Death Penalty: Society's Motivation?

We’re all aware of the old line, “I shot him because he needed killing”, and if you’re in Texas or Louisiana and you happen to plug somebody trying to jack your car, the cops just pat you on the back and hand you a warm KrispyKreme doughnut.
I think anybody who kills an attacker in self-defense should be feted and pampered- hell, give’m free cable!
Some maintain that, “It’s wrong to kill people to show that killing people is wrong”, which sounds like nonsense to me.
I had always assumed that society isn’t trying to set an example with the death penalty, but is operating more from B.F. Skinner’s concepts of operant conditioning, wherein, nothing is as absolutely fool-proof as the ultimate negative conditioning (death) in terms of stopping undesirable behavior in any given organism.
Am I missing something here? Is it really true that we’re killing people to show that killing people is wrong?
Or are we wacking the assholes to make the world a safer place for the rest of us?

I suppose that the death penalty exists to kill to show that killing is wrong seeing that if the killers were locked up they wouldn’t be a danger to society anymore anyway so just by sending them away for life the world would be made a safer place.

I have always believed that it is a combination of

  1. Revenge. We feel better if the evil person is punished.
  2. Deterence. If you make a bad consequence for an action people will be less likely to do it in the future.
  3. Extermination. We just don’t want a person like that around to escape or anything.

The problem is, the above is bunkum.

For a PoliSci class several years ago I did a paper on the death penalty. I selected at random 15 states and used the annual crime reports that the FBI puts out. The paper covered nine years of murder reports: the three years before the death penalty was abolished, the 3 years it was abolished, and the 3 years after the death penalty was reinstated.

It turns out that the murder rate in all but two states dropped during the years the death penalty was abolished. The national murder rate also dropped during those years. (The murder rates continued to drop til the last year my study encompassed.)

You can argue til you’re blue in the face that the death penalty is a deterrent, but I think you’d have a better chance convincing me that Stalin was kind and humane.

The death penalty isn’t as effective a detterant as it should be, because of the way it is carried out. Someone kills someone, and by the time the sentence is carried out, nobody remembers what they are being executed for. If we want it to be effective as a detterant, we should do it within a year of their offense, and do it on TV. The cause and effect has to be firmly implanted in someones mind for it to be a detterant. of course it still is a detterant to the person being executed…

Deterrence isn’t my point when I argue for the death penalty. The death penalty exists to kill people we can’t afford to keep around, economically or socially. Even if we don’t deter one person, we’ve still stopped a killer from killing or a rapist from raping. Prison is expensive. A .22 to the brain is not. (I know no US state does that. We should, though.)

Capital punishment is pricier still.

I do believe executions should be televised. Particularly those performed by the electric chair. Perhaps that will convince some that killing people for whatever reason is barbaric.

And I used to think that the death penalty should be carried out quickly. Then Illinois set free more people than it put to death. You know what scared me about this? It wasn’t our vaunted legal system that proved people not guilty - it was a bunch of students! Despite all the money spent by the state to prove someone guilty, and all the college educated lawyers, and all the judges, and all the appeals courts, it took a bunch of kids to get these people off. I find that disgusting, and I think it raises troubling issues about our legal system. It also took these kids longer than a year to get to the truth of the matter; most of those convicted had spent several years on death row before they were released.

[Edited by David B on 08-29-2000 at 06:56 AM]

I’m from Texas and yes, I have no problem with killing a serious enough criminal. I am also a VERY BIG supporter of one who protects his property.

What the hell is one to do if one sees someone stealing his car from in front of his house. Just sit there and have respect for the scumbags life. THIS IS AN AUTOMOBILE. A very, very important item for one’s livelyhoodin Texas. If you are willing to risk your life for it, so should the scumbag. Now chasing the thief in your buddy’s pickup hauling ass at top speed is out of line (really happened, no charges), but protecting your property is not.

The legitimate reasons for not having the death penalty:

  1. Many people on death row are totally innocent. This to me is a problem of overzelous prosecutors given too much leeway by a law & order gov’t. They break the spirit of the Constution everyday. Also, is life imprisonment really a better alternative.

  2. The total cost involved for a prisoner sentenced to life imprisonment is about half that of the death penalty. This one actually makes a lot of sense to me.

Of course, a the legal costs of multiple appeals in a capital case is more expensive than a lifetime in prison. I agree that a quick execution after the conviction would be cheaper and a more effective deterrent. However, given a recent study concerning the false convictions of people in our current system of justice, I think quick executions will result in the deaths of many innocent people. It seems to me that the loss of a single innocent life in the pursuit of justice is one too many. This is especially true given that there is a non-lethal alternative that keeps society safe and gives the innocent a chance to clear their name. One someone is executed it is forever. At least in prison a innocent person has the chance to clear his/her name; the case of Rubin Carter is a good example. If Carter had been executed, then nobody would have heard anything about him again. Just another dead murderer.

I think executions are carried out to meet people’s idea of justice. Revenge might be the reason the victim’s family wants a person executed, however, I don’t think a society can feel a desire for revenge when someone they don’t know kills someone else they don’t know. They can have a sense of justice about it, but I don’t think they feel vengeance.

