Lethal Injection for Execution: Chemical Asphyxiation?

[Skybird]

The flawed logic of understanding the killing of a man as a penalty, while a penalty in modern understanding is not to rebalance a cosmic scales by a principle of "an eye for an eye", but is understood as a sanction by which the behavior of the deliquent is to be influenced and changed (for which it is a precondition that he continues to live), would be a topic for itself. Also where longterm jail sentence fit into this description.

However, let's ignore that debate. This is the story:

http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0040156

We were able to analyze only a limited number of executions. However, our findings suggest that current lethal injection protocols may not reliably effect death through the mechanisms intended, indicating a failure of design and implementation. If thiopental and potassium chloride fail to cause anesthesia and cardiac arrest, potentially aware inmates could die through pancuronium-induced asphyxiation. Thus the conventional view of lethal injection leading to an invariably peaceful and painless death is questionable.

Now what the the eigth amendment has to say on cruel punishment:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution


In Furman v. Georgia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furman_v._Georgia) (1972 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972)), Justice Brennan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Brennan) wrote, "There are, then, four principles by which we may determine whether a particular punishment is 'cruel and unusual'."

The "essential predicate" is "that a punishment must not by its severity be degrading to human dignity," especially torture (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torture).
"A severe punishment that is obviously inflicted in wholly arbitrary fashion."
"A severe punishment that is clearly and totally rejected throughout society."
"A severe punishment that is patently unnecessary."Continuing, he wrote that he expected that no state would pass a law obviously violating any one of these principles, so court decisions regarding the Eighth Amendment would involve a "cumulative" analysis of the implication of each of the four principles.

[Dowly]

Just bring back the 'chair', will do the job. (And no, it's not inhumane, the murderer had the change to whether to kill or dont. He/she made the choice, now bear the results.)

[SUBMAN1]

Deterrence is not flawed logic. It very well could have influenced your hell thread earlier in that the perpetrators thought their may be consequences for their actions. Right now, they know if they get caught, not much will happen to them. If the threat of the chair exists, maybe they would have changed their minds.

And you wonder why we have crimes like this today in society. All the positive crap the phych guys dish out is garbage.

-S

PS. The thought of death is a much worse thing in my mind than worry about sitting in jail for the rest of my life. No one can ever tell me any different. Its a natural instinct to want to do everything possible to avoid it. I can can guarantee that they think the same way.

[Tchocky]

This deterrent effect doesnt seem to be there click (http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?&did=1705#CRIMINOLOGISTS%27%20VIEWS%20ON%20DETERREN CE%20AND%20THE%20DEATH%20PENALTY)

Topic : If chem injection is as nasty as it seems, then there should be an alternative. If you're already going to kill the guy, at least let him go out quiet. I was under the impression that criminal justice wasn't about causing physical pain to the guilty. That should hold up even under capital punishment

[SUBMAN1]

This deterrent effect doesnt seem to be there click (http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?&did=1705#CRIMINOLOGISTS%27%20VIEWS%20ON%20DETERREN CE%20AND%20THE%20DEATH%20PENALTY)

Topic : If chem injection is as nasty as it seems, then there should be an alternative. If you're already going to kill the guy, at least let him go out quiet. I was under the impression that criminal justice wasn't about causing physical pain to the guilty. That should hold up even under capital punishment

Oh but it is! As it should be. My one big gripe - every last bit of evidence up until the day of execution must be looked at by the courts to help avoid a mistake. DNA evidence for example. I hate the idea of excuting an innocent man, but thing its a very good idea to execute someone who commited a horrendous crime.

-S

[Tchocky]

Any backup for that? The deterrent effect, that is.

[waste gate]

In keeping with Skybirds request not to debate the efficacy/moral standing of the death penalty, I will avoid it, and state;

If lethal injection is not working, hanging, firing squad, or my favorite the guillotine.
All tried and true methods.

[SUBMAN1]

Any backup for that? The deterrent effect, that is.

Try your own mind for starters! Google the rest. It is not rocket science.

-S

[Tchocky]

I understand the intuition; I will not kill someone because I will be killed for it, etc. But I've found that the idea of deterrence isn't borne out in fact. Reports and statistical analysis from criminologists show that there is no discernible deterrent effect, and many of the studies that did show one used flawed methods. This is all in the link I posted.
not rocket science at all :hmm:

[Skybird]

The deterring effect of death sentences is questionable and debated until today. Statistically, most crimes with killings happen to be killings "im Affekt" (= in the heat of the moment), as a result of situational variables that are not calculated in advance, and are not preplanned. The deterring effect of executions concerning other potential perpetrators also is highly quetionable, the quick look I had at Google, indicates that even US crime statistics do not indicate a correlation between falling capital crime rates, and death penalty. If anything, it indicates exactly the opposite: that states with death penalty even have a higher capital crime rate by tendency. Finally, death penalty can even motivate additonal killings - to get rid of witnesses, for example. The increasing brutalizing effect even is pointed out in concerned socio-psychological literature.

But all that is not the thread's focus, as I said in the opening. It is about the possible cruelty of a special way of killing a person that is to be executed, and that by ruling of the 8th amendement, "cruel punishment" is illegal in the US.

[Tchocky]

Skybird, posting your opinion in such terms, then saying "lets ignore that", sounds to me like "the dog ate my homework".
Looks like you want it both ways here, one opinion, then no more. :dead:

[Skybird]

Read the first posting that I started it with, the first paragraph. Especially where it reads: "Let'S ignore that debate."

Subman said what was his, you said what was yours, I said what was mine on that side-issue. I can understand that this side-discussion would be showing up in this thread - the temptation is close when you say something about a method of execution - but I don't want it to continue hijacking this thread.

the issue of this thread is that chemical execution does not seem to work reliable and may cause a considerable ammount of pain and cruelty to the deliquent, and that this should be changed, since it is not in congruence with american legal standards. Else we will end up sooner or later with not just killing prisoners, but by an argument of "an eye for an eye" torturing them to death.

and then we are on the same level with those who still commit stoning-to-death.

If this topic continues to change into a discussion on how un-/justified death penalty is, i will ask a moderator to lock this thread. You can start a new one focussing on just this issue. We also had some of these in the past. But it is not the theme of this thread.

[SUBMAN1]

Skybird, posting your opinion in such terms, then saying "lets ignore that", sounds to me like "the dog ate my homework".
Looks like you want it both ways here, one opinion, then no more. :dead:

That about sums it up. Don't bring it up if you don't want a discussion Skybird. By the way, I am not done here yet, just trying to finish up some work before I continue this discussion, so you better get the thread locked.

-S

[August]

Any backup for that? The deterrent effect, that is.

Well, obviously the criminal will not be able to repeat the crime...

[Heibges]

Isn't the United States the only Western Country that has the death penalty?

Is the death penalty a deterrant?

I don't want the right to take a life in the hands of the government. I don't think they should even be able to levy an income tax, much less execute folks.

The death penalty is not compatible with a Christian Society. Jesus pretty much lays it all out for us.

[waste gate]

Isn't the United States the only Western Country that has the death penalty?

Is the death penalty a deterrant?

I don't want the right to take a life in the hands of the government. I don't think they should even be able to levy an income tax, much less execute folks.

The death penalty is not compatible with a Christian Society. Jesus pretty much lays it all out for us.

For the record the death penalty is not placed in the hands of the government.
All death penalty verdicts are passed by a jury, which are made up of citizens which are not government officials.

EDIT: here in Colorado a law was passed which assigned judges for death penalty cases to make the decission as to weather or not to execute the convicted. SOCTUS struck down the law as unconstitutional. If I can find anything on it I'll post it.

[SUBMAN1]

The death penalty is not compatible with a Christian Society. Jesus pretty much lays it all out for us.

Quite the contrary in my opinion.

-S

[Skybird]

thank you everybody for successfully hijacking this thread against the repatedly announced intention of the originator.

And remarkably - not a single person so far had a comment to make about the orignal thread.

[waste gate]

thank you everybody for successfully hijacking this thread against the repatedly announced intention of the originator.

And remarkably - not a single person so far had a comment to make about the orignal thread.

If I wasn't on your ignore list you would have seen one. Thank you for your non-attention. :rotfl:

[Tieg]

or my favorite the guillotine

To me that would seem to be the quickest way to end ones life as a result of choices he or she made...

This following quote comes from this CNN article which is probably where this discussion started from:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/04/23/lethal.injection.ap/index.html


Steve Stewart, prosecuting attorney in Clark County, Indiana, where an execution is scheduled for May 4, said the simple solution seemed to be to give a higher dose of the anesthetic, which probably would not satisfy opponents who see all methods as barbaric.
"It doesn't matter a whole lot to me that someone may have felt some pain before they were administered poison as a method of execution," he said.


That last sentence pretty much sums it up. Who cares...me personally I think they should air executions on Pay Per View so that way if those that want to see them can by paying for it and those who don't want to see them have the option not to see them. Also the money the goverment makes they can apply to some program that maybe could reduce our taxes of some sort or another...or at least for some good. Like maybe a nice sharpening stone for the guillotine.

[SUBMAN1]

And remarkably - not a single person so far had a comment to make about the orignal thread.

That is because it is uninteresting. So what if they die in such a manner? Death is usually not a pleasant experience. I have no sympathy. There, I made a comment about the original thread. Happy?

-S

[bradclark1]

PS. The thought of death is a much worse thing in my mind than worry about sitting in jail for the rest of my life. No one can ever tell me any different. Its a natural instinct to want to do everything possible to avoid it. I can can guarantee that they think the same way.
I'll have to disagree somewhat. There are enough stories going around that more then a few lifers preferred death to being locked in an 8x10 for the rest of their lives. And no, I'm not going to hunt links. Without experiencing either I think I would prefer death to an existence in an 8x10 and that is why in a lot of cases I am against the death penalty because it gives the criminal an easy way out and an 8x10 is a long slow death. However if it comes down to me thinking death I would prefer an execution as like they did their victim but it would have to be overwhelming evidence and not a reasonable doubt type decision. An eye for an eye and a fist for a fist.

[Skybird]

subman,

You're damn pain in the ass, and that's all about you. The orignal topic is defined by me, not you. That is because I launched this thread, so I define the content, not you. Start your own freaking thread, teflonman. This thread was about unneeded cruelty in execution, which according to your own fantastic constitution (8th amendement) is illegal. This contradiction is what it is about. If it is uninteresting for you, fine, but then keep the hell out of it, and don't start a rumble just to get your personal fun from it. Do your own thread with stuff that interest you. You will get your according audience.

We have had repeatedly threads about the justification yes or no of death penalty in the past, and if it is a deterrant, or not. And almost all of them ended nasty, and aggressive, as far as I remember. That'S why I said clearly in words that such debates should be avoided here. Subman was the first ignoring that request. Tschocky went next, both laid out their basic arguments. I finally commented on that, unpersonally, and then asked again everybody to stick to the topic, and abandon this old debate.

What exactly is it that is beyond your ability to understand in this, teflonman? Tell the answer the mods at appropriate opportunity. I have asked Tak to extract everthing that does not belong here.

Hijacking a thread is okay when it does not result in aggression, is commonly accepted, and not excluded by the author. It can be fun, and entertaining. But here you guys have turned it into exactly the mess I wanted to avoid.

[SUBMAN1]

I'll have to disagree somewhat. There are enough stories going around that more then a few lifers preferred death to being locked in an 8x10 for the rest of their lives. And no, I'm not going to hunt links. Without experiencing either I think I would prefer death to an existence in an 8x10 and that is why in a lot of cases I am against the death penalty because it gives the criminal an easy way out and an 8x10 is a long slow death. However if it comes down to me thinking death I would prefer an execution as like they did their victim but it would have to be overwhelming evidence and not a reasonable doubt type decision. An eye for an eye and a fist for a fist.

You are right I am sure in that a couple of them felt so terrible that death was what they wanted, but I doubt that is the majority. Most of them file appeal after appeal to prlong their life that it is pathetic. That one Chinese guy who is tottally toying with the courts to prolong his execution date comes to mind.

-S

[SUBMAN1]

subman,

You're damn pain in the ass, and that's all about you. The orignal topic is defined by me, not you. That is because I launched this thread, so I define the content, not you. Start your own freaking thread, teflonman. This thread was about unneeded cruelty in execution, which according to your own fantastic constitution (8th amendement) is illegal. This contradiction is what it is about. If it is uninteresting for you, fine, but then keep the hell out of it, and don't start a rumble just to get your personal fun from it. Do your own thread with stuff that interest you. You will get your according audience.

We have had repeatedly threads about the justification yes or no of death penalty in the past, and if it is a deterrant, or not. And almost all of them ended nasty, and aggressive, as far as I remember. That'S why I said clearly in words that such debates should be avoided here. Subman was the first ignoring that request. Tschocky went next, both laid out their basic arguments. I finally commented on that, unpersonally, and then asked again everybody to stick to the topic, and abandon this old debate.

What exactly is it that is beyond your ability to understand in this, teflonman? Tell the answer the mods at appropriate opportunity. I have asked Tak to extract everthing that does not belong here.

Hijacking a thread is okay when it does not result in aggression, is commonly accepted, and not excluded by the author. It can be fun, and entertaining. But here you guys have turned it into exactly the mess I wanted to avoid.
Not sure who you are refering to, but I am commenting on your comments if you are refering to me. Read your own words - you describe flawed logic, long term jail sentences, etc yourself (duh!):

The flawed logic of understanding the killing of a man as a penalty, while a penalty in modern understanding is not to rebalance a cosmic scales by a principle of "an eye for an eye", but is understood as a sanction by which the behavior of the deliquent is to be influenced and changed (for which it is a precondition that he continues to live), would be a topic for itself. Also where longterm jail sentence fit into this description.
Zig zag - you are very good at it. We should call you springey!

