It's about time. State sponsored murder is still murder. And you can't take it back later if someone was put to death for something they didn't do.

I am sure there won't be a bunch of ridiculous arguments about how the Commonwealth needs to keep killing people. /s

Josslyn is insanely cute. wasn't expecting that. Honestly, the death penalty is a draconian practice. Good riddance.

They want to keep it as an opinion just in case there is a Republican governor again to use as a political stunt in an election year.

Keep it, no sense in paying tax dollars on people like dahmer

Do you entrust the Commonwealth with killing and executing people? I don't think so.

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Life without parole, even though taxpayers fund the upkeep for the prisoner is LESS EXPENSIVE than a death sentence. With a death sentence, there are years of mandatory appeals, with high priced suitable state funded defense teams, and the prisoner lives in more expensive accommodations due to increased security, sometimes for years, sometimes forever, until the death sentence is actually carried out. The biggest reason I always hear people use in support of the death penalty is not wanting to pay to support these people and to just be rid of them - but it is the more expensive option!

Meaningless legislation for a win. PA hasn’t executed anyone in 20+ years.

Rather see them vote on something meaningful like defunding police departments that actually kill innocent people. Not holding my breath.

Who is they

Republicans. You know the people who are pro death penalty.

We might as well take it off of the books. It's not like we use it anymore anyway.

https://ballotpedia.org/Fact_check/Is_the_death_penalty_more_expensive_than_life_in_prison#:~:text=The%20study%20found%20%E2%80%9CCombining%20all,but%20wasn't%5D.%E2%80%9D

"In the six states that have abolished capital punishment over the past decade, Republican and Democratic officials have also emphasized the cost of the death penalty as a major rationale. Even in states that retain the punishment, cost has played a central role in the conversion narratives of conservative lawmakers, public officials, and others who question the death penalty as a waste of taxpayer dollars.[4][5]"

It doesn't have to be one or the other

Sure it doesn’t have to be, but isn’t that always the response?

There hadn't been a federal execution in 17 years...then trump was elected and he got that ball rolling again. We don't need that in our state. Pass the legislation and take it off the table completely.

Also, "defund the police" is a horrible slogan and provided Republicans with a major, although fake, talking point. "Police reform" is what should have been used right from the start. Polls show even some republican voters agree with that.

Then get rid of the mandatory appeals

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What I hear you saying is we need an express lane added!

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I was just about to post the same - so if the “bottom line” trumps any moral imperative, there you have it.

What I hear you saying is that you believe the government should have the authority to kill it's citizens. Too many innocent people have been executed.

I completely agree with you, I think killing is wrong, whether by a person, or a government.

Isn't it weird how the anti-government crowd is also pro-government violence?

The real anti-government crowd (anarchists) are very anti-government violence. The Republicans are just anti "government I don't personally benefit from."

Death penalty is purely retribution and that's not what we as a society be about, with one exception. I'm kinda 50/50 on one particular crime though, and that is crimes against humanity by ringleaders. Someone like Hitler could be locked away for eternity, but I also have a primal desire for people like him to be publicly executed.

Like a baby?

Yes, a baby, outside of the womb, living on its own.

No that is the absolute thing we don't want. If you want to argue for the state ending someone's life you should want to be absolutely sure of guilt and that the legal process was above board. Which even now the current process is only so so at. Arguing for an express lane gives up the ghost you care about the spectical not justice.

What does infanticide have to do with this? Are you lost?

I don't think the Republicans have even pretended much on the whole fake libertarian thing since Trump was elected, with anarchists there's at least a chance they run a FNB and can give local people a hot meal

I get what you are saying. I see that you were downvoted. I am anti-death penalty but then when we have extreme cases of human depravity like Hitler I think perhaps the death penalty would be appropriate in those cases. But then again does it make them a martyr to their followers and foster more of their ideology?

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Cool. So what happens when you speed up the process and now have people killed by the state that turned out to be innocent?

I like “Retrain the police.”

So up until they are two or three years old?

Pro-State Murder. Hot take buddy.

If you rely on life-in-prison being cheaper as the reason why the death penalty is wrong, then they’ll just try to make the death penalty cheaper in order to justify using it more.

I don’t trust the state with the power to execute it’s own citizens. We’ve all seen what can go wrong when they have that power. That’s why I think the death penalty is wrong.

Awkward position for the pro life crowd to have to explain

No. Killing people is bad, actually

The people you're thinking about are not actually pro-life, just pro-birth. They don't care what happens after birth.

