[I Are Baboon]

Finally, a just end to this scumbag's life.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/05/13/ross.execution/index.html

 

[Changleen]

Finally, a just end to this scumbag's life.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/05/13/ross.execution/index.html

The execution was the first in New England since 1960, when Connecticut inmate Joseph Taborsky died in the state's electric chair. Four of the other five states in the region -- Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Vermont -- have no death penalty, while New Hampshire's last execution was in 1939.

I don't believe that the death penalty is justified on the whole. In this case it's pretty hard to argue that this particular guy is better kept alive, but without a doubt many many innocent people have been put to death wrongly over the years, especially before 10 years ago I could easily believe that 50% of murder convictions were incorrect. These days with DNA evidence I hope the rate is better but I still think a lot of people are sentanced for every type of crime wrongly. That's part of the problem with not only the US but the western European justice system.

Given the relative wealth of the West, I do not think it is unreasonable to withdraw the death penalty altogether. A lifetime of hard labour is a worse punishment anyway, and can be productive for the rest of society. I truly believe that to sink to the level of the one you are punishing makes you as wrong as him. Wronger even. Even when I was exposed to christian teachings in the UK as a child the meassage was the right thing to do is to rise above a threat, to forgive, understand, help and solve the problem that caused the issue and not blindly strike back.
It seems recently a lot of peple seem to think an eye for an eye is the christian way of doing things. As it has been said, an eye for an eye makes the world blind. America could dispose of just 1 nuclear weapon and from the released tax money which doesn't pay for it's maintainece each year, pay for the incarceration of every death row incarceree. Is that too much of a price to ask to guarantee you never make the ultimate mistake? To give hope to those who are imprisoned wrongly? Isn't the point of America to give hope to the unjustly oppressed? That's what it says on the brochure.

Death row clearly does not discourage crime, America has a very high, if not the highest rate of murder for a western post industrial (real first world) nation, and it is also the only one to have the death penalty. It strikes me that the best thing you could spend money on is why people get into situations where they end up murdering others. Then everyone could be a bit happier.

 

[RhinofromWA]

Nice. Very preachy Changleen.

 

[valve bouncer]

This is a good one. The death penalty clearly was a deterrent in this case.
I'm with Chang here. This guy (not Chang- despite being a Pom living in Kiwi I think he should live ) is obviously an oxygen stealer of the highest order but I still can't see the point of killing him. Be interested if any monkeys have the advanced googlability* to see what the murder rate in New England is versus the murder rate in the South.












































*VB made up word.