Illinois Gives Up the Death Penalty for Lent (and Beyond)

[Fintan]

Illinois Gives Up the Death Penalty for Lent (and Beyond)

Maybe it was purely coincidence, but something striking took place in Illinois when Governor Pat Quinn chose March 9 to sign legislation abolishing the death penalty in his state. In the Christian calendar, Ash Wednesday (falling this year on that date) traditionally marks a time of abstinence, in which the individual believer gives up something she values during the 40-day period leading up to Easter. (I remember, as a child, other kids struggling to stay away from candy for six weeks -- the obvious choice of a pleasure with which pre-teens would try to part.)

But this Ash Wednesday, we've seen an entire state swearing off a popular American idea of putting felons to death. Bear in mind, too, this didn't happen in Rhode Island. Illinois ranks right up there among the big states -- 13 million people, 19 Congressional seats, 3rd-largest city, (occasionally) winning sports teams! So, there could be a societal impact when the Land of Lincoln becomes the 16th state to choose to enforce justice without recourse to lethal injecting people convicted of heinous crimes.....

Hear Hear! May be not only an LGBT issue, but an important one nonetheless.

It's about time civilised countries put a stop to killing their citizens, whether it is state-sponsored murder or not.

[Nomad187]

There are some people who don't belong in this world whether you believe so or not. Death penalty is one of the few things I think the US got right

[zeratul]

I don't believe in the death penalty or life imprisonment. Let's deport these people to some other continent and have them become their problem.

[theDunns]

abolishing the death penalty was not the will of the people it was the yahoo's in congress trying to make themselves look good, just like the tax increase was not the will of the people i dislike Gov. Quin; and how can someone from another country say the abolishing of a law is a good thing when you don't live here? no offense, but i'd rather pay a one time fee to put someone down who deserves it, then pay for them to live for the rest of there life behind bars, what if there 25 and healthy? thats 75 yrs that i have to pay to keep this clown alive, now if they didn't have so much freedom in prison and it was actually harsh that would be a different story.

[RaRa]

Originally Posted by theDunns

abolishing the death penalty was not the will of the people it was the yahoo's in congress trying to make themselves look good, just like the tax increase was not the will of the people i dislike Gov. Quin; and how can someone from another country say the abolishing of a law is a good thing when you don't live here? no offense, but i'd rather pay a one time fee to put someone down who deserves it, then pay for them to live for the rest of there life behind bars, what if there 25 and healthy? thats 75 yrs that i have to pay to keep this clown alive, now if they didn't have so much freedom in prison and it was actually harsh that would be a different story.

This post is so full of hate. <_<

[partietraumatic]

I can see why some people approve of the death penalty. Personally I'm glad they have come to this decision, I don't think any civilised country should kill it's own citizens. There is also always the issue of killing an innocent person who has been wrongly convicted.

[PhantomX]

Originally Posted by zeratul

I don't believe in the death penalty or life imprisonment. Let's deport these people to some other continent and have them become their problem.

This reminded me of the movie, Escape From New York...LOL!

+ YouTube Video

[starfish]

Originally Posted by zeratul

I don't believe in the death penalty or life imprisonment. Let's deport these people to some other continent and have them become their problem.

Well the British gave that a try once....

I myself am opposed to the death penalty, so I am glad to see this.

Originally Posted by theduns

no offense, but i'd rather pay a one time fee to put someone down who deserves it, then pay for them to live for the rest of there life behind bars, what if there 25 and healthy?

Several sources show that it costs more to put someone to death than to imprison them for life.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29552692...me_and_courts/

http://www.aclu.org/capital-punishme...th-penalty-101

Quoting from above

The most comprehensive death penalty study in the country found that the death penalty cost North Carolina $2.16 million more per execution over the costs of sentencing murderers to life imprisonment. The majority of these costs occur at the trial level.[4] In its review of death penalty expenses, the State of Kansas concluded that capital cases are 70 percent more expensive than comparable non-death penalty cases, including the costs of incarceration.[5]

[Steve]

Who are we to decide who lives an dies, the death penalty is just the same as murder.

an eye for an eye leaves the world blind

[Emberstone]

I think it is interesting that the feircest supporters of the death penalty are the fundie evangelical christians who claim to follow christ, who in the bible rejected the death penalty, and declared it evil and immoral.

personally, I think the death penalty is like giving a criminal the easy way out. let them rot in prison.

to the person who complained about the issue of having to pay for people who get life in prison, are you aware that the vast majority of people on death row end up dieing waiting for their execution anyways. some spend 20-30 years on death row.

in the end, abolishing the death penalty would have little effect on the cost of our prison system.

[Rikudo]

I still think prisoners should be make to fight to the death. Like some sort of Roman/Greek coliseum. It'd bring the whole community together.

Meh, I don't care. If someone killed someone I loved, I'd get satisfication out of both them dying and them staying in jail, forever away from people for the rest of their life.

[Elven]

Originally Posted by Nomad187

Death penalty is one of the few things I think the US got right

I have the complete opposite opinion. I don't believe killing criminals is the right way to go about it, even if them living crowds prisons, drains taxes, etc. It's just barbaric and vindictive to kill people who commit crimes however terrible. There is always the chance that someone is innocent however obvious it is that they are guilty and even after murder I do not believe someone is instantly a lost cause and dosen't deserve to live. It encourages hate and gives no room for forgiveness.

