Since it is impossible for anyone who has already been executed can be exonerated by a court of law, that’s a ridiculous point to make (though I suspect you’ll continue to bring it up until you’re old and grey.)
When I ask myself why I am against the death penalty, I usually arrive at the question: “Why should I be *for *it?”
My reasoning is that I pefer to live in a society that does not allow the state to kill its citizens, unless there is a compelling reason to do so. What could possibly be a compelling reason to kill a convicted felon that you have in your custody? The ones I can think of are:
[ul]
[li]To deter others from commiting the same crime[/li]I have not yet seen any convincing evidence that the death penalty does have that effect. Most perpetrators either seem to assume that they will never be caught or to not care what happens to them anyway.
[li]To protect society by permanently removing the felon[/li]A person who has been executed can not commit further crimes - that much is true. But keeping a person locked up should be sufficient to do the same. The possibility of jailbreak does not strike me as a compelling reason to kill someone.
[li]To do justice by chosing the appropriate sentence[/li]This one is harder to refute. In western societies that have the death sentence it is usually handed out for murder. One could argue that the appropriate sentence for taking a life is having your own life taken in return. But if we follow this “Quid pro quo” approach - where does that lead us? Should an arsonist be burned? Should we blow up the Boston bomber? Certainly not. Most supporters of the death penalty maintain that it should be executed as painlessly as possible - regardless of whether the victims of the convicted died painlessly or not. So if the sentence is obvoiusly not directly derived from what the victims have suffered, why then must it be death? Why can it not be life in prison? Again, I can not see a compelling reason for allowing the state to kill here.
[/ul]
I will admit that occasionally when I read or hear about particularly vile crimes I have a gut reaction of wanting to see those who did it dead (or worse - base instincts are a bitch). But most of the time I prefer to live in a society where legislation is not formed based on gut feelings and base instincts.
Perhaps some of these guys really were guilty. But I find it incredible that they all were. In all cases, I believe reasonable doubt existed. One guy had a mistrial after 11 of 12 jurors voted to acquit, then later tried, convicted, and executed.
I think the onus should be on the DP proponents: demonstrate the benefit to execution that could not be achieved by life imprisonment. Prove that that benefit exceeds the cost of innocent blood being shed.
You are kind of missing the point. Simply reposting the case for the defense isn’t exoneration either.
By definition, you are mistaken.
Regards,
Shodan
I assume you are addressing Humble Thinker.
Regards,
Shodan
People call abortion and gay marriage morally wrong don’t they? “It’s morally wrong” frequently is **not **an end-all settlement of a debate.
You are correct insofar as the original trial went.
But what if, after the fact, you can show evidence that the evidence given at trial was seriously flawed and there was prosecutorial misconduct?
There is a lengthy but excellent and thorough article exploring the case above by The New Yorker on the same case mentioned in the quote above. Well worth a read and I’d be curious as to what your opinion would be after reading it (it is long though so I can understand if you’d rather not).
More broadly we know we convict innocent people all the time. It is almost impossible not to. Why would you (or anyone) suppose we always get it right when it comes to the death penalty?
I, for one, support the death penalty because there are certain crimes so heinous that life imprisonment isn’t a strong enough punishment. That’s more or less all there is to it.
I don’t consider the possibility of an innocent person being executed to be significant because there’s no solid evidence that an innocent person has been executed in this country at least in the past half-century and because the entire lengthy appeals process is specifically intended to make sure that innocent people aren’t executed. I don’t consider the cost a factor because I don’t believe cost should ever be a deciding factor in whether or not someone gets the punishment they deserve. I don’t consider its status as a deterrent or not to be relevant. I’m not moved by claims that it’s “barbaric” or “immoral” because those are nothing more than subjective value judgments and appeals to religion.
Is the margin of error really that relevant to this discussion? If you feel inclined to yell “Of course it is! How can you think it is not?”, ask yourself:
If you are opposed to the death penalty, would it change your mind, if there was some hypothetical way to make absolutely sure that the convict really committed the crime?
And if you support the death penalty, do you do this because you believe that the margin of error is zero? Would you change your mind, if you could be convinced that it is not?
I believe that neither camp could be swayed by the answer to this question. It is a supporting argument at best.
How many innocent people is it ok to put to death before you think it goes too far? One? Ten? A hundred? A thousand? Where do you draw the line? How many are too many?
