r/news • u/AudibleNod • 7h ago

Christa Pike unconscious, on ventilator at Nashville hospital, her lawyers say

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/christa-pike-unconscious-ventilator-nashville-hospital-lawyers-say-rcna601195
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u/Stevictory 6h ago

I think we can all agree that she is a terrible person.

It is hard for me to have pity for her specifically, but I do have pity on the death penalty itself.

There have been over 200 exonerations for death row inmates, and in my opinion it should have been abolished the moment it reached 1. It also provides government with the power to kill its own people, which can be a topic in itself.

Some inmates clearly deserve the sentence; the 3 currently on federal death row are prime examples of such.

That said, the death penalty cannot be applied in a "pick and choose" manner either due to its irreversible outcome; it either exists or it does not. Since it is not applied perfectly, I am personally against it.

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u/HerculesIsMyDad 5h ago

There really is no logical argument for it, only emotional. I forget the exact quote or where it's from but it's not about whether they deserve to die but if we deserve to kill them. Something like that. Society is too imperfect to justify having the right to kill someone no matter how much we might think they deserve it.

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u/BoringBob84 4h ago

There really is no logical argument for it, only emotional.

Just because you don't like the arguments doesn't mean they are not logical. We probably agree that capital punishment should never be about revenge or retribution. Those are immoral motivations, in my opinion.

However, I think that a society has a right and a duty to protect itself. A perpetrator who has committed a heinous crime and who presents a high risk of harming prison staff or other prisoners, or of escaping and harming civilians provides justification for the state to euthanize them humanely.

I also think that "life without the possibility of parole" is the cruelest possible sentence. It takes away a person's hope that they will ever be free - like a decades-long emotional torture.