pug846

I’m against the death penalty, but bullshit like this is the reason I stay away from the cause with a ten-foot poll. Facts are constantly distorted (as in this case). And anyone who has been signed up for an anti-death penalty newsletter knows that when every execution comes, everyone screams the person is innocent, no matter how damning the evidence.

What bothers me the most is that people at this site are generally skeptical people, but they see obvious bullshit like this and not really anything is said about it. Does anyone really believe that someone was convicted of murder because (1) he knew the victim, and (2) he had “O” blood type?

If you do, then please, we need to talk. I have some ocean front property that I would love to sell you.

As Giorgia so thoughtful said earlier, “Yes, people ARE that dumb, AND (facts) can be easily manipulated.”

edited to add: ironically enough, not only was Krone not convicted on the above two facts, his death penalty conviction was actually overturned and he was serving a life sentence. He wouldn’t have been executed anyway. (Not that it matters all that much, but if we are going to talk about how horrible it is to kill an innocent person, lets at least use examples where the person was going to be executed if it wouldn’t have been for DNA evidence.)

Jamie_L

On juries and questionable convictions:

I've done a fair bit of reading on human memory, because it fascinates me. During that research, I read some related material on Eye Witness Testimony, written by some fairly well-respected researchers. Their conclusions were a bit startling, and somewhat disconcerting. Human memory is not only fallible, but malliable, and humans are rarely aware of when their memory is inaccurate. Convidence in one's memories has no correlation to the accuracy of one's memories?

What does this have to do with the death penalty? Well, studies show juries are most swayed by eye-witness testimony, yet that testimony has also been shown to be the least reliable. Often people are convicted of crimes on eye-witness testimony alone, in some cases even when alibi wintesses outnumber crime witnesses.

This isn't about people being dumb or gullible. It's about basic facts of human nature that make the jury system vulnerable to mistakes. Add into that mix the competitive nature of lawyering, political pressures on prosecutors and a host of other factors, and, well, the jury system is a bit frightening. It may be the best thing we've got, even one of the best justice systems in the world, but it still doesn't seem to me to be something that should be trusted with the lives of human beings. Especially when there are other good alternatives to execution. The costs-benefit analysis of the death penalty just doesn't seem to show it as being a good idea. IMO

Jamie

Gracchus

Our jury system is inefficient. God save us from an [b]efficient[/i] judiciary.

Lasseman

I am against capital punishment for all the above reasons.

Why is it (in my experience, anyway) the devout christians, who are supposed to follow a god of mercy and "turn the other cheek", that is the strongest supporters of the death penalty?

Jeb Bush is maybe the prime example of this, as he sent 152 people to be executed in Texas while governor. And every other word out of his mouth is "god this" and "jesus that"

inmeitrust

Just curious:

Is there anybody here that regrets the Ted Bundy or John Wayne Gacy execution. I know they were somewhat railroaded, but maybe it was worth it. Or is what happened to Jeffrey "Fingerfood" Dahmer a more civilized approach.

Coming up with a smattering of questionable court actions doesn't stand up to the argument against eliminating such atrocities. People here are trying to make logic with emotion. A death penalty doesn't feel right. This is the rationale of a theist. In many circumstances the right and reasonable thing is elimination of existance.

So, who's pro-Richard Ramirez?

Jamie_L

Regret? I think regret is the wrong word. If keeping them alive but contained would save lives of innocent people, then yes, I would support keeping them alive.

Prisons should be better controlled, for the same reasons there should be no DP: innocent people go to jail too.

On both sides. "These guys deserve to be dead," is an emotional arguement. My position is that society is best served, and its citizens best protected by a good system of imprisonment with no death penalty. My gut supports execution. My logic says it doesn't provide any benefits that outweigh its costs.

Jamie

Alonzo Fyfe

What does regret have to do with anything?

I am certain that many Al-Queda members -- and, indeed, many Muslims, do not regret what they brought about on 9-11. The absence of regret provides no evidence whatsoever that one's actions were right or just.


[At this point, some shallow-thinking individual will get all bothered and angry and shout, "What! You are comparing the American justice system to Al-Queda. How could you do such a thing? This is so absurd -- so sick -- that nobody in their right mind could conceive of such a thing.

But, such a response is pure rhetoric -- just the type of move favored by somebody who wants to draw attention from the real issue.

I have not compared Al-Queda to the American justice system. I have employed a "reductio ad absurdum" rebuttal to an argument that claims that the lack of regret is evidence of justice. That argument happens to mention Al-Queda, because it is one of the best present-day examples of absurd thinking.]

Harumi

Not to mention that support for the death penalty because the emotional ease it would give for the victims (revenge, anger, etc.) is the most emotional argument I have heard yet. Justice based off of feelings of revenge is not justice.

fishbulb

You cannot eliminate atrocities by killing the people who commit them, so it is useless to kill someone to prevent a crime that has already taken place.

If you want to justify the death penalty as a preventative measure, it is not enough to spout truisms like "dead men don't kill." You have to justify why, of all the methods available for controlling and managing individuals who pose a risk to society, execution should be one of the methods chosen.

If you want to argue for execution as a form of rigteous retribution, you have to justify why this should even be a purpose of our criminal justice system. It seems to me that the whole point of having laws is so that people don't just act on their feelings and emotions.

Any honest argument must also take into account the fact that no legal system is perfect. Innocent people are convicted, and are probalby convicted much more frequently than most people care to admit. It is completely dishonest to pretend that it doesn't happen, or that it is so rare that it can be discounted, or that it doesn't really matter; the evidence is that this sort of thing happens all the time. Your moral justification of execution must include a moral justification for why it is acceptable to occasionally (or perhaps even frequently) execute innocents. If you advocate the death penalty for revenge, then you must accept that innocent people will, from time to time, be killed for no reason other than that they happened to be the mis-identified target of a people's wrath--one of the very things law is supposed to prevent.

I don't see anyone making an emotional argument *against* execution. Quite the reverse. The argument against execution is that it does absolutely no good whatsoever, except to bring some temporary emotional satisfaction to some people. That meagre benefit is hardly worth the enormous damage that executions cause and the tremendous social price we ultimately all pay.

Don't try to poison the well. Being opposed to capital punishment does not mean being a fan of murderers. You can think someone thoroughly loathsome and still not support his execution. In fact, you may even think that he deserves to die, but that doesn't mean that we ought to kill him.

By supporting the death penalty, you advocate a very violent solution to a problem that can be solved non-violently. Rather than condemning violence as a means to settle disputes, you affirm its legitimacy, and instead simply restrict who may use violence and who may decide for what purposes violence is appropriate. Violence should always be the method of last resort. But there are always alternatives to the death penalty, and so it should never be used.

By supporting the use of the justice system for revenge, you not only promote violence, but you also undermine the value of law and increase the overall level of danger that each of us is exposed to. You promote a society where people's baser urges are indulged, rather than suppressed -- exactly the opposite of what society is supposed to do.

Alonzo Fyfe

I'm afraid that I need to second this view.

To say that we are justified in killing somebody because it feels good just seems to be a bit deficient for some reason.