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Death Penalty

Thermal said:
It's a somewhat tangental argument, but court costs and time are not extreme. It's the lawyers, experts etc who jack them both into oblivion, and force people to forfeit their rights because they can't afford to do otherwise. A wholesale streamlining of the process is long overdue.
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What do you mean by "streamlining?" The system is already heavily "streamlined" in favor of the prosecution. Many accused criminals don't even go to trial. The take a deal "or else." The appeals process starts with the premise that the accused has been found guilty, and it's up to him to prove otherwise. How would "streamlining" benefit somebody who has been falsely accused or overcharged or whose rights have been violated?
 
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Well hell, if we're going to keep the death penalty, let's see if we can make it pay for itself.

As we know, DP advocates love to cry out their old cliché, "and I'd th'ow the switch m'self!" I think they are, most of them, perfectly sincere about that.

So let's have a lottery for the privilege of executing criminals. Not just by selling cheap scratch-offs, but charging several thou per ticket. Winners could (and would! and how!) be media stars, on talk radio & Facebook & Twitter & tv & Mar a Lago. Heck, they might even get laid.

The grand payoff would come when they discover that they have been taken to meet the condemned man alone and barehanded in some quiet place, and that they must wreak justice then and there, or forfeit everything.

Provided the condemned man agrees.
 
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About one in nine death row inmates

Bob001 said:
What do you mean by "streamlining?" The system is already heavily "streamlined" in favor of the prosecution. Many accused criminals don't even go to trial. The take a deal "or else." The appeals process starts with the premise that the accused has been found guilty, and it's up to him to prove otherwise. How would "streamlining" benefit somebody who has been falsely accused or overcharged or whose rights have been violated?
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Indeed AEDPA is a major impediment to those who have been wrongfully convicted, and citations may be found upthread.

Regarding the question of winning the lottery, since 1973, for every eight death row inmates executed, one is released from prison. Individual states vary. "For every three people executed in Florida, one innocent person on Death Row has been exonerated and released."
EDT
See comment #207 for a couple of good links that discuss AEDPA.
 
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Bob001 said:
What do you mean by "streamlining?" The system is already heavily "streamlined" in favor of the prosecution. Many accused criminals don't even go to trial. The take a deal "or else." The appeals process starts with the premise that the accused has been found guilty, and it's up to him to prove otherwise. How would "streamlining" benefit somebody who has been falsely accused or overcharged or whose rights have been violated?
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It's odd. There is merit to streamlining the process as what forces a lot of pleas is how expensive and time consuming it is to actually litigate a case. However, it needs to be accompanied by a more restorative outlook on the remedial consequences and removing a lot of the adversarial aspects of the system. Just removing safeguards for the accused without addressing the picture as a whole is regressive policy masquerading as efficiency.
 
Thermal said:
Not addressed to me, but how about public tax savings in the upkeep of a citizen who has basically no rights and is treated like an unloved pet? There is a school of thought that thinks that is torture.
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The answer to that is that incarcerated criminals are entitled to the same basic human rights as everyone else and should never be treated like an unloved pet or subject to torture.
 
Chris_Halkides said:
Indeed AEDPA is a major impediment to those who have been wrongfully convicted, and citations may be found upthread.

Regarding the question of winning the lottery, since 1973, for every eight death row inmates executed, one is released from prison. Individual states vary. "For every three people executed in Florida, one innocent person on Death Row has been exonerated and released."
EDT
See comment #207 for a couple of good links that discuss AEDPA.
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That 1 in 9 number is pretty sensationalistic. The article flubs it, calling it 1 in 8, which you rightly corrected, but most sources (who cite their work) peg it as more like 1 in 25. Still frighteningly high, but an organization dedicated to the matter shouldn't be quite that far off the mark if it wants to be considered credible or authoritative?

https://www.newsweek.com/one-25-executed-us-innocent-study-claims-248889
 
a double shot of sobering numbers

I do not take the 1 in 9 number as an error estimate. I usually refer back to Samuel Gross's work in this area, which suggests a 4% error value in death penalty cases. There is also an interview with Professor Gross (U. Michigan law) here. "Remember, the people who were exonerated in 2016 were not convicted in 2016. The convictions occurred on an average about 8 and a half to 9 years earlier." This is a sobering number in a different way.

