Doubting Didymus

I have reason to believe that this is quite false. I request that you support your assertion.

yguy

It's an idiotic comparison, and I'll not waste another keystroke debating it.

No. I have no problem with capital punishment, as long as it is applied to the right people.

Then if a person is wrongly executed, exactly who IS responsible? Nobody?

What the hell are you talking about?

Pretending no one is responsible when the state kills innocent people can hardly be good for society.

There are plenty of murderers who could now be long dead even under the stricter burden of proof my idea would implicitly impose.

Alonzo Fyfe

bd-from-kg is correct, the irreversibility argument does not hold water. All punishment has irreversible effects. The question is not one of whether effects are reversible or not, but the degree of the irreversible harm that has been done. One can argue that, with respect to capital punishment, the degree of irreversible effects is too great. Yet, once we understand that the question is one of degree of irreversible harm and not its existence, we see that we have a "field of gray" issue here. There is no sharp line that can be drawn where we can say that 'everything to the left is too little irreversible harm, everything to the right is too much, and everything in the middle is just right.'

We, then, have to determine by what standard we will draw this bright line in a field of gray. How should we decide?

Ultimately, I think that capital punishment is not a good idea. There is a fair amount of evidence that says that socieites that do not practice capital punishment have fewer murders, and I think that there is a reason for this.

A part of the 'mental process' that a criminal goes through in committing a crime is to rationalize the crime -- to reconceptualize it as something that is proper and just. The rest of society might not understand the justification -- the justice -- behind the act, but if the criminal can justify the act to himself this then makes it psychologically easier to commit the crime.

Societies that do not allow any form of capital punishment reduce the opportunities for the would-be murderer to rationalize his crime. If society as a whole does not kill even its worse offenders, then however wronged the would-be murderer feels about what has happened to him does not justify killing either. The psychological barrier remains intact, and the murder does not take place.

Whereas, in America, that barrier is much, much lower. This makes murder psychologically much easier for Americans. Which is why Americans have a significantly higher murder rate than countries that do not allow capital punishment.

(It is interresting to note that countries that even within countries that do not allow capital punishment, most of the murders committed there are by Americans, particularly American soldiers, stationed there.)

If true, then if society were to seek to implement a stronger aversion to killing, then this could have two effects at the same time. (1) Lower the murder rate, and (2) lead to the abolition of capital punishment. Both of these are things that a person with a strong aversion to killing would not want to do, or have done in their name.

everlastingtongue

If you are wrongly convicted of a crime but still alive, it provides you with the time and ability to keep fighting your case. Often, it may take years of determined effort to overturn a conviction. I don’t imagine that this kind of effort would be spent defending an executed prisoner, because there is no possibility of release.

Imagine the consequences if, for example, Nelson Mandela or Andrei Sakharov had simply been executed.
There is one significant difference between being dead and being deprived of quality of life – hope. Don’t underestimate the power of hope – it may be the single trait, thought, or emotion that keeps many people alive today in all manner of difficult circumstances. Hope can be lost, but it can not be taken away, except of course, in death.

Alonzo Fyfe

Hope, for what?

On this issue, I have given some thought as to what I would have left, and what would have been taken, if I were locked up for a crime I did not commit.

"Hope" is only important in terms of still being able to obtain something that one values. Where something of value has lost, hope also disappears.

A person who is imprisoned when his son is 3 years old, even for a year, loses the hope that he can spend that year sharing his son's life for that year. That hope is lost, and can never be given back.

The loss of even 10 to 15 years in saving for a retirement, in attempting to move up a corporate ladder, establish a career as an actor, compete in sports, or even to have children if one does not already have them, is permanent even without death.

Indeed, if I may speak personally, given the significant losses of even a 10 to 15 year prison sentence, if I were wrongly convicted of a crime that involved any significant prison time at all, I would prefer death. Perhaps my preferences are not shared by others, but for the point I am making this is not relevant. It is sufficient to show that, in general, what capital punishment takes away is a question of degree, not a question of kind.

Every thing of value that is taken away from a person wrongly convicted of a crime is a thing of value that they have no hope of getting back. They may still have hope of getting other things back, but the existence of something else (B) which a person still has hope of obtaining, does not deny the fact that there is something else (A) for which hope is lost.

So, no matter what gets done to the innocent person, some hope is lost. The question is not whether hope can be taken away, but how much. Capital punishment might involve "too much" -- perhaps a case can be made for that. But it is not a special problem. It is only a question of where to draw a line in a field of gray.

yelyos

Precisely. If someone has commited a child murder/double murder/serial murder/etc, we should give them the WORST POSSIBLE PUNISHMENT IMAGINABLE. Hence, life in prison.

Death is too good for these people. No pain, suffering or remorse for them ever again.

everlastingtongue

All quotes orginally posted by Alonzo Fyfe
But a person may have several things of value – just because one is lost doesn’t preclude the possible obtaining of others.
A person who is executed loses an entire lifetime with his/her child. A person who is imprisoned for a set period may have hope to see this child again, even in the distant future, and rebuild the relationship. Even a person sentenced to lifetime imprisonment, may still have hope for visits, phone calls, and letters from his/her child.
Hope, in my opinion, is not simply concerned with re-acquiring lost goals and desires, but rather a realization that there are new acquisitions possible, perhaps even those not apparent at the moment, but that will arise in the future.

yelyos

It's still awful compared to neutral oblivion.

Walross

Personally, I cannot approve of a society that would wilfully murder it's citizens, for any reason. Maybe I'm just a bleeding heart .

PS I never thought I would find myself agreeing with yguy, but I do on every point he makes in this thread.

Mike Rosoft

Alonzo,

Suppose that you were found guilty of murder which you didn't commit. Would you - personally - prefer to be executed, or to be imprisoned to life with a chance to have the sentence overturned one, five, or twenty years later?


Mike Rosoft