Suicide Watch on Death Row

Great Debates
1

(I wish to apologise in advance to the die-hard GD people: I don’t seem to have the head for this forum. Mostly it gives me migraines. Still, this is an issue which is best served here, so I’m presenting it for everyone’s flagellational satisfaction. I may not participate significantly, but I am certainly interested in everyone else’s take on the issue. With all due apologies, etc. and so forth…and his orchestra.)

Over the last couple of weeks, I have caught two things on television whose connection has caused no end of puzzlement in my head.

FIRST: A news story about the death of Hermann Goering, the leader of the Gestapo. Tried for war crimes after WWII, he was sentenced to be hanged. A few hours before his execution was to be carried out, he was discovered dead in his cell, having committed suicide by ingestion of cyanide. The story was about an American (IIRC) soldier who has recently come forward, because he believes that he may have been the unwitting courier for the poison that allowed Goering to “escape justice.”

This is what bothered me about the piece: that since he died by his own hand, he was considered to have cheated society out of killing him.

SECOND: A recent episode of “Celebrity Justice” where Brad Garrett was complaining about people being kept on death row for 19 years at taxpayers’ expense. He also mentioned that people on death row were sometimes put on suicide watch. His solution: DON’T WATCH THEM!

These two things brought trouble to my feebly cogitating mind. It seems that when we as a society have determined that someone deserves to die as a punishment for their behaviour, it isn’t enough for them to be dead as a result.

It seems that WE HAVE TO KILL THEM.

If WE can’t kill them, then we’re not happy. It isn’t enough that they’re dead and will no longer hurt anyone…we need the gratification that comes from killing them ourselves.

But the gratification that comes from killing someone…isn’t that what we’re punishing them for? I would hazard a guess (see? No GD epaulettes here) that most capital crimes involve killing people. If killing people is so horrible that we have to kill people to punish it, then what justifies OUR needing to kill in order to be satisfied?

Why not (as Mr. Garrett suggested) just “quit watching them” and let them kill themselves?

How can we morally condemn killing while still insisting on our right to engage in it?

(Note: This is NOT a pro- nor anti- Death Penalty thread. I don’t have my mind made up on that issue, nor am I interested in being convinced one way or the other at the moment. This is a “if killing is wrong for that person, why is it okay for us?” thread.)

Illuminate me, please.

Thx mch,
Bch bg

2

In order to stave off tha taint of what the state is actualy doing (i.e. killing a citizen), a great deal of ritual is observed and care taken to make sure the process is done “right” and as cold-bloodedly as possible. I don’t get it, myself. I’d be happy leaving the condemned a sturdy belt and a ceiling hook.

Although I like the idea of the death penalty, I don’t want t see its return to Canada becuase of all the bizarre baggage (as well as an appeals industry) that gets lumped along with it, using the States as an example.

3

Well a lot of the folks on death row are still appealing, so in their case the state still belives that their is some chance they may be innocent, and thus we aren’t going to let them kill themselves. Even those who have exhausted the appeals process may be awaiting some last call from the governor or something. It would be the height of tragedy (and bad press for the judicial system) to find someone innocent in an appeal after they’ve hung themselves because they thought they were going to be put to death.

Also, while we do have the death penalty, their is a general consensus that it should be done in the most humane way possible. A prison cell suicide, on the other hand, could be very ugly depending on the method, and thus we would not only be allowing the prisoner to escape justice, but he would in fact be allowing him to undergo a punishment above an beyond what has been decided on.

And I would imagine prison-cell suicides, due to the scantity of materials available, are seldom successful. Instead, they probably simply result in an injured prisoner, who then has to be taken to the infirmary, treated at the expense of the tax payer, etc.

Finally, suicide is against the law for several good reasons, and as a general rule, we don’t allow things that are against the law to happen in jail cells anymore then we do outside them.

4

It’s all about control.

Have you ever been in a relationship with someone, and you decide you’re tired of all their crap, and you spend all night rehearsing a breakup speech, then before you can say your speech they break up with you? You’re probably going to be disappointed. It’s kind of like that. You wanted to break up on YOUR terms, and the other person took that power away from you.

We wanted to mete out justice, and Goering took that power away from us.

