Death Penalty

[capsulecorpjx]

I'm for it. I think it should be carried out no more than 2 years after the sentence, and the inmates only has 2 years to successfully appeal. No 20 year wait on Death Row.

However I do feel that the crime has to be proven beyond all doubt, with DNA and forensics to warrant the death penalty. I think there should be two categories of guilty, beyond reasonable doubt, and beyond all doubt.

If someone is found beyond a resonable doubt, then they get life. If they get beyond all doubt (again, DNA, video, forensics), they get capital punishment.

I'm mostly liberal except on this issue.

There are some hardcore anti-capital punishment folks, and some of the arguments that the death penalty is bad:
1) Its about revenge
2) It costs more money to execute someone then to keep them in jail for life.
3) Life in prison is worse than death, because criminals have to life with their guilt.
4) It is not effective in preventing crime.

Here is my response:
1) Yes, it is, so? Retribution is not wrong in itself. The essential part of the legal system is to carry out retribution in a civilized manner IF a person is found guilty.
2) It only costs more money because criminals on death row gets up to 10 to 20 years of appealing their sentence, costing huge amounts of money in legal fees.
3) If Life is worse, then why would criminals fight to avoid capital punishment?
4) Its only not effective because Capital Punishment is so hapazardly and rarely enforced. Even when it is given out, it takes many years to carry it out.
Of course nothing can deter certain crimes of passion. But if capital punishment is given out and carried out effciently, consistently and fairly, it will deter some crime.

[zaza]

My response:

You can never find somebody guilty beyond all doubt. Any method of assessing guilt - even a confession or DNA testing - is subject to error. And frankly, I'd rather we executed nobody than ever executed an innocent person in error, simply for the sake of having the death penalty.

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Two wrongs don't make a right. If you find somone guilty of killing someone, you have just affirmed that they have done something wrong. Hence, should you kill that person as a punishment, then then you too should be killed andthe person who kills you should also be killed and so on. In a few years there would be no one left.

Bottom line, killing people is wrong, whatever the reason and excuses like - "he killed a child", "I was hungrey" or "i am a psycho" don't make it any less wrong.

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Euthanasia is ok though ...

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Am I contradicting myself?

[visualAd]

Yes, I think I am

[capsulecorpjx]

My response:

You can never find somebody guilty beyond all doubt. Any method of assessing guilt - even a confession or DNA testing - is subject to error. And frankly, I'd rather we executed nobody than ever executed an innocent person in error, simply for the sake of having the death penalty.

Yes I agree that confessions aren't always reliable, they could be coerced by an abusive interrogator.

But DNA testing?

How can someone mishandle a DNA test so that the sample from the crime scene matches the suspect? That has to be a one in a trillion chance.

Now human error may interpret the DNA sample wrong, or maybe somehow (god knows how) a lab tech might match a suspect against himself (misplacing the suspect's sample as the crime scene sample). But you can remedy that by having two or three seperate labs do the tests.

In anycase, its still damn near impossible.

And when I say beyond all doubt, it is an exageration. Its beyond "beyond a reasonable doubt" because of forensic evidence.

I say this because Scott Peterson was convicted beyond a reasonable doubt even though there was no forensic evidence.

Now in that case, I think Scott should be sent to Life in prison. The circumstancial evidence may be convincing, but not enough for Death.

[zaza]

DNA testing is never an exact match. What they do is take a few bits, usually whatever they can find, and try to match it up. The more bits you have, the more you can try to match but the longer it takes. So it's always an approximation - it just depends on how much of the intact DNA you have and how much you can match in the time available until you consider that it is sufficient.

[Shaggy Hiker]

So what's your view on the racial issue. Any casual perusal of sentencing shows that a person is FAR more likely to get the death penalty for killing a white person than for killing any other race (in the US, but who else has the death penalty?). A person is also far more likely to get the death penalty if they are non-white.

How fair is that?

[-TPM-]

So what's your view on the racial issue. Any casual perusal of sentencing shows that a person is FAR more likely to get the death penalty for killing a white person than for killing any other race (in the US, but who else has the death penalty?). A person is also far more likely to get the death penalty if they are non-white.

How fair is that?

Singapore for one: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051202/...N5bnN1YmNhdA--
(which is what I thought this thread was going to be about)

[yrwyddfa]

I can see no rational explanation of how a civilised state must resort to state-sponsored killing. The death penalty is an act of vengeance and of revenge; it is, by definition, not a punishment.

It is also not a deterrent. I do not have the figures at hand but I would bet that the murder, or serious crime (that which the ultimate penalty is death) rate is either roughly the same, or more than the UK than it is in the States.

