Don't worry ppl, blue can't go much further. He can only count to 10.

Against it. For ethical crimes like rape and child molestation there is always chemical castration as punishment (Along with life sentence.) Potencial innocense is also a factor.  Better to lock up a  person with false accusations than to remove his life. I can understand why society wants to react in the same way for the monsters of this world, but we have to think that we are in a higher level than them.

Trolls on the other hand should be killed with fire or acid. Or else they return. 

Absolutly no. Seriously, it doesn't make sense that state kills people, even if those same people have killed some too. First of all I have to ask; what does it helps? Beeing 50 years in prison is a lot better choise for everyone - dont have to be so violent. Punishments are not 'cause "that's what they deserve". It is states way to bring people back to community. After death penalty it's not possible anymore.

As you can see from my signature (and way to write :D) I'm Finn, and we dont have death penalty here. I also expect that 95% from you are from US, and in there... how many it was, in 38 states, you have that terrible human rights pl breach allowed in law. I dont know is it better, but in here we spend lot more money to people that have lost their freedom (= are in jail right now), so in here killing them would be cheper (it is counted). By the way, is it allowed to kill children in US? Just asking, 'cause I dont know that.

The only way that I think death penalty is ok, is, that if somebody would have made so terrible thing, that >50% of worlds people are ready to kill that same person by own hands. Luckily I think it's not possible.

Well, about 7 years ago, right after the September 11 attack, I did post on the internet asking if there is anyone against sending Bin Ladin to the chair. Only one person is against it, and the reason he is against sending Bin Ladin to the chair is because it is too HUMANE way for him to die.

My point is that people have some view on death penalty, but it is merely a self-identity issues, not really a death penalty issue.

My experience is that people generally are against death penalty...because the idea makes them feel good about themselves. It has little to do with real practical issue. When it comes that real evil person doing real evil deed, people will be more practical and change their mind.

What always bothers me about this sort of argument is that those who are against the death penalty almost immediately try to seize the moral high ground with talk about 'descending to their level', and that those who are in favor of the death penalty are inclined to let them - the only moral argument you hear is that it's morally neutral to execute a criminal.

To pull out some Kant, let's say that it's actually those who would choose not to execute the murderer that are sinking to his level. You're both utterly failing to give someone what they deserve, that being the very definition of justice. The murderer's victim deserved not to be killed, and the murderer deserves to die (in line with the categorical imperative). There's a case to be made that someone who wouldn't execute a murderer is just as culpable as he is.

Come on people, don't give away the moral high ground.

Also, Locke's social contract doesn't really say anything one way or the other on the death penalty. The whole point of the thing is that you're in a -contract-. When you violate it, the state can punish you by restricting your life, liberty, and property.

Edit: I note that alpha's post was more sophisticated than I at first thought, so I'm going to expand on that last bit.

What I object to is the idea that society somehow legitimizes murder by engaging in execution. The reasoning for this strikes me as somewhat questionable. You say that "In taking a life for a life, the society is admitting that taking a life can be okay, which removes any sort of authority the society had over that individual." Would you also agree that society can't choose to imprison someone whose only crime is to lock innocent people in cells? As well, isn't the very act of imprisoning a murderer an admission that imprisonment is okay, which removes society's authority to punish those who imprison?

It also seems rather senseless to maintain that society isn't approving of an action when it imprisons a person, removing them from society for some period of time, but is de facto approving it when they remove them from society permanently.

What you're missing is that these arguments are simply forceless against anyone who believes that an action can be moral or immoral depending on the moral standing of the object of that action. Society doesn't need to operate by categoricals such as "killing is wrong", and it makes perfect sense to phrase our categoricals in different ways, such as "intentionally killing one who has not committed murder is wrong", "killing one who has committed murder is okay", and then defining murder recursively as intentionally killing one who has not committed murder, with the understanding that no one is born having committed murder. The first intentional killing qualifies as murder, but the execution of this person does not.

Such a view doesn't make for as nice of a sound bite, but it's perfectly consistent with everything but some strains of utilitarianism.

Sorry for the length, but I'm almost done.

This is actually the whole problem with trying to define morality via categoricals (such as thou shalt not kill) - which categoricals do you pick?  Sure, if you've chosen "killing is wrong", then you can say that the state sinks to the level of the murderer.  If you've chosen "intentional killing of those who have not commited murder is wrong", then there's no problem.  And there's no real way to tell which one is better.

FYI there are a lot of Americans who are against the death penalty.  In fact, that number has now risen (according to this study: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/CoC.pdf ) to where we are evenly divided on the subject, and a solid majority feels a moratorium is warranted due to the number of problems that have been revealed with the death penalty (people freed from death row on DNA evidence, for example).  So firstly, keep this in mind when you are considering this issue in the U.S.

Secondly, it is not permitted that children be executed.  On very, very rare occasions of extremely serious crimes (multiple homicide usually) they will try 16- or 17-year-olds as adults and they can face the death penalty.  But these are very unusual cases.

Hopefully public opinon will continue on the trend toward more trepidation with regard to the death penalty, and the number of states that outlaw it will increase, and then hopefully a nationwide ban on what I consider to be a barbaric practice. 

Crono, I agree, death penalty in extreme cases only. Serial killers, brutal killers, etc that have 100% evidence should be killed.

the problem is not everything is 100% open and shut. there's that 1% doubt there sometimes. And sometimes that 1% could be DNA evidence.

Its just a really tough question.

To those who say the death penalty is 'stooping to the level of the killers', to me, that logic doesn't hold up. I could take the same logic and say that imprisoning a kidnapper is stooping to his level because we're forcing him to go somewhere against his will and forcing him to stay there... by this logic we shouldn't punish anyone who encroaches on the rights of another person (kidnapping, stealing, destroying property, inflicting injury, etc.) because we would be encroaching on the criminal's rights, therefore stooping to his level.

To those who say that 'killing is always wrong', what would you do if someone was about to kill your mother and the only way to stop the person was to kill him? If someone was about to rape and murder your sister, would you maybe risk killing that person to protect her? Don't preach to people that 'killing is always wrong' without concidering things like this. I don't like the idea of killing, and would not ever want to have to do it, but sometimes it IS necessary.