[August]

The term Skybird is "cruel AND unusual".

All death is cruel, or at least can be argued by lawyers to be such, however lethal injection, hanging, firing squads or any other traditional methods of executing criminals in our history is by no means "unusual" and there your argument falls flat.

[Skybird]

For the telfonmen of this world:

The flawed logic of understanding the killing of a man as a penalty, while a penalty in modern understanding is not to rebalance a cosmic scales by a principle of "an eye for an eye", but is understood as a sanction by which the behavior of the deliquent is to be influenced and changed (for which it is a precondition that he continues to live), would be a topic for itself. Also where longterm jail sentence fit into this description.
However, let's ignore that debate.



And wonder oh wonder, the text goes on a bit more:



This is the story:
http://medicine.plosjournals.org/per...l.pmed.0040156 (http://medicine.plosjournals.org/per...l.pmed.0040156)



And finally this:



Now what the the eigth amendment has to say on cruel punishment:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution )


Not difficult to understand. Not even for you, teflonman. All the bullying you are trying here is intentional provokation, I have no doubt. And that's why I use that wonderful magical button on you now that by miracle and wonder will hide you from my field of vision in the future. So spare your breath, or take the chance to impress the audience. I don't care anymore.

Like it was with Iceman and Waste Gate, I do not ban different opinions. Only bad behavior.

[waste gate]

subman,

You're damn pain in the ass, and that's all about you. The orignal topic is defined by me, not you. That is because I launched this thread, so I define the content, not you. Start your own freaking thread, teflonman. This thread was about unneeded cruelty in execution, which according to your own fantastic constitution (8th amendement) is illegal. This contradiction is what it is about. If it is uninteresting for you, fine, but then keep the hell out of it, and don't start a rumble just to get your personal fun from it. Do your own thread with stuff that interest you. You will get your according audience.

We have had repeatedly threads about the justification yes or no of death penalty in the past, and if it is a deterrant, or not. And almost all of them ended nasty, and aggressive, as far as I remember. That'S why I said clearly in words that such debates should be avoided here. Subman was the first ignoring that request. Tschocky went next, both laid out their basic arguments. I finally commented on that, unpersonally, and then asked again everybody to stick to the topic, and abandon this old debate.

What exactly is it that is beyond your ability to understand in this, teflonman? Tell the answer the mods at appropriate opportunity. I have asked Tak to extract everthing that does not belong here.

Hijacking a thread is okay when it does not result in aggression, is commonly accepted, and not excluded by the author. It can be fun, and entertaining. But here you guys have turned it into exactly the mess I wanted to avoid.

What a cry baby. If you don't want your threads 'hi-jacked' stop posting. Everyones threads are 'hi-jacked'. Get over it!

[SUBMAN1]

For the telfonmen of this world:

The flawed logic of understanding the killing of a man as a penalty, while a penalty in modern understanding is not to rebalance a cosmic scales by a principle of "an eye for an eye", but is understood as a sanction by which the behavior of the deliquent is to be influenced and changed (for which it is a precondition that he continues to live), would be a topic for itself. Also where longterm jail sentence fit into this description.
However, let's ignore that debate.



And wonder oh wonder, the text goes on a bit more:



This is the story:
http://medicine.plosjournals.org/per...l.pmed.0040156 (http://medicine.plosjournals.org/per...l.pmed.0040156)



And finally this:



Now what the the eigth amendment has to say on cruel punishment:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution )


Not difficult to understand. Not even for you, teflonman. All the bullying you are trying here is intentional provokation, I have no doubt. And that's why I use that wonderful magical button on you now that by miracle and wonder will hide you from my field of vision in the future. So spare your breath, or take the chance to impress the audience. I don't care anymore.

Like it was with Iceman and Waste Gate, I do not ban different opinions. Only bad behavior.


Hahahaha! I finially made it to the block (that is I think I did - not sure who you are referencing actually)! Just a little note for the future if you can still see this - do not make a broad statement such as you say, and then say leave it for another thread. That doesn't work! If you don't want to talk about it in your thread, don't bring it up - then you have an argument for what you write when you say not to hijack your thread! This is not hijacking if you brought it up in the very first post you make in your own thread! This idea you have is moronic in my opinion to suggest anything other.

-S

[Skybird]

The term Skybird is "cruel AND unusual".

All death is cruel, or at least can be argued by lawyers to be such, however lethal injection, hanging, firing squads or any other traditional methods of executing criminals in our history is by no means "unusual" and there your argument falls flat.

You are right, August, that piece gave me quite a time to think about. However, In the excerpt from wikipedia I highlighted in red this part (following is a longer quote than before):

The use of the word and (instead of or) has been held to have some significance. Cruel punishments are allowable as long as more than one court system applies the punishment. Similarly, unusual punishments are permitted so long as they are not cruel, although some lawyers would argue that any unusual punishment is cruel. Thus, for example, three strikes laws (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_strikes_law) have been upheld by the Court as not conflicting with this clause, because even if they are unusual, they are not cruel (in the sense that there is no physical torture).
The Eighth Amendment forbids some punishments entirely, and forbids some punishments that are excessive when compared to the crime.
In Furman v. Georgia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furman_v._Georgia) (1972 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972)), Justice Brennan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Brennan) wrote, "There are, then, four principles by which we may determine whether a particular punishment is 'cruel and unusual'."

The "essential predicate" is "that a punishment must not by its severity be degrading to human dignity," especially torture (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torture).
"A severe punishment that is obviously inflicted in wholly arbitrary fashion."
"A severe punishment that is clearly and totally rejected throughout society."
"A severe punishment that is patently unnecessary."Continuing, he wrote that he expected that no state would pass a law obviously violating any one of these principles, so court decisions regarding the Eighth Amendment would involve a "cumulative" analysis of the implication of each of the four principles.

when summarizing it all, I came to the conclusion that despite the debate about the word "and" (curel and unusual), as indicated by you and the author of the wikipedia entry, there nevertheless seem to be consensus that torturing somebody to death is fulfilling both conditions.

what remains is the question to what degree suffocation is degrading to human diginity and by it's quality is equal to the pain implemented by intentional torture. Last year, so says a German blog, death candidates in Missouri and South Dakota reached a court ruling that this form of execution is scratched from the list of execution methods that are considered constitutional, because the reliabilty of one or two of the three involved agents to succeed in the purpose for which they are used already was at doubt. However, courts in Florida, Kentucky and Texas ruled differently, saying that a certain ammount of pain does not automatically cause a method of execution to be classified as "verboten". Last decembre, the dying of Angel Diaz in Florida lasted longer than half an hour.

I did not understand how that can be brought into congruence with what has been written about execution and torture in the part from wikipedia above.

Anyway, I see no reason why people should be executed with unneeded pain and suffering (which includes years and years of waiting, hoping and dissappointment, btw.) even animals do not take pleasure from the suffering of their prey, they kill to eat, and that's it. some of mankind's societies reserve the right to kill as a legalized form of retaliation. But doing that with more cruelty than needed is inhumane, barbaric, and reminds me strongly of pleasing the cheering crowds in the circus maximus. And I must say that is too cheap for me.

So when there are death penalties, and they are confirmed from highest instance - why can'T one just go and have the person shot the same day or week? For me death penalty is no penalty anyway, only a removal of a person. I oppose the idea of death as a penalty, but I take legalized preemptive killing in case of certain types of crimes into account. For example if big fishes of weapon and drug smuggling, cartell bosses, and the like, must be expected to rule their business from inside the prison, or could be the reason of kidnappings in order to have them released.

[Gizzmoe]

If you don't want your threads 'hi-jacked' stop posting. Everyones threads are 'hi-jacked'.

Yeah, that´s usually because some people don´t think before they post.

[SUBMAN1]

If you don't want your threads 'hi-jacked' stop posting. Everyones threads are 'hi-jacked'.
Yeah, that´s usually because some people don´t think before they post.

How about people that don't think before they start a new thread? Am I correct that if you don't want to talk about something that you do not talk about it in your initial post? Or am I off my rocker on that one?

-S

[waste gate]

If you don't want your threads 'hi-jacked' stop posting. Everyones threads are 'hi-jacked'.

Yeah, that´s usually because some people don´t think before they post.

Hey Gizzmoe

If you are going to quote me in a Skybird thread maybe it would be more of a contribution if you quoted all my posts. I'm on his ignore list and posting one only contributes to the hard feelings he may have toward me and I uspect Skybird dissmisses them out of hand. Thanks.

[SUBMAN1]

If you are going to quote me in a Skybird thread maybe it would be more of a contribution if you quoted all my posts. I'm on his ignore list and posting one only contributes to the hard feelings he may have toward me and I uspect Skybird dissmisses them out of hand. Thanks.

Its a private club! Its easy to enter - just disagree with Skybird is all it takes! If you views differ from his, and you don't put up with his personal attacks, you get blocked - easy as that! If he can't beat you, he blocks you. I love it! Now I don't have to deal with his bad and backwards ideas in relation to my posts. Its about time.

-S

[Tchocky]

*reads threads growth since last visit*

*cries*

And remarkably - not a single person so far had a comment to make about the orignal thread. Skybird, look at my first post in this thread. I clearly state my views on the topic that you posted.

This thread has become a steaming mess, partly due to the Golden Rule (on all sides), AND the unnecessary platforming in the original post.

If you dont want a death penalty debate on your page, fine, there's an easy way to do that. Alas, it appears too far into the thread.
You said it yourself
But all that is not the thread's focus, as I said in the opening. It is about the possible cruelty of a special way of killing a person that is to be executed, and that by ruling of the 8th amendement, "cruel punishment" is illegal in the US. That should have been at the top of your first post. Instead, you broadcast your opinion on the logic of the death penalty.
You know how easily arguments brew up here, the way to avoid them is NOT to say what you think and then type "Let's ignore that debate". You're being disingenuous, I believe.

And I don't even care...

OK, that ends the Skybird portion of my post.

Rest of you guys: shut the hell up
Tchocky: Stop telling everyone what to do, you clod!
Everyone: leave the "teflonman" and "crybaby" out of it

[SUBMAN1]

*reads threads growth since last visit*

*cries*

And remarkably - not a single person so far had a comment to make about the orignal thread. Skybird, look at my first post in this thread. I clearly state my views on the topic that you posted.

This thread has become a steaming mess, partly due to the Golden Rule (on all sides), AND the unnecessary platforming in the original post.

If you dont want a death penalty debate on your page, fine, there's an easy way to do that. Alas, it appears too far into the thread.
You said it yourself
But all that is not the thread's focus, as I said in the opening. It is about the possible cruelty of a special way of killing a person that is to be executed, and that by ruling of the 8th amendement, "cruel punishment" is illegal in the US. That should have been at the top of your first post. Instead, you broadcast your opinion on the logic of the death penalty.
You know how easily arguments brew up here, the way to avoid them is NOT to say what you think and then type "Let's ignore that debate". You're being disingenuous, I believe.

And I don't even care...

OK, that ends the Skybird portion of my post.

Rest of you guys: shut the hell up
Tchocky: Stop telling everyone what to do, you clod!
Everyone: leave the "teflonman" and "crybaby" out of it

Stop telling everyone what to do, you clod! :D

[U-533]

I feel that feeding and educating a Murderer or Rapist or Pedophile is a slap in my face.

At this point in time the prisons around this globe are over crowded...

Why?

Because some shrinks and some bleeding hearts got together to try and solve the worlds problems...

NEWS FLASH

Its not working.

I say the easiest way to stop criminal breeding criminal is PUBLIC:

HANGING

GASING

ELECTRICUTION

FIRING SQUAD

hell throw in the GUILLOTINE for fearfactor

and for a good show a few CRUXFICTIONS

I'm sick and tired of being told that Criminals like the ones mentioned above have rights...

OH! I almost forgot

BURN 'EM AT THE STAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:sunny:

I could really go off here but theres no use in beating a dead horse!

Unless you think it would help?

[SUBMAN1]

I feel that feeding and educating a Murderer or Rapist or Pedophile is a slap in my face.

At this point in time the prisons around this globe are over crowded...

Why?

Because some shrinks and some bleeding hearts got together to try and solve the worlds problems...

NEWS FLASH

Its not working.

I say the easiest way to stop criminal breeding criminal is PUBLIC:

HANGING

GASING

ELECTRICUTION

FIRING SQUAD

hell throw in the GUILLOTINE for fearfactor

and for a good show a few CRUXFICTIONS

I'm sick and tired of being told that Criminals like the ones mentioned above have rights...

OH! I almost forgot

BURN 'EM AT THE STAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:sunny:

I could really go off here but theres no use in beating a dead horse!

Unless you think it would help?

Finially! Someone with some common sense!

-S

[August]

You are right, August, that piece gave me quite a time to think about. However, In the excerpt from wikipedia I highlighted in red this part (following is a longer quote than before):

...

when summarizing it all, I came to the conclusion that despite the debate about the word "and" (curel and unusual), as indicated by you and the author of the wikipedia entry, there nevertheless seem to be consensus that torturing somebody to death is fulfilling both conditions.

what remains is the question to what degree suffocation is degrading to human diginity and by it's quality is equal to the pain implemented by intentional torture. Last year, so says a German blog, death candidates in Missouri and South Dakota reached a court ruling that this form of execution is scratched from the list of execution methods that are considered constitutional, because the reliabilty of one or two of the three involved agents to succeed in the purpose for which they are used already was at doubt. However, courts in Florida, Kentucky and Texas ruled differently, saying that a certain ammount of pain does not automatically cause a method of execution to be classified as "verboten". Last decembre, the dying of Angel Diaz in Florida lasted longer than half an hour.