Not quite. I understand Reddit is primarily a left-wing platform, so I will tread lightly and try to be as clear and concise as possible to explain.

You can be both pro-life and pro death penalty in a legal sense. Pro-life in common vernacular today means you are opposed to abortion because it is murder. This means a pro-life person equates abortion with murder, so we have to define murder. Murder is the unlawful killing of a person with malice and/or aforethought. A person who commits mass murder or s*xual assault and is convicted of it in a court of his/her peers and is sentenced to death would by definition not be an “unlawful killing”. Conversely, the killing of a child in the womb would fit the bill of not only premeditated, but unlawful since the child did not have its day in court and thus would be considered innocent since it was not proven guilty.

Personally, I believe in protecting life from the beginning until the natural death, but that is due to faith reasons. You can support the death penalty and be against the murder of children all while being logically and legally consistent.

If you want me to be honest, I always found this to awkward for the pro-choice side. They seem pretty gung-ho about saving the lives of people convicted of the most heinous crimes possible instead of children who have not only no ability to commit the crimes mentioned, but also no ability to speak in their own defense. I respect the desire for forgiveness, but I do not think the fair route is redirecting the violence towards those with nothing yet to forgive.

I am happy to hear your thoughts.

That's not the only reason, it's just one of them because so many people who are pro death penalty think that it's more expensive to imprison someone for life than to execute them.

Yes, great idea. Strip people of their constitutional rights so we can put them to death and then later say...oops, turns out this other person did it. Our bad. Here's a bunch of taxpayer money in a settlement.

I'm on board with this. Not because of a bleeding heart but cold pragmatism. Death sentences most commonly turn into life sentences anyway, but death requires so many more court appearances for appeals that use the limited resources the system has.

I'll just let your lengthy complicated faith based response rest as is.

☝️This right here ☝️is one of the biggest problems with the death penalty. Yes we have DNA, and yes we have forensics we didn't have even a decade ago, but getting a court to approve tests IF evidence hasn't been lost or destroyed is difficult. Unfortunately, if they get their appeal heard, the upper courts seem to not want to rock the boat and order a case reheard.

You don't have to have a bleeding heart to not want the wrongfully convicted to be put to death.

Okay, thanks! Have a good day.

That’s fair. I just think that people rely too heavily on the “life-in-prison is cheaper” argument. I can understand leading with that argument, but you shouldn’t end it there.

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Even with the current slow process, there have been plenty of examples of people being proved innocent after the government killed them. Imagine how much worse it’d be if it was a quick process.

Put a loved one into that situation. They literally didn’t commit a crime. They go through the whole process and they put them to death for a crime that they didn’t commit. A few years later, they come out and say they made a mistake, someone else did it. If they were still alive, at least they could be let free. But they’re dead you can’t take that back. They killed your mother/father/sister/brother/son/daughter because the other side had better lawyers and was trying to get a good conviction rate. That’s fucked. Putting one family through that is not worth killing to guilty people. And it’s already a whole lot more than just one family with the current process.

I think a lot of that stems from the uninformed who think it's cheaper to execute than to imprison for life. Some of those uninformed will then go on to argue that the appeals process should be changed so the state can expedite murder of a citizen. And they willfully ignore the fact that many who were wrongfully convicted no longer have the chance to appeal because the state killed them. Sometimes due to a technicality in which new evidence is still ignored.

I respect your beliefs.

I don't believe a fetus is human w rights before they exit the womb. I believe medical professionals are best qualified to make decisions involving health and human life. Moral and ethical considerations they make daily.

You can respect mine by not passing legislation that restricts my beliefs. There is a huge right wing industry built upon grass roots efforts to take my rights away and restrict my beliefs.

Not meaningless. Outlawing capital punishment would save the state millions of dollars in the legal fees it costs to even seek the death penalty. Trials and subsequent appeals in capital punishment cases costs taxpayers millions.

Of course, pro-state murder proponents call for an end to appeals, which quite frankly scares the fucking shit out of me.

Sometimes they put the wrong person in jail, you can’t take it back if you killed them.

Let’s see how many “pro-life” Republicans vote against it.

I'd be fine with this if child predators and child murderers are put in general population.

What if it is more of a spacial reason. Who wants another prison in their area. How many more trees are we going to cut down?

One could argue in making our current prisons taller on the same foot print for increased space.

What if death is what the victim/family feel is justice. If you murdered my child in your rape/homicide spree, I would want you dead. I would personally like to make that happen but that isn't what a civilized society does. We let the court system decide and administer the humane, expensive, 3 round shot series if sentenced to death.

