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montani t1_jd0l0oz wrote

I think there should be life sentences with a voluntary death penalty. Like, you kill someone you’re in jail forever but you can opt for lethal injection instead. The death penalty as it stands in too costly, unfair, and something from the Stone Age.

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Dookiedoodoohead t1_jd0n6qh wrote

That would do nothing to solve the established issues surrounding the death penalty. Life in prison is already a nightmare with virtually no practical safeguards from systemic abuse. There's nothing to stop anyone from being coerced or "convinced" into a choice.

Imagine this guy gets the "death if you want it" penalty". The guy becomes marked and is known to the C.O.s as "the guy we can legally kill if we make his life miserable enough".

If that sounds good to you, then I mean sure, great plan. But you're just adding more steps to the process in order to create an illusion so we can pretend we're somehow progressing in criminal justice.

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montani t1_jd15tvk wrote

How so? The issues are that innocent people get put to death and the appeals process takes forever and costs way more than imprisoning someone for life. If it’s opt in then it’s just prisoners who want to die. I’m not sure what any of that has to do with systematic prison abuse.

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anatoli_smolin t1_jd28rk2 wrote

To me I see an immediate problem of COs purposely making inmates’ lives miserable for the sake of coercion to take the death penalty. There is already rampant abuse within the prison system, imagine if someone who was already an abuser suddenly had the option to torment someone as much as they wanted to because the person could eventually just choose suicide if they don’t want to put up with abuse anymore. At least that’s the way I see it.

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burritoace t1_jd2a445 wrote

If CO staffs are full of people like this who are itching to kill someone (entirely possible, I don't know) then we've got big problems and maintaining the death penalty as is would surely be a mistake.

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anatoli_smolin t1_jd2c4tx wrote

Yes you are confirming exactly what I said. It is a systemic issue.

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