Fair or Functional?

Once again, common sense flows from your reasoning and that reasoning reflects the view, I believe, of most American conservatives.

Capital punishment was meant to be the "nuclear weapon" of crime deterence. If it was absolutely understood you would die if you committed such a crime, you would think very long and hard about doing so. But, the everlasting appeals process, the willingness for judges to give very light, reformative sentences, and the unwillingness of citizens to step up and do the right thing have made the deterent aspects of the death penalty almost mute. Being stripped of its original purpose, I, too, have no qualms in using death as a means of securing safety for the law obiding. If we made the appeals top priority and exhausted the process within, say, 90 days, and then proceeded with a firing squad in full public view, the deterent quality would, once again, become a relevant cause for the penalty of death. Otherwise, use it for a practical purpose instead. It all washes out as the same color, one less bad guy to fear.

Thanks for your insight.
Glenn Flowers

Thanks for the kind words.

I agree that the endless appeals, not to mention the possibility that the Supreme Court may again nix the death penalty for all states, makes the deterrent aspect pretty useless at the moment.

Of course, as I said here, and in an earlier post (http://andrews.blogtownhall.com/2008/01/15/compassionate_execution.thtml), even if we deter no one else, the man executed is certainly never going to kill again, so there is always SOME deterrent effect.

Thanks for all the posts recently, and I look forward to hearing form you again.