The state’s right to kill ended up as a narrow test of whether certainty can ever be absolute: No won by a slim margin, despite the Yes side dominating the page with arguments. The room was not of one mind, but its strongest single intervention belonged to the side that feared an irreversible mistake.
Yes voters argued from finality and protection. “Dead evil will not reoffend,” said one, while another insisted that modern forensic science can prove guilt “without doubt”; the harder-edged cases named child killers, rapists, serial killers and terrorists, alongside complaints that life imprisonment is “pointless mental cruelty”.
No voters answered that punishment cannot be separated from fallibility. The floor’s most-respected No case paired “Wrongful convictions happen” with “No clear deterrent effect”, while another made the irreversibility plain: “if they are killed and later evidence proves their innocence there is nothing that can be done”.
The two sides often argued past each other: Yes spoke of horrific crimes and safer streets, while No questioned whether execution deters at all and warned that governments can “stitch up the innocent”. The debate also reached beyond evidence into authority, with a No voice saying “God, not man, will be the ultimate judge of sinners”, and a Yes reply defending “justified killing and unjustified murder”; one still more punitive intervention extended the proposal to “illegal immigrants”.
This self-selected online chamber did not settle the larger argument over capital punishment, but it did draw a firm boundary around state power: outrage could specify the crimes, while doubt retained the final veto.
13 Opinions
Only in very extreme cases that are 100% proven and horrific.
Really torn on this one. Yeah, some people deserve to die, but at the same time I don't like the idea of the state determining who lives or dies.
If someone is wrongly imprisoned they can be released (and compensated), if they are killed and later evidence proves their innocence there is nothing that can be done. The worse the crime the louder the cry for retribution and all to often innocent accused are pressured into confessing. The first DNA test used in a ,urder case didn't catch the criminal, it showed that the man the police pressured into admitting guilt was innocent.
There are so many !! Anybody with a life sentence .also stop the mental health excuse, otherwise everyone will be mentally affected
Child killers and rapists, serial killers and terrorist killers - yes. No amount of incarceration could ever make them fit members of society.
Yes for child rape murder betraying the country. I'd also bring it in for illegal immigrants that would stop them
Unlike Islam, mainstream Christianity opposes the death penalty , the Catholic Church explicitly and the Anglican Church via a majority bishops. While we may feel desire to punish by death, the Western religion sets dogma that God, not man, will be the ultimate judge of sinners.
We need to forget about Ruth Ellis and the other edge cases. Life sentences are pointless mental cruelty.
For the most horrific crimes yes.. The argument that inoccent people in the past have been hung when they shouldn't have no longer holds water in my opinion. The very same science that those against the death penalty use to prove historic injustices can today be used to prove guilt without doubt too. They can't have it both ways. The science is either good enough to prove historic AND current innocence/guilt OR It's not..
1 Wrongful convictions happen - state murder 2 No clear deterrent effect — evidence suggests no more than long sentence 3 It can encourage murder after other serious crimes — if rape and murder attract the same penalty, an offender may have less reason to leave the victim alive. 4 Life sentence is worse. 10% of US executions since 1976 were voluneers. A study found 32% had attempted suicide, 37% had suicidal tendencies, 63% had diagnosed mental illness.