# Quandry: Death Row inmate cures cancer. Should he still die? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 30, 2012, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quandry-death-row-inmate-cures-cancer-should-he-still-die/642587 "2012-11-30T17:47:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Agent\_Foxtrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc29f/32.png) [@Agent\_Foxtrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agent_Foxtrot)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2012, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quandry-death-row-inmate-cures-cancer-should-he-still-die/642587/1 "2012-11-30T17:47:13Z")
Dr. Smith is a brilliant oncologist living in Texas and is regarded as one of the best in his field. Arriving home early from a conference on late-stage lymphoma, he finds his wife in bed with his best friend. In a moment of rage, he grabs his revolver from the bedroom closet and kills them both. An open-and-shut case, the judgement is swift and he is sentenced to die by lethal injection. He confessed to the crime in open court but refused to show any regret for his actions. A psychiatric evaluation has determined that Dr. Smith displays strong mental fitness and concludes that he would likely not kill again. While sitting on Death Row for 10 years, Dr. Smith communicates weekly with his former research team. Working out models in his cell, his team performs the necessary experiments and reports back to him. Finally, Dr. Smith establishes a procedure that completely destroys cancer at the site, leaving no chance of recurrence, regardless of the stage or cancer type. What should the Governor of Texas do? The doctor’s death date is a week away and he has exhausted all appeals. He unrepentantly killed two people yet facilitated measurable and permanent good for mankind now and in the future. Obviously, his/her decision will set a precedent forever. By Texas Law, this is an all-or-nothing proposition: the Governor cannot reduce his sentence, only commute it. He either dies or walks. Thoughts? ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2012, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quandry-death-row-inmate-cures-cancer-should-he-still-die/642587/2 "2012-11-30T17:53:41Z")
He’d never have been convicted in Texas in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![SpoilerVirgin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@SpoilerVirgin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpoilerVirgin)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2012, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quandry-death-row-inmate-cures-cancer-should-he-still-die/642587/3 "2012-11-30T18:19:42Z")
This one is easy: he dies. The justice system isn’t about the sum total of your life. It’s about the crime you committed. He did the crime, he does the time, or in this case the injection. I thought this was going to be about someone who would be able to cure cancer if he were allowed to live longer. That one’s a little more complicated. It would depend on the likelihood that you could save millions by saving this one man. Reminds me of one of my favorite episodes of STNG, with David Ogden Stiers as Timicin, the brilliant scientist who has to die as part of his planet’s culture. He ultimately chooses to sacrifice himself and let others carry on his work. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2012, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quandry-death-row-inmate-cures-cancer-should-he-still-die/642587/4 "2012-11-30T18:29:35Z")
Commutes from greater crimes have happened because of lesser acts of humanitarianism. Commuting him might anger some for a short bit, but _not_ commuting him would stay in the history books for centuries. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2012, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quandry-death-row-inmate-cures-cancer-should-he-still-die/642587/5 "2012-11-30T18:38:26Z")
Given only the options presented in the OP, I’d say let him walk. I would be willing to accept him serving ten years with good behaviour for committing murder when unreasonably provoked in a manner that is unlikely to be repeated. > [@SpoilerVirgin](#): > > …who has to die as part of his planet’s culture. This is why I hate Star Trek sometimes. ---
**Author:** ![PandaBear77](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@PandaBear77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PandaBear77)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2012, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quandry-death-row-inmate-cures-cancer-should-he-still-die/642587/6 "2012-11-30T18:53:29Z")
I’d be ok with people getting off death row if they donated an organ, I suppose I’d be ok with Dr. Smith’s sentence being commuted to life without parole. Not walking, though. ---
**Author:** ![Agent\_Foxtrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc29f/32.png) [@Agent\_Foxtrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agent_Foxtrot)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2012, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quandry-death-row-inmate-cures-cancer-should-he-still-die/642587/7 "2012-11-30T18:56:00Z")
> [@PandaBear77](#): > > I’d be ok with people getting off death row if they donated an organ, I suppose I’d be ok with Dr. Smith’s sentence being commuted to life without parole. Not walking, though. Well, like I said in the OP, assume the Governor can only vacate the sentence or enforce it. He can’t reduce it. ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2012, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quandry-death-row-inmate-cures-cancer-should-he-still-die/642587/8 "2012-11-30T18:58:58Z")
