For what it’s worth, I would still be against it even with 100 percent certainty.
Me too, actually. That some innocent people will get executed is just the reason I can’t see why people would support it, unless they consider some innocent lives ended are worth all guilty ones ended. Death is in no circumstances an acceptable punishment, in my opinion.
I live in such a place and I am thrilled about it. (I’m sure David Milgaard, Donald Marshall and Guy Paul Morin are even happier.) We don’t execute criminals in Canada, we throw them in jail. It’s a good thing we do, because when we realize we’ve screwed up we can let them out again.
Exactly. The “law” makes mistakes. When you lock someone up, you can let them go, if new evidence shows them to be innocent. You can’t bring dead people back.
And what have you in mind for prosecutors and police who manufacture such a “certainty”? It happens, it happened, and will continue to happen.
Of course victims are entitled to an opinion, as are we all. But we have to recognize that emotional concerns are simply bound to interfere with judgement. In several Middle Eastern cultures, the aggrieved are privileged to perform the execution themselves. Does this notion appeal to you?
A cast iron straw man. You know its ridiculous.
Not the point. You present such “cases” without distinguishing. How do you tell if the case if “100%” or has merely been so carefully framed as to look that way? The jury that sentenced this fellow to death didn’t think otherwise than 100%, we may be fairly sure. Would you support a death penalty for his false accusers?
Failing to agree with you is not necessarily a failure to consider.
You’re not talking to the right people, then. I’ve heard plenty of people complain about this. A defendant who is poor is not more deserving of the death penalty just because he has fewer resources with which to defend himself.
So in other words, I can’t watch baseball because I’m against the death penalty? Sorry, but this doesn’t even almost make sense. I don’t want to live in a world where we need to have 100% certainty about everything. I do want to live in a world where we won’t take certain actions without 100% or near-100% confidence that we’re right. This point is too obvious to require explanation. I’d much rather we didn’t have the death penalty at all; I think it’s abominable. But the notion that it’s used and used in such a flawed way is ridiculous.
I was going to ask you whether you were aware of “how many people here are not reading what is being written,” given how little this has to do with my question. My question, you will recall, was NOT whether you would support your son’s execution when you believed he was guilty, but whether you would support it when you believed he was innocent. I asked you that because it was parallel to the question you asked us anti-DP folks.
You seem to be upset that folks aren’t reading what you’re saying, but I am. It’s just that I find your writing to be dense and opaque, and full of statements that make me say, “Jesus, he can’t be that stupid…can he?” It may well be that I’m misunderstanding what you’re saying.
Are you approving, for example, of those of us who demand 100% certainty of the guilt of the accused before the accused may be executed? Or are you mocking us? Different passages in your posts sound like you’re doing different things in this regard.
I’m not in favor of the Death Penalty even in the 100% cases that you’ve mentioned, but my opposition in such cases is much less.
However, here’s my position: it is unethical for the state to take a deliberate action with the sole purpose of killing a human being as a court-appointed punishment for a crime, especially without 100% certainty of the defendant’s guilt.
Let’s break it down:
- It is unethical (not okay!)
- For the state (not a private individual, but a democratically-elected government!)
- To take a deliberate action (not accidentally, not through neglect, but a deliberate action!)
- With the sole purpose of (not as a side effect, not incidentally, not intending this plus five other things!)
- Killing a human being (not locking them up, not torturing them, not fining them!)
- As a court-appointed punishment for a crime (not as part of a war, not in an emergency situation, not shooting a hostage-taker!)
- Especially without 100% certainty of the defendant’s guilt (not when they’re kinda sure of the guilt, not when they think the defendant might be guilty, not when they’re 99.9% certain of the guilt!)
Do you disagree with this statement? If so, tell me where.
You say that the problem is with the corrupt people in the system, not with the system itself. Well, duh. If you’ve got a bunch of angels ready to hire on as our judicial system, lemme know; but near as I can tell, angels aren’t applying for the jobs. Whatever system we have is going to be populated in part by corrupt individuals: any system that doesn’t acknowledge this reality is flawed.
Daniel
I just noticed this thread today. I’ve not been reading the Dope much lately.
As someone who’s spoken up in favor of the Death Penalty, and will again, I’m horrified, and upset that it seems that this man was executed for a crime he didn’t commit. I find myself mostly in agreement with E1visLives comment earlier, too. I am convinced that the probable rate for false imprisonments is far higher with non-death penalty cases than for those involving the death penalty.
I’m still inclined to believe that I’d rather be accused and convicted of a death penalty crime I didn’t do - because with all the protections involved I’d have a better chance of being found to be innocent of that crime than I would if I were simply convicted of the same crime and sentenced to life in prison. I’m not saying I’d be willing to be executed - just that my belief is that I’d have a better chance of being exonerated as a death row inmate, than otherwise.
