Political Compass #42: The death penalty should be an option for serious crimes.

Great Debates
41

I am saying that your approach ignores what Bayes Theorem tells us.

But I am not, like you, using that variable in a projection of what happens in its absence. If an innocent person is executed, the association is direct. You are asking “what happens when people convicted of crime X are released?” and answering “deaths of innocents” based on a posteriori reasoning. I contend that this is a fallacious view of “innocent death” statistics, based on what Bayes Theorem tells us.

But the absolute number of innocent deaths consequent of speeding might well be reduced - I certainly wouldn’t travel 10mph over the limit in a residential zone if a lethal injection followed my conviction. Your innocent deaths given such-and-such a crime might well show a positive result from executing speeders, but such a correlation would be just as fallacious as the murderer scenario.

Your appeal to a different rate among a given class of criminal is similarly so: we might find a very high murdering rate amongst those convicted of a very specific lesser crime such as unlicensed firearm possession. Executing these felons based on a magic number of innocent lives saved would be no less an abuse of the venerable Bayes.

42

To reflect their seriousness.
We already have accepted jumps in type of punishment: Fines - community service - imprisonment. Why would we need to justify another jump in and of itself?

43

And how is death a more serious penalty than a spell of imprisonment, for life if necessary? In what way is locking someone up for decades “not serious enough”?

All deprivation of property and liberty. We agree that we already accept these. I am asking why we need more punitive entities. You are asking me why we need to justify having more punitive entities. I cite Ockham’s Razor: that a plurality ought not be proposed without necessity. You…what?

44

+7/-3

Agree. If there was a “slightly agree” option, I would have ticked that.

I don’t support the death penalty in practice for the simple reason that it is too hard to administer fairly and too hard to ensure it is not administered mistakenly. But IN PRINCIPLE, I’m not against it. If the practical problems could be overcome, I can see that it is a just penalty for some crimes. I would add, though, that it’s hard for me to imagine a system that actually could overcome the practical problems.

I also don’t buy Shodan’s argument, because he is including the death rate of prison inmates in his calcuation. I expect the death rate of prisoners to be higher than the death rate of the non-prison population, so comaparing the two is not a valid argument in my book.

45

Clarity time: In the real world, the one in which humans make mistakes, death is seen as the worst punishment because there are no comebacks. It is for this reason I disagree with the DP.

In the perfect world, however, where juries do not make mistakes and life always means life, are you telling me that you would still be against the lesser penalty (death) - arrived at through dispassionate contemplation of a case - simply because it is different in type to other punishments?

46

That last message was addressed to SentientMeat btw

47

7.15, - 1.15 Agree

SentientMeat, don’t you think your “Punishment” and “Revenge” bullets are a contradiction? Surely if it’s barbaric to sentence someone to death it’s more barbaric to sentence him to a fate worse than death (life in prison).

There’s this meme running around, that capital punishment is not deterrent. I don’t deny it, but the only attempt I’ve ever seen to prove it was by Amnesty International – hardly a neutral part. And it was done by a questionnaire sent to American death row inmates – hardly a neutral segment.

Generally speaking, the purpose of the juridical system is not to impose some alleged superior system of principles or moralities on the people of the country/state. Its sole purpose is to reflect the general sentiment of the majority of people – however distasteful oneself might find it. Democracy demands it, and few issues are so intimately influential to the common man than the laws and their punishments. Further it absolutely essential that the people have faith in the system and that their general opinion on what is just punishment is met, if not you run the risk of people taking it upon themselves to seek what they consider justice, which will undermine the whole of society.

SentientMeat, I do not know of your example and have not seen the movie. But I’m sure there are examples where the case is less grey. Say, Bin Laden. Eichmann. etc.

I personally would support capital punishment for the most heinous crimes where the evidence is all but irrefutable but I do not labour under the delusion that no faults could ever occur. And I do that out of a wish for justice, which is a pretty word for vengeance.

48

I’m with John Mace. Agree. Barely.

I have no problem with the concept of the death penalty. Killing killers is just fine by me. However, it’s in the practical application of the death penalty that the government just fails. The courts are sometimes wrong. The death penalty cases end up costing more than a life sentance does for a taxpayer. The government just can’t handle that much responsibility.

49

Strongly disagree. Two wrongs never make a right. I’m against it not just because of the possibility of executing an innocent person (a possibility that still remains alarmingly high), but also because in my opinion executing people is wrong. It’s not even the ultimate punishment in my book; lifetime imprisonment seems far more hard.

(I’m something like negative seven on the social scale, negative five on the economic.)

50

Strongly disagree. The death penalty should only be an option for premeditated murder and possibly treason.

I don’t believe the threat of punishment has ever been shown to signifigantly lower the rate of crime. In the west we’ve had public executions, maiming, and humiliation and more recently lengthly prison sentences. People committed crimes back then and they’re still committing crimes today. Deterrence is a joke so I don’t consider it a valid arguement for or against the death penalty or any other form of punishment.

Most people would choose life instead of death. I would rather live in a US prison then be executed. Even in prison I have no doubt that I could find moments of joy whereas being dead I’m just dead.

