Jenn: Hopefully no one has been living under a rock and has been keeping up on the Green River serial killer case in Seattle. Gary Leon Ridgway has killed as many as 48 women known to date by strangling and mutilating their bodies. Ridgway has pleaded guilty to all 48 cases in order to avoid the death penalty.The question remains, is it up to the courts to decide whether or not a person should live after taking so many lives?The whole debate falls back on morals v. fiscal. Do we take a man’s life for taking another? Is it cheaper to kill a criminal or cheaper to keep them in prison? Realistically keeping a man on death row is expensive, with the trials, appeals and the housing in a maximum-security prison. Furthermore you are taking a mans life, which is what you are convicting that same man of. Doesn’t seem very logical to me.Juan: It seems the intent is to make an example out of the criminals put to death. It is supposed to discourage other members of the society from committing the crimes that would eventually lead them to the ultimate punishment- the death penalty.Jenn: Making an example out of criminals in order to make a point defeats the purpose. The government is there to place laws and to rule by those laws, if it is illegal to kill someone then the government should follow the same principles it preaches.It is a huge contradiction to take someone’s life who took another’s. We can’t play God for others and we cannot determine if someone has learned their lesson. I understand the pain of the families who may have lost a loved one, but is an eye for an eye really a solution? Not in the least. People cannot be so hateful towards one another and killing another human being is not going to make the problem go away. You argue that by having the death penalty, people will stray away from killing others. That is far from the truth. Let’s be realistic here, people are going to do what they are going to do. No punishment, no matter what size or velocity, is going to change that. If someone wants to kill someone, the only person that can stop them is themselves. Juan: I think that executing an individual very well halts them from murdering a person or doing anything else.Certainly the loss of a loved one cannot be “fixed” by any means, but allowing one who shortened another human being’s life to keep breathing and, on top of that, feed them and providing shelter and even protection from other inmates makes no sense to me at all. When it comes to psychopaths who have slaughtered several people consciously I cannot believe that they are capable or have desire in the best case to live within a community isolating them in such a way might even be a reward. Jenn: A reward? I suppose that would depend on the person. Taking away a person’s freedom does not sound like much of a reward to me. Juan: Serial killers do not sound like much of a person to me.Jenn: Yes, but who are you or I to determine a person’s fate? If we take away a criminals life because they have taken away another, doesn’t that make you or I the same as the criminal? It does not make us any better of a person to commit the same act that this deranged person has committed.Juan: I agree. And I do not intend to be a better person by supporting killing them. The reasoning behind my argument is the investment in supporting these criminals while locked away. I also stand against the death penalty but not because I feel the main purpose is bad. My reasons are mainly that the system is not properly designed. The psychopaths I talk about are commonly the ones who are able to avoid capital punishment. Defense attorneys more than often appeal to psychological disabilities in order to secure the least severe punishment possible for their clients.Jenn: Interesting point, however I don’t believe that all people who are on ‘death row’ are guilty of the crimes that they are being convicted of. With the DNA technology that we have today, we are learning more and more that people who have been sentenced to death or are on ‘death row’ are not the ones who are committing these crimes. And in some cases the verdicts cannot be reversed.Juan: That takes us to another point I intend to make. Let’s remember a few years back when the governor of Illinois cancelled all executions after it was revealed that many ‘death row’ prisoners were not guilty. In fact about 27 men were found to be innocent and released from prison. That shows deficiency in the system-the ones that should be executed get off the hook while others suffer the effects of these laws.Jenn: Either way the government and state laws cannot control all actions of every human being. Don’t get me wrong, there should be repercussions of a person’s action. However, it is not up to the society to determine a person’s fate as far as them living or dying. By doing so, nothing will be accomplished and the cycle will continue, the one of hate and vengeance.Juan: I believe the main purpose of the death penalty, being it to daunt criminal behavior could be accomplished and therefore show success by executing criminals. But we are far from witnessing such success as long as a flawless system is not designed, or at least one free of fatal errors, such as killing the wrong people and sheltering the real criminals.