We pretty much covered all the ground we were going to cover in that thread anyway.
Granted. But its annoying that the mods reward him with a ‘get out of an arguement where you’re getting your ass handed to you’ for his bad behavior.
My post says that he is so you’re wrong.
I considered Pitting, not PM, but gonzomax. But every time I read one of his posts, I feel like I am wading in a swamp. You’re up to your knees in smelly muck, and there’s nowhere to grab onto.
There isn’t even any fun in mocking him, because I think he genuinely doesn’t understand what is being said to him. He never seems to respond coherently. And then there are his cites that don’t say what he thinks they do. It’s like trying to explain the legal system to a chimpanzee.
Regards,
Shodan
The evidence is right here in this thread and you’re wrong.
Obviously you are in deep, deep denial of have mental conditions if you deny the massive amounts of evidence I put in this thread.
That thread kind of summed up one of my biggest problems with the death penalty. Rather than focusing attention and effort on true miscarriages of justice, way to much effort is spent on someone whose guilt seems pretty clear, simply because the penalty to be imposed is death.
If he had be sentenced to life w/o parole, or a long term with a chance of release at a future distant point, maybe some of the good-meaning, though I fear factually misled people involved in this case would be able to make a difference in a much more deserving area.
The scary thing is that they might not. That was a point touched on in the other thread - that if life without parole becomes the only option, then we waste just as much on appeals for the clearly guilty as we do now. And people will assume innocence in the teeth of the evidence just as much then as they do now.
Or else DP opponents don’t really care about people being wrongly convicted, as long as they aren’t executed.
I’m not saying you are doing this, villa, but many people don’t oppose execution because they think the convict is innocent; they convince themselves the convict is innocent because they oppose execution. And simply decline to accept evidence to the contrary, regardless of how strong it might be.
Regards,
Shodan
Yes, but…
And you knew there was a but coming there.
Given the safeguards in the system, I think there are likely to be more miscarriages of justice in the lifer pool than there are in the death penalty pool. There are death penalty erroneous convictions, it seems; given the lesser attention paid to lifer cases, it appears likely there would be more mistakes there.
And yes, there are DP opponents who don’t care about whether the person was rightly convicted or not. I do however think there are very few who think ‘no penalty’ is the right outcome. Of course, in a situation like Mumia, there are those who feel that killing a cop is not a punishable crime. I hope it goes without saying I think they are idiots. As I think I mentioned in the other thread, on this case there are many in Philly who think Mumia cannot be guilty because he was a black man shooting a white cop; but there are also many who think he MUST have been guilty (and worthy of death) because he was a black man accused of shooting a white cop. Both attitudes have no place in a system of justice.
Would you disagree, Shodan that the majority of opponents of the DP don’t fall into a category that oppose all punishment? I mean, I think we are probably pretty much oceans apart on punishment views, but even I accept life without parole is necessary in some circumstances. From a practical view, I don’t think it should be used that often (and in particular I HATE mandatory sentences) but I think it needs to be out there as a possibility. But overallI get the feeling the majority of anti-DP people are of similar views to me (or even more ‘pro’ punishment than I am). There is the extreme wing of course, but those people aren’t going to change regardless.
I bet you’re right. There are more likely to be miscarriages of justice (defined here as ‘actual innocence’) with life without parole. But that would argue that eliminating the DP would not save money on appeals - we would need to hold LWOP to the same standard as we do the DP, if we want to eliminate injustice.
But it is something that they tend to get pushed into by arguing that those on death row are actually innocent (even when they are not). So in their opposition to the DP, they end up arguing that people like Mumia should not be penalized even though he is clearly guilty.
You are quite correct that they are not proposing “no penalty” instead of the death penalty. But their choice of tactics in arguing that the guilty are innocent means that, practically speaking, they are pushing for “no penalty for the guilty”.
IYSWIM.
Of course - entirely true.
No, I would agree with that. ISTM to be pretty much as I argued before - those that are arguing in favor of “no penalty” are doing so because they are proposing that the convict is actually innocent, not because they think the guilty should not be punished.
In the Mumia thread, it was originally because his punishment phase is going to be re-argued. It is perhaps unfortunate, but perhaps illustrative, that the discussion was side-tracked to a discussion of his actual guilt or innocence. IOW, this was a demonstration of how some people believe death row convicts are innocent merely because they are on death row.
Certainly there are DP opponents who can oppose the DP and still believe a convict on death row is guilty and should be punished. Yourself obviously included. There are others who are seduced into error by their opposition, and wind up arguing that Mumia is factually innocent, which he clearly is not, and thus push for his release.
Obviously you could argue that at least Mumia spent twenty-four years in prison, and thus wouldn’t escape without punishment even if he were released tomorrow, but that is different from life in prison with no parole.
And it is somewhat more difficult to argue that twenty four years is a more appropriate punishment than death for someone who stood over a police officer and shot him in the face at point blank range. It is somewhat easier to argue that life without parole is more appropriate, but then one would have to admit that many of the factors that are used to argue both for his innocence and against the death penalty drop away. This includes all the arguments for his innocence - he wasn’t - and a lot of the other stuff as well.