I did not understand how that can be brought into congruence with what has been written about execution and torture in the part from wikipedia above.

Anyway, I see no reason why people should be executed with unneeded pain and suffering (which includes years and years of waiting, hoping and dissappointment, btw.) even animals do not take pleasure from the suffering of their prey, they kill to eat, and that's it. some of mankind's societies reserve the right to kill as a legalized form of retaliation. But doing that with more cruelty than needed is inhumane, barbaric, and reminds me strongly of pleasing the cheering crowds in the circus maximus. And I must say that is too cheap for me.

So when there are death penalties, and they are confirmed from highest instance - why can'T one just go and have the person shot the same day or week? For me death penalty is no penalty anyway, only a removal of a person. I oppose the idea of death as a penalty, but I take legalized preemptive killing in case of certain types of crimes into account. For example if big fishes of weapon and drug smuggling, cartell bosses, and the like, must be expected to rule their business from inside the prison, or could be the reason of kidnappings in order to have them released.

Like other contentious issues, the institution of lethal injection as the preferred execution method is an attempt at making death less distasteful to witness. Like putting a favored pet down the idea is that criminal just goes to sleep and that's it, except as we now know in certain cases like Diaz's, death did not come so quick. To me that just means we should change the cocktail to something that insures relatively instant unconsiousness as was originally intended.

It's funny though that you should mention Angel Diaz as he is like a poster boy for the death penalty as much as he is for changing the method employed.

In 1978 he murdered the director of a drug rehab organization by stabbing him 19 times while his victim slept, for which he was sentenced to a paltry 10-15 years and put in the general prison population. This gave him the time and opportunity for escape and a year later he murdered again. Now the death penalty might not be a deterrent to first offense crimes but I firmly believe that had Angel "Papo la Muerte" Diaz been put on inescapable death row for the first murder his second victim would still be alive today.

If a person proves themselves willing to kill for fun and profit then the death penalty will ensure that person never gets the chance to do it again and that IS deterrence.

[Heibges]

I'll have to disagree somewhat. There are enough stories going around that more then a few lifers preferred death to being locked in an 8x10 for the rest of their lives. And no, I'm not going to hunt links. Without experiencing either I think I would prefer death to an existence in an 8x10 and that is why in a lot of cases I am against the death penalty because it gives the criminal an easy way out and an 8x10 is a long slow death. However if it comes down to me thinking death I would prefer an execution as like they did their victim but it would have to be overwhelming evidence and not a reasonable doubt type decision. An eye for an eye and a fist for a fist.

You are right I am sure in that a couple of them felt so terrible that death was what they wanted, but I doubt that is the majority. Most of them file appeal after appeal to prlong their life that it is pathetic. That one Chinese guy who is tottally toying with the courts to prolong his execution date comes to mind.

-S

Charles Ng

He and his buddy Leonard Lake (and Lake's ex-wife) did some evil stuff.

He was arrested at a Hardware Store right next to where I was selling office supplies in South San Francisco.

[gnirtS]

If thiopental and potassium chloride fail to cause anesthesia and cardiac arrest, potentially aware inmates could die through pancuronium-induced asphyxiation. Thus the conventional view of lethal injection leading to an invariably peaceful and painless death is questionable.

And this is a problem how exactly ?

Doubt the people getting it extended the same courtesy to their victims. These people shouldn't be ENTITLED to a peaceful, painless death.

[Tchocky]

Then whats the difference between continuing an agonising and drawn-out execution process and forty lashes in the square? (as U-553 seems to want)

The penalty for breaking the law is to be deprived of some of your freedoms. To be deprived of liberty. NOT to be put through physical pain.

[Skybird]

*reads threads growth since last visit*...
(...)
..." and "crybaby" out of it
I admit I posted a long first sentence, I tend to produce "Schachtelsätze" (multi-clause sentences) in Englisch, however, if you read the first sentence in the opening posting from A to Z, you read it like this:

The flawed logic of understanding the killing of a man as a penalty, while a penalty in modern understanding is not to rebalance a cosmic scales by a principle of "an eye for an eye", but is understood as a sanction by which the behavior of the deliquent is to be influenced and changed, ...
...would be a topic for itself. Also if longterm jail sentence fit into this description.
However, let's ignore that debate. This is the story:...
etc etc

So, in my first, my very first sentence I already said that all that old debate (that we repeatedly had over the years, if you remember) would be a thread for itself - and therefor should be excluded from this one.

If I would just have demanded these old debates being ignored without refering to them and explaing that it would lead beyond the scale of this thread, you or somebody else would have complained again, too, for being mastered around and being told what he should think and say.

(In the quote I just corrected a mismatched word, "Also where longterm jail..." corrected to "Also if longterm jail..." The old sentence didn't make sense due to that wrong word.)

BTW, you are right, your first reply included a related answer. I even red it but then forgot it due to the anger meanwhile.

August and me partially agree, for the most disagree - and still were able to exchange our differing views in a reasonable way. I was willing to think about what he said, and replied to it accordingly, and I think he gave some thought to what I replied, judging by his latest answer. I must not agree, but this is the way this thread was planned: focussing on the item, not using an old bone to attract dogs from the past to get them balking and biting again about something different.

-----------------------

Answering August's latest, and Tchocky's first,

the rejection of Florida, Kentucky and Texas to positively answer the request to replace chemical execution due to it's (at that time: assumed) irreliability does not seem to indicate that there is a wide national support on adressing this contradiction between the demand of the 8th amendement not to execute in a torturing manner, and the unpredictable risk of severe and long agony caused by chemical execution. Of five states asked to consider it, three said no, two said yes.

[Tieg]

I still like my PPV idea. :P

[Skybird]

If thiopental and potassium chloride fail to cause anesthesia and cardiac arrest, potentially aware inmates could die through pancuronium-induced asphyxiation. Thus the conventional view of lethal injection leading to an invariably peaceful and painless death is questionable.

And this is a problem how exactly ?

Doubt the people getting it extended the same courtesy to their victims. These people shouldn't be ENTITLED to a peaceful, painless death.
You haven't got the point so far. What you demand is anti-constitutional. Read the part on the 8th amendement. Execution by torturing - is not only morally reprehensible, but also simply - illegal. Law-braking. You need to follow a lawcode. If you just follow your personal subjective yearning for something like revenge (on a scale on which you only decide), then this is called lynch law.

[SUBMAN1]

You haven't got the point so far. What you demand is anti-constitutional. Read the part on the 8th amendement. Execution by torturing - is not only morally reprehensible, but also simply - illegal. Law-braking. You need to follow a lawcode. If you just follow your personal subjective yearning for something like revenge (on a scale on which you only decide), then this is called lynch law.

No it is not - because it doesn't fall under the term unusual which is a requirement for the 8th. Having your thumbs screwed off before execution would probably apply however.

-S

[Tchocky]

It could be considered cruel.

The object of capital punishment is the death of the criminal, not the painful and drawn-out death of the criminal.

[Heibges]

Then whats the difference between continuing an agonising and drawn-out execution process and forty lashes in the square? (as U-553 seems to want)

The penalty for breaking the law is to be deprived of some of your freedoms. To be deprived of liberty. NOT to be put through physical pain.

Have you guys read Starship Troopers, because this is one of the great debates in the book.

Is it more cruel to lock someone in a cell for 5 years or give them 30 lashes with whip and let them go? And which is more a deterrant.

A little off topic but look at the military. Is it better to take a misguided private behind the barracks and give him a beating, or give the guy an Article 15 and maybe ruin his career?

[August]

Then whats the difference between continuing an agonising and drawn-out execution process and forty lashes in the square? (as U-553 seems to want)

The penalty for breaking the law is to be deprived of some of your freedoms. To be deprived of liberty. NOT to be put through physical pain.
Have you guys read Starship Troopers, because this is one of the great debates in the book.

Is it more cruel to lock someone in a cell for 5 years or give them 30 lashes with whip and let them go? And which is more a deterrant.

A little off topic but look at the military. Is it better to take a misguided private behind the barracks and give him a beating, or give the guy an Article 15 and maybe ruin his career?

Well I might prefer the 30 lashes over 5 years incarceration but we shouldn't mix punishment for murder and other capital crimes with lesser offenses. IMO there are some crimes which invalidate any efforts to rehabilitate the perpetrator.

As Tchocky says the object of capital punishment is the death of the criminal. I agree that should be done in the most painless method available, but, lacking a totally painless method (if one indeed exists) then next least painless method should be applied.

[fatty]

I have read some real horror stories about lethal injection. It does seem to not be a very nice way to go, but then again, that's death for you. Electric chairs cook you, nooses fail, you'll choke and cough in a gas chamber... I'm against capital punishment for its ineffective deterrent capacity, its cost, its inhumanity, etc etc but if I had to go, I'd take the firing squad. But even that has a lasting psychological impact on the executioners.

[SUBMAN1]

... if I had to go, I'd take the firing squad. But even that has a lasting psychological impact on the executioners.

Not really, because none of them know who fired the killing bullet - some were given blanks, and some real bullets. None knew which they had when the trigger was pulled, and simply aimed to make sure the person being executed didn't feel much.

[Yahoshua]

You guys do know that a bullet only costs about 7 cents U.S.? Much cheaper and just as efficient as chemicals, electricity, and ropes etc.

[SUBMAN1]

You guys do know that a bullet only costs about 7 cents U.S.? Much cheaper and just as efficient as chemicals, electricity, and ropes etc.
Really? Where are you buying your bullets because I must be buying them in the wrong place. 50 rds of .45 costs me about $12 for FMJ. That is over 3x the price!

30 cents per rd for LC 5.56 is normal too. Where do I find this 7 cent deal? .22 caliber?

[Yahoshua]

Dillon reloading press, and gunshow deals (harder to find nowadays though).

[August]

... if I had to go, I'd take the firing squad. But even that has a lasting psychological impact on the executioners.
Not really, because none of them know who fired the killing bullet - some were given blanks, and some real bullets. None knew which they had when the trigger was pulled, and simply aimed to make sure the person being executed didn't feel much.
Although that's the custom I don't believe it is a valid remedy, however I think a belief in justice, IE that the condemned deserves to die for his crime, would be.

Besides, nobody is ever forced to be in a firing squad, at least not in the US and certainly not in a civilian execution. They would all be volunteers and therefore likely to believe in what they are doing.

And yeah Fatty, I'd take a firing squad over any of the other means of execution if I had to make the choice as well.

[gnirtS]

You haven't got the point so far. What you demand is anti-constitutional. Read the part on the 8th amendement. Execution by torturing - is not only morally reprehensible, but also simply - illegal. Law-braking. You need to follow a lawcode. If you just follow your personal subjective yearning for something like revenge (on a scale on which you only decide), then this is called lynch law.
Im not american so why would i care in the slightest about their constitution ?

In my view a murderer does not deserve to live. We certainly dont want them stuck in prison all their natural life - it costs far too much.
Better clean up the scum and get rid of them. Execution should be performed by the cheapest and easiest in terms of logistics method possible. No other factors should have a say in it.

Actually, thinking about it, the metal bolts they use for cattle should be cheap, effective and reusable.

[P_Funk]

You haven't got the point so far. What you demand is anti-constitutional. Read the part on the 8th amendement. Execution by torturing - is not only morally reprehensible, but also simply - illegal. Law-braking. You need to follow a lawcode. If you just follow your personal subjective yearning for something like revenge (on a scale on which you only decide), then this is called lynch law.
Im not american so why would i care in the slightest about their constitution ?

In my view a murderer does not deserve to live. We certainly dont want them stuck in prison all their natural life - it costs far too much.
Better clean up the scum and get rid of them. Execution should be performed by the cheapest and easiest in terms of logistics method possible. No other factors should have a say in it.

Actually, thinking about it, the metal bolts they use for cattle should be cheap, effective and reusable. Its not just about the American constitution. I don't think that there is a single western constitution that says that criminals don't have a right to not be tortured.

Though some here seem to have a sick desire to see others suffer terrible pain, the argument that because they are criminals it doesn't matter, is barbaric and completely against the spirit of constitutional law. Every nation that holds human rights dear guarentees them above retribution.

If ending a criminals life is considered constitutional then the goal of the punishment is to deny him life. Any part of the American constitution does not condone the intentional or ancillary effect of torture or unncessary pain. The purpose of capital punishment is simply to deny life, and nothing more. All constitutions in the western world are similar in this case where they allow for execution.

The argument that you don't care if they feel pain or not is moot since it is already a legal precedent that they should not. Skybird pointed this out in his first post. Personal opinion is irrelavent anyway since the constitution is above ideological viewpoints.

Concerning whether its possible to die without pain, I don't know why lethal injection uses the chemicals that it does. What about morphine? I've read that death by morphine overdose is calm and painless. Doctors that help terminal patients die use this drug. Also doctors often place patients in medically induced comas. This is also done without pain. Certainly then if an inmate were in a coma he wouldn't feel pain.

There are obvioulsy ways to end a person's life without pain. Arguing that they don't have that right is to therefore argue against constitutionally guarenteed rights. And even if you argue that there is some 'wiggle room' in terms of how much pain can be allowed, if there is a means to avoid it then there is no reason not to.

[The Avon Lady]

:/\\chop

[Skybird]

IMO there are some crimes which invalidate any efforts to rehabilitate the perpetrator.