He continued, "This [the existence of wrongful convictions?] is a serious problem. Maybe 2% of convicted criminal defendants are innocent, maybe it’s 4% or 3% or criminal convictions – we don’t know – but it’s a lot of people. Even if it’s 1%, that’s tens of thousands of innocent defendants convicted each year across the country. The exonerations that we know about are only a small proportion of the wrongful convictions that occur."
EDT
While we are on the subject of "sensationalistic" and just plain wrong numbers, it is worth recalling that Scalia quoted a NYT Op Ed indicating that the rate was 0.027%. As stated in the PNAS article linked above, "In fact, the claim is silly. Scalia’s ratio is derived by taking the number of known exonerations at the time, which were limited almost entirely to a small subset of murder and rape cases, using it as a measure of all false convictions (known and unknown), and dividing it by the number of all felony convictions for all crimes, from drug possession and burglary to car theft and income tax evasion." See this link for more discussion.
 
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De Santis and the requirement for unanimous juries

""If just one juror vetoes it, then you end up not getting the sentence," DeSantis said during remarks delivered at the Florida Sheriffs Association Conference. "Maybe eight out of 12 have to agree, or something, but we can't be in a situation where one person can just derail this."" . At [URL="https://reason.com/2023/01/24/ron-desantis-says-florida-shouldnt-require-unanimous-juries-in-death-penalty-cases/?utm_medium=email"]Reason Eric Bohm wrote, "But strong emotions are not the best guides for policy making—and that's especially true in situations where the stakes are quite literally life and death. As Reason's CJ Ciaramella noted in 2020, Florida has had more exonerations of death row inmates than any other state in the country: roughly one for every three executions carried out. That ought to inspire more humility, not aggressiveness, in deciding when the state should be allowed to kill."

The Guardian wrote, "Referring to Parkland, DeSantis said, wrongly: “And so I think you had an 11 to one decision, where the 11 said he should get capital punishment. One said no. And we don’t know what went into that. But I do think there are people who get on these juries who never intend to administer capital punishment.”" (highlighting mine). From what I have read the vote was 9 to 3 in favor of the death penalty for Mr. Cruz.
 
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Chris_Halkides said:
""If just one juror vetoes it, then you end up not getting the sentence," DeSantis said during remarks delivered at the Florida Sheriffs Association Conference. "Maybe eight out of 12 have to agree, or something, but we can't be in a situation where one person can just derail this."" . At [URL="https://reason.com/2023/01/24/ron-desantis-says-florida-shouldnt-require-unanimous-juries-in-death-penalty-cases/?utm_medium=email"]Reason Eric Bohm wrote, "But strong emotions are not the best guides for policy making—and that's especially true in situations where the stakes are quite literally life and death. As Reason's CJ Ciaramella noted in 2020, Florida has had more exonerations of death row inmates than any other state in the country: roughly one for every three executions carried out. That ought to inspire more humility, not aggressiveness, in deciding when the state should be allowed to kill."

The Guardian wrote, "Referring to Parkland, DeSantis said, wrongly: “And so I think you had an 11 to one decision, where the 11 said he should get capital punishment. One said no. And we don’t know what went into that. But I do think there are people who get on these juries who never intend to administer capital punishment.”" (highlighting mine). From what I have read the vote was 9 to 3 in favor of the death penalty for Mr. Cruz.
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There's a point there when it comes to lesser crimes and sentences. I spent a week on a jury once becasue 1 of 12 people wouldn't change their mind. The first vote was 10-2, the seconde was 11-1. It was a relatively petty crime.

