Pondering the return of capital punishment in Canada

[steven lloyd]

Pondering the return of capital punishment in Canada
07/06/2012 8:30:00 AM
by Nevil Hunt

A case as horrific as the murder of Chinese student Jun Lin has already triggered calls for the return of capital punishment in Canada.

An eye for an eye is a simple sentiment that appeals to a very primitive place in the human brain.

We crave symmetry and order in a world that's neither symmetrical nor orderly. And one life for another appears an easy way to restore balance when a life has been taken.

Revenge also lurks in our caveman cranium. It feels good to imagine someone who has slighted us getting their just desserts, whether it's the guy who cut you off in traffic or Rocco Luka Magnotta, who is suspected of killing and dismembering Chinese student Jun Lin.

This lust for revenge – quick, and seemingly just – is a true opiate of the masses. An Angus Reid poll released in February showed 61 per cent of Canadians said capital punishment is warranted for murder.

Answering a poll is easy. Ask a relative or friend of someone on death row if capital punishment is just and you'll probably get a different answer.

The case for the return of capital punishment is all about revenge. The death penalty doesn't deter murderers, so there's no preventive reason for it.

Sometimes people will present capital punishment as a cost-saving measure, so we don't have to pay for the convicted murderer's food and shelter as they spend life in jail.

But the price for getting even one conviction wrong comes with a much greater cost than a financial payout to survivors; it means we have killed someone who was innocent. Juries and judges sometimes get it wrong.

Even if we could wave a magic wand and ensure all convicted murderers were truly guilty, there are many people who are not comfortable with being part of a social system that takes lives. If a criminal killed someone and that's wrong, how can society killing someone be right?

Magnotta is a horrible person. The evidence says he did horrible things. He's almost certainly a psychopath and he should get help. Given the details of the case, there's a good chance he will be declared a dangerous offender and will never get out of jail.

A well-reasoned article published this week on a science website makes the case that there's an upside to having psychopaths in society, because the vast majority of them aren't dangerous.

When psychopaths act within the law, they can actually drive our society forward. Doctors and business leaders who break the rules often break new ground in their chosen fields.

The article adds that there's reason to believe that psychopaths inherit a genetic predisposition from a parent. If that's true then they deserve to be accepted and treated as best we can.

None of that could in any way excuse the killing and dismemberment of another human. But killing Magnotta won't bring back Lin. It will make a few people happy, strange as that sounds, but it does no good.

http://news.sympatico.ca/oped/coffee-ta ... a/fec92046

[CorkSoaker]

Pondering the return of capital punishment in Canada
07/06/2012 8:30:00 AM
by Nevil Hunt

A case as horrific as the murder of Chinese student Jun Lin has already triggered calls for the return of capital punishment in Canada.

An eye for an eye is a simple sentiment that appeals to a very primitive place in the human brain.

We crave symmetry and order in a world that's neither symmetrical nor orderly. And one life for another appears an easy way to restore balance when a life has been taken.

Revenge also lurks in our caveman cranium. It feels good to imagine someone who has slighted us getting their just desserts, whether it's the guy who cut you off in traffic or Rocco Luka Magnotta, who is suspected of killing and dismembering Chinese student Jun Lin.

This lust for revenge – quick, and seemingly just – is a true opiate of the masses. An Angus Reid poll released in February showed 61 per cent of Canadians said capital punishment is warranted for murder.

Answering a poll is easy. Ask a relative or friend of someone on death row if capital punishment is just and you'll probably get a different answer.

The case for the return of capital punishment is all about revenge. The death penalty doesn't deter murderers, so there's no preventive reason for it.

Sometimes people will present capital punishment as a cost-saving measure, so we don't have to pay for the convicted murderer's food and shelter as they spend life in jail.

But the price for getting even one conviction wrong comes with a much greater cost than a financial payout to survivors; it means we have killed someone who was innocent. Juries and judges sometimes get it wrong.

Even if we could wave a magic wand and ensure all convicted murderers were truly guilty, there are many people who are not comfortable with being part of a social system that takes lives. If a criminal killed someone and that's wrong, how can society killing someone be right?

Magnotta is a horrible person. The evidence says he did horrible things. He's almost certainly a psychopath and he should get help. Given the details of the case, there's a good chance he will be declared a dangerous offender and will never get out of jail.

A well-reasoned article published this week on a science website makes the case that there's an upside to having psychopaths in society, because the vast majority of them aren't dangerous.

