

Second-degree murder still speaks to an offender's obvious lack of concern for human life. They may not have planned to kill whoever it was that they killed, but their conduct was such that a death was possible based on their actions. On that basis, sure, a soldier killing someone in action could be construed as murder. It wouldn't be construed that way by me or anyone else I know, though.

As for an execution being murder, I know that there are laws and statutes in place that protect an executioner from being considered a murderer. I know that execution is considered a "justifiable homicide." What I feel, and what I know, however, are two different things. It doesn't sit well with me that a state with capital punishment can kill someone because they killed someone else. I don't call that punishment, I call that hypocrisy.

And to reiterate, I'm not saying this guy doesn't deserve to die for what he did. What I'm saying is I don't believe in capital punishment carried out by the state. Period.

Well, I'd argue there are crimes so heinous that nothing but the life of the murderer is truly justice. Certainly not them simply sitting in the cell for the rest of their life. Getting shelter and food courtesy of the state. And often today they don't spend life in prison but are paroled at some point.

That is a valid point, as well, but one could also argue that a man sentenced to death will live a pretty comfortable life sitting on death row exhausting his appeals. That's my second problem with capital punishment.

The problem with a life sentence is that it doesn't mean anything close to life. The prisons are so overcrowded that they cycle people through. Since the vast majority of prisoners are serving drug sentences, if they figured out some other way to deal with them (and I don't mean serious drug dealers, but stupid college kids, for example), that wouldn't necessarily be an issue.

"Taxpayers have spent $4 billion since 1978 on California's capital punishment system -- and with only 13 executions to show for it.

That's about $308 million per execution."

Source: CNN Money

As I have stated before, my issue with capital punishment is whether or not the government should have the right to kill an individual when we, the people, don't have the right to kill people.

Using that mentality, one could say the government doesn't have the right to imprison people at all because individual citizens don't have the right to imprison people.