Originally Posted by Charge_7

While not against the death penalty, I think it should be more strictly enforced, and by that I mean only when no possibility of doubt exists (i.e they have the camera footage of the guy shooting up 30 people at a MacDonalds) and when no possibility of mental illness exists. I'm not talking psychopaths here but people who are truly out of it and incapable of understanding what they did. Going berserk because you lost out on a promotion or such wouldn't qualify. Neither would growing up in a bad home. They would need more than a couple people's eye witness testimony as well. The cases recently spot lighted in Illinois where DNA results overturned convictions from eye witness testimony clearly call for the need for that. As we both acknowledged in the "MacDonalds" thread, Chewie, there is a point when you know right from wrong and when the act was planned and carried out. That's what is most important I believe. The age of this I'm sure can be quantified by experts in child development. I don't think a four year old who dropped a heavy object on their baby sister because they didn't like the attention the new arrival was getting would be determined to have understood what they had done, but a 12 year old who throttled her 9 year old sister certainly knew. It is up to the courts to decide if this was mental illness or pure and simple cruelty.