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Death Penalty

Chris_Halkides said:
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.
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To be fair, very few of those committed of murder did not commit any crime before conviction. One of the reasons we do convict so many "innocent" people is they are not so innocent and its easy for juries to think they actually committed the crime in question.

And, frankly, I admit that is a fairly pedantic point.
 
ahhell said:
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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Which should, if nothing else, suggest the question of why this right is being infringed in the first place. What purpose does infringing the right to freedom of movement serve? How well does it serve that purpose?
 
Raheem Taylor case in Missouri

ahhell said:
To be fair, very few of those committed of murder did not commit any crime before conviction. One of the reasons we do convict so many "innocent" people is they are not so innocent and its easy for juries to think they actually committed the crime in question.

And, frankly, I admit that is a fairly pedantic point.
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I just started a thread about the execution of Raheem Taylor in "Trials and Errors." It illustrates your point, in that Mr. Taylor was a criminal. However, it also has strong preliminary indications of a wrongful conviction. However, some people who are wrongfully convicted (also including those sentenced to long prison times as well as those sentenced to death) have no prior criminal record of which I am aware. For example I do not recall that Mr. Willingham had been convicted of anything.
 
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theprestige said:
I've never understood the reasoning behind this question. Whatever our concept of justice is, we should not abandon it to save money.
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Opportunity costs, diminishing returns, false dichomoty. We don't have to abandon a project to save money, but we might have less costly alternatives that achieve the same or close to the same results.

You position is effectively, "if it saves just one life, its worth it?" That all depends on what you have to give up to save that one life.
 
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arthwollipot said:
Which should, if nothing else, suggest the question of why this right is being infringed in the first place. What purpose does infringing the right to freedom of movement serve? How well does it serve that purpose?
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That's the question isn't it.
 
ahhell said:
Opportunity costs, diminishing returns, false dichomoty. We don't have to abandon a project to save money, but we might have less costly alternatives that achieve the same or close to the same results.

You position is effectively, "if it saves just one life, its worth it?" That all depends on what you have to give up to save that one life.
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No, my position is effectively, "we should not abandon justice to save money."

If you believe that it is just, to execute people for committing certain crimes, then you should not refrain from executions because it's expensive to do the job properly.

On the other hand, you might believe - as I do - that while the death penalty is just for certain crimes, the current system is not reliable enough to be considered just, and so the death penalty should be shelved at least for now.

Obviously if you don't believe the death penalty is just for any crime, then you don't have to worry about this particular conundrum. But whatever your concept of justice is, you should not betray it as a cost-saving measure.
 
Skeptical Greg said:
Are you suggesting there is no good reason to imprison people?

Might make another interesting discussion.
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I'm suggesting that given the inherent infringement of a fundamental human right, it's important to be sure that you're doing it for the right reasons, and that it achieves the goals you intend for it.
 
Skeptical Greg said:
What goal do you need other than to restrict the movement of people with criminal intentions? That is one goal that it actually achieves.
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Why is that the goal? Just stop them moving about for a specified period, then let them go? Is that the only purpose of imprisonment?
 
Skeptical Greg said:
What goal do you need other than to restrict the movement of people with criminal intentions? That is one goal that it actually achieves.
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What goal? The community's perception that justice is being served. Take that away, and the community resorts to vigilantism and indulges in increasingly lawless behavior. All this business of rehabilitation, deterrence, and bloody constraint is beside that central point.
 
theprestige said:
What goal? The community's perception that justice is being served. Take that away, and the community resorts to vigilantism and indulges in increasingly lawless behavior. All this business of rehabilitation, deterrence, and bloody constraint is beside that central point.
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I tend to agree.

If we remove retribution from the analysis we still wind up with some level of liberty restriction necessary. Maybe even capital punishment has a role. Revenge is so tightly woven into our policy that it takes some doing to grasp the nature and degree of change that would result.

Take something as simple as making college classes available to prisoners. In the big picture there is no reason to not do this. It makes recidivism drop like a stone, and even acts as a carrot to get prisoners to behave and that saves all sorts of money and trouble by making prisons generally more tranquil.

However, it makes a lot of people mad. Mostly because nobody ever sees the crime that was never committed because some ex-con has a sense of accomplishment and investment in society that comes with earning an associate degree in something. All they see is other people getting free stuff and not suffering enough.
 
That seems consistent with malignant narcissism.

Capital punishment makes me uneasy because I can imagine myself in the role of one about to be executed, especially if I were innocent. I don’t even like to watch depictions of executions in movies. But it’s easy to see a malignant narcissist being unable to feel empathy for the condemned.

Then again, it seems like hangings and beheadings and stonings have historically been somewhat popular events for the general public, so I guess a certain blood lust might be more widespread than I’d imagine, not needing pathology to explain it.
 
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Fast Eddie B said:
That seems consistent with malignant narcissism.