5

I have a friend who is against the death penalty. Among his arguments are that keeping someone in jail for life already serves the purpose of protecting society, and is cheaper than the current death penalty implementation system (appeals included). I’ve pointed out to him that that doesn’t fill the possible ‘social need’ for vengeance (at least in high profile horrific crimes). Some of us want justice, some want protection, and some of us darn well want vengeance. And sentencing someone to a life in the prison library and weight yard, while also possibly exposing the rest of the inmate population to danger, also just doesn’t feel like ‘it fits,’ if the crime is bad enough.

I think it’s the only argument anyone has ever proposed to him that gave him pause, because I don’t think he is willing to just dismiss that idea. He certainly hasn’t changed his position, but if there’s anything to it and many of us experience an emotional need to punish, then letting the person escape said punishment is certain to frustrate that ‘need,’ to prevent ‘closure.’

In short, maybe: it ain’t just about the convict being dead. It’s about him or her being ‘punished.’

What THAT says about us is a separate thread, I think.

6

The Perfect Master answered a question which raised some of the same issues here: When someone is executed by lethal injection, do they swab off the arm first?.

7

A Death Row inmate is still a ward of the state, which means, in this sense, that he is treated like any other inmate-- meaning that if we’d put a guy who’s doing ten years on suicide watch, we must do the same for the Death Row inmate, even if he’s scheduled to be executed an hour from now.

Correctional institutions take their duties very seriously, and one duty is the safety of each inmate. They do not relax the rules for different circumstances. Until the guy is dead, they have to fulfil their duties to him. If he had a heart attack as they wheeled him in for execution, they would have to try to save him.

8

Some people want to drive faster than a safe speed, take items from a store without paying, or kill other people who make them angry. Just because someone has a desire for something doesn’t mean it should be fulfilled, or even that the desire should be tolerated.

9

Yes but in the case of vengeance, it is a desire that most definitely should be tolerated.

In the landmark SCOTUS case which brough the death penalty back to the United States (Gregg v. Georgia) Justice Stewart said in his concurring opinion:

“The instinct of retribution is part of the nature of man, and channeling that instinct in the administration of criminal justice serves an important purpose in promoting the stability of a society governed by the law.”

10

“Serves an important purpose in promoting the stability of a society”… how exactly does slaking an angry victim’s thirst for blood do that? If a murderer dies by his own hand instead of at the executioner’s hand, do we really have to worry about the victim’s family rioting because they didn’t get to watch someone throw the switch?

The desire for vengeance, the instinct of retribution - whatever you call it, it has no place in the laws of a civilized society, no matter what some sociopath who happens to sit behind a bench might think.

No, that desire should not be tolerated. It’s understandable, just as a hungry man’s desire to steal a loaf of bread is understandable, but as humans we’re able to suppress our desires when we realize we shouldn’t act on them. Wishing to inflict pain on someone else just to make ourselves feel better is one of those desires that should be suppressed.

11

Well calling a Supreme Court justice, a man who is beyond reproach as an expert on the law, as sociopath has already caused me to dismiss you as someone worth arguing with.

But to entertain your little rant further, in many ways the legal system is there to settle disputes. Government has to enforce certain things for a society to function. There must be some equity. If I suffer because of someone’s actions that person needs to suffer. Or the dispute hasn’t ended fairly. People are left disastisfied. In singular instances this means nothing. But if we have a justice system that systematically fails to right wrongs, then society will break down.

The criminal justice system was never set up to rehabilitate criminals. It wasn’t even set up to make society safe, that was a secondary cause. Criminal law exists so that mob justice doesn’t have to. That is the reason law rose up in early communities.

When someone did an asshattish thing, like steal your fruit or burn down your c. 3,000 BC stick hovel, something had to be done to that guy. In some societies the person who was wronged got his friend together and killed the trouble maker.

In other societies they felt there should be a more formalized way to settle problems like this. So they brought in the idea that the people who run the place ought to help settle problems like this. To insure that justice is brought about (because rulers have more means to apprehend wrongdoers than angry victims) and to make sure justice is applied fairly to all (something you don’t have with mob justice.)

