Scalia misses the point. There is nothing more cruel and unusual, nothing more horrific than executing an innocent man. It is something we have done.
The death penalty is it. Certainly there will be innocents sentenced to life. But at least there there is the chance that the mistake will be found and corrected, to the extent it can be. With the death penalty, it’s a one-time only decision.
Of course I care. The OP is being tendentious. I also care that the guilty are allowed to walk free. I also care that innocents are imprisoned for life without possibility of parole.
One was murdered by a criminal who could have been stopped. The other was executed legally with full due process as part a system millions of people participate in with dozens of checks and balances.
Yeah, I see a difference.
Well that statement is not factual any longer. The family of Colin Campbell Ross recently made sure of that.
Mind you I am in favour of the death penalty for criminals with histories of repeated disregard for the sovereignty of other peoples bodies - serial murderers, serial rapists, serial paedophiles, serial serious assaulters. These people rarely, if ever, become useful members of society and I don’t think people feel safer with them in jail than they would with them dead.
I don’t have much trouble differentiating the kinds of people that I think should be subject to the death penalty from the “average” stupid/pathetic/impulsive crime. And I cannot recall any case of a person subsequently found to be innocent that had been convicted of a crime that I think warranted the death penalty, including Colin Campbell Ross.
As the wrongly convicted of the past can now be reprieved due to forensic improvements it should be progressively more likely that we can achieve unequivocal verdicts.
Thank you for that link; that was quite interesting. Obviously, there are differences between a 1922 Australian case and the American legal system, which is the implied argument here, but always food for thought nonetheless.
Is it any less terrible to discover the innocence of someone who spent sixty years behind bars and died sick and alone?
No, and arguably it could even be worse. The problem with the death penalty is that it is equivalent to skipping those sixty years of potentially correcting the mistake and getting straight to the terrible part.
Of course, people in favor of having the death penalty on the table care if an innocent man is executed. Do you really think that you offer some fresh food for thought? Now I’d be in favor of raising the bar for a death sentence, raising the threshold considerably in order to make the possibility of executing an innocent man nonexistent. At the same time I would hugely advocate having the sentence carried out pronto. None of the 15-20+ year nonsense we have now. And I see no reason why someone who has proven himself unfit to live among us should be fed and clothed just to throw feces at prison guards. I’d even expand the death penalty candidates to include those serving multiple life sentences AND don’t tow the line in prison. Go ahead and keep throwing your piss and shit at people working to feed their families and you get the gurney. Fuck 'em.
The good news for those who are in favor of having the death penalty on the table is that in the future it is MORE likely to be a tool. As technology makes it easier for us to assess someone’s guilt definitively, a main argument from its opponents becomes more and more moot every day. So the very technology that has taken the DP off the table in many areas is the very thing that will put it back on. There’s a kind of justice in that, I think.
No, I’m not going to say deterrence. For the DP to be a deterrent it would have to be extremely draconian, something along the lines of what was proposed in the ST:TNG episode Justice. Strangely enough, “justice” is a small part of why I believe the DP benefits society, vengeance is a very, very small part of it, penalty is a small part of it, but most of the reason that I believe the DP is needed has to do with responsibility. Social responsibility. “Society” has a lot of duties to it’s members, but perhaps the greatest is protection. Society exists to protect each one of us from the violence and savagery that would be our lot without it. In return, we all have an implied social contract to live within the confines of accepted behavior, particularly WRT how we treat other members of society. Max touched on this earlier in the thread when he said “in part to demonstrate to society that we value the lives of innocent citizens so highly that the worst murderers should be themselves killed”.
The arguments I hear against the DP, aside from the possibility of an innocent man dying, all seem to similar. Here’s an example:
I believe that abolishing the DP does the exact opposite. Reprieving these animals because they are “human” weakens humanity and the whole social contract in the long run. The idea behind Fear Itself’s argument is that all human beings have value. I agree wholeheartedly with that. Where that argument leaves the tracks is when we as a society divorce their innate value from their actions. We all have value as humans and that should be protected, nay, cherished, but we also all have a responsibility to act within a world where other people also have value. Anyone, who by their conscious action deprives another of their life and whatever value that other person might bring to society abrogates society’s obligation to them. As I said, it’s all about responsibility on EACH side. Executing such people doesn’t weaken our humanity, it strengthens it. Saying(as a society): you may NOT do this, and if you do, we (as a society) are going to remove you from our midst is a powerful statement, and it’s one that any society needs to make. It’s a recognition of humanity as a whole and all of our obligations to that whole, not a weakening of it.
Now, all that being said, I feel the need to turn an eye to the method. Taking someone’s life from them is the most serious thing a society can do. There is no going back from that, and in spite of my someone flippant post earlier, ensuring than an innocent man is not executed should be the most important consideration when contemplating giving the DP to anyone. With that in mind, I would propose the following:
#1: The DP be reserved for the most heinous crimes against other persons. It pretty much already is, but I felt that needed to be said.
#2: Since the DP is the most severe penalty society can impose, the accused should also be entitled to the absolute best defense society can provide. An experienced DA vs a first year PD in a death penalty case is abhorrent. If the state decides that seeking the DP is warranted in any particular case, then the defendant should be given the benefit of a “dream team” group of lawyers. I suspect that we could get the top lawyers to take the cases pro-bono, for the notoriety they’d gain and the future clients they’d attract if they win, but if not, the state should pay for the defense, including paying for the expensive tests (like DNA) needed to convict or exonerate the defendant. The state should be required by law to fund anything that would exonerate the defendant, and that includes new technologies that might become available during the trial.