If I remember correctly no one has been sentenced to death in PA since the 70's?

I would argue that is different tbh that is because Hitler isn't part of society, he wants to be society.

What if we make more room for people who truly should in prison by setting free people who are there for minor offenses like marijuana possession? Then we don't have to build new ones.

Before Trump there had been no federal executions for 17 years. All it takes is the "right" person in office to crank up that death machine again. 1999 was the last execution in PA.

And last time I checked, I don't believe our legal system allows victims of a crime to decide the punishment - nor should it.

Personally, I am not relying on this, nor suggesting it as a reason. I simply wanted to record those facts for use to dispel others who come back to you and say “but I don’t want my taxes paying to support the person in prison for life”. Personally I don’t want my taxes paying to murder anyone, so that is why I am against the death penalty. It is state sanctioned murder.

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I agree with more room by releasing minor offenses, a lot of places do this right now.

I was speaking on state executions which I believe was in the 70's, I could be wrong but PA hasn't sentenced anyone to death in a long time. Edit I just reread your comment, 1999 got it ty for the update.

Our legal system does not allow the victims to determine. We live in a civilized society as I said, the judge determines the sentences after the accused is judged by 12 of their peers.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_M._Heidnik

There have been 3 executions by the state of PA since 1976. All were in the 90s during the Tom Ridge administration.

I'm glad we can agree that there are many imprison who don't belong there. Now if only prisons weren't operated for profit that might not be as big an issue as it is.

> I am happy to hear your thoughts.

Your reasoning seems to contradict itself since you hinge your definition on the idea of lawful/unlawful. So on one end you're saying that executions are fine because it's legal to carry them out, but abortion is not because it's "unlawful" in your opinion... despite the actual laws at this time.

Ty for the sauce.

That is the biggest problem, the privatized prisons.

The last time someone on death row was executed was in the last century.

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World leaders would be too dangerous to keep alive. That exception makes sense.

Whos trolling? They can't take care of themselves until maybe 3 years old. I'm sorry you can't handle the truth.

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It will allow them to see more sunrises than their victims. Get to still see their families as well

No, your point was not valid and weak.

Literally no one is on with killing babies. We know that's not what you're referring to though, you're just a weak troll who can't grasp nuances or ideas without knee jerking arguments.

I only support the death penalty for large scale financial crimes. Unlike violent crimes, complex financial fraud schemes are never impulsive or committed in the heat of the moment. They are deliberate and premeditated. By their very nature, they require a knowledge of guilt and a willingness to carry out their actions over a long period of time.

Additionally, the motivation to commit financial crimes is entirely selfish and is done in the direct interest of the perpetrators. They assume the risks of being caught and charged because the benefits are high, while the chances of being convicted are dependent upon several factors. Even when convicted, the sentences are often much lower than those given to violent offenders. Ultimately, the penalties are perceived as merely the costs of doing business.

Now, imagine that instead we mandated the death penalty when financial crimes reached a threshold. For simplicity, sake, we can use the lifetime median earnings for the state or nation where the crime was committed.

If you make a median salary of roughly $50,000 per year and you work for at least 20 years, you will end up with a lifetime earning of about $1,650,000. Let’s assume you work from the age of 15, and retire on your 65th birthday; half a century of labor ought to be enough for anyone. We double the original figure and round up to an even $4 million. That’ll be our threshold.

The collapse of Enron, for example, involved more than $60 billion in assets. That’s well above the threshold; it is our threshold times 15,000. Now, imagine all of the co-conspirators who were directly involved and responsible for the decisions to commit massive amounts of fraud. Surely that number is fewer than 15,000.

Would everyone involved in this scheme be willing to go along with it if they knew that they would be executed if convicted? Would it still be worth the risk? Would all of those self-interested, greedy, and distrustful people be comfortable with that kind of risk, knowing that all it would take is one brave whistleblower to bring it all crashing down?

I doubt it.

Under this legal framework, the likely response when someone proposes doing something illegal with large amounts of money would be “No, Bob, I won’t cook the books for you. That’s a lot of money you’re dealing with, and I have a family. I’m not willing to die just so you can make a quick buck. Find someone else!”

The death penalty does not work as an effective deterrent against violent crimes, but when applied to financial crime? I’d like to give it the college try, and see what happens.

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Your only written argument is legality as if that gives weight to morality and your faith based belief is irrelevant because it doesn't give you the right to infringe on others beliefs.

Also, fetuses aren't "children". They do not have personhood.