[Nomad187]

Originally Posted by Elven

I have the complete opposite opinion. I don't believe killing criminals is the right way to go about it, even if them living crowds prisons, drains taxes, etc. It's just barbaric and vindictive to kill people who commit crimes however terrible. There is always the chance that someone is innocent however obvious it is that they are guilty and even after murder I do not believe someone is instantly a lost cause and dosen't deserve to live. It encourages hate and gives no room for forgiveness.

So mass murders should just get to live at our expense?

Originally Posted by Nomad187

Death penalty is one of the few things I think the US got right

Agreed. I think it's more cruel to the prisoner to leave him in prison than it is to kill him.

[Elven]

Originally Posted by Nomad187

So mass murders should just get to live at our expense?

Not that I want to argue, I was just expressing my opinion but I believe that everyone deserves a chance to earn some forgiveness or realisation for their crimes, even mass murderors, there are non so deaf that they will not hear (however far fetched that may be). You can never be in a criminal's head to know how/what they were thinking, killing may not have been them (mentally) at all in some cases and as for planned murders, they can be normal, nice people who became overcome by emotion.

Killing them in death row doesn't solve anything other than revenge and money, and that isn't what ethics should be based on, noone has the right to decide who lives and dies, that kind of power corrupts people. To kill someone who has killed may be an eye for an eye but as I said is vindictive and can only cause more hate and closemindedness, especially since people can and have been killed for things that in one culture are fine and in another are an abomination, being homosexual for example. Segregation is a must but extermination, I don't think so.

[Ghostly]

Originally Posted by Nomad187

There are some people who don't belong in this world whether you believe so or not. Death penalty is one of the few things I think the US got right

I completely agree with you, there are people who can't be controlled and will never repent for what they did, and who still do criminal activity behind bars, I believe there should be death penalties in more countries.

[Nomad187]

Originally Posted by Elven

Not that I want to argue, I was just expressing my opinion but I believe that everyone deserves a chance to earn some forgiveness or realisation for their crimes, even mass murderors, there are non so deaf that they will not hear (however far fetched that may be). You can never be in a criminal's head to know how/what they were thinking, killing may not have been them (mentally) at all in some cases and as for planned murders, they can be normal, nice people who became overcome by emotion.

Killing them in death row doesn't solve anything other than revenge and money, and that isn't what ethics should be based on, noone has the right to decide who lives and dies, that kind of power corrupts people. To kill someone who has killed may be an eye for an eye but as I said is vindictive and can only cause more hate and closemindedness, especially since people can and have been killed for things that in one culture are fine and in another are an abomination, being homosexual for example. Segregation is a must but extermination, I don't think so.

well first off planned murders are not usually "overcome by emotion". Thats more of the oh I caught my wife cheating so imma kill her type thing. So you are saying nazi's who kiiled millions of people should be kept alive to "think about what they've done"? Thats a slap on the wrist, spitting on the grave of the victims and telling the survivors that it doesnt really matter

[OutToSea]

Originally Posted by Nomad187

So mass murders should just get to live at our expense?

It's actually much, much more expensive to put a criminal to death via death penalty than to have them live a life sentence (costs for food and everything included). I'm fine with getting rid of the death penalty so long as these criminals get life in prison without chance for release. I view the death penalty as the "easy way out."

[Elven]

Originally Posted by Nomad187

well first off planned murders are not usually "overcome by emotion". Thats more of the oh I caught my wife cheating so imma kill her type thing. So you are saying nazi's who kiiled millions of people should be kept alive to "think about what they've done"? Thats a slap on the wrist, spitting on the grave of the victims and telling the survivors that it doesnt really matter

I didn't say they are usually people who are "overcome by emotion", just that it's not unheard of, some people do these things under extreme hate or even absent mindedness (wierdly) then some regret it from then on and after, I just don't feel that they especially deserve to die and it's not as if they are usually differentiated.

Many nazi's were pretty much brainwashed from school, with sums including killing jews in one way or another, many of them were raised to view the jewish, and many other groups as little more than insects and didn't register their deaths as murder. I'm not saying that a great many of them weren't just corrupt.

The holocaust was a terrible event, and ended up occuring through someone with too much power becoming corrupt and judgemental, exterminating those he felt were a drain on the german society. The extreme but those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. The deaths of many nazis is in many ways not the same, whether or not you would just call me hypocritical but war is kill or be killed, it's not always quite the same as dealing with civilian murder.

Of cource their punishment matters, you suggest I'm trying to promote murder. I'm just saying that whether or not they have killed, killing them only resolves hate and revenge, and to have too relly on satisfying those emotions is a horrible thing and would usually lead to the murder in the first place. They deserve punishment and segregation from society, to have them out of their lives should bring enough satisfaction and peace of mind.

EDIT:Funnily enough ever heard of Godwin's Rule? "Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies, sometimes also known as Godwin's Law, is a theory put forward by Mike Godwin in 1990. Godwin noticed that long-threaded discussions on the Internet tended to turn into mud slinging competitions by the end. The longer a thread got, the more likely it was that a Nazi comparison would be dragged into the discussion. Godwin's Rule states that: “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.”

There are several implications to Godwin's Rule. Many online discussions involve intense personal beliefs and values, which sometimes clash quite dramatically. As the discussion continues, it tends to become less rational, especially after most of the valid arguments from both sides have been presented. On a hot button issue with no “right” answer, opponents may start to exchange insults because they become angry and frustrated. Eventually resulting in the conversation degrading and Comparing someone, or an action, with the Nazis, which is a serious charge. "