Well, I wouldn't direct the jury to do that. For a start, I wouldn't use a term like 'as near as damn in' in court, whereas I just might on a message board.

What I'm saying is that if I'd want the jury to be 100% sure in as much as you can be 100% sure about anything. For example, I'm 100% sure that I am the person my birth certificate says I am. Sure, I accept the possibility that I could have been switched at birth with another baby, but I don't find it causes me any reasonable doubt about my identity given the likeness I possess to my father and whatnot. That's what I mean when I say 100% or 'as near as damn it'.

You would have to present all the evidence to a jury of your fellow forum members and we would decide 'beyond reasonable doubt' if you are who you claim to be.

The state as a body has a duty of care to its citizens to provide a form of justice that is appropriate to the ideals of the society - in this case it is OK for sanctioned killing if you believe like I do that execution is an appropriate form of justice for some crimes.

Ok, but I insist that you are at least 93.67% sure before you give your verdict.

As I said before I agree it should be an option - we are not talking Texas here we would possibly only execute a very few - the chances of getting it wrong would be minute. Things have moved on significantly in investigative science.

As I also said there have been innocent people who have been convicted so are you saying it is OK for those people to be wrongly imprisoned to maintain the current system? You will never have a perfect system if you take your view you would never do anything.

It doesn't matter if we only execute one innocent man every 20 years, it's still too many.

The big difference between imprisonment and execution (as I'm sure you're aware) is that one is rather more permanent than the other. Obviously it's not 'ok' to lock up an innocent man, but they can at least be released/compensated if new evidence comes to light. A dead man doesn't get a second chance.

Do you have some form of objective argument on this?

Also, have you decided what the bar is for execution? How many does one have to kill, for instance? Is the manner of murder a factor?

All these things would be entirely subjective.

Everything would. Which is why they have 12 “good and lawful men” on a jury, to have their own 12 subjective viewpoints on something to give a "fair" outcome.




Can you supply a link as I think your line may be slightly misleading.

The word "reintroduced" as you appear to have implied, would suggest it was reintroduced in to some states, when it wasn't. Capital Punishment was "suspended" between 1972-76. It came back into the states that had it anyway. It was not reintroduced as some form of measure as your line may imply.

What might be interesting data is the murder rate in the US between 72 and 76.

For what it's worth, I personally don't believe that capital punishment is a deterent as History shows with reference to death penalties in early 18th C England which then led to Transportation Acts instead.

If it doesn't deter people, or cost less, so why even consider capital punishment?

In any case, have you noticed when people tend to talk about this issue? It's normally after some heinous crime such as a school shooting or child killing (or in the case of the OP, someone who was less than honest ). It's an emotive issue, I understand that. But the emotion we are talking about is hate. Pure hatred at those who commit such crimes. Hatred is not the way, vengeance can do no good.

Let's put that thought in a religious context.

Judaism had it's eye for an eye and still seems to via the Israeli government. It just causes strife.

Christianity was a refinement and turning the other cheek proved a successful stratagy.

Islam then saw the weakness in Christianity and its followers are content to take the sword to followers of other religions. Fortunately, the Christian world has tended to have been more advanced and powerful for a number of centuries now and has previously repelled the march of Islam. Followers of Islam are now embedded in many traditionally Christian countries, Islam is in one of its periodic expansionist phases, muddled Liberal thinking thinking pervades many European country's with ensuing moral decline, several Muslim countries are extremely rich. The net effects are likely to be the Islamic world taking advantage of the weaknesses in both Christianity and our moral decline.