A. We should not use the Death Penalty.
B. If we continue to, we should the unanimous requirement for murder convictions.
 
ahhell said:
There's a point there when it comes to lesser crimes and sentences. I spent a week on a jury once becasue 1 of 12 people wouldn't change their mind. The first vote was 10-2, the seconde was 11-1. It was a relatively petty crime.

A. We should not use the Death Penalty.
B. If we continue to, we should the unanimous requirement for murder convictions.
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I agree with A.
 
penalty phase

I think that DeSantis was just concerned about the penalty phase of the trial. I still don't much care for his use of alternative facts.
 
Chris_Halkides said:
I do not take the 1 in 9 number as an error estimate. I usually refer back to Samuel Gross's work in this area, which suggests a 4% error value in death penalty cases. There is also an interview with Professor Gross (U. Michigan law) here. "Remember, the people who were exonerated in 2016 were not convicted in 2016. The convictions occurred on an average about 8 and a half to 9 years earlier." This is a sobering number in a different way.

He continued, "This [the existence of wrongful convictions?] is a serious problem. Maybe 2% of convicted criminal defendants are innocent, maybe it’s 4% or 3% or criminal convictions – we don’t know – but it’s a lot of people. Even if it’s 1%, that’s tens of thousands of innocent defendants convicted each year across the country. The exonerations that we know about are only a small proportion of the wrongful convictions that occur."
EDT
While we are on the subject of "sensationalistic" and just plain wrong numbers, it is worth recalling that Scalia quoted a NYT Op Ed indicating that the rate was 0.027%. As stated in the PNAS article linked above, "In fact, the claim is silly. Scalia’s ratio is derived by taking the number of known exonerations at the time, which were limited almost entirely to a small subset of murder and rape cases, using it as a measure of all false convictions (known and unknown), and dividing it by the number of all felony convictions for all crimes, from drug possession and burglary to car theft and income tax evasion." See this link for more discussion.
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Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsberg would attend opera together. Conviviality between friends where one is objectively "beyond the pale" is commonplace enough, but Scalia seems really nasty as a human being.
 
Bob001 said:
Some profiles of innocent people sentenced to death.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/...ocent-these-are-stories-of-justice-gone-wrong

The strongest argument against the death penalty is the simplest: Sometimes the system makes mistakes.
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This. In principle, I no have issue with the death penalty in some cases. I've got no problem with the state killing Ted Bundy. I have a problem with the state killing people who did not commit the crime they've been convicted of and that happens way to often.
Its one of the issues I actually remember that I've changed my mind on.
 
Bob001 said:
Some profiles of innocent people sentenced to death.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/...ocent-these-are-stories-of-justice-gone-wrong

The strongest argument against the death penalty is the simplest: Sometimes the system makes mistakes.
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Since 1970, 149 people in the UK have had their murder convictions overturned. If we still had the death penalty, how many of those innocent people would now be dead?

https://evidencebasedjustice.exeter.ac.uk/miscarriages-of-justice-registry/the-cases/overview-graph/

The criminal justice system is too unreliable to risk having the death penalty.
 
The new deputy chairman of the Conservative Party in the UK is enthusiastically pro death penalty: :(

The new deputy chairman of the Conservative Party, Lee Anderson, has said he would support the return of the death penalty.

In an interview with the Spectator before he was appointed to the role, he argued "nobody has ever committed a crime after being executed".
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-64580487

The PM said neither he nor the government shared Mr Anderson's stance.
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I doubt that they'll be too unhappy about the deputy chairman pandering to their base though. ;)
 
sound bite

One response to "nobody has ever committed a crime after being executed" is to say that some of them did not commit a crime before they were executed. But a subject as serious as this one deserves better than trading one sound bite for another.
 
arthwollipot said:
The answer to that is that incarcerated criminals are entitled to the same basic human rights as everyone else and should never be treated like an unloved pet or subject to torture.
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To be fair, this is, on its face, false. If nothing else, incarcerated prisoners don't have the basic human right of....well, freedom. Of movement, atleast. So, the question is really what rights do they or do they not retain.

The obvious answer is, it depends.
 
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