Evil

[JimC]

Just speculating here, but what about the possibility of 2 levels for a guilty verdict? The lower level still requires the same degree of proof as today, but can only have life imprisonment as an option.

The higher level of guilt demands proof without a shadow of a doubt (e.g. caught literally red-handed, seen by multiple, trustworthy witnesses etc), and has at least the option of a death penalty.

[Blind groper]

Jim

Why would you do that?
There is no downside to simply locking up a guy for life. Seth will tell you that there is a chance he will be paroled and go on to kill again. In fact that almost never happens unless the guy is paroled while still young. Old men very rarely commit murder.

At the end of the day, the urge towards executions is based on vengefulness and anger. There is no sense in telling the world that it is wrong to commit murder, and then for the state to go ahead and kill someone for what large numbers of people will perceive as revenge. Not a good example for those weak minds who do not understand what justice means.

[JimC]

Jim

Why would you do that?

Because my objection to the death penalty for very violent crimes is mainly down to the concern about killing a person later proved to be innocent...

If we were absolutely certain, and the crime was particularly "evil", then they can die as far as I'm concerned...

[Blind groper]

Jim

There is no need for the death penalty. Lifetime imprisonment is a very nasty punishment, and ensures the murderer does not get the chance to reoffend. It is cheaper than the methods used to ensure that an innocent person does not get executed, and sets an example to the world to say that killing someone, for any reason, is wrong. If the convicted person is not released until (say) age 70, then there is pretty much zero chance of them reoffending.

[Seth]

Jim

There is no need for the death penalty. Lifetime imprisonment is a very nasty punishment, and ensures the murderer does not get the chance to reoffend. It is cheaper than the methods used to ensure that an innocent person does not get executed, and sets an example to the world to say that killing someone, for any reason, is wrong.

Why would anyone want to send that message? It's not ipso facto or a priori wrong to kill someone. Never has been, never will be.

If the convicted person is not released until (say) age 70, then there is pretty much zero chance of them reoffending.

Wrong.

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT VS. LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE:

Abolitionists claim that there are alternatives to the death penalty. They say that life in prison without parole serves just as well. Certainly, if you ignore all the murders criminals commit within prison when they kill prison guards and other inmates, and also when they kill decent citizens upon escape, like Dawud Mu'Min who was serving a 48-year sentence for the 1973 murder of a cab driver when he escaped a road work gang and stabbed to death a storekeeper named Gadys Nopwasky in a 1988 robbery that netted $4.00. Fortunately, there is now no chance of Mu'Min commiting murder again. He was executed by the state of Virginia on November 14, 1997.

Another flaw is that life imprisonment tends to deteriorate with the passing of time. Take the Moore case in New York State for example.

In 1962, James Moore raped and strangled 14-year-old Pamela Moss. Her parents decided to spare Moore the death penalty on the condition that he be sentenced to life in prison without parole. Later on, thanks to a change in sentencing laws in 1982, James Moore is eligible for parole every two years!

If Pamela's parents knew that they couldn't trust the state, Moore could have been executed long ago and they could have put the whole horrible incident behind them forever. Instead they have a nightmare to deal with biannually. I'll bet not a day goes by that they don't kick themselves for being foolish enough to trust the liberal sham that is life imprisonment and rehabilitation. (According to the US Department of Justice, the average prison sentence served for murder is five years and eleven months.)

Putting a murderer away for life just isn't good enough. Laws change, so do parole boards, and people forget the past. Those are things that cause life imprisonment to weather away. As long as the murderer lives, there is always a chance, no matter how small, that he will strike again. And there are people who run the criminal justice system who are naive enough to allow him to repeat his crime.

Kenneth McDuff, for instance, was convicted of the 1966 shooting deaths of two boys and the vicious rape-strangulation of their 16-year-old female companion. A Fort Worth jury ruled that McDuff should die in the electric chair, a sentence commuted to life in prison in 1972 after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the death penalty as then imposed. In 1989, with Texas prisons overflowing and state officials under fire from the federal judiciary, McDuff was quietly turned loose on an unsuspecting citizenry.

