The only one benefit i can see with the death penalty is as a bargaining tool pre trial for prosecutors.

No they don 't, the test is beyond reasonable doubt, a long way short of 100% certainty.

As I said before, if they had a reasonable doubt, they wouldn't be 100% sure.

Then no one would be convicted unless the jury saw the crime themselves.

Not really. If the evidence leaves them in no reasonable doubt that the crime was committed by the defendant, they are 100% sure. Unless you consider them thinking "well, this alternative scenario [icould[/i have happened, but it's unreasonable to think that it did" counts as them being less than 100% sure.

FFS, no they are not.
The concept isn't that hard to understand.

You wouldn't think so. It's pretty much a semantic argument anyway, and I'm not going to sit and argue semantics with someone who's never been known to give an inch in any discussion. It's certainly not 'a long way short' of 100% as you suggest. If a juror has [ino reasonable doubt[/i that the defendant is guilty, they're 100% sure, or as near as damn it.

My main reason for supporting capital punishment is to differentiate between crimes not that it might reduce crimes of this nature. I don't see what value society is getting in keeping Peter Sutcliffe in prison until he dies?

Quote ="Rock God X"You wouldn't think so. It's pretty much a semantic argument anyway, and I'm not going to sit and argue semantics with someone who's never been known to give an inch in any discussion. It's certainly not 'a long way short' of 100% as you suggest. If a juror has [ino reasonable doubt[/i that the defendant is guilty, they're 100% sure, or as near as damn it.'" www.crim.cam.ac.uk/research/beyo ... ble_doubt/

Quote ="Rock God X"You wouldn't think so. It's pretty much a semantic argument anyway, and I'm not going to sit and argue semantics with someone who's never been known to give an inch in any discussion. It's certainly not 'a long way short' of 100% as you suggest. If a juror has [ino reasonable doubt[/i that the defendant is guilty, they're 100% sure, or as near as damn it.'" www.crim.cam.ac.uk/research/beyo ... ble_doubt/

Yeah, saw that. I also saw another similar piece from Thames Valley saying 'greater than 99%', which was kinda where I was going with it.

Edit: Just to expand a little, I used to work in the legal department of my local council, and later as a civilian enforcement officer preparing cases to both a civil and criminal standard. When training new staff and whatnot, the Solicitor in our department would always use 51% or 100% when explaining the difference between the standards of proof required. I guess he probably meant '100% or a figure that could reasonably be rounded up to 100% (i.e. greater than 99%)', but you get the picture. I don't doubt there are differing interpretations of it within the profession, but I'd worry if 91% was really considered the norm. That doesn't seem to be anywhere near high enough to deprive a person of their liberty (possibly forever) to me. I notice that that figure isn't cited, and I'd be interested to know where it came from. Certainly the American sites I have seen seem to put it nearer the [url=http://courts.uslegal.com/burden-of-proof/beyond-a-reasonable-doubt/98 or 99%[/url mark, though I doubt anyone would ever officially assign a figure to it anyway. In that respect, it will always be open to interpretation.

The 'value' is in being a civilised society.

And also in the belief that any sentence that the judicial system hands down should do or offer the potential for four things: protect the public, punish the offender, rehabilitate and bring about restitution.

That's in no particular order.

And I'm not trying to be funny, but you still seem to be avoiding that earlier point: if it is wrong to take someone's life from them, then why does it become right for the state so to do? (Let's ignore, for the sake of this and clarity, war and things like mercy killing)

You see, there's the problem right there.

The judge has to direct the jury how to do it.

You have just basically admitted that if YOU were the judge, your direction to the jury would be to find the defendant guilty if
EITHER
they were 100& sure
OR "AS NEAR AS DAMN IT".

Now, I'm not trying to start an argument, but with respect, such a direction would be very confusing, as you have to explain, to those who don't get it, what you mean by "as near as damn it".

And you DO have to explain, because you are by definition saying there that they CAN convict even if they are NOT 100% sure. As long as, if not 100% sure, they are "as near as damn it" that sure.

Maybe something like, "beyond any reasonable doubt" would do the trick?

