I'd rather get rid of the death penalty altogether; if we take near-infinite lifespans as the default case, it is clear that death is a grossly disproportionate punishment for anything less severe than, say, wiping out the human species, particularly if the offender is a juvenile (under 1,000 or so). But if it is to remain, I'd support allowing them to be cryonically preserved... in fact, I'd support allowing them to go into cryopreservation right away if they don't want to appeal their conviction. Same for prisoners who merely have life sentences, if they'd rather just go into cold storage right away instead of sitting around for decades waiting to die. (And I agree with providing cryonics to everybody by default, including to criminals.)
Of course, any politician advocating this today would be sorted into the same category as the Rhinoceros Party, the Rent Is Too Damn High Party, Mike Gravel, etc. Which is unfortunate, but if anyone wants to try it, you may as well go all out and start the Freeze Serial Killers' Heads So They Can Someday Be Resurrected As Cyborgs Party. (That's my favourite method of deflecting damaging accusations — happily accuse yourself of them before your opponents have a chance to.)
I'd rather get rid of the death penalty altogether; if we take near-infinite lifespans as the default case, it is clear that death is a grossly disproportionate punishment for anything less severe than, say, wiping out the human species, particularly if the offender is a juvenile (under 1,000 or so).
Yes, but if we are taking "near-infinite lifespans as the default case" wouldn't murder be even more wrong than it is now and so deserving of an even harsher punishment? Future murder might take thousands of years off of a life-span, but modern murder less than a hundred.
If someone is sentenced to life in prison or the death penalty, should they also be prohibited from signing up for cryonics? Specifically, I'm referring to people like these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_death_row_inmates
I am not talking about providing it for them, just allowing them to sign up for it provided they can somehow get enough money together and allowing a response team into the prison to retrieve the body after the prisoner has died or been executed by lethal injection. I think they should be allowed access to cryonics, because we don't know enough yet about the brain to determine how much of their criminal behavior is due to mental illness/disorder and how much is due to free will. It may be possible to diagnose and cure people like Jeffrey Dahmer in the future before they commit any crimes, or to cure those already in prison such that they won't commit any more crimes.
As cryonics gets more and more popular, this will become an issue, especially when the first death row inmate wants to sign up for it.