There’s nothing wrong with a little revenge and you can’t have justice without it. The nice thing about a system of laws is that it takes vengeance out of the hands of those wronged and puts it in the hands of the state. Hopefully the vengeance meted out will not be in excess of the crime committed.

Marc

51

The only argument against the death penalty that seems to me to have any weight is the one which holds that it is irreversable, hence, given that any justice system will miscarry from time to time, it is unjust to impose it at all.

I disagree, but I can respect those who put forth that argument.

Those who say that “killing people is wrong, period” are merely seeking to write their own moral beliefs into law.
Personally, I have always been a supporter of the death penalty, but am now taking time to review my position. I may or may not change my mind on the subject.

52

How on Earth can you justify that?
Throughout history, as you’ve noted, there have always been punishments so you have no period of non-punishment with which to compare general rates of crime.
Of course deterrence has an effect.

53

I agree.

But keep in mind the question just says “The death penalty should be an option for serious crimes.” On that I agree, but that isn’t a blanket statement.

Everyone should be able to live a life in which they can do what they want when they want without any want or desire limited by monetary resources. Yeah, that should be the way it is. But I wouldn’t actually try to implement a policy to match that desire because of the practicalities.

I’ll have to admit I did not read any post in this thread save the first one. I’ve read all of these political compass posts now and am pretty sure of how everything will fall so I didn’t feel the need to wade through a huge mountain of posts.

So if anything I happen to say in the next few paragraphs is redundant of something someone else said I apologize, but I don’t care enough to read the entire thread just to insure I don’t make a redundant post. If the post is redundant then ignore it and then we’ll all be better off for it.

Firstly I will address the practicalities.

As it is right now I’m not in favor of the death penalty. I feel that a clear advantage is given to people who can afford better lawyers, I feel the death penalty itself is applied so narrowly that even if there was a deterrent effect to executions, there are so few of them it’s statistically meaningless. 99% of all murderers know they’ll never be executed even if caught. Furthermore there is too much room for error in conviction.

I do support the concept of the death penalty though. But to me I only support an execution in a few cases. 1) The accused is of sound mind as ascertained by a psychiatric professional and admits to his crimes, or 2) there is incontrovertible scientific evidence proving the accused committed the crime (and the accused is of sound mind.)

Now I’m using the term “incontrovertible” sort of like it is used in the Big-10 when doing instant replays. Obviously nothing can be shown with an absolute certainty because there is always the goofy philosophical argument that “anything is possible” so yeah, it is possible that after 10 separate labs verify DNA evidence proving an accused person committed a triple homicide that all 10 of those labs incorrectly verified the DNA, but we do live in the real world so we can be “realistic” to a degree.

I would also drastically change the appeals process for death penalty cases to both maximize fairness and minimize time spent on death row.

Firstly under my system immediately after a capital conviction all the information presented in the trial is sent to a review board, elected or appointed just as parole boards are. The review board is legally bound to have all the scientific facts of the case verified, also there will be legal scholars on the board who have the responsibility to analyze the legal matters of the case and they will draft a report explaining why they believe the defendant received a fair trial (or why he did not.)

In addition to the government appointed board members the defense attorney can also during this review period (capped at 12 months) present his own scientific evidence from his own experts, and anything the defense presents as evidence must be included in the final report.

Finally the final report is sent to the state supreme court and a review is done of all the aspects of the case. There will be in depth reports on the witnesses, the jurors, the attorney, the legal aspects of the case and the scientific evidence in the case. Then the court can rule based on this report.

The court’s ruling is final and never again can an issue concerning the execution be brought back to the State Supreme Court, the purpose of the review board is to consolidate all matters in the case. This will mean that you don’t have an attorney who makes an appeal on one aspect, drags out that appeal for a year, then makes an appeal on another aspect, drags that out for a year et cetera.

After that the only legal recourse left is an appeal to the USSC, which won’t much delay the process because 99% of the time the USSC just refuses to hear the case and that’s the end of it.

Anyways, those are the practical things that would have to happen before I’d support a death penalty policy. And I also think we would have to advance more technologically before we’d be able to produce incontrovertible scientific evidence with regularity. As now without DNA evidence there isn’t much that can be proven absolutely.

Now, as for the philosophical issues.

I believe there are several aspects to criminal justice. Firstly criminal justice seeks to address problems arising when people violate the social contract, and in addressing those problems attempt to reduce the incidents in which the social contract is broken. There are basically two approaches to reducing incident, punitive and rehabilitative. The punitive approach is basically monetary fines, corporal punishment, incarceration, and execution. The idea behind the punitive aspect is basically you punish an offender to keep them from repeating the offense, much like you spank a child to teach them not to do wrong again, and you also do it to make an example and deter others from committing that same offense. The rehabilitative aspect seeks to improve the character of offenders so that they don’t have the desire to commit crime anymore.

Secondly the criminal justice system attempts to provide “justice.” And I’ll explain what justice is.

