<p>Hello everyone. I know this topic really doesn’t have to do with college, but what do you all think about the death penalty being brought down upon 16 year olds?
One of my teachers said today that it should happen because we are old enough to make smart decisions by that age. I just don’t really understand his logic. You have so much more time in your life that you could reform and notice what you did wrong.
Sorry if this all sounds stupid, but just curious about others’ views.</p>
<p>I don’t think it makes sense that 16 year olds can’t vote, but would be able to be sentenced to the death penalty. If we are old enough to make smart decisions, then legally we should hold adult status in voting, drinking, smoking, buying lottery tickets, etc.</p>
<p>The U. S. Supreme Court has ruled that executing minors is unconstitutional. It can’t happen.</p>
<p>Here is the link to Roper v. Simmons. It is a garbage decision. The justices just imposed their personal opinions rather than actually applying the Constitution.</p>
<p><a href=“http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/01mar20051300/www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/04pdf/03-633.pdf[/url]”>http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/01mar20051300/www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/04pdf/03-633.pdf</a></p>
<p>Forget about borderline adult/minor when it comes to maturity. Think for a second what the death penalty implies. It is not intended for cases where someone just “Made a mistake”. It isn’t intended because they “Had an accident”. It isn’t because they were not in their “Right frame of mind”. The death penalty is normally reserved for an act of “PREMEDITATED and/or 1st DEGREE MURDER”. Depending on the state, that implies that the person causing the crime was 100% aware of what they were doing and the cause and affect of their actions.</p>
<p>Now I’m not saying that sometimes people get sentenced wrongly for what they’ve done. I am saying however that if a 16 year old was totally aware of what they were doing; that it could result in their killing another human being; and that they chose to do what they did anyway; then the death penalty is appropriate. Part of the death penalty and other penalties is to be a deterrent. When a 16 knows for a fact that they can’t be tried as an adult, and therefor certain penalties won’t apply towards them, don’t you think this has some influence on whether or not to perform a certain crime? There was an interview a few years back where inmates on death row or life without parole were being interviewed about their crimes. A number of them mentioned going through a certain state on their way somewhere where they committed their crime. After a few interviews, Connie Chung or whoever it was; can’t remember; mentioned that they all mentioned going “THROUGH” a particular state on their way to somewhere else where they committed crimes. She asked if they ever committed crimes in the state they were passing through. All 3 said no. She asked why. They said basically that if you try to commit a personal crime there, the person (victim) is likely to shoot you. They didn’t like taking such a risk.</p>
<p>Point is; The death penalty is a deterrent. But it can only be a deterrent if we are willing to use it. And it has to apply to anyone who in their right state of mind knew in advance that their actions could result in the death of another person. In other words 1st degree murder charges. If a 16-17 year old is capable of understanding this, and they choose accordingly, then it should apply to them also. If not, then it’s not a deterrent and the 16 year old has nothing to fear from the law. In some cases, being arrested and sent to juvi and such is a preferred life style for some of them. The death penalty is final. There is no parole or getting out for good behavior. I am for it. But it has to be well monitored that it is for the premeditated and 1st degree murder types. Also that there are no doubts on guilt. It is a “Final” punishment. It’s not like you can come back a year later with “NEW” evidence.</p>
<p>I really, really, really have a problem with America’s varied and conflicting stances on adulthood. At 16 you’re not old enough to drink, barely old enough to drive, can’t sign even the simplest contract alone, but can be sentenced to death or to prison as an adult?</p>
<p>Get it together. I don’t care what a kid did to be outraged about; they’re either a kid or they aren’t. Last time I checked someone couldn’t argue their way out of underage drinking by saying that they should be allowed to because they’re “especially mature”, yet the law can say essentially the same thing and sentence someone to death?</p>
<p>Consistency, a key attribute missing from many of America’s laws.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>There is evidence that the death penalty is NOT a deterrent. I recently heard a talk by a former death penalty warden who now is against the death penalty. He believes that the death penalty causes more murders. Why? Especially with laws like “10, 20, life”, criminals may not want to leave witnesses to even fairly minor crimes In death penalty states, they could figure that if they end up getting caught, they could cop a plea and get a life sentence instead of a death sentence.</p></li>
<li><p>The only civilized countries that have the death penalty are the U.S., China and Japan. That in itself should make a statement about how abhorrent the death penalty is considered.</p></li>
