Precambrian Carl

The problem always returns to the refusal to accept responsibility. If I lost control and did the unthinkable, I want the option of going in front of a judge and asking for intravenous sodium pentothal followed by potassium chloride. The thought of having a family member pray for my acquittal (there would be no trial anyway) is repugnant.

Two alternatives would be: 1. life in a dungeon (small concrete-walled room with a small hole in the corner and a grate for the ceiling). It would be hosed out every week or so – like a bear pit at the zoo, but not daily. 2. a contract barracks/gulag in the far northern territories of Canada – see Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich for more details.

I know who is going to oppose all three of my punishments for murder, so I don’t have to name names or organizations. They know who they are. I will be accused of barbarism, primitive behavior, lack of concern for civil liberties, and sending valued citizens to a foreign country for punishment. However, I will always be thinking about kookiejar’s cousin. The thought of someone, after taking the life of my child or wife, sitting in a motel (even a dirty one) for the rest of his/her life would be too hard for me to accept.

I have to stop.

Carl

Jamie_L

I can understand that. But, the thought of my wife or child getting strapped to a chair and poisoned, gassed, or electrocuted because someone mistook their identity, a well-meaning DA agreed, and twelve fallible jurors concurred, is equally unacceptable.

Executing the murder of my wife or child would not bring them back. Executing my wife or child permanently takes them from me.

Imagine this: your spouse is murdered, and the killer caught. At the same time, your son is wrongly convicted of a capital crime. Which would make you feel better? Having both your wife's killer and your son executed, or allowing both to live?

Me, I'll let my wife's killer live out his days in a "hotel room" if I can keep my son alive.

Jamie

Precambrian Carl

Jamie,

I can see your point – that is a tough one to answer, especially if you still have feelings for your son after he is convicted. My son would never see me.

I should have asked a question first, though.

If the DP was abolished (but keeping it as an option for the accused, not the State), what other forms of punishment, besides life without parole, would be acceptable to you for the crime of murder? I have asked this question of family and friends dozens of times and never received an answer. When I mention my two alternatives, the response is always the same - how is this different from the DP? The murderer is simply being killed over a period of months/years rather than seconds/minutes. I tell them that these two have some level of pain/agony associated with them. It is simply longer pain/agony compared to that experienced by the victim. The discussion always ends without an answer to my question.

I can only conclude that any form of punishment other that LWOP is unacceptable. If my son is convicted of murder, I have no qualms about society saying goodbye to him. Would 10 years in a traditional prison before being shipped to the dungeon or Canada be an acceptable alternative? I would be afraid, however, that he would have too much time on his hands to come to religion. Then, I would have both Charles Colson (?) and the ACLU to deal with. If the State removed all forms of religion from the prisons, I could go with this.

Carl

Precambrian Carl

Jamie,

Sorry, I owe you an answer about mistaken identity. I think this is a different issue which could have a thread of its own. There are ways to solve this problem, but I don't think our government has the guts to do what is necessary. I hope you don't mind if I follow up on this later?

Thanks,
Carl

Jamie_L

Again, my desire for appropriate punishment is tempered by the knowledge that sooner or later it will probably be applied to an innocent person. With that in mind, I conclude that the primary function of an alternative to the DP must be to protect society, not necessarily inflict some standard of punishment.

The most important thing for the justice system to do is provide for puclic safety. A DP alternative should not put society more at risk than it was in with the DP. In order for an alternative to provide equivalent safety, a murderer who would have gotten the DP must never get out of prison - unless their conviction is overturned.

The nature of the imprisonment does not have any significant impact on the public safety. Although it may feel unsatisfactory to some victims for a murderer to live out his life without experiencing torment or hard labor, to me that is not reason enough to subject potential innocents to such torment. The wrongly convicted are part of the "public", and their safety must be considered as well. LWOP increases the safety of the wrongly convicted without reducing the safety of the public at large.

Excrutiating "living punishment" does not significantly increase the safety of the wrongly convicted.

Jamie

Precambrian Carl

Jamie,

I understand. Society can set prison terms from 1 week to life, depending on the crime. This is similar to demerits at school – talking, sit for 1 hour; smoking, sit for 8 hours. This would eliminate all chance of an innocent person experiencing torment or hard labor. However, can anything else be done with the guilty person? I keep coming back to them.

