I think there's a prerequisite "based on what he did", which on its own already qualifies the criminal for the death penalty.

The remaining benefits are icing on the cake. :D

"Based on what he did" he got already a time in prison.

If we kill him for what he has not yet done, we are 1) Punishing him twice for the same crime, (For what he did he gets prison and now also death penalty) 2) Applying the worser punishment for the less important crime (One not yet commited versus a commited one), 3) Punishing something with the worser punishment possible based on probabilities and future projections, not in facts.

Anyway, I'm already sliding into the technical part of this (Proffesional deformation, probably), where these ideas were discarded more than a century ago, while Skybird and you are in a different categorical level.:hmm:

As I said already before, I have nothing against the death penalty, and I concur with you in the "icing of the cake" effect: Some bastards do not even deserve that money from the society is spent in having them alive in prison.

Yet my practical objection to death penalty remains: The posibility of error is too worse to be ignored. :dead:

Hitman, don't try so hard to misunderstand me.

My text says very clearly what I mean: I talked of major figures of organised crime whom are influential enough that they would continue to contorl their criminal empire from inside the prison. I talked of major figures of terror, chiefs or organizations who smuggle weapons, military goods, drugs, women, etc. I also said that the usual stree-criminal or murder of passion is NOT meant by this.

So it is about major gangster or terrorists who are sent to jail for something they already did, and that they are likely to continue to do from there, by directing their criminal business from their cell, or becoming the motivation for other, free gangster to commit violance in order to blackmail the state to set them free.

I also said that death is n ot a penalty in the priecise meaning of the term, and that this way of doing (like I suggest) is not about penalty but about collective self-defense against ongoing communal damage being done by such people.

Really, don't try so hard to misunderstand me and quote me wrong.

I simple do not subscribe to this opinion that a human life, no matter whose, at all cost, always and inevitably is of higher value than to prevent certain kinds of ongoing major crimes, damages, disadvantages that bring misery and risk for dozens, thousands, millions of other people. I also refuse on these statements that all men are of equal value - that is simply idealistic hysteria. All men are NOT of equal value, and the survival of some is of greater moral worth or even factual importance than to protect the lives of others. The law in many countries gives an individual the right to self-defense (and in that: kill an attacker) for protecting even smaller interests: not the lives of thousands and millions, but that single life of himself "only".

On this part I totally agree, and said so. I linked to some revealing statistics some months ago. And additionally always on my mind: "death as a penalty" is a contradiction in itself. Penalty implies that the person receiving a penalty survives it in order to alter his behavior, because behavioral alteration is the hope of today's concept of penalty. If that always works, is something different (the chances are the smaller the more often or the more habit commiting crimes have become in a person's life - that is also about what psychologists would define as "learning"). "Death" cannot be a penalty, but only a "prevention" of future crimes, or an "interruption" of ongoing crimes. It is also the psychological understanding of the term, especially in behaviouristic school and psychological conceptions of "learning".

No, that's only half of the story. There is a very important difference between restitutive (civil) and retributive (criminal) concepts of justice.
Essentially, restitutive concepts mean returning to someone what belongs to him (F.e. someone owes money to another, then you forced him to pay) and imply that the perfect satisfaction -justice- can be achieved.

But justice in the retributive systems appears as a proportioned response to the offence using the same means (Inflicting a pain). Why? Because unlike a money debt (civil system) you can't reestablish the balance of justice simply by restoring the object of offence, as it many times isn't possible (F.e. psychological consequences for a victim of rape) or does fall into a different category (Money does not compensate properly a permanent hurt).

It is commonly admited nowadays that a criminal penalty has a double reason, yet that doesn't mean both fall into the category of punishment:

1) Retributive: As highlighted in the "social contract" concept by Locke, the state has the monopoly in any form of violence and punishment, taking away it from citizens. Yet it in turns guarantees revenge in the retributive component of the punishments it is enforced to apply, to satisfy the desire of revenge of any offended citizen. It is to be noted that in retributive systems, justice is finished, restablished or consumed by the application of the punishment.

2) Reeducative: Once the retribution of the crime has been accomplished, justice has been made (Remember we are in a criminal law concept) and the secondary function can be applied: The individual can be reeducated to get back to society. But it is important to note here that justice is done with the retribution, and not with the reeducation. Reeducation appears as an attempt to guarantee against future antisocial behaviours once the balance of justice has been restablished by retribution. The fact that reeducation and retribution are applied together in the same time line (In the prison) shall not obscure that they are ontologically different concepts which respond to very different purposes (Justice versus social security).

