For last two years in Knoxville TN where I live the local news has been all about Lemaricus Davidson. It has been the most famous trial in our area because it was the most brutal crime that was ever recorded here. Lemaricus was the ring leader in a carjacking where a young couple was abducted. Chris was forced to watch while Shannon was raped over and over again. Then he was raped then they finished him off by setting him on fire. Shannon was kept alive a few days while they raped and torchered here. When they tired of her they poured bleach down her throat and then shattered her skeleton with a sledge hammer leaving her to die inside of a barrel. Friday the trial finally ended and Lemaricus was sentenced to die. The others involved where given life without parole. The death penalty is losing popularity as a punishment but I believe in extreme cases like this it is necessary to say if you commit such a heinous act you forfeit your own right to life.

Wow. It's appalling that people like this exist. It's the stuff that horror movies are made of, yet these kinds of people walk the streets among us in real life.

We had a big talk about the death penalty in the Debate and Discussion forum a short while ago. Most people seemed to be against it... but I have to admit, after something like this, you sort of want the monsters responsible to be wiped from existence.

Yeah horror movies the sad thing I think Jigsaw is nicer to his victims than that.

That's disgusting, how can you do that to someone?

the people that were against it were of the opinion what everyone could be rehabilitated....there's always the small problem that reality doesn't conform to people's beliefs.

here's to their slow painful deaths.

Sometimes I hate humanity.

In the Capital Punishment thread in the Debate Forum, I brought up the case of El Monstruo de los Andes, one of the most horrific cases in my country, where 300 girls where raped and murdered, as an example of cases where Death Penalty should be at least considered.

Death Penalty is a extreme punishment that should be reserved to extreme crimes where total disregard for human life is shown...

Sad thing, is that there are cases where Death Penalty seems to be the only punishment strong enough.

How in the world did somebody kill that many people and get away with it long enough to keep goin?

Wow. Wishing horrible death upon those who don't agree with your views (that happen to be about death penalty).

Classy.

I think the main crux of the argument coming from the anti-death-penalty folks was the idea that there are sometimes people convicted of crimes they didn't commit. With life in prison, the convict has the rest of their lives to try to prove their innocence. And I think that's a big reason why even now, people who are sentenced to death take so long to be put down.

You know, it all comes down to how you ask the question:

- Is it right to have the death penalty?
Highly debatable.

- Is the death penalty too severe for those who committed the rape/torture/murders in Knoxville?
I don't think so.

Wow. Taking an open ended statement and using it to villify the speaker.

Classy.

It horrifies me that there are people like Lemaricus Davidson walking around doing this kind of stuff to people. He must be a pretty damn disturbed man....he raped her with a broken chair leg, I am reading on Wiki. Good freakin' lord.



I also think it's interesting that (according to Wiki) the news media was bashed for ignoring the story and paying more attention to the political correctness of it all instead of the murders themselves.

That's right it was black men who did this to a white couple I purposely left that part out because the point is that human beings did this to other human beings. Alot of people have let the racial issue cloud what's really important in this case.

I think it's odd that so much attention is given to punishing people who commit crimes and almost none is given to helping the victims afterwards. In this case, I would include those victims as being the friends and family of the murdered couple.
Obviously the people who do things like this need to be put away where they can never do them again, but the issue of whether that's life in prison or the death penalty shouldn't matter as much as making sure that all the people affected by the crime are alright, and get the help they need.

What could you possibly do for them that would help the situation? What the families of the victims want is justice. That's the only thing they have left for the ones they lost.

And what is that?
Actually? Philosophically? Practically? I'm curious.

I don't think there can be any justice for the dead. They're dead now, noting matters to them.

Vengeance is immaterial. If vengeance was a valid motive, the human race wouldn't exist (if you extrapolate the practical application of that motive through time).

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You have three main parties to consider then:
1. The perpetrators.
2. The families of the deceased.
3. The society as a whole.

The last one, society, is the most important.
The actions under discussion are extremely antisocial (counter to society). They disrupt the community in many ways- they cause anger in the community (as evidenced here), people demand some sort of action. No one else in the community ever what's such a thing to happen to themselves or their friends or family either, so people will want to make certain that the perpetrators will not be able to repeat their act and that no one else would consider doing the same thing.

Execution won't prevent similar acts from anyone but the perpetrators, since people who commit such acts don't take consequences into account, so it only partially succeeds on that score.
Depending on the attitude of the community involved at the time though, execution may be required to maintain the social order, social harmony, and the social perception of "justice being done".

Then we have the factor that Hawk brings up- the possibility of executing an innocent person: or the state ostensibly committing the very act it is supposed to be punishing.
Any state sanctioned execution makes this a possibility since one execution makes it a possible sentence for another crime (by precedent).

