Can Big Pharma kill the death penalty?

[Kobal2]

@pkbites

And letting the monster peacefully drift off to death doesn’t infer a sense of consequence to anyone.

I dunno, dude, a stern-looking doctor walking slowly towards me with a needle in his hand rarely fails to instill a feeling of dread.

Also, and joke aside, lethal injections are not peaceful at all.

[Smapti]

@Budget_Player_Cadet

What possible purpose could it have beyond vindictive revenge?

You imply that “vindictive revenge” is not an acceptable purpose in and of itself.

[UltraVires]

@Der_Trihs

And what makes you assume that killing him quickly is better? Death penalty cases involve so much time and appeals in large part because they are overwhelmingly examples of terrible policework and law. Is there virtue in swiftly executing some guy whose defense lawyer slept through the trial, or who was arrested and convicted because he was the first convenient black guy the crime could be pinned on?

You’ve brought up several points that I will try to address:

1. Pick the nearest black guy—there are well-funded groups in this country that actively search for racial based prosecutions. If police anywhere simply pick a convenient minority to prosecute, these groups can ferret this out. But no matter because:

2. I would have no problem with an updated system where an intention to seek the death penalty sets a heightened system, if you will, in motion. The defendant gets experienced counsel who has an excellent reputation. He gets the F. Lee Bailey or Johnny Cochran of his community paid for by the state. He gets access to his own forensic testing, experts, etc. all paid for, and then relaxed Rules of Evidence to put on basically any evidence he wants unless it is manifestly absurd. He then gets an appeal where nothing is considered “harmless error.” If he loses the appeal, then he gets a federal habeas and one appeal from that. Then the governor reviews the case extensively. But…

3. This needs to be done in an deliberate fashion. 2 years from conviction to execution if he loses at all of these steps. For the death penalty to mean anything it must have some certainty. I know that you are opposed to the death penalty, so you aren’t concerned with a workable process. In your mind (and I respect your opinion) there is NO fair system. I support the death penalty, but I would vote to abolish it in California or Pennsylvania if they aren’t going to make an effort to do it fairly or with any certainty.

The drunk lawyer sleeping through a trial, in my mind, is still a problem even if we abolish the death penalty. Life without parole is ridiculous in that scenario, or even a week in jail. The drunk lawyer, the prosecutor, and the judge who watched him sleep should all have their law licenses suspended for a while.

[Pjen]

@cornopean

There are two very interesting posts about capital punishment on the Becker Posner blog. (a very interesting blog btw)

Posner notes that there is empirical research which shows that capital punishment prevents further murders.

“…but more recent work by economists Hashem Dezhbakhsh, Paul Rubin, and Joanna Shepherd provides strong support for Ehrlich’s thesis; these authors found, in a careful econometric analysis, that one execution deters 18 murders.”

He also notes that the possibility of executing an innocent man is very slight. “The number of people who are executed for a murder they did not commit appears to be vanishingly small. It is so small, however, in part because of the enormous protraction of capital litigation. The average amount of time that a defendant spends on death row before being executed is about 10 years. If the defendant is innocent, the error is highly likely to be discovered within that period.”

Here is Posner’s post: http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/2005/12/the-economics-of-capital-punishment--posner.html

Here is Becker’s post: http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/2005/12/more-on-the-economics-of-capital-punishment-becker.html

There is also compelling evidence that says the opposite. The Justice Project would disagree about the low level of likely wrongful executions given the quality of the US legal system.

[Pjen]

@74westy

Have they tried I. G. Farben?

Careful! I was warned for breaking Godwin’s Law on another thread.

[Pjen]

On another thread it was pointed out that it would be illegal (in Ohio) to deispense drugs for judicial killing because the state law says that drugs can only be dispensed for medically necessary treatments!

Perhaps US States need to listen to voices from the civilized world when they say that they are unwilling to participate in judicial killings- it goes to National Stereotyping- people believe that with Guantanamo and torture, Phosphorous Weapons on civilians, kidnapping people from other states, rendering, drones, mass interception of friendly government’s communications and so on that the US has some ugly moral values. Judicial killing is just one more.