Within days, a naked body of a woman turned up. Prostitute Sarafia Parker, 31, had been beaten, strangled and dumped in a field near Temple. McDuff's freedom in 1989 was interrupted briefly. Jailed after a minor racial incident, he slithered through the system and was out again in 1990.

In early 1991, McDuff enrolled at Texas State Technical College in Waco. Soon, Central Texas prostitutes began disappearing. One, Valencia Joshua, 22, was last seen alive Feb. 24, 1991. Her naked, decomposed body later was discovered in a shallow grave in woods behind the college. Another of the missing women, Regenia Moore, was last seen kicking and screaming in the cab of McDuff's pickup truck. During the Christmas holidays of 1991, Colleen Reed disappeared from an Austin car wash. Witnesses reported hearing a woman scream that night and seeing two men speeding away in a yellow or tan Thunderbird. Little more than two months later, on March 1, 1992, Melissa Northrup, pregnant with a third child, vanished from the Waco convenience store where she worked. McDuff's beige Thunderbird, broken down, was discovered a block from the store.

Fifty-seven days later, a fisherman found the young woman's nearly nude body floating in a gravel pit in Dallas County, 90 miles north of Waco. By then, McDuff was the target of a nationwide manhunt. Just days after Mrs. Northrup's funeral, McDuff was recognized on television's "America's Most Wanted'' and arrested May 4 in Kansas City.

In 1993, a Houston jury ordered him executed for the kidnap-slaying of 22-year-old Melissa Northrup, a Waco mother of two. In 1994, a Seguin jury assessed him the death penalty for the abduction-rape-murder of 28-year-old Colleen Reed, an Austin accountant. Pamplin's son Larry, the current sheriff of Falls County, appeared at McDuff's Houston trial for the 1992 abduction and murder of Melissa Northrup.

"Kenneth McDuff is absolutely the most vicious and savage individual I know,'' he told reporters. "He has absolutely no conscience, and I think he enjoys killing.''

If McDuff had been executed as scheduled, he said, "no telling how many lives would have been saved.''

At least nine, probably more, Texas authorities suspect.

His reign of terror finally ended on November 17, 1998 when Kenneth McDuff was put to death by the state of Texas by Lethal Injection. May his victims rest in peace.

There has also been major political hay made out of a nasty scandal involving a prisoner named Willie Horton and Massachusetts' controversial "Prison Furlough Program." Massachusets governor Mike Dukakis was genuinely committed to the program, and had worked hard to bolster it, despite serious public concerns. In 1976, he'd actually vetoed legislation that would have banned furloughs for first-degree murderers, defending the practice as an essential "management tool."

Thus, a decade later, in June of 1986, there was nothing in the law to deny convicted murderer Horton what was supposed to be a routine 48-hour leave.

Predictably, Horton didn't play by the rules. He fled, eventually arriving in Maryland, where, in April of 1987, he had pistol-whipped and knifed Clifford Barnes, then bound and gagged him and twice raped his fiancee, Angela. When the story of the furlough became known, Horton's brutality created a public uproar.

The Maryland judge who subsequently sentenced Horton to two consecutive life terms refused to extradite him to Massachusetts. "I'm not prepared to take the chance that Mr. Horton might again be furloughed . . . This man should never draw a breath of free air again," said the judge.

The scandal heated to a rolling boil. In April of 1988, embattled Massachusetts legislators finally killed the 16-year-old program -- without further resistance from Dukakis. Thank God!

Lastly, there is the case of Clarence Ray Allen, who had been tried and convicted for burglary and the the murder of Mary Sue Kitts and was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.