As Tchocky says the object of capital punishment is the death of the criminal. I agree that should be done in the most painless method available, but, lacking a totally painless method (if one indeed exists) then next least painless method should be applied.

I must agree on both. The first, because my understanding of penalty being an effort to change the behavior of an offender in the future (and/or that of others who watch his example) leads me to conclude that some people may be immune to rehabilitation and and alteration of behavior. The second - well, that is clear.

Easiest solution: simply use an anesthetic like during surgery, and then do whatever is considered to be necessary. Or use overdosed Morphine.

[Skybird]

You haven't got the point so far. What you demand is anti-constitutional. Read the part on the 8th amendement. Execution by torturing - is not only morally reprehensible, but also simply - illegal. Law-braking. You need to follow a lawcode. If you just follow your personal subjective yearning for something like revenge (on a scale on which you only decide), then this is called lynch law.
Im not american so why would i care in the slightest about their constitution ?

Because the constitution is part of the problem being adressed in this thread. Maybe it's the thread then that you are not interested in.


P_Funk,

great answer of yours, that almost totally summarizes my views.

[U-533]

Then whats the difference between continuing an agonising and drawn-out execution process and forty lashes in the square? (as U-553 seems to want)

The penalty for breaking the law is to be deprived of some of your freedoms. To be deprived of liberty. NOT to be put through physical pain.

I didn't say anything about 40 lashes in the square.

I ranted in favor of PUBLIC EXOCUTION.

But... I'm sure there are certain crimes to which a public lashing would suffice...such as talking on your cellphone while driving:sunny:

[gnirtS]

Contrary to what people are posting here a lethal dose of morphine isn't always just going to sleep and stopping breathing. There can be incredible reactions to it some of which are horrific.

Im still failing to see why the criminal should be given a painfree death when their victims weren't given that same courtesy.

Cattle bolt would still seem a quick, cheap and relatively painless way if people insist on that.

[SUBMAN1]

Death is a painful experience, so what is the big problem? Your body is designed to naturally fight against death and pain is its method to make you not want to do something to avoid death.

So I don't get the point of this conversation. To execute a man, it is going to be painful to the body. Plain and simple. This is not cruel. This is not unusual. This is how it is.

So what exactly are we talking about here?

-S

[Tchocky]

Unnecessary cruelty and causing of pain, totally unrelated to the object of execution. If an over-the-top method of execution is in use, when a less painful one is available, the message is sent that it's OK for the justice system to knowingly cause physical pain in retribution for crimes committed.
I don't know why people are saying that it's OK, because they didnt offer whoever they killed a painful way out. Why are ye accepting the morals of a murderer?


Death is a painful experience... - Yes, probably. But nobody knows for sure.

[SUBMAN1]

Unnecessary cruelty and causing of pain, totally unrelated to the object of execution. If an over-the-top method of execution is in use, when a less painful one is available, the message is sent that it's OK for the justice system to knowingly cause physical pain in retribution for crimes committed.
I don't know why people are saying that it's OK, because they didnt offer whoever they killed a painful way out. Why are ye accepting the morals of a murderer?


Death is a painful experience... - Yes, probably. But nobody knows for sure.
Well, as far as I know, the executed has the option to choose the method in most states. Washington for example has hanging or lethal injection as an option. Also, there is a time limit for when the accused are going to die. We don't have all night for Morphene to work. The person to be executed needs to die at the set time. Period. THese other methods of spending time to induce a comma, and then stop the heart is nonsense. I believe this is part of the law, and I look at it as a right to the victims and a right to the soon to be executed. They need to face death - period - not death after something else is done to their body. That is execution - to face death as a penalty. i.e. THey must know what is happening to them and face it.

[ASWnut101]

So what exactly are we talking about here?

-S

WARNING: SCIENCE CONTENT AHEAD!


The first drug (5 grams of Sodium Thiopental, a barbituate) is a drug designed to bring about a very quick MEC (Medically Induced Coma), in which the "user" is completely unconsious; he cannot feel a thing, and is dead asleep. The subject will eventually die in this state with 5 grams of Sodium Thiopental.

The second drug (100 miligrams of Pancuronium or Turbocurarine) causes a chemically induced paralasys of all muscles (which includes the "breathing muscle" diaphragm) except the heart, causing death via asphyxiation.

The third and final drug (100 miliequivalents [mEq's] of Potassium Chloride) is supposed to induce cardiac arrest, but is quite unreliable. It's the last drug injected into the subject to complete the process.


There is two major problems with this combonation of drugs: getting the right amount of Sodium thiopental and getting the Potassium Chloride to simply work.

To obtain the leathal amount of Sodium thiopental (S.T. for now) to work correctly, you need to inject 3-5 milligrams for every kilogram the person weighs (so if the man is 200 pounds/91 kilos, he would get a dose of about 300 milligrams). The people who admisistered the drug were using a single amount for everyone, regardless of weight. This meant that some patients who weighed a lot would wake up in the middle of the second and third drugs' phases, experiencing "pain," but they could not express it because the S.T. still had control over basic movement.

Also because the Potassium Chloride would not always work, the subject would experience the pain of asphyxiation only.




Do I care? Absolutally not. 99% of those people deserved it.

[Skybird]

Okay, you guys want to discuss the old stuff I tried to prevent. Maybe I was naive to think that both things could be kept separate. So I give it up.

-------------------------------------------------

Do I care? Absolutally not. 99% of those people deserved it.

Simply completely wrong.

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/pr/00/06/lawStudy.html#footnote1
http://www.peaceworkmagazine.org/pwork/1200/122k11.htm

Reversible Error Found In Nearly 7 out of 10 Capital Cases in 23 Year Period

A groundbreaking study was released today, which examined every capital conviction and appeal between 1973 and 1995 (nearly 5,500 judicial decisions). By moving beyond individual cases, this report, entitled A Broken System: Error Rates in Capital Cases, reveals a death penalty system collapsing under the weight of its own mistakes.
Nationally, during the 23-year study period, the overall rate of prejudicial error in the American capital punishment system was 68%. (In other words, courts found serious, reversible error in nearly 7 out of every 10 of the capital cases that were finally reviewed during this period.)

To be clear: (1) This is not a sample. It counts all final decisions between 1973 and 1995. (2) This study counts only final decisions reversing state capital verdicts; if a judicial decision was not final because a higher court with a right to review it might disagree with it and reinstate the verdict, the decision was not counted. (3) Unlike some proposed numbers, which make the misleading assumption that capital verdicts that have not yet been inspected are free of serious error, the error rates reported here count only capital verdicts that have been fully reviewed by the courts.


High error rates lead innocent persons to be sentenced to die. The study of post-reversal outcomes reveals that 82% of those whose capital judgments were overturned due to serious error were given a sentence less than death after the errors were cured on retrial. Seven percent were found to be not guilty of the capital crime.
Catching so many errors takes an average of nine years from death sentence to execution. In most cases, death row inmates wait for years for the lengthy review procedures needed to uncover all this error. Then, their death sentences are reversed.
High error rates persist over time. More than 50% of all cases reviewed were found to be seriously flawed in 20 of the 23 study years, including 17 of the last 19. In half the years, including the most recent one, the error rate was over 60%.
High error rates exist across the country. More than 90% of states that administer death sentences have overall error rates of 52% or higher. 85% have error rates of 60% or higher. Three-fifths have error rates of 70% or higher. (State-by-state reports cards are available.)Capital sentences do spend a long time under judicial review. As this study documents, however, judicial review takes so long precisely because American capital sentences are so persistently and systematically fraught with error that seriously undermines their reliability.
Our 23 years worth of results reveal a death penalty system collapsing under the weight of its own mistakes. They reveal a system in which lives and public order are at stake, yet for decades has made more mistakes than we would tolerate in far less important activities. They reveal a system that is wasteful and broken and needs to be addressed


Just use Google, guys. There is plenty of statistics and examionations indicating that in general the error rate is incredibly high. Depending on what sources you rely, between 7 and 21% of all cases found the accused not only to be deserving a far lesser penalty - but to be completely innocent.

I save me from quoting what AI has to say on it in arguments and statistics, for many here would reject it - if not for the data, than because it is AI. Shooting the messenger. Use Google, if you are interested.

I find this bloodthirsty craving of some for the killing of others irritating. I find the calls for doing it in a most cruel way, or at least to accept it being a more painful procedure than needed, disgusting, and inhumane. You can't give back a life you have taken. so don'T be so easy to take a life. If the standards of a criminal who commited intended murder become yours - what separates you from him, then? Nothing. The majority of killings happening in crimes - happen not by intention, and are not preplanned murder, but jhappen by the heat of the moment, and when things getting out of control. The law is not about that archaic biblic stuff "eye for an eye". "Bloodrevenge" is not the understanding of justice in modern legal codes, and modern societies. These societies are secular societies and must no allow ancient barbarian religions taking over command of the state, or the legal system.

Thank God that we have moved beyond such murderous times.

[gnirtS]

Sorry but anyone who deliberately sets out to kill a law abiding member of the public has no right to continue living and has no right to expect to be pain free either.
They knew the score when they committed the crime.

[Skybird]

Sorry but anyone who deliberately sets out to kill a law abiding member of the public has no right to continue living and has no right to expect to be pain free either.

The answer to that is not given by your subjectivity, but the law. And the law varies from state to state. Your opinion is not law.

Most killings are not deliberate in the meaning of intentional/preplanned. that is the statistcial fact in every Western nation. Google!

Concenring no right for pain-free: you argue against regulations of the US constitution, then. Look earlier in this thread. I won't tell it a third time.

Your argument does not set you apart from those you condemn. For me, your moral stand is not any better than theirs, for you make yourself equal to them, and accept their standards to rule your deeds.

One who thinks he could decide while being in a state of emotion, is wrong. He gets decided.

[SUBMAN1]

Okay, you guys want to discuss the old stuff I tried to prevent. Maybe I was naive to think that both things could be kept separate. So I give it up.

-------------------------------------------------

Do I care? Absolutally not. 99% of those people deserved it.
Simply completely wrong.

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/pr/00/06/lawStudy.html#footnote1
http://www.peaceworkmagazine.org/pwork/1200/122k11.htm

Reversible Error Found In Nearly 7 out of 10 Capital Cases in 23 Year Period

A groundbreaking study was released today, which examined every capital conviction and appeal between 1973 and 1995 (nearly 5,500 judicial decisions). By moving beyond individual cases, this report, entitled A Broken System: Error Rates in Capital Cases, reveals a death penalty system collapsing under the weight of its own mistakes.
Nationally, during the 23-year study period, the overall rate of prejudicial error in the American capital punishment system was 68%. (In other words, courts found serious, reversible error in nearly 7 out of every 10 of the capital cases that were finally reviewed during this period.)

To be clear: (1) This is not a sample. It counts all final decisions between 1973 and 1995. (2) This study counts only final decisions reversing state capital verdicts; if a judicial decision was not final because a higher court with a right to review it might disagree with it and reinstate the verdict, the decision was not counted. (3) Unlike some proposed numbers, which make the misleading assumption that capital verdicts that have not yet been inspected are free of serious error, the error rates reported here count only capital verdicts that have been fully reviewed by the courts.
High error rates lead innocent persons to be sentenced to die. The study of post-reversal outcomes reveals that 82% of those whose capital judgments were overturned due to serious error were given a sentence less than death after the errors were cured on retrial. Seven percent were found to be not guilty of the capital crime.
Catching so many errors takes an average of nine years from death sentence to execution. In most cases, death row inmates wait for years for the lengthy review procedures needed to uncover all this error. Then, their death sentences are reversed.
High error rates persist over time. More than 50% of all cases reviewed were found to be seriously flawed in 20 of the 23 study years, including 17 of the last 19. In half the years, including the most recent one, the error rate was over 60%.
High error rates exist across the country. More than 90% of states that administer death sentences have overall error rates of 52% or higher. 85% have error rates of 60% or higher. Three-fifths have error rates of 70% or higher. (State-by-state reports cards are available.)Capital sentences do spend a long time under judicial review. As this study documents, however, judicial review takes so long precisely because American capital sentences are so persistently and systematically fraught with error that seriously undermines their reliability.
Our 23 years worth of results reveal a death penalty system collapsing under the weight of its own mistakes. They reveal a system in which lives and public order are at stake, yet for decades has made more mistakes than we would tolerate in far less important activities. They reveal a system that is wasteful and broken and needs to be addressed

Just use Google, guys. There is plenty of statistics and examionations indicating that in general the error rate is incredibly high. Depending on what sources you rely, between 7 and 21% of all cases found the accused not only to be deserving a far lesser penalty - but to be completely innocent.

I save me from quoting what AI has to say on it in arguments and statistics, for many here would reject it - if not for the data, than because it is AI. Shooting the messenger. Use Google, if you are interested.

I find this bloodthirsty craving of some for the killing of others irritating. I find the calls for doing it in a most cruel way, or at least to accept it being a more painful procedure than needed, disgusting, and inhumane. You can't give back a life you have taken. so don'T be so easy to take a life. If the standards of a criminal who commited intended murder become yours - what separates you from him, then? Nothing. The majority of killings happening in crimes - happen not by intention, and are not preplanned murder, but jhappen by the heat of the moment, and when things getting out of control. The law is not about that archaic biblic stuff "eye for an eye". "Bloodrevenge" is not the understanding of justice in modern legal codes, and modern societies. These societies are secular societies and must no allow ancient barbarian religions taking over command of the state, or the legal system.

Thank God that we have moved beyond such murderous times.
This sounds like its written by a lawyer, or a panel of lawyers - or a bunch of bleeding hearts out to abolish the death penalty. I don't buy it without evidence.