Your religious beliefs are political propaganda and there are no holy texts that says anything about the personhood of fetuses. Not that you've actually read it.

Fucking. Next.

Death penalty is more expensive to pursue than life in prison without parole.

>Personally, I believe in protecting life from the beginning until the natural death, but that is due to faith reasons.

OK cool, so you're in favor of providing cradle to grave health care, food, and shelter on the tax payers dime then?

See how easy it is to respect someone else's beliefs.

Please advise the GOP there is no assault on christianity. It's folks pressing their right to choose not to be Christian, or religious at all, that are the troublemakers and their rights are as expressly protected as any in the "original" constitution the Supreme Court claims to interpret strictly.

We haven't carried out the death penalty in the state since 1999 with Gary Heidnik being the last person put to death in the state after he waved his appeals and requested the execution be carried out.

It's a massive financial drain on the state to keep it on the books, it doesn't deter crime, and provably innocent people have been executed by the government before.

Life without parole is perfectly capable of keeping dangerous people removed from society while also giving the chance to release those who were convicted incorrectly.

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Life in prison would be effective for financial crimes and there'd be no state sponsored murder.

Nothing is going to deter crime 100%.

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And the wrongfully convicted who are put to death don't get to see anymore sunrises or their families.

You're welcome and agreed!

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> Nothing is going to deter crime 100%.

Interesting counterpoint. Could you show me where in my comment I asserted that my goal was to “deter crime 100%”? Why must that be a standard, and what is your basis for it?

> Life in prison would be effective for financial crimes and there'd be no state sponsored murder.

What is your best evidence in support of that claim?

Where is your evidence that the death penalty would be any more effective than life in prison for financial crimes?

I didn't claim that you were asserting that something was going to deter crime 100%, my point is the state shouldn't be fucking murdering people because no matter what the penalty is people are still going to commit crimes. And if the state isn't murdering people then there's no chance that someone who is wrongly convicted is going to be murdered.

It's not that fucking hard. The state shouldn't kill people. Period.

So then, just to be clear you are making a moral claim and are entirely inflexible on the matter, correct?

A government this fallible should not have the power of life and death

Im a big supporter of the death penalty. If you kill someone,a baby,a animal,rape someone, are a abusive p.o.s,drive drunk/high and kill someone, burn someone's house down out of spite and kill someone,sex trafficking ect you deserve the death penalty. You don't deserve to breathe air.

If there is a chance that a wrongfully convicted person can be put to death then there is no way to give that person's life back after the punishment has been administered. If there is no death penalty then there is no chance that the state is going to murder someone who did not commit the crime for which they have been convicted and sentenced.

I understand that perspective. Could you please answer my question? A simple yes or no would be fine.

the state shouldn't sponsor any form of murder or abortion.

Plus if you don't execute the prisoners the For Profit Prisons have a dependable workforce.

You'd attack and punish me more for disagreeing with you than a person that ended someone else's life? makes sense.

If a person committed such crimes against the innocent that a jury found them guilty and they were sentenced to death, then that’s what should happen

Who the hell is attacking and punishing you? What, are people mean on the Internet?

Yeah... prisoners shouldn't be the workforce and that's not a good argument at all.

The state doesn't sponsor abortion, folks just want the state to get between women and their doctor when it comes to healthcare.

Also, fetuses don't have personhood.

Fucking, next. Weak

it's okay, it's just the internet. words shouldn't trigger you into a meaningless rant. it's okay buddy, relax.

Oh for sure, I did feel attacked and punished 😆

Can you name some in PA who have been proven innocent after they were executed recently? I mean I'm not even sure when the last time we executed anyone in PA, but say in the last 40 years - has it actually happened that someone was executed and later found to be innocent?

The death penalty is wrong in my opinion. And I agree with you. But what is also wrong is letting inmates out of prison before their sentence is up. One of your guys law makers is a all for letting inmates out early who are not reformed. If you're gonna do away with death penalty, then keep inmates in prison til their sentence is over. I work in a prison and am not from there, but my family is and I follow your guys news daily.

your life choices took you on that path

Are you really still continuing this after a bullshit sarcastic reply? This is fun, I kinda wanna see how long we can do this. Maybe we'll be best friends at the end.

Capital punishment doesn't deter premeditated violent crime. I appreciate your thinking but I don't think it holds water

They're also anti government they DO benefit from, unless it harms someone they think is lesser than them

You're the one whining about being "punished" lol lmao conservatives

> Capital punishment doesn't deter premeditated violent crime.

