What is with “100% no death penalty under any circumstances” type people???

The BBQ Pit
41

The latter is not true, and the former is only marginally so. Even the pro death-penalty surveys of cost I have seen have only managed to “prove” that the cost is lower by falsely compounding inflation on to the cost of prison over 50 years, rather than assessing the cost in real terms (link*). The DP is an exceedingly costly business, and I will try and find a cite that can reasonably be considered unbiased, although I suspect this will be hard. A cursory googling brings up either highly anti- or highly pro-DP sites. I find it telling, however, that the latter are reduced to what is an outright lie in order to make their claim.

Quite besides the truth or otherwise of the cost and convenience claim, I find such arguments to be quite repugnant. It would surely be more convenient if we were to cut off the hands of thieves and let them loose again, less costly if we were to put out the eyes of paedophiles. I do not believe this to be a slippery slope argument; it is a direct consequence of what happens when you let convenience dictate what the state does with people’s lives. This is supposed to be justice, not handy disposal. And speaking of justice…

My personal opposition to the DP is mainly rooted in its finality (although there are many, many other reasons), and this is why I am quite comfortable in my support of LWOP. No court system devised by man is infallible, and innocents are inevitably convicted. How does one revoke a death sentence, once carried out? No doubt the reply will be “well, we’ll only do it for the ones where we’re absolutely certain.” Really? Isn’t that … all of them? We’ve already convicted these people beyond reasonable doubt, and yet somehow 115 have been exonerated since the DP was reinstated, against 927 executed; several of the former were only exonerated after an investigation by journalism students uncovered massive miscarriages of justice. If we have some magical standard of utter certainty that we can bring out in only these cases, why have we not done so? Clearly we aren’t certain, or the exoneration rate would be zero.

Is it sane to put such an absolute measure in the hands of a system which has been proven, time and again, to be so fallible? How can we as humans devise a system so perfect that it can exact the ultimate price from someone?

*Indeed, the “study” in the link provided admits as much, then proceeds to ignore this enormous factor.

42

The OP is talking about killing in self-defense, and not talking about the death penalty in a legal sense at all. I’d like some clarification from the OP. Did you just pick the wrong phrase, and was killing in self-defense the thing you really wanted to talk about? Or do you think that the death penalty, ordered by the state as a punishment, is the same as a self-defense killing?

If the second is true, then you’re just wrong. Many people believe that, while the state has the right and duty to punish murderers and prevent them from killing again, the state does not have the right to kill anyone. They would say that the death penalty makes the state into a murderer.

Not all of those people feel the same way about self-defense. That killing isn’t to punish the person, it is to protect your own life. It’s only self defense if the person is a threat to you. Some of your examples (“But what if he surrenders? But what if he walks away?”) are not self defense, because the attacker is no longer a threat to you. Killing an attacker who has given up and retreated would get a victim arrested for murder, and rightfully so in my opinion.

If you want to talk to a person who is 100% against killing, even in self-defense, then I am one. Even among death-penalty opponants, I’m in the minority, and a lot of people think I’m wrong. That’s okay. You asked, so I’m happy to tell you my thoughts.

I think all human lives are of enormous value. Yes, even the lives of horrible criminals who do horrible things and who I totally support punishing, even to life in prison. I’m neither a bleeding-heart nor an idiot, and I know that rehabilitation is frequently unsuccessful, but I still think that human life is too valuable for anyone to destroy.

But I think that it’s rarely true that your only choices are to kill or to be killed. People who set up these little hypothetical stories always assume that you must kill to save your own life. You make the same assumption in your hypothetical story, where you say that the only way to save my life is to kill the attacker. In real life, I think that there are always many choices, rarely only two. How about if I grab my kid and make an escape jumping into that open manhole over there? (What manhole, you say? Well, you made up the guy, so I can make up the manhole.) How about if I hit him hard in the head, then run away while he’s reeling? What if I use the gun in my hand to shoot out his legs, and run away? What if I persuade him to let my kid go, then keep him talking until the police arrive? There are other choices than killing him, and I can believe killing is wrong without just allowing myself to kill him.