My support for the Death Penalty is based on two legs: First, the death penalty means that the executed person will not commit anymore offenses. (I admit that “Life without Parole” would do the same thing, but I have doubts about whether that will stand up the next time that a judge decides which inmates are being released in an overcrowded prison. Some past decisions have been horrifically comedic, if viewed in the right frame of mind.) Second, given the option of life without the possibility of release or death, I tend to believe that death is the more merciful option. And some of the anti-death penalty types seem to agree with that judgement, based on comments in this thread. They don’t agree with my conclusions, of course - just the relative mercy of the two options.
(BTW - one snarky question for Cowgirl: just how innocent is Canada of death penalty guilt after having allowed Charles Ng to be extradicted to face a slam-dunk death penalty trial? Personally - if there were ever a 100% death penalty deserving felon, Charles Ng is it.)
Agreed. The idea that you’d suddenly kill some person decades after they’d done something horrible is no particular moral difference than randomly shooting someone on the street because someone killed your brother 20 years ago. It’s revenge, but against no one in particular.
More and more people are being given life sentences without the possibility of parole, which would seem to negate this argument.
Maybe I’m just crazy, but it seems to me that reducing prison crowding (which leads to Bad Folks being paroled) due to wrongful convictions and prosecution of “victimless crimes” (in quotes because I don’t like the phrase) is the solution here, NOT the death penalty.
It’s strange to me that so many pro-DP folks cite the impossibility of repeat offenses as an advantage of the DP in the face of a corrupt system. The judges and prison officials are exercising bad judgement by releasing dangerous criminals out onto the street! The solution? Death penalty! Um… do you seriously trust a system that exercises bad judgement in parole and sentencing decisions to exercise good judgement in death penalty cases? That’s hopelessly foolish and contradictory. There are zero cases in which there is 100% certainty. Zero, even in a corruption-free justice system. Even in the perfect system where a mistake is never made, I am opposed to the death penalty, but understand that this is a point on which reasonable people may differ.
To fix the problem, fix the system. The DP is a punishment, not a problem-solving tool.
Bricker- there is a HUGE fucking difference between “never” and “No one executed in the US after the reinstatement of the DP in the 70s”. Like about 4000 years or so. :rolleyes: Not to mention this statement mentions ONLY the USA, and your statement would include Hitler’s Germany I think that no sane thinking person will disagree that many decades ago a good number of innocent men were executed in what were “legal lynchings” right here in the USA, and that many millions of innocents have been executed in dictatorships around the world. But I agree with the poster here-* no proven innocent man has been executed in the USA since the 70’s.* Still.
Now, yes, in this present case a prime witness recanted… two decades later. Dudes have a change of heart, or memories change after just one decade. Maybe the witness was 100% sincere 20 years ago. Or maybe not. But - the late recantation does not prove that an innocent man was executed. It doesn’t even prove that the Witness was wrong then. All it proves is that a Witness* now* says he was wrong then. Perhaps so. Perhaps the executed killer would not have been convicted without that testimony- or perhaps the jury would have convicted anyway. And of course- perhaps Cantu was the killer after all. Or perhaps he wasn’t.
You know, the “Roe” in “Roe vs Wade” has now recanted her role in making abortion legal, and now says abortion is wrong. Does *that *make abortion wrong? Or does it just mean that “Roe” has now changed her mind?
Is it possible that now he can’t be touched legally that Garza is recanting his testimony due to other reasons? Perhaps political pressure?
I am not saying the death penalty is wrong- or right. I am saying that this recantation doesn’t prove anything about the 'rightness" of the death penalty. Of course- given enough time- a proveable innocent man *will *be executed- and likely in Texas.
Yes, you are right. We are guilty as charged. Our track record with regards to complicity with other, more death penatly-friendly (and torture-friendly) regimes, is nothing to be proud of.
See, the problem is, the standard we currently use is 100% certainty. (At least, it’s supposed to be.)
People shouldn’t be convicted of murder (or any crime) unless the jury satisfied with a high degree of certainty (beyond a reasonable doubt) of their guilt. You can’t start distinguishing between people who are absolutely-positively guilty, like Paul Bernardo or Jeffrey Dahmer, and people who are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt (ie guilty enough to convict), but not absolutely-positively guilty (ie guilty enough to execute).
That sure sounds like reasonable doubt to me.
Is there a procedure in place to retry executed people? Because if there isn’t one, your statement would be true, but completely meaningless.