We have a court system to settle disputes between parties in a way that guarantees fair evidence is presented and in a way that we feel rewards the person in the right and appropriately punishes the person in the wrong. The reason we have such a system is because in the past disputes between parties was typically settled by whoever was strongest. In the past if someone accused you of stealing a pig, whether you did or not, you would have your pigs stolen unless you were strong enough to defeat the other party. The legal system seeks to eliminate such things, but in doing so the legal system MUST satisfy the grieved party in an equitable manner or the system will not ultimately be satisfactory.

In the civil court, if you do $2m in damage you’re expected to pay that back when it’s proven you’ve done that damage.

So in my mind if it’s proven you kill, then you should indeed be killed. It is not about justice but about equity. I don’t believe human life is priceless, I think there is a general value to human life and that something must be done to match the value of a human life when it is taken wrongly.

So I do not believe death penalties should or are really carried out due to a base desire for “vengeance.” No, I believe it is a matter of equitable treatment. I believe that an aggrieved party should be compensated with something equal to the value of whatever the grievous action destroyed.

You destroy someone’s house, you should pay that enough money to buy a house of equivalent value.

Now, I’m not advocating an eye for an eye system. I think for example if you stab someone in the arm you shouldn’t be stabbed yourself. I think there are punishments, like lengthy incarceration, that satisfy the “equitable treatment” aspect of the justice system in cases like that. However I do not feel the destruction of a life can be dealt with equitably by anything less than destruction of the life of the perpetrator.

54

(-3.5, -2.5 or vice versa)

Somewhere between strongly disagree and slightly agree.

I believe that there are (rare) crimes for which there is effectively no sanction other then the death penalty. (Someone in prison for life without parole manages to murder another inmate or a guard, for example - we run out of practical options.) I think this is really not what was intended by the question - I think the question is more aimed at heinous punishments for heinous crimes.

Practically speaking, though, I am against capital punishment. The historical implementation of it, it’s lack of utility as a deterrent, non-zero error rate, reluctance to allow the government that power all contribute to my opposition.

55

Sure you are. You made that argument directly in the OP.

You are claiming (with no proof) that innocents have been executed, and this is one of the reasons you think we should not execute anyone. Same reasoning as me, IOW.

And John Mace - I don’t understand your objection. Could you clarify?

Regards,
Shodan

56

Ok, you got me. It was a bit ridiculous for me to say deterrence has no effect on the crime rate. I’m sure there has to be at least a few people who say “I better not do this because I might get caught and I don’t want to be in prison.”

Marc

57

Strongly disagree.

I see your logic. If, for example, 5 out of every thousand death row inmates is innocent. But if you decided to commute all the death sentences to life in prison, the escapees will commit an estimated 10 murders. So the death penalty saves an additional 5 lives.

But your method fails to account for the fact that you’re still killing a 1,000 people. Whether they are guilty or innocent, you are still killing a thousand people. A death penalty regime results in more homicides, not less.

58

The key distinction is innocence vs. guilt. I am certainly taking into account that I am executing 1000 people. But I give greater weight to the innocent lives spared than the guilty ones.

The purpose of the justice system is justice. Unjust deaths are to be prevented, because they work against that end. Justified deaths work in favor of justice.

It would be roughly similar to, say, a person whose home is invaded by six men intent on murdering the home owner and his wife. The home owner has a gun, and shoots and kills all six criminals. He thereby saves his own and his wife’s life, at a cost of six (guilty) lives. If the only moral factor to be considered is sparing as many lives as possible, he should have allowed his wife and himself to be murdered and not shot the intruders. The six intruder’s lives are thus spared at a cost of two innocent lives. I find this outcome to be unjust. The importance of the two innocent lives greatly outweighs the importance of the six guilty.

Same with the DP. Execute a thousand murderers, and thus spare a dozen innocents. Seems worth it to me.

Regards,
Shodan

59

Opponents of capital punishment, or proponents of the humanitarian theory of punishment, consider the primary functions or aims of a justice system to be to prevent crime and to remove revenge, or vengeance, from the equation. But let us not confuse vengeance with desert, which is the only connecting link between punishment and justice.

For it is only as deserved or undeserved that a punishment can be just or unjust. When we discipline our children, we do it essentially because they have transgressed - overstepped the mark – not because we wish to deter them or their siblings from transgressing again. That may indeed be the result, but it will be a happy side effect of the act of punishment, which is only ultimately justifiable on the grounds that it was merited. To be punished because we deserve it is to be treated as a truly human person.

The idea that to punish a person because they deserve it is mere revenge, and therefore barbarous and immoral, combined with the idea that the only legitimate motives for punishment are the desire to deter others, or to mend the criminal, appears merciful but actually deprives the person of his or her human rights.

In terms of human rights, when we stop considering what criminals deserve and consider only what will deter others, or cure them, we remove them from the sphere of justice altogether. Instead of a person with rights, we are treating the criminal as an object or a case.

I support the death penalty for such cases of premeditated murder as merit it.

60

Self defense is not analagous to the Death Penalty. A death row inmate that is safetly confined to his cell does not pose an imminent threat to anyone. To claim this issue as self defense is absurd. This is clearly retributive in nature.