While in Folsom Prison, Allen conspired with fellow inmate Billy Ray Hamilton to murder witnesses who had testified against him, including Bryon Schletewitz. Allen intended to gain a new trial, where there would be no witnesses to testify to his acts. When Hamilton was paroled from Folsom Prison, he went to Fran�s Market, where Bryon Schletewitz worked. There, Hamilton murdered Schletewitz and fellow employees Josephine Rocha, 17, and Douglas White, 18, with a sawed-off shotgun and wounded two other people, Joe Rios and Jack Abbott. Hamilton shot Schletewitz at near point-blank range in the forehead and murdered Rocha and White after forcing them to lie on the ground within the store. A neighbor who heard the shotgun blasts came to investigate and was shot by Hamilton. The neighbor returned fire and wounded Hamilton, who escaped from the scene.

Five days after the events at Fran's Market, Hamilton was arrested while attempting to rob a liquor store. On his person was found a �hit list� with the names and addresses of the witnesses who testified against Allen at the Kitts trial, including the name of Schletewitz.

Fortunately, Allen not be ordering any more murders. He was executed by lethal injection on January 17, 2006 at San Quentin State Prison in California.

This is why for people who truly value public safety, there is no substitute for the best in its defense which is capital punishment. It not only forever bars the murderer from killing again, it also prevents parole boards and criminal rights activists from giving him the chance to repeat his crime.

For more examples of repeat offences, please visit A Short List of Murderers Released to Murder Again!

A SHORT LIST OF MURDERERS RELEASED TO MURDER AGAIN
This is just a short list I compiled when I set out to find people who were already convicted of murder and afterwards committed murder again.

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John McRae -- Michigan/Florida. Life for murder of 8-year-old boy. Pedophile. Paroled 1971. Convicted of another murder of a boy after parole, in Michigan 1998. Charges pending on 2 other counts in Florida.
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John Miller -- California. Killed an infant 1957, convicted of murder, 1958. Paroled 1975. Killed his parents 1975. Life term 1975.
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Michael Lawrence -- Florida. Killed robbery victim. Life term, 1976. Paroled 1985. Killed robbery victim. Condemned 1990.
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Donald Dillbeck -- Florida. Killed policeman in 1979. Escaped from prison in 1990, kidnapped and killed female motorist after escape. Condemned 1991.
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Edward Kennedy -- Florida. Killed motel clerk. Sentenced to Life. Escaped 1981. Killed policeman and male civilian after prison break. Executed 1992.
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Dawud Mu'Min -- Virginia. Killed cab driver in holdup. Sentenced 1973. Escaped 1988. Raped/killed woman 1988. Condemned 1989. Executed 1997.
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Viva Nash -- Utah/Arizona. Two terms of life for murder in Utah, 1978. Escaped in 1982. Murdered again. Condemned in Arizona, 1983.
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Randy Greenawalt -- Escaped from Prison in 1978, while serving a life sentence for a 1974 murder. He then murdered a family of 4 people, shotgunning them to death, including a toddler.
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Norman Parker -- Florida/D.C. Life term in Florida for murder, 1966. Escaped 1978. Life on another count of murder in 1979.
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Winford Stokes -- Missouri. Ruled insane on two counts of murder 1969. Escaped from asylum, 1978. Murdered again. Executed for this murder, 1990.
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Charles Crawford -- Missouri. Life term in 1965 for murder. Paroled 1990. Convicted of murder again in 1994.
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Jack Ferrell -- Florida. Committed Murdered 1981. 15 years to life, 1982. Paroled 1987. Murdered again 1992. Condemned 1993.
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Timothy Buss -- Murdered five-year-old girl. Sentenced to 25 years in 1981. Paroled 1993. Murdered 10-year-old boy. Condemned 1996.
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Martsay Bolder -- Missouri. Serving a sentence of life for first-degree murder in 1973. Murdered prison cellmate 1979.
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Henry Brisbon, Illinois. Murdered 2 in robbery. Sentenced to 1000- 3000 years. Killed inmate in prison 1982. Sentenced to DP. Commuted by Governor Ryan.
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Randolph Dial -- Oklahoma. Life for murder 1986. Escaped from prison with deputy warden's wife as kidnap victim. 1989. Still at large. Warden's wife never found.
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Arthur J. Bomar, Jr. -- released from prison in Nevada on parole in 1990. Bomar had served 11 years of a murder sentence for killing a man over an argument about a parking space. Six years later in Pennsylvania, Bomar brutally kidnapped, raped and murdered George Mason University star athlete Aimee Willard.
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Dwain Little -- Oregon. Raped/Stabbed 16-year-old girl. Life term 1966. Paroled 1974. Returned as Parole Violator 1975. Again Released 1977. Then shot family of 4. Three consecutive life terms for rape and murder 1980.
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Arthur Shawcross (The 'Monster of the Rivers') -- Released after serving a 25 year sentence for a child murder, turned to murdering prostitutes. At least 10 in all. Now serving ten consecutive sentences of 25 years to life - 250 years in all.
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Samuel D. Smith -- in prison for murdering Zita Casey, 79, during a burglary in St. Louis in 1978. While in prison he murdered another inmate, Marlin May, during a knife fight in 1987 in prison.
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Darrell P. Pandeli -- After being released from prison after a conviction for murder, Pandeli murdered a prostitute, cut off her nipples and flushed them down the toilet. Now on DR in Arizona for that second recidivist murder.
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Chad Allen Lee -- Convicted of capital murder. Sentenced to other than death. Released and went on murder spree. Murdering Linda Reynolds, a pizza delivery person, and 9 days later robbed and murdered David Lacey, a taxi cab driver. Lee then robbed a mini-market 7 days after than. Shooting the owner, Harold Drury, multiple times without reason.
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Scott Lehr -- Convicted of capital murder. Sentenced to other than death. Later released. After release, between Feb 91 and Feb 92 lured 10 different female victims, between the ages of 10 and 48-years-old, into his car. Raping and beating them unconscious, stripped and adandoned them in the desert. Three of his victims died in those acts.
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James Erin McKinney -- Convicted of capital murder. Sentenced to other than death. Later released. Then murdered Christine Mertens in a home invasion robbery. Later murdered James McClain in another separate home invasion robbery.
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Michael Murdaugh -- Convicted of capital murder. Sentenced to other than death. Later released. After release murdered David Reynolds. Beating him to death. When 'dumping' the body, Murdaugh severed Reynold's head and hands, pulled out his teeth, and buried the body parts.
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Charles Daniels -- was convicted and sentenced to Life for the 1965 rape and murder of a Louisiana woman. Later having his sentence commuted, he was release. And he again killed another woman, 32-year-old Debbie Tatum.
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Jarmarr Arnold -- who, while on DR, murdered another DR inmate by stabbing him in the forehead with a sharpen spike. Proving that not even a death sentence can prevent murder until the sentence is carried out.
