jonesg

uh, this is gv Bob,

look son, every nation that has fallen lost its way morally first.
Thats why he's going to die.

jonesg

Death is not just expected, its guarenteed and its not unusual in the least, its a natural consequence of a life lived.
Execution protects the concept of preciousness of your own life.

Such an illogical plea went to the supreme court, thinking that the elec chair is dangeropus is insane , Sandra Day O'conner laughed and asked if they thought the chair should be rated by UL (safety tested in case someone gets hurt).

Perhaps the real problem is life doesn't mean life in jail, I know a guy, personally, who murdered his roomate, got out after 6 yrs and murdered his neighbor. He's out again !, Thats liberal Massachusetts.
The death penalty isn't meant to deter (although it deters me) its meant to STOP them dead in their tracks and it works 100%.

Viti

These links are not really a reponse to my comments. I am very familiar with PDs, having done much research. I do not see where on your links, or in any literature on the subject, the effectiveness of various treatments are evidenced. In fact, most of my reading states PDs are difficult if not impossible to treat. Perhaps you could quote the pertinent passage as well as offer the link, in case I didn't find it?

Reasonable enough. The only problem I see is that some killers, like child murderer Arthur Shawcross, somehow slip or manipulate their way through the system and get paroled. After his parole, Shawcross went on a killing spree leaving 11 women dead.


Once again I am familiar with autism, and I could not find anything regarding violence or murder correlating to autism on the link you offered.

Viti

I met a woman (married with a baby) who had shot and killed her brother after a fight over the TV remote when she was 15. She never even was required to get treatment.

Jehanne

If this is true, one must wonder why the European Union, which imprisons a fraction of the people the US imprisons and has no death penalty, somehow has a lower murder and violent crime rate.

Perhaps it is good that she is retiring! The electric chair is now de facto unconstitutional “cruel and unusual�? punishment. The Nebraska Supreme Court is expected to declare it unconstitutional here very soon, following in the footsteps of other state supreme courts.

Or, perhaps having the death penalty leads to more murders, not fewer. One need only look at the Middle Ages with its constant cycle of wars and violence and its regular public, often gruesome, displays of executions. (“It’s the statistics, stupid,�? as James Carville might say!)

Jehanne

It's in the DSM section on Axis II personality disorders. Clearly, early intervention is the key here. (In other words, the government should not cut extracurricular programs in music, sports, art, etc.!) Again, I never claimed that PDs could (or should) be treated.

The death penalty would not matter here, as the jury and/or judge determines a sentence of death after a person is convicted.

Read the DSM criteria for autistic spectrum disorder again. The most important determinant of autism is the inability to form relationships. Now, look at those who are on death row. Most are uneducated, most were abused as children, the majority were never married, most used drugs, most were unable to form meaningful relationships, etc., etc. Having autism does not necessary lead to crime, but many criminals are autistic, have ADHD, OCD, bipolar disorder, etc. Again, would early intervention have made a difference in some of these people’s lives??

Jehanne

Again, the death penalty would not apply here! One, it is unconstitutional to execute someone who committed a crime prior to turning 18; two, the case that you are referring to is with respect to a person’s conviction, not her sentence. (Clearly, if she had been convicted of first degree murder, she would be in prison now!)

Viti

Then you response was not to my comments at all, as I was specifically discussing the effectiveness of treatment for anti-social personality disorders, which would cover the majority of serial or spree killers.

Had he been executed for the murders of the two children, he could not have gone on his killing spree of 11 women 25 years later.

Sociopaths also have trouble forming relationships because they have no empathy or compassion. Autism may share a few traits with sociopathology, but they are very different diagnoses. Autism is not correlated with violence.

Many criminals are sociopaths. Intervention might/might not make a difference in those cases, but anti-social PD is difficult to recognize because sociopaths are often charming, intelligent, charismatic and manipulative and they function seemingly normally. How can you intervene if you do not know there is an issue?

Those other disorders mentioned such as ADD, OCD, and bi-polar usually present symptoms, rarely cause people to become criminals or murderers and yes, early intervention will probably help. I fail to see your point in bringing them up or how that helps your argument against the death penalty.


Either way, you have not evidenced your claim that autism is correlated with violence, so I assume you will now retract it?

Viti

The fact is, she was not treated, no intervention. She may explode and kill again. I wasn't making any other point except that our society doesn't seem to do well on the intervention thing you keep mentioning. If shooting your brother over a mundane argument isn't a big red flag then what the hell is?.

Viti

Experts also want to understand why we have such a high violent crime rate compared to other Western countries. They haven't figured it out yet.

Also, some countries with capital punishment have lower crime rates than we do. The death penalty in and of itself does not seem to correlate with the crime rate of any given country.


Perhaps, but I don't think there is evidence of that yet.



ETA: It would be really helpful to this discussion if you could include the pertinent quotes or sections you are referencing and use the links for citations and more complete information, rather than just giving me (us) a link and saying "read this".