I have trouble believing that will stand up ten or twenty years down the road, when the need to reduce the prison population requires someone to make “tough” decisions. Certainly it often seems to me that the people doing the most to generate grass-roots support for the Death Penalty are those judges most against excessive punishments. I know I’ve harped on it before - and I’m sure there are other cases (I seem to recall at least one case where a judge released an inmate serving a life sentence by fiat who’d been convicted of several torture murders, and then was surprised when he recommitted. I can’t recall enough details, now, to find it, though.) but the one that I can recall easily because of the local connection is Arthur Shawcross: Had he served the full sentence assigned by the court after being convicted of killing two teenaged boys in Watertown - it seems unlikely he’d have been able to kill another 10 women here in Rochester.
Then there’s the Son of Sam killer, who begins his parole hearing next year, I believe - after serving 7 consecutive life sentences.
Until life without parole is tested by the courts, I’m not convinced that it means what the layperson thinks it will mean.
Which brings me to the next bit of commentary I got.
First off, the problem with the statement of intent to release inmates based upon wrongful convictions is that it’s a time-consuming and expensive process. Not the sort of thing that is considered when prison over-crowding becomes a crisis. (Which is, alas, the only time that judges get involved - it seems - in mandating mass releases.) As for “victimless crimes” (I agree it’s an awful phrase.), I agree about 90%. There are some “victimless crimes” that I think do still merit punishment. Certainly, I hate, loathe, and despise mandatory sentencing laws.
Actually, I don’t like the word “corrupt” there. That implies there’s something besides simple error behind many of the sorts of releases that I see as a problem. I don’t believe that’s the case. It’s not exactly a defense of the system, just a difference in focus on what the problem is. But, what can the average voter do to correct deficiencies he or she sees in the system?
Judges are, for the most part, untouchable. And deservedly so. I don’t want to see that changed, for all that I find the results are often disheartening. Likewise - the legislature (at least here in NY) is incredibly hard to change. For the first time in 20 effing years we got an on-time budget last year. And because they managed that, the legislative leaders actually thought that the voters would pass a referendum that would give the legislature complete control of the budget process. :eek: While I want to see that changed, it’s not something that is likely to happen, at least not til the voters (aka sheeple) wake up to the mess that their encumbents are encouraging.
So the options for reform (locally) seem to be support for the death penalty, or continuing with the situation as it is.
Since it’s support of the death penalty that has made the new “life means life” sentencing, I’m not going to feel too guilty. As long as that works - it’s an substitute I will accept. I have dark suspicions, but that’s all. While I support the death penalty I’m not going to fight and protest for it, either.
I’d also like to see more money spent on the PD’s office, and not just for death penalty cases. My support for the death penalty is not the only change I advocate for the legal and penal systems. To imply such is a bit unfair.
What I find a bit confusing is why no one talking about the potential for a life inmate to be released if his or her conviction is overturned has addressed how likely that is to happen. All this pre-supposes that the inmate will be discovered to be innocent while still alive. I think this is a pair of unsupported assumptions. I don’t have any statistics, I’m still convinced that there’s more concern for those sentenced to death than those sentenced to life. I believe that there are multiple persons who are serving life sentences for flawed convictions for every such person on death row. If there’s an escape clause for “life” sentences, and it’s never used - is it really worth a damn?
How is it better to be wrongly kept in prison for 50 years until one dies of old age than to be wrongly executed? I think both situations are reprehensible, and should be guarded against. And, at the moment, I think there’s less chance for a person to be executed wrongly than to be imprisoned for life wrongly. Certainly there are more automatic protections in the system that the death row inmate faces than the lifer will have.
I can’t speak for every state in the union, but my understanding is that in NY only certain lawyers are considered good enough to be on the defense for a death penalty trial. And they get paid at a higher rate for that assumed higher competence. (If I’m wrong on this, please correct me.) Which is part of the additional expense that going for the death penalty entails. Extending similar protections to everyone facing a life sentence would be prohibitively expensive.
Hijack here
What percentage do most Dopers view the phrase " guilty beyond a reasonable doubt" to mean? Is that 100% certainty? 99%? 90%? Or some lower number? I’d define beyond a reasonable doubt to mean more than a 95% chance of being right - not 100% certainty.
Finally - cowgirl, I did say it was a snarky question. 
(BTW, whatever my support for the death penalty - I have no support for torture. I dislike the equation of the death penalty after due process of law to torture against all legal codes. You may not see a moral difference between the two actions - but I’d hope you can see at least a legal difference.)
Yes it does. It proves that the only evidence in the case was bogus and that it can no longer be said that the person was proven guility.
He wasn’t. There was no other evidence. “Maybe he was guilty anyway” is about the stupidest fucking argument I’ve ever heard. You’re essentially asking the defendant to prove his own innocence even when the state’s only evidence of guilt has been shown to be false.
What does this have to do with someone giving false testimony in a capital murder trial?
Yeah…that’s it…it’s a conspiracy. :rolleyes:
And that automatically makes the death penalty wrong.
