Not only is it not a deterrent, but there have been some studies that show that when particularly notorious murderers are executed, there are rashes of copycat crimes at and just after the time of the execution.
About this guilt-o-matic: is it going to be programmed to determine whether a person has committed first degree murder vs. other kinds of homicide, according to the statutes of all fifty states, so that you can, for example, set a dial to “Indiana,” and it will say “execute,” only if the person meets the criteria for execution in Indiana, and not, say, Louisiana?
And will it know what the person is on trial for? suppose the person was arrested and indicted, and is being considered for punishment for a particular murder, which the person either did not do, or did do, but it only qualifies as manslaughter; however, the subject DID commit capital murder at another time (and maybe in another state). Will the guilt-o-matic conflate that guilt with the situation it is supposed to be considering, or will it be able to stick to the situation under consideration? My phone system that transliterates voice messages to text recently gave me “out is in” for “autism,” and “cat wrecked” for “cataract,” so I’m skeptical.
I was thinking showing you with 100% accuracy the killing the person is on trial for, plug them in and it shows if they did it and mind-reads them as to why. What the judiciary system classifies it as will vary according to what occurred, the motive/mental state etc. Point is that it will tell an innocent man from a killer so you never risk executing the former.
Bolding mine. Assuming good faith and not a Poe this makes my head hurt. If you execute an innocent man, you exonerate the guilty for the crime. Your traitor is free to trait away, which would probably be justified if you can be executed even if there is a ‘decent chance’ (!) you were innocent of any wrongdoing.
I have no faith in the ability of the guilt-o-matic to mind-read someone’s motives. There will always be the need for interpretation. Suppose, for example, the reason is “insurance money,” but in one case, it’s to buy a big house and a shiny sports car, and in another, it’s to support a child with special needs, and in the first case, the person killed was a relatively young spouse; in the second, a parent who was elderly and not expected to live much longer anyway.
I don’t think you can make a machine that can wholly substitute for human judgment, and there are some things humans should not be able to choose to do.
If the machine really does come up with “guilty, [edited for length] execute,” with the edited part containing several pages of the machine’s reasoning regarding motive being inadequate for exculpation, etc., then I suspect what you have is simply the judgment of the programmer.
But even if what you have is actually magic (like the sorting hat), I still vote for no executions, and you won’t get me to budge. I had a family member murdered about 23 years ago-- not a parent or child, but still, a family member, and I come from a close family, so I know how losing someone to murder affects people. You don’t need blood revenge to get past it, and anyone who says execution is necessary for the victim’s family to have “closure” (I hate that word) is wrong. There’s no argument that convinces me. The possibility of a mistake is on my list of reasons for being against the death penalty, but it’s not at the top of the list.
Not only would this not make me support the DP, I would argue against its use. People’s minds are their own. I don’t have the right to read someone’s mind.
Fair enough, that’s your prerogative and I do realise that it would essentially take magic to remove the practical objection to the death penalty, since 100% precision in regards to motive and what occurred would be needed to prevent the possibility of a noose around my own neck. Needless to say, I don’t have the remotest faith that the criminal justice system can pull that off.
To be honest, I don’t even support life without parole, because I think the system needs that carrot. The possibility of parole doesn’t mean a person will get it. Charles Manson will never get it. I know there have been bad calls, like Kenneth MacDuff (who actually would never have been let out if not for overcrowding, and if not for overcharging drug crimes and such, there wouldn’t have been overcrowding in the first place), and Lawrence Singleton, but in Singleton’s case, no one imagined his heinous and twisted crime, so he was probably undercharged, and should have done more time before being eligible in the first place; there should have been some kind of attempted 1st degree murder charge, but that strangely wasn’t available. The man should have had something like 25 years to life, and instead was eligible for parole in eight years, on a 14-year maximum sentence.
I understand that the public feels screwed after releases like these, and acquittals like Casey Anthony (although, that one is the fault of the prosecutor, if you ask me; if he’d charged her with criminally negligent homicide, she’d be in prison now). But the answer to outlier cases like those is not to run and give everyone else the death penalty. Over-punishing the next guy doesn’t make up for the one that got away.