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Robert Lee Massie -- Sentenced to the DP, but overturned by Furman, which resulted in him committing further new murders.
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Kenneth McDuff - Sentenced to the DP, but overturned by Furman. Subsequently released, and murdered as many as 19 young women after his release. Finally executed in 1998 for the murder of Melissa Ann Northrup see ... Who once remarked "Killing a woman is like killing a chicken. They both squawk."
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Darryl Kemp -- Sentenced to the DP, but overturned by Furman. Subsequently released. Authorities now say he raped and strangled a woman jogging, less than 4 months later.
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Timothy Hancock -- Serving a life sentence for a murder he committed in 1990, murdered his cellmate, Jason Wagner, in November 2000, while serving his life sentence.
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Howard Allen -- murdered an elderly woman.. Opal Cooper, in Aug 1974, and was sentenced to 21 years in prison. By January 1985, less than ten years after being incarcerated, Howard Allen was released. On May 20, 1987 Howard Allen broke into the home of eighty-seven year old Laverne Hale, and savagely beat her to death. Six weeks later Allen struck again. On July 13, 1987 Howard Allen knocked on the door of Ernestine Griffin. At lunchtime the following day she was found murdered. On June 11, 1988 Allen was found guilty was found guilty of Ernestine’s murder.
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Melvin Geary -- originally sentenced to L wop, for the stabbing death of a woman in 1973 with a boning knife. Changed to Life.. released... After his release, Geary was subsequently convicted of murdering 71-year-old Edward Colvin of Sparks, again with a boning knife after Colvin took him in.
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William Coday Jr. -- convicted of murdering 19-year-old Lisa Hullinger in September 1978. After spending just 15 months in a German prison, he was released. In April 2002, he was convicted of having murdered Gloria Gomez on 13 July, 1997.
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Corey R. Barton -- In 1983 he murdered 16-year-old Shari-Ann Merton. He received 18 years in prison. He was released after serving 9 years and 8 months. In November 1998, he murdered 27 year-old Sally Harris of North Carolina.
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Cuhuatemoc Hinricky Peraita -- Rainbow City, Alabama, who was serving life without parole for 3 murders in Gadsden, Alabama was found guilty of capital murder for murdering a fellow inmate.
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James Prestridge -- Sentenced to L wop, for murdering Esfandiar Ateighechi, as he begged for his life in 1989. Escaped from prison along with John Doran. After their escape Prestridge murdered his fellow-escapee John Doran, shooting him in the back of the head.
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Jimmy Lee Gray -- who was free on parole from an Arizona conviction for killing a 16-year-old high school girl, kidnapped, sodomized, and suffocated a three-year-old Mississippi girl.
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Jack Henry Abbott, who had murdered a fellow prison inmate, was released early from a Utah prison. On July 18, 1981, six-weeks after his release, Abbott stabbed actor Richard Adan to death in New York.
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Benny Lee Chaffin, on December 7, 1984 kidnapped, raped, and murdered a 9-year-old Springfield, Oregon girl. He had been convicted of murder once before in Texas, but not executed.
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Thomas Eugene Creech, who had been convicted of three murders and had claimed a role in more than 40 killings in 13 states as a paid killer for a motorcycle gang, killed a fellow prison inmate in 1981 and was sentenced to death.
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Wayne Henry Garrison, 42, was convicted of 1st-degree murder in the death of Justin Wiles 13, of Tulsa. As a teenager, Garrison had killed two children in Tulsa. Police earlier said the circumstances of those killings were similar to Justin's death.
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Tommy Arthur -- sentenced to die in Alabama's electric chair for killing Troy Wicker in a 1982 murder for-hire scheme in Muscle Shoals. Arthur had already been convicted in 1977 of killing the sister of his common-law wife. He had been sentenced to life for that murder.
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Robert Lynn Pruett -- a convicted killer already serving a life sentence, fatally stabbed prison guard Daniel Nagle with a sharpened rod while patrolling the Texas Department of Criminal Justice McConnell Unit near Beeville in South Texas. It was the first fatal attack on a Texas corrections officer since guard Minnie Houston was stabbed to death in 1984 by an inmate at the Ellis Unit near Huntsville, a prison official said.
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Miguel Salas Rodriguez -- charged in the murder of a sheriff's deputy. Sgt. David M. Furrh, 40, in Dec 2000. Rodriguez had a December 1973 conviction of homicide without malice, for which he was sentenced to five years in prison. And yet ANOTHER conviction for murder in April 1979, for which he was sentenced to 70 years in prison. Rodriguez was paroled in October 1989.
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Bennie Demps --condemned to the DP for the 1976 murder of Alfred Sturgis, a prison snitch. Originally, Demps was sent to death row for the murders of R.N. Brinkworth and Celia Puhlick, who were fatally shot in a Lake County citrus grove. A year after Demps was sent to death row, the U.S. Supreme Court threw out capital punishment across the country, ruling death sentences had been imposed in an arbitrary way. Another failure of the Furman-commuted murderers.
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Leroy Schmitz -- convicted of strangling his live-in girlfriend in 1986, during an argument. He was sentenced to 18-20 years for that homicide. He was later convicted of murdering his wife, in Whitefish, Montana in 1999.
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Vernon Sattiewhite -- In 1977, Sattiewhite had been sentenced to five years for a murder but was paroled two years later and granted clemency. In 1984, he was convicted of robbery and sentenced to two years in prison but was paroled after less than six months. Soon after he murdered his ex-girlfriend, Sandra Sorrell.
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Tomas G. Ervin -- Sentenced to death in 1990, after conviction of the December 1988 murders of Mildred L. Hodges, 75, and her son, Richard E. Hodges. Bert Hunter, who was arrested along with Ervin pleaded guilty to the first-degree murder charges. Hunter and Ervin had met in the Missouri State Penitentiary, where they were both serving life sentences for previous murders.
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William Michael "Billy the Kid" Mason -- killed his wife three weeks after he was paroled on another murder conviction.
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Daniel Joe Hittle -- convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death for murdering a police officer Hittle, 40, was described by witnesses as a man who gleefully killed or tortured animals and who routinely beat women and children. He was on parole for the killings of his adoptive parents in Minnesota when he shot Garland police officer Gerald Walker during a traffic stop. Hittle then sped to East Dallas, where he fatally shot Mary Alice Goss, 39; Richard Joseph Cook Jr., 36; Raymond Scott Gregg, 19; and Goss' 4-year-old daughter Christy Condon.
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Tony Walker -- Texas. Convicted of murder in 1978. Sentenced to 5 years. Murdered a 66 year-old woman and her 81 year-old husband in 1992. Jerome Butler -- Found guilty of the shooting of cab driver Nathan Oakley, 67. Oakley had been a Houston cab driver for 30 years. Butler had an extensive criminal history, including a 1959 conviction on two counts of robbery and assault in New York City. Butler had previously served about 10 years of a 30-year sentence after pleading guilty to the murder of A.C. Johnson, 69.
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Dalton Prejean -- killed a taxi driver when he was 14, . When he was 17, he gunned down a state trooper in Lafayette, Louisiana. Despite protests from the American Civil Liberties Union and other abolitionist groups, Prejean was executed for the second murder on May 18, 1990.
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Phillip Jablonski -- Carol Spadoni married Jablonski on June 16, 1982, while he was serving a prison sentence for the 1979 murder of his third wife, Melinda Kimball. After she became his pen-pal correspondent in prison. Jablonski murdered his prison pen-pal wife and her mother. And the day before those murders he had murdered Fathyma Vann, 38, in Indio, about 25 miles from Palm Springs, Vann was found shot and sexually mutilated in the desert with ``I love Jesus'' carved in her back." Now GET THIS -- See... It seems that Phillip Jablonski, now in prison after ALL those murders, placed an ad for a pen-pal -- "Jewish Death Row inmate, white, 51 years old, seeking understanding and open female or male for honest correspondence. Amateur poet, artist. Will answer all correspondence received. PHILLIP JABLONSKI, C-02477/SE95, San Quentin, CA 94974"
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Jerry Michael Ward -- Originally sentenced to die in the electric chair, for committing murder with malice in the rape and murder of a Houston school girl. His sentence was commuted to life in prison when the U.S. Supreme Court abolished the death penalty in 1972. Although the death penalty was reinstated, the sentence was not. He was subsequently paroled in 1984 after serving 18 years in prison. He was the number one suspect in two new cases, involving the the disappearance of Connie Sue Cooke, and the murder of Brenda Maureen Hackett. But althought police were on the verge of arresting him, Ward committed suicide in a self-inflicted execution.
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David E. Maust -- Hammond, Illinois. Murdered a 15-year-old boy in 1981. After released murdered three teenage boys, in circumstances similiar to John Wayne Gacy... burying their bodies in concrete in his basement.
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James Homer Elledge -- sent to prison for life in 1975 after beating a Seattle motel owner to death with a ball-peen hammer. In the years that followed, he won parole 3 times, most recently in August 1995. prosecutors have now charged Elledge with 1st-degree murder for allegedly stabbing and strangling Eloise Jane Fitzner, 47, in a church basement.
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Zeno E. Sims -- sent to prison for eight years for the murder of a 24-year-old-man. Released on parole, in Kansas City, he then murdered DeAntreia L Ashley, a 15-year-old-girl, after a minor traffic accident.
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Arthur James Julius -- convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. In 1978, he was given a brief leave from prison, during which he raped and murdered a cousin. He was sentenced to death for that crime and was executed on November 17, 1989.
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In March 1979, a Graterford (Pa.) prison guard was murdered brutally by an inmate. The inmate -- at the time he murdered the guard -- already was serving a life sentence for the triple murder of two infants and an elderly woman.
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In 1994, an inmate who already was serving two life sentences in the Philadelphia Industrial Correctional Center was sentenced to three more after he was convicted of stabbing three prison guards.
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In 1995, two death-row inmates at the Florida State Prison in Starke were killed by their fellow inmates.
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In 1999, a Beeville (Texas) prison guard was killed by an inmate already serving a sentence for murder.
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On November 9, 1983 Associate U.S. Attorney General D. Lowell Jensen told a Senate subcommittee that it is impossible to punish or even deter such prison murders because, without a death sentence, a violent life-termer has free rein "to continue to murder as opportunity and his perverse motives dictate."
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On October 22, 1983 at the federal penitentiary in Marion, Illinois, two prison guards were murdered in two SEPARATE instances by SEPARATE inmates who were both serving life terms for previously murdering inmates.

