Jerry Chicken makes a good answer on this.

While I get what you're saying about a profession, don't you do basically the samething on here day after day like your attitude to benefit claimants, basically saying you are a more worthwhile person by not having kids than a person who has kids and claims benefits for them or benefit claimants who are not as worthwhile as you because they claim from the state and you don't???????

As someone who is NOT advocating differential murder sentences, it is still fair to point out that there is an obvious difference between some deaths, which is that most people are not killed as a consequence of deliberately putting themselves in harm's way to protect you and me. Most of us would, I think, choose not to enter a money shop where a robbery is taking place, as did PC Sharon Beshenivsky; who would guarantee that they would not flee for safety, instead of rescuing injured comrades ignoring personal risk of death, like Private Beharry? Who would have the bottle to wade in to protect a pupil from a notorious gang with weapons, which they were using, as did headmaster Philip Lawrence? Who can guarantee that they would not jump the hell off a burning aeroplane, rather than stay on it to get as many passengers off as you could, as did Sharon Ford and Jacqui Urbanski when they lost their own lives in the Manchester Airport incident in 1985?

Someone who is prepared to risk their own life to help others has always been considered special, and in my book, is.

Well said FA.

Of course they're special, but they're no more special than, say, the scientist who maybe wouldn't run into a burning building, but who has found a breakthrough treatment for cancer. To me, both are equally special in different ways. The idea that one death is more tragic than another, or that some murders are worthy of a more serious punishment based solely on who was murdered, seems inherently flawed to me. I appreciate that wasn't your argument, but, just saying.

You could add to that argument, the person who can't run into the burning building, because they're in a wheelchair or are 82.

Do age or disability mean that people become less special?

Yes, but that is not pre-meditated murder now is it? Contrast with the requirement to intend to kill (not "just" a bit of GBH) in the offence of attempted murder.

Well, yes. If you act deliberately to cause someone serious injury [iknowing[/i that your actions might kill them, it is premeditated murder. The act itself is premeditated and you undertake that act knowing that death is a possible outcome.

Are you seriously saying that if I deliberately drive my car at someone intending to kill them I should hang, but if I deliberately drive my car at someone just intending to cripple them but killing them in the process, I shouldn't? That's weird, even for you.

Bring back hanging for tautology

It should depend who the person you drove said car at was IMO

That's a quite brilliant piece of twisted logic, but it spectacularly misses the point. Prior to running into the burning building to save your ass, the rescuer might have been an axe-murderer, or a serial paedophile. the act does not redefine their entire past and future myriad of actions and choices as 'special'. To you, subjectively, and indeed objectively, they would surely be 'special', as they had no need to risk their life to save yours.

In this discussion, the NY firemen who ran up the burning Twin Towers were to a man=#FFFFFF* 'special' for doing that, clearly they knew there was a huge risk they would never make it out. Did any of them beat their wives or cheat their tax? I don't know. Is it relevant to the point? No. But it is a major point to be weighed in the balance if you were considering how special they were, overall, as a human being. =#FFFFFF* or woman

Stephen Hawking is no less special than he ever was for not having run up the Twin Towers, but even if he's sure he would have done it if he could, that belief doesn't make him objectively more special. Whereas what he has achieved in his life, and against massive odds, does.

Are you perhaps confusing the right to life with this issue? Every human has the same equal right to their life. That is the whole point of arguments against the death penalty. Myra Hindley was not a special human being, but an evil barstard who deserved to die in jail. Nelson Mandela is a special human being. As a human being he is infinitely more special than Hindley. That is so, even though they had the same equal right to life. It's their choice of what they do with it that differentiates between them.

Perhaps I was confusing it with the subject of this thread.

Instead of setting the bar for 'what and who deserves the death penalty' what are people's thoughts on judges being given the power to sentence it?

In my opinion the people who want the death sentence are making that decision on the back of a knee jerk reaction due to frustration at the cushy prisons and sentences handed out probably due to over crowded jails.

Maybe if we built a few more jails (floating prisons even) and dished out harsher sentences then maybe this question/demand on the death penalty might go away.

[url=http://edition.cnn.com/2012/05/24/world/europe/norway-prison-bastoy-nicest/index.htmlOr ...[/url

Rather than niggling about who gets is the victim, I'd like to ask the OP why he wants the death penalty rather than another sentence.

Is it to protect the public from further murder? (Imprisonment has the same effect)
Is it to deter the murderer in the first place (demonstrably does not work)

I suspect it is because he sees the death penalty as punishment ... aka revenge.
And that, I'm afraid, is not a good reason ... but it's common among so-called Christians who fail to follow in the thoughts of their star philosopher.

Just out of interest...
Five US states have abolished the death penalty in the last five years. California will vote in a referendum whether to scrap it in November. Oregon's governor has called a halt to all executions.

It doesn't work. It's never worked. It can't possibly be the right thing for anyone who wishes to be described as civilised to support.

Not the whole point. My main opposition to the death penalty is the potential for miscarriages of justice.

Texas will make up any shortfalls in numbers should these two abolish it.

Perhaps. In proposing adding to the argument "=#FF0000the person who can't run into the burning building, because they're in a wheelchair or are 82" and posing the question "=#FF0000Do age or disability mean that people become less special?"
.. you were I suppose on reflection clearly talking about the death penalty.

Though I haven't worked out why you would suggest those categories of people might be in line for it.

I'm in favour of the death penalty for certain crimes in theory but in reality as soon as even one innocent person is hung it renders the whole thing unworkable.

You can argue that modern techniques such as DNA can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that someone is guilty but that depends on a reliance on the police to be honest and trustworthy (so no evidence tampering etc) but I think the revelations about the police's conduct in the aftermath of Hillsborough shows they are anything but !

DNA doesn't prove anything beyond reasonable doubt. It may work in cosmoplitan areas such as London, Manchester, Liverpool, Bristol or Leeds, but it doesn't work in more rural areas where the DNA spread isn't as great.

Either way, we all know that the death of 2 young female police officers was more tragic than if it had been 2 male officers

I'm assuming that's irony?

Therefore I reserve the right to call you an amoral idiot

I'm an idiot for having an opinion? get over yourself prick