-S

[gnirtS]

Most killings are not deliberate in the meaning of intentional/preplanned. that is the statistcial fact in every Western nation. Google!

Hence in the UK we have manslaughter and murder. In the USA they have first and second degree murder. In the case of premeditated murder (ie first degree) it was calculated, planned and therefore they made the choice.

Im not arguing for executing people guilty of manslaughter.


Concerningno right for pain-free: you argue against regulations of the US constitution, then. Look earlier in this thread. I won't tell it a third time.

Im not american so have absolutely no interest in their constitution. Im putting forward my view and that is simple, by murdering someone in cold blood the people have given up ANY rights they have on this planet as far as im concerned.


Your argument does not set you apart from those you condemn. For me, your moral stand is not any better than theirs, for you make yourself equal to them, and accept their standards to rule your deeds.

Equal people dont kill each other. These people stepped way outside all measures of decency and expected behaviour so in my view have forfeited any rights they may have had. Nobody forced them to do it but they did it anyway, they deserve to be treated like scum and disposed of.
This "no better than them" is rubbish. They murdered innocent people. Execution them is their punishment for that - im not about to go and kill innocent people like they did.


One who thinks he could decide while being in a state of emotion, is wrong. He gets decided.[/quote]

[Tchocky]

SUBMAN, that study was carried out by Columbia University NY, not lawyers.

[SUBMAN1]

SUBMAN, that study was carried out by Columbia University NY, not lawyers.

That explains it then since most educational institutions are extremely liberal and anti death penalty - especially NY U's. So that should invalidate their study based on bias alone.

To remind people why we have the death penalty, this is why:

http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/images/dpstatsyearly7wq.jpg

http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/images/dpstatsgrouped3fj.jpg

[fatty]

SUBMAN, that study was carried out by Columbia University NY, not lawyers.

That explains it then since most educational institutions are extremely liberal and anti death penalty - especially NY U's. So that should invalidate their study based on bias alone.

To remind people why we have the death penalty, this is why:


Do you realize the irony in saying that a study shouldn't be valid because of an "anti death penalty" bias and then linking to graphics from a pro-death penalty site in the same post?

[SUBMAN1]

Do you realize the irony in saying that a study shouldn't be valid because of an "anti death penalty" bias and then linking to graphics from a pro-death penalty site in the same post?
Yep. And it was done on purpose that way - I call it an act of balancing. This anti death penalty articles that state 7 out of 10 people didn't do it are all full of crap because they fail to accurately show how they come up with the numbers, and fail to prove anything one way or another. It's pretty pathetic.

-S


PS. Here are some places to visit that are widely varied for the real answers on the word 'deterrence':

ARTICLES ON DEATH PENALTY DETERRENCE
Below are citations and abstracts of articles on the deterrent effect of capital punishment. Our goal is to collect the abstracts of all studies published in reputable peer-reviewed journals in the last ten years, as well as working papers of studies submitted for such publication. We welcome suggestions for additions to this list. Please e-mail Kent Scheidegger via our contact (http://www.cjlf.org/contact.htm) page.

• PUBLISHED RESEARCH
Paul R. Zimmerman
Estimates of the Deterrent Effect of Alternative Execution Methods in the United States: 1978-2000
American Journal of Economics and Sociology, vol. 65, no. 4, p. 909 (Oct. 2006)
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=355783 (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=355783)
Abstract: Several recent econometric studies suggest that states' application of capital punishment deters the rate of murder . Since the U.S. Supreme Court's moratorium on state executions was lifted in 1976, states with death penalty laws have executed individuals using one or more of five different methods of execution (electrocution, lethal injection, gas chamber asphyxiation, hanging, and/or firing squad). The perceived "brutality" of certain execution methods (such as electrocution and gas chamber asphyxiation) has also recently lead to lethal injection being imposed as the sole method of execution in several death penalty states.

Using a panel of state-level data over the years 1978-2000, this paper examines whether the method by which death penalty states conduct their executions affects the per-capita incidence of murder in a differential manner. Several measures of the subjective probability of being executed are developed taking into account the timing of individual executions as in Mocan and Gittings (2001). The empirical estimates suggest that the deterrent effect of capital punishment is driven primarily by executions conducted by electrocution. None of the other four methods of execution are found to have a statistically significant impact on the per-capita incidence of murder. These results are robust with respect to the manner in which the subjective probabilities of being executed are defined, whether or not a state has a death penalty law on the books, the removal of state and year fixed effects, controls for state-specific time trends, simultaneous control of all execution methods, and controls for other forms of public deterrence. In addition, it is shown that the negative and statistically significant impact of electrocutions is not driven by the occurrence of a "botched" electrocution execution during the relevant time period.

Paresh Narayan & Russell Smyth
Dead Man Walking: An Empirical Reassessment of the Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment Using the Bounds Testing Approach to Cointegration
Applied Economics, vol. 38, no. 17, pp. 1975-1989 (Sept. 20, 2006)
http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/link.asp?id=v52h522p45083jl7
Abstract: This paper empirically estimates a murder supply equation for the United States from 1965 to 2001 within a cointegration and error correction framework. Our findings suggest that any support for the deterrence hypothesis is sensitive to the inclusion of variables for the effect of guns and other crimes. In the long-run we find that real income and the conditional probability of receiving the death sentence are the main factors explaining variations in the homicide rate. In the short run the aggravated assault rate and robbery rate are the most important determinants of the homicide rate.

Hashem Dezhbakhsh & Joanna M. Shepherd
The Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment: Evidence from a "Judicial Experiment"
Economic Enquiry, vol. 44, no. 3, pp. 512-535 (July 2006)
http://ei.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/44/3/512?ct
Abstract: We use panel data for 50 states during the 1960–2000 period to examine the deterrent effect of capital punishment, using the moratorium as a "judicial experiment." We compare murder rates immediately before and after changes in states' death penalty laws, drawing on cross-state variations in the timing and duration of the moratorium. The regression analysis supplementing the before-and-after comparisons disentangles the effect of lifting the moratorium on murder from the effect of actual executions on murder. Results suggest that capital punishment has a deterrent effect, and that executions have a distinct effect which compounds the deterrent effect of merely (re)instating the death penalty. The finding is robust across 96 regression models.

Richard Berk
[B]New Claims about Execution and General Deterrence: Deja Vu All over Again?
Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, vol. 2, issue 2, pp. 303-330 (July 2005)
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1740-1461.2005.00052.x
Abstract: A number of papers have recently appeared claiming to show that in the United States executions deter serious crime. There are many statistical problems with the data analyses reported. This article addresses the problem of "influence," which occurs when a very small and atypical fraction of the data dominate the statistical results. The number of executions by state and year is the key explanatory variable, and most states in most years execute no one. A very few states in particular years execute more than five individuals. Such values represent about 1 percent of the available observations. Reanalyses of the existing data are presented showing that claims of deterrence are a statistical artifact of this anomalous 1 percent.

Dale O. Cloninger & Roberto Marchesini
Execution Moratoriums, Commutations and Deterrence: the case of Illinois
Applied Economics, vol. 38, no. 9, pp. 967-973 (May 20, 2006)
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/routledg/raef/2006/00000038/00000009/art00001
Abstract: In an earlier work the impact of an execution moratorium in Texas on the monthly returns (first differences) of homicides was investigated. That moratorium was judicially imposed pending the appeal of a death sentence that could have had widespread consequences. A similar methodology is applied to the state of Illinois. In January 2000, the Governor of Illinois declared a moratorium on executions pending a review of the judicial process that condemned certain murderers to the death penalty. In January 2003 just prior to leaving office, the Governor commuted the death sentences of all of those who then occupied death row. It is found that these actions are coincident with the increased risk of homicide incurred by the residents of Illinois over the 48 month post-event period for which data were available. The increased risk produced an estimated 150 additional homicides during the post-event period.

Robert Weisberg
The Death Penalty Meets Social Science: Deterrence and Jury Behavior Under New Scrutiny
Annual Review of Law and Social Science, vol. 1, pp. 151-170 (December 2005)
http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.lawsocsci.1.051804.082336 (http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.lawsocsci.1.051804.082336)
Abstract: Social science has long played a role in examining the efficacy and fairness of the death penalty. Empirical studies of the deterrent effect of capital punishment were cited by the Supreme Court in its landmark cases in the 1970s; most notable was the 1975 Isaac Ehrlich study, which used multivariate regression analysis and purported to show a significant marginal deterrent effect over life imprisonment, but which was soon roundly criticized for methodological flaws. Decades later, new econometric studies have emerged, using panel data techniques, that report striking findings of marginal deterrence, even up to 18 lives saved per execution. Yet the cycle of debate continues, as these new studies face criticism for omitting key potential variables and for the potential distorting effect of one anomalously high-executing state (Texas). Meanwhile, other empiricists, relying mainly on survey questionnaires, have taken a fresh look at the human dynamics of death penalty trials, especially the attitudes and personal background factors that influence capital jurors.

Joanna M. Shepherd, Clemson University
Murders of Passion, Execution Delays, and the Deterrence of Capital Punishment
Journal of Legal Studies, vol. 33, no. 2, pp. 283-322 (June 2004)
http://people.clemson.edu/~jshephe/DPpaper_fin.pdf (http://people.clemson.edu/%7Ejshephe/DPpaper_fin.pdf)
Abstract: I examine two important questions in the capital punishment literature: what kinds of murders are deterred and what effect the length of the death-row wait has on deterrence? To answer these questions, I analyze data unused in the capital punishment literature: monthly murder and execution data. Monthly data measure deterrence better than the annual data used in earlier capital punishment papers for two reasons: it is impossible to see monthly murder fluctuations in annual data and only monthly data allow a model in which criminals update their perceived execution risk frequently. Results from least squares and negative binomial estimations indicate that capital punishment does deter: each execution results in, on average, three fewer murders. In addition, capital punishment deters murders previously believed to be undeterrable: crimes of passion and murders by intimates. Moreover, murders of both black and white victims decrease after executions. This suggests that, even if the application of capital punishment is racist, the benefits of capital punishment are not. However, longer waits on death row before execution lessen the deterrence. Specifically, one less murder is committed for every 2.75-years reduction in death row waits. Thus, recent legislation to shorten the wait on death row should strengthen capital punishment's deterrent effect.

Paul R. Zimmerman
State Executions, Deterrence and the Incidence of Murder
Journal of Applied Economics, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 163-193 (May 2004)
http://www.cema.edu.ar/publicaciones/download/volumen7/zimmerman.pdf
Abstract: This study employs a panel of U.S. state-level data over the years 1978-1997 to estimate the deterrent effect of capital punishment. Particular attention is paid to problems of endogeneity bias arising from the non-random assignment of death penalty laws across states and a simultaneous relationship between murders and the deterrence probabilities. The primary innovation of the analysis lies in the estimation of a simultaneous equations system whose identification is based upon the employment of instrumental variables motivated by the theory of public choice. The estimation results suggest that structural estimates of the deterrent effect of capital punishment are likely to be downward biased due to the influence of simultaneity. Correcting for simultaneity, the estimates imply that a state execution deters approximately fourteen murders per year on average. Finally, the results also suggest that the announcement effect of capital punishment, as opposed to the existence of a death penalty provision, is the mechanism actually driving the deterrent effect associated with state executions.

Zhiqiang Liu
Capital Punishment and the Deterrence Hypothesis: Some New Insights and Empirical Evidence
Eastern Economic Journal, vol. 30, iss. 2, p. 237 (Spring 2004)
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=352681 (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=352681)
Abstract: Economists have made repeated efforts through both theoretical modeling and empirical testing to understand the deterrent effect of capital punishment. By and large, they have found a negative and statistically significant effect of capital punishment on the act of murder (that is, the death penalty deters murder). Ehrlich [1975] provides the first systematic analysis of the relationship between capital punishment and murder along with the first empirical test of the deterrence hypothesis concerning not only capital punishment but also other deterrent measures. His results suggest that on the average eight murder victims might have been saved as a result of one execution for the sample period 1933-67 in the United States. Although Ehrlich's work was criticized by scholars such as Waldo [1981] and Forst [1983], many subsequent studies, using independent time-series and cross-section data from the United States [Ehrlich, 1977; Layson, 1985; Cloninger, 1992; Ehrlich and Liu, 1999; Dezhbakhsh, et al. 2000], Canada [Layson, 1983] and the UK [Wolpin, 1978], have offered corroborating evidence consistent with the deterrence hypothesis.

H. Naci Mocan & R. Kaj Gittings
Getting Off Death Row: Commuted Sentences and the Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment
Journal of Law and Economics, vol. 46, no. 2, pp. 453-478 (October 2003)
http://econ.cudenver.edu/mocan/papers/GettingOffDeathRow.pdf
Abstract: This paper merges a state-level panel data set that includes crime and deterrence measures and state characteristics with information on all death sentences handed out in the United States between 1977 and 1997. Because the exact month and year of each execution and removal from death row can be identified, they are matched with state-level criminal activity in the relevant time frame. Controlling for a variety of state characteristics, the paper investigates the impact of the execution rate, commutation and removal rates, homicide arrest rate, sentencing rate, imprisonment rate, and prison death rate on the rate of homicide. The results show that each additional execution decreases homicides by about five, and each additional commutation increases homicides by the same amount, while an additional removal from death row generates one additional murder. Executions, commutations, and removals have no impact on robberies, burglaries, assaults, or motor-vehicle thefts.