Essentially, death penalty simply implies that the retribution of the crime consumes already the life of the subject, and as such reeducation is impossible. Yet as you must observe, it doesn't exclude the concept of justice through punishment in itself, only the secondary role of the punishment, which is not conceptually a part of the justice conception behind it, but more a social prevention task.

This all is to illustrate why I don't concur to your idea of death punishment being a contradiction because it excludes reeducation. Reeducation is not conceptually a part of the criminal justice conception.

That's a very different matter, but it wasn't so clear to me in your previous post. When you refered to "tool of prevention" I understood you were still in the legal level and were talking about the secondary role of the pubishment I mentioned previously. Now I realize you were talking about a different perspective, far away from the strictly legal of criminal punishment for a crime and entering the politic/philosophical of security preventions in general terms. Being so, I don't have anything to say against that, as I was not willing to discuse such measures (Like selective assasination of terrorists and such).

GERMAN>ENLISH>SPANISH>ENGLISH>GERMAN>ENGLISH>SPANI SH :88)

Hitman,

as I see it you reinvent the concept of "blood revenge", eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, and so on. the archaic/old coneption of justice was a cosmic one: one tribe member for example slaugters the member of another tribe. Cosmos is off balcne by that, the baöance needs to be established again: So the second clans demands the life of one member of the first clan in return. both clans have suffered the same ammount of loss (this concept for the most is about quantity, not quality), the balance has been restored.

Today's modern concept of justice is to repair damage that has been done (if this is possible, we talk about compensation), or to"resocialize" offenders and until then try to alter their behavior by expose them to aversive simuli, like preventing them freedom ba locking them away. Modern laws were explicitly meant to overcome the old concept of revenge. The state has no monopole to issue revenge, he has a monopole on using force, so that he can force an offender to submit to this process. It is not about revenge, eniether for the state, nor for the ones who received harm. I do not know how it is in Spain, but I can't imagine that it is so much different in your country, since your country underwentz the same cultural evolution like most of Europe. In Germany, the rejection of taking revenge, often, time and again, is explicitly reiterated by lawyers, after a lawcase that found public interst and was covered by media cam to an end.

One can argue if the conception of resocialising, and altering behavior by locking people away, or send them to therapy in prison, is reasojmbale or not, im my understanding it sometimes work, sometimes not, and all in all does not work as well as it's defenders often argue. these measurements too often ignore the harsh social realities people are confronted with, so they are tools for an ideal, utopic world, what doesnot mean that sometimes people do not leave prison as "better" men indeed. But the habit of committing crimes, for example because you are member of the lower social class, grew up on the street in street gangs, etc etc, is a psychological self-dynamic of intense, great power, and illustrates a learning history that is antagonistic to the learning history you hope to establish by sending an offender to prison (aversive stimulus after display of unwanted behavior). The qurstion is, which of these two leaqrning historieshas the greater dynamic. Having been sent to prison repeatedly can become so aversive that a man finally decides to try his best to avoid return at all cost, especially when he has become older. It could also mean that he got used to it, so the rehabilitation effect is even smaller. It also explains why the perspective is worse for those with already a longer criminal history, maybe even since their childhood, or when they live ion a social environment where they cannot survive without acting criminal. In the end, we are not talking about abstract concepts like justice, revenge, compensation, penalty, but psychologic dynamics and energies that don't care so much for this phi9losophical stuff, because they function according to how nature wnated them to function in order to secure the survival of the individual, and the species. I am not the first mind saying that human civilisation is etenrally colliding with man'S nature. and man's nature is the produzct of our evolution. I am not in that camp saying that man's nature is "evil", or violant. It is natural in that it reflected the design process of evolution. and although civilization and nature are antagonists, civilization nevertheless is the only hope we have to learn to control our instincts (or even be motivated to wish to larn that), and prevent our nature to brake out without remorse. that is contradictory, and it is a miracle, seen in that light, that nevertheless all in all it showed not always, but quite a bit of positive results. Nevertheless it all is a crutch only. Best solution, of course, is to raise our kids in an environement where they must not learn the law of the streets, but the law of ethic values, and where there is a accident, a crime, an issue, two sides would come together and settle it by use of reason, and in the spirit of what is best for the community. that certainly is an utopia too, I know that. But it is more attractive for me than the uotpia of ultra-conservative law-and-order, revenge, or overcrowded prisons who release their prisons into more and more crowded social environments.

