I somewhat disagree with that last statement. It seems to assume that there is some inherent goodness or value in every life, regardless of what that person chose to do with their life. It's one thing to be innocent, from there you can do good or evil, but if you do enough evil I feel you've given up your right to hang around and keep playing this game called life.
Anyone who rapes or murders, especially those who prey on our most vulnerable, should die. Die the same way we put down a vicious dog so it can do no further harm. That's not an absolute rule, we need judges to apply capital punishment reasonably with judicial care and only when the evidence is as compelling as possible.
And even then it's often cheaper to put someone in jail for life rather than go through the process to execute them. That's fine with me, except I regret that some murderers seem to live on as cult figures to followers. Take Charles Manson for an example. Does anyone doubt his guilt? Did him living out his life in prison, the cost and all the trouble he caused benefit anyone? Would a quick execution not have been better for society?
Our ultimate goal should not be to execute, but to permanently contain these evil people and protect society the easiest way possible. I've nothing against a quick execution when the evidence is compelling enough, but life without ANY possibility of parole works too.
But, for who's benefit are we not executing these folks who are so vile and dangerous that we can never allow them to be set free? Ours or theirs? Why have we allowed the system to become so cumbersome that endless, pointless appeals can have someone on death row not die for decades, or even die of natural causes before the sentence can be carried out?
There is inherent value to life or else we wouldn't have literal monetary values placed on it, and we wouldn't have enshrined rights to protect it. And who gets to be arbiter of what is innocence and what is good or evil? I sure as fucking shit don't think politicians should be anywhere near such a topic, and they're probably better than your average emotional dumbfuck human who can easily be manipulated into believing lies. Do you really think lawyers are a good group to be defining such? Because I don't. And that's basically who our judicial system is comprised of.
You think that changes if they were put to death? You honestly think if Manson (who I don't think committed any actual murder himself by the way), were put to death that people wouldn't still be obsessed about that? There's many that became cult figures as much if not more by being executed.
Hell, I'd say Manson himself has done more to ruin the belief that he was some master manipulator brilliant genius cult leader. If he'd have been executed, I think most people would think he was. But since we've gotten to regularly see what a fucking whacked out jackass he actually is, its made people realize that no, it was just a confluence of factors (which should also help people realize that even dumbfucks can be cult leaders) that created the situation that he was able to thrive in. Arguably the main women were the actual master manipulators, as they did most of the recruitment, indoctrination, and were far more hands on in the murders and other crimes. Many of them knew what was going on and were frankly probably more responsible for the group's behavior than Manson himself was. To me, they're scarier than Manson. I don't think they were as much under Manson's spell as much as they were active participants in the overall situation (by that I mean, I think they helped create the mindset which fueled Manson and the group). Very likely if it wasn't him, it probably would've been someone else, or they probably would've done fucked up stuff on their own. Some I do think got indoctrinated due to the general cult behavior that has consistently been proven to work at brainwashing even intelligent people, but the main group I think is every bit as culpable if not moreso than Manson himself.
Interesting. Of course, you know our system has consistently failed to convict rapists and murderers, while its also convicted people innocent of such crimes. You're ok with that?
Society's benefit. Because it properly removes those people from society, while not making society complicit in murder, while also giving us the ability to in some way potentially make up for it if we find out they had not actually committed the crime later (as either more information/evidence, or new technology, enables us to be able to come to a more certain conclusion). Again, its not pointless appeals because we know that we've put to death innocent people. Which, hey, maybe we should just ban guns and then declare the death penalty for any that don't comply. Something tells me you'd take a different view.
I think not only should we not be bitching about the cost of appeals, we should be making these extreme cases be a sort of training system and so be constantly scrutinized. Make new judges and lawyers have to go through those cases themselves, and use it as a manner to understand the repercussions of their actions as well. Which they do this in school, but I think it should be regularly looked at by the state itself, instead its often brushed under and people want to just move on and have
some resolution as quickly as possible, which has often caused a lot of problems. We should treat that stuff like science and apply similar scientific method and use it to improve our judicial system. Use it so we can try to control for things like bias, and where we can highlight bad or even just slightly troublesome behavior (something that comes to mind there is how in the Steven Avery case, in his murder trial, the fucking judge referred to him as a convicted rapist even though that conviction had been overturned because, get this, the state fucked up and convicted the wrong person which was later proven in court, but the judge of his current case treated him like he'd been guilty of that all along).
I think as we lose jobs to automation, putting humans towards endeavors like this would be a great way to give people something to do that would help benefit society at large. Even ignorant people could help us improve the system, while they would also have to directly interact with the system which should help them gain a better understanding of it. Imagine a VR setup where we could make people play different roles in court cases, where people could see what it feels like to be someone that maybe everyone in the room despises, or how sitting as a juror how the mannerisms of the lawyers change as they address you versus witnesses, or how it feels to be the judge and have at your whim the ability to dismiss or not claims made by the lawyers. And a whole bunch of other aspects (like do ones where one of our loved ones is the person on trial, and how that would change your feelings about the situation, so maybe they run one with people you don't know at all, but then the next one is a close friend or family member and then compare how you reacted differently). There's so many factors at play that people don't think about, that I think its key for us to improve the base system before we declare any absolute permanent solution.