…thanks to the power of google…
http://www.shadow-writer.co.uk/wholesale.htm
A Gaiman story. Cool.
It’s not so much that I believe that it’s better to be dead than to be in prison: It’s more that I believe it’s just as wrong for the state to unjustly take one’s life and liberty under any case. Whether that happens before the end of one’s natural life, from an execution, or at the end of a natural life, spent entirely in prison, is immaterial. Both are travesties. And, to a certain degree, they’re equal travesties, in my opinion.
I don’t agree that death is only a revenge punishment. It does also prevent recidivism. I have a certain mistrust of the penal system, on a number of levels. But, for example, look at the case of Arthur Shawcross: a man who was sentenced to 25 years in prison for sexually abusing and killing two children in the 1970’s. This man was released a year early, because he was a model prisoner in jail, and was secretly released to my location. How he got here is something of a story in itself:
And while here in Rochester, he assaulted and killed 11 women.
I can’t say that there would have been the evidence for trying him on capital charges for his earlier crimes - most of the sources I’ve found simply mention what he did, not why the Watertown DA allowed a plea deal. But given current NYS laws, murder combined with rape of a minor I believe meets the standard of aggrivated murder allowing for a capital charge. Certainly I think it’s fair to suggest that the penal and parole system did let down the public with how it dealt with Mr. Shawcross. And had he been convicted on capital charges in Watertown, he’d never have been able to kill 11 more women.
I grant it’s a corner case, but it does offer some insight to why I don’t think that the death penalty is only a vengence sentence. Though I’ll admit my own thinking is that it is just that to most of the public. My view of it, however, is once the courts have found reason to believe that a person is too dangerous to ever be released from prison, in short once they’ve proven to be little more than dangerous animals, I’ll treat them just as I would any other dangerous animal - a quick and humane killing.
I’d no more expect a sociopath like Arthur Shawcross to regret anything about the murders he’d comitted, except that he got caught, than I would expect self-reflection from a rabid wolf. If you think I’m talking in hyperbole, look atthis article from 2000. It has an exerpt of a letter that he sent to the local paper quoted in it that is pretty revealing. (I tried to find the text of the actual letter online, but alas, the local paper (The Democrat and Chronicle) doesn’t believe in free searchable archives. Especially not of their letters page.)
Getting back to the rest of your points, Calm Kiwi, I am dismissing the possibility of rehabilitation, because once the choice, as seems to be posited here, becomes death, or life without parole, talking about rehabilitation is a bit two-faced. Those specific persons are not in prison to be rehabilitated. At the time that they were sentenced the courts judged them beyond the ability of society to rehabilitate.
As for your claim that the death penalty is, prima facie, inhumane, I can’t refute that. It’s your position, and one I can respect, even if I don’t agree. I don’t expect to change your mind with any kind of clever argument. I still believe that expecting remorse from people like Arthur Shawcross is like expecting tears from a rock. And if there’s no remorse, no understanding of why society is punishing a person, and no ability to understand that, I really don’t see where a perpetually confused, and hurt person serves any purpose but sadism and protection of the rest of society. And if that’s the case the death penalty can seem more humane, by ending the sadism of holding a person who is too confused to understand why he’s been stigmatized with the label of being a seriel killer.
Harken, for I support the death penelty, as a necessary deterant, and final solution to keep the rest of humanity safe from the sickest sadistic predations on humans. On this stance I remain firm though you like it not. This is one of those issues my mind won’t be changed about. Remember that I reserve the right to decide the depravations required for sentence, and I won’t necessarily support that a certain state law sentences for the appropriate reason. I deem it true that sometimes only death is an appropriate sentence for some acts, but where I draw the line and other’s do will not match in all cases. Let it be written in stone. I too hate the I don’t support this but this is an exception people, because you’re lying. Granting an exception at any point in and opinion, means you do except it, and you’re not honest with yourself. You can change your mind because of an event, but you support it as of then.
You have just offered an unsubstantiated empirical claim. Gut feelings don’t substitute for detailed investigation.
You could be right, though. Or not. But there is a particular need to get the process right when you are taking away a human life. And “greater chance” covers a wide span. (How much greater? Is it sufficiently greater?)
But this is an interesting point, one that is not made enough, IMHO. That is, even if you believe that the death penalty is special (as I do), there should be some concern directed at the poor sod who was put away for 20 years to life for a crime committed by someone else.
As it happens, the work of the Innocence Project receives more of my attention than anti-death penalty efforts.
But fighting ignorance was really my goal: the idea that there aren’t serious miscarriages of justice on death row seems to me like 1 part evidence to 6 parts wishful thinking.
I believe you.
But whether the death penalty deters murder – never mind saves lives is an empirical question – one that can only be answered by honest investigation.
Similarly (though not identically) for your “final solution”: I for one don’t worry too much about serial killers who are behind bars, though their fellow inmates may, admittedly. Nor do I worry much about convicted inmates from other countries who don’t receive the death penalty – even though I travel abroad on occasion. These seem to me to be pretty small risks.