But you can't just change the law to say we can hang Peter Sutcliffe, you'd have to change it so that it's at least an option in all murder cases (subject to sentencing guidelines). And then we have the possibility of innocent men being killed by the state. If the law was ever to be changed, it would only be a matter of time before this would happen again.

Take aside all arguments about whether cases must be proved to 91%, 99% or 100% certainty, juries still get it wrong from time to time. It's better that we keep a thousand murderers in prison for life than that a single innocent man dies at the hands of the state, isn't it?

Well, I wouldn't direct the jury to do that. For a start, I wouldn't use a term like 'as near as damn in' in court, whereas I just might on a message board.

What I'm saying is that if I'd want the jury to be 100% sure in as much as you can be 100% sure about anything. For example, I'm 100% sure that I am the person my birth certificate says I am. Sure, I accept the possibility that I could have been switched at birth with another baby, but I don't find it causes me any reasonable doubt about my identity given the likeness I possess to my father and whatnot. That's what I mean when I say 100% or 'as near as damn it'.

You would have to present all the evidence to a jury of your fellow forum members and we would decide 'beyond reasonable doubt' if you are who you claim to be.

The state as a body has a duty of care to its citizens to provide a form of justice that is appropriate to the ideals of the society - in this case it is OK for sanctioned killing if you believe like I do that execution is an appropriate form of justice for some crimes.

Ok, but I insist that you are at least 93.67% sure before you give your verdict.

As I said before I agree it should be an option - we are not talking Texas here we would possibly only execute a very few - the chances of getting it wrong would be minute. Things have moved on significantly in investigative science.

As I also said there have been innocent people who have been convicted so are you saying it is OK for those people to be wrongly imprisoned to maintain the current system? You will never have a perfect system if you take your view you would never do anything.

It doesn't matter if we only execute one innocent man every 20 years, it's still too many.

The big difference between imprisonment and execution (as I'm sure you're aware) is that one is rather more permanent than the other. Obviously it's not 'ok' to lock up an innocent man, but they can at least be released/compensated if new evidence comes to light. A dead man doesn't get a second chance.

Do you have some form of objective argument on this?

Also, have you decided what the bar is for execution? How many does one have to kill, for instance? Is the manner of murder a factor?

All these things would be entirely subjective.

Everything would. Which is why they have 12 “good and lawful men” on a jury, to have their own 12 subjective viewpoints on something to give a "fair" outcome.




Can you supply a link as I think your line may be slightly misleading.

The word "reintroduced" as you appear to have implied, would suggest it was reintroduced in to some states, when it wasn't. Capital Punishment was "suspended" between 1972-76. It came back into the states that had it anyway. It was not reintroduced as some form of measure as your line may imply.

What might be interesting data is the murder rate in the US between 72 and 76.

For what it's worth, I personally don't believe that capital punishment is a deterent as History shows with reference to death penalties in early 18th C England which then led to Transportation Acts instead.

If it doesn't deter people, or cost less, so why even consider capital punishment?

In any case, have you noticed when people tend to talk about this issue? It's normally after some heinous crime such as a school shooting or child killing (or in the case of the OP, someone who was less than honest

). It's an emotive issue, I understand that. But the emotion we are talking about is hate. Pure hatred at those who commit such crimes. Hatred is not the way, vengeance can do no good.

Let's put that thought in a religious context.

Judaism had it's eye for an eye and still seems to via the Israeli government. It just causes strife.

Christianity was a refinement and turning the other cheek proved a successful stratagy.

Islam then saw the weakness in Christianity and its followers are content to take the sword to followers of other religions. Fortunately, the Christian world has tended to have been more advanced and powerful for a number of centuries now and has previously repelled the march of Islam. Followers of Islam are now embedded in many traditionally Christian countries, Islam is in one of its periodic expansionist phases, muddled Liberal thinking thinking pervades many European country's with ensuing moral decline, several Muslim countries are extremely rich. The net effects are likely to be the Islamic world taking advantage of the weaknesses in both Christianity and our moral decline.

You would have to agree a certain type of crime - terrorism, ian huntley/Brady types on children, premeditated or repeated murder e.g. Rose West, Shipman the very serious types of murder.

I am not sure how much more objective I can be - I have stated my reasons what more do you want?

It is so unlikely that is more a theory than a reality - and as such should not be a game stopper IMO.