Death penalty opponents - a hypothetical

In My Humble Opinion
41

Let’s imagine that this is far in the future; leftist values have finally become the norm and the death penalty has been abolished for hundreds or thousands of years. Then someone invents the 100-percentinator that can determine guilt to a magical degree of certainty.

If someone then said that we should execute those who met the 100% standard for murder, and it was up to me to decide whether or not to restore this archaic practice, my response would be, Why? What does it do for us? Why do we want to put society through the stress of having this thing, this moral decision to make periodically, when we can just lock up and forget about these people instead? I don’t believe capital punishment has a real deterrent value, and barring Tibby’s hypothetical where there magically is a deterrent value, I see no reason to do this.

On the other hand, if this was invented tomorrow, in America where we still allow the death penalty, and I had no power to do anything, I would not make this one of my hot button issues, nor would I necessarily weep for those executed by the state.

42

Interesting, thanks for the replies so far. As I suspected, I’m in the minority. As the hypothetical will never come to pass we’re still all going to be on the same team although it is troubling that in this hypothetical world I am to ‘yes’ voters what DP supporters are to us in this world.

Should have said that the OP was inspired by this thread by Winston Smith.

ETA; @ Dr. Strangelove, it’s integral to the hypothetical that not a shred of doubt remains over the guilt of the killer, or the practical objection remains. In other words the device does work 100% of the time and that can be demonstrated.

43

I would still oppose the death penalty.

Maybe it’s a holdover from my libertarian days, but I don’t believe the government should have the power to kill its citizens. This new device doesn’t change that.

44

I am opposed for many of the reasons already enumerated by others and would only add one more: It irrevocably changes the life of every single person who had any part in carrying out the imposition of that penalty. Every juror who sits on a death case and renders that verdict lives with that decision for the rest of their life – as well as their families and friends and so on. It’s a big deal.

So no, the Guilt o tron 9000 doesn’t change my mind, either.

45

There are four valid reasons for punishment and one invalid one. The four valid reasons are:
1: Restitution
2: Rehabilitation
3: Protection of the public
4: Deterrence

Of these, the death penalty does nothing for restitution: Nothing can bring back a murder victim. It does less than nothing for rehabilitation: There’s a possibility that an imprisoned murderer will reform and become a good citizen, but that possibility does not exist for an executed murderer. It does protect the public from recurrence of the crime, but only to the same extent as life imprisonment. And it could in principle serve as a deterrent against murder, but in practice, it’s empirically found that it works extremely poorly for that, probably worse than imprisonment does.

That just leaves the one invalid reason for punishment, the one reason why the death penalty does exist: Revenge. People sometimes try to dress this up by calling it justice, but revenge is not justice, and what they really want is just revenge. Which never accomplishes anything positive, and always makes the situation worse, long-term.

46

Well, it would guarantee that the perpetrator didn’t escape, which would protect the public.

On a more serious note, for yes voters, is it possible to quantify the moral vs practical objections? Where as I obviously have 100% practical opposition to it (this also includes realities like its capricious, arbitrary and let’s face it racist application, and the evidence that it doesn’t work as a deterrent - proponents would say this is a problem with the application and not the DP itself, but the point remains) what proportion of yes voters would say that it’s a 100% moral objection? That the practicalities of it are completely irrelevant, it’s just wrong? Or are you a hybrid of the practical and moral?

47

The problem with the Guilt-o-tron is that it could be hacked or faked. Not that it is being, but that the possibility exists.

48

Yes, but it’s debatable about what’s wrong and what’s right.

I believe it’s generally accepted by most of society that people found guilty of the crime of first degree murder should be punished for the crime they committed. It would be nice if restitution was involved, too, but I don’t think that occurs very often in homicide cases.

Does anyone believe no punishment should be involved with first degree murder? If so, then it follows that if, hypothetically, the recidivism and deterrence rates were both zero, murderers should simply not be prosecuted at all. But, that doesn’t feel right, does it? There is the issue of justice. Even if punishment resulted in no net gain for society, we still believe that willful first degree (no mental disease involved) crimes against society should be punished—at least I hope we all believe that.

Then, it becomes a matter of what is the appropriate punishment to fit the crime? We could, of course, punish first degree murderers by smacking them 20 times with a wet noodle, but that doesn’t feel right, either. Somehow, we know at our cores, that punishments should be somewhat equal in severity to the crime committed. Well, an “eye for an eye” punishment is certainly the easiest way to obtain equality. However, in most cases, I think the majority of us agree that “an eye for an eye” is not the best punishment for the state to be divvying out. Raping a rapist doesn’t sit well with me for some reason. Although, I would bet heavily that many convicted rapists would accept the punishment of being raped by a state appointed rapecutionist as opposed to living the rest of their lives in a penitentiary.

But, I think an “eye for an eye” punishment may be appropriate for some situations, including the heinous crime of first degree murder. As mentioned, it’s certainly equivalent to the committed crime. But, is it wrong, or immoral for the state to kill in certain circumstances? I don’t think so. On what grounds, religion? Maybe God was just using shorthand on Moses’s tablets—should have been “thou shalt not kill unless it’s as punishment for 1st degree murder.” Anyway, I believe the great majority of Dopers are areligious, so this should not even be an issue. Is killing in any circumstance a universal immorality?

