It’s not as cut and dried as that. Plus you need to determine which way it runs - do countries have the DP because they have higher crime rates, or do they have higher crime rates because they have the DP, or it is due to other factors?
Regards,
Shodan
So it is impossible to claim with any certainty that the death penalty deters crime?
Not with any certainty, no. Nor is it possible to be certain it doesn’t.
You can show it reduces wrongful deaths, but that is slightly different. I have talked a lot about this in the past - compare the number of people killed by convicted murderers who escape or are released or are paroled or kill guards or other inmates to the number of people who were wrongfully executed, and you find the first number significantly larger than the second.
Regards,
Shodan
Nothing definitive either way, though I’d say the preponderance of the evidence lies against pain.
Only because there is no legal mechanism to exonerate those executed under the death penalty. The latter number doesn’t exist.
Not exactly a nitpick, but someone can be exonerated after death, legally. Not AFAIK for anyone executed since 1976, but it could happen. It doesn’t usually, because [list=a][li]What’s the point, and [*]none of them were actually innocent.[/list]Or at least there wasn’t enough evidence to re-overcome the conviction. [/li]
But that isn’t even the point. Someone would not have to be legally exonerated to count in the comparison. If someone could be shown to be factually innocent after execution, that would be enough to include them in the latter number.
It’s not like it hasn’t been tried. IIRC Roger Coleman was convicted of killing his sister-in-law and (eventually) executed. After the fact, DP opponents pushed to have the DNA evidence retested under some newer technology. If he had been shown to be innocent, great, that would count AFAIAC towards the latter number. It didn’t. He was as guilty as Cain.There is one guy - Willingham, or something like that - who DP opponents argue has been exonerated even after his execution, but the evidence of his being not guilty was not nearly as strong as DP opponents would have you believe.
Regards,
Shodan
[quote=“Shodan, post:106, topic:810714”]
Not exactly a nitpick, but someone can be exonerated after death, legally. Not AFAIK for anyone executed since 1976, but it could happen. It doesn’t usually, because [list=a][li]What’s the point, and none of them were actually innocent.[/list]Or at least there wasn’t enough evidence to re-overcome the conviction. [/li][/QUOTE]
A dead person cannot be retried. There is no legal mechanism to consider any evidence. Arguing factual innocence without legal exoneration is pointless, as death penalty supporters just go into their corners and refuse to consider any evidence. Your comparison is meaningless.
I suspect the OP should have stated right off the bat whether this thread was going to be about the “rightness” of capital punishment AND this new method or just the new method.
Speaking only about this new method, I’ve thought for a long time that Carbon Monoxide (CO) would be an effective and painless method.
"According to the US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, when atmospheric concentrations of oxygen are less than 12.5 percent, people experience poor judgment and coordination, and impaired breathing that can cause permanent heart damage, nausea, and vomiting. When oxygen levels are less than 10 percent, nitrogen gas causes a complete inability to move, loss of consciousness, convulsions, and eventually death."
Uh … No thanks, I’ll take a firing squad instead. Just pick people who can shoot straight.
I love when they stated with certainty that the method is “painless” and “humane”. Did they interview the test subjects afterward to get their input?
It’s not painless. It causes severe headaches and other symptoms and takes a while to kill.
I feel the same about cooks who confidently claim that lobsters feel no pain when being boiled alive. The person doing the killing isn’t the most objective source about whether the killing is painless or not.
I was/am skeptical of an encyclopedia as well that claimed that the electric chair is a painless way to die.
Loss of consciousness and death are kind of the point.
Plus, if you follow the cites in the article to which you linked -
If you can’t tell that you are breathing pure nitrogen, and you pass out after two breaths, that doesn’t sound very much like suffering.
Sort of. They find out from people who passed out from nitrogen inhalation whether they suffered before they passed out, and extrapolate to what they would have experienced if they had not regained consciousness. Which is basically nothing - they were unconscious.
Regards,
Shodan
That depends on the concentration. If it’s much above one percent, the victim is rendered unconscious within seconds and dead within minutes.
It is all but inevitable. Maybe if an OP begs for a narrow discussion on the specific technique, but I would not even count on that.
And the comments are not really focused on any moral aspect of capital punishment, other than the absence of possible recourse, but on the real-world practicality of it. If execution is of negligible deterrence, ridiculously expensive to carry out fairly and might slightly exacerbate violence in society, then the value of the updated methods must absolutely be considered in the greater context of what they are attempting to accomplish.
Or you could just use lions and broadcast it live.
I’ve thought before that if this sort of law existed, then if it didn’t decrease murder, it would at least compel murderers to use much more humane methods to kill their victims.
Edit: Depending on circumstances, it could also quickly become impossible or comical.
Or of boredom. That is true, and evidence that death penalty proponents are not interested in deterrents, as revenge, or even slaking a blood thirst.
Note, I said evidence, not conclusive proof.
If one pointed out that psychopathy is believed to be a result of brain structure, by development or trauma, and therefore no more evidence of bad character or other flaw than left-handedness or blue eyes, would that be defense against the allegation of insulting? Or just get one put on the PITA list?
Almost all murderers do not think logically and all that.
Deterrents flat out don’t work.
Ideas like this are incredibly ludicrous.
Just to answer a question that was posed way back on page 1, that I don’t think was answered yet, the method involves using a mask over the condemn’s face, not a whole room filled with nitrogen. At least, from what I’ve read about this particular use.
There is an interesting tension between keeping it looking sterile (probably to keep more people OK with the penalty) and quick and instantaneous death (bullet to the head, dropping a cartoon 1-ton weight on the person, stuff like that).
I’m pretty opposed to the DP, so I guess I should support instantaneous, but gruesome deaths. That way, it’s the most humane, and has a better chance of getting majorities to be against it.
To whoever mentioned that people won’t be swayed by gruesome deaths, I suggest that’s wrong. People have been up in arms about lethal injections because of the various failures. In addition to victim’s families and the condemn’s families, there are also press there and they report about flailing about, coughing, gasping for air.
Ultimately, though, I don’t think the DP will be stopped in the US any time soon, so I think nitrogen asphyxiation is a humane way to go, even though it won’t have all the blood necessary to maybe change some minds.