ToshiroOC

What do you think about the death penalty? Do you support it or are you against it? Why?

The following is a bit of information about what countries allow the death penalty:

* Afghanistan
* Algeria
* Antigua and Barbuda
* Armenia
* Bahamas
* Bahrain
* Bangladesh
* Barbados
* Belarus
* Belize
* Benin
* Botswana
* Burundi
* Cameroon
* Chad
* China (People's Republic)
* Comoros
* Congo (Democratic Republic)
* Cuba
* Dominica
* Egypt
* Equatorial Guinea
* Eritrea
* Ethiopia
* Gabon
* Ghana
* Guatemala
* Guinea
* Guyana
* India
* Indonesia
* Iran
* Iraq
* Jamaica
* Japan
* Jordan
* Kazakhstan
* Kenya
* Korea, North
* Korea, South
* Kuwait
* Kyrgyzstan
* Laos
* Lebanon
* Lesotho
* Liberia
* Libya
* Malawi
* Malaysia
* Mauritania
* Mongolia
* Morocco
* Myanmar
* Nigeria
* Oman
* Pakistan
* Palestinian Authority
* Philippines
* Qatar
* Rwanda
* St. Kitts and Nevis
* St. Lucia
* St. Vincent and the Grenadines
* Saudi Arabia
* Sierra Leone
* Singapore
* Somalia
* Sudan
* Swaziland
* Syria
* Taiwan
* Tajikistan
* Tanzania
* Thailand
* Trinidad and Tobago
* Tunisia
* Uganda
* United Arab Emirates
* United States of America
* Uzbekistan
* Vietnam
* Yemen
* Zambia
* Zimbabwe

To me, the United States of America really sticks out like a sore thumb in that list...

For more information, go to the Death Penalty Information Center, and this list of countries and associated death penalty policies. I will post my personal views on the subject later... and please vote in the poll!

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GOG

For once we agree

bluelight

As far as i know Japan has it in law but do not practice it .

Yes they do stick out in that collection.Death penaly is medieval and is the result of the misconception that man has got a mission from God tp repalce him anfd that by killing a murderer you would actually heal the wounds of those suffring from being victims.


It is also fairly simple to see this reasoning by looking at what countries that do...use death penalty.99 percent of them belongs to the third world where democarcy and knowledge among common peole is less high than in other places....

So...i really dont understand what an enlightened nation as Usa has to do in this company.

BlueLight



BlueLight

Dom

I'm against the death penalty - I just don't think any person or Government has the right to take another persons life away.

Falstaff

Living in Japan for six years, one of my duties was to visit all american prisoners in solitary confinement. Upon entering a japanese prison you become familiar with all aspects of the japanese penal system. I also became aware, after discussions with prison officials that the death penalty is sanctioned by the government, but rarely practiced. In 1993, three occured, and the fourth was delayed pending a retrial and appeal. Protests against the death penalty are common, and each successive government has delicately sidestepped the issue of addressing capital punishement. It was discovered after retrial of many prisoners that confessions were obtained under extreme duress, (torture). According to popular thinking in Japan, the death penalty and capital punishment is repugnant, no doubt from their experiences during the WW2, with their secret police, who had the authority to mete out a death sentence without trial like the samurai of old...
And unfortunately the Japanese find the process of trial, confinement and execution in the USA terribly complicated and too popular as well. I told the japanese officials stories of famous executions and attempted to justify the punishment according to the crimes they commited. But those I talked to were raised as Bhuddists and were adamant opposed to execution. Better to die of old age in a cell rather than at the hands of an executioner. I think, based on my limited knowlege of Bhuddism and Shinto practices, that if you take a life before the prisoner has a chance to atone for their "sins" or crimes, their spirits haunt the surface of the earth. I tried to make a good argument from the Christian point of view, i.e. "eye for an eye", etc. but my arguments were readily dismissed. Americans are still considered unenlightened barbarians in terms of dealing with complicated issues like capital punishment. The japanese don't come right and say it, but they told me in so many words, that americans were hypocrates and lacked consistency, siting the different laws from state to state regarding capital punishment, and were shocked when I told them that foriegners were executed in the US as well.

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Dom

It sure does. Almost all of the countries listed are ones that America and Americans look down upon for the way they treat their people. Yet will still practice capital punishment, which is really the one thing American has in common with any of those countries. I would think America would want nothing in common with them.

