I have absolutely
no problem with the death penalty at all. If a person has been found guilty beyond all reasonable doubt, then the penalty should be as severe as possible. If someone murders another person, put him/her to death, not life in prison. They just have to make sure that the first "lethal" injection doesn't fail.....make it strong enough to kill a moose!
In Illinois, our last crooked, thieving, liar of governor, put a moratorium on the death penalty. So we have a sh*t load of scum sitting in prisons on "death row", who committed heinous crimes against society, and WE as taxpayers get to support them. WE get to put a roof over their heads, feed them three meals a day, cloth them, pay for all of their medical bills, and everything else. Meanwhile, there are thousands (if not tens of thousands) of people in our state who have jobs, yet can't afford decent housing (some can't afford any), they can hardly make ends meet, and they have no insurance.
But, hey maybe some screwball judge in the 'criminal justice system' can decide that they've now paid their 'debt' to society, and turn them loose so they can try again.
I firmly believe in reinstating the death penalty and start cleaning out our over crowded prisons. Whether by lethal injection, electric chair, firing squad, whackin' their head off, hanging until dead, or whatever.....and I wouldn't be overly concerned about their 'comfort' before or during the execution. They weren't overly concerned about their victim's comfort!
We have a
former family friend (from back in the late 60's or very early 70's) serving a life sentence in the Tennessee D.O.C. for burglary and murder. He's been sitting there now for over 25 years, while a family in Tennessee has had to go through life without their husband/father/brother. When he was convicted....and there was preponderance of evidence against him.....he should have been sentenced to death....and the sentence should have been carried out!
The sister of an old high school buddy was murdered back in the early 80's here in town...in her own home! The dirt-bag randomly picked her house, kicked in the front door, slit her throat in the living room, turned around and ran out the door and hid in the under brush a few blocks away. They caught him fairly quickly, and took him off to jail. He was convicted of her murder by a lot physical evidence and eye witnesses, and he was sentenced to natural life in prison. Here we are 25 years later, he's still in prison, and while there has murdered 2 other inmates. The convictions for both of those murders??.....2 more life sentences!! There's a problem!!
As for less dastardly crimes, I believe they need to bring back "chain gangs". We used to have them here in IL, but some bleeding hearts must have thought it was too cruel of a way to make them pay there 'debt' to society. But, man, the roadsides looked really well maintained for a few miles around the the state pens!!! When I saw them (way back when) it looked like a scene right out of "Cool Hand Luke"! :