Sure, I might die trying. That imaginary woman in your story might die, too. Maybe she’ll shoot and miss. Maybe she’ll be so scared that she’ll drop the gun. Maybe the bullet will bounce off that brick wall and come back and hit the living kid. In either case, you have life-threatening danger that you have to find a way out of, and killing someone else is not the only option.

I wouldn’t kill in self-defense, though I’d do anything I could think of to avoid getting killed, including hurting my attacker as badly as was necessary. And the hypothetical situation you describe wouldn’t happen, because I would never, ever be carrying a gun.

43

More appropriate criteria than that already required by law? The special circumstances that need to be demonstrated aren’t enough for you?

Multiple murder, murder of a police officer, murder for financial gain, and murder during a rape, arson, or robbery and lying in wait are pretty specific criteria for determining the the most severe penalty.

44

I just don’t trust a jury with that kind of decision. Twelve random schmucks who couldn’t even get out of jury duty making a life and death decision in a highly emotional context, knowing they’ll be viewed as monsters by the press and the victim’s family if they don’t vote guilty. Not a good way to get an impartial decision based on the facts of the case. You don’t even get your best work from judges or the police in that context, look at how many people we’ve pulled off death row who got railroaded there because of the heinous nature of the crime they were accused with. You can’t expect normal, untrained citizens to do better.

With life in prison, at least we can go back later and re-examine the matter when it comes out that the investigators beat a confession out of the suspect, the judge refused to throw it out knowing this, and the jury didn’t take it into consideration when judging the veracity of said confession.

45

Pro-DPers, the problem is NOT that the penalty is too harsh, it’s that it is irreversable. To err is human. You do not choose the ultimate penalty unless you are 100% certain that you have the right guy. Our system is not good enough to provide that certainty, so we should give ourselves the ability to fix mistakes and go with life without parole. For every truly deserving, sick motherfucker who should be fried, there could be some dull dupe who had the misfortune of having no alibi while looking like the real murderer. That doesn’t sit right with me.

Ilsa seems to be okay with giving his own life to ensure 100 murderers would never kill again. That’s great, but we really can safeguard society without strapping you to Old Sparky, it’s called life without parole.

46

I think he was talking about the criteria for selecting the punishment, e.g. to hurt them and their family as much as they have hurt the victim, or to rehabilitate the offender, or to keep them out of society.

47

Ah, sorry; didn’t spot this. Please consider my earlier post not to be directed at you, then.

48

I ask this of the pro death penalty people that have posted so far, and any others: If you were falsely accused of murder, found guilty by 12 jurors whose sole qualifications were that they were too unimportant to get out of jury duty and were deemed mallable by both your lawyer and the prosecutor, then sentenced to death by the them, would you want fewer appeals, or more? Would you drop all appeals and take your unjust punishment, just to serve as an “example” to some unknown potential murderer who no doubt is waiting to decide on whether to commit the dastardly deed based on the fate of your trial?

49

I haven’t posted yet, but I’ll answer this one as it plays into one of my favorite arguments in this debate.

Of course I would take every opportunity to appeal I could (whether I was falsely accused or not!). However, I think this is a non-issue. I would appeal everything I could if I was senteneced to life in prison as well.

The cost of appeals, as I understand it, is the largest factor that allegedly makes the Death Penalty more expensive than Life Imprisonment. This argument (over the respective costs of the punishments) is only valid if there is a real difference in the allowable appeals between DP and LI convicts. I, for one, do not see such a difference. If I were sentenced to Life, I would appeal even the constitutionality of that punishment.

50

“Why do we kill people who kill people to show other people that killing people is wrong?”

100% against DP. I just don’t believe a society can take the life of another human being without admitting that doing so in a premeditated fashion is Okey Dokey.

After all, institutionalized murder is NO different from a lynching–just has a bigger mob, that’s all. The mob makes a rule (law) that says “ain’t gonna be no killin’ lessn we saysso.” A killin’ happens, the mob is sure they’ve got the killer, they chat about why they think he done it & how likely they think he is to do it again (as long as they cotton to his particular pigmentation, otherwise he may not even get that much consideration). The mob then agrees that they think this person needs killin’ back and so they do it. So, how big does the mob have to be? At what point is it an execution as opposed to a premeditated murder with multiple accomplices? There ain’t one.