So ISTM that one can argue against the DP by saying LWOP is cheaper, and I posted a bit about that above. You can also argue that LWOP is worse than death, and then you kind of lose the moral high ground of arguing against revenge. So the only thing that is left is arguing from a visceral reaction that the DP is wrong, and then (I believe) you are arguing against an even stronger visceral reaction that it is the only appropriate response to murder.
There is, in my view, something wrong with the “steal a car, go to prison. Steal money, go to prison. Take a life - go to prison.” There is something different about offenses against life. And I think you either feel that, or you don’t.
On both sides of the issue, doubtless.
Regards,
Shodan
Although my church is somewhat anti-DP, it’s not a sure thing, and we believe that partly because we’re not comfortable with any killing, even recognizing it is sometimes necessary. But at the same time, it’s so hard to really believe this because these people almost always truly DO deserve the DP. And it’s very, very hard to fight for the life of someone I quite often know to be a depraved monster. Or even to care.
The hinge is that I’m not sure we’ve ever got beyond or ever will get beyond the point where death is no longer necessary or has become unjust in fact.
I just finished reading the parent thread and OH MY GOD was that both funny and yet disturbingly sad at the same time.
Perhaps-but one can always overturn LWOP if it is found to be wrong. One cannot do so with the death penalty.
After a certain point, yes. But Mumia’s 25 years on death row have shown that its not as determinant as all that.
I am not sure how I got painted into the corner of being viewed as someone who opposes the DP because it is more expensive. I don’t hold that view. I don’t think cost should be the immediate determinant of justice decisions (though I am not naive enough to think they can ever be totally divorced). The resources to which I was referring in the other thread were defense resources, and in particular those of non-profit groups, though also the public defender system.
I can understand why groups focus on capital cases - I agree with them in their distaste for the DP. My argument is that if we get rid of the DP, people like Mumia get sentenced to life. I honestly believe (well, hope) that in that circumstances, the effort being expended on Mumia would not be expended (well not all or even much of it) upon trying to show he was innocent (whcih he does not seem to be) but would instead be expended on cases such as the one I worked a little on of a man imprisoned in Virginia for a crime it seems highly likely he had nothing to do with.
Another unfortunate effect of the DP - hopefully a problem that would be minimized if the DP were off the table.
I would say there are very few people who do that. In the Mumia case, there are those who blindly think he genuinely is innocent, and a small cadre, possibly, who either think he is innocent because shooting a white cop (especially one who in their mind has been shown to be a racist) isn’t a crime, or who realize his guilt, but think that the “crime” of the DP is greater, and so once you get to a position where it is either execution or release, release should win out. That’s also a false position, obviously, because commutation is always a possibility.
It’s not a very different position (mine, not those of the Mumia supporters) than you express later on in your post.
That’s fair to a large extent, though obviously I don’t agree with it. I hope I have now been clearer that I am not arguing the costs involved. LWOP does tie me up inside - I can see the need for it on some levels as an option, but my support for it, to be honest, is more a political recognition that it is required in order to be able to get rid of the death penalty than anything else.
As for the revenge aspect, that again is something which troubles me. Given the present penal system, of which I am not a fan, I do believe LWOP is a worse penalty than the DP. I also accept that is not true for everyone. Part of the problem of the prison system as presently organized (and I don’t claim to have an answer here) is that it is a much greater deterrent for those who are less likely to need deterring from crime in the first place. A hardened, violent criminal has a better time locked up than a first time offender with less ability to protect himself. if you gave me the choice, I would rather sit out my last days on death row than in GenPop, even if there would be more days in GenPop.
But that is a product of the system as is right now. The “revenge” aspect also reflects the distinction you draw between property and violent crime, though in a different way. If we deal with a person who kills by killing them, in my mind we have placed ourselves as a society on their level. If we deal with it through LWOP (and I am not here suggesting LWOP for every homicide) we have recognized the possibility of at least internal redemption for that person - that while they may never become part of society again, they can at least come face to face and address it internally. I completely accept this is a hope that will go unheeded in the majority of cases, so I am not being hopelessly naive on this one…
Don’t get me wrong - I completely understand the visceral appeal of the DP. Someone harms my son, and my reaction would be exactly the same, I assume.
I was speaking in general, not necessarily at you, The notion that “the DP is more expensive” got brought up in the Mumia thread, and I was addressing that. My apologies if it sounded like I was putting words in your mouth.
I think you understand my position, for which I am glad.
You are the first DP opponent I have encountered who expressed any reluctance to automatically substitute LWOP for death. And, to indulge in a slippery slope argument for a moment, that resembles what might be the first step, once we have eliminated the DP, towards eliminating LWOP as well.
I understand and can respect your position, even if I don’t agree with it.
Thanks for your thoughts.
Regards,
Shodan
Are you guys argueing civilized-like in the pit!?
/hard stare
My deepest apologies, sir.
Regards,
Shodan
I got kind of freaked out by it too!
See - this is what happens when GD threads get closed. The Pit gets polluted with rational argument and agreement.
I feel dirty. I am going to go shower now.