<li><p>There also are many people who have been released after being convicted of crimes that they didn’t do or probably didn’t do.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Last week, this is what the Los Angeles reported about what happened in California:</p>
<p>"Willie Earl Green looked dazed. He walked slowly. </p>
<p>Before him were streets he could stroll freely for the first time since he was young. Behind him were the last of the lockups that had caged him since 1983, for a murder he insists he did not commit.</p>
<p>“It’s like I’m in a dream,” said Green, 56, moments after he stepped into the sunlight outside the downtown Criminal Courts Building, where a judge ordered him released Thursday. The witness whose testimony had sent Green away for 33 years to life recanted, and prosecutors decided not to retry him…</p>
<p>The soft-spoken Mississippi native was convicted of fatally shooting a woman at a South Los Angeles crack house. The sole witness, Willie Finley, had placed him at the murder scene, but Green and his lawyers said Finley had lied.</p>
<p>Four years ago, Finley told the lawyers that he had been high on crack the night of the killing and had not gotten a good look at the shooter. He said detectives helped him identify Green.</p>
<p>Last week, L.A. County Superior Court Judge Stephen A. Marcus cited Finley’s new version of events in overturning Green’s conviction. The ruling stopped short of declaring Green factually innocent, but Marcus found that jurors could have exonerated him if they had known the full story."</p>
<p>And, from the Death Penalty Information Center:</p>
<p>"Since 1973, over 120 people have been released from death row withevidence of their innocence. (StaffReport, House Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil &ConstitutionalRights, Oct. 1993,with updates from DPIC) .From 1973-1999, there was an average of 3.1 exonerations per year. From 2000-2007, therehas been an average of 5 exonerations per year.
<a href=“http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:ZtAlsgF0-uEJ:www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/FactSheet.pdf+death+penalty+facts&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us&client=safari[/url]”>http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:ZtAlsgF0-uEJ:www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/FactSheet.pdf+death+penalty+facts&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us&client=safari</a></p>
<p>I have heard about some people who got the death penalty after confessing to crimes that it ended up they couldn’t have committed. DNA evidence demonstrated they didn’t do the crime, but they were of low IQ or mentally imbalanced and confessed to things they didn’t do.</p>
<p>Executing someone doesn’t leave any room for mistakes. Life in prison with no parole does.</p>
<p>Lots of informative and interesting information on the death penalty here:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=167[/url]”>http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=167</a></p>
<p>One last thing: At the recent talk that I attended in which the former death penalty warden (who had overseen 3 executions) spoke against the death penalty, an elderly woman in the audience commented that she herself had been the only survivor of a double homicide in which her daughter and granddaughter were killed. Despite that horrific experience, the woman said that she is not for the death penalty, and has met few relatives of homicide victims who are for it.</p>
<p>Also, the former warden’s sister in law had been murdered by, I think, an escaped convict. The former warden still doesn’t believe in the death penalty.</p>
<p>If someone murdered my family, I wouldn’t want to see the state kill them either; I’d prefer to do it myself.</p>
<p>last i knew, there is no proof that the death sentence deters criminals. i’ve always found it interesting that a country as religious as the US still has the death penalty. on top of that, it’s a lot more expensive to enforce the death penalty than it is to have someone on life sentence. not to mention the innocent people who do end up getting convicted and those who have been executed but have later been acknowledged by the victims as being innocent.</p>
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<p>i agree, 100%.</p>
<p>Look; you’re not going to convince me or many others that the death penalty, under the right circumstances, isn’t the right penalty. Just like I’m probably not going to convince you that under the right circumstances that it is the right penalty. These are moral beliefs that are not easily swayed. </p>
<p>I have many reasons that numerous people will find valid, just as you believe you have numerous reasons that are valid. My number 1 reason above all others is that is a person is CORRECTLY sentenced to the death penalty for a crime that justifies such punishment, then I know without a doubt that they won’t ever be able to harm another person again. </p>
<p>I believe that the reason the death penalty isn’t as good of a deterrent as it should be is because of our far liberal legal system. It allows way too many appeals, and it is rare that the death penalty is ever given compared to other sentences. Between plea bargains and such, the death penalty isn’t that much of a deterrent. But if we had mandatory sentencing for all crimes where there were no plea bargains, good behavior, trading testimony, etc… and a particular crime AUTOMATICALLY received an automatic sentence; then the death penalty would indeed be a much more effect deterrent.</p>
