Can’t really pick and choose based on individual cases. Either we are consistent and I can support it, or we are not consistent and then I cannot. I believe we are not.
I’m sure some lots of the folks who were sentenced to death really, really deserved it. I just don’t think we should use it until we can work the problems out of our system.
I expect it’ll be a while.
The perfect is the enemy of the good.
Would you be confident in the possibility of writing a law to cover this situation that would* only* be used in such situations?
Or, on the other hand, would you be comfortable giving the power to elected officials to say “Yep, dude deserves death” based on their interpretations of how certain it is a defendant is guilty?
Yes, if dead, theirs would not be a meaningful gesture.
“Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement.”
Wrong. Murder has several definitions. One of them is as follows:
*5. to kill or slaughter inhumanly or barbarously. *
You will find similar definitions in any dictionary you care to consult. Calling the death penalty murder, or calling a soldier a murderer, or to say meat is murder are all perfectly legitimate uses of the word.
So what? There are other democracies such as Japan that practice the death penalty too and obviously its not the same as the North Korean death penalty considering there are a whole range of crimes punishable by death there that’s not here. The death penalty comes out of the sensible recognition that some people cannot be rehabilitated and thus that its the better for all of us for said person to be dead. I don’t see what’s wrong with asserting dominance over murderers through the display of the power of the State via the death penalty nor is this an either/or decision where we must choose between eliminating root causes and executing at least certain types of criminals.
He was a heck of a wizard but not much of a debater. This argument is easy to demolish. The argument here is that you shouldn’t do something in part unless you can do it all. Which is nonsense.
Suppose Frodo had been in the opposite situation and had the opportunity to save somebody who was otherwise going to die. The exact same argument that says Frodo shouldn’t choose to kill somebody when he can also says he shouldn’t choose to save somebody when he can.
Nah, saving someone from death and killing someone are very different acts. If you kill someone, you can never bring them back. If you save someone, you can always (potentially) kill them later.
Not to their victims, maybe. But to them, they’d be avenging a death (his). There was some discussion above about that being appropriate and just.
Bullshit. How many dictionaries did you check before you finally found that erroneous definition? Google’s definition and Mirriam Webster both don’t have it.
If “murder” shares a definition with “kill”, then why not just be clear and say “kill”?
Saying “meat is murder” is stupid on several levels. But it’s certainly not the proper use of the word “murder” since no law is being broken.
If me squashing a spider the other day makes me a “murderer” than the word has no meaning. Just say killer. I always wanted that for a nickname anyway.
If you have to struggle so mightily to find a word and a definition that would absolve us, doesn’t that tell you some more thought might be appropriate?
Sure, I’ll give it a whirl.
Welcome to Terminal Island, baby!
If our system were one that only applies the death penalty to cases such as this, without also convicting people whose defense attorneys sleep through their trials, then there would be no connection.
But it’s not such a system. It’s a system where well over 100 people who’d been sentenced to death were eventually exonerated, not through the normal workings of the system, but through the research and intervention of private groups such as The Innocence Project.
The idea that we can’t execute a man who we know beyond any shred of a doubt is guilty because we almost wrongly executed a completely different person 20 years ago is laughable, let alone your assertion that they weren’t exonerated “through the normal workings of the system”. Does the Innocence Project have its own independent judiciary or something?
The simple fact is that innocent people are not executed in the United States and an innocent person has not been executed in the United States in at least 50 years, and that complaints about the system’s lack of omniscience are not a valid argument against executing people who don’t deserve to live.
It depends on what you mean.
As far as the second question, I am fine with a system that gives the power to the state to condemn people to death if they are found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Therefore I don’t see the necessity of a law only to cover cases where guilt has been established beyond any doubt, not just a reasonable one.
And I am not naive enough to think that a law saying something like "the DP may only be imposed in cases where the evidence is incontroverible’ is going to achieve anything. This case is going to be dragged out by appeals just as much as any other DP case, and the fact that it is screamingly obvious that he did it is not going to make any difference at all.
The anti-DP folks will argue endlessly that he shouldn’t be executed because his brother was worse than he was, or that his lawyer didn’t do a good job, or he’s too young, or his confession should be thrown out because it misspelled a word, or he hid in a boat so he can only be convicted of piracy, or one of the jurors had a brother-in-law who ran the Boston Marathon, or etc. etc. ad infinitum.
Or else argue non sequiturs like “we can’t execute this indisputably guilty person because ten years ago we almost didn’t acquit someone else”.
The argument is often presented as “we convicted a few thousand people of murder, and ten or twenty of them were acquited when new evidence came to light. Therefore we can’t execute anyone because of the possibility that new evidence will come to light to exonerate one or two of them.” Well, I am quite comfortable saying that new evidence will never, and cannot possibly, come to light to exonerate this guy. So that argument doesn’t work in this case, and I don’t see its applicability.
Like I say, it won’t help, and the appeals process will be dragged out interminably just like it always is. The appeals will just be based on something other than assertions of factual innocence, and will therefore (to me and many others) be less than persuasive.
Regards,
Shodan
Getting the death penalty would made him a martyr to the terrorists too . I could
care less if he suffer , but I sure hate the idea that we’ll have to pay to keep him alive for the rest of his life. What a waste of good money !
It is a shame that they will never know they aren’t. Weren’t?
I don’t oppose the death penalty for terrorism, but if Jahar gets out in jail in MA, he is assuredly not getting any furloughs or conjugal visits. His life is going to suck wherever he’s inprisoned.