To get back to the death penalty. A segment of society feels the only way the scales can be balanced, the wrong in some way alleviated, when dealing with murder is to put to death that murderer.

12

Malodorus makes a valid point: sometimes the death penalty is (dare I make a pun) executed prematurely. Innocent people (so I have heard) have been executed unjustly (which is a good argument against the DP). I personally do not have an issue with people being on death row for a considerable time for this reason: they could be eventually found innocent. We are not perfect, even if we ARE in charge.

To me, the logical disconnect comes with objecting to the death of someone that we have decided to kill, on the sole basis of the fact that WE didn’t get to kill them. That smacks of the same instinct that drove them to kill in the first place (which is usually what we’re punishing them for), and therefore seems rather hypocritical.

I suspect Blalron and others are right: it’s about control. We want to be in charge, and those who end their own life while waiting on execution by us have taken that away from us. But, to me, that lowers us to their level: if we are executing them for taking someone’s life of their own volition, then aren’t we doing the same thing?

How can we say “You are wrong for doing this, but that makes it okay for US to do it?”

If “vengeance” is the answer, then are we really any better than those we are punishing? And, if not, then what justifies the belief that our killing is morally correct, if it is motivated by the same instinct as those we are condemning?

I beg to differ: that’s exactly what this thread is meant to address. [sub]Not arguing with you, just clarifying, mind you.[/sub]

We may persuade ourselves that we are better than they, but if we are still killing people that we don’t approve of, then that’s still what we’re doing. Persuading ourselves that it’s different when we do it does not change the fact that we are still doing it.

But we’re going to KILL them! How is that preserving their safety?

My point is that if we have decreed that someone deserves to die (rightly or wrongly), then preserving their life is nothing more than a catering to the desire for revenge: WE want to kill them, and no one–not even they–will prevent us from getting our jollies in this fashion.

It just seems as if we are saying that the convict’s behavior is unconscionable, but it’s okay if WE indulge in it.

That seems wrong to me.

13

I’m questioning his morals, not his legal expertise.

If the only way they can be satisfied is to harm someone, then sorry, they don’t get no satisfaction. Will that lead to the breakdown of society? Of course not. People go unsatisfied all the time, and society is still here.

People who want to steal things don’t get to, and that makes them sad. People who want to lynch foreigners don’t get to, and that makes them sad too. If people who want to harm those who harmed them first don’t get to, and that makes them sad, they can deal with it just like everyone else.

The problem is the belief that “righting a wrong” must involve harming the person who harmed you. It doesn’t set anything right, it only makes you feel better, and no one ever has the right to harm someone else, against his will, just because it feels good.

There are a few good reasons for the death penalty, but this sure isn’t one of them. That segment of society is, shall we say, dead wrong, and their desires on this issue deserve no more attention than the desires of thieves to steal whatever they feel like having.

14

(Oh, Lord, let me not hijack this thread into oblivion…)

This is most manifestly NOT a reason to dismiss someone’s argument. “A Supreme Court justice, a man who is BEYOND REPROACH (rest of text non-repeated by virtue of having been invalidated by the text presented)?”

What is this person, a Terminator? God? “Beyond reproach?” You are kidding, right? I will grant you (even without knowing who you are talking about) that if he made it to the Supreme Court, he probably knows more about the law than I do. Still, that doesn’t make him beyond reproach. Even experts can be wrong.

I would agree with you here, but unfortunately, society tells me (and always has), “Tough shit.” I have suffered because of someone else’s actions my whole life, and NOBODY GIVES A DAMN. More importanly, I am not supposed to give a damn, either! But hey, I’m not in charge; don’t ask me to explain it.

Yeah, no shit.

Well, then, society should not insist on its entitlement to exact vengeance whilst denying me MY entitlement. It’s contradictory to say “Getting back at people is okay, but only when WE do it.” As a member of society, I’m a “WE”, too.

Got a cite for that? :wink:

My problem with this logic is the “segment of society” part. This usually seems to be the SAME “segment of society” that condemns killing in the first place. What justifies their indulging in it, if they object to it so thoroughly?

15

Well, first of all, the people who take care of the inmate day-in-and-day-out aren’t the ones who will be killing him. An Execution Team is called in for that. (At least in my state, that’s the way it happens.) So, in essence, the every-day guys fulfill their duties until the Execution Team is called in to fulfill theirs.

