Boston bomber to be executed

Emm yes it is (many variations yes) but killing anything is murder !!

But innocents will be killed by the death penalty regardless.

Keyword:
"unlawful"

But it is unlawful to kill/murder anyone! Why does he deserve to die, yes he has killed 4 people and injured many more but what rights does that give anyone to kill him! I do believe he should spend the rest of his life in jail, but is it truly right to kill anyone good or bad??

Wrong. Innocents will only be killed if it does not exceed the threshold, and this threshold is easy to meet.

So people have never been exonerated on death row and after they've already been executed?...

In 2000 Illinois implemented a moratorium on the death penalty. The Cloninger and Marchesini (2006) article finds that there was an additional 150 homicides in Illinois in the 4 years following.

Dezhbakhsh and Shepherd (2006) find that when the 1972 moratorium was imposed annual murder rate jumped by 9.3%. When it was lifted, it fell by 8.3%.

Taken together, these are 3 articles showing such a link; the article I cited also conducted research over 100 years.

While it is still not definitive proof, of 100% certainty that it was not due to other factors, it nontheless establishes a very strong link. In contract, you have offered no evidence on your points.

you completedly ignored my point - this would deter other murderers who murder for other reasons, such as jealousy or spite. Overall, it leads to lower murderer rates.

yes, because you have no evidence, and you ignore my points about what you dont like

No, it shows a correlation. It does not prove a direct link. In any case, there are many other articles and studies (e.g this which show the opposite.

No, you ignored my point, which was that this is absolute nonsense.

I stated that anyone who is radicalised wouldn't care about the death penalty, which logically comes from the fact that they don't care if they die and would probably welcome martyrdom.

Which Is why I said I favour an approach where capital punishment is only used on cases beyond any doubt. Like in the present case: caught on camera, tons of witnesses, he himself admitting it under non-coercive conditions.


Further, dont forget the meaning of deterrence: you kill one, save 7. So by choosing not to kill this murderer, you condemn 7 innocents to death by inaction.

Which is worse?

Sanctioning the government murdering people and potential innocents for it's own sake is much worse tbh.

Similarly, if we only executed people as often as the underlined conditions are met, then execution rates would most certainly be below the ideal threshold suggested in that study you posted. Thus it would not be a successful deterrent.

aybe America should invest in non violent methods to deter crime, like most other civilised countries!

RIP in peace

The death penalty is state murder.

What will be achieved by giving him the death penalty?
Absolutely nothing, I suspect.
If anything it will make him a hero and encourage others like him.

It's also the state being unduly nice in this sort of context. He no doubt believes that he will ascend to heaven upon his death as martyr.

The Americans think this is the harshest, ultimate punishment, but a lifetime (especially when you're 21) in a supermax prison is the ultimate punishment.

That is so disgusting and barbaric, the US acting like we're in the Middle East/Middle Ages. People who actually want this are murderers just like him.

I hope he dies painfully and slowly, and I hope every minute of his life up to his death will be spent suffering both physically and mentally.

I also hope people like you cry at night because he will die. I hope you will be saddened because he did not receive forgiveness or a second chance. I hope every day for the rest of your lives you go to sleep remembering what happened to this man. I take great joy in knowing firstly this scum will die and secondly all of you will be in tears watching his death.

What are you even on about? The point is capital punishment saves innocents, while not having it harms innocents

Wrong again. The current amount life imprisonment prisoners (largely due to murder) is about 160,000. The threshold is about 100-200.

which means we only need about 0.1% of that to be executed. Do you think it is possible for 0.1% to be proven guilty beyond any doubt? I certainly think so

Huh? You do realise people who were false accused of a crime have been executed by the government? I.e innocent people?....


1. If threshold is indeed 100-200 that is per state? The 160,000 people cover the entire united states no?
2. Total life imprisonment convicts are accumulative, executions are not.
See how the numbers are already getting smaller?
3. People can get life imprisonment without meeting the criteria that I underlined in the previous post.

At the end of the day, as long as there is a possibility that innocent lives are lost on death row, it's a no brainer that I should not support it.

You do realize on balance, if you are wrong and there is a deterrence effect (which there is), you are effectively condemning many more people to death by refusing to take action? There is a possibility much more lives are lost.

Um. How bout investing in other means to lower murder rates? That way you can escape the worry of executing innocent citizens, meanwhile making society a safer place for everyone else too!

Canada, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway etc all have lower intentional homicide rates than the United States, all without the lazy "deterrent" that is the death penalty. America should start taking notes!

You seem to be completely missing the point. The evidence found has showed that the most effective way is capital punishment. Hence there is no other way.

Whew. Hold your horses. Death penalty being a deterrent in and of itself is already debatable. Yet alone the "most" effective way.




"If deterrence worked, how could Texas (the state with the most executions in the whole of America), which executes a dozen inmates a year, have a higher murder rate than Colorado, which has executed one murderer in more than four decades?"

I'm sorry but the evidence is just not in your favour

If you read the literature (I provided a handy list a few pages back), or even read the Shepherd study Christocracy is talking about, you would see that there needs to be a threshold level of executions before the deterrent effect kicks in. Your graph completely ignores that. I mean what's the point in a death penalty if you're going to execute 1 person in 40 years? Clearly it's not going to have a deterrent effect if you're not going to use it.

Moreover, what's to say Texas wouldn't have an even higher murder rate without the death penalty?