How many 'chances' would you GIVE THEM GENTLE READER? HOW MANY CHANCES?

[JimC]

Seth, a lot of those murders outside prison were committed by people who were released a lot younger than BG's age of 70...

Also, the murder of prison guards or fellow inmates surely cries for a review of prison security systems, rather than an argument for automatic capital punishment.

However, I agree with your first point, that BG's statement "killing someone, for any reason, is wrong" goes too far. I suspect you would set the bar for a justifiable killing a fair bit lower than me, but it is certainly not infinitely high, whether we are talking about self defence (with no other alternative), justifiable military action or judicial killing by the state in extreme circumstances with virtually no possibility of error.

[pErvinalia]

Religion is evil. I can't get a fucking beer in this Brahmadamn town.

[Rum]

Religion is evil. I can't get a fucking beer in this Brahmadamn town.

Best stay out of Pakistan then! Full of evil teetotal muslimists!

[Seth]

Seth, a lot of those murders outside prison were committed by people who were released a lot younger than BG's age of 70...

The point is that they were released. They can't be released if they are dead.

Also, the murder of prison guards or fellow inmates surely cries for a review of prison security systems, rather than an argument for automatic capital punishment.

And what do you suggest? I suggest total isolation 24 hours per day for the rest of their lives, but the bleeding heart liberals call that "cruel and unusual punishment" and say it drives lifers insane, which it probably does, but who gives a fuck? They ought to be dead, that way they cannot go insane or hurt anyone else ever again, even if bleeding heart liberals manage to get them released...from their crypt.

However, I agree with your first point, that BG's statement "killing someone, for any reason, is wrong" goes too far. I suspect you would set the bar for a justifiable killing a fair bit lower than me, but it is certainly not infinitely high, whether we are talking about self defence (with no other alternative), justifiable military action or judicial killing by the state in extreme circumstances with virtually no possibility of error.

Yes.

[hackenslash]

Death is a one-hundred percent cure for recidivism.

Not true. Your brain has been dead for as long as I can remember, yet here you are, committing the worst cognitive atrocities day after day.

You really have fuck all to recommend you, do you? I thought Mick was a waste of oxygen, but you take it to a whole new level, you contemptible cunt.