But I’d like to see a statistical treatment.
Agreed, with reservations, which I’ll explain in a moment. I’ll see what I might turn up this week, if I can get to the library. The problem with trying to find empirical evidence is that, to a certain degree, we’re facing a “what size fudge factor do we apply to whatever data we find” problem. Part of both of our arguments is that, given a certain known ‘failure’ rate in the conviction process, we both think it’s fair to assume that there are ‘unknown failures’ as well, in the system. In some ways, it’s going to be like looking at rape statistics: There is good reason to believe that for every reported rape, there are X more that are not reported. Finding that X factor in these cases (failure at conviction of death penalty prisoners, and failure at conviction of other prisoners) is going to be damned hard. With rape it’s possible to offer anonymous surveys to general populations and see how the anonymous sampling matches the statistics on file for reported rapes. With errors in justice, we can’t simply ask the prisoners how many were falsely accused. And justifying any kind of fudge factor is going to be even worse.
I still think that, in the absense of direct evidence against this notion, it’s a reasonable, and logical, starting position to assume that death penalty cases will probably be less prone to the sorts of failures we’re talking because of the extra precautions associated with trying them. It’s simply something I put out as a, to me, logical starting position.
Agreed.
Hm. We appear to be in sync OtakuLoki: given that Death Penalty inmates receive an automatic appeal and lifers do not, it seems reasonable to conclude that the former receive better protections than the latter.
But methinks the magnitude of this advantage matters. As you said though, this would be a matter of conjecture, albeit possibly informed conjecture.
Hey! I just found a factoid. Studies which I have not examined or seen vetted in any manner estimate that the US Justice failure rate is 5% or possibly 10%, according to a Wikipedia article that links to here.
There are about 3,300 people on death row. 123 exonerations/3300 = 3.7%. This underestimates the true figure, since presumably there are innocent men who have not been exonerated, and overestimates to the extent that a) some of the exonerated are in fact guilty and moreover b) there are a number of people who have been on death row since 1973, but who have since died of natural or state-mandated causes. So the base is too small.
I’ll note though that 3.7% isn’t too far from 5%: I would have expected the (noisy) estimates to be farther apart.
They not only kill fellow prisoners (and I don’t get why some poor dude sent up for possesion of a baggie of weed or a bad check writer deserves to die just because we can’t stop killers from killing again in prison), they kill guards, they arrange killings, they escape and kill, or they are mistakenly released then kill.
Guards don’t deserve to die.
Innocent dudes who have pissed off the murderer so the killer arranges someone else to kill them don’t deserve to die.
Innocents in the track of the escaped murderer don’t deserve to die.
Every “next victim” who would not be dead if we had executed some sociopath does not deserve to die.
My point remains. How often does this happen Dr. Deth? How many people do you think the state should kill to save 1 hypothetical life?
Don’t get me wrong though: I’m all for saving lives.
Here’s a scenario: “If we don’t kill this guy, we think he will probably kill 3 more people and we can’t stop him.” Under those circumstances, I’d put the criminal to death, assuming he had committed a heinous crime.
“Probably”: Greater than 50% chance.
Frankly, though, I find it difficult to imagine such a situation. Another poster has explained the concept of “Solitary confinement.”
Measure for Measure, the problem with that reasonable stance, is that sometimes it bumps up against some of the more unreasonable things the criminal justice system has done.
I’m not going to try to imply that because of the McDuff case, the population has reason to believe that judges will, willynilly, release convicted murderers without giving proper thougth to whether the prisoner is a continuing threat, or not. But it does serve as an example of the worst fears for some people: A man convicted and sentenced to die for three murders, has his sentence commuted to life, with the possibility of parole, then ordered on parole for reasons that had nothing to do with the merits of his case or his conduct. Who is then on arrested several times, while supposedly on parole, and still not returned to permanent custody.
I agree it’s damned rare to be able to point to a case and say, had this person been executed as he’d been sentenced to, these persons would still be alive. I do believe it can be said, in this case.
The situation is a compound of several errors and abortions of justice, I believe it is unlikely to ever repeat, but it’s not, unfortunately, an unimaginable circumstance.
(Sorry for only a Wiki cite, I can’t find anything better, yet. Here’s a CrimeLife.com cite, but I’m not offering it with the same sort of certainty I’d offer for a CrimeLibrary cite. For one thing it’s a lot more biased than I’d have liked.)
That’s not meant as an attack on the parole system. I have my criticisms of it, of course, but I also am aware that most of what leaves it having trouble is that it doesn’t get funded the way it would need to be to be as effective as people would want it to be.
Nor am I trying to say that simply because people on parole have committed murders, that all parole for murderer should be denied. Nor that all murderers should face capital punishment.