It would not change my mind about opposing the death penalty. Killing someone means we will never be able to learn from them how they ended up as a cold-blooded killer. Even if we are sure - perhaps especially if we are sure - that someone is a complete, unchangeable sociopath, we ought to study them like crazy to figure out if we can prevent or at least identify the same condition in others.
Also, the death penalty eliminates the possibility of redemption.
I would be extremely uncomfortable with allowing that in as evidence. Because once it’s available as proof of innocence, its absence would be taken as proof of guilt.
Number two reason (number one, magic doesn’t exist, and all) that we should be very, very skeptical of psychics’ claims to have helped the police solve crimes, because “I had a psychic vision” is not admissible as evidence.
Ouch. I see the logic here…but the effect would be to deny a tool that an innocent person could use to establish their innocence.
Couldn’t the same argument be made re DNA testing? If I stand on my right to privacy, not to have my DNA taken down, won’t some jurors (wrongly) conclude that I have to be guilty?
We already have that problem with defendants testifying on their own behalf. Many jurors (stupidly!) imagine that if the defendant doesn’t testify, that proves that they’re guilty.
(We’re also still fighting the lie-detector battle, as some jurors – idiotically – think that if a defendant hasn’t taken a lie-detector test, he must be guilty.)
This strikes me as a social education issue, and one for judges to pay attention to in their instructions, but not as a really strong reason to ban the use of a technology, especially if it could prove someone to be not guilty.
I can think of many murderers who don’t deserve to breathe another breath. I still don’t believe that the State should be allowed to execute them, despite how much they don’t deserve to live. They deserve to rot in hell, but the State shouldn’t be the instrument to send them there.
Incidentally, a couple weeks ago I read of a researcher in California who determined that, in California, over a period of 20 years, the crime with the lowest recidivism rate was murder. Here’s a quick synopsis:
Of course, there are numerous murderers who *have *murdered again just as soon as they had the chance - see Lawrence Singleton, Charles Rodman Campbell, ad nauseum. As a friend once said, the death penalty, if nothing else, serves as a means of disposal. But I still believe that the State should not be the means by which it is achieved.
I assume that means if the state applies the death penalty to one, just one, innocent person then the entire death penalty process should be discarded for that reason. Therefore by extension the folks who agree to that should also agree to discard parole for those sentenced for severe crimes.
After all the recidivism rate of convicted murderers released on parole is certainly above 1% and I suspect is much higher. Therefore if one, just one, innocent person is killed by a convicted felon released on parole then the entire parole process should be discarded.
Isn’t that an innocent man problem as well ?
Why is the 1st of major concern and I hear of that numerous times, then the 2nd is never mentioned as an issue? I am curious how that is viewed by strong DP opponents.
Lie detector results aren’t allowed in any court in any state in the US, and I don’t even think the fact that the defendant took the test is admissable, even if he passed it. The polygraph is mainly a tool for police investigations, and a chip for plea bargaining.
Even assuming this device is infallible, I’d have to say that it is not enough to presume guilt.
Memory of the past is a fuzzy thing. That person’s MEMORY of what happened may not actually BE what happened. I remember certain things from my childhood that my siblings swear never occurred.
A person may remember doing something that is different from what actually happened.
Do you ever misplace your keys even though you KNOW that you put them where you ALWAYS put them?
A good case fr the D.P. can be found by looking at the actions of the judiciary in the Great State of Washington (possessors of probably the most compassionate justice system in the whole U.S.).
Just yesterday a case was on the news of a guy under arrest for child porn. Turns out that back in the seventy’s he had been convicted for raping and then murdering a 6 year old boy. For this little episode he had served a grand total of six years in the pen.
I could come up with a bunch more of examples almost this bad, but it’s too depressing.
Like I wrote in another thread, human life is real cheap here in Washington.
Believe me, here in Washington if the sentence is six years to life, the thug would be kept if prison for no more than six years. And maybe get out sooner for “good behavior”.
What do you think should be he penalty for these crimes? 30 hours of community service? Attending classes on anger management? Maybe standing in a corner for an hour or so?