<p>I find the whole idea of the death penalty abhorrent, but this arbitrary line is just bizarre to me. What could possibly make it right to kill someone who is 18 years and one day old, but not right to kill someone born 48 hours later?</p>
<p>Christcorp, what’s better or worse, in your opinion:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Ten guilty murderers sentenced to life in prison</p></li>
<li><p>Nine guilty and one innocent person executed</p></li>
</ol>
<p>?</p>
<p>This is the reality of the situation. I can accept, but don’t agree with, your argument in a theoretical sense, but in the real world it just doesn’t stand up. A proportion of people sentenced to death are always going to be innocent. There will be cases where it is or seems 100% irrefutable that someone is guilty, and I understand the temptation to say ‘only in those situations’, but laws just can’t be written like that. There’s no way to legislate for ‘only when we’re really, really, really sure’. It’s not good policy, it’s living in a hypothetical world.</p>
<p>One more thing:</p>
<p>Even in countries where there aren’t such lengthy appeals processes (which, by the way, go a long way towards ascertaining that a person is correctly sentenced)and plea bargaining provisions, the death penalty offers no more disincentive to murder or any other crime than incarceration. There is no evidence that corporal punishment acts as a deterrant at all, in any form, anywhere that it is not enforced Taliban-style.</p>
<p>Christcorp: The “far liberal” legal system allows that many appeals precisely because so many people have been proven innocent of crimes for which they were convicted upon the kind of extensive review standard in the death penalty process. What alternative would you prefer? That more innocent people be executed so we could make the death penalty more expedient and a better deterrent?</p>
<p>The reason mandatory sentencing is a horrible idea is because it captures all kinds of people who don’t deserve the kinds of mandatory sentences that are often imposed. There are all kinds of different circumstances in which the same crimes deserves different sentences. That, and the fact that juries and judges will often intentionally not convict criminals of certain charges (or convict them of lesser charges) if they know a certain mandatory sentence is to be imposed. This is often the case in capital cases.</p>
<p>Crime and punishment is not a theoretically ideal world; it’s dirty and complicated, and while it would be nice if every criminal received his or her exactly correct sentence, not innocent people were sucked in, punishments served as deterrents and everyone were treated equally by the law, we’d all be happier. But that’s not the case.</p>
<p>Anyways, back to the specifics of this case, though: are you saying you think it is legally and morally consistent to execute a person legally not considered responsible enough to sign contracts for their actions, drink, vote, etc. etc.? Expedient as it may be to think that in an outraged frame of mind, I cannot see any universe in which it would be considered logically consistent.</p>
<p>Thanks for all of the replies:) I find them very interesting!</p>
<p>I am and have never been a supporter of the death penalty. However, my opinions were reinforced 10 fold after serving on a jury. We were deliberating the fate of a man being tried for second degree murder, these are some of the comments from inside the jury room (not exact words, but close):</p>
<p>“Why do you have a problem convicting on the 16th count - you voted to convict on the first 15, so what’s the big deal?”</p>
<p>“We might as well convict the guy - if he’s not guilty of this one, he’ll be guilty of another one soon.”</p>
<p>“You can tell he’s guilty - just look at his face.”</p>
<p>Nope, count me out. As long as juries consist of fallible human beings, I could never support the death penalty.</p>
<p>No system is perfect. sometimes innocent people get sentenced. Death penalties however are for the most evil crimes. The premeditated type murders and the one where specific choices during the crime were able to be rationally made. I do agree that more should be done to ensure that there is NO SHADOW OF DOUBT on the guilt and appropriateness of that individual and a death penalty sentence. But if it has been determined beyond any question, then I have no problem with the death penalty as a sentence.</p>
<p>A lot of people consider life “priceless”. The truth is; there is indeed a price for every human life. If a life truly was priceless, enough money could be invested in safety measures so that no one could die from a car accident; from a fall; from other accidents. But the reality is, a life isn’t worth spend billions of dollars on certain things. So, the question was posed if it’s better to have 10 guilty people in prison for life or have 9 guilty and 1 innocent person executed. Well, assuming that all measures were taken that the death penalty was indeed the appropriate sentence, I would say that it’s better to have the 9 and 1. But the reality of it is that the innocent being executed isn’t at 10%. it is probably a much lower rate. Probably closer to 1%.</p>
<p>Don’t support the death penalty for anyone (though, admittedly, I’d lose less sleep in some cases).</p>