Originally Posted by
Risk
First of all, it's not true that the US is the only nation which still practices capital punishment. Capital punishment is currently pracitced in Afghanistan, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Belarus, Botswana, China, Cuba, Egypt, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Lebanon, Malaysia, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Syria, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Tonga, United Arab Emirates, United States, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, and Yemen. As for your views on capital punishment, I can certainly appreciate an enthusiasm for it and I share a similar view. However, due to the fact that many inmates with life sentences are often either paroled or found to have been wrongfully convicted, I think the "all prisoners serving life sentences" thing should be limited to prisoners serving life sentences without chance of parole who have been incarcerated for at least five years. Now, that's not to say that none of the others deserve the death sentence or that the death sentence should be used exclusively in those cases. That's only if you want to lay down a blanket rule; which, for the record, I do support.
Oops, I meant to say that America is the only developed, high productivity economy nations. Many of the nations you listed are not considered developed. Syria is a prime example. Revolutionary war going on there. As far as I can see, the only one's that give merit to your argument are Japan, Russia, China, and South Korea. That does prove my statement wrong however so I will retract that. That was just something I heard through the grapevine in my economics class.
Originally Posted by Risk
No. Never. It defeats the purpose of having separate convictions for minors versus adults. Even if the minor does have a clear and malicious intent behind their crime, there's no reason to make a mockery of the exact nature of the law by allowing this term to be so flexible and imprecise. This is dumb.
I would have to agree with this one.