Well well indeed.
I have been on vacation for the last week and a half, or I might have noticed this thread earlier.
Bricker -
You made the above statement, and then linked to a post of mine as an example. I have generally found you to be eminently fair-minded and honest. I will therefore merely point out that this is an (in my opinion) non-trivial misstatement of my post.
I did not say that the DP “has NEVER been applied against an innocent man”. I was careful to limit it to the period since the death penalty was reinstated in the 1970s. I did this to eliminate discussion of cases like Sacco and Vanzetti, or the Scottsboro boys, or any number of cases where the significant advances of DNA and so forth were not available, and where socially and politically the USA was a very different place.
And if you are claiming that I asserted that the death penalty would never be applied to an innocent man, this is a falsehood. I have stated in the past that execution of an innocent is more or less inescapable if we execute enough people.
I would appreciate a retraction on the second point in particular. I have been as careful as I can be to state my position exactly. So it is a trifle disheartening to see that this doesn’t always help, even with the reasonable folks.
There is way too much knee-jerk raving from the fatuous fat heads on both sides (not you, Bricker), and I don’t want to harsh my post-vacation mellow by arguing with idiots who wouldn’t know moral consistency if it bit them in the scrotum.
As to the OP, hmmm. A few obvious points -
[ul][li]I would not say that the innocence of this person has been definitely established. I have no idea what the motivations of the eyewitness might be, now or during the trial, or during the years of appeals. Why did he change his mind now? Is it significant that the statute of limitations for perjury is now past? What kind (if any) of pressure has been brought to bear on him? Was he lying then, when he was under oath, or is he lying now when he isn’t? How can we tell?[/li][li]Assume for the moment that this executed person was innocent. My position all along was that a single or very few cases of innocent executions would not be sufficient to rule out the DP. Again, if one innocent execution means we can’t use the DP, wouldn’t 824 cases of innocent people killed by repeat murderers mean that we must use it? Thus, not using the DP is 824 times more likely to end an innocent life than to use it. [/li][li]How accurate are the news accounts? I say that in particular because one of them seemed to be saying that during the penalty phase, testimony was allowed that the convicted shot a police officer, and that this was used to push for the DP. I find this difficult to believe. Or does the repeated statement that “he had no prior convictions” mean merely that he was never convicted as an adult, and that he shot the cop as a juvenile? I.e., he really did it, but was adjudicated as a juvenile? [/li]
Don’t know, but I have had experience with opponents of the death penalty confidently asserting things that are competely false. [/ul]
Regards,
Shodan
So what? It may well be that this eyewitness has little credibility in terms of establishing innocence, but then it must have been equally weak in establishing his guilt.
No, it wouldn’t. Your reasoning is specious by dint of the “exluded middle”. Execution is not the only means of limiting any given persons options. The options are not “kill” or “instantly release”. But you know that, of course.
And from whence this specific number, 824? Did you pull that out of…thin air?
Certainly settles that. Case closed.
Your questioning of the news accounts without any substantiation whatsoever is not even a red herring, its the shadow of the ghost of a red herring.
Irrelevant, almost perfectly irrelevent. I have had experience with proponents of the designated hitter rule asserting things that are completely false.
How many are you comfortable with?
Please give an actual percentage.
The fact is, it’s all about perspective:
From the human perspective, it is just unethical to sacrifice even one innocent for the so-called “greater good”. Do you know about the old saying “Better to release 10 criminals than to convict one innocent” ? Well, how about 100 criminals? It is for me a certainty that at least 1% of the people incarcerated in this country should not be in prison.
From the perspective of society, it actually IS better to convict an innocent person now and then than have scores of criminals roaming the streets criming around. If that means that innocents will be executed now and then, then so be it.
Of course, we as a society want to have our pie and to eat it too. I know all about the movies where the villain turns out to be someone who thinks he was warranted all along and ,once caught, accuses the others of being hypocrites who don’t have the balls to face reality and admit that what he did was necessary somehow.
Guess what? The villain is right. We ARE hypocrites! We know that we must be practical and that mistakes will be made , power will be abused and innocents will pay. However, we are too scared of admitting this to ourselves. What if WE are the innocent next time? GULP . And so we start lying and pretending. “Justice will prevail!” we think. “All Juries are infallible and all judges are honorable!” we must pretend if we wish our justice system to have any legitimacy. What else can we do? Tell the accused that we’re not REALLY sure he’s guilty but that we ought to lock him up or execute him just in case ya know? Can’t let them all go me’boy! You gotta take one for the team eh? wink pat on the back
So yeah, the world is ugly and life is unfair. That’s all there is to it.
Ah, and about death penalty, I’m neither for nor against. I’ve never served a life sentence and I’ve never died afterall, so how should I know which is worse?