Why else would it be immoral for the state to kill convicted murderers? Most of us don’t have a problem with soldiers killing enemies of the nation during times of war. How is that different than killing enemies of the state during times of murder? Frankly, I find killing enemy soldiers more distasteful than killing 1st degree murderers.
Of course the alternative punishment for 1st degree murder cases heinous enough to garner capital punishment, is life in prison without the chance of parole. That is arguably on equal footing, punishment-wise, to capital punishment. But, is it really better and is it really more moral? In the real world, I do think it may be better, but only insofar as it allows a reprieve for those rare cases of wrongful prosecution. However, the OP’s magic hypothesis assures against wrongful prosecution, so this is not relevant.

So, as per the OP scenario, you really have only two possibilities: 100% guilty murders being put to death by the state vs. 100% guilty murderers spending the rest of their lives in prison without hope of parole. Why do some of you think the second choice is more moral than the first?

I believe most of you will agree that spending life in prison without hope of parole is a miserable existence, correct? In fact, if we were put an innocent person in prison for life, that could be considered a form of torture. We put our pets to sleep in order to put them out of their misery and are considered humane for doing so. How is this different than putting inmates to sleep and putting them out of their miserable existence? In fact, it can be argued that putting convicted murderers to sleep may be even more humane than putting pets to sleep: not only are you relieving them the misery of life-long incarceration, you may also be relieving some of them the mental anguish of life-long guilt for the misery they caused others (at least the ones with a conscience).

All in all, I think capital punishment and life in prison without the chance of parole are pretty equivalent forms of punishment and either is appropriate for the crime of 1st degree murder. With the chance of wrongful prosecution, I give the nod to life in prison; with no chance of wrongful prosecution, I give the nod to capital punishment. With inclusion of my magical hypothetical of 25% deterrence, I give the nod heavily to capital punishment.

49

It needs to be noted that life imprisonment also results in death, too. The only difference is that the state, technically, didn’t *actively *cause the death. In other words, I’m not convinced that life imprisonment is, morally speaking, significantly higher ground.

50

I oppose the death penalty because I don’t think the state should be in the business of killing people in custody. Period. I don’t care what the guy did, once he’s incarcerated, then we don’t kill him.

51

Death is a guaranteed fate of every person, imprisonment does not cause it. What imprisonment causes is the removal of a potential or known threat from the general population.

52

[QUOTE=the OP]
When you plug in a perpetrator to it it shows both the killing that they’re on trial for and their memory of it
[/QUOTE]
Memory is less than 100% reliable. We already have this problem with witness testimony in criminal trials.

53

I know which is why I specified that it’ll show the actual killing itself, but it’ll also show the motive of the perp as well (if they committed premeditated murder, manslaughter or are not guilty by reason of insanity etc.). This is another practical flaw in the DP as it stands, as well as not knowing 100% whether they committed the crime we can’t know 100% why they did it either.

54

I’m religious and killing soldiers, civilians, murderers, unborn children, etc., is immoral. Even within my religion there are exceptions – self-defense, for one – but I still hope I could lay down my life rather than killing someone else. Wars as fought these days are rarely or never about self-defense so I can’t support them either and I find joining the military a terrible choice.

As far as life imprisonment being more moral than the death penalty, besides the idea that killing is wrong unless there is absolutely no other way to keep the public safe, where there is life there is hope. Maybe there will be some healing or restitution or some change that makes the world a little bit better than if the person were simply killed. Or not, but we as a society don’t have the right to take a life.

55

Other people’s behaviors do not force me to behave in ways against my nature.

For instance, a woman wears a short skirt. I don’t rape her because I am not a rapist.

One man kills someone, I do not then kill him, in cold blood, when it is not self-defense or defending the life of another because I am not a murderer.

56

I support the death penalty for treason and related crimes (terrorism, etc.) and oppose it for murder, rape, and all other common (=nonpolitical) crimes. My opinion about that isn’t based on the likelihood of guilt. I would support executing traitors and subversives even if there was a decent chance they were innocent, and I would oppose executing murderers even if it was known they were guilty.

57

Ok, I’ll be the crazy one here.

I’d let a killer decide between life in prison or assisted suicide. I don’t like it that society has the right to kill, but I do support everyone’s right to kill themselves.

58

Not crazy, but could take away some of the deterrent value.

59

Well, I do not to be the guy who bleaches someone’s anus because I’m not an anus bleacher, nor do I aspire to become one. But, I support society’s right to have their anuses bleached and to hire someone willing to bleach them.

I do not want to be the guy who slams the prison door shut on a convicted criminal for a large chunk of his natural born life, because I’m not a prison guard, nor do I aspire to become one. But, I support the state’s right to carry out this sentence and to hire someone willing to execute it.

I would not want to be the guy who pushes the lethal injection IV into the arm of a death row inmate; because I’m not an executioner, nor do I aspire to become one. But, I support the state’s right to carry out this sentence and to hire someone willing to execute it.

Just because you don’t want to do the wet work doesn’t mean the wet work shouldn’t be done.

60

Fines for petty/non-violent crimes act as a deterrent for others to commit them, as well as decreasing the likelihood the criminal will do it again. Locking up kidnappers, etc, is a deterrent too, as well as keeping everyone else safe. The fact that the punishment is the same as the crime is merely coincidental; the punishments weren’t created out of a sense of payback, but as ways to keep society intact. The death penalty, on the other hand, goes beyond serving the greater good and is punishment for the sake of revenge.