[mistermack]

Just speculating here, but what about the possibility of 2 levels for a guilty verdict? The lower level still requires the same degree of proof as today, but can only have life imprisonment as an option.

The higher level of guilt demands proof without a shadow of a doubt (e.g. caught literally red-handed, seen by multiple, trustworthy witnesses etc), and has at least the option of a death penalty.

While I know it's a ridiculous proposal, and would never ever get accepted, my idea of keeping the death penalty, but executing the judge and jury if the wrong man got killed, would achieve exactly what you are suggesting.
Who on a jury would vote for capital punishment, if there was any chance of a mistake?
What judge would pass a death sentence, if there was any chance whatsoever of him getting the knock on the door, if he had sent an innocent person to their death?

But, if they were THAT sure, and that convinced that the convict deserved to die, they might chance it.

And imagine the drama, if they got it wrong ? It's worth it just for the chance of that.

[mistermack]

By coincidence, Horizon SERIES 48 - 5. HORIZON: ARE YOU GOOD OR EVIL? was just on the BBC.

It explores the relationship between genetics and psychopathy and was really quite interesting, and it seems that there are one or two genes that can really predispose you to being evil.

And brain scans of psychopathic murderers also showed very different patterns.
So maybe evil exists, as a genetic flaw, rather than a devil with horns.

This will probably come as no surprise to anyone who has ever worked in any office, anywhere: there are a lot of psychopathic bosses in modern business.

But don’t worry: he/she won’t necessarily entomb you in a dungeon and play Chopsticks on your flayed ribcage. No, these people are “successful psychopaths”’ – charming, charismatic, manipulative, invariably handsome leaders whose outwardly winning qualities can hide a hopeless inability to be team players.

Are You Good or Evil? is an absorbing little essay – particularly timely in the week of Appropriate Adult (Sunday), the ITV1 drama about Fred West – which looks at, among other things, whether serial killers are born or made. The answer is a bit of both, as one expert found when he embarked on a piece of research that became unexpectedly personal.

ABOUT THIS PROGRAMME
5/14. The work and theories of researchers who have studied psychopathic killers. Professor Jim Fallon talks about how he discovered he had the profile of a psychopath, but explains how the fact he did not become a murderer holds important lessons. Another scientist discusses his belief he has found a molecule related to morality, which is being used to rewrite ideas of crime and punishment.

CAST AND CREW

CREW
DirectorNicola Stockley
ProducerNicola Stockley
Series EditorAidan Laverty

[JimC]

And yet, in the judicial process, a diagnosed mental condition can be used as extenuating circumstances, with the implication being that true evil is evidenced by fully sane people who do very nasty things to other people.

[Seth]

Death is a one-hundred percent cure for recidivism.

Not true. Your brain has been dead for as long as I can remember, yet here you are, committing the worst cognitive atrocities day after day.

Actually, the problem is with your perceptive and cognitive analytical abilities, not my arguments. It's no surprise that you wouldn't know that, being as bone-headedly and irretrievably stupid as you are.

You really have fuck all to recommend you, do you?

My dog likes me....no, wait, the ex took her when she left...well, she USED to like me. I assume she still does, she's a GOOD dog.

I thought Mick was a waste of oxygen, but you take it to a whole new level, you contemptible cunt.

So, other than the idiotic argumentum ad hominem you seem to think wins you points, do you have a rational rebuttal to my claim that execution absolutely prevents re-offending by criminals?

....I didn't think so...

[Seth]

By coincidence, Horizon SERIES 48 - 5. HORIZON: ARE YOU GOOD OR EVIL? was just on the BBC.

It explores the relationship between genetics and psychopathy and was really quite interesting, and it seems that there are one or two genes that can really predispose you to being evil.

And brain scans of psychopathic murderers also showed very different patterns.
So maybe evil exists, as a genetic flaw, rather than a devil with horns.

Maybe the horns and cloven hooves have simply evolved away over time, but the evil gene has remained.....Might have been easier to identify evil ones with the horns et al.