Well, the subject line pretty much sums it up.
For murderers who have either confessed to murder or are guilty beyond any doubt, what do/would they say if asked why they think they should get the right to live after they deprived another person of that same right?
Again, not talking about people who claim they are innocent here.
Because the bastard they killed really deserved it?
Because they’re really really REALLY sorry?
In most court cases I’ve seen they appear to claim some form of diminished capacity during the perpetration of the murders, but it’s difficult to say if that’s because they were adviced to do so by legal counsel or if they really believe it themselves.
If you mean to ask “what justification does the murderer use inside their own head?”, the answer is usually close to “I matter; everyone else doesn’t.”
If you mean to ask “what legal strategem does their lawyer use?”, diminished capacity and self-defense are the two most likely, depending on the facts of the case.
In many jurisdictions, the death penalty is available only to certain types of murder, e.g. with a gun, or in the course of a kidnapping, etc. In that case the lawyer can argue (with varying degrees of connection to reality) that this case falls outside the death penalty standard.
Yes, that’s what I meant, not the legal wrangling.
Because no one deserves to die by another person, or groups hand, obviously.
Because they promise that they are not going to kill again and the state has already had plenty of goes at killing.
Diminished capacity and self-defense, obviously, but also that the “confession” was misunderstood, forced or tricked out of them by the police. A confession that meets legal evidentiary standards is obviously extremely difficult for a defendant to overcome, but he is still presumed innocent and is not required to meekly walk to the execution chamber.
The death penalty must be imposed by the jury, even if sentencing is normally handled by a judge. (A bench trial, where the accused has waived his right to a jury and the judge is the fnder of fact is an exception to that statement). The jury must consider both aggravating and mitigating factors before imposing death. In other words, it’s not simply a question of “Did he do it?” but “What factors mitigate his guilt?” All sorts of evidence, including upbringing, background, substance abuse – things that normally are not relevant during the guilt phase of the trial – may be offered to mitigate the penalty imposition.
So I suppose a confessed murderer might say, “Yeah, I did it, but look at what brought me to this point. I deserve punishment, yes, but not death.”
Which is pretty much the same rationale used by thieves and others with antisocial behavior, including armies who invade other countries. And this only to the extent that they even think about it. Many times they do not really need to justify themselves, nor to be consistent and even if and when they do there are plenty of ways to justify one’s actions (killing him was a good deed because he was killing babies, or he was causing untold harm in some way or he was simply “the enemy” or “collateral damage”).
It is just an incorrect assumption that all or even most people feel the need to justify their own actions or to have some superior justice prevail.
In Ohio, a defendant who waives a jury in a capital trial has his case heard by a panel of three judges, so that no single individual bears the weighty responsibility of sending someone to his death. The seniormost judge (by time on the bench, not by age) rules on all motions and objections, IIRC, but the judges must be unanimous in their sentence if the death penalty is to be imposed.
Agreed.
The argument can be made that killing somebody to demonstrate that killing is wrong lacks logic.
The argument certainly could, and has been, made. But a death caused by an individual for private gain or for no particular reason at all other than sheer evil is, I believe, morally and philosophically different from a criminal sentence arrived at by due process of law in a democracy.
OK, look folks, I never meant this turn into another tiresome death penalty debate. Please?
i wasn’t even asking about cases where the murderer is claiming coerced confession, or dim capacity or any of that. I’m talking about people who plainly admit the killing and are not arguing at all that they are guilty. Nor are they arguing any moral points re the dealth penalty. What I was asking is how they respond when asked “you killed another person in cold blood, denying them their right to life, why do you think YOU should be allowed to keep your life after you refused that right to another”.
Again please don’t turn this into a DP debate.
The problem is that this question doesn’t really make sense. You are assigning to the defendant your own values, including what appears to be a strong prohibition against hypocrisy.
The answers are myriad, some good, some bad. You shouldn’t kill me because:
I was mentally troubled at the time
I was molested as a child
It’s wrong for the state to kill anyone
My crime was not the kind that deserves the death penalty
My crime was not the sort that will be deterred by the death penalty
I’ve found Jesus, and he says it’s wrong
Society failed me and I’ve lived on the streets since I was 8
etc.
The way you are phrasing the question, you are basically stating that no murderer at all (except possibly the crime of passion ones) could have a non-hypocritical/non-selfish reason to oppose the death penalty. It might be just me, but it seems to me that you’ve already dismissed their arguments. Several other posters have also provided answers like the ones I put in above, but you’ve dismissed them as “death penalty debate” – which is exactly what you asked for.
To put it another way, having comitted an act doesn’t rationally or logically mean that you can’t oppose others doing that same act. An alcoholic can tell you not to drink. A junkie can tell you not to do drugs. As long as they admit that their behavior is wrong, there’s nothing inconsistent with their arguments. As far as actual arguments, it’s the same ones any anti-death-penalty advocate would make.
If this is really the question you are asking, then unless someone knows of some scientific studies on the psychology of the subject, or has personal knowledge of the mental processes of confessed murderers, any answer must be speculative. Therefore I think this is better suited to IMHO than GQ.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
How about “because I do have a right to live, and I also had a right to kill that person.” It’s completely self-justified. If you want an answer that justifies it to you, be alert for it after you see pigs flying.
Or, to put it another way, this person murdered someone. Do you go around murdering people? No? Then consider that his way of looking at it is different from yours. And that his way does not even include thoughts of justifying anything.