So, in the end the individuals in society have to weigh up weather maintaining community harmony through the sanctioned killing of certain individuals is worth the risk of they themselves or family, or friends also falling afoul of it.
-in the end, Death is death, no matter who does the killing.

It's interesting and very emotive.

Ozone has a point. It feels like if we kill criminals, we are no better than they are. I personally think life in prison (combined with psycological therapy) is a much better alternative. The guy probably wanted to die, and now he's getting his wish. So what do we gain by killing him?

We should just stick all criminals in a slave labor camp on Mars and get that space colony up and running much sooner.

okay, no. what they wanted was to kill and rape people. (it was what? four guys. this isn't an isolated mentally ill person, it was a gang of murdering rapist thugs.) there was no argument of them doing it for attention, or acting out against some perceived ill (well, barring the "we're black and we deserve to heap some pain on those crackers!" angle) these were people that murdered and raped these people for fun and then tried to hide the evidence so they wouldn't get caught. trying to argue that "if we resort to the death penalty, then they win" holds water like a paper fork held against a waterfall.

Secondly, we gain them NOT LIVING ANYMORE. this wasn't some accidental act, or a poor judgement call. this was a premeditated and ongoing atrocity they committed for their entertainment. why exactly would you even risk them getting a chance to do it again? after what they did, what possible reason outside of "believeing in your fellow man" could you possibly have that they don't present a serious threat if they ever get released?

Ah, I see that now. You were wishing death to the criminals.

But it really didn't look that open ended. You start your comment by talking about people who were against the death penalty and follow by saying "Here's to their slow painful deaths."

You have to at least admit that your post can easily be misinterpreted.

Well here's a thing I can comment on. The Vikings used to have this honor system called blood debt. If one of your family members was murdered, you had to avenge him by killing the murderer. This was a complicated system that decreed who should avenge whom. If someone died, his father, brother or son had to kill the perpetrator in his name. If the victim had no close relatives, the responsibility moved to the next branch of the family, to an uncle or a cousin and so on. A farmer, who's minding his own business could all of a sudden be informed that his constantly drunk and violent second cousin had been killed in a bar fight and it was now up to him to avenge him. Should he refuse, he'd risk to cause everlasting shame to the family.

The main problem was that if he did do it, the tables would turn. The blood debt was rarely called off by the other family and usually sent someone to avenge their fallen member. Now the poor farmer was forced to be hunted by the family of the guy that he was forced to kill in order to avenge his cousin. Should he be killed the whole thing would start all over again.

It could go back and forth like that until half the family members from each side was dead. All because of a bar fight gone bad.

OK guys all those points are valid but in this particular case can you honestly say Lemaricus Davidson deserves to live?

I hate to be the one guy to take notice to this fact, but I can't help but feel like if the races were reversed and it was four white people killing two black people, it would immediately be classified as a hate crime. It's this thought that makes me think we've historically clouded a lot of crimes with racial issues that didn't really exist.

There's certainly a double standard there. I believe this story would have received national attention if the roles were reversed and some of the same people that are on here saying that Davidson's death sentence is wrong would have absolutely nothing nice to say about the perpetrator.

I'm against it, but....Reading that was pretty disgusting. :/

I dunno, I think they should just make it rarer. If someone killed a person, life in prison. If they tortured, raped, then killed in a torturous way a person, then yeah, they really deserve anything they get :\
I doubt someone who hated black people would have sex with them. But yeah you're mostly right, it probably would anyway.

They do. Raping someone is the most physcological torture most have to deal with. and most people know that.

it's been seen across the board. They want ot humilate that person, make them feel low, beneath someones power. you are inferior to me, and i will force you to do as i wish.

a sad thing really, and i personally would kill any man that tried that to my family.

Oh jeez, didn't think about that.
._.

All life is sacred. But when you start viciously taking the lives and well being of others, especially in a case such as this, your own should be forfeit, but does that really mean ending their life?

It's odd, I think, that we consider death to be the ultimate punishment. Punishment in my book comes from causing real, lasting remorse. When you kill someone, how exactly are they punished? There's no remorse, there's no regret, there's no change, they're simply dead (Unless you believe in the afterlife, cause then it's a whole new ball game).

Death penalties came about partially due to revenge, but also because in the old world the only option to remove a cancer of society was to either kill it or get rid of it, and casting someone away from society without any resources in the old world was as good as death. Now we have prisons, which serve to remove these cancers from society without killing them.

Killing people these days for crimes they commit can only be justifiably done as retribution, even if society as a whole thinks they deserve death, it's only for revenge. You can't do justice to someone unless you exact their crime back upon them, and in most cases that's simply not possible. They don't have loved ones for you to kill in front of them, or you can't make them afraid to live their lives. In the end, revenge serves nothing, and killing criminals achieves nothing, if only a temporary respite and a bitter feeling of vindication.

That being said, I'd be right there with Seventy2 should any of this happen to one of my loved ones, even knowing it'd never bring them back.