Death Penalty

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Not necessarily 'the best example', but the only example I know off the top of my head.

On the other hand, that hardly matters because the idea can be applied the same then as it can now - judges and juries can be corrupt. To a more modern example of this (without involving executions this time - maybe corrupt in the opposite way) - OJ Simpson. By my hazy recollection of a long ago read article the jury was biased, being made up of people who would be sympathetic to him, and it's because of this that he got off.

Basically - the system is faulty. It's been faulty since 1886 at least, and nothing has really changed. It still has holes in it, and there is still potential for innocent people to end up dead because of it.

And of course - that's only relating to cases where the judge/jury is biased. It's equally possible for there to be a screw up where someone is shown to be guilty by the evidence and isn't.

Bwahaha - and what do you know. A short google has turned up something:
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=45&did=292

There are a *lot* of other sites there, btw.

 

More innocent people die because we let too many hardened criminals back on the street. We are too consumed with the notion that it's worse to convict an innocent man -- so instead we allow murderers to get off on clerical errors and technicalities.

No one should forget that commiting a crime is a choice. I have no compassion for the criminal, knowing in advance the punishment, whines and cries about the injustice of his punishment. Give me a break -- if you don't want to go to prison, don't break the law. If you don't want the death penalty, don't kill anyone. For that low percentage of individuals who are wrongly convicted: too bad, it's one of the prices to be paid for a safe community.

 

I wonder if you'd still feel that way if you were in such a situation yourself.

 

Depending on the jurisdiction this may be true, but in most places in the U.S. the jury decides on capital punishment as well. First they decide on guilt or innocence. Then they go back into conference after giving the verdict to decide on one of three potential punishments: execution, life without parole, or life with the possibility of parole after 25 years.

I do not favor the death penalty, but that is bascially because I it is cheaper to incarcerate someone for life, and life without the possibility of parole is essesntially a death sentence anyway.

@ Drew,

I do not doubt that we have wrongfully executed people. Given that there have been cases (most not involving murder) where people have been falsely convicted, it is only natural to assume that some people who have been charged with murder were falsely convicted. It further follows that at least some of those falsely convicted were sentenced to death.

However, you have repeatedly claimed that there are a "great number" of these people, and that this "happens often". I do not believe that to be true. The people who are released from prison due to false convictions represent a very small percentage of the total convictions, suggesting, quite contrary to your statements that there are not a "great number" of false conviction and this does not "happen often". While I agree in premise to Thomas Jefferson's claim that, "It is better to have 100 guilty men walk free than to punish one innocent man," I am inclined to believe the actual numbers are less than the 1 in 100 Jefferson sited.

 

The vast majority who have found themselves in that situation are 'career criminals.' These are men who have criminal record and/or violent pasts. I do not lose any sleep over men like that being incarcerated, even if falsely accused. There are very few men or women who are simply a victim of circumstance -- there is always a reason for them to be suspected of the crime. As I said, if you don't want to go to prison, don't break the law.

I believe part of the problem is exactly stated in the quote of Jefferson given by Aldeth:

"It is better to have 100 guilty men walk free than to punish one innocent man,"

We allow violent criminals off on technicalities. Drug dealers can purchase the best attorneys available and be back on the streets. Witnesses seem to vanish or change their stories before trial and a mob boss has charges dropped. Our legal system is a game to those people -- and it's entirely because of the sentiment Jefferson so distinctly expressed. I do not believe Jefferson could have imagined the depths some of the criminals go to today.

 

I broadly agree, but I don't know how this supports this particular arguement. I rather doubt anyone is suggesting that people who would otherwise be given a death sentance are actually released back onto the street. A Life sentance would actually mean for life.

 

@BTA - a major factor would have to be how old you are at the time of conviction. If you're the BTK killer who is already in his 50s, life is probably cheaper. But one of the Beltway snipers (Malvo) was only 17 at the time of his crime, so is it cheaper for him? And based on the Supreme Court's decision last year, he can't be sentenced to death anyway because he was still a minor at the time the crime was committed.

 

A little birdie emailed and said BTA was back to his evil murderous ways and had even linked old fights. So, here is a drive by:

That standard is too high. We all recognize it is difficult/impossible to prove a negative. It is sufficient to prove that someone was executed though there was insufficient evidence to FAIRLY justify conviction and imposition of the death penalty (i.e. to prove the jury didn't have all the facts, were misled, wrong, etc.)

Recently there have been two cases where this may be (probably is in my opinion) the case. With Cameron Willingham numerous independent experts have come forward to say the evidence of an arson (leading to death) was based on junk science and it turned out the prosecutor's experts were unqualified. With Ruben Cantu he was executed without physical evidence based on the word of one witness who has recanted and said he was pressured by the cops because they thought Cantu had previously attacked an officer in an unrelated incident. Additionally, the D.A. said it was a mistake to ask for the penalty in his case due to a lack of evidence.

You can google both cases which have been covered by Houston papers and the Chicago Tribune.

And for those who say the death penalty should be applied quicker - how do you reconcile this with the increasing number of people released from death row often after more than a decade on death row?

 

Uh, BTA? The governor of Illinois put a moratorium on executions because they just freed 13 (!) inmates from death row after proof of their innocence was found. They have actually freed more inmates due to wrongful imprisonment then they have executed. (Illinois has put 12 to death.) Given that more than half of the people that were sentenced to death and failed their appeals were later proven innocent it is highly unlikely that all 12 of the people Illinois did put to death were guilty.

Regarding your statement that no one who has been put to death has ever been proven innocent......apparently you are forgetting about the Julius & Ethel Rosenberg, who were put to death for treason and were later proven innocent.

While it hasn't been taken to court, substantial evidence was turned up in a Houston Chronicle investigation that Ruben Cantu (from Texas) sentenced to death when he was only 17 was actually innocent of any wrong doing.....something he heen maintaining since his conviction. Courts don't give re-trials to dead people. So, yeah, you won't find any record of innocent people being proven innocent later......since we don't put dead people on trial.

Anthony Ray Hinton was put to death using forensic evidence (6 spent slugs auspicously fired from a rusty .38) that national forensics experts were unable to reproduce. Hinton had also clocked into work 15 miles away from the murder site 5 minutes before the murder actually happened.

Larry Griffin, executed June 21, 1995, maintained his innocence up to the day he was executed. A year-long investigation financed by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund supports his claim.

[ May 09, 2006, 07:42: Message edited by: Drew ]

 

Okay, back again after three or so more pages... where to start? Long post ahoy!

I'm disappointed at the typical resort to emotionality, here. I suppose it's probably my fault for resorting to dichotomies. Suffice it to say that I feel a less visceral approach is required for resolving such matters, and that in the end, all decisions (on both issues) come down to the responsibility of those with the power to affect the outcome to be open-minded, and to use that power in as deliberate and considered manner as possible.

No, they are not. Since the 1980s in most Western nations, they have increasingly been more about the protection of the community than punishment. Ironically, a lot of this has been in the name of victims (changes to sentencing, parole and crimes legislation in particular).

1. It's not the biggest objection for me. More on that later on, as it's only semi-relevant here.

2. It is remarkably easy to fix a case, particularly when people want a conviction and a harsh penalty for something heinous.

I can't give a name of an innocent person who's been executed in a frame-up, and I don't presume to argue on that basis. However, the fact that the possibility exists - and would be relatively easy to do, given the motivation, by just about any law enforcement officer - and that the consequences are irrevocable is enough for me.

If you presume to stand in judgement over another, make damn sure you're fit to do so. Stooping to their level makes us no better than them.

Of course, if you want to use "harms done" as a justification for capital punishment, Enron executives would be a good place to start. A murder kills one person. An embezzler can kill thousands, and for reasons just as bad (if not worse).

Again, punishment is not only about vengeance. If you're going to reject any other purpose for it, then God help you if you ever happen to be found guilty of anything. With all the criminal laws that exist, just about everyone's guilty of something they could do time for.

Nobody, but that's not the issue. Murder is not a right, it is a choice. Execution is not a right, it is a choice. Both choices are about the power to end life (or damage it severely, in the cases of rape, child abuse or sexual abuse, amongst other crimes). Any idiot with a gun or a knife can do that - it takes no right or privilege.

The heart of the debate is about what to do with someone who had had that power, who has chosen to exercise it wrongly. I believe that all people have certain basic rights that cannot be denied them, regardless of what they have done (and certainly not in an advanced industrialised nation, where economy is not a valid argument for execution). If you're going to punish someone by depriving them of their liberty and their ability to meet their own basic needs, you're responsible for them. That means food, water and shelter.

Make no mistake - many such people are less than animals, IMO. However, that does not release us from our obligations.

For things likely to attract the death penalty (such as serious repeat offending), this is frequently true. As a general statement applied to all crimes, it is false. It also does not address the question of what to do with people who are clinically insane and cannot be said to have rationally chosen to commit a crime. That isn't to say we shouldn't protect ourselves from such people, or that it isn't true in some (or even many) cases - only that such a pathologisation of criminality can be misleading at best, and outright BS at worst.

In conclusion - is there anyone, anyone who believes the justice and law enforcement systems are so perfect that an innocent person could not possibly be sentenced to death? I believe that the nature of adversarial justice and jurisprudence is part of the problem - no side has an interest in "the truth" and every reason to muddy the waters where it suits them to do so, and we cannot force people to tell the truth at all times. And if this is the case, would the advocates of capital punishment be prepared to accept some responsibility if that happened, or could be demonstrated to have happened?

If the answer to that question is "yes", then I have nothing more to challenge them with except to hold to that conviction and wear the consequences, just as I would for recidivists who commit serious crimes. If the answer is "no", I would suggest erring on the side of caution. We can undo much that is done in punishment, moreso in some cases than others. We cannot undo homicide, regardless of whether the state or a person commits it.

[ May 09, 2006, 08:39: Message edited by: NonSequitur ]

 

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. That's two names.

 

...and to those kept in prison it is simply a greater punishment. Same thing, different slant on the way it's said. I imagine the liberals prefer to think of it as protecting the community rather than additional punishment -- but please, call a spade a spade here.

I agree with the insanity issue -- but please show me one crime where the person did not choose to commit the act. Ignorance of the law is no excuse, nor is being under the influence of any mind altering drug. I stand by my statement, it can be applied to all crimes, but not all individuals (such as insane or mentally handicapped).

I still think the death penalty is a good thing for society. You can mention names like Rosenburg and Willingham -- sucks to be them -- but I still hold the vast majority on death row deserve to be there (whether or not guilty of the crime they were convicted of). Most of the men (and women) on death row had histories of violent crime -- that's why they got the death penalty, these are bad dudes. Yes, there still could be a few that got convicted unjustly and I say take the cops and DA to the cleaners for that. I think what Governor Ryan did was WRONG. Blanket clemancy was a political ploy to take attention away from his own corruption.

[ May 09, 2006, 16:08: Message edited by: T2Bruno ]

 

T2B:

What if the wrongfully convicted career criminal is A) a car thief or some such, who hasn't killed anybody, or B) has killed someone before, but has served the time for it already (manslaughter or such)? Would these type of people deserve death?

Regardless, a wrong sentence will also mean the true culprit remains free. Thinning the herd of some random thug might not have the same effect on society's general safety as catching a murderer.

Gnarff:

Does this thinking fit with anything Jesus says?

A death penalty takes away the criminal's chance to regret. You're denying them the chance of salvation.

 

I don't care about these types of people. They can fall off the face of the earth and the everyone will be better for it.

Which is why you need to hold police and DA's CRIMINALLY liable for such incompetance.

Good.

 

Fair call, T2, until you got to the bit about "liberals".

The simple fact is that judicial sentencing does not balance solely on the notion of punishment. Look back at any election debate, at any level, where the powers of the elected parties include sentencing and justice. Virtually every single one for the past 20 years has included something about "law and order" and "protecting the community". While the two are often complementary (not to mention conflated), they are differing aims, from a justice perspective.

As for the liberals assessment, you're a long way off. Some of the more influential advocacy groups are extremely conservative - partly because it's easier for governments to appease them, and because the liberal ones tend towards compensation and assistance advocacy rather than justice-oriented reforms. Those are generalisations, yes, but they're fairly accurate. Having written a thesis on this, I'm happy to give you references if you want them.

And if the "reasonable person" test didn't account for situational factors, that would probably be okay. I don't think it's possible to utterly divorce the action from the actor. While criminals should ultimately be held accountable for the consequences of their actions, the ability to make a rational decision is not always present, and not always to the coldly logical level that you seem to presume. Sure, they should have thought it through, and they should be punished for it, but there are different levels of culpability, and a justice system that doesn't take those into account is nothing more than a punishment system.

 

The lives of two innocent people are not worth the risk to the lives of many more than two innocents if the convicted criminals are allowed to live. In jail, they have a chance of paroll, escape (via corrupt guards), and they can kill other criminals who may have not committed a crime deserving of death. If we allow murderers (especially those who kill in masses) to live, we are endangering the lives of more than Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.

 

BTA: No sane person can honestly state today that Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were guilty. It is, in fact, used in textbooks as an example of the horrors of cold war hysteria and is cited as the reason that treason no longer carries the death penalty. That Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were innocent is accepted as common fact. The fact that we haven't proven it in court is irrelevant. A re-trial won't help them. They are dead.