I just mean to bring up one corner case, without wanting to imply any need to deal with it as a general case that must be protected against at all costs. I believe it detracts from your argument, but I don’t believe it invalidates it completely.
(The problems one gets into when one hits submit when one meant to add a few more thoughts. And honestly I can’t claim this as an edit, so…)
Like I said- I feel CA does it about right (13 since 1983). TX executes FAR too many dudes. (385 since 1982, and with only 2/3rd the population of CA)
And it’s not hypothetical. The last dude executed in CA had arranged murders while in prison.
"When Roger Allen told his father Clarence of Bryon’s accusation, Clarance Allen stated that they (Schletewitz and Kitts) would have to be “dealt with.” Allen then ordered the strangulation of Kitts by Charles Furrow, after an unsuccessful attempt to poison her with cyanide capsules. Furrow threw Kitts’s body into the Friant-Kern Canal, and it has never been found. In 1978, Allen was tried and convicted for the burglary itself, the murder of Kitts, and the conspiracy to murder Kitts. For these crimes, Allen was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.
While in Folsom Prison, Allen conspired with fellow inmate Billy Ray Hamilton to murder witnesses who had testified against him, including Bryon Schletewitz. Allen intended to gain a new trial, where there would be no witnesses to testify to his acts. When Hamilton was paroled from Folsom Prison, he went to Fran’s Market, where Bryon Schletewitz worked. There, Hamilton murdered Schletewitz and fellow employees Josephine Rocha, 17, and Douglas White, 18, with a sawed-off shotgun and wounded two other people, Joe Rios and Jack Abbott. Hamilton shot Schletewitz at near point-blank range in the forehead and murdered Rocha and White after forcing them to lie on the ground within the store. A neighbor who heard the shotgun blasts came to investigate and was shot by Hamilton. …Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw concluded:
Evidence of Allen's guilt is overwhelming. Given the nature of his crimes, sentencing him to another life term would achieve none of the traditional purposes underlying punishment. Allen continues to pose a threat to society, indeed to those very persons who testified against him in the Fran's Market triple-murder trial here at issue, and has proven that he is beyond rehabilitation. He has shown himself more than capable of arranging murders from behind bars. If the death penalty is to serve any purpose at all, it is to prevent the very sort of murderous conduct for which Allen was convicted."
There, that’s three innocents killed and 3 more shot. Of course, he was executed but 28 years too late.
Don’t get me wrong, like I said- we execute far too many dudes here in the USA. Too many are clearly not such a threat as this man.
And, I think this is the only reason to execute anyone- to prevent the loss of more innocent lives. Not revenge, not deterance, not “an eye for an eye”. Just to stop them from killing again. I suppose if we could do some sort of Lobotomy where’d they be vegetables, it’d have the same result, but I can’t see that as more humane.
Let’s review the Allen case, starting with the quote by Judge Wardlaw, “Allen continues to pose a threat to society… If the death penalty is to serve any purpose at all, it is to prevent the very sort of murderous conduct for which Allen was convicted.”
Big if. Anyway, it’s not hard. We could have set up rules that would kill Allen in 1978 – instead of giving him life without parole. Or we could have set up rules that would kill him subsequent to us learning about his dubious and addled plans to kill off the witnesses to his initial murder spree.
In the first circumstance (1978), that would involve killing a lot of convenience store killers, in order to protect a small number of innocent witnesses. So again, I ask death penalty advocates: what’s your cost/benefit ratio? How many killers will you kill to save a civilian? 8? 12? 100? 1000? What’s the desired body count?
In the second circumstance, it seems to me that solitary confinement would be the appropriate solution. That is, if somebody is exposed as plotting murder from a jail cell, I would think that steps short of the death penalty would be sufficiently preventative. As it is, given the lengthy appeal process that the death penalty involves, I would think that tightened security would be necessary anyway.
If I could be shown to be wrong here --that is if it could really be shown that killing was the only practical way to save lives-- well then I would reconsider. As I noted earlier.
Er, that’s not clear. I just re-read the wiki article: I see that Clarence Allen was convicted of murdering witnesses “in retaliation for their prior testimony and to prevent future testimony” (wiki article) during round I in 1982. So “Murder aggravated by violent witness tampering” might plausibly be a capital crime.
But I would think that the security problems in handling such prisoners would be surmountable. Again, they would have to be addressed in any case, given the lengthy appeals process.
In such a serious thread, I really didn’t expect to find a good laugh. Nice job. 
I am against the death penalty. Regardless of the crime. I won’t try to excuse my opposition by calling the dp names (barbaric, etc). I oppose the death penalty because it’s the taking of human life in the face of alternative. With self defense, which includes war at the troop level, there’s no alternative. The dp is not self defense.
I oppose execution because it’s taking a life, and if I don’t stop it I’m part of it. No excuses.
Please, Canada, don’t fall to my level. 
Peace,
mangeorge
We have an imperfect system giving ultimate penalties as if it made no errors.