I am all for releasing about half the prison population here. Most of them are for morality laws that have no non-consensual bearing on other people, like drug possession and use, immigration, prostitution. So yes, let a lot of them out, right now. Never have had to or to be going to stuck them in in the first place.

Meanwhile, while someone being in prison still has the chance of proving their innocence and being released and given restitution, a dead person does not.
You're making me do this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qKcJF4fOPs

U.S. court system requires you to be virtually 100% positive with the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard. If you have any doubt at all that makes even the slightest bit of sense, then that is a "reasonable" one. Unreasonable doubt would be something like, "Well, Aliens could have done it!"

With regards to capital punishment, many states in the U.S. do not have this anymore. Those who do, in practice they require MORE than the standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt" because these sentences are appealed to new courts for years. So there's lots of time and ways to introduce doubt about the crime, or about the criminal's character. I'm still against capital punishment though.

Oh, but I agree with you that I don't care about murderers and the main reason to put the *VIOLENT* criminals in prison is to keep them away from the rest of us, I don't care about rehabilitating them, just get them out of my face.

You know, anyone doesn't have to prove their innocence. But he had the chance during the first trial, the second trial, and even the third trial (in Poland).

Death penalty should be rendered only when ALL judges were voting for death penalty (in Poland in such cases there are at least 3 judges) which decreases the chance of mistake.

Also, if someone dies in prison, the result is the same as s/he dies after execution. Only the time of having chance for restitution is longer.

The cases where death penalty should be rendered are such as, for example, Columbine massacre. You tell you're not 100% sure he's guilty in that case? You should be... Or that other school massacre, i don't remember where they occured...

I do give a crap about rehabilitation.

Well then, clearly Poland's welfare and social housing programs are shameful, to say the least. The voters are guilty of creating murderers. When is the mass execution of everyone in poland scheduled?

So we have to kill innocent people to make you feel like you got your pound of flesh. Good to know.

Pay for it with your own money, not mine. They still die in prisons, you know? You should feel guilty as hell. Good to know you don't have any reasonable argument, so you need to attack your opponent in conversation directly.

Yes. It's a flawed system. So your answer is not to make it better (which my suggestion actually takes steps in doing), but to jump to the extreme for your emotional satisfaction.

Rational thought. Leave your revenge fantasies at the door and actually think.

Nope. It's not mine fantasy, but victim's families will for revenge. Also, making sure that guilty guy will never kill again. Many advantages, and disadvantage is the same "this is the flaw of the system". The exact same argument as yours, and you don't have anything more to support.

Do you have a reason for that? Or is just "nuh-uh!"? My comparison was that while the US might not extradite Saudis to a country that might mutilate them as criminal punishment, someone in Reno's department (or even Reno her[him?]self) had to have had the thought cross their minds that the kid might be "re-conditioned" against any "capitalist habits" he might have picked up. I mean, they stuck him in a "military school" as soon as he hit Havana's shores.

He was a Cuban citizen returned to his father in Cuba rightly or wrongly. We are talking about a UK citizen extradited to the US to face trial under US law.

That was certainly true in the past, quite frequently true in fact, but that was before modern forensic and criminal sciences that remove any hint of "reasonable doubt" over guilt. In cases of scientific, irrefutable proof of guilt, how can anyone really say "the death penalty kills innocent people" is even a consideration? I mean, the same science that is used to put the right people on death row is now being used to correct miscarriages of justice and get the wrong people off death row. Are you OK with the certainty that science gives to their innocence, but not OK with the certainty it must also give their guilt, therefore justifying the death penalty in those cases?

There's still doubt as to whether or not the man was actually his "father". It's easy enough to pick up someone who looks like he might be the father of some other kid just by virtue of mild physical resemblance, and then get them to recite a "heartfelt plea" for the return of said child, and if it's at gunpoint, you can be damn sure the man's acting will be Oscar-caliber.

Or you could use your own money to have someone killed. Don't make the government do your dirty work.

Even if true he was still a Cuban citizen.

You've learned this through what, to gain this view?