No... the action should. What, just because his dad never hugged him that makes him special? No, that just might make him more dangerous because he has fuckin' problems.

Look, if you kill your wife because she was cheating on you, then that means you kill people who deceive you. Since this is a fuckin' world of fuckin' rats, a lot of people are in danger. Thus meaning you should be executed. If you kill your wife because you were abused as a child, this means you are FUCKED UP and should be executed for everyone's sake.

Of course, I feel that the death penalty should only be used if the evidence is overwhelming and you're not just determined guilty because of the jury. Although, I don't think you should be determined guilty until the evidence is overwhelming or proven beyond a reasonable doubt... so w/e.

No, if a guy shot up a department store and killed seven people the fact that his dad was not there would have no purpose.

The problem with the death penalty is that it costs a lot more to kill someone legally than put him in the general population and hope he gets shanked. It takes years to finally go through all the appeals involved with the death penalty.

Well, it depends on age.

An 18 year old is considered an adult by the legal system. Is this enough life experience though for one to truly make "adult" decisions?

Sometimes it is and sometimes it is not.

There have been cases I believe, where someone would be spared the death penalty for an exceptionally low IQ, it would be said they have a "mind of a child," and so could not be given an adult punishment, but it is still right and necessary to permanantly remove that person from society.

However, western society in generally, more so for the U.S. it seems than other countries, and on some level it may simply be a human condition, that people just don't want to grow up.

At some point, a person of sound mind has to have the capacity to realize that what happened in their childhood does not have to effect their actions.

They need to grow up, and I see it all the time, not so much murders, but on the streets, grown men in suit and tie throwing fits like children because of traffic. Adults crying over the fast food restaraunt not getting their order fast enough, people calling 911 for the silliest things. There was a grown man in Florida who had a python who escaped its cage once. There was a 2 year old kid in the house, it escaped again and killed the kid.

These adults are acting like children and it needs to stop. Whether it's the atmosphere we live in where no one is at fault, the idea that parents need to be friends with their children instead of authority figures, that we expect government to put warnings on everything to sensor everything to tell us what we can or cannot do, whether these things are to blame, or whether it's just who we are I don't know. But I think it's important we do something different in our society so more of its people know how to be adults.

So no, a person's childhood should not be any kind of consideration in any kind of criminal proceding.

You crack me up sometimes pyg, and I agree.

The minimum length for an argument is 50 characters. The purpose of this restriction is to cut down on the amount of dumb jokes, so we can keep the quality of debate and discourse as high as possible.

Whether or not a person had a tough childhood doesn't really have anything to do with how they should be sentenced. Yes, it can provide insight into why they committed the crime they did, but so what? Even if it's some form of mental illness, nobody commits any crime without a reason. And regardless of what someone has been through as a child, it shouldn't earn them any slack when they've done something wrong. There are plenty of people who've gone through the same thing and gone on to lead normal, productive lives WITHOUT committing crimes.

No. That person is still responsible for the crime that they chose to commit, unless it is against their abuser. Why should they take it out on someone who is totally innocent. The only way a person should not be held accountable for their actions is when there is mind control, or the person has been drugged by another person, or when psych drugs are involved as these truly do change a persons behavior beyond their own control. But on saying this, the other people involved should be made accountable for the actions of that person also. As far as pleading insane goes, I think this is ridiculous as I dont know of to many people thinking with true rationality that would go and kill anyone without good reason. Someone who kills someone over a packet of cigarettes and $200 obviously isn't rational by normal standards but it doesnt make shooting the 4711 guy any less a crime and the bastard should die for it, no matter how often he got smacked as a child, didn't have a father figure or whatever.

how about this, A bad part of a city has a crime problem and that problem is related to drugs. Everyone sells or buys drugs in that neighborhood. A kid who grew up in that moves to a different city, where he starts selling drugs and gets caught by a police officer and kills him. In some states the death penalty is used for cop killers. The kid is 18 and thus qualifies for the death penalty. Should he be granted a different penalty than a person who does a similar crime who had a good childhood?

He's right. The only thing that might make murder somewhat less wrong is insanity. A tough childhood is not enough to cause insanity.