A more realistic solution i cannot offer. Can anyone? Right now we try to practice what we consider to be the least worse of the bad options, although many live by the deception that it works quite well and is already well in itself).

An unsolvable dilemma, imo. But who said that reality owes to us to always offer a solution?

Getting back to something we can all agree on....

U BOATS ROCK! :rock::rock::rock::rock::rock::rock:

It's incorrectly translated into english as that, it's properly phrased "You shall not murder." Different connotation. And in further opposition to your stance, there are several explicit commands to destroy people who commit murder in the 1st degree (intentional murder), serial rape, those involved in the kidnapping and sale of a kidnap victim.


Exodus 21:12-14


Verse 12: If one strikes a man and he [the victim] dies, he shall be put to death.
Verse 13: But if he did not lie in wait [to ambush him] but G-d brought it to his hand, then I will designate for you a place, to which he can flee [and find refuge]. Verse 14: But if a man plots against his neighbor to kill him intentionally, you may [even] take him from My altar to put him to death.

Exodus 21:16

Verse 16: Whoever steals [kidnaps] a man and sells him, if he is found in his hand, he shall be put to death.




For the first part, it's out of context. None of the accusers were actually witness to the event they were accusing the woman of, nor had they brought the man who was involved in the accusation. So if they went ahead and stoned her, they would ALL be liable to the death penalty, so they abandoned their idea and left.

For the second part, a man like Tim McVeigh is a monster. He intentionally murdered as many people as he could in his schemes. Permanently removing him from society was the RIGHT thing to do.




What's been obliterated?

(my quick 2 cents on this part, I know it's not meant for me so I'll be brief).

The whole concept of "blood revenge" (eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, etc.) is actually a common misperception as it didn't literally mean taking out the eye of man who destroyed your eye, but it meant monetary compensation for the loss of that eye or tooth.

(k, that was my 2 cents).

Oh, you obviously lack the legal formation needed to discuss this from a more technical perspective....I already pointed out the necessary division that is done in the concepts of justice in civil versus criminal laws. Yet you talk about a single concept of justice as if it were only one, which is possible in philosophical theory but impossible in practical applications of the law and legal systems.

The root of the criminal systems is in the assumption by the state of the revenge formerly in hands of particulars, not just as a monopoly of force, but also as a monopoly of revenge in the sense of retribution of an offence. There is a subtle but very important distinction there: There are legitimate forms of use of force and violence as response to an ilegal criminal action (Self defence), which are particularly problematic in certain crimes (Offences against honor). Interestingly, it was the honor crimes what entered last into that monopoly of revenge (Duels were allowed even if killing someone in general was punished), and that shows clearly that it is not just a monopoly of force but also of revenge as retribution for an offence. Conceptually speaking, revenge was absorbed separatedly of how force monopoly was absorbed. There could be revenge without use of force and that is also unaccepted; revenge as retribution for a socially unacceptable action is now institutionalized.

In the first year of criminal laws studies you learn the whole theory of the crime definition and of the punishments definitions and nature, plus the objectives they serve in modern and ancient societies. The german doctrine is the one who has made stronger and better contributions to that (Mayer, Mezger, Binding), and it is widely accepted that the punishment has following functions in the criminal system:

1) General Prevention: In that everyone sees the threat the state makes to anyone who commits a crime that he will be punished

2) Individual Prevention: In that he who is found guilty will suffer a retribution for his crime. That in turn has two objectives:

2a) Plain retribution of the crime, as

A) Socialiced form of revenge, compatible with the human rights. This is how cultural and religious tradition is socialized and introduced in the law. The law does not exist or is born unconnected to cultural traditions, it simply regulates them and when applyable, adequates them to a superior frame (Constitution, Human rights)

B) Disuasive effect to prevent that the individual commits more crimes

2b) Paralell reedecuation of the individual to supress the psychological and logical thinking process elements that took him to commit the crime.

Yes it is. You fail to understand that retribution for an offence is what popularly is known as revenge. Only it loses its primitive uncontrolled form and gets regulated and socialized. Society makes revenge in an acceptable form through the punishment, in the sense of retributing an action to restablish a balance in theoretical terms (Which is what we call justice). The fact that a criminal gets a punishment is something that calms the society "beruhigt" says the german doctrine.