Hashem Dezhbakhsh, Paul H. Rubin, & Joanna M. Shepherd
Department of Economics, Emory University
Does Capital Punishment Have a Deterrent Effect? New Evidence from Postmoratorium Panel Data
American Law & Economics Review, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 344-376 (Fall 2003)
http://www.cjlf.org/deathpenalty/DezRubShepDeterFinal.pdf
Abstract: Evidence on the deterrent effect of capital punishment is important for many states that are currently reconsidering their position on the issue. We examine the deterrent hypothesis using county-level, post-moratorium panel data and a system of simultaneous equations. The procedure we employ overcomes common aggregation problems, eliminates the bias arising from unobserved heterogeneity, and provides evidence relevant for current conditions. Our results suggest that capital punishment has a strong deterrent effect; each execution results, on average, in 18 fewer murders—with a margin of error of plus or minus 10. Tests show that results are not driven by tougher sentencing laws, and are also robust to many alternative specifications.

Lawrence Katz, Steven D. Levitt & Ellen Shustorovich
Prison Conditions, Capital Punishment, and Deterrence
American Law and Economics Review, vol. 5, issue 2, pages 318-343 (Fall 2003)
http://econpapers.hhs.se/article/oupamlawe/v_3A5_3Ay_3A2003_3Ai_3A2_3Ap_3A318-343.htm

Abstract: Previous research has attempted to identify a deterrent effect of capital punishment. We argue that the quality of life in prison is likely to have a greater impact on criminal behavior than the death penalty. Using state-level panel data covering the period 1950--90, we demonstrate that the death rate among prisoners (the best available proxy for prison conditions) is negatively correlated with crime rates, consistent with deterrence. This finding is shown to be quite robust. In contrast, there is little systematic evidence that the execution rate influences crime rates in this time period.
James A. Yunker, Western Illinois University
A New Statistical Analysis of Capital Punishment Incorporating U.S. Postmoratorium Data
Social Science Quarterly, vol. 82, no. 2, pp. 297-311 (2002) http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/issue.asp?ref=0038-4941&vid=82&iid=2&oc=&s=&site=1
Objective: This article reports on a basic regression analysis of the deterrence hypothesis incorporating U.S. data that has accumulated since the resumption of capital punishment in 1977. Methods. The cross-sectional approach employs data on state homicide rates and estimated execution rates between 1976 and 1997 across 50 states and the District of Columbia. The time series approach employs annual data on the U.S. national homicide rate and estimated national execution rate between 1930 and 1997. Results. Using state data, statistically weak support is found for the deterrence hypothesis. Using national time series data, considerably stronger statistical support is found for the deterence hypothesis. It is also shown that the same time series regression using data from 1930 to 1976 does not support the deterrence hypothesis, thus showing the probative value of the more recent data. Conclusions. Statistical data from the postmoratorium period are likely to be useful in evaluating the deterrence hypothesis, and therefore social scientists should be carefully examining this evidence.
Dale O. Cloninger & Roberto Marchesini
University of Houston --Clear Lake
Execution and Deterrence: A Quasicontrolled Group Experiment
Applied Economics, vol. 33, no. 5, pp. 569-576 (2001)
http://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/applec/v33y2001i5p569-76.html
Abstract: Using portfolio analysis in a type of controlled group experiment, this study develops an empirical model of homicide changes in Texas over a period of a "normal" number of executions. The empirically derived model then estimates the changes in the number of homicides in Texas (1) over a period of near zero executions and; (2) over an immediate subsequent period of double the "normal" number of executions. The actual changes in Texas homicides over the first period is less than estimated by the model and greater (or no different) than estimated by the model in the second period. Because changes in the number of homicides in Texas and throughout the United States were negative over both periods, these empirical results are consistent with the deterrence hypothesis. That is, there were a greater than predicted number of homicides in the first period and fewer than predicted number in the second period.
Jon Sorensen, Robert Wrinkle, Victoria Brewer, & James Marquart
Capital punishment and deterrence: Examining the effect of executions on murder in Texas Crime and Delinquency, vol. 45, no.4, pp. 481-493 (Oct. 1999)
http://www.justiceblind.com/death/sorensen.html
Abstract: This study tested the deterrence hypothesis in Texas, the most active execution jurisdication during the modern era.

Isaac Ehrlich and Zhiqiang Liu
Sensitivity Analysis of the Deterrence Hypothesis: Lets Keep the Econ in Econometrics
Journal of Law and Economics, vol. 42, no. 1, pp. 455-487 (April 1999)
http://econpapers.hhs.se/article/ucpjlawec/v_3A42_3Ay_3A1999_3Ai_3A1_3Ap_3A455-87.htm
Abstract: Leamer and McManus applied Extreme Bound Analysis (EBA) in an empirical study of the deterrent effects of capital punishment and other penalties. Their analysis has questioned the validity of the deterrence hypothesis. The thrust of our paper is twofold: first, by applying EBA to well-known econometric models of demand, production, and human-capital investment, our analysis exposes and illustrates the inherent flaws of EBA as a method of deriving valid inferences about model specification. Second, since the analysis shows Leamer and McManus's inferences about deterrence to be based on a flawed methodology, we offer an alternative, theory-based sensitivity analysis of estimated deterrent effects using similar data. Our analysis supports the deterrence hypothesis. More generally, it emphasizes the indispensable role of theory in guiding sensitivity analyses of model specification.


Harold J. Brumm and Dale O. Cloninger
Perceived Risk of Punishment and the Commission of Homicides: A Covariance Structure Analysis
Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, vol. 31, no. 1, pp. 1-11 (Sept. 1996)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/01672681
(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/01672681)After clicking the link, choose "volumes 31-40," then "volume 31, issue 1", finally click on "abstract."
Abstract: If the behavior of potential murderers does in fact respond to the risk of punishment, it is the perceived risk rather than the ex post risk as measured by arrest rates, conviction rates, or execution rates. Previous empirical studies of homicide behavior have, by and large, ignored this distinction. The present paper accommodates this distinction by estimating a covariance structure model in which the perceived risk is treated as an endogenous latent variable, with two measures of sanctions as its indicators. Cross-section data are used for the estimation. One of the principal findings is that the homicide commission rate is significantly and negatively correlated with the perceived risk of punishment, which provides empirical support for the deterrence hypothesis (Ehrlich, 1975). The other principal findings are that the perceived risk of punishment is (a) significantly and negatively correlated with the homicide commission rate, and (b) significantly and positively correlated with police presence. The latter results provide empirical support for the resource saturation hypothesis (Fisher and Nagin, 1978).

• WORKING PAPERS
Charles N.W. Keckler
Life v. Death: Or Why the Death Penalty Should Marginally Deter
(August 24, 2005). George Mason Law & Economics Research Paper No. 05-23, http://ssrn.com/abstract=789864
Abstract: Econometric measures of the effect of capital punishment have increasingly provided evidence that it deters homicides. However, most researchers on both sides of the death penalty debate continue to rely on rather simple assumptions about criminal behavior. I attempt to provide a more nuanced and predictive rational choice model of the incentives and disincentives to kill, with the aim of assessing to what extent the statistical findings of deterrence are in line with theoretical expectations. In particular, I examine whether it is plausible to suppose there is a marginal increase in deterrence created by increasing the penalty from life imprisonment without parole to capital punishment. The marginal deterrence effect is shown to be a direct negative function of prison conditions as they are anticipated by the potential offender - the more tolerable someone perceives imprisonment to be, the less deterrent effect prison will have, and the greater the amount of marginal deterrence the threat of capital punishment will add. I then examine the empirical basis for believing there to be a subset of killers who are relatively unafraid of the prison environment, and who therefore may be deterred effectively only by the death penalty. Criminals, empirically, appear to fear a capital sentence, and are willing to sacrifice important procedural rights during plea bargaining to avoid this risk. This has the additional effect of increasing the mean expected term of years attached to a murder conviction, and may generate a secondary deterrent effect of capital punishment. At least for some offenders, the death penalty should induce greater caution in their use of lethal violence, and the deterrent effect seen statistically is possibly derived from the change in the behavior of these individuals. This identification of a particular group on whom the death penalty has the greatest marginal effect naturally suggests reforms in sentencing (and plea bargaining) which focus expensive capital prosecutions on those most resistant to alternative criminal sanctions.
John R. Lott, Jr. and William M. Landes
Multiple Victim Public Shootings, Bombings, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handgun Laws: Contrasting Private and Public Law Enforcement
University of Chicago Law School, John M. Olin Law and Economics Working Paper No. 73 (2002)
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=161637
Link to earlier version of the working paper: http://www.thevrwc.org/JohnLott.pdf
Abstract: Few events obtain the same instant worldwide news coverage as multiple victim public shootings. These crimes allow us to study the alternative methods used to kill a large number of people (e.g., shootings versus bombings), marginal deterrence and the severity of the crime, substitutability of penalties, private versus public methods of deterrence and incapacitation, and whether attacks produce "copycats." Yet, economists have not studied this phenomenon. Our results are surprising and dramatic. While arrest or conviction rates and the death penalty reduce "normal" murder rates, our results find that the only policy factor to influence multiple victim public shootings is the passage of concealed handgun laws. We explain why public shootings are more sensitive than other violent crimes to concealed handguns, why the laws reduce both the number of shootings as well as their severity, and why other penalties like executions have differential deterrent effects depending upon the type of murder.


• ESSAYS
Cass R. Sunstein & Adrian Vermeule
Is Capital Punishment Morally Required? The Relevance of Life-Life Tradeoffs
58 Stan. L. Rev. 703 (Jan. 2006)
http://www.stanford.edu/group/lawreview/content/issue3/sunstein1.pdf (http://www.stanford.edu/group/lawreview/content/issue3/sunstein1.pdf)
Abstract: Many people believe that the death penalty should be abolished even if, as recent evidence seems to suggest, it has a significant deterrent effect. But if such an effect can be established, capital punishment requires a life-life tradeoff, and a serious commitment to the sanctity of human life may well compel, rather than forbid, that form of punishment. The familiar problems with capital punishment— potential error, irreversibility, arbitrariness, and racial skew—do not require abolition because the realm of homicide suffers from those same problems in even more acute form. Moral objections to the death penalty frequently depend on a sharp distinction between acts and omissions, but that distinction is misleading in this context because government is a special kind of moral agent. The widespread failure to appreciate the life-life tradeoffs potentially involved in capital punishment may depend in part on cognitive processes that fail to treat “statistical lives” with the seriousness that they deserve. The objection to the act/omission distinction, as applied to government, has implications for many questions in civil and criminal law.

Carol S. Steiker
No, Capital Punishment is Not Morally Required: Deterrence, Deontology, and the Death Penalty
58 Stan. L. Rev. 751 (Jan. 2006)
http://www.stanford.edu/group/lawreview/content/issue3/steiker.pdf (http://www.stanford.edu/group/lawreview/content/issue3/steiker.pdf)
Cass Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule argue that, if recent empirical studies finding that capital punishment has a substantial deterrent effect are valid, consequentialists and deontologists alike should conclude that capital punishment is not merely morally permissible but actually morally required. While the empirical studies are highly suspect (as John Donohue and Justin Wolfers elaborate in a separate article in this Issue), this Article directly critiques Sunstein and Vermeule’s moral argument. Acknowledging that the government has special moral duties does not render inadequately deterred private murders the moral equivalent of government executions. Rather, executions constitute a distinctive moral wrong (purposeful as opposed to nonpurposeful killing) and a distinctive kind of injustice (unjustified punishment). Moreover, acceptance of “threshold” deontology in no way requires a commitment to capital punishment even if substantial deterrence is proven. Rather, arguments about catastrophic “thresholds” face special challenges in the context of criminal punishment. This Article also explains how Sunstein and Vermeule’s argument necessarily commits us to accepting other brutal or disproportionate punishments and concludes by suggesting that even consequentialists should not be convinced by the argument.

Cass R. Sunstein & Adrian Vermeule
Deterring Murder: A Reply
58 Stan. L. Rev. 847 (Dec. 2005)
http://www.stanford.edu/group/lawreview/content/issue3/sunstein2.pdf (http://www.stanford.edu/group/lawreview/content/issue3/sunstein2.pdf)
No abstract.

[Tchocky]

SUBMAN, that study was carried out by Columbia University NY, not lawyers.
That explains it then since most educational institutions are extremely liberal and anti death penalty - especially NY U's. So that should invalidate their study based on bias alone.
Thats a load of rubbish, SUBMAN. Because the academic community leans towards liberalism doesn't mean that this individual piece of work is "invalidated". If the professor in question has a history of distortion or misleading publications, then it's a different story. Don't say it should be invalidated because of a perceived institutional and regional bias, that sounds like you want to discredit it but have no tools with which to do so. Might that be because it doesn't show the death penalty in a good light? I don't know.

This isnt an op-ed piece, it's a study of every capital conviction and appeal between 1973 and 1995. It shows that nearly 7 in every 10 appealed cases contained serious errors.
The professor who undertook the research is anti death penalty, that doesn't change the results of judicial review. It doesn't change the findings of the appeal judges.
I can see why Skybird didnt want a DP debate

That explains it Hardly.

[waste gate]

The death penalty only hurts those convicted of a capital crime, who have been judged by a jury of their peers, and sentanced to death. Nothing else needs to be said, deterence isn't the issue, pain of the condemed isn't the issue, whether you like it isn't the issue, it is the law in the US, based on porportionality, prescribed by the "eye for an eye" laws which date back thousands of years.

[SUBMAN1]

SUBMAN, that study was carried out by Columbia University NY, not lawyers.
That explains it then since most educational institutions are extremely liberal and anti death penalty - especially NY U's. So that should invalidate their study based on bias alone.
Thats a load of rubbish, SUBMAN. Because the academic community leans towards liberalism doesn't mean that this individual piece of work is "invalidated". If the professor in question has a history of distortion or misleading publications, then it's a different story. Don't say it should be invalidated because of a perceived institutional and regional bias, that sounds like you want to discredit it but have no tools with which to do so. Might that be because it doesn't show the death penalty in a good light? I don't know.

This isnt an op-ed piece, it's a study of every capital conviction and appeal between 1973 and 1995. It shows that nearly 7 in every 10 appealed cases contained serious errors.
The professor who undertook the research is anti death penalty, that doesn't change the results of judicial review. It doesn't change the findings of the appeal judges.
I can see why Skybird didnt want a DP debate

That explains it Hardly.
In that whole peice, you can't find a way to validate their arguments. If you read it, they are drawing 'assumptions' because one court did something that the next court over-turned. That is complete garbage! The reason it was overturned is because a reason was found to invalidate the originals 'wrong' decision - the very reason you have these kinds of checks and balances.

So yes - this paper is the worse garbage I have ever read on the subject! It is Landmark in the fact that an institution like this can produce something so bad and still be taken seriously by society! :down:

7 out of 10 wrongly executed! BS.

[Tchocky]

In that whole peice, you can't find a way to validate their arguments. If you read it, they are drawing 'assumptions' because one court did something that the next court over-turned. That is complete garbage! The reason it was overturned is because a reason was found to invalidate the originals 'wrong' decision - the very reason you have these kinds of checks and balances. Er, yeah. The first court screws up, and the appeals court discovers this. And in 68% of cases, the original error was serious and reversible.
Maybe I'm misreading you, care to expand?
It's a study of capital appeals cases, and the errors that courts have found in the original cases. It's a study of those checks and balances.
As far as I remember, almost all death sentences are appealed. Here, in almost 70% of those appeals, serious errors have been found in the original case, things like
(1) egregiously incompetent defense lawyers (37%); (2) prosecutorial misconduct, often the suppression of evidence of innocence (19%); and (3) faulty instructions to jurors (20%).
7 out of 10 wrongly executed! BS. That's not what the paper says :-?

you're placing "assumptions" in quotation marks. It's in the piece once. In a footnote

Anyway, if this was your objection, couldnt you have said that first? Nevermind, it's an East Coast unversity so it must be wrong.

[SUBMAN1]

Er, yeah. The first court screws up, and the appeals court discovers this. And in 68% of cases, the original error was serious and reversible.
Maybe I'm misreading you, care to expand?
It's a study of capital appeals cases, and the errors that courts have found in the original cases. It's a study of those checks and balances.
As far as I remember, almost all death sentences are appealed. Here, in almost 70% of those appeals, serious errors have been found in the original case, things like
(1) egregiously incompetent defense lawyers (37%); (2) prosecutorial misconduct, often the suppression of evidence of innocence (19%); and (3) faulty instructions to jurors (20%).
7 out of 10 wrongly executed! BS. That's not what the paper says :-?

you're placing "assumptions" in quotation marks. It's in the piece once. In a footnote

Anyway, if this was your objection, couldnt you have said that first? Nevermind, it's an East Coast unversity so it must be wrong.
Yes, you are correct - I should have stated that first, and I am biased towards this U that state reports like this, and I should say (To be PC) the paper is written in a way to 'suggest' (instead of out right out saying it - since that is what the paper is trying to do without saying it - but trust me, it is trying to say that as direct as possible) 7 out of 10 executions are wrongly executed. We've heard these arguments over and over and they are just plain wrong. Any angle these people can get (I would state the liberal E. Coast U's, but I will be PC and state 'these people' instead), no matter how distorted, they will take it.

I am trying my best to be PC about this, but its all garbage to distort the truth - months and years in a courtroom reduced to this or that which one court says, they may have a case, where the Supreme court looks at it and say thats garbage and over-turns it.

And to top all of this off, the footnotes do not link off properly to sources as you are taught to do in any University paper that you want to get better than an 'F' grade on. Get the point? If you are going to make such a broad statement as this article suggests, you need easily found proof to back it up from a non biased source (I'd take an even biased one for starters) - not a simple phone number. Its pathetic.

-S

PS. In proper studies and research, you need soemthing that is reproducable by someone else. This article does nothing of the sort. To even use this article on a U paper, you would get '0' credit for it by any professor.

[P_Funk]

The death penalty only hurts those convicted of a capital crime, who have been judged by a jury of their peers, and sentanced to death. Nothing else needs to be said, deterence isn't the issue, pain of the condemed isn't the issue, whether you like it isn't the issue, it is the law in the US, based on porportionality, prescribed by the "eye for an eye" laws which date back thousands of years. Are you talking about the Constitution of the US or your desired interpretation of select parts of it based on your religious convictions?

Laws and precedents going back thousands of years mean nothing. The history of law by religious standard can have no realvent meaning before the signing of the constitution since the constitution calls for seperation of church and state. To judge the laws of the US by religious standard or pre-constitutional precedent is to completely ignore the whole point of having created a constitution. It is in fact in complete ignorance of the whole reason people left England to live in North America.

And to say that deterrence isn't an issue is to ignore the purpose of several state capital punishment legislations which sought the death penalty for lesser crimes tha murder for the exact purpose of deterring them. And for the pain caused to the convicted, that is also protected in their inalienable rights. If they are guilty of murder nothing states that they have no rights. And as you said yourself, how you feel about it is irrelavent if it is law.

Whether anyone feels someone deserves the rights they still have after they commit a terrible crime is irrelavent because those rights have already been guarenteed for centuries. And it is the same in any Western democracy including Canada, and the UK and most of Western Europe.

[Tchocky]

And to top all of this off, the footnotes do not link off properly to sources as you are taught to do in any University paper that you want to get better than an 'F' grade on. Get the point? If you are going to make such a broad statement as this article suggests, you need easily found proof to back it up from a non biased source (I'd take an even biased one for starters) - not a simple phone number. Its pathetic.

-S

PS. In proper studies and research, you need soemthing that is reproducable by someone else. This article does nothing of the sort. To even use this article on a U paper, you would get '0' credit for it by any professor.
It's not the survey itself, it's a news report about the survey. Hence the interview snippets, and the very first sentence
A groundbreaking study was released today, News articles dont usually have linking footnotes

[SUBMAN1]

It's not the survey itself, it's a news report about the survey. Hence the interview snippets, and the very first sentence
News articles dont usually have linking footnotes
That is what I am trying to say - Finially! Do not believe it until you have the full report for yourself. I news article like this I cannot take for more than its face value - which amounts to about 0. This is why I objected to it even being brought up in the first place since people are trying to use it as the gosphel for this thread.

Now if we never get the underlying report, then we really know something is not right with it.

Anyway, i just wait for it to be poked full of holes. Besides, this news article can have everything out of context as well.

-S

[waste gate]

since the constitution calls for seperation of church and state

Where does it say this? I want the words from my country's constitution, not your interpretation.

Here is the amendment.


Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

[P_Funk]

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion...

Is that not what I was referring to?

[Sea Demon]

since the constitution calls for seperation of church and state

Where does it say this? I want the words from my country's constitution, not your interpretation.

Here is the amendment.


Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.


It's funny the things people interpret in and out of our Constitution. Ain't it wastegate? I would love to see anybody take up your challenge. I want to see it as well.

[P_Funk]

It's funny the things people interpret in and out of our Constitution.
Yea like the Supreme Court. What a bunch of Charlatans.:roll:

[waste gate]

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion...

Is that not what I was referring to?

My man don't forget this part.
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof

No where is the seperation of church and state mentioned. That particular idea does not exist in the US Constitution.

[P_Funk]

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion...
Is that not what I was referring to?
My man don't forget this part.
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof

No where is the seperation of church and state mentioned. That particular idea does not exist in the US Constitution.
How does the fact that the State may not create legislation that is religiously motivated not mean that state and church may not be joined? The phrase "seperation of church and state" is a summarization of the accepted interpretation of the constitution in that sense. No laws may be passed that hinder the practise of religion. But at the same time the state is not allowed to bias itself towards any religious belief.

Hence the seperation thereof.

[waste gate]

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion...
Is that not what I was referring to?
My man don't forget this part.
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof

No where is the seperation of church and state mentioned. That particular idea does not exist in the US Constitution.
How does the fact that the State may not create legislation that is religiously motivated not mean that state and church may not be joined? The phrase "seperation of church and state" is a summarization of the accepted interpretation of the constitution in that sense. No laws may be passed that hinder the practise of religion. But at the same time the state is not allowed to bias itself towards any religious belief.

Hence the seperation thereof.

No law has been passed endorsing a religion' thus if, the ten commandments, or a nativity scene is placed on public land it is constitutionaly legal and accepable, like a manora or any other religious symbol. Whether or not that or any other symbol is displayed is an issue left to the states or the people. Another principal of the US Consitution.

[Tchocky]

Let's remember what "establishment of religion means"

An established church is a church officially sanctioned and supported by the government of a country.

No where is the seperation of church and state mentioned. That particular idea does not exist in the US Constitution.
Surely it is inherent in Congress making "no law respecting an establishment of religion"

[P_Funk]

No where is the seperation of church and state mentioned. That particular idea does not exist in the US Constitution. Surely it is inherent in Congress making "no law respecting an establishment of religion"
Thats exactly my bloody point. I think that wastegate is splitting hairs on this trying to maneuver me into an argument that I'm not making.

[baggygreen]

You know, someone said earlier on in the thread that they thought the US was the only western state with the death penalty.

I personally think it oughta be widened to every country.

If you got a bleeding heart who is worried about a condemned prisoners pain from an injection, well hey, lets make the death much faster - Waste gate mentioned guillotine, and im all for it! cant get much quicker than that!

"oh, they'll feel the pain for an instant"
give em anaesthetic.
"oh they'll feel pain from the needle"
give em an anaesthetic swab before the needle.

simple:)

If the mods and skybird are happy enough with the slight variation to the general OP, is there a correlation between lack of corporal punishment in schools these days and the number of kids gettin up to serious mischief, and potentially ending up condemndededded themselves??

[P_Funk]

I really resent the fact that I would be a "bleeding heart" because I'm concerned with the rights of a human being. I don't think that there is enough compassion in the world. So many people are too quick to dismiss the value of a human life just because they deem their actions to be reprehensible. Human life should be valued above all else and the rights of all men are universal above all else. I find it unimaginable that so many people can find so much hate for people who have done nothing to them personally.

The irony I see is that if the criminal caused so much pain to his victim, and that that pain and suffering were terrible enough that he should be condemned, that many somehow see it as being different in returning that suffering unto him. The sick satisfaction in knowing that these men might indeed suffer terrible pain in their final moments leaves me with an empty disgusted feeling. If it is so evil what they have done, then I see little difference in doing the same to them.

Be you Christian, aetheist, or apathetic, I see no reason for this blood lust.

[baggygreen]

Certainly didnt mean to label you as such p-funk, it just so happened i posted after you - nothing implied against yourself, scouts honour. the sole targets of my 'bleeding hearts' comment was those who jump up on a soapbox in front of the media before every execution saying lets forgive em, let em go, blah blah. Never mind they're likely to kill again, just let em go free, its only natural, blah blah.

Honestly, personally, if a condemned man suffers at his end, it doesnt fuss me too much. Perhaps it will lead to a true understanding of what they put their victims through. Having said that, obviously like most other people i do have a degree of compassion, and would prefer that there not be the pain which would result from these injections causing asphyxia. (if they're anaesthetised beforehand, do they still feel the pain of suffocation??:hmm: ) Anyways, like i said, i advocate the guillotine, because what is quicker?? honestly?

Just to further clarify my comment saying reintroduce capital punishment - can anyone say that most if not all people condemned have not done something so heinous as to warrant it? people such as hannibal lecter, any of the KKK members involved in bombings or lynchings, etc. timmy mcveigh certainly warranted it as far as im concerned, and to put a more recent spin on it, so would the south korean nutjob from last week had he survived.

Down here, people like ivan milat (the backpacker murders), and Martin Bryant (Port arthur) deserve it.

This is all my opinion of course - i respect other peoples opinions as well, and they can debate or pick apart my argument as they wish :)

[P_Funk]

Certainly didnt mean to label you as such p-funk, it just so happened i posted after you - nothing implied against yourself, scouts honour. Ah. No problem mate. Good that we can get along then.:up: And my own comments about the sick satisfaction in suffering and all that jive, not at you either since you don't seem to be particularly blood thirsty.;)

Just to further clarify my comment saying reintroduce capital punishment - can anyone say that most if not all people condemned have not done something so heinous as to warrant it? people such as hannibal lecter, any of the KKK members involved in bombings or lynchings, etc. timmy mcveigh certainly warranted it as far as im concerned, and to put a more recent spin on it, so would the south korean nutjob from last week had he survived. My concern is that while many who may have deserved such a fate from a personal point of view, there are certainly going to be those that are wrongfully convicted that will end up being killed for a crime they didn't commit and that is to me, more than the moral implication, a risk that cannot in my estimation be acceptable. Human institutions of law and justice are imperfect and though we might try as hard as we can to be certain of convictions, there will always be injustices. That to me invalidates the death penalty from a logical and a sociological point of view. The most dear and important concern of the justice system is that of the innocent and protecting them. That is primary above all else. I then contend that the possibility of an irreversible sentense negates its permissibility.

As they say, 100 guilty men, before a single innocent.

Oh, and I'm pretty sure that Hannibal Lector is entirely fictional.;)

[baggygreen]

Glad we understand each other :)

Your contention certainly makes sense. But, what about cases where there is no doubt as to the guilt of the accused? Would that change your mind about the use of the maximum penalty? Suppose it was only invoked where there was in no way shape or form any doubt at all?


