Cruel and unusual punishment. Unconstitutional.
Every time I’ve heard of a study on the subject, it turns out that most rape accusations are false. Some women encourage or boast about it, even.
IIRC, one by the FBI came up with about 65% of rape accusations in the study being provably false; the man accused couldn’t have committed the crime or was otherwise demonstrated to be innocent.
I disagree. Cruel and unusual. It’s in the constitution.
I don’t care if it works or not. It’s cruel and unusual.
Well, it’s not quite as bad as the article says. If you look at the text of the bill, it seems that physical castration is only available as an alternative to chemical castration with the prisoner’s consent. That is, you can be sentenced to involuntary chemical castration, and elect to undergo physical castration as an alternative to that. Bill text is here: http://www.legis.state.la.us/billdata/streamdocument.asp?did=503447
Still, though - this is mind-boggling stuff. Florida, by the way, appears to have an identical statute. The idea of using surgery in this way - this is truly messed up.
It would only be considered cruel and unusual because activist judges have perverted this constitutional provision.
See, you’re trying to use legal justifications for the absurd, again. It doesn’t matter if you can twist and mangle the constitution to come up with some hair-splitting way to justify a bad idea - it remains a bad idea.
Tossing “activist judges” into a sentence does not actually do anything to support this argument. If you can, show me this is not cruel, or that it works is mandated by justice somehow.
It to be cruel and unusual as understood at the time of the passing of the 8th amendment. Do you have any evidence that castration was understood to be cruel and unusual at the time the 8th amendment was passed?
Most legal opinions are best delivered in tones of sober and calm deliberation. Others, chest-beating and hooting seems appropriate.
Was it actually being practiced in America, circa 1790-1810, thus establishing it as “usual” in the eyes of the Founding Fathers?
Articles about and excerpt of Jay Winick’s *The Great Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World, 1788-1800 *. Relevant quote:
When “cruel and unusual” was added to the Bill of Rights, I tend to assume this was the sort of thing they had in mind. I’m prepared to stand corrected, though.
You’re assuming I care if a particular argument is deemed “activist.” I don’t. Definitions of cruelty and of many other terms have changed over the last 200 years and I don’t see a compelling reason we should be governed by 200-year-old mores and meaning of words. You’re welcome to show me that chemical castration or regular castration was a standard punishment for rape 200 years ago, which I don’t think you’re going to do, but even if you did you wouldn’t convince me that it isn’t cruel. I also notice that you went straight to Constitutionality rather than addressing the other things I said about the justice or necessity or rightness of this proposed punishment. To me, that’s a good sign you know it’s none of those things. I find it unpersuasive when people blur legality and morality.
Even if you turn him into a eunuch … when he’s released, he’s be a very angry eunuch with lots of pent-up feelings of inadequacy and frustration … plus a seething revenge … plus his already uncontrollable need for dominance and control.
If he hadn’t succeeded in murdering his victim before, he will do it now.
Does this make you feel safer?
This was something I should have included in my earlier reply - I’m only curious if the OP can demonstrate that castration was a standard punishment immediately after the bill of rights was signed. Even if it was, I don’t see that as a justification for its return. One may as well argue that the 2nd Amendment secures the rights of individuals to bear arms as they existed circa 1800 but nothing invented afterward because the founders could not have had any such intent since they were unfamiliar with this technology.
And that is why we can pass laws to reflect our new understanding of cruelty. If the people of Louisiana found this cruel, they would not have passed the law. A group of elite judges should not be able to overcome the will of the people because of their personal views of cruelty.
I know they were hanged. I would rather be castrated than hanged.
Those are policy decisions that have been made by the people of Louisiana. They found this law just.
I think it is just because when a person commits a horrible crime, he should be given a horrible punishment. Being castrated (chemical or physical) is a horrible punishment.
I see the judicial process as part of that. I don’t particularly trust people at large with the lives of others. You can call me elitist for that if you like, but it’s no more elitist than the Constitution that denied the vote to women, non-whites and people who didn’t own property.
“Elite?” “Activist?” I don’t know… have you got anything in a “limousine liberal” or an “ivory tower?”
And it’s necessary because…
I think this is where you are going to run into trouble, by the way, particularly if QtM is right about the fact that it wouldn’t prevent rapes.
As I understand the process, “the people” didn’t pass this law; their elected representatives did. And it’s the function of the judiciary to put the brakes on laws that are ill-advised.
Unless SB-144 put to a referendum, I guess, and carried by popular vote. Even then, though, the judiciary should fulfill its intended function.
How do you parse the distinction between “horrible” and “cruel” ? I assume there’s some degree of overlap between the two concepts, but I’m not familiar with a clear dividing line.
Is it necessary to put them in prison? Punishment does not have to be necessary to be just.
No. It’s because they’ve bought into the sex=power myth that our society pushes.
Granted, the gross majority of rape is date rape. In other words most rape tends to boil down to a misunderstanding between two people. Since most people don’t really have great communication when it comes to sex and relationships it is VERY easy to see how something like rape could happen. Especially since a lot of females tend to be really socialized into being really submissive and not really fight back.
However, there are enough people in the world that this law is just too fucked up. There are enough vinidicitve and severe borderline personality disorder folks that it would be too easy to abuse.
I think a better idea would be to treat rapists in a secure locked psyiatric facillity. Most stranger rapists are just too dangerous to be allowed in the general public. I’m sorry, but we DO need to really (and severely) punish rapists. Some rapists just are too too messed up for words!
It is demonstrably useful - a person in prison is less able to victimize random members of the public. Was that an attempt at a forced dichotomy - Marley opposes castration, therefore he opposes all punishments?
The people passed the law through their representatives.
A cruel punishment involves the infliction of distress for no other reason than to inflict distress and it is extremely disproportionate to any wrong with which it may be connected. A horrible punishment will involve the infliction of distress, but it is inflicted for just reasons.