Oh yeah, he still serves his full sentence, which includes the dying part. His judgement and his cancer cure are two unrelated events. Thanks for the cure though. Buh-bye! ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2012, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quandry-death-row-inmate-cures-cancer-should-he-still-die/642587/9 "2012-11-30T19:28:42Z")
Let him go. He has redeemed himself. He has paid his debt to society. He is not a danger to the public (I am assuming for this argument). This is not an ordinary case and simple ‘eye for an eye’ rationalizations won’t achieve justice. Also, Czarcasm makes a good point about how history will see this. ---
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2012, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quandry-death-row-inmate-cures-cancer-should-he-still-die/642587/10 "2012-11-30T19:30:35Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > He’d never have been convicted in Texas in the first place. He’d have been convicted—my lay guess is for Murder, while being under the influence of ‘sudden passion’; he just wouldn’t have gotten death. See Texas Criminal Code [section] [19.02](http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/PE/htm/PE.19.htm). This doesn’t help us answer the debate question though. For me, to answer it you have to go to the goals of punishment, which I’ve read are: retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation, restoration, and incapacitation. Does the death penalty, in this case, achieve any of those goals vs. a lesser form of punishment? For retribution, death is harsher than life imprisonment. How much harsher, is difficult to say. Dead is dead, after all, but prison is not a pleasant place to spend the rest of one’s life. Point to the death penalty Rehabilitation: IMO, neither punishment will serve to rehabilitate him more than he has already. He expresses no remorse, yet is judged not likely to do it again. Is remorse necessary to be considered rehabilitated? Will confining him longer increase the likelihood he will be remorseful? Hard to be remorseful if you’re dead. Point to life imprisonment. Restoration: Neither punishment will bring the dead victims back to life. Killing the doctor prevents him from doing good works which might monetarily compensate his victims’ heirs or society as a whole. Another point to imprisonment. Deterrence: A carried out death penalty will absolutely deter the doctor from doing this crime again. It may induce other would-be murderers to not committ similar crimes, if they were to rationally consider the death penalty as part of the range of punishments. But the whole point of Texas’s sudden passion mitigation is that instances like catching your wife in bed with your best friend, short circuit the part of your brain that thinks rationally. I can’t see another murderer in a similar circumstance weighing the potential range of punishments. If there’s no consideration, no evaluation of punishment, how can there be deterrence? Tie. Incapacitation: Like deterrence above, if he’s executed, he’s definitely not committing murder again. But the OP states that our best experts have indicated that he won’t commit this crime again, regardless of whatever punishment we provide. I guess you could argue that the experts are sometimes wrong, whereas no one outside of a horror movie has been recidivist from the grave. Still, it’s my opinion that in this situation, there’s no effective difference between the two punishments when we consider their incapacitative effect. He’s not going anywhere and he’s not killing anyone else, regardless of which punishment we choose. Summing it all up, I get two to one for keeping the doctor around, with two ties. The above goals of punishment don’t mention catharsis for both society and the victims and victims’ families and loved ones. (Though, re-reading this, I guess you could fold it into one of the reasons behind retribution.) Should we consider catharsis as a worthy goal of punishment? Would his death, or his continued imprisonment, or that he’s created this lovely achievement of ending cancer to be more cathartic? I’ve read of cases where any of the three could be true. On this board, I think opinions would differ whether imprisonment or execution would be harsher, and therefore more cathartic. Assuming catharsis is related to how much the observer thinks the criminal is suffering. Me, I’d commute his sentence to something that he would have gotten for a second degree felony, something in the 2-20 year range. But then, on these facts, I’d never have given him a capital murder conviction in the first place. Make him a Jerry Sandusky type, who then killed his victims, and I think your utilitarian calculus changes dramatically. That guy? I’m not sure I’d let live, even if your society loses his promised discovery of a cancer cure. ---
**Author:** ![sweeteviljesus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/898d66/32.png) [@sweeteviljesus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweeteviljesus)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2012, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quandry-death-row-inmate-cures-cancer-should-he-still-die/642587/11 "2012-11-30T19:41:47Z")
What if the doctor in question was on death row, not for a crime of passion, but for murdering a little kid to prevent her from revealing the fact that he had raped her? Rob ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2012, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quandry-death-row-inmate-cures-cancer-should-he-still-die/642587/12 "2012-11-30T19:44:26Z")
> [@sweeteviljesus](#): > > What if the doctor in question was on death row, not for a crime of passion, but for murdering a little kid to prevent her from revealing the fact that he had raped her? > > Rob Then this would be a different thread? ---
**Author:** ![SpoilerVirgin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@SpoilerVirgin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpoilerVirgin)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2012, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quandry-death-row-inmate-cures-cancer-should-he-still-die/642587/13 "2012-11-30T23:22:00Z")
Look at it from the perspective of the victim’s family. If you were the child, mother or sibling of one of the victims in this case, would you say, oh well, Dr. Smith went on to cure cancer, so I don’t really care that he isn’t getting the punishment to which he was sentenced? Whenever the mother, in particular, of a murder victim announces that she has forgiven the killer, people tend to be very quick to say that they don’t understand it and couldn’t do it themselves. How would you feel if Dr. Smith were walking around free, probably getting all sorts of awards and accolades, if your (adult) child were still dead because of him? ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2012, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quandry-death-row-inmate-cures-cancer-should-he-still-die/642587/14 "2012-11-30T23:29:43Z")
> [@SpoilerVirgin](#): > > This one is easy: he dies. The justice system isn’t about the sum total of your life. It’s about the crime you committed. He did the crime, he does the time, or in this case the injection. > > . Not[exactly](http://http://www.capitalpunishmentincontext.org/issues/mitigation) > [@](#): > > Mitigation, also referred to as “mitigating factors” or “mitigating evidence,” is evidence the defense can present in the sentencing phase of a capital trial to provide reasons why the defendant should not receive a death sentence. This evidence, which can include mental problems, remorse, youth, childhood abuse or neglect, a minor role in the homicide, or the absence of a prior criminal record, may reduce the culpability of the defendant in the killing or may provide other reasons for preferring a life sentence to death. The Supreme Court has ruled that in deciding between the death penalty and life in prison, the jury may consider any mitigating evidence a juror finds relevant. The jury is instructed to weigh the mitigating factors presented by the defense against the aggravating factors presented by the prosecution. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2012, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quandry-death-row-inmate-cures-cancer-should-he-still-die/642587/15 "2012-12-01T02:11:12Z")
If he were repentant, I’d be more likely to vote for his eventual release (under supervision for the rest of his life, maybe house arrest). ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2012, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quandry-death-row-inmate-cures-cancer-should-he-still-die/642587/16 "2012-12-01T02:23:14Z")
> [@PandaBear77](#): > > I’d be ok with people getting off death row if they donated an organ, I suppose I’d be ok with Dr. Smith’s sentence being commuted to life without parole. Not walking, though. I would agree. If they donate their heart, they get out as soon as possible. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2012, 10:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quandry-death-row-inmate-cures-cancer-should-he-still-die/642587/17 "2012-12-01T10:16:09Z")
> [@Agent\_Foxtrot](#): > > Dr. Smith communicates weekly with his former research team. Working out models in his cell, his team performs the necessary experiments and reports back to him. > …Thoughts? Wouldn’t happen in my jurisdiction. Here, jailed felons are not permitted to continue working in their ‘outside’ job. Here, it’s part of the punishment of jail: if they left you with your dignity and self respect, it wouldn’t be punishment. ---
**Author:** ![coffeecat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coffeecat/32/3405_2.png) [@coffeecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coffeecat)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2012, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quandry-death-row-inmate-cures-cancer-should-he-still-die/642587/18 "2012-12-01T12:33:13Z")
Make him [Hans Reiser’s](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_reiser) cellmate? Seriously, free him. He did a great evil, then he did a great good. Justice has been served. We owe him. > [@SpoilerVirgin](#): > > How would you feel if Dr. Smith were walking around free, probably getting all sorts of awards and accolades, if your (adult) child were still dead because of him? Left-handed accolades. You do know that, for the rest of his life, he’d be referred to as “Dr. Zachery Smith, who was convicted of murdering his wife Lucy in 2002 . . .”? ---
**Author:** ![Gukumatz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/74df32/32.png) [@Gukumatz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gukumatz)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2012, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quandry-death-row-inmate-cures-cancer-should-he-still-die/642587/19 "2012-12-01T13:36:34Z")
Presidential pardon. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2012, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quandry-death-row-inmate-cures-cancer-should-he-still-die/642587/20 "2012-12-01T13:53:04Z")
> [@Gukumatz](#): > > Presidential pardon. The good doctor would have been convicted under state law not federal. He could receive a pardon from the governor of Texas but not the President of the United States. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quandry-death-row-inmate-cures-cancer-should-he-still-die/642587.md?page=2)