Oh, and I'm pretty sure that Hannibal Lector is entirely fictional.;):shifty:


hmm. i knew that.:shifty: :rotfl:

No, i did, but i've got a scrambled brain at the moment. Was he not based somewhat upon a real-life person?

[Tchocky]

Yeah, mix of bundy/Gein/Dahmer and maybe Homolka

Topic: I don't think 100% definitive proof exists, but that's neither here nor there.
Given the cost of appeal after appeal, and the long amount of time usually spent on death row, I think that communting all DP sentences to life without parole wouldn't carry such a financial penalty.

*shrug* off the top of my head, that is

[P_Funk]

Glad we understand each other :)

Your contention certainly makes sense. But, what about cases where there is no doubt as to the guilt of the accused? Would that change your mind about the use of the maximum penalty? Suppose it was only invoked where there was in no way shape or form any doubt at all? So far as I know whenever a man is sentenced to death it is already after "all reasonable doubt" has been dismissed. The concept of truth or doubt or untruth are all subjective. Furthermore many people can be completely certain of something while it can later be proven false. I don't think that there is a definitive form of truth. Absolute certainty cannot be found. We get by with whatever permissible truths we can prove to a certain measured degree of satisfaction. I do believe that proof beyond a reasonable doubt is sufficient for non-lethal forms of punishment. However I think that when it comes to the death penalty no kind of certainty is sufficient.

But even if we could, hypothetically, be completely unerringly certain about one man's guilt, the standard by which we apply sentences is universal. We cannot say that a penalty is allowed in once case but not another. That form of system would only open up huge holes for endless appeals and would bog down the system. That would create a fundamental form of inequality amongst the inmates. And that is a whole new can of worms.

I see it as two extremes, one of the only times that I will ascribe to an extreme. Either we kill them all without consideration, or we err on the side of caution. And since we cannot be absolutely the I see only one acceptable policy.

So in short, no.:p

[Skybird]

Since there has been some intentional or unintentional misunderstanding concerning the study that I linked.

I know that study since longer, since some years (note the sites I linked are years old). It was available via the top link in the second reference link I set up (that'S where I once got it from myself), but apparently is no more, as I just have learned. It seems it now is available only from the author himself, maybe for the purpose of fund raising, I don't know. (link is at the bottom of the first article).

Liebman is a criminal defense attorney in real life, and is also teaching law at the columbia university. the study nevertheless is no study ordered and conducted by the university, but a project encouraged by a private foundation and supported by the university (this kind of parthnership seems to be more common in america than in europe, at least germany), and being conducted under use of regular scientific working-criterions and statistical methods. It started before Liebman came to Columbia, and since then has seen a second part, and still seem to continue into the present. It is a long-range project.

Liebman is kind of an activist for abolition of death penalty. However, this does not limit his competence in the field of laws, nor does it reduce the scientific value of his work. He is also a prime target for pro-death-penalty-lobbyists (who so far failed in countering his analysis in equal scientific terms). The debate about death penalty in the US is waged with religious fervour especially from the pro-camp, like the one abourt firearms, and from an european perspective it is often seen like a look into our own european past. But fervour can't replace data and argument. In this, Liebman's work has a reputation that is known far beyond America. Nevertheless it is under agitatory fire almost constantly. He is putting finger into wide open wounds, and for doing so he will not be forgiven.

Don't shoot the messenger. Question the message - if you can, and then please by data of at least equal quality. As the footnote I quoted said: the analysis is not basing on a sample, but on the whole, complete set of records over more than 20 years.

One can hardly argue then that flaws in the system, as described in the data, are exceptions only. Liebman did a simple counting job of ALL records within the timeframe of over 20 years. There were no more, and he did not leave any out. That leaves no space for statistical variations, and differing interpretations.

[tycho102]

All I have to say is the people who support "life sentences" don't account for prison riots, inflation, war, various social disorder (Rodney King), and corporatists (Republicans).

The cost is higher than reported. No one reports the real cost because it would take a billion-dollar study to evaluate all the variables.

[SUBMAN1]

All I have to say is the people who support "life sentences" don't account for prison riots, inflation, war, various social disorder (Rodney King), and corporatists (Republicans).

The cost is higher than reported. No one reports the real cost because it would take a billion-dollar study to evaluate all the variables.

Is that why there is talk of privatizing all our prisons? I for one think this is not a good idea, but what do I know?

-S

[elite_hunter_sh3]

beheading... quick..painless and simple... thank you Dr. guillotine


(if spelling incorrect... who cares!)

[Tchocky]

All I have to say is the people who support "life sentences" don't account for prison riots, inflation, war, various social disorder (Rodney King), and corporatists (Republicans).

The cost is higher than reported. No one reports the real cost because it would take a billion-dollar study to evaluate all the variables. I don't see how a war or a Rodney King situation increases the cost of keeping someone in jail. So....you know the results of a billion-dollar study :?

[P_Funk]

All I have to say is the people who support "life sentences" don't account for prison riots, inflation, war, various social disorder (Rodney King), and corporatists (Republicans).

The cost is higher than reported. No one reports the real cost because it would take a billion-dollar study to evaluate all the variables. So now we base the decision of whether to kill a man or not on economics? Why don't we just sell the constitution to McDonalds and let the kids rewrite it on a place mat.:roll:

Is that why there is talk of privatizing all our prisons? I for one think this is not a good idea, but what do I know? I totally agree. I'm not a fan of privatization. If its the government's responsibility then you can't let it become a function of profit margins. That'll just corrupt the whole process. Not to mention making it into a business venture. That opens all kinds of doors to corruption.

[Tchocky]

There is way too much that is wrong with this story

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/05/08/workman.execution/index.html?eref=rss_us

[ASWnut101]

There is way too much that is wrong with this story

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/05/08/workman.execution/index.html?eref=rss_us

Like?

Oh, the dramatic flair in the beginning of the story about him trying to buy a pizza for a homeless guy?

Or was it when he said "I'm not going to play no killing game," yet at the very end of the article he said, "It almost makes me want to choose the electric chair." So, which one is it? Don't choose or do?


There is something wrong with this article: It's extreme bias that was used by the article's author.

[Tchocky]

Well, this bit

His defense said that new ballistics evidence suggests Oliver died from friendly fire at the robbery scene. They also pointed to the recanted statements of a key eyewitness who now says he lied when he testified at Workman's trial that he saw Workman shoot Oliver

[waste gate]

Well, this bit

His defense said that new ballistics evidence suggests Oliver died from friendly fire at the robbery scene. They also pointed to the recanted statements of a key eyewitness who now says he lied when he testified at Workman's trial that he saw Workman shoot Oliver

At least he received a trial. In this country 25,000 a week do not. Where is your outrage over that?

[ASWnut101]

Well, this bit

His defense said that new ballistics evidence suggests Oliver died from friendly fire at the robbery scene. They also pointed to the recanted statements of a key eyewitness who now says he lied when he testified at Workman's trial that he saw Workman shoot Oliver

Well, the jury found him guilty, so that simply wasn't enough to convince them that he didn't do it. Besides, that's what a defence lawyer does.

[Tchocky]

ASW - The jury didnt have that evidence, and an appeal based on it was denied. 5 jurors have since said they wouldnt vote to convict knowing what they know now. it's in the linked story

Waste - who are you talking about now? I'm not outraged, that story depressed me more than anything else

[waste gate]

Waste - who are you talking about now? I'm not outraged, that story depressed me more than anything else

Abortion (aka genocide).

[Tchocky]

Abortion (aka genocide).
Ah.

*leaves well alone*

[waste gate]

Abortion (aka genocide).
Ah.

*leaves well alone*

You stand up for convicted murders but not the unborn? :nope: Shame on you.

[ASWnut101]

ASW - The jury didnt have that evidence, and an appeal based on it was denied. 5 jurors have since said they wouldnt vote to convict knowing what they know now. it's in the linked story


Mind to provide a link (It isn't in the main story, mabye one of it's links?)? I can't seem to find what you are talking about. I read the appeal about the process of the execution, but that's all I could find.


This story officially got my attention.

:hmm:

[Tchocky]

Mind to provide a link (It isn't in the main story, mabye one of it's links?)? I can't seem to find what you are talking about. I read the appeal about the process of the execution, but that's all I could find.


This story officially got my attention.

:hmm:
Got it from here http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/05/02/workman.sidebar/index.html

more on wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Workman


Abortion (aka genocide). Ah.

*leaves well alone*
You stand up for convicted murders but not the unborn? :nope: Shame on you.
if you look through the articles you'll see that "convicted" carries less weight than it sounds.
Shame on me? You'll notice that I made no comment on abortion, didn't respond. I don't want to drag an interesting thread off-topic, shameful indeed :roll:. If you want to talk abortion then start another thread.

[waste gate]

Mind to provide a link (It isn't in the main story, mabye one of it's links?)? I can't seem to find what you are talking about. I read the appeal about the process of the execution, but that's all I could find.


This story officially got my attention.

:hmm:
Got it from here http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/05/02/workman.sidebar/index.html

more on wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Workman


Abortion (aka genocide). Ah.

*leaves well alone*
You stand up for convicted murders but not the unborn? :nope: Shame on you.
if you look through the articles you'll see that "convicted" carries less weight than it sounds.
Shame on me? You'll notice that I made no comment on abortion, didn't respond. I don't want to drag an interesting thread off-topic, shameful indeed :roll:. If you want to talk abortion then start another thread.

I was trying to give some porportion. One person who was tried by a jury versus tens of thousands killed at the whim of an individual.

[Tchocky]

I was trying to give some porportion. One person who was tried by a jury versus tens of thousands killed at the whim of an individual.A man killed by lethal injection is dead, we all agree. Not everyone believes the same about an unborn child, whether they are truly alive to begin with. (again, I don't want to debate abortion on this thread).
Nice of you to jump straight to "shame on you" though

[Skybird]

Another one bites the dust: Christopher Newton.

http://www.welt.de/vermischtes/article895958/Hinrichtung_dauert_fast_zwei_Stunden.html

After two hours, and ten attempts.

Wouldn't happen with a firing squad as long as you don't intentionally design the projectiles to fly that long. That guy at least had humour, it seems, and was joking with the personell. So I dare say this excution was another of those highly ridiculous ones.

Or just a sick joke.

[Frau_Phillips]

Ah me. I can already see a hijacked death penalty thread turning into an abortion thread.
You guys are sure gluttons for punishment.

As for the ORIGINAL topic.
If the death penalty is indeed "right" (not saying it is) but if it is, then it has to be carried out in the most humane way possible. The goal of capital punishment is not to cause the criminal to suffer, it's to eliminate him, and all fears of him causing further problems.
If we were trying to make the guy writhe in pain as he died, that would be torture.
Imo, punishing a guy for mercilessly and painfully killing a victim, should not be done by mercilessly and painfully killing the criminal.
Somebody's gotta take the high road here.

"Spraying aerosol cans is WRONG, so to punish you, I'm going to spray an aerosol can in your FACE!"

[ASWnut101]

Ah me. I can already see a hijacked death penalty thread turning into an abortion thread.
You guys are sure gluttons for punishment.

As for the ORIGINAL topic.
If the death penalty is indeed "right" (not saying it is) but if it is, then it has to be carried out in the most humane way possible. The goal of capital punishment is not to cause the criminal to suffer, it's to eliminate him, and all fears of him causing further problems.
If we were trying to make the guy writhe in pain as he died, that would be torture.
Imo, punishing a guy for mercilessly and painfully killing a victim, should not be done by mercilessly and painfully killing the criminal.
Somebody's gotta take the high road here.


Well, "leathal injection" does work how it's supposed to quite a bit of the time, too.


"Spraying aerosol cans is WRONG, so to punish you, I'm going to spray an aerosol can in your FACE!"

That's a good idea...:lol:




If everyone is so concerned about the dude suffering, then I guess it is time to bring back the `ol guillotene.

[tycho102]

http://tron-chaser.net/images2/m_huffing1.jpg

[Hitman]

Sorry to arrive obviously late to this topic, but I wanted to comment this briefly: The flawed logic of understanding the killing of a man as a penalty, while a penalty in modern understanding is not to rebalance a cosmic scales by a principle of "an eye for an eye", but is understood as a sanction by which the behavior of the deliquent is to be influenced and changed (for which it is a precondition that he continues to live), would be a topic for itself. Also where longterm jail sentence fit into this description.


There are basically two concepts of *justice* in modern legal systems, 1) Retributive justice, and 2) Restitutive justice.

The first one is about making so to speak legal "revenge" i.e. to cause a pain in response to a pain, with two main reasons in support, a) Make a controlled and acceptable revenge available to society, b) Disuade other people from commiting crimes. 99% of the criminal legal systems fall into this category.

The second one is about restoring the situation to the initial point, i.e. giving each one what according to laws and justice belonged to him. This is the basis of 99% of civil laws systems (Bürgerisches Gesetz Buch or civil laws code for most EU countries under continental separate law system).

Nobody in a laws university would nowadays pretend to apply the principles behind the second system to the first one, i.e. "restitutional" forms of law are per definition impossible to be executed perfectly in criminal systems (You can give someone the money he has right to, plus interest rate, but you can't erase from someone's mind the terrible experience of being raped, f.e., or you can't bring to life again a murdered person).

I give you a :up: in your understanding of the logic behind the criminal legal system, but I thought it was worth explaining the concept a bit more, as the part of society who is not educated in laws (The majority!) tends to understand wrong what is behind it all.