Death Penalty for Child Offenders
is a Courts & Legal System centric issue
Debate
The summary claims that this debate is split into two camps:
- The U.S. should maintain its sovereignty and apply punishment according to its own standards.
- The international community disapproves of this practice and the U.S. is the leader among some of the world's most brutal regimes that execute child offenders.
I don't see how U.S. determinism is relevant to the execution of children. The issue here is not whether we as a nation should be allowed to write our own laws. It's whether or not it is right to execute people under a certain age. This is a purely ethical issue and while the fact that most of the rest of the world has decided it in one way can be used to support one side, its counter cannot be a mainstay of the opposing side of the argument.
I agree that the former statement does not directly address the question of child executions, though it is one that many people use in order to justify the difference in the US' position on certain issues. Since their isn't necessarily a quantitative answer to this question, some people looks to other countries/cultures with which the US shares similar ethical standards and practices to guide their decision. Others find the standards of other countries irrelevant since laws are made according to what American citizens consider acceptable. The word "sovereignty" is just thrown in there to make the point that the US is not bound by international standards.
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I think there should be certain age restrictions on capital punishment, but I am still for the old stand by that the punishment should fit the crime. And how dare we look bad in the eyes of the international community when in Africa they are cutting children's heads off with machetes and in Iraq our own American soldiers are being drug to their deaths and burned alive. How dare we give our own citizens that have committed terrible crimes a cruelty free death? I don't think at this point it matters what the rest of the world thinks of us, we are just big bullies in their eyes anyway. So I say if they are deemed by a mental health professional of having all of their mental faculties at the time of the act, and that act is so heinous that it would require a verdict of capital punishment, then punish them accordingly.
Wolf, you seem to be missing the point, the idea is to reestablish America's respect, not diminish it with demeaning and pointless retribution. America is so asphyxiated on how to punish their criminals and not enough on prevention.. punishments address only the symptoms of a larger problem with society, and not the cause. Capital Punishment is built on multiple fallacies
1. Death Penalty is cheaper for tax payers then LWOP.
true-feeding, housing, and the cost of constant surveillance of a criminal is very costly when compared to a simple injection. However, because of the constant appeals made by those on death row it is actually cheaper to keep them alive.
2. It deters murder and other violent crimes.
Well... there's never been any evidence to suggest that it does. Murder is often a crime of passion, or temporary insanity and the rest are committed by sociopaths that don't believe the rules concern them in the first place.
3. Eye for an eye/ 10 commandments.
I don't have to quote you Gandhi's reaction to the "eye for an eye" saying. Retribution does not exist, really it doesn't. Killing someone won't bring back a loved one, it won't justify their life in anyway, all it will do is increase the sorrow on to the innocent family members of the perpetrator, and put blood on your hands. Most people say they don't feel any better after their murderer is put to death. As for the ten Commandments, someone always brings this up. I respect the commandments as a vague list of rules for living a good life as much as the next guy, however one rule should have been added (11. keep thy religion to thy self) Whether you think it says thou shall not kill or thou shall not murder, death is death and it doesn't matter if its joe schmo on a Friday night with a gun, or the judicial system.
This one i have to think on this issue.It's is a tough call but, I do feel if the child is under the age of 14 years old they need help and therapy for awhile . so i would deeply have to think on this. It does depend on the child's insanity, and mental state of mind. People can say that the child might have been done the same way. And that is the only way that child can cope what has been done to him or her.We may never know what goes threw the childrens heads when they do this . but i can say this does not. what so ever accept voilent crimes even if it is a child including my own.,
Um, you're mixing child offenders and child victims...?
We can't hook up into the international community, because as soon as the other 199 countries think they have ANY control over our governmental functions, all hell will break loose -- especially after Bush. That's why the International Criminal Court is permanently off the table.
Just a response mostly to HopeNation- if we are to get rid of the death penalty (both for children and adults) we need to do it for reasons that pertain to our own citizens, not the rest of the world or their opinion of us. I do agree that America does look poorly in the world's eyes but we need to fix this through other avenues not in the punishment of our criminals. I think the issue of punishing children should be resolved through how they are prosecuted. Like I have said earlier, if someone is tried as an adult they need to be punished as an adult. If we convict as an adult and then punish as I child I don't see the point of trying them as an adult at all.
Personally I think that child execution is a little overboard. I'm sure someone out there will toss in that a child mass murderer should be executed, but how long are the odds there. I still can't quite go with it. Unless we drop the legal ages to 15 and go from there. No matter how you look at this issue, it's sticky no matter what.