It also has to do with following the law. Suicide is illegal in a lot of places, and staff cannot knowingly allow inmates to break the law. There is no shrugging and saying, “Oh, well, he’s gonna die anyway.” Their duty is to see to it that the sentance passed down by the courts is followed. They have to preserve his safety until the moment of his execution.

16

If I catch a burglar breaking into my house and robbing me, it’s wrong for me to grab him and lock the guy in my basement for 5-10 years. However, it’s ok for him to be found guilty in a court of law, and be sentenced to prison for 5-10 years. Some things, like the punishment of crimes, we’ve more or less reserved for the State. So while it’s justice for the State to lock up or execute someone, it’s not justice for private individuals to do so.

17

Just because two different things may achieve the same result doesn’t make them equivalent. The state has numerous duties; one is prevent prisoners from harming themselves. Another is to execute the condemned man at the time and place and in the manner proscribed by law. Both duties are enforcements of the law even though they work towards diamtrically opposite outcomes.

18

Why? Because as a society, we are a bunch of knuckle-dragging, neanderthal muthahfuckahs who are as bloodthirsty a society as you’ll ever find. We entertain ourselves with it, both in movies and in life. We have umpteen television shows about murder and justice, rape and justice, etc., etc., etc. We can’t get enough of it.

I am against the death penalty because it doesn’t work as a deterrent and because it’s hypocritical. And also because it brings out the worst in human beings. We simply need to find another way to answer violent crime. This is not fixing the problem, either superficially or at its core. We need to look deep into our collective hearts and try to figure out why and how we got so fucked up.

19

The big problem with allowing or encouraging jailhouse suicides is that the inmates are wards of the state, and in a very vulnerable position. They have been determined to be incompetant to manage their own affairs, so we’re going to segregate them where they can’t harm other people. So the blanket rule for everyone in prison is that we are going to prevent suicides for everyone, do medical care for everyone, prevent accidents for everyone, stop inmates from shiving each other for everyone, feed everyone, etc, etc. Sure, a tiny fraction of inmates are on death row, since they’re gonna be executed who cares if another inmate shivs them in the showers? Except it doesn’t make sense to run two prison systems, one safe for regular prisoners, and one dangerous for death-row prisoners. Procedures are the same for all inmates, up to the time when they are marched to the death chamber. Makes things simpler and easier for everyone.

20

First, I’d like to thank everyone for responding to this thread (“fighting ignorance–especially Dijon’s” and all that).

Second, while I wish that Kalhoun was kidding, I suspect he isn’t…and I might find myself agreeing with him (not that agreeing with Kalhoun is bad, but the position he presents isn’t exactly delectable…I suspect it’s more accurate than I’d like, though).

I understand that the law allows for this position, but WE made the law, and it still seems rather hypocritical: we (as a society) object to the killing of people, so the killing of people is what entitles us to kill people. Because it’s WRONG…except when we do it.

Yes, I get that. But the problem that presents itself to me is that the Execution Team’s duty contradicts the every-day guys’ duty. It doesn’t seem to me as if they can BOTH be right.

But he IS going to “die anyway”. That’s my point: he HAS been sentenced to die, ANYWAY. Preserving his life until then just seems malicious, which is supposedly why we’re punishing HIM: maliciousness.

We certainly don’t CALL it justice, but if it’s “justice” for the person to be locked up or executed, then why does who performs that action make a difference? The end result is the same. If it’s okay for the criminal to experience the punishment, then who metes it out shouldn’t matter. Why is it justice in one case, but not in the other?

This is an extremely lucid explanation (for which I thank you); but it’s still (IMHO) predicated upon the contention that “it’s that way because we said so!” Using “the law” to jusify our decisions is basically saying that we’ve decided to have things that way, and we have invented rules that support our decision, and therefore our decision is justified.

It just seems to be circular reasoning. If we are going to insist on our collective right to be in charge of commiting what WE OURSELVES define as crimes, then we should have a better explanation than: “because it’s okay for us, but wrong for everybody else,” and that seems to be the reason that we DO have.

:frowning: