Ennazus

I just watched a disturbing History Channel show about methods of execution. Beheadings, hangings, firing squads, electric chairs, poison gas and lethal injections were explored in quite gruesome detail. As one method became unpopular, new ones were invented. I found myself wondering, "Why think of new ways? Why not just stop killing people?

I was disturbed most by the mention of modern day "death committees" and their task of discovering quick and painless methods of execution. As I watched this segment, I pictured a serial killer plotting his next kill. What exactly is the difference between a murderer and the state's death commitees and executioners?

I'd love to hear some opinions on the death penalty.

Suzanne

yelyos

Life in prison is probably more of a punishment - and it's also reversible! I think there's no reason for the death penalty over life in prison.

Plus, there's also rehabilitation to be taken in to account.

Feather

I don't know that the State is competent enough to allow such an irreversable penalty, either.

I have no ethical or moral problem with the death penalty. Honestly I think that I wouldn't have a problem with it for cases suches as violent sexual assaults as well as murder.

My problem lies with the ability of the State to determine guilt to a sufficient degree of certainty to justify the penalty. While there are cases where guilt is "obvious" (e.g. numerous witnesses all reporting that they witnessed the guilty party commit his crime), I doubt there are a trivial number of "not obvious" such cases. Then there is the question of mental retardation and so forth.

It is a problem, isn't it.

bd-from-kg

Feather:
Well, in that case we should abolish all punishment, since practically any punishment is irreversible.

Say the state puts you in prison for twenty years, then finds that you're innocent, so it releases you. Does it give you the twenty years back? Does it undo the homosexual rapes you were forced to endure? Does it undo the coarsening effect of spending twenty years with low-lifes? Do you get back your business, your family, your reputation? What's "reversible" about this punishment?

Or let's take a much lesser punishment. Say that your business is sued and the plaintiff wins a judgment of a million dollars. You don't have a million dollars, so the business goes bankrupt. You become destitute, your wife leaves you, the kids live hand-to-mouth, your daughters end up getting impregnated by jerks they meet in the trailer park they're forced to live in instead of going to a nice college, finding a nice guy to marry, etc. Eventually it's found that the plaintiff lied and the judgment is reversed. Do you get your life back?

Well, what would constitute a "sufficient degree"? Suppose that we choose a degree of certainty such that one innocent life is spared from being murdered for every innocent person executed by mistake. Would that be a sufficient degree? OK, how about if two innocent lives are saved for every mistaken execution. Is that good enough? No? Then how about twenty? A hundred?

If your answer is that no number of lives saved would be sufficient to justify even a single execution of an innocent person, then you're basically taking the position that we shouldn't do anything that has serious consequences unless we have metaphysical certaintly, which does not exist in this world.

everlastingtongue

Imposing a maximum sentence of life without parole avoids this problem. No innocents are killed because the perpetrators are locked away and no mistaken executions take place.
Agreed – that all punishments are not always 100% reversible, but the death penalty is the only penalty guaranteed to be 100% unreversible.

NonHomogenized

I really don't think there's a good answer to this.

First of all, I don't think that incarceration/execution should be about *punishment*. I think that incarceration should be about reform, and execution should be about protection. More specifically, execution should be used in specific cases where there is sufficient evidence that the guilty party is irreformable (where do we draw the line? I don't know.), and, rather than "punishing" them, it should be to prevent them from inflicting further harm upon others.

Second, I don't like the idea of killing another person. However, there are occasions where I find killing less unacceptable than the alternative; usually in cases where not killing would result in a greater loss of life.
Having said that, I wonder about the wisdom of incarcerating unrepentant killers for life, with no chance of parole, and abolishing the death penalty. Unless you recommend locking them in solitary confinement, they'll have nearly as many chances to kill. I wonder, does anyone here feel that the lives of other criminals are somehow "less valuable" than normal citizens, that this is acceptable?

I think this is a very complex issue, and that there may well not be any good answers; however, I feel that abolishing the death penalty entirely is definitely a bad answer.

yguy

Get real, man - when you're dead, you're dead. There is no comparison between hearing the cell door clang shut behind you knowing you can get out in 20 years and going through a door which opens into you haven't the foggiest idea what, and which can never be opened.

Those responsible for sending innocent people to death, including jurors, are guilty of negligent homicide at the least. Legally recognizing this reality would pretty well eliminate the problem, I think.

