truelies

Certainly an interesting concept- be a lab rat in exchange for your life if you are a Death Row inmate. The concern I would have is that people like these two would always be a danger to those who have to be in contact with them-including guards and medical researchers. The risk to others might not be worth the research utility gained. Also families of the victims should have a veto over such a scheme. Myself if my child had been one of their victims I would want them dead no matter what.

Gracchus

Dangerous beasts should be locked up and never let out. Give inmates the choice of solitary confinement or a common holding pen. Water and meals served at one end of the cell or pen, sanitary facilities at the other. Concrete cells, no doors or windows under constant surveillance but no contact with guards or any other personnel (except other prisoners if they choose the holding pen..) This would be a far cheaper way of dealing with those you never want to walk free. It would be far cheaper than administering the death penalty has proven to be.

Psychologists have long known that punishment does not deter unless it is swift and certain. Society has a right to protect itself by sequestering those it deems unfit to live among others. It has no right to vengeance.

Those who can be rehabilitated, should be put in as normal an environment as possible, but under surveillance. They should be allowed to work for a living, for a living wage. Only when they have demonstrated social skills sufficiently developed to be taken back into society should they be released.

One troubling thing about our present system is the matter of intent. For instance, if the CEO of a chemical company dumps toxic waste into an aquifer and gets people killed, he would not be charged with first degree murder because he had no intent to kill. He was only trying to increase profits. Dead is dead, and it makes no difference to the victim why he is dead. Such a corporate criminals kill for money as surely as any hired assassin.

If a person want to take drugs, he should be checked into a facility and given as much as he wants. He should even have the freedom to overdose and die. This also would be cheaper than the present system. It puts pushers out of business, and addicts would not need to steal to support their habits. It also keeps them off the streets where they may be a danger to others. Once checked in they would not be allowed to leave until they were sober. Most of those now incarcerated are imprisoned for drug-related crime. And police and courts would be free to pursue more important issues.

Harumi

I got this from watching Rurouni Kenshin, but what Kenshin has to say makes a lot of sense to me.

Megumi was a physician who mixed opium drugs and killed people with it. In the end, feeling guilty, she tried to kill herself to atone for her death. Kenshin stopped her.

Why?

"Killing yourself won't bring those people back to life. The thing you can do is to live, and through living, atone their deaths by doing deeds to benefit society."

That makes a lot more sense to me, then just killing them.

Death is useless. Living, there's still potential.

Gracchus

Having discovered her own guilt and truly repenting she was less threat than many who have not killed. In such a case, counseling, not punishment or incarceration is indicated.

Harumi

Of course. There are other examples. Megumi wasn't the only one.

There was a man who killed simply because he enjoyed killing. He liked blood, screaming, torture...you name it.

When Kenshin defeated him and he found himself surrounded by the police. Rather than give himself to the police, again, this person tried to kill himself.

Once again, Kenshin stopped him.

"It's brave to kill yourself, but it's far braver still to live and face the consequences of your crimes."

Killing a person doesn't bring back the dead. As for the uplifting of emotional pain well...that is only temporary. I feel that along with life in prison, the criminals should do something like public services as well.

Wait...some prisons already do that. Nevermind.

Jamie_L

I don't mean to be flip, and I am not actually calling into question the accuracy of what you are saying. However:

Unless you witnessed the crimes, you cannot state with certainty that the Carr's committed the crimes. You only know what you have heard through media and possibly through personal accounts by those you know. Unless you were involved in the trial, you cannot personally judge if their legal defense was adequate.

IF all you say is true, then you are justified in your desire that these men be executed, and I would agree with that sentiment.

However, it's giving the government the power to execute based on it's determination of that IF that I disagree with, because the level of precision that the government is capable of is inadequate for the permanent act of executing citizens - especially given that there is no significant cost to society for not executing these criminals.

It's not about whether or not certain people deserve to die. It's about whether or not it's a good idea for a government to make such determinations. In my opinion, it is a very bad idea indeed.

Jamie