If we had a magical way to 100% determine guilt or innocence then the vast majority of the problems with our justice system would disappear over night.
But we don’t so we have to deal with the realities of an imperfect justice system. Given that at least we can do the best we can and the death penalty is far, far from it on numerous counts.
I’ve always had a problem with the disconnect between “we have the moral right, nay, obligation to execute people who we think should be dead” and “but no, they shouldn’t be made to suffer.” Dead is dead. If they think they have the right to kill somebody, get it over with. Bullet to the head. Blam. Done. Move On.
On the other hand, if they honestly have a moral quandary over whether or not they’re causing a fellow human being to suffer, they really need to take a giant step back and revisit that “moral right to kill people” part…
To believe that only in this one small area-the death penalty-the law has never made a mistake is akin to believing in magic.
Not a fan of either.
The argument that carries most traction imo is legal; the quality of defence vs. prosecution.
Often the defendant is clueless about process and has no idea they are getting 3rd rate representation in terms of time and attention.
You misread my post. I am not saying, that putting innocent people is ok. I am against the death penalty. But I would still be against the death penalty, if we could “magically” ensure that no innocent person ever gets executed. So convincing me that no mistakes happen - even if that were possible - would do nothing.
At the same time I believe that those in favor (most of them at least) are realists enough to know that mistakes *can *happen - however unlikely they make these mistakes out to be. Still they are in favor of the death penalty. So convincing them that mistakes can happen - even if that were necessary - would also do nothing.
The question whether or not there is a risk of executing an innocent does not really further the discussion. Those in favor will still be in favor, and those against will still be against.
I’m against the death penalty–which is to say, I would be perfectly OK with abolishing it–but I don’t find this argument persuasive.
We have a problem that we are convicting innocent people of heinous crimes and executing them. So, we solve this problem by abolishing the penalty? Like, it’s perfectly OK to convict innocent people of heinous crimes and then sentence them to life imprisonment. Hey, eventually they’ll probably be exonerated by some new evidence or new technology or something. Then, we can let them out of prison. Because letting innocent people who have been falsely convicted of heinous crimes back out of prison (and maybe giving them some money) just automatically counteracts all the bad effects of spending seven or twelve or nineteen years in prison–whatever the number was–for things they didn’t actually do. They get their spouses back and they magically get to watch their kids grow up and to be there for their aged parents’ last years and are fully and completely reintegrated back into society, no problem.
It’s like all our old legal maxims say: “Innocent until you can’t afford to hire a good lawyer or even post bail” and “Better to convict ninety-nine poor people than to let one guilty person go free”.
Of course the law makes mistakes in regards to the death penalty. That’s why we have a comprehensive appeals process - to find and correct those mistakes before we carry out the sentence.
And that’s why we don’t execute innocent people in this country.
We’ve already gone over this with you in previous threads, and there is no possible response to such an absurd statement that could be posted…at least not in this forum.
You would need to come up with a level of evidence sufficient to prove innocence. Not reasonable doubt - stronger evidence than that.
The presumption of innocence has already been overcome at trial. Therefore, for anti-DP advocates to simply repeat the defence case, or to come up with expert testimony, or unsworn testimony, and not give the prosecution a chance to cross-examine, is not sufficient (in my mind) to say so-and-so was innocent.
Because
One more than the number of innocent people who die when the death penalty is not imposed.
You have, at most, Willingham, whose death would have been prevented if we imposed LWOP instead. I have a list of deaths that would have been prevented if we had imposed death instead.
Regards,
Shodan
Agreed. Also, the bloodlust it engenders is poison to both those who experience and those of us who witness it.
A civilized response is, “This is a terrible, cruel choice, but we just have no other way of dealing with the killer.”
Well, if you want to make a case for the death penalty, preventing further crimes seems like a reasonable argument. But would the death penalty really have prevented all those murders on your list? On that list I see mainly two groups of repeat killers: Those who escaped to kill again and those who have been paroled. The death penalty won’t effectively prevent the former, because, as you have mentioned, there is a lengthy appeals procedure. This takes years and would have given many (probably most) of the jailbreakers on your list the time to escape. You could argue that the death penalty still makes a jailbreak less likely. But improving on prison security would do that too.
The latter group - those who have been paroled - would have been kept from killing again by a life sentence without parole. So for these cases I do not see why it should have needed a death sentence for preventing the second murder.