Capital punishment makes me uneasy because I can imagine myself in the role of one about to be executed, especially if I were innocent. I don’t even like to watch depictions of executions in movies. But it’s easy to see a malignant narcissist being unable to feel empathy for the condemned.

Then again, it seems like hangings and beheadings and stonings have historically been somewhat popular events for the general public, so I guess a certain blood lust might be more widespread than I’d imagine, not needing pathology to explain it.
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Not sure who said it or where I read it, but the argument is that you SHOULD televise executions, and make them gruesome. That is the quickest way to end capital punishment.

Right now, the public knows about executions in a non-visceral way.
 
Fast Eddie B said:
That seems consistent with malignant narcissism.

Capital punishment makes me uneasy because I can imagine myself in the role of one about to be executed, especially if I were innocent. I don’t even like to watch depictions of executions in movies. But it’s easy to see a malignant narcissist being unable to feel empathy for the condemned.

Then again, it seems like hangings and beheadings and stonings have historically been somewhat popular events for the general public, so I guess a certain blood lust might be more widespread than I’d imagine, not needing pathology to explain it.
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The case of Cameron Todd Willingham is a classic example of the zeal people can have for executing someone they have already decided is guilty. Hell, one of the reasons the jurors decided he was guilty was because photos taken in the house during the investigation showed Iron Maiden posters on the wall, and the good, upstanding, evangelical, Texas morons weighing the evidence just knew that that meant Willingham was a Satan worshipper. Poor Willingham was not a bright man, but can you imagine having your guilt or innocence decided by the sorts of idiots who live in a real life Chick Tract?

I oppose the death penalty not out of some sympathy for ****-bags like Ted Bundy or Dennis Rader. I oppose it because I know there are people who are wrongfully convicted, and because it is applied far more often for cases where the convicted is poor and/or an ethnic minority. Trump is utterly vile. The only difference between him and people like Pol Pot and Reinhard Heydrich is that he hasn't been put in a position where he can fully act on his savagery. I have no doubt that Trump would look for a way to personally profit from such public executions. He'd market them like the ******* Apprentice. The same way we now have a multi-billion dollar private prison industry lobbying lawmakers for more draconian drug laws so they can keep their prisons packed and profitable, Trump would have Fox doing the same so they could sell televised executions like the ******* Superbowl.
 
Foster Zygote said:
The case of Cameron Todd Willingham is a classic example of the zeal people can have for executing someone they have already decided is guilty. Hell, one of the reasons the jurors decided he was guilty was because photos taken in the house during the investigation showed Iron Maiden posters on the wall, and the good, upstanding, evangelical, Texas morons weighing the evidence just knew that that meant Willingham was a Satan worshipper. Poor Willingham was not a bright man, but can you imagine having your guilt or innocence decided by the sorts of idiots who live in a real life Chick Tract?

I oppose the death penalty not out of some sympathy for ****-bags like Ted Bundy or Dennis Rader. I oppose it because I know there are people who are wrongfully convicted, and because it is applied far more often for cases where the convicted is poor and/or an ethnic minority. Trump is utterly vile. The only difference between him and people like Pol Pot and Reinhard Heydrich is that he hasn't been put in a position where he can fully act on his savagery. I have no doubt that Trump would look for a way to personally profit from such public executions. He'd market them like the ******* Apprentice. The same way we now have a multi-billion dollar private prison industry lobbying lawmakers for more draconian drug laws so they can keep their prisons packed and profitable, Trump would have Fox doing the same so they could sell televised executions like the ******* Superbowl.
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I agree. Some people deserve to die, but not a single innocent person should die because some scumbags deserve it. There is zero doubt that innocent people have been executed and will continue to be. I guess that makes us 'bleeding heart liberals' as some idiots call us. Fine by me.
 
Fast Eddie B said:
That seems consistent with malignant narcissism.

Capital punishment makes me uneasy because I can imagine myself in the role of one about to be executed, especially if I were innocent. I don’t even like to watch depictions of executions in movies. But it’s easy to see a malignant narcissist being unable to feel empathy for the condemned.

Then again, it seems like hangings and beheadings and stonings have historically been somewhat popular events for the general public, so I guess a certain blood lust might be more widespread than I’d imagine, not needing pathology to explain it.
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I agree on all points.

There is an ugly streak in a large part of human people that enjoy seeing others in pain. The Roman emperors used to keep the populace happy by handing out free bread putting on huge spectacles of gladiators in the amphitheatres, especially the Colosseum in Rome. Bread and Circuses (Blood). The executions of criminals were often part of the spectacle.

Executions in many places in Europe as late as the 19th century were public events that people took their children to while having a picnic. Tyburn Hill in London was very popular entertainment until the late 18th century. Even today, some countries hold public executions.

Personally, I can't even stand boxing because of the brutality. Yes, I know...it's about the boxers' skill, but gladiators were also skilled.
 
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