I hope all of you are keeping pace with the lessons. It does not benefit anyone to come unprepared. You miss out on so many levels. So this being Feb, I hope everyone will try to get his act together and start afresh.
I'd like all of you to try something new. Instead of giving your views on the topic of capital punishment, let's instead direct others to think more deeply about the issue by asking the right questions. Try this for a challenge: ask a thought-provoking question about the death penalty in less than 50 words. Check grammar, punctuation and spelling.
The best question gets a (sur)prize. The bracketed bit's meant for Chan Wei.
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Some capital punishments are imposed in order to incapacitate the criminal because he has done these type of crimes before and might commit them again in the future. These do not include manslaughter or anything not premeditated. Assuming that the previous execution is fair, if a criminal on the process of planning to commit one of these crimes, but have not yet done so, have somehow been captured and found out, is it then fair to say that he should be executed for incapacitation and deterrence of the public?
ReplyDeleteCurrently, mental illness or diminished capacity can be used as a reason to avoid the death penalty. However, some killers who commit heinous crimes seem to suffer from mental illness or have diminished capacity. Where should we draw the line?
ReplyDeleteResponding to Soon Zhou's comment, according to the penal code, conspiracy to commit murder is punishable by the punishment for first degree murder i.e. death
ReplyDeleteSorry if I was not clear, I know that death penalty for conspiracy to commit murder is present but I was asking whether it was fair or is there a need to execute someone purely for incapacitation and deterrence of the public but totally no retributive purpose. This may also include other crimes besides murder.
ReplyDeleteby Fangxu
ReplyDeleteRegarding Soon Zhou's question, if the act of murder has not been carried out, it is usually very hard to find supporting evidence to show that A is indeed going to murder B. Furthermore, as humans are emotive sometimes, there are many times when which we feel like killing someone because he has harmed us emotionally in some way but did not cause any significant form of damage. Thus, the thought of killing someone and materialising such a thought is 2 totally different things. We must also consider the possibility of the would-be-criminal changing his mind at the last minute before he commits the crime. Hence, conspiracy to commit murder is in no way punishable by death.
How can the death penalty continue to bring justice and serve as a deterrence, especially after the methods of execution become more humane?
ReplyDeletePeople against the death penalty are always strongly defiling it through various reasons that they can think of. However, how would they feel when their families and friends are murder victims? Would they still stand against the death penalty or change their opinions? And when people watch criminals get executed, will they still support the death penalty or rather go against it?
ReplyDeleteFangxu:
ReplyDeleteEven if the methods of execution has became more painless, it is not the method that matters, it is still the end result where the person will die that matters. The deterrence effect is not due to how 'painful' the death penalty is, but how the person loses his life in the end which deters others from committing the same type of crime.
Lee Men Quan
ReplyDeleteTo Fangxu: Death itself is the deterrence mechanism of the capital punishment, and thus no matter how you kill the criminal, the deterrence is usually as strong, just that the less humane, the more noises some anti-capital-punishment-activists will make. And on second thought, actually if the death penalty is made public like China in the past, perhaps the deterrence can be greater, just that it is not so feasible now.
Perhaps we should think: If you have a close brother who was murdered, and another close brother who murdered someone else, would you still support the death penalty? Why?
Ultimately, I think that whether one supports capital punishment or not boils down to whether a certain related person is the victim or criminal. The objective of a related friend/kin is usually to get back justice for the victim or get a lighter sentence for the criminal. I don't think any family member / friend of the victim/criminal is that unbiased in the event of a death sentence.
ReplyDeletePerhaps a better question to ask would be:
Would you support capital punishment irregardless of the relationship with the criminal/victim?
That would better justify how many people truly support capital punishment, and not just till a certain extent.