JavaFox

The Japanese still use hanging as a form of execution; they shouldn't be pointing fingers. At any rate, I struggle with this issue --part of me sees the death penalty as the only appropriate punishment sometimes-- but I am generally opposed to the death penalty. Shocked? My big gripe is that the dealth penalty is irreversible. It is sometimes too cruel (really, do we need to execute using electricity?) but also too lenient at times. A life of hard labor is much worse than a chemical cocktail that peaceably brings you to death. Capital punishment just has too many problems for me to support it. Prison and punishment reform is more important

Falstaff

yes the japanese that I worked with could clearly see that regardless of crime, the soul of the accused was important.

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raid517

Well I agree with JavaFox on that one. Death is too easy for some of these guys. Get them to break rocks 18 hours a day every day for the next 60 years. Maybe they will have cause to think about the error of their ways? Maybe they can make peace with their God? Maybe some new evidence might crop up to prove them innocent? Not much you can do about that if they are dead...

Q

Falstaff

The governer of Illinois suspended the death penalty and overturned sentences on all deathrow inmates, because of numerous errors that were made by the attorney general, attorneys for the defence and prosecuters on so many cases. DNA further proved that innocence of a significant number of inmates (african american). this was a bold decision, and very very unpopular with the families of the victems seeking justice...

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ByteMe

I don't think we kill anywhere near enough of the rotten bastards.

Louie6666

Just a short irelevant note:

UK still has death penalty for Treason & Arson in a Royal Dock Yard, and the Queen has to commute the the sentance if its passed!

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UberLord

Hackney cabs still have to carry a bale of hay - by law.
Actually, iirc, that law was removed a year or so back. But it goes to show that everyone has some silly laws somewhere

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UberLord

How would you feel if you were on death row? I'm sure that many guys at many forums wish you were from time 2 time

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Falstaff

like Byteme, I am sure he could work off his sentence somehow, ha ha

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Falstaff

Although nearly 100 foreign nationals have been sentenced to death since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976, none was executed until Carlos Santana of the Dominican Republic in Texas in 1993. Two days later, Ramon Montoya of Mexico was also executed in Texas. Montoya's execution was met with outrage and street protests in Mexico, which strongly opposes the death penalty. Mexico then began to try to intervene at earlier stages of death penalty cases. A fundamental problem became clear: neither Mexico nor the many defendants of Mexican citizenship had been notified at the time of arrest of their rights under the Vienna Convention. Research revealed at least 38 Mexican citizens on death rows across the U.S., and that a similar number of citizens from other countries, had also been sentenced to death without proper consular notification.

The issue reached the highest courts of both the U.S. and the world with the pending execution of Angel Breard in Virginia in 1998. Like most of the other foreign nationals on death row, Breard was not informed of his consular rights when arrested for murder in 1992. Breard was a citizen of Paraguay who had come to the U.S. in 1986.
At trial, he had rejected the advice of his appointed American lawyers, refusing a plea agreement offered by the state and insisting on testifying in his own defense. Breard admitted his involvement in the crime, but claimed he was compelled by a satanic curse placed on him by his father-in-law.74 While such an admission may have garnered leniency in a Paraguayan court, here it sealed his fate. Advice from his consulate about these distinctions might have made a critical difference. Instead, he was found guilty and sentenced to death in 1993.

On a more disturbing note, some juveniles are also destined for capital punishment as well, this is perhaps a greater tragedy because it is well know that african americans cannot recieve the same quality of representation unless they can afford a high priced lawyer, there are no Melvin Bellies defending tennagers that are sentenced as well....

What if we find that the killer of young women in Juarez Mexico is a teenage gang member, american and rich, what are his chances? certainly better than a poor american teenager in Mexico, and if the same crime occured here, what are the political ramifications?

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ToshiroOC

Under the Vienna Convention? I was under the impression that was the convention where a bunch of people from Austria, Prussia, Russia, Britain, and France got together and decided what to do with France in the post-Napoleonic-war period Mettermich, Talleyrand, and so on and so forth...

EDIT: Perhaps you mean the Geneva Convention?

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raid517

I think maybe Jeff means the Vienna Consular Convention:


http://www.un.org/law/ilc/texts/consul.htm

It's what governs the rights of citizens of other nations to consular representation. You need to know this if your ever abroad and you get screwed by the authorities there.