Our gut instinct is to meet violence with like violence. It helped us develop big brains back when we lived in caves ('course if you thump Bible I don’t expect agreement–you go on ahead and select which of your God’s laws you want to obey). But since we’ve started wearing clothes, cooking our food and refinancing homes to “free up equity” ( :rolleyes: ) it’s safe to say that we’ve chosen to abandon this part of our heritage. **** We’ve decided that killing one another is wrong. ** ** Yes, I beleive that our recent wars have been murderous events (Pit me or GD me if you want my input on that).

Imprisonment is the immediate answer because it reduces the threat the killer presents to society. But doing nothing beyond imprisonment is dumb. We make no efforts to rehabilitate, few to diagnose mental illness, and none to treat any ilnness found to be the root cause of the behavior. We’re so bent on revenge that we can’t accept the idea that such a person can be corrected, willingly, and returned as a productive member of society. In those instances where this proves not possible, put the good healthy body to work! Give it food & shelter, and put it to work making the world a better place for those of us who want it to be so. The way things are going the USA will be reinventing blood sport (*The Running Man * anyone?) soon enough anyway. There’s a good compromise!

Such slavery can be called the price of civilization.

51

Cite?

I know this is the pit an’ all, but did you just pull that “fact” out of your behind?

I’m anti-death penalty and I also believe there is no point in sticking someone in jail without any prospect of release. Yes, they need punished, and that might be a very long stint in jail. But they, and we, need some prospect of eventual rehabiliation, no matter how slim the chances might be.
And a crap OP, BTW. The example given not comparible in any way with state-sanctioned judical killing.

52

Most people are ignoring this issue because quite frankly it’s ridiculous.

But here you go: killing someone in self-defense is justified because it prevents a crime from occurring. But if the crime has already occurred, killing the criminal is no longer self-defense it’s retribution.

So here is where the line is: it’s no longer self-defense after the crime occurred.

53

Hi, Gus! ::: waves :::

I’m going to admit to committing one of the cardinal sins of Doperage – I have not read through the entire thread.

But I want to give my reactions anyway, so apologies if this duplicates anything someone else has already said.

First, self defense is always judged as proportionate to the assault – if someone reacts with the minimum possible means available to him or her under the specific circumstances, it’s a valid defense to any case that might be made against him/her. A small woman with a gun, presuming she is not sufficient a markswoman to guaranteeably disable without killing, defending herself and/or children against a person who could demonstrably overpower her, is well within her rights in defending herself by shooting to kill, or shooting with an intent to stop him and not caring whether it kills or disables.

That’s a whole different ball game, though, as some of the early posts pointed out, from the legal sentence of execution following trial.

And I am not a 100% never nohow noway anti-death-penalty advocate. But I’m opposed to it for good reasons:

It’s demonstrably applied for criteria not contemplated in the laws (being a black man accused of killing a white person in North Carolina, for example, is not a part of the legal “aggravating circumstances” definition – but it seems to be a standard critierion for juries!). And it’s very clear that at least a few of those sentenced to death were either not guilty or guilty of a much lower offense than a capital crime.

Now the point behind that is that you can reverse any other sentence and have it have some valid effect – but in the absence of reliable means of resurrection, you cannot reverse a death sentence except in the sense that it can legally be done and remove the taint from the memory of someone who remains dead.

I would not be opposed to a death penalty statute desired by a majority of sane citizens which can demonstrably be enforced equitably and without serious possibility of error. But in point of fact, the capital trials I’ve seen and read about tend not to fit that definition.

So I’m pragmatically opposed to the death penalty as it is used today.

I’d close with a paraphrased quote from Tolkien (Gandalf speaking): “Deserves to die? Yes, many who live deserve death. And many who die deserve to live. If you cannot grant them life, do not be quick to wish death on anyone.”

To me, that says a lot about how things are in this imperfect world.

54

I know you were paraphrasing, poly. But I find the actual quote a bit more poignant. Frodo says that Gollum deserves death for his deeds.

