We can do either one. Which one is(at least partially) reversible if mistakes are made?
Well, if a mistake puts a guilty man back into society, he may well commit more crimes. By contrast, you can’t mistakenly bring a guilty man back to commit more crimes after he’s good and dead…
A mistake that puts a guilty man back out into society would do so if he would have otherwise been sentenced to life in prison or given the death penalty. Try to answer the question again without the cheap dodge, please.
Not if he’s already dead.
Sentence a man to spend the rest of his life in prison and he might get back out any time for the rest of his life. Sentence a man to execution and – well, yes, as it happens he might get back out at any time for the rest of his life, but “the rest of his life” is considerably shorter. It’s a distinction with a difference.
What cheap dodge? If I want someone incapacitated permanently, I want the option that stops being reversible sooner.
And how often does it happen that a man that has been sentenced to life in prison has had the conviction reversed because he was found to be innocent, then proceeded to kill someone on the outside?
Well, that’s not the only possibility. Until he’s irreversibly dead, can’t he kill other folks by escaping? Or by killing other folks on the inside?
As can others in the prison system that weren’t sentenced to life in prison. Again I ask-got any cites?
Yes, that’s my point: as long as you’re alive, you may be able to strike again. That’s the difference between executing and imprisoning; one irreversibly incapacitates, the other doesn’t.
That a man serving a prison sentence has committed a crime, and that a man who’s been executed hasn’t? Given the usual SDMB approach to proving negatives, I’ll handle the former if you’ll handle the latter.
Deliberate obtuseness does not become you.
Do you have cites concerning prisoners that were later found to be innocent and set free only to kill someone on the outside, or prisoners on death row being more likely to kill on the inside than other prisoners?
Why on earth would I supply a cite about prisoners on death row being more likely to kill on the inside than other prisoners? I’d make the same argument if they were exactly as likely to kill on the inside, or less likely to kill on the inside. My whole point is that they kill no one after they’ve been executed.
I likewise don’t see any point in limiting myself to prisoners who were found to be innocent and set free; I’m just as concerned with prisoners who, despite being found guilty, struck again while alive instead of being irreversibly incapacitated by dint of simply being dead.
Using this “logic”, all prisoners should be given the death penalty to prevent them from committing any crimes up to and including murder, either on the inside or the outside.
The Other Waldo Pepper, unless I’ve totally missed the point here (and I don’t think I did), Czarcasm was saying wrongful convictions are reversible and wrongful executions aren’t. So the comment about people being released by mistake is not a sensible reply.
Using that logic, all folks who haven’t even committed crimes yet should be given the death penalty to prevent future crimes. Which is absurd, which is why I sign on to neither that proposition nor the one you spell out.
Instead, I’m merely saying that executing convicted murderers serves many of the same purposes as sentencing them to life imprisonment – and also has the advantage of irreversibly incapacitating them; it has a drawback as well. Likewise, life imprisonment serves many of the same purposes as a shorter jail term – and also provides an extra advantage (and an extra drawback) in that comparison. And yet we don’t recommend life imprisonment for all criminals, but instead sentence some to shorter terms – and even a short jail sentence in turn serves many of the same purposes as a mere fine while also providing an extra advantage (and an extra drawback) in that comparison. And yet we don’t jail all criminals; some we merely fine.
Making such an observation recommends none of the above as a one-size-fits-all solution; each has its advantages and drawbacks, each can sometimes be the right choice.
I’m saying the crimes committed by those who could’ve been – but weren’t – executed are just as irreversible. I’m saying the irreversibility of execution is an advantage as well as a drawback, and needs to be evaluated as both: it makes incapacitation permanent rather than reversible, and that’s good – and it can’t be reversed if the guy turns out to be innocent, and that’s bad. We’ve got to weigh both sides of that.
Only if you can show that both possibilities are anywhere near equally likely, which is why I asked for cites concerning statistics for the possibilities you laid forth. Otherwise, this line of debate makes as much sense as the one about seatbelts, where one side ignores the stats and insists on not wearing them because of the extremely rare chance that it might be safer that way in some freak accident.
You didn’t ask for cites concerning statistics for the possibilities I laid out. You asked for cites concerning statistics for one fraction of the possibilities I laid out.
You are stating possibilities-I am asking for probabilities.
So you want to compare the percentage of criminals who commit further crimes while serving their sentences with the much smaller percentage (namely, zero) of executed folks who commit further crimes – and then compare the percentage of executed folks who weren’t later found innocent with the much smaller percentage of executed folks who were – and then compare the probabilities of A and B? Is that right?
I have already stated twice which statistics I am asking for-I will not do so again.
You did, and I objected twice: once because you asked for “prisoners that were later found to be innocent and set free only to kill someone on the outside”, which isn’t my sole concern by any stretch – I’m equally concerned about prisoners who aren’t found to be innocent, but strike again anyway – and once because you asked for evidence about “prisoners on death row being more likely to kill on the inside than other prisoners”, even though my argument remains the same regardless of whether they’re more likely to kill while on death row.
Sorry to hear you won’t ask again, because I’d be delighted to supply the stats I mentioned in post #237 – if you could briskly confirm that those, rather than the irrelevant ones you previously requested, are the key to said comparison.
You’d think so, wouldn’t ya.
But not so much. Again, I point to the sad case of Rolando Cruz. I have linked several times to it in this thread. Prosecutors had convincing proof that someone else had done it, that cops had perjured themselves on the stand, one cop had resigned in protest so he could testify for the defense, an assistant A.G. resigned in protest because she could not help execute an innocent man.
The State of Illinois had convicted Cruz of this crime and gave him a death sentence twice and tried him a 3rd time. They had ample evidence that Cruz and Hernandez could NOT have done it and were *still trying *to execute him.
The fact that Cruz and Hernandez were hispanic and Dugan was white is probably coincidental.
The sad irony: