This is gonna be a lil long winded at times but I tried to keep it as short as i could by not going into detail about every point i bring up otherwise this would have been a novel. lol any way enjoy and comment if u like

Do you believe in the death penalty? Defend your answer.

wow, thats a hard 1 to answer. i really dont feel like this is one of those things that you can take sides on. you have to put yourself in a few different situations (hypothetical situations)

ok so im sure im not alone when i linked the death penalty with murder crimes and started thinking along the lines of "take a life and have your life taken". so then I started wondering, is murder the only thing you can get the death penalty for? so...... i googled it. (i wonder how i found info b4 google? oh well)
any way so the 1st thing i googled was "Death penalty" that sent me to Wikipedia and it gave a definition :

"Capital punishment, or the death penalty, is the execution of a person by judicial process as a punishment for an offense. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offenses."

it didnt just say murder it said capital crimes or capital offenses. so next google search was to find a list to help me get an idea on what capital crimes are. i came across a link to www.criminal-law-lawyer-source.com. where i got this :

"A capital offense is a felony crime that is considered so serious that it is punishable by death. Death for a capital offense is called capital punishment. Currently, thirty-eight states have laws, which make a criminal offense punishable by death."

"First-degree murder is considered a capital offense in all states, which allow capital punishment. Many states provide that a capital offense is murder with a certain number of aggravating factors.

Aggravating Factors

Aggravating factors can include, but are not limited to:

* Robbery
* Kidnapping
* Assault
* Multiple or repeat murder
* Murder of a public officer
* Crimes against minors

Capital offense crimes in some states also include aircraft hijacking, train wrecking, treason, drug trafficking, sexual assault, rape of a minor, and terrorism. "

so lets look at this, robbery? i didnt know that. i started out saying that you have to put yourself in these hypothetical situations so i'm going to do that. 1) i rob a person for what ever reason, should i go to jail? yes be "executed" ? dont think so
2) say i'm the 1 being robbed, i still feel the same way. yes jail but not the death penalty.

kidnapping....that 1 i didnt know about.
1) i dont have any children but lets say i did. would i want the person who kidnapped my child to die? hmmmm, at 1st yes i would probably feel that way especially if he harmed my child in any way. but then i started thinking that would be way to easy. in this situation i feel like the person should be in jail 4 ever.
2) now lets say im the kidnapper. still the same. just jail time

Assault? what kind of assault? verbal, physical, sexual? well i guess im gonna have too look at all of them.
verbal- i yell at u i die? no i yell at u i go to jail? no same thing if you do it to me
physical-we get into a fight.....jail time? maybe depending on how bad the fight is. death? mmmm no
but if im some where and i get attacked and beaten almost to death. yes for jail and i think i might be ok with the death penalty.
or if i come attack you and you almost die. should i die because of what i did? my natural instinct to want to stay alive will be screaming no but at the same time that would probably be the right thing because i shouldnt have attacked you like that so i dunno im kinda on the fence with that one.
sexual-would i want my rapist to die...wow. im really not sure how i feal about that one b/c there are sooooooooo many different things going through my head if i went into detail about all of them i'd be here all day. things like do i know my attacker, did they beat me, did i get pregnant...things like that so im not sure how to answer that 1. if i were the attacker? well being a woman im not sure how thats possible exactly. im not saying that a woman has never rapped a man all im saying is i dont know how you would go about making that happen. especially if the attacker is me, im not very hard to fight off.... a gallon of milk gets heavy to me after holding it for 2+ minutes...yea im that weak.

i'm going to move to crimes against minors next b/c i want to save the murder thing for last b/c i can tell its going to pull me in another direction.
ok so crimes against minors? minor being what? some 1 younger than 18?ok lets go with that. i steal an ipod from my lil sister's friend (she's 16) should i die? no. this situation doesnt work in reverse b/c of the term "against minors" i'm 23 soooooooooo....... yea.

ok so now murder. lets start with Multiple or repeat murder and Murder of a public officer. so what your telling me is if i only kill 1 person and that person is not a public officer than its ok? thats all im really gonna say about this 1 b/c if not i could go on and on about why i killed this person and was i drunk or do i wanna play "the crazy card" and blah blah blah.

so what is murder exactly? a person taking someone else's life? is it that simple? if it were that simple wouldnt the person administering the death penalty be a murderer? if a woman has an abortion is that murder? some say its only murder if the woman is however far along, some say its a life at conception. but either way is that murder? i dont know. should a woman get the death penalty for having an abortion? should i be killed if i did that? should u? should anyone? who's to say?