Ohio Screws up Another Execution

[Azrael]

Almost 0.1%

0.1% of 6,458,782,058 is still rather a lot.

So not non Xians then.

Don't think there were many of those in 16th century England!

This may be true for many criminals but IMO not for murderers. The victim & their loved ones get forgotten about in this debate. The murdered person remains dead, no matter how much the murderer learns & repays.

Exactly. They cannot forgive, and it's presumptuous of us to forgive on their behalf.

I'm sure some murderers can reform. The point is that most have forfeited the right to by committing the uniquely wicked and selfish act of choosing to wipe out another human's existence for your own convenience.

Now, some murderers will have pitiable circumstances, like a battered wife who kills her abusive husband. A civilised system will show them mercy. But many more will have no such excuse, and should be killed by the state.

Those who disagree should be arguing that all murderers be reformed and released. What I have no time for is the view that has its cake and eats it by abolishing capital punishment but imposing life without parole. That's attempting to take the moral highground without sacrificing retribution, and ends up being far cruller than what it replaces. One of the other, but not both.

 

[Jonti]

DNA is a lot easier to plant at a crime scene than fingerprints.

but who needs to tamper with a crime scene, when the computer records can be hacked? (and all the "evidence" is already on a leaky old big-brother database!)