Q

ToshiroOC

I think too far back in history

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raid517

The Geneva convention primarily addresses the rights of prisoners of war.

http://www.asociety.com/geneva1.html

Which makes me wonder at the legality of holding prisoners without trial at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Apparently these rules should apply even if one party does not recognise that a state of war exists. This rule was met by the Afghan Taliban immediately prior to the war when they declared a Jehad against America just before the invasion. Either way I don't get it. How can you hold people without trial and deny them their rights under the Geneva convention? The only other regimes in history to do this were the far right fascist regimes of Adolf Hitler, and Tojo's Japan, but even then old Adolf pretty much stuck to it when it came to enemy POW's. He did build concentration camps and inter anyone he suspected of being his own personal enemy without trial, most of whom were civilians. So what is the difference in this instance? I'm not saying that America is going to start gassing these people any time soon, but when you are held for an indefinite period, without trial or representation and allowed only 3 hours exercise a week, this at least requires that you should be able to answer for whatever crime you are accused of. At least under all normal standards of what governs decent human behaviour you should. Perhaps however there are other laws in the US that govern the detention of suspected terrorists? I wonder how big these camps will become when the war with Iraq is over, or indeed when all these wars are over?

Of course the problem with this is that this would require an official definition of what terrorism is. Unfortunately the U.S. cannot agree to a definition of terrorism, because it would preclude the use of "low-intensity conflict", which is just terrorism by another name. The fact is that the U.S. reserves itself the right to use LIC to destabilize regimes it doesn't like (like Central America in the 80'S) or to protect its national interests. This is why the U.S. has used its veto to kill UN resolutions that would have defined terrorism, and still opposes any such definition, although the official reasons is that such resolutions exclude rebels and freedom fighters fighting against occupation from this definition. That would be a valid argument if the U.S. didn't support these so-called "freedom fighters" when they are furthering the national interest (i.e. contras in Nicaragua and Mujahedeens in Afghanistan).

Lol anyway, I think I have strayed into new territory again. This may well be the subject for yet another thread I think? It was just the mention of the Geneva Convention that got me going. Sorry guys...

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bluelight

Guantanamo and the way things are run there is a clear crime against the Geneva convention and also other international laws.

The reason why they are held at Guantanamo is that if...they would have been held in USA they would have been forced to charge asnd convict these prisoners

But for some reason they prefer to keep them in Chicken cages just like the Serbs did to the Bosnians.....nobody understands for what purpose but they do.....Funny dudes....


I read about one innocent prisoner that was released after a year when they finally let him go....

He was sent to Pakistan...and given one hudred dollars.......and not a single comment...no excuse ...no nothing....

This dude had been transportataed in a container for three days..on aircrafts practically chained and blindfolded..etc etc...and had passed a year in a chicken cage outside....


Well if this is the way one handles an oinnocent when released then.....




BlueLight

ByteMe

Depends on if you were my cell-mate or not.

ByteMe

A new list;


France
Germany
Iraq
North Korea



Countries that do not want the USA to attack Iraq.

Louie6666

And what relevence does this have to the thread ?

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ByteMe

That the "list" of a bunch of countries that did/did not do whatever had no relevence.

bluelight

It is an answer to what i write about Usa not confirming to international treaties.Byte me thinks it is the full right of Usa to break international treaties at will.Therefore he is trying in his way to say France ..etc has done so too...

But he has no idea what he is talking about because in this case none of these countries have broken any international treaties.To him that is not relenvant though.

The one relevanty thing is what the propaganda he eats for breakfast says..

He is just continuing to spit out the propaganda he has heard in media about " the real enemy" who is no longer Iraq but more France and Germany.

In his world it would be relevant to bomb Paris and Berlin and charge their leaders for treason.In his world all power goes out from Washington and everyone is under the law of USA.


BlueLight

Smoothdrive

@ByteMe..you forgot Belgium in your list

Death sentence is something for more barbaric countries..any civilised country doe not have death penalties..the US still has them but is on it's way of getting rid of it.

I can understand the emotion of people in favour of death penalty..it is my believe however that many are killed innocent by death penalty..especially in countries where there is a jury-based court or a dictatorship. A lock-up for life can be undone when new facts arise..a death penalty can never be undone. And how many are sentenced without even the slightest doubt ??

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Highwood

I’ve always thought that the death penalty is extremely wasteful. Murders should instead pay their debt to society by being used as organ donors.

ByteMe

And just where have I said that? You damn pseudo intellects are all the same. You get pissed when you can't prove why your feelings are right. Do me a favor and rip out your bleeding heart and give it to the Iraq people to eat. At least in this way you might do something in this world some good.

raid517

Lol, so the Iraqi's are all cannibals now??? Damn, that's just another reason to kill 'em all. The crazy bunch of SOBs that they are!

Q