Mike Rosoft

I strongly oppose death penalty, for various reasons (roughly in this order):

1. It is irreversible - there is a risk of executing innocents. (I like Everlasting Tongue's description.)
2. It doesn't work - there is no evidence that it deters crime any better than life imprisonment.
3. There is no way to fairly decide which criminal should live and which one should be executed. As a result, the sentencing to death oftwn shows racial and other bias.
4. There are also arguments which I don't find very good, such as that it is a cruel punishment which violates a right to live. I don't think that similar arguments will persuade anybody who didn't make up his mind alrerady.


I am not a proponent of life imprisonment with no possibility of conditional release, either.


Mike Rosoft

bd-from-kg

everlastingtongue:

Well, a life sentence without parole is pretty grim too. And some such sentences will be mistaken.

And while no innocents are killed by the state, it seems plausible (to put it mildly) that the certainty that one will not be executed no matter what will result in more murders. What you actually get is more innocents being killed by murderers but fewer being killed by the state. And this is preferable why?

So what? If you’re subjected to a punishment (life without parole, say) which is not in fact reversed, what consolation is it that it wasn’t guaranteed to be irreversible?

And a loss of 20 years from your life is guaranteed to be irreversible. You won’t get those years back, no matter what. All that you really mean is that we can stop punishing someone if he’s been incarcerated. The punishment that took place will still have taken place, and the effects will still have occurred.

It seems to me that you’re focusing excessively on the mere continuation of life. The quality of life is extremely important too. Depriving someone of nearly all the things that make life worth living is at least comparable in seriousness to depriving him of life itself. Take Dr. Sam Sheppard, who was convicted of murder and served ten years before the verdict was reversed. He had been a wealthy doctor, widely liked and admired, a pillar of the community. Did he get his life back? Was his punishment reversible in any meaningful sense? Obviously not.

yguy:

And when you’ve lost twenty years of your life and been subjected to a living hell, you’ve lost twenty years of your life and been subjected to a living hell.

But if we take everlastingtongue’s suggestion of life without parole, you won’t know that you’ll get out in 20 years. And do you really want a twenty-year sentence to be the most severe that can be imposed for anything? Should a guy who’s spent his life kidnapping little girls to torture and abuse them before killing them just get twenty years, then walk out of prison a free man?

That’s a door that we all walk through sooner or later. A sentence of life without parole is really a sentence of life in prison with the certainty of death at the end of the road, just like the rest of us.

Nonsense. “Negligence” means carelessness or intentional imprudence. If a juror exercises due diligence in examining the evidence and weighing it objectively he can’t possibly be considered guilty of negligence, much less “negligent homicide”.

It seems to me that what you’re really saying is that thinking differently from you is a crime that should be punished. How is this different from the thinking of the people who bomb abortion clinics?

It also seems to me that this question needs to be looked at with a view to what’s best for society as whole. No matter what we do, some innocent people are going to be out of luck. The question is, what policy minimizes the number of such people?

Mike Rosoft:

Well, opponents of the death penalty have been claiming this for years, but I don’t think most of them have thought seriously about how very implausible this is.

Look. If you were fined ten cents every time you sere caught chewing gum, you might still choose to chew gum, right? But what if you were fined $50 every time you were caught? How about $5000? How about six months in jail? Twenty years in jail? Summary execution by firing squad? What if all your friends and loved ones would also be executed?

The point is, threats of increasingly serious punishment are increasingly effective in deterring any given kind of behavior. This is a fundamental law of human nature. People act to bring about states of affairs that they find more desirable; the more desirable one finds a state of affairs, the more motivated one will be to attain it. Conversely, the more undesirable one finds a state of affairs the more motivated one will be to avoid it.

Now to say that the death penalty should be abolished because death is such a terrible thing, but that the threat of death isn’t an effective deterrent, flies in the face of everything that we all know about human nature. It’s like saying that, yes, water generall flows downhill, but in a certain river in a remote province of the Yukon, it flows uphill. Such a claim is simply too absurd to be taken seriously.

Ennazus

This is the issue I have the most trouble understanding. How do proponents of the death penalty get past this one? Some crimes are "more heinous" than others? Does it have to be a multiple murder? Murder of a child? An elderly person? How does one decide which crime is more deserving of a penalty of death than another?

This question alone should be reason enough to stop killing prisoners.