[capsulecorpjx]

I can see no rational explanation of how a civilised state must resort to state-sponsored killing. The death penalty is an act of vengeance and of revenge; it is, by definition, not a punishment.

It is also not a deterrent. I do not have the figures at hand but I would bet that the murder, or serious crime (that which the ultimate penalty is death) rate is either roughly the same, or more than the UK than it is in the States.

Again, I don't see why people think revenge is inherently bad.
Revenge is bad when the act of retribution exceeds the crime committed, or if it is enacted against a criminal's friends and family or if it is dealt without proving the guilt of a suspect. Thats why we have a justice system. Its an impartial (supposedly) civilized way of 1) Removing criminals from the street 2) Providing retribution to the victim's camp. 3) Rehabilitation for lesser crimes.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Again, I don't see why people think revenge is inherently bad.
Revenge is bad when the act of retribution exceeds the crime committed, or if it is enacted against a criminal's friends and family or if it is dealt without proving the guilt of a suspect. Thats why we have a justice system. Its an impartial (supposedly) civilized way of 1) Removing criminals from the street 2) Providing retribution to the victim's camp. 3) Rehabilitation for lesser crimes.

Revenge isn't exactly a pure motive, and this is not particularly impartial since skin color affects the result, but consider your point #2:

If somebody has been murdered, they are dead. No real satisfaction for them one way or another (as might be the case in a robbery). So you mention the victim's camp. In other words, their beneficiearies, friends, whatever. That's an interesting idea. If the killer doesn't want to die (some do, of course), then put them to work. They won't make much, and you can't expect much, but they will make something. Split this. You can't take it all, or the incentive to work would be zero, which would be slavery, which is inefficient among other things. While this would be modest, it would be greater than 0....except that the person would still be alive.

If the situation was life without possibility of parole, plus gainful work, everybody is better off than the person being put to death, and nobody is worse off.

[capsulecorpjx]

Revenge is not impartial because skin color affects the results?

Well the fact that black americans get the death penalty more for similar crimes compared to white americans is a different issue. I think it has to do with racism, but more to do with the fact that black people are more impoverished on average, and just can't afford compotent lawyers.

And really I can't take your word for it. Your claim that the rate at which a black american gets sentenced to death for say first degree murder is higher compared to a white american may not be true. It is certainly true that more black people are on death row, but that is another issue, it has nothing to do with whether the death penalty is dealt evenly in cases where a death penalty is considered.

Your solution, putting the criminal to work and splitting the profit with relatives is a bad idea because it is effectively putting a price on the life of the murdered. And what is the criminal going to do with the money? Supposedly the prisoner will stay in prison for life.

Revenge isn't exactly a pure motive, and this is not particularly impartial since skin color affects the result, but consider your point #2:

If somebody has been murdered, they are dead. No real satisfaction for them one way or another (as might be the case in a robbery). So you mention the victim's camp. In other words, their beneficiearies, friends, whatever. That's an interesting idea. If the killer doesn't want to die (some do, of course), then put them to work. They won't make much, and you can't expect much, but they will make something. Split this. You can't take it all, or the incentive to work would be zero, which would be slavery, which is inefficient among other things. While this would be modest, it would be greater than 0....except that the person would still be alive.

If the situation was life without possibility of parole, plus gainful work, everybody is better off than the person being put to death, and nobody is worse off.

[grilkip]

The fact that the difference between a good lawyer and a bad lawyer can mean death is reason enough to be against it.

(I think it's sick.)

[|2eM!x]

I agree with capital punishment. What if the person escapes and kills more people? I think those nutjobs should be killed..

[penagate]

I can see no rational explanation of how a civilised state must resort to state-sponsored killing. The death penalty is an act of vengeance and of revenge; it is, by definition, not a punishment.

It is also not a deterrent. I do not have the figures at hand but I would bet that the murder, or serious crime (that which the ultimate penalty is death) rate is either roughly the same, or more than the UK than it is in the States.

I agree, and would add that capital punishment is also an easy option - for both parties. Would you rather die, or serve a life sentence in a maximum-security prison? Would you rather keep someone locked up for the rest of their life, or just murder them outright and be done with it?

The essential part of the legal system is to carry out retribution in a civilized manner IF a person is found guilty.

Is it? I thought it was to prevent criminals from commiting future acts of crime, to deter them from commiting crimes, and give them a chance to alter their ways (if that's possible).

[yrwyddfa]

Again, I don't see why people think revenge is inherently bad. Revenge is bad when the act of retribution exceeds the crime committed

I do think that revenge is inherently bad. Revenge is about making a party feel better; it's about the notion that a wrong can be (at least partially) righted (sic)

I think that, at the very least, this precludes rationality. We cannot have an agile and respected legal system when the ultimate penalty is capital in nature. You (apparently) agree with capital punishment because ultimately it enables someone to feel better; how exactly do you determine what is enough to make someone feel better? How can a judge, or jury, determine what is a reasonable capital punishment with indifference to what it actually is that they are doing?

I do not believe that the arguments for the death penalty have any root in legal, factual, or an empirically based argument and, therefore, by it's very definition it exludes objectivity (how can you tell if someone feels better?) If you exclude objectivity then you are left with subjectivity.

Subjectivity is down to individual whims. Do you think that a whim should decide if someone lives, or they die? Is that an acceptable legal framework?

I don't think so.

[Wally Pipp]

In short: You can't come to terms with an individual killing another but you're perfectly comfortable with a group of individuals (the state) who, by and large are paid by us and are supposed to be impartial, kills an individual.

Why not go the whole hog and reinstate torture as a legitimate form of punishment? As long as we're approving state violence against the individual...

[Shaggy Hiker]

In short: You can't come to terms with an individual killing another but you're perfectly comfortable with a group of individuals (the state) who, by and large are paid by us and are supposed to be impartial, kills an individual.

Why not go the whole hog and reinstate torture as a legitimate form of punishment? As long as we're approving state violence against the individual...

Hey man, we're working on it! Have a little patience.

[honeybee]

Two wrongs don't make a right. If you find somone guilty of killing someone, you have just affirmed that they have done something wrong. Hence, should you kill that person as a punishment, then then you too should be killed andthe person who kills you should also be killed and so on. In a few years there would be no one left.

Bottom line, killing people is wrong, whatever the reason and excuses like - "he killed a child", "I was hungrey" or "i am a psycho" don't make it any less wrong.

Well, first it's wrong to say executing a known or hardcore criminal is "wrong". After all when a court does award death penalty, it has followed a due process well laid and observed by all the other courts, and it's not simply revenge. Plus I don't think a judge would simply award a death sentence to get it over with. He would obviously undertake deliberations to determine if the criminal should be punished with death.

Secondly to be very frank we are better off without some of these criminals around. It's like saying you won't execute bin Laden (provided you ever found him and brought him to justice). If the crime of this man is as great as invading and wrecking two countries, if ever this man was found, death would only be a fitting punishment.

Who says death penalty is more expensive than housing them in prison for life? It's plain stupid to keep such people around for long. When there is no chance their lives can be reclaimed and put to any constructive use at all, it's better to get rid of them and save some money on their welfare and existence. I guess the cost of a bullet in the head, the doctor's fees for a death certificate and post mortem, and the burial expenses would all be significantly less than providing the person food, clothing and shelter all life.

.

[yrwyddfa]

Well, first it's wrong to say executing a known or hardcore criminal is "wrong".

I think that your argument stands or falls with

(i) Define right, or wrong
(ii) Define hardcore criminal

Both which are extremely difficult to do, effectively.

I'd like to hear your thoughts, though.

[honeybee]

I do think that revenge is inherently bad. Revenge is about making a party feel better; it's about the notion that a wrong can be (at least partially) righted (sic)

I actually tend to agree that revenge inherently is not bad. It's just a natural reaction, in my opinion. If you throw a stone at a dog, the dog will run away. If you try it with an elephant, it probably will charge at you. It's just the natural reaction. The dog knows it can't do you any harm, so it escapes your punishment, while the elephant doesn't have to fear you, so in retaliation it charges at you. Curiously, when you are dealing with crimes committed by animals against human beings, I guess provocation plays an important role. For e.g. if a man alleged that a monkey scratched and bit him, we would most likely first investigate if the monkey did it on its own or was it provoked by the complainant into doing so. If it was provoked, most likely the complainant would be deemed to be at fault. Why can't the same law apply to humans? If A killed B and if C killed A in retaliation, A doesn't have the right to seek justice as he committed the first crime.

I think that, at the very least, this precludes rationality. We cannot have an agile and respected legal system when the ultimate penalty is capital in nature. You (apparently) agree with capital punishment because ultimately it enables someone to feel better; how exactly do you determine what is enough to make someone feel better? How can a judge, or jury, determine what is a reasonable capital punishment with indifference to what it actually is that they are doing?

What makes you feel that punishment given by a court of law is "revenge"? Or are you implying that we shouldn't try anyone because any resultant punishment is a revenge? Obviously a thief could argue the same: the state is taking revenge on him for robbing others!

I do not believe that the arguments for the death penalty have any root in legal, factual, or an empirically based argument and, therefore, by it's very definition it exludes objectivity (how can you tell if someone feels better?) If you exclude objectivity then you are left with subjectivity.

Subjectivity is down to individual whims. Do you think that a whim should decide if someone lives, or they die? Is that an acceptable legal framework?

I don't think so.

Are you suggesting your legal system works on whims and not evidence? Granted, the evidence may have flaws at times. But in no case I would say a punishment is handed over by just the whims of the judges.

To the best of my understanding, wherever the law permits capital punishment, it will be limited to a specific set of crimes, or will clearly describe the circumstances where a death sentence "can" (not "must") be handed over. If it "must" be handed over, those circumstances would also be detailed in the legal framework. I don't think judges award death penalty for armed robberies or maybe speeding?

So to equate the death penalty awarded by today's courts to the whims and fancies of rulers is completely absurd. Today, when the prosecution is trying hard to win a sentence for the convict, the defence team is trying even harder to find any loopholes to at least soften the sentence. Then too when a death penalty is awarded, the convict can appeal to a higher authority, which will ascend in rank to the President or a similar topmost person of authority in the country. And in today's world there is a strong chance that instead of going by the merits of the case, a president may simply use humanitarian grounds as the basis for commuting the death penalty into something less severe, just to boost his public rating. It would be incorrect to say the death penalty is abused in most of the civilized world. Where it is abused, everything else is, so there's no point in discussing those countries.

A case in point: the recent execution of a drug trafficker by the Singapore government. It's bound to deter anyone else trying a similar crime.

When you make rape a capital punishment and when you have in place the legal and medical system that can establish rape beyond doubt, you will find that rape cases will dwindle down to only completely reckless acts of madness. And in that case, terminating these madmen will only make life safer for the normal people.

.

[honeybee]

I think that your argument stands or falls with

(i) Define right, or wrong
(ii) Define hardcore criminal

Both which are extremely difficult to do, effectively.

I'd like to hear your thoughts, though.

Do you seriously think it's hard to define what's right or wrong, or a hardcore criminal? Well, I'll give you a recent case in Mumbai where the convicts have got death sentence:

Three young men forcibly entered an apartment for the purpose of robbing. When a young lady fought them, they killed her. Then they killed the lady's mom. While trying to escape with the loot, they heard an 18-month old baby crying in the bedroom. They then went ahead and strangled the baby and hung its body from the fan.

Do you still find it difficult to define what's right or wrong, or whether they are hardcore criminals or just accidental killers?

.

[honeybee]

I can see no rational explanation of how a civilised state must resort to state-sponsored killing. The death penalty is an act of vengeance and of revenge; it is, by definition, not a punishment.

It is also not a deterrent. I do not have the figures at hand but I would bet that the murder, or serious crime (that which the ultimate penalty is death) rate is either roughly the same, or more than the UK than it is in the States.

How do you differentiate between a punishment and revenge? If you equate a death penalty awarded by a court of law as revenge, I would say every punishment handed out by the court is a revenge, so just don't have any courts, because they are the centres of revenge!

What makes you say it's not a deterrant? Maybe the reason the violence doesn't come down is due to low detection rates and a complex legal system where you can always find loopholes, or simply bribe the officials? When you go get those figures, why not compare the drug-related crimes in say US and Singapore? Or Middle-East? If you had an efficient legal system that could find and convict a criminal, a death penalty would ensure you brought the crime rates to near zero. The rates don't decline, because the legal system has loopholes, not because the death penalty is not a deterrant.

.

[yrwyddfa]

Do you seriously think it's hard to define what's right or wrong, or a hardcore criminal? Well, I'll give you a recent case in Mumbai where the convicts have got death sentence:

Three young men forcibly entered an apartment for the purpose of robbing. When a young lady fought them, they killed her. Then they killed the lady's mom. While trying to escape with the loot, they heard an 18-month old baby crying in the bedroom. They then went ahead and strangled the baby and hung its body from the fan.

Do you still find it difficult to define what's right or wrong, or whether they are hardcore criminals or just accidental killers?
.

I am not talking about the obvious extremes; any fool can blurt out extremeties. What about the cases close to either side of the line of 'hardcore criminal' ?

Your faith is human discernment is endearing, but ultimately flawed. Mistakes will always be made. If you've killed someone you have no method of ever rectifing such mistakes.

[yrwyddfa]

How do you differentiate between a punishment and revenge? If you equate a death penalty awarded by a court of law as revenge, I would say every punishment handed out by the court is a revenge, so just don't have any courts, because they are the centres of revenge!

What makes you say it's not a deterrant? Maybe the reason the violence doesn't come down is due to low detection rates and a complex legal system where you can always find loopholes, or simply bribe the officials? When you go get those figures, why not compare the drug-related crimes in say US and Singapore? Or Middle-East? If you had an efficient legal system that could find and convict a criminal, a death penalty would ensure you brought the crime rates to near zero. The rates don't decline, because the legal system has loopholes, not because the death penalty is not a deterrant.
.

Revenge is summary justice. Prison, community service (and other's) are at least attempting to change the behaviour of offenders. If you kill someone then you are only accepting that the social system in which the offender operated is ultimately flawed. This leads to the obvious conclusion that instead of education, and/or behaviour modification you will be supporting, advertising, and promoting that there are some crimes when the ultimate sanction is acceptable. What sort of message is this to send out to people?

[yrwyddfa]

Are you suggesting your legal system works on whims and not evidence? Granted, the evidence may have flaws at times. But in no case I would say a punishment is handed over by just the whims of the judges.
.

But guilt is detemined by juries who have little or no legal or judiciary experience; they can really only act on gut feeling (unless directed otherwise by a judge). I'm sure you can come up with extreme examples . . .

Once your jury has convicted and the judge follows his 'legal framework' and apportions the death penalty (and I'm sure under your scenario an appeal) the sentence is carried out and the offender is dead.

But wait! You've just admitted that evidential court justice is sometimes flawed. Under your system it's now too late - if you later find contrary evidence: you have just sanctioned, and justified the killing of an entirely innocent man at the hands of the state.

You have an argument if you can take human-nature, and inherently it's subsequent flaws out of the legal system.

But since you can't, your house is built on sand.

[yrwyddfa]

I actually tend to agree that revenge inherently is not bad. It's just a natural reaction, in my opinion. If you throw a stone at a dog, the dog will run away. If you try it with an elephant, it probably will charge at you. It's just the natural reaction. The dog knows it can't do you any harm, so it escapes your punishment, while the elephant doesn't have to fear you, so in retaliation it charges at you. .

There are plenty of 'natural reactions' that are criminal offences. The first inherent flaw in human nature is greed, manifested in law by the offence of theft (in fact philosophically theft is at the heart of all crimes)

But then I don't take what I want? I save up (or borrow) to buy it. What do you do? Do you give-in to the natural philosophy of "I'll take it if I need it" ? Or "I'll take it if I want it" ?

[yrwyddfa]

Do you still find it difficult to define what's right or wrong, or whether they are hardcore criminals or just accidental killers?

Yes I do.

Actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea . .

[yrwyddfa]

Do you still find it difficult to define what's right or wrong.
.

I'd like to hear your (generic) opinion on what is right, and what is wrong.

[Valleysboy1978]

"the act will not make a person guilty unless the mind is also guilty" - correct yrywddfa?

Murder is murder whether it be committed by a person, a group or by the state. The death penalty was stopped because it can never be proved 100% that the person was responsible. After all how many times have you seen miscarriages of justice where 10 years later it comes out that they were actually innocent. If the death penalty was still in force they would be dead and the state could just shrug their shoulders.

What is needed is more "hard" prisons, not the more modern prisons with sattelite TV, pool table, gym and comfy bed. Prison should be feared, not seen as a free hostel for the homeless

[yrwyddfa]

"the act will not make a person guilty unless the mind is also guilty" - correct yrywddfa?

The basis of all 'common' law, rather than constitutional law.

It is unfortunate that too many people believe that the act is enough. I do, as you guess, do not believe that to be the case.

And as soon as you accept that the mind is also a part of a crime then you can always have room for doubt.

So summary justice, in my opinion, can never be a good thing.

[Valleysboy1978]

What is right and what is wrong? This is a question that is impossible to answer because it would depend on the point of view of the individual and their ethics.

[yrwyddfa]

What is right and what is wrong? This is a question that is impossible to answer because it would depend on the point of view of the individual and their ethics.

I know that!

[Valleysboy1978]

Just pointing it out for the likes of honeybee is all. Chill dude!

[demotivater]

Oh my God, I feel faint! I actually agree with Honeybee. I think I'm going to be sick.

[yrwyddfa]

Oh my God, I feel faint! I actually agree with Honeybee. I think I'm going to be sick.

. . . and so you should be sick

[Valleysboy1978]

I have to be honest here and admit I have not read any of honeybee's posts in this thread. Without meaning offence honeybee your posts tend to be a bit long-winded and I lost interest

[grilkip]

Putting it simply:
As rich as we all are, we can easily afford for a number of people to be locked up. So if we don't need to kill them why do it?

I see no benefit for justice in a perverse ritual that leads to the end of a life.