If you think it makes a difference, feel free to delete “one of them escapes and kills 2 innocent people” and substitute “one of them kills 2 people while still in prison.” That doesn’t really affect my point.
Texas uses the death penalty a lot, and that failed to prevent those murders.
Tell me, how would you predict which murderers are going to kill again? In order to prevent those three murders you cite, you would need a foolproof method. Either that, or you would have to execute all of them, without exception.
But some of those convicted murderers turn out to be innocent later. If you execute all of them, you would prevent maybe three murders, but also execute five or six innocent people.
Look for a cite that says that a person who commits murder is more likely to get life without parole than a life sentence with parole, or less than a life sentence to begin with. You won’t find one.
We’re comparing the death penalty with other alternatives. Do you think a jury and prosecutor who don’t go after life without parole will go after the death penalty instead? In many states you have to show special circumstances for a death penalty charge. Or are you confusing different degrees of murder? Are you proposing the death penalty for second degree murder, for instance?
You are changing the example given. In my example, I already accounted for 2 murders by recidivists. You attempt to change that by saying that some of the others will also be recidivists.
This study is often cited in these debates, but you are misunderstanding what it means. It only shows that 6.6% were arrested, not that 6.6% were guilty.
Thing is, when investigating a crime, the police might “round up the usual suspects” that is they arrest and question many different people with a previous record for similar crimes. Arrest rate and
Wrong. When the murderers have been put to death, a thousand people would be dead. Including 2 innocents and 998 others.
If the second of those actually existed it would be worse. But it doesn’t.
Arrest rate and recidivism rate are not the same thing.
It is fair to say that they are proportional. It’s only meaningful if you compare it to something else. If State A has 3% rearrest rate, and State B has 6% rearrest rate, you can say that State A has lower recidivism, you can’t say what the actual rate is.
Two names that should always be remembered in discussions of this type are Gary Tison and Kenneth McDuff.
Tison and the rest of his gang were involved in a 1978 Arizona prison break that resulted in the murders of six people while they were on the run. In the shootout that ended the break, one of Tison’s sons was shot dead. Tison had been serving life for murdering a cop; one of his accomplices was a serial killer who enjoyed sneaking up on and shooting truck drivers at rest stops. The accomplice eventually was executed; Tison died of exposure in the desert.
Kenneth McDuff went to death row in 1966 for murdering three young people (the two women were raped first). His death sentence got commuted due to the Supreme Court’s ruling against the death penalty in 1972, and he was eventually paroled. He murdered at least five more women, including one who was kidnapped from a car wash. Estimates of his total victims range up to 14. He was finally executed, just a bit too late.
Of course, innocents sometimes have to die so the state can keep its hands clean. This includes not just those murdered by escaped or released murderers, but prison inmates killed by murderers behind bars, and prison employees who get in the way.
It’s the price we pay for enlightened justice. Of course, we probably won’t have to pay it, but you get the idea.
That’s your idea of a gotcha? Did I say the murderers wouldn’t be dead? No. I was talking about the numbers of innocent people dead in the two situations. You know, people who aren’t in jail after killing others.
But the state does not commit murder, by definition. Murder is a crime of passion in which the victims are not given a chance to defend themselves. Execution does not fit that definition by any stretch of the imagination.