I had a similar discussion with my sister a few years ago. I am going to make a generalization here and I apologize if you do not belong. There are those who believe that the DP is unacceptable in all cases (McVeigh and Simpson included) in civilized society. I understand this view, even though I do not agree with it. This was my sister’s view for many years.

A few years ago, and it seemed like overnight, she became concerned about innocent people being put to death. The immorality of the punishment was no longer an issue. Well, of course I agreed with her that no one should be executed by mistake. But, I told her I believed this had nothing to do with whether or not the DP was justified. We have not discussed the issue since. She is a humanist / Unitarian, by the way.

If pushed hard enough about McVeigh and Simpson, I believe she would fall back on the immorality/civilized society/we become Simpson argument (I think even she would admit that innocent life is not an issue with the accused in these cases, only with the victims).

I wonder if you are similar to my sister. Was this ever just a moral issue, or have you always been concerned about innocent people being put to death?

Do you think the McVeigh execution was justified?

Carl

Happy Wonderer

I would add:

3. Difficulty of conviction. Since the death penalty is irreversable, it makes it more difficult for a jury to convict. There have been attempts around this (with a post-conviction 'death trial' phase) but I consider that to be ineffective. It is difficult to recommend L.I.P. when the public wants R.I.P. for someone you have convicted. I think jurors' natural inclination is to shy away from having to make that decision by recommending "not guilty." This leads to odd paradoxes:

4. Unfairness of trial. To get around (3) the law in most states requires that juries be "death qualified." This means that if you have an objection to the death penalty, you are not on the jury. Not surprisingly, that eliminates anybody who is opposed to the death penalty because they don't trust the police to be correct. This biases the jury towards conviction.

5. Unfairness of application. Minorities represent the bulk of death penalty cases. These cases are difficult and unrewarding for lawyers, so the defendant doesn't get good counsel. (Because of #3, a prosecutor will probably not go for death when the defendant can afford good lawyers.) Some of the cases are incredible, in one death case the lead lawyer was practically illiterate and could hardly frame a proper legal brief. (This was ignored on appeal and the defendant was fried.) In another, the lawyer slept through the trial.

6. Difficulty of incarceration. No warden wants to deal with a prison full of death row inmates. At least with life, the prisoners have some hope of getting out. Dealing with someone who has nothing to lose by killing somebody else must not be much fun...

7. Unfair elimination of appeals... Well, don't get me started on the Supreme Court conservatives and their attempts to break through the "appeals logjam" by denying defendants their fundamental right of review.

HW

Precambrian Carl

I think Saidin had it right at the start.

There is no justification for the death penalty in a free, civilized society. There are no circumstances which would require the death penalty as punishment. And discussions concerning severity of punishment should be left to less developed societies of the world.

However, I think there is a problem here for a large part of the atheist community. The above is a statement expressing a moral absolute. This same community spends a tremendous amount of time and effort condemning other members of society for making similar statements concerning other subjects.

Carl

Kyle Smyth

As stated above by quite a few people I would agree that any system with human components ought not have a non-reversible outcome. Humans are by definition imperfect and as a consequence the death penalty is by definition imperfect.

In response to the idea that moral absolutes ought not be proclaimed by the atheist (or not theist community) your qualm is based on a miss characterization of the issues fought against. In the cases of moral statements propounded by the 'not theist' community you will in most (I hesitate to say all simply because I cannot claim to have heard them all) cases find that they are universal claims of fundamental human worth and freedom. What moral absolutes the 'not theist' community has spent so much time fighting are typified as claims of the fundamental right and wrong of human behavior.

[ May 27, 2002: Message edited by: Kyle Smyth ]</p>

Dr. Retard

There is an argument suggested by these quotes:

Call it the "Not Even One Innocent Life" argument. By instituting a death penalty, the argument goes, we run the risk of executing an innocent person. And the stakes are so great that no possible benefits can outweigh that possibility.

The problem is that we run the same risk by instituting a police force. In so doing, we run the risk of innocents being shot and killed by mistaken police officers. Yet surely this risk is not enough to outweigh the benefits of having a police force.

The risk of dead innocents is unavoidable. We cannot wish it away. We can only factor it in alongside the million other relevant factors and try to make the right trade-offs when we appraise social instruments like the death penalty.