Youth Pleads To Killing Gay Classmate

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I believe the death penalty is used too much, and on the wrong crimes, Claus.

I would use it for:

1. People who are unrehabilitable and cannot function in a prison environment--namely, people who are in jail for life, and then murder in prison.
2. People who commit a series of murders over a period of time, have corruptive and influential personalities--like the ringleaders of that serial murder gang in West Australia--and for whom a huge preponderence of physical evidence exists; there should be a legal requirement that witness testimony cannot be considered as the sole determinant of guilt in death penalty cases, only forensic evidence, so that special rules of evidence are used for death penalty cases.
3. People who commit direct assaults against state power in a way that demands a strong response from the state to uphold public order. These would be terrorists, treasons, and other individuals engaged in political violence and/or espionage for a foreign power.

I would certainly not use it on children, and I believe that the maximum sentence for someone under the age of 16 should be 20 years, regardless of the crime committed, and for those between the ages of 16 and 21, the maximum sentence should be 40 years regardless of crime. The death penalty should be applied only to those over the age of 21 at the time of the offence.

This would be an imperfect system, but effective.

Also the current form of death penalty--lethal injection--is inhumane and exists solely to clinicize the act, which is inappropriate, and is contrary to the human dignity of the condemned. Therefore executions should take place by firing squad or guillotine, preferably the former, probably using 20 gauge shotguns loaded with slug where one of the officers is issued a beanbag round to realistically simulate firing a slug at random.

In this case I fully believe that the probability of the convicted being rehabilitated is indeed enough that the sentence is borderline appropriate at best in terms of harshness. I really think you're ignoring the evidence, and you clearly have no real understanding of childhood mental development with your reference to the ten commandments, nor does it seem you are much interested in it. So I won't press the matter.