Yes, agreed. Did you even read the first paragraph? Or like, the first sentence? That was exactly the point I was driving at and I provided an explanation for why it doesn’t.

> I appreciate your thinking but I don't think it holds water

So you agree, but you don’t think the argument “holds water.” Okay. What am I supposed to do with this opinion?

I could have made my point more clear. What I mean to say is, because we know it doesn't deter a premeditated violent crime, I'm pretty sure it will also not deter a premeditated large scale financial crime and that is why I say the theory doesn't hold water. My greater implication being that the death penalty doesn't help in basically any way, there's no benefits that aren't based on emotional responses

I do agree with your point that something like that affects way way way more people and at larger scales than any isolated violent action. Steal $50 with a gun and you're away for 20, steal $50M with a Ponzi scheme and you're put away for a couple years at best

> because we know it doesn't deter a premeditated violent crime, I'm pretty sure it will also not deter a premeditated large scale financial crime

Why?

I provided a clear explanation of how these crimes are different. They are not at all alike. Financial crimes are dispassionate both in their planning and in their execution. Violent crimes, even when premeditated, are passionately executed (pardon the pun). The motivations for violence are entirely different than the motivations for financial crime. Wanting someone dead is very different from wanting to enrich oneself. The motive for financial crime is rooted in financial gain. Violent crime is not.

Even if you do not agree in principle, surely you can recognize these differences are real.

We probably both agree that the death penalty as it is currently applied is not effective. We may also agree that the injustice of killing the wrongfully accused outweighs any possible benefit to society. On moral principles, we may also agree that the state shouldn’t have the power to condemn people to die.

What remains a matter of speculation is whether or not people would willfully engage in large scale financial crimes if the penalties were absolute.

I don't know if we have the data out there to prove it conclusively. If we do I'm not aware of it to be honest. But I do know that negative reinforcement in general doesn't work, and so I expect that trend to hold true for financial crime regardless of the severity of the punishment

That’s a fair point. From a policy position, the most effective approach would be to eliminate the conditions that make financial crimes a viable option. One major obstacle, however, is that the people who tend to have institutional access to large sums of money tend to come from a caste of society who obtained intergenerational wealth. Show me a wealthy family, and I will show you a list of crimes and human rights abuses that got them there.

When people in poverty run the streets and organize, our criminal justice system is almost indiscriminate in their application of violence. When you are poor and get money through illicit means, the police will kick down doors and shoot before they even consider reading you your rights.

When wealthy criminals empty the retirement accounts of an entire generation, their lawyers get a letter in the mail: politely asking them if they wouldn’t mind please, maybe consider, if they have time, to sit for a deposition, with a lawyer present. It’s obscene, and feeds into the idea that their place in society is above the law.

The basic theory of justice is that the state has a monopoly on violence. And this theory only works when it is applied equally for the rich and poor alike.

hryh

I don't know any anarchists that claim that they don't get any benefit from the government. They're anti-government because of state violence, and either don't want the benefits that come from that, or believe we can get similar benefits another way.

This is a load of shit. Death sentence is only expensive because of a bunch of bureaucracy. This will embolden people like the asshole parkland shooter and the asshole buffalo shooter.

wasnt aware i was conservative because i dont agree with you

isnt this all bullshit? i mean its a reddit post with 376 likes.

we aren't changing the world here lol

It's been a day! I missed you, I was afraid I wouldn't see you again🥺

Sorry.

Comcast was being difficult yesterday and didn't get to check the internet before work.

Hope you are well.

Anti abortion, pro judicial punishment, an asshole - all conservative qualities I see in you

Comcast being hot garbage is a topic every Pennsylvanian can agree with

My choices are Verizon DSL or Xfinity

i feel like i'm in a voting booth trying to pick which of the two terrible choices won't bite me in the ass after the current deal ends

i'm not anti abortion

did you get this all from a few random shit posts?

people's thoughts and ideas are fluid and can change.

you should know that from your degree in Gender Studies.

We've only got one where I live currently, windstream. Have you heard of Windstream? There's a reason for that....

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No i've never heard of Windstream

if i lived a few miles up the road i could have Blue Ridge

Yup, they've got a monopoly on the area because they lobby to keep their infrastructure the only option to use around here. It doesn't matter that they're terrible because there's no other option.

Companies like T-Mobile get around that by using hotspots and cell towers but that's only gonna work if there's land available to compete with!

it still amazes me a basic internet connection isn't a right.

Could be worse if that merger with AT&T,Comcast and Time Warner took place.