#3 If a defendant is convicted, he should get one appeal to the appellate court of his state. If that fails he gets the chance to argue his case before the Supremes. If the Supremes decline to take the case, than that’s it, he’s immediately executed. “The SCOUS denied your appeal, what would you like for your last meal tomorrow night, steak or lobster?” should become a common phrase said to death row inmates.
And that’s how I feel about the DP.
While I don’t support the death penalty no matter how its applied, I do think an overhaul of the court system and efforts to fix what’s broken would ease the tension between the two sides. The damage done to innocent death row (or life sentence) inmates is horrific. They are not all “guys who should have been in jail anyway”. Many of them have children, families, jobs, dreams. For those lucky enough to be exhonerated, they are most often sent out into the world with nothing but a bus ticket, the clothes on their back, and an “oops…my bad”.
I realize that some convictions are come by honestly, using the tools available at the time. However, there should be, as others have said, automatic reviews and application of new technologies at no cost to the felon. This is tax money that I’m happy to fork over if it means mistakes are corrected, or never made to begin with. Sometimes the prosecution makes the most hideous mistakes…sometimes willful omissions of facts, in cases where they had to pin it on someone to satisfy the public’s demand for “justice.”
We also have to consider what innocent convictions do to people who are forced to navigate the prison system. You almost need to become a criminal just to survive. All these factors are more than enough reason, in my opinion, to suspend all death penalty sentences until all this crap is fixed.
I guess the real question is weighing the balance between executing an innocent person vs. having a parolee/escapee killing again.
An innocent person will sit for years on Death Row. He will have access to food, exercise, the Internet, TV, movies, medical care, and all the necessities of life. He will be able to interact with his friends and family. He will be able to celebrate holidays and follow the news of the world. He will probably be interviewed and may become a minor celebrity at some point. His family will be able to prepare for his death and will be able to hold services after it.
An innocent person killed by an escapee/parolee will be taken by surprise and may be subject to unspeakable torture, sometimes for days. The body may be used for furthur activities. It will then be dumped, often someplace where it is not found. The family will never say goodbye, may never have closure. They will always hold on to the faint hope that the person is alive.
Which would you rather have happen?
It seems we either accept murder as a natural by-product of our existence, or treat it as an abomination to be removed at all costs; either way, I don’t see how the DP solves the problem. Shouldn’t we at least be trying to determine what went wrong with these most heinous of individuals, before we consider executing them?
The FBI has a Behavior Analysis Unit (BAU) who does exactly that. It’s not so much to figure out how to fix these people (most of them are far beyond repair) but to figure out how to anticipate the next such killer and catch them before they kill again. They interview serial killers and other such abominations of society, trying to determine what went wrong and how to catch other such criminals.
Believe it or not, some people are totally unfixable and do not deserve to live. Ann Rule, who knew Ted Bundy, did not believe in the death penalty until she wrote a case about The Killer Who Never Forgave or Forgot. He was so pissed that the woman he raped and eviserated didn’t die but lived and testified against him that after his release from prison, he tracked her down, raped and killed her and her daughter. The woman believed that life in prison meant life in prison and nobody told her the guy had been released. Tell me why he should get life without parole instead of being executed.
How would you feel if that innocent person were your husband or child or father (or YOU!) being wrongly executed? Is there any amount of “one sacrifice for the good of society” that will make this OK?
Kalhoun, one could just as easily ask how you’d feel if your husband, child, or father were to be tortured or killed by an escapee or a parolee. For that matter, what if they were victimized by a convict who was released from an overcrowded prison system in order to accommodate more terms of life imprisonment? That argument cuts both ways
I believe that this is Annie-Xmas’s point. It can never be perfect, and there is potential for tragedy no matter which solution you adopt.
Note that I’m not arguing for the death penalty here. Rather, I’m pointing out that it’s not as simple as saying that we must avert tragedy by abolishing the death penalty. Doing so could just as easily increase the incidence of wrongful, horrific suffering and death.
I’d feel awful that it happened. BUT I would feel worse if my brother (not having husband, child or father) were to disappear and his remains were found years later and it was determined that an escaped/paroled killer had tortured and murdered him.
This is not a case of good vs. evil. It’s a case of which is the worse evil. Innocent people being killed after a thorough trial and appeals vs. innocent people being killed by an escaped/paroled monster. Obviously there is no “right answer.”
If you’re going to lock them up on Death Row for ten years before you execute them, doesn’t that give them plenty of time to escape from prison anyway? Wouldn’t it be better to only use the death penalty when you absolutely, positively, 100% know that they are guilty, so you wouldn’t need years upon years of just-in-case-we-got-it-wrong time?
Definitely. Once it is established that the person is 100% guilty, give the experts a year to interview them, then kill them.Timothy McVeigh committed an inexcusable act, admitted to it, and said he wanted to die for it. It took overseven years to execute him.
Of course, I wish his June 11, 2001 execution could have been delayed four months so he would not have died thinking he was some bigshot terrorist, but instead would have died knowing that in world of terrorism he was chickenshit. But the general principle still holds–once it is determined that someone is guilty of being a serial killer, spree killer or mass murderer, they deserve to die.
Well, all I can say is “life happens.” The difference is, we’re not talking about someone who did a murder and got out…we’re talking about someone who *didn’t *do a murder and got locked up. In my opinion, a state-sanctioned mistake (and I use the term “mistake” loosely) is 100 times worse than a chance murder.