If I recall correctly, there was one professor at the university of Chicago who, along with his student, focused his attention on death row inmates in Illinois. That small group of people was able to get more than half the death row inmates in that state exonerated.
There’s no comparable group in other states as far as I know. Imagine for a moment that there was such a group in Texas or Florida. how many cases of innocent men condemned do you think they would find? Statistics tells us that if conviction of innocents occurs randomly, it’s virtually impossible that the rate would be over 50% in Illinois but zero elsewhere. Nor can anyone who studies how the process works in others states think that they have safeguards against the conviction of innocents which Illinois just happened to lack.
As a side track, Bricker, I have wondered how far people who have this argument (and mine is a little different to be honest). I can accept the view that because the DP was contemplated in the constitution, it cannot be considered cruel and unusual by definition, because what is C&U was frozen that the time of the amendment. I don’t agree with that argument, but I see it.
Now, to take that a stage further, does that mean that the methods of execution used at the time could not be considered cruel and unsual? I honestly don’t know what the colonies used, but if, for example, beheading was used then, would you be able to say it wasn’t per se, cruel and unusual? Or if shooting was used, would execution by matchlock musket automatically not be cruel and unusual now?
The thing is, we should respect the original intent of the framers, but the original intent of the framers was that the Constitution be flexible. That’s why they used vague language like “cruel and unusual”: They recognized that the standards of what would constitute “cruel and unusual” would evolve with time. And the explicit references to capital punishment can be taken as compromises: An opponent of the death penalty might recognize that it is politically impossible, right at that moment, to ban it, and so campaign for at least requiring thorough due process (while still hoping for a time when a full ban would be politically possible).
In any event, regardless of its constitutionality, the death penalty serves no good purpose and several bad ones. I salute Illinois for this.
I believe you are referring to the Medill Innocence Project at Northwestern, although there could very well be a similar project at Chicago. (http://www.medill.northwestern.edu/journalism/undergrad/page.aspx?id=59507) Also, if I’m not mistaken, the main issue with the death penalty in Illinois is that more people were exonerated than executed. This isn’t quite a 50% error rate, because before the moratorium, there were about 160 people on Illinois’s death row. I just thought I’d clear up some details.
This is my opinion as well. In principle, I support the idea of capital punishment, but when you see today that Ohio executed a man for a murder he committed in 1994, then it becomes absurd. It has zero deterrent value, and probably near zero blood-lust value. A better part of a lifetime has past and the execution for the victim’s family probably just opens old wounds instead of getting a sense of justice.
I would propose a separate capital appeals process where once a death sentence is handed down, you immediately get access to high priced lawyers paid for by the state. In turn, you get swift appeals that are carefully scrutinized by the courts. All DNA testing is 100% paid for. Then, if everything was okay, the convict is dead in 3 to 4 months like it used to be.
But it will never happen. Our death penalty case law is a nightmare of ambiguous and conflicting rulings that lead to endless appeals and delays. Even in TX, conviction to death usually takes about 10 years. I would vote to end it for practical reasons like you said, even though I morally support it.
You have some reason to think other states have a better process? Illinois was just concerned about innocent people getting executed. I suppose Texas does not care, but most states do.
Trials are not fair . Money tips the trial badly. Check OJ and a few others with money. If he was poor ,he would have been guilty. Trials are not thorough for the poor. They get steamrolled by prosecutors padding their guilty ratio.
I get confused about the “cruel and unusual” value of the various punishments. Some opponents of the death penalty say that spending life in a regular maximum security is even worse. Many say that about life in solitary confinement in a Supermax prison where inmates spend all their days in isolation with one hour a day in a sterile exercise cell. Which is it? What do you do with the Ted Bundy’s and Saddam Husein’s of the world that doesn’t end their life effectively speaking?
Everyone, including you, gets the death penalty in one form or another eventually. I think a lot of opposition to the death penalty comes from subconscious mortality denial from those that oppose it. The death penalty could rebranded as the “Early Exit” penalty to make it honest and attractive.
I don’t either but they do either directly or indirectly. The right to kidnap you and lock you up until you pass away on your own still exists even if the death penalty is removed. It isn’t like the movies where someone goes into prison for a crime they didn’t commit and is exonerated decades later and all is made right. Their life is still gone. I am not some anti-government hippie by any stretch. Most of these people really are guilty. In total, there are probably more that get away with terrible crimes than get falsely convicted but isn’t wise to focus on the death penalty exclusively to solve underlying issues in the justice system.
With all respect, though, I don’t see that it’s up to them. Crimes are offenses against the state, and the punishment is inflicted by the state, not by individuals. This works both ways, of course, and I’d be saying the same if Ohio didn’t have the death penalty, and the victim’s family wanted him executed.
If the punishment given to Barton is death, it doesn’t matter if it happens a week after sentence, a year after sentence, or 15 years after sentence. What’s important is that the sentence is carried out. It’s not about deterrence and it’s not about blood lust. It’s about making sure that order and state authority is maintained.
Putting these people to death will somehow maintain “order and state authority” in a way that life imprisonment couldn’t? (Especially since it’s "not about deterrence?)
Probably not. I don’t think it really makes much difference whether you kill them or just lock them up for the rest of their lives. Like I said, it’s not really an issue which I feel really strongly about. It seems to me that the big advantage of life imprisonment is that the way that the appeals process for people on death row is set up, it can be very expensive to deal with all the appeals, and the big advantage to putting them to death is that it reduces the risk they’ll escape or commit further crimes while in prison.
What I was saying is that if the man is sentenced to death, it’s important to put him to death, and it doesn’t really matter much when you do, just that you do.
That is an opinion, not a specific legal judgment.
Therefore, the Constitution specifically provides for the death penalty via the 5th Amendment. The 8th, however, will eventually be the cause of its banning when someone finally says that all such punishments are cruel and unusual, but (my opinion) I don’t think that the death penalty is either cruel or unusual when administered to someone who cared little about the cruelty he inflicted upon his victim(s). Sauce for the goose, as it were.
Regardless, I am also a supporter of the right of states to set their own stance on laws so long as they do not violate the Constitution, so good for Illinois. One day the death penalty will be completely, finally banned, and that won’t break my heart either. Life imprisonment is, in my opinion, even more cruel, so I can live with that as an alternative.
It’s not very cruel. Prisoners sentenced to life in prison just adjust to life in prison and go on with their lives. Many of them had already been there before and are used to it anyway. Those that have lived the life for long enough know how to have a grand old time in there (on the taxpayer’s dime.) They can get drugs, sex from “girls” (drag queens) or “punks” (weaker men coerced into sodomy), care packages from outside, etc…they have lots of time to do artwork, pump iron, convert to Islam, write manifestos, post profiles on websites where lonely women with major issues can write to them and begin “romantic” correspondence, etc.
Yes, most of them would rather be on the outside, where they could fuck real women and drink real beer. But it’s not as if they spend every moment huddled in a corner shivering and crying their eyes out over their “cruel” treatment.
You are missing a very major element of life sentences, especially ‘life means life’ ones. Prisons simply are not set up to deal with an elderly population. They are geared around young males, and the treatment of the eldery in prison is a problem that is become greater each year, most particularly in three strike states.
Give it 10 or 15 years, and American prisons will have nursing wards that will rival public hospitals if not surpass them outright. Look at how far penology has come over the last 50 odd years.
Of course. Because funding for facilities for prematurely aging prisoners is always going to be top of a list of voter priorities. Just like the stellar level of mental health services that are provided in prisons.