Justice will be served today for Deputy Kyle Dinkheller

[TheDeuce]

The same way I can be pro-life yet if someone was trying to harm my girlfriend or her daughters that I helped raise or my little 14 month old "step" granddaughter, I would blow the away in a second.

 

Then you aren't, by definition, Pro-Life. That's contradictory. You can't be in favor of ending a human life, in ANY way, and claim to be Pro-Life.

[AverageJoesGym]

I'm very conflicted on capital punishment. However, if there is any place for it then it should be used for cop killers. If someone is willing to kill a police officer for no reason like in this case they have no place in society. It isn't that the life of a police officer is worth any more or less than any citizen but if they have that little respect for how society works they are a danger to every person in it. I would have to think that they would be a danger to other inmates and guards while incarcerated. For the danger that they present to society I don't really have a problem with them being put down.

[halfback20]

 

Then you aren't, by definition, Pro-Life. That's contradictory. You can't be in favor of ending a human life, in ANY way, and claim to be Pro-Life.

 

That is absurd. Defending ones family might mean you have to take a life to save a life.

[BigVMan23]

Then you aren't, by definition, Pro-Life. That's contradictory. You can't be in favor of ending a human life, in ANY way, and claim to be Pro-Life.

 

Come on Deuce brother, you don't really believe that do you?

[rockmom]

I'm very conflicted on capital punishment. However, if there is any place for it then it should be used for cop killers. If someone is willing to kill a police officer for no reason like in this case they have no place in society. It isn't that the life of a police officer is worth any more or less than any citizen but if they have that little respect for how society works they are a danger to every person in it. I would have to think that they would be a danger to other inmates and guards while incarcerated. For the danger that they present to society I don't really have a problem with them being put down.

 

What about people who kill children? Especially parents. What about people who kill the elderly, the homeless?

 

I appreciate all that the Police do. But many other frequent victims are far more vulnerable.

[AverageJoesGym]

What about people who kill children? Especially parents. What about people who kill the elderly, the homeless?

 

I appreciate all that the Police do. But many other frequent victims are far more vulnerable.

 

I didn't mean to make it appear that the only time I see a need for capital punishment is for cop killers. I just see them as extremely dangerous to society in general.

[TheDeuce]

Come on Deuce brother, you don't really believe that do you?

 

If you say you are Pro-Life strictly in regards to abortion, then I can let it go. But you can't say you are 100% Pro-Life and support any means of ending a life. Again, in my opinion.

 

I hear what you all are saying, but IMO, you can't be Pro-Life in terms of abortion and in favor of capital punishment.

 

As far as defending yourself and others, sure you may be justified in your actions, but your actions are still hypocritical.

[TheDeuce]

That is absurd. Defending ones family might mean you have to take a life to save a life.

 

FYI, just because you don't agree with things doesn't make them absurd...

 

Saying you are Pro-Life in one breath AND in favor of ending a life in another breath is in fact contradictory.

[Jumper_Dad]

I'm not "Pro-Life" by definition, but I am against abortion.

 

I do believe that if you kill to protect yourself or others it is justified legally and morally.

 

While I have no problem with some people being put to death, I could not make that decision easily. There are some people that just don't deserve to live but fortunately that is not my decision to make.

[TheDeuce]

I do believe that if you kill to protect yourself or others it is justified legally and morally.

 

Maybe I need to clarify... I agree with you here, JD.

[halfback20]

FYI, just because you don't agree with things doesn't make them absurd...

 

Saying you are Pro-Life in one breath AND in favor of ending a life in another breath is in fact contradictory.

 

No it isn't. I would say that depends on what each persons definition of "pro-life" is.

 

I can be pro-life and still kill someone who is attacking me, you or my family. Saying I'm not pro-life because I'm willing to defend my or someone else's life (even if that means killing another person) is in fact absurd.

[capt278]

"Deserve" is an interesting word to use. Where does "deserve" come from? If Brannan had killed Officer Dinkheller in Alaska, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia, or Wisconsin, he would not have "deserved" the death penalty. He would have, instead, "deserved" life imprisonment. There are another 101 countries in the world where he would have only "deserved" life imprisonment...and only 94 where he could have potentially "deserved" the death penalty (and 47 of those countries, although they still have capital punishment 'on the books', do not exercise the practice any longer).

 

As for your numbers on housing inmates in Georgia, I would be willing to bet that number is reflective of the cost to house an inmate in general population, versus the cost of housing a death row inmate, which is widely accepted to cost at least twice that of general population inmates. So, double your number, and you've got $715,326 for 17 years of death row imprisonment (figuring conservatively)...then add the national average of 1,902 days in the court system that a death penalty case takes at an average of $1.26 million in court costs (versus an average of 148 for life imprisonment with $740,000 in court costs). Doing the math on that, it took at least $1,975,326 in state funds for Georgia to put Andrew Brannan to death yesterday.

 

Now if you subtract the court costs for a life imprisonment case back out of that figure and divide that by your $21,039 number, then you could say with relative accuracy that the state of Georgia could have housed Brannan in general prison population for 58.7 years at the same price. There you have it. On average, putting someone to death costs more than imprisoning them for life.

 

Deserves comes from he took a life in cold blood. Why should he not forfeit his?

 

Why should he be able to see his kids, watch TV all day, learn a job skill, etc., when he deprived another of these things for no reason?

[capt278]

You can't be Pro-Life and support capital punishment... JMO.

 

I say you cannot be pro-choice and against capital punishment.

[ADopted ADmiral]

For some reason I just can't imagine the Jesus that I know being for the death penalty.

Heck look at all of the persecutions that Saul/Paul did against Christians...

The Holy Spirits number one guy is a murderer.

[Bert]

I understand both sides of the argument. When I was younger I was 100% pro death penalty. As I've grown older I've become conflicted.

 

This is where I was. I used to be very pro death penalty. It wasn't until doing some relection that I realized it was vengance in my heart that supported the death penalty. I am now at the point where I support it only where there is no other choice in protecting society. The best example I can come up with is in Mexico where there are reports the cartels have become so well armed that they have attacked prisons to retrieve their fellow cartel members so they can go back to killing in the cartel wars. In this case, I do think the Mexican government could morally and ethically come to the conclusion that executions are the only way to protect society. Some serious "stuff" would have to happen for that day to rise in the US.