Ugh. I’m not typing it all over again. Yes, I’m in favor of the death penalty. Yes, I care if we execute innocent people. Yes, I believe we should try like hell not to. No, I don’t believe we should halt all executions on the minute chance that maybe possibly just in case there’s a remote possibility that a factually innocent person might perhaps be executed.
How so? You’re imposing your will (based on flawed evidence) on someone who did nothing wrong. The standards of evidence employed were flawed to the point that they cost an innocent person his life. Regardless of whether or not there is proof that a mistake has never been made in imposing the death penalty (and that is debatable: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/3472872.html and http://www.chicagotribune.com/technology/chi-0412090169dec09,0,4934450.story) You are taking an action against an innocent person that cannot be reversed. In your reverse scenario, that decision is always open for re-evaluation and correction. Are you content to wait until the inevitable happens and then say “oops…my bad”? Regarding the fact that some falsely convicted people have gone on to commit murder upon their release, so what? I don’t think “pre-punishment” is an acceptable way to run a “civilized” penal system.
As an opponent of the death penalty, I’m against state sanctioned murder whether the person is guilty or not.
What are the benefits to society of executing someone versus keeping someone in prison without parole?
Saving money by not having to feed them? Sparing other prisoners from having to deal with them? (If they’re that dangerous, I suppose solitary confinement is an option.)
I’m guessing you’re going to say deterrence, but I’m skeptical that the death penalty is really an effective deterrent. If you’re going to kill someone, you probably either think you can get away with it or haven’t thought about the consequences at all. How many people really say, “You know, I just don’t think I mind spending the rest of my life in jail.”
This is actually a very good point; the United States has great difficulties with extradition with Europe due to the implementation of the capital punishment in many states.
Stranger
Well, now you’re saying “oops, my bad,” only you’re saying it for different reasons - and remember that you have to convince the public that ultimately has input in how these laws are written.
I said above that DP opponents aren’t up front about the costs of their position - well, this is a case in point, isn’t it?
No, it’s not the same. You can’t “oops my bad” on something that never happened. Pre-punishment…that’s not how it’s done. How will you determine who gets pre-punished? Just people who were innocent of a crime? What about profiling…can we lock up people who dress like gang bangers?
Every penalty imposed by the state has, at one time, been misapplied. Granted, none so permanent as the DP, but if you stop applying the DP to the cases where it is applicable, you remove the incentive of those who do not commit a crime simply based on the potential punishment. No one can know how many people that is, but even if it is, let’s say, less than 1% of people who WOULD commit a DP-eligable crime, but would rather not die at the hands of the state, that saves, by SWAG numbers alone more people than have potentially been wrongly executed.
The death penalty serves as a deterrent to some and a punishment to others. Though the studies mentioned by Kinthalis (which were apparently uncite-able or at least unpublished for cite) seem to say otherwise, we can truly never know about the crimes that aren’t committed. I suppose that’s bordering on false logic, but considering the variables in any dataset, it would almost HAVE to be true. The DP exists as a last possible recourse for justice based, somewhat ironically on the barbarity of the crime in question. You can wring your hands and stomp your feet and look down your noses at pro DP folks as barbaric and being filled with little more than vengeful bloodlust, but that’s not the case most of the time. Some people are hateful about it, but those of us who think *and * agree with the DP understand that sometimes, horrible things happen in the name of justice. Just as sometimes, horrible things happen in the name of freedom. Though I wish this were not the case, it is.
I am gravely concerned for the lives of the innocent. Still, one very rarely, at least from a statistical viewpoint, goes from honor roll student who delivers meals on wheels on the weekends to coked-up murdering, raping scumbag in one incident. Meaning, the definition of “innocent” can be subjective, while being “innocent of the crime” is a definate, objective thing. Some people fit one description, some fit neither, but when it comes down to it, in today’s day and age, using today’s technology, administering the DP is as close to perfect as it can get, for now. The best thing about the arguement is that it causes the argument. Dialog on something so very important to our own humanity has caused procedural overhauls and corrections, transparency on several levels of record keeping and most importantly, public oversight.
With all that said, some people simply need to die. The most famous serial killers (Gacy, Bundy, Speck, Dahmer) and the more recently famous Death Row residents (Pvt. Ronald A. Gray, Richard Cooey) all have one very important thing in common. They were admittedly guilty. Gacy copped, Dahmer did too, Speck the same. Cooey just doesn’t want to die, he’s not very loudly proclaiming his innocence. People like this do not deserve freedom or life in prison, but a rapid exit from this world and I for one sleep soundly in the knowledge that, although not all were done in by the needle, that only Cooey remains and hopefully not for much longer.
Oh, and we don’t DO the penal system thing anymore, we do a correctional system thing. Prison isn’t the punishment it should be.
I think it is the same, since you have to “sell” various criminal justice systems to legislators, executives and the voting public. And failing to account for potential costs in your chosen policy might open you up to devastating attack from the other side.
Therefore, pro-DP supporters would have to account for the fact that this costs them support in extradition cases, and anti-DP advocates have to fight notions that they are soft on crime in general. That’s just politics.
You’re claiming a good reason for wanting to set your policy as you wish - but you fail to account for the fact it may likely mean more criminals on the street. If you want to claim that this problem is offset by the greater justice of letting innocents free, fine - but you have made no such argument here.
