The Death Penalty or Life Meaning Life

[denuseri]

The punnishment should fit the crime.

[morwyn{Myrddin}]

Greetings, i live in a country that has the same basic rules as the UK, the most severe sentence one can recieve is life imprisonment, which is in fact not life at all. This is a topic that i have always felt so strongly about and probably always will.
It is my opinion that the death penalty is worng, and sends a wrong message to our young people seeing it. It is saying to them "It is not ok for you to kill someone, but if you do we will kill you". The death penalty seems to me (emphasising once more this is just my opinion) legalised murder. i find myself asking the question......."what have we learned from this? What have we learned in order that such tragedies may not happen again? Am i seeing this from a completely emotive standpoint? Probably, yet my strong beliefs were based initially on a case in our country, one that happened a very long time ago, and was the last woman ever to recieve the death penalty here in new Zealand before it was abolished. For one of my legal papers i studied the case to the minutest detail, determined to prove that the infamous babykiller Minnie Dean, who we as kids had been brought up to fear, was as guilty as anything and deserved the punishment meted out. To my own dismay after reading every gelatinous droplet i could find on her i was without doubt of her innocence. This shocked me and made me re-evaluate my beliefs in the death penalty. i found myself saddened that we as a society had got to the point that hypocrisy could roam freely, where we could say as a people, murder is wrong, and so because you did that we are going to murder you. And what happens to those who cannot afford a decent legal representative? What happens to those who are railroaded into a confession they neither know nor own?

Yes i acknowledge that the majority of cases are not like this. The conviction is warranted and necessary. In these situations, i firmly believe life imprisonment should mean just that, life imprisonment. The person should have a chance to face their crime every day that they live, and live with the consequences. Yet there must also be a time for remorse, for compassion, for an adjustment of life and heart status. For if there is not what hope is there for humanity as a whole. you see i am an eternal optimist. i refuse to believe that a person can be 'all bad', i have to, nay, i choose to believe that all have good in them somewhere, even those that WE judge to be worst of the worst.

yes my viewpoint is entirely emotive, but we are asked for opinions only and so that is mine.

Warmest regards.........morwyn of Myrddin

[Ozme52]

The punnishment should fit the crime.

That simple sentence means what?
A life for a life?
Or some sense of mercy for an act that in some sense is justifiable (as in clinical depression, irrational fear, self defense gone too far...)

I have no idea what you wish to convey.

[denuseri]

That simple sentence means what?
A life for a life?
Or some sense of mercy for an act that in some sense is justifiable (as in clinical depression, irrational fear, self defense gone too far...)

I have no idea what you wish to convey.

Then oh Great Wizard I shall attempt to elucidate:

As the survivor of a violent crime myself, I am hardly impartial on this topic.

And I like Lucretia before me, (though it pains my heart greatly at times to say it, because I also believe in the sanctity of all life) do plea for "Justice" to be done, to be avenged in kind for what was visited upon one.

I only pray that those who hold the power of such dominion over those aforementioned souls; who have committed such wrongful acts as to deserve such reciprocity, do so with honor and wisdom.