Death to the Death Penalty?
A note of caution. All religious issues are put aside in this discussion. This discussion is purely academic.
Dear readers,
Imagine this. If the murderers are punished by the death penalty, then is it right to say that a rapist should be raped, a thief should be robbed and an arsonist house should be burned in order to ‘justify’ the crimes commited?
Gandhi should be right then. An eye for an eye only makes the world go blind.
Now again imagine this. What if the people on death row are really all innocent and hence do not deserve to die. Can the judge who sentenced the death penalty on them be accused of murder? In the first place, what is a murder? It is strange when an individual kills it is called a murder but when a hired government worker(a judge) decides to ‘kill’ a criminal it is called democracy.
So the death penalty is just a license to kill?
Statistics showed that over 80% of criminals put on death row could only managed to hired low cost lawyers to defend their cases. Richer criminals, having more purchasing power, have the ability to hire established and respected lawyers to defend them. Most of them escape the death sentence but had to live off the rest of their life in jail. Surely a life sentence in jail is more healthy than being sentenced to death.
So the death penalty has ‘financial flaws’.
Critic.
January 30, 2009 at 1:27 pm
berhubung persoalan yang anda timbulkan, jika pembunuh dihukum bunuh maka penjenayah/pesalah jenayah lain juga harus dihukum mengikut jenayah yang mereka lakukan?
pada pendapat saya wajar jika seseorang didapati bersalah melakukan jenayah dengan mempunyai motif yang tidak baik,membunuh dengan sengaja misalnya,patut dihukum bunuh juga. akan tetapi bagi jenayah lain seperti perogol dan pencuri tidak wajar dijatuhkan hukuman seperti jenayah yang dilakukan. perbuatan tersebut pada pandangan saya tidak bermoral. sebaliknya pesalah sebegini harus diberi hukuman di mana mereka akan serik untuk mengulangi kesilapan yang sama. jika tidak silap saya perogol atau pencuri di Singapura dikenakan hukuman penjara dan disebat. jika dilihat pada hukum hudud yang terdapat di dalam agama islam pula, pencuri/penyamun akan dipotong tangannya supaya pesalah tidak mengulangi kesalahannya. namun haruslah mengikut syrat yang ditetapkan. jika jumlah yang dicuri hanya 20sen tidaklah dijatuhkan hukum tersebut.
sampai di sini sahaja dahulu.(sebenarnya ada lagi yang ingin saya katakan namun masa tidak mengizinkan.)
January 30, 2009 at 4:43 pm
Hmm.. very interesting topic. But i think i’ll make this short..
1. Well, to me.. a person’s lives is priceless.. you can’t pay back their lives with other things. let’s say 1000 times of caning? or life-sentence? or even lifetime caning… it’s uncomparable to someone’s live. But what i am trying to say here is that, the sentence should be equal or similar to the consequences of the act and the impact on the victim’s life. I’m sorry if you can’t understand what i am trying to say.. but i just can’t express it in proper way.
2. Can the judge who sentenced the death penalty on them be accused of murder?
Okay, i will give you a question for you to ponder.. If the judge is accused of murder, then, will the judge be given death sentence too?? if the answer is yes, will the other judge who give the death sentence to the charged judge be given death sentence? and the list goes on…
Well, this is WORLD if you want to know… This is just my opininon and no other external parties are involved. No laptop was harm in the making of this Comments. =)
Last words from me,
There is no justice in this world.
There is no such thing as “justice is served”.
~FamousMonkey~
January 31, 2009 at 6:43 pm
Topic that is posted is pretty interesting.
In my own point if view, to be fair is somewhat impossible. Giving few examples, when one gives a punch to another there is no way for the latter to give an equivalent punch to the former. Same goes when a murderer kills one and he’s being charged with death penalty, just think is it the same killing action done upon the victim by the murderer? I don’t think so as according to law, death penalty is by executing only. Even this is unfair right? But somehow, we need a party to actually make a good and wise decision in order to make things stabilise and that is the judge.
As for “financial flaws”, we just could not refrain from it, when one has more money, he rules. Nowadays people always say “No Money, No Talk”. Furthermore, the judge closes the case by whatever evidences that are given by both the defendant and the plaintiff and that’s why the principle of innocent until proven guilty is prevailed.
Adding to it, i agree with Ms Bunga that sentence is meant to be a lesson to the criminal as not to redo the same old mistake all over again. As we all can see with our own naked eyes, whoever that are being sentence apart from death sentece, the victim is always still alive. Comparing to death sentence, the victim is dead and to bring up justice is to be equal in a sense that the criminal should be kill but referring to the above paragraph, justice could never be prevailed accordingly and wisely. In here, Im giving one article about a boy named James Bulger who was killed by two 10 years old boy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_James_Bulger
To me, this was absolutely outrageous! Poor kid.
To summarise all up, justice could never be uphold at all time accordingly and wisely. Well, this is only my point of view, Im open to any replies.
Thanks!