No system we advocate will be perfect - we ought to accept that right now. So in our discussons we are discussing various degrees of permitting the innocent to be punished or the guilty to go free. These are unsatisfactory choices to normal people, and the mind rebells at making them - but we have to make them to arrive at a system remotely workable.
To the OP:
In fact, Justice Scalia wrote an opinion on a SCOTUS death penalty case about 10 years ago. The legal eagles on this board could probably find it (or so could anyone with more time than I have at this moment).
Anyway, the gist of what Scalia said was that he couldn’t care less if an innocent person were executed, becuase God would ensure that the dead person’s soul would be bathed in His Eternal Glory for all time.
Scariest. SCOTUS. Opinion. Ever.
I’m confused as to what your “How so?” is refering to. To my statement that opponents to the DP have a moral dilemma if someone who should have been executed wasn’t and then murders someone? How exactly is that a situation open to correction? I didn’t say that falsely convicted people have gone to commit murder, although you can certainly extrapolate that. I said that criminals released from death row could (and I was referring to in-jail crimes, but I freely concede I was nowhere near clear on that point).
Of course not.
See, you didn’t need me to even answer your question.
I don’t know how many people in history might have been executed for a crime they didn’t commit (the number is likely vanishingly small in modern times, particularly with the advent of DNA evidence).
It’s far fewer than the number of people who died because a killer was not executed, even if you count just one case - that of Texas’ Kenneth McDuff. McDuff was originally sentenced to death for a triple murder and rape in 1966, had his sentence commuted to life in '72 when the Supreme Court abolished the death penalty, got out and was subsequently convicted of two more brutal murders (he’s thought to have been responsible for at least nine murders since his release).
McDuff doesn’t get much press these days (he was finally executed some years back), but he’s still remembered for his bon mots, for instance:
“Killing a woman is like killing a chicken. They both squawk.”
Yeah, I know. We can just lock up brutal killers for life without parole, pretend that’s not cruel or unusual punishment, hope that they’ll never escape, bribe someone to get out or have their supporters convince a governor to commute their sentence. We can also fool ourselves into thinking that no innocent person has ever died of disease or violence while serving a long prison term.
Let’s not forget Ted Bundy and Jack Abbott–Bundy escaped and committed more murders, Abbott was paroled an committed a murder three weeks after being released.
If life in prison meant life in prison with no hope of parole and no human contact whatsoever, I would not be in favor of the death penalty. Keep them in a cell 24 hours a day and shove food at them. Only let people see them when they are handcuffed, chained, and the visitor has a gun.
Robert Ressler, head of the FBI serial killers unit, interviewed serial killker Emil Kempler without incident, insisting that they be alone and Kempler not be chained. The second time Kempler, realizing the guard outside the door had left to cover the inmate dinner shift, threatened to twist off Ressler’s head and leave it on the table. Ressler managed to talk him down, but realized he had made a hideous mistake: He trusted a serial killer.
It is now mandatory that any killers be interviewed by two FBI agents.
Yeah, but how often is that an issue?
I think if you are going to make that assertion that you should take the time to give us a cite.
I have no problem with the death penalty. It is wrong. It is wrong for a person to take a life. It is wrong for the state to take a life. Killing is cheapened when the state does it.
Murder is wrong and if you do it ,we will murder you. Strange message.
Killing innocent people is wrong. Killing people guilty of killing innocent people is sometimes right and justified.
I find the “what if the bad guy gets away” arguement a bit tired. The number of successful escapees (for this post we’ll say a successful escapee is one that has made it past the walls and into society for 8 hours) as opposed to the number of mutts locked up has to be miniscule. I may be wrong, but this just seems a little yellow-bellied.
First. Execution is not murder, it is a lawful punishment for a crime so befitting, usually, murder.
Second, how do you cheapen killing?
Talk about cheapening murder. Well, we’ll lock them up instead of killing them and if one of them escapes and kills a member of your family, so what? Remember, you can only be sentenced to life in prison and/or be killed for one murder. What can they do to you after that?
I read this argument several times, but it seems very disingenuous to me. What possibility is there that an executed person will be shown to have been innocent?
For instance, many of the people who got out of death row due to DNA evidences or such avoided the death penalty thanks to some activist organizations that provided free legal representation, funded new tests, etc… Do any of these organizations investigate the cases of already executed people? I don’t think so. Similarly, do the police investigate old cases when someone has already been not only sentenced but even executed for the crime? I strongly doubt it. If new evidences surface, can the relative of an executed person get a new, posthumous, trial (*)? What kind of appeal is open to a dead man? And so on…
So, how likely is it that an executed person will be found innocent, and how could such a thing happen?
(*) Over here, there’s a procedure to review criminal cases posthumously, and it’s sometimes tried (some years ago, it has been used regarding a murder committed during the 30s, IIRC), but AFAIK the courts never found there were enough new evidences for a review.
Just for grins, let’s just post something from a Scalia opinion. This is fun to do because the man writes with considerable clarity, and you do know at all times what his opinions are.
Callins v. James, sometimes noted as Callins v. Collins:
It is a persuasive argument - indeed, I think most Americans would nod their heads at that.
Thoughts?