Reply #25: All of your points are valid except [View All]

[Yo_Mama]

That this crime happened out of prison, was totally unprovoked, was done for fun, and that we are not discussing an execution based on what we suspect he will do, but for what he has already done.

His guilt is clear. The only possible choices are prison for life or execution. If you do put this guy in prison for life, it's not improbable that he will kill again, especially given his self-described views. Take him off death row, and I'm betting that there'll be more violence.

I am not suggesting that we should execute people whom we suspect will kill or maim others. I am saying that one of the few situations in which I would consider the DP is a case like this. If I put the man in prison for life, I do not end the harm.

A lot of people ask "What's the purpose of the DP?" In such cases, it does have a purpose. I also believe it has a legitimate and genuine deterrent effect in such cases. When someone truly is imprisoned for life, without the DP the person has nothing left to lose, really. The best moral justification of sentencing is to defend from further harm, and in this case, it seems to me that it pertains. Therefore one of the few times when I would be able to vote for the DP would be for a murder committed in prison - because I believe that otherwise we are promoting further violence in prisons.

The alternative is prisons such as SuperMax, but that is essentially death by slow torture anyway. Decades of solitary confinement would drive anyone off their rocker.