I am opposed to the death penalty for pragmatic reasons similar to those outlined by the esteemed Polycarp

55

That Tolkien quote has a lot of wisdom in it. Or as Wiliam Munny said it 'To kill a man is a hell of a thing. You take away everything he has, anything he will ever have". I have a feeling that this thread started as a troll. You can not compare a fully thought out execution with self defense of the defense of your child. If you stop to weigh the legal or philosophical, someone dies. There is no time to puzzle out just what the minimum force should be. It comes down to you, your child, or a killer, and blind instinct takes over. It’s automatic and completely natural. It’s a “whole other thing”. I would suggest that anyone who says they would just stand there until their child had been strangled to death is not telling the truth. She would be programmed by nature and evolution to do anything necessary, no matter how vicious, to save her child before the child is finally killed. She has no choice. It is hard wired in.

56

Self-Defense is something done when someone is AT THAT TIME attacking you or a member of your family/friends and you use force to stop them.

The death penalty is a punishment carried out by legal authorities after having been ordered to do so by a properly impaneled jury and judge.

The two are not at all related.

57

Where is the line? It depends on the situation, as far as I am concerned. Once the person is in protective custody, it would generally no longer be self defense.

To again address the first example, I’d say she would even be justified in killing the guy once he says he gives up, as he still poses a concrete threat to them.

However, I still see a difference between self defense and the death penalty.

58

Polycarp, Dead Badger, Fisher Queen, et all, thanks for your imput.

Yeah, I forget about the way the dictionary becomes the argument on the SDMB a lot. LOL

I knew I would be called an idiot and worse. It is worth it to see if anything has changed once in a while.

Not only can no one guarantee that LWOP is 100% going to happen, those guys get out at for a lot of different reasons.

Vary rarely have I heard a victim of child murder ask for his/her child’s murder to be given counseling and rehab instead of punishment.

As a society I don’t think we are there yet and I’m not sure we should ever be as it is anti-survival of the species which nature don’t really approve of IMO.

So, OKAY folks, SD and DP are complete and separate and the line is easy and only a fool would ever worry about it and all peoples know exactly what and how they will handle it, if and when it happens to them.

We got some really ‘together’ folks on the SDMB … :wink:

Manny people ask and now I wonder… If it is so obvious that DEATH is absolutely wrong as a punishment for any crime, why is it so hard to have it stopped? Are people that stupid? Are the anti-DP people the only one who are right and just?
Or are they the only ones who have not ever been victims?

59

Thanks, QtM!

In passing, the combined effect of your quote with its “Originally posted by Gandalf” line, combined with a Scripture quote with “Originally posted by Jesus Christ” over on another board I frequent, gave my quirky sense of humor a boot – “What board are they posting on? I want to join that board!” :smiley:

60

Nope, Gus – I’m not opposed to the death penalty under all circumstances – just, pragmatically, at how it’s being used today.

And I don’t think your question was far wrong – if someone “deserves death” in the form of self-defense, what difference can be construed between that and a sentence of death in court.

My take, which I wasn’t clear about, is that there is a distinct difference between having to make a quick choice in a crisis situation and having the luxury of time to think through what one ought to do and weigh all the variables.

If I caught someone seriously threatening my grandkids, and that someone weighed over 100 pounds and had more muscularity than the average 12 year old, I’d resort to whatever sort of force was available to me to stop them – including, if necessary in the circumstances, lethal force. And I would do so with a clear conscience – because it was what I had to do under the circumstances.

But imposing the death penalty is a different kettle of fish, not because one life is different than the other, but because there is no crisis situation requiring immediate life-taking action or refraining from it – one can think through all the possible consequences of the decision to impose the death penalty, take into consideration that there is a possibility that the person may not in fact be guilty of a capital crime (and any other crime he may be guilty of certainly deserves punishing, but by definition not death), etc.

I think there may be a place for the death penality. I know that it’s overused and often misused in today’s criminal justice system. And that’s where I’m making my stand.

One final point. I cannot speak for the Federal courts or the other 49 states (even New York, which I used to be familiar with the Criminal Procedure Law of) – but in North Carolina, life without parole means exactly that. The only way someone sentenced to LWOP is getting out is by a full pardon by the Governor, and those are notoriously scarce, or by the sentence being set aside owing to a showing of severe error or conclusive new evidence, and a retrial with new evidence acquitting him – in which case he manifestly should not have gotten LWOP in the first place.