I hate to sound like a sock puppet, but I must agree with Dr. Lao (with or without his circus)

"It seems to me that the loss of a single innocent life in the pursuit of justice is one too many. "

Can you shoot someone for stealing your car in Texas? Next door in Arkansas I can’t. I have to have my “back to the wall”; that is, be threatened of my life, not just property. If he comes inside my house, the law says my back is to the wall, but if he is stealing my car it isn’t. I’m not sure if my car is worth some scumbag’s life. It is after all insured.

Life inprisonment is cheaper because of the lack of appeals. While on death row, there are many more opportunities to appeal. An innocent man still may spend the rest of his life in jail.

Actually, I am getting into GD territory. Off for now.

Yes, you can. Within reason…sometimes. That guy who got his truck carjacked I mentioned earlier, he hauled ass to a neighbor, and they chased the crooks in a pickup. A high speed chase pursued where the victim retrieved his property at the cost of one life, the crook(s). The case was referred to the grand jury with no charges.

I am from Houston though, where the local D.A. has a reputation for being that way.

There is long list of things you can legally shoot someone for here in the lone star state. especially after dark. if someone breaks into your car, steals your stereo, and is running down the street with it, you can shoot them if you feel there is no other way to recover your property. if they are vandalizing your property after dark(slashing tires, etc), on your property, you can off them. HOWEVER, this is not the way it works in real life. Even though you might not go to jail for it, You will be brought before a grand jury, have to hire lawyers etc. the cops will try and charge you with murder(they try to discourage this sort of thing), and the persons familiy will sue the hell out of you. Even though it legal, it is civilly indefensable(I know I cant spell), and you will lose the law suit. Better to let them have the damn stereo. Texas is such a wacky place. In this state, you can legally carry a loaded assault rifle with you any where but a bar, a school, or a polling place(there are a couple of others), but if you get caught with a butterfly knife, your going to jail(its the same charge as carrying a handgun without a permit). 12 guage riot gun? no problem. baseball bat? off to the pokey. In Texas, you can use any force short of deadly force to effect a citizens arrest, which can be made on anyone who commits a breach of the publice peace or a felony in your presence. breach of the public peace includes creating an offensive smell, use of abuseive language, public intoxication, and whole list of other things. so, in other words, if someone farts or curses in your presence, you can beat them unconcious, and turn them over to the cops, and you are perfectly within your rights…makes you feel all warm inside, don’t it?

There was a case here where an activist (who had a thing about Clinton when he was Governor, and whose kid got busted on cocaine, and who hasn’t said a peep since Bill ran for pres, but I digress) who poped a guy in the back, running down the road after ‘assaulting’ a woman. I use quotes because I have no idea what constituted assault to the reporter. He got away with it, having not killed the guy as I recall.

Including if they break into your car legally. I can’t find the case online, but I saw on Dateline NBC that a man in Texas shot and killed a repo man who was coming to take his truck. It was at night and the owner of the truck shot the repo man through the chest while he was still in the truck with no warning from the owner. He was not even arrested. The police said he was protecting his property and was within his rights. I don’t remember how the story eventually concluded, but the repo man’s family sued and the owner of the truck commited suicide. Not a happy story, but all perfectly legal in Texas.

:slight_smile: I guess there is no fooling the Teeming Millions with an obsure username.

That’s a great idea. We’re not killing nearly enough innocent people as it is now. :rolleyes:


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It’s deja vue all over again.

The only morally defensable reason for the execution is to make sure he never kills again. Cold-blooded murders, ie sociopaths/psychopaths will kill agin. Life imprisonment does not stpo them, as they can escape (1000 felons escape each year,per SCDoC), or kill guards or other prisoners.

However, this must be only for the most heinous, the worst killers of the lot, not some idiot armed robber who gets scared & pops someone (like most of those in TX). Note that in many of these there is no question of guilt, they brag about doing it, or they tape themselves doing it, and they have killed many. They are no longer “human”, they no longer deserve to live. This woul only result in some half-dozen executions a year, tops. The rest should get Life, w/o PoP.

Yeah, if it is after dark. Thats the qualifier that put on just about all of the conditions. They didn’t arrest him, but he would have had to go before the grand jury later(its required in texas anytime you kill someone)

These “sociopaths/psychopaths” as you put it, are now known to have an “antisocial personality.” That’s the phrase used now, and it means that they have a mental disorder. Should we execute, or even imprios, sick people? You say that there’s no question about their guilt. Is this true? There’s no question that they killed some one, but are they guilty of murder if they are insane? I’m not going to go into the mental aspects further vis a vis criminality, as that is better left to psychiatrists and psychologists, and “criminally insane” is better left to lawyers who specialize in these types of cases. (Mental capacity to know right from wrong, inability to control his actions, etc.)

I’ve in the past been in favor of the death penality since it seems that most that are sentenced to life in prison are out in a few years and kill again. However, with the knowledge that the police system and the enforcement agencies are willing to subjugate the truth to get a conviction for political reasons, I have changed my mind. I have read so many cases where the police knew they had the wrong person yet connived to get a conviction to get the public off their back.