>>>> Not sure if it would act as a deterrant but I'd like to think it would at least engender genuine remorse on the part of my murderer <s>
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>>>I'm pretty sure the research shows that the death penalty doesn't act as a deterrent. (Okay, folks, you don't need to chime in with the usual response that it deters the one killed. We know that, but the claim is that the threat that will be executed will stop people from committing murder and the research says that's not true.)
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>>>Tamar
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>>And I just poled myself ( and man, did that hurt ) I found out I 100% don't care. <s> While I agree keeping somebody on death row for 20 years then finally spinning their Wheel of Samsara when they don't even remember what they did doesn't deter much.
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>>Do you know why crack houses with lots of cash on hand don't get robbed more often? It is becuase a death penalty with teeth in it *does* act as a deterant.
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>>But sure death, no sympathy or dignity within 6 months of the crime would be a lot more effective. of course there should never be a death penalty when there is doubt you've got the right offender, but if three guys go in to stick up a convenience store and the owner gets killed, I think the risk is entirely on the part of the perpetrators. I don't care which one pulled the trigger. If they were all there, they all made a bad, fatal decision. Actions have consequences. I don't want to feed them for 50 years. I think it is capital crime if the owner had a heart attack a week after the robbery from stress. Bad luck for the robbers. But situation could have been avoided. They lose.
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>>I really do understand the argument against the state putting someone to death. If I were a better person I might even agree with it. But I'm not. There are people who do things that are beyond the pale. They no longer qualify as human life which is sacred. I am really more likely to stand on the street with a candle for the murdered shop owner than for the person who killed him. There is no moral equivalency.
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>Charles, I'm also far more likely to be standing right there beside you, but that's not really the point, is it? The shop owner is gone. There is not a thing you can do to bring him back. What is important is how we handle our natural tendency toward hate and revenge and thus how we, as a society, treat another human being. I cannot disagree more that the person who did the killing suddenly stops being a human being. He is a sick human being, certainly. There is clearly something pro-social that is either missing or suppressed in that person's character makeup. Whether or not that 'something' is retrievable is a question worth pursuing imho.
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>This shouldn't be about whom we sympathise with more. It should be about how we strive to evolve from a savage society to a civilised society. By 'civilised', I mean that we rise above acting only according to emotional reactions and most especially the lust for vengeance.

And every word of what you say is completely logical to me and resonates with all the sentiments imbued in me by my mother, Methodism and academia. I do not find your arguement strange and would like to live in a world where I found it relevant.

And in a world where we understood how to fix the broken I might even opt for that. But we don't. Prisons certainly don't do it. I would prefer we intervene in places where there is some hope of changing the outcome - primarily in preventing the abuse of children. But once a sociopath has developed into a homicidal threat to society, I don't think we have the resources or the knowledge to fix him and it is morally wrong to maintain a life that is nothing but a negative force. It is time for him to get on to whatever is next, where perhaps there will be some chance for redemption or rehabilitation. Sometimes someone has screwed up this incarnation badly enough it is time to start over.

And of course you are right that the death penalty - as it is currently implemented - doesn't accomplish anything. It is not a deterrant and when it comes 20 years after the crime is no longer even proper vengance.

But as to the issue of could I do it myself... I can say with clarity that I feel there is such a thing as evil and there are those who are beyond any redemption in our power. If I saw a Larry Singleton chop off that girl's forearms with ax I would have no problem pulling the trigger, right then and there, without hesitation and certainly without remorse. Does that make me a good person - absolutely not. But it also does not make me a morally conflicted one. I think sometimes we have to make decisions that are personal moral judgments even if they do not correspond to the image of personal perfection we'd like to believe about ourselves. Sometimes saving our own soul at the cost of others' suffering may not be the greater good. I think that part of being 'civilized' is the danger of a moral vanity that is exploited by evil.