When psychopaths act within the law, they can actually drive our society forward. Doctors and business leaders who break the rules often break new ground in their chosen fields.

The article adds that there's reason to believe that psychopaths inherit a genetic predisposition from a parent. If that's true then they deserve to be accepted and treated as best we can.

None of that could in any way excuse the killing and dismemberment of another human. But killing Magnotta won't bring back Lin. It will make a few people happy, strange as that sounds, but it does no good.

http://news.sympatico.ca/oped/coffee-ta ... a/fec92046

Many States down south are finding that not only are capital punishment trials more expensive than those seeking life without parole, but housing death row inmates is also more expensive.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/03/27/just-cost-death-penalty-killer-state-budgets/

[jennylives]

I do not believe in revenge killing. I do believe in certain cases it is more humane to euthanize than keep a person living in personal mental hell locked up in a cage though. Only after a very thorough study to help us stop it in the future though.

[zzontar]

I'm usually on the fence with capital punishment, but sometimes a story comes around that really sways that.
http://www.castanet.net/edition/news-st ... .htm#89265

In five years, Sherry West has lost two sons to unspeakable violence.

The Georgia mother was grieving from Thursday's shooting death of her 13-month-old son in his stroller during an attempted robbery while they took a morning stroll. In 2008, her 18-year-old son was stabbed in an altercation in New Jersey.

A pair of teenagers was arrested Friday in the most recent shooting. West had just been to the post office a few blocks from her apartment Thursday morning and was pushing her son, Antonio, in his stroller while they walked past gnarled oak trees and blooming azaleas in the coastal city of Brunswick.

West said a tall, skinny teenager, accompanied by a smaller boy, asked her for money.

"He asked me for money and I said I didn't have it," she told The Associated Press on Friday from her apartment, which was scattered with her son's toys and movies.

"When you have a baby, you spend all your money on babies. They're expensive. And he kept asking and I just said 'I don't have it.' And he said, 'Do you want me to kill your baby?' And I said, 'No, don't kill my baby!'"

One of the teens fired four shots, grazing West's ear and striking her in the leg, before he walked around to the stroller and shot the baby in the face.

Seventeen-year-old De'Marquis Elkins is charged as an adult with first-degree murder, along with a 14-year-old who was not identified because he is a juvenile, Police Chief Tobe Green said. It wasn't immediately clear whether the boys had attorneys.

[Liquidnails]

I don't see the death penalty as having any benefit to public safety.

[Bsuds]

I don't see the death penalty as having any benefit to public safety.

Then consider repeat offenders and serial killers.

[Liquidnails]

so how many innocent and wrongly convicted people are you willing to kill to ensure that one is able to kill the guilty. 1 innocent man for every 100 murderers and rapists? 1 for 1000? Personally, I'm not comfortable killing any innocent people, regardless of how many bad guys it lets us kill.

[Captain Awesome]

so how many innocent and wrongly convicted people are you willing to kill to ensure that one is able to kill the guilty.

How many innocent or wrongly convicted people died as a result of capital punishment?

How many innocent people died as a result of NOT having capital punishment?

[Liquidnails]

Are you suggesting capital punishment works as a crime deterrent?

[Bsuds]

Are you suggesting capital punishment works as a crime deterrent?

Again "Repeat Offenders"!

They won't kill again will they!

[Captain Awesome]

Are you suggesting capital punishment works as a crime deterrent?

In some cases. You know...dead people can't commit any more crimes.

[ferri]

Are you suggesting capital punishment works as a crime deterrent?

i could say that is the only reason some people are still alive. i knew what would happen if i did what i really wanted to. lol

[steven lloyd]

How many innocent or wrongly convicted people died as a result of capital punishment?

Our system is built on the premise that even one innocent person wrongly executed is too many.

How many innocent people died as a result of NOT having capital punishment?

Since in our world no one is punished before committing a crime no one has.

[Captain Awesome]

Since in our world no one is punished before committing a crime no one has.

I'm not talking about punishing people before committing crimes. I'm talking about the idea that some people will commit violent crimes again and again despite lengthly run through penitentiary system. Staying in jail won't change them.

[UltraViolet]

I don't see the death penalty as having any benefit to public safety.

The death penalty is a bit better then allowing the cockroach to serve a few years and get out only to do it again, and then say, we should have done away with this cockroach before it had a chance to do it again!