You know very well the reeductaion part of the punishment system, -much better than me- but that part is in fact accesory to the sociopolitic means of the criminal systems. Your perspective ignores the sociocultural formation of criminal systems and what exactly was taken away from society and put into them, and why. If you consider the punishment of crimes just as a mean of general prevention (Through the threat of punishment) and reeducation of offenders, you are no less than forgetting the religious and cultural background of the society in which that system has to be applied.

The rejection of taking INDIVIDUAL and popular revenge, yes. But as long as you are retributing a crime you are doing institutionalited revenge. Do you think the society would accept a criminal system were only reeducation is done? Obviously not. A sense of retribution is inside the criminal system because it is applied after all in a society with a culture, tradition and religions.

You are creating an artificial distinction between retribution and revenge, while they are in fact conceptually variants of the same principle (civilized and uncivilized).

In germany the monopoly of the criminal action is in the hands of the prosecutor (Staatsanwalt), while here in Spain it is not like that, and any citizen can exercise criminal action wether offended by the crime or not, to ask the court to punish the offender. That's the main difference, but aside from that the principles behind criminal legal systems are similar.

Never mind, we agree anyway in that practically the death penalty has too many problems, so excuse if I stop discussing this, because I feel we are hijacking the thread.:hmm:

I understood the difference you insist on very well, it's just that by the examples set in germany, I can't see you to make a valid difference, you do not convince me. You said:

"Do you think the society would accept a criminal system were only reeducation is done? Obviously not. "

I only answer: you don't know Germany well, then. Do you think you could find wide public and political acceptance for a law system that is not focussed on this heroic ideal of reeducation, and resocialisation and rehabilitation? If you think so, than you are in for a hard awakening.

My mum's sister was killed in a car crash in the 70s, she and her new-married husband and unborn baby got wiped out by a drunk ghost-driver on the Autobahn. He got away with a financial penalty and a prison penalty on suspension, because in modern laws people are not responsible for the ammount of alcohol they choose to drink, it even is considered to be an extenuating variable, which imo is the culmination of absurdity) . Some years later he caused another car accident, again by alcohol. I do not know the details, since I was just a boy back then. The court - eager for doing revenge...?

My fiance got killed in the same way in the 90s : killed by a drunk car driver driving with excessive speed. The penalty, according to the court, reflected the judge's intention to give the driver the possebility to think about it and learn from his mistake for his future life: financial penalty, and prison on suspenison. A second round in a higher instance followed, with the same result. Since the he has lost his driving license three more times, and was given it back, and caused another accident by not keeping minimum safety distance while driving with racing speed. The court - eager for doing revenge...?

Roughly two years ago I was totally surprised and stabbed on open street by a maniac, just out of the moment, without reason. already having a wide and bleeding wound on my right waiste I totally knocked him out of action with quite some adequate brutality, a thing of seconds, ending with him unconsciousness, and having several injuries. Later i learned he already had a criminal (drug- and street-related) career. Without that history, he would have been given a penalty on suspension. now the best of it: he even found a lawyer who tried to sue me - for use of excessive force, while him trying to put his knife into my body and ending my life apparently seemed to be okay. Not before the court refused to accept that absurd case, the accusation was pulled back. I was told that I was lucky - there are known judges, or better state attorneys who would have accepted the case. the court - eager to practice "revenge"?

Several public criminal cases on my mind, on sexual abuse, pedophilia, nazi and racist violence, etc. I don't know one case from recent years where the penalty reflected the court's assumed attempt to please a public interest for "revenge". It always was about preventing further damage to the society (or not), and always focussed on the therapy, the socialisation, the learning, the teaching of the offender. Even repetitious sexual offenders time and again get released - and many of them become offenders again. soicial rehabilitation is the top goal here - not revenge. You will find it difficult to find suppoort either from the public or from the attorney, judges and layers in Germany for your claims on the state executing a monopole to practice "revenge." Nobody would admit he wants revenge. That is not educated, that is not civilized, that is politicvally uncorrect, pfui-bah! Revenge? One doesn't do something so primitive...

Obviously, Spanish and German courts are lightyears apart, if you are right with what you say. I cannot imagine it.

Note that i do not argue pro or contra a hunger for revenge in public opinion. that is not the point of interest. If the court proceedings and laws reflect this assumed existent hunger for revenge or not - that is the point. and in Germany, it is considerted to be most uncorrect to even implay that this maybe, evemntually could eb the case. and I cannot see it to be like you say. In fact, our legal system is overboarding with pedagogic intentions, and softeness, and endless wellmeaning understanding. Revenge - here...? :lol: