RangerDave wrote:
Diamondeye wrote:
As to the claim it will be "Expanded", the history of the death penalty is one of ever more restrictions, not greater expansiveness.
There are greater court/constitutional protections, but the number of crimes to which the death penalty applies has grown and the severity threshold has been watered down. When people argue in favor of the death penalty, they usually talk about the worst of the worst criminals - multiple, deliberate murders in cold blood; torture murders; rape and murder of children; etc. In reality, though, the death penalty has been extended to crimes like plain vanilla murder involving drugs or taking place near a school, felony murder (i.e. where someone dies during the course of a felony, whether or not the death was intentional or even directly caused by the perp), aggravated rape, hijacking a plane, etc.
How exactly has it grown, and how has the severity threshold been watered down? In the last few years, it was decided that nonfatal rape and child molestation do not permit the death penalty; in this country it is exclusive to murder, espionage and treason. I can't think of anyone executed for treason or espionage since the 1950s, so it pretty much is limited to murder. I also see no evidence that it is being watered down in terms of severity. I also know of know one executed for hijacking a plane.
Really, if your complaint is that it's being extended to other kinds of murder, all you're really doing is complaining that we haven't kept the absurd level of restrictions it has had in recent decades. It is still vastly less common, and far more restricted than it was in most of our history. I see no reason to think that we will be executing horse thieves again any time soon.