Inseperable. Justice comes from our morality.
Juvenile capital punishment in the US?!
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Inseperable. Justice comes from our morality.
If he is cured, sure. If he is not, he is being kept in the institution.
If that person has done something really bad, but found mentally ill, then the time spent at the institution is taken away from his prison sentence, and he still has to serve the remaining sentence, or, if it is life, he goes to prison for life.
Actually that's the same as when a person is sentenced to 20 years for murder, then comes out and lives as your neighbour. You might not even know that, but it happens all the time everywhere.
Didn't his actions prove that he was beyond being capable of controlling himself? As far as understanding, the ability to understand that taking another life is wrong is pretty much established at...you know as funny as it may sound i am going to say time of birth. Basically, the ability to understand it is not fully developed but the capacity to NOT do the act is most likely present OR the capacity IS present, specifically the desire. Whatever happens in between is circumstantial- The notion that 'you (society) put this gun in my hand' may have dramatic effect but not everyone resorts to such acts.
Now a police officer using deadly force to avert another homicide of either himself or another 'innocent' person has made the decision to exert his 'moral authority' but this goes to imminent danger. And of course is understandable and i cannot see people arguing against this. Imagine someone with a gun against another persons head, the first thing they would think is 'kill this mf'er'
I honestly believe that murder committed in anger and without justification is not the actions of a sane person, of course this excludes justifiable homicide.
Reading Crime and Punishment? Dostoevsky was himself a criminal (well he was sent into a gulag) and probably seen people being treated unjustly. However, this view is\was prejudiced by his own personal experience and is not a barometer for what is fair and just.
And really science has not provided an answer, not by a long shot.
Edit: I am not saying i am for or against capital punishment but i can understand the concept. To me, as far as it is used in U.S it is something to contemplate before the crime is committed- because really AFAIK, in most states it can go either way - LIFE in prison or death. Which i believe is why it still exists in U.S., even viewed as part of the penalty phase.
Finally: It makes for good movies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Starkweather
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badlands_(movie)
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"A great rabbi stands teaching in the marketplace. It happens that a husband finds proof that morning of his wife's adultry, and a mob carries her to the marketplace to stone her to death. (There is a familiar version of this story, but a friend of mine, a Speaker for the Dead, has told me of two other rabbis that faced the same situation. Those are the ones I'm going to tell you.)
The rabbi walks forward and stands beside the woman. Out of respect for him, the mob forbears, and waits with the stones heavy in their hands. "Is there anyone here," he says to them, "who has not desired another man's wife, another woman's husband?"
They murmer and say, "We all know the desire. But, Rabbi, none of us has acted on it."
The rabbi says, "Then kneel down and give thanks that God made you strong." He takes the woman by the hand and leads her out of the market. Just before he lets her go, he whispers to her, "Tell the lord magistrate who saved his mistress. Then he'll know I'm his loyal servant."
So the woman lives, because the community is too corrupt to protect itself from disorder.
Another rabbi, another city. He goes to her and stops the mob, as in the other story, and says, "Which of you is without sin? Let him cast the first stone."
The people are abashed, and they forget their unity of purpose in the memory of their own individual sins. Someday, they think, I may be like this woman, and I'll hope for forgiveness and another chance. I should treat her the way I wish to be treated.
As they open their hands and let the stones fall to the ground, the rabbi picks up one of the fallen stones, lifts it high over the woman's head, and throws it straight down with all his might. It crushes her skull and dashes her brains onto the cobblestones.
"Nor am I without sin," he says to the people. "But if we allow only perfect people to enforce the law, the law will soon be dead, and our city with it."
So the women died because her community was too rigid to endure her deviance.
The famous version of this story is noteworthy because it is so startingly rare in our experience. Most communities lurch between decay and rigor mortis, and when they veer too far, they die."
Orson Scott Card - "Speaker For The Dead"
3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group
4 and said to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery.
5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?"
6 They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger.
7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her."
8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
9 At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there.
10 Jesus straightened up and asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"
11 "No one, sir," she said. "Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now and leave your life of sin."
John 8:3-11 (New International Version)
"Justice" is a rare and nebulous concept which bears little relation to the application of law.
Morality is another nebulous concept - and one which tends to vary from individual to individual. By whose morality is justice served?
Law exists primarily as a social safeguard. Each society might have different laws, different punishments according to their own view of "morality".
And just to get away from the USA for a short space of time, here is a part the price of yours :
http://medicine.plosjournals.org/pe...ocument&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020122&ct=1
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