Death Penalty: Society's Motivation?

Great Debates
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Of people who murdered, were sent to prison, and then murdered again.

Good ol’ Willie Horton was in prison for life with no parole. They just didn’t call it parole when he escaped, broke into a couple’s house, and repeatedly raped the woman and tortured the man (a stranger) with a butcher knife. They both lived, so it doesn’t count. I am sure his two victims are deeply comforted by the knowledge that he is back in the same prison system that let get out in the first place, and can’t bring itself to make sure Willie is no longer dangerous.

Charles Kemp was in prison for murdering his grandparents when he was released. He then murdered nine more women, followed by his mother (who it sounds like was who he was peeved at all along).

Jack Abbott killed a guy, went to prison, got out, killed another guy, went back to prison, and while inside wrote a book (“In the Belly of the Beast”). Norman Mailer read the book, got on his side, and got him sprung. Then Mr. Abbott killed a third time, and is back inside. Maybe if he had been condemned the first time he would be dead by now - and two lives would have been saved.

Henry Lee Lucas went to prison in 1971 for first murdering, then raping the dead corpse of his own mother. He pleaded not to be released, saying he was sure he would kill again. He was right - at least nine times over.

Edward Wien was awaiting the death sentence when Pat Brown, governor of California before Ron Reagan, commuted his sentence to life in prison with no parole. What can be changed once can be changed again, and was, when his sentence was changed from life without parole to life. He was paroled, got a job in an electronics firm, and Pat Brown was wont to point to him as a good example of how wasteful the death penalty was, since Wien was now paying taxes. Pat Brown stopped saying that after Wien was convicted of kidnapping, raping, and murdering a woman he saw waiting for the bus.

A study in Columbia Law Review examined murderers from 1990 - 1994. They found 810 people previously convicted of murder who went on to commit 824 murders (some killed more than once). So in order to argue that the death penalty does NOT save lives, you would have to document at least 825 wrongful executions of innocent people. You can’t; the US has not executed that many people since the death penalty was reinstated.

The best system is that under which the fewest number of innocent lives are lost. Increasing the use of the death penalty would save lives, much more than offsetting the risk of executing the innocent. We still have appeals and judicial review, for heaven’s sake.

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rso522: DAMN fine post & cite, man. Welcome to the SDMB, dude.

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Unless I grossly misunderstand these posts, what some of you are saying is that we should hurry up and execute people who probably killed someone, because he/she might escape and kill a bunch more people?
Well, hell. Why not just take the FBI profile of killer types and execute the people who match it if they can’t prove that they’ve never killed anyone?
Not only would the murder rate drop dramatically, but the gene pool would be largely rid of these “killer types”. They do breed, you know.
Common sense say’s that with all the folks who have been proven innocent while on death row, without help from the prosecuters, that someone has to have been wrongly executed. I don’t need proof. And you know what they say about stats.
The threat of the death penalty didn’t seem to stop any of those cases so ably presented above from killing in the first place. Did it?
Something’s wrong, and the death penalty isn’t going to fix it.
Peace,
mangeorge

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mangeorge -

Yes, you are misunderstanding the posts.

What I (at least) am saying is that we should execute those who are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty. Those who are condemned should have a reasonable right to appeal, which would weed out almost all of the wrongful convictions over which the ACLU and defense lawyers wring their hands endlessly. No, twelve years of appeals are not reasonable.

If, as you say, you “don’t need proof”, then arguments about guilt or innocence don’t matter either, and there is nothing to talk about.

As you correctly state, the threat of the death penalty did not prevent killing in the first place. What the death penalty would prevent is killing in the second place, because the people involved would not be alive to commit their crimes. In other words, the death penalty saves innocent lives.

As you say, something IS definitely wrong. People who deserve to die are getting out of prison and endangering society (Ted Bundy escaped custody, James Earl Ray escaped prison, the Birdman of Alcatraz committed murder while still in prison, etc.). And the death penalty would certainly fix that.

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The truth is that the death penalty is a quick and easy way for a politician to position himself as being tough on crime.

I’m against the death penalty. However, I can’t honestly say that I would vote against a politician who I otherwise believed in because he or she supported executing some child molesting scumbag.