Well, sure. But how good is the resolution of the camera, are you sure the fingerprinting was all done right, and witnesses ... well, we all know them...

Now, here's a pipe dream of mine: How about a system where the prosecutor and judge are held personally responsible after recommending / sentencing* a death penalty?** If the case is somehow overturned on appeal (or massively reduced, say from Capital down to not just life imprisonment, but something like 5 years or less), and the ex-convict has already gone on the shock chair, then the prosecutor and judge is tried for homicide (because then that is what it is) - probably voluntary manslaughter would be the closest charge. The State can't really be punished for such mistakes, but the individuals most responsible still can. They probably won't get death itself, but they will be found guilty (there's no doubt they did it), and the penalty is mitigated similar to a person who killed with mistaken will.

*Yes, it is generally the jury that decides whether one is guilty, but AFAIK it is generally the judge that decides on the sentencing.

Basically, the judge and prosecutor's pleas will consist of mitigation and re-justifying exactly why they believed the ex-convict was guilty and why he was so guilty he deserved the death penalty, now on the "wrong" side of the curve. The final penalty depends on how far off they are. If it is clear the case just wasn't that good ...

*I've always had an opinion where prosecutors and judges (including juries) should really (in a deontological sense) be held responsible for any cases they get wrong (after all, someone clearly got hurt by your mistake here, and it clearly is no passion-of-the-moment thing). Of course, that quickly runs into the utilitarian problem that they will probably start to be very reluctant to prosecute / convict even clear criminals for fear they'll be wrong, so it is not really a practical idea, but that problem is minimized if such is brought only to cases involving extreme punishment.

OK, that's a pretty unrealistic idea. However, when you recommend the death penalty, will you STILL honestly risk it if the system above is active, and you will be held responsible (and probably seriously punished) if it turns out (as proven by a appeal court) you are wrong?

IMO, if you aren't, then you haven't even really convinced yourself it is necessary in a particular case.

@Skybird and Aramike

I think I didn't express myself properly before. I meant if you tell your kids that the sentenced person has done something evil by killing someone how do you tell them that killing this very person is a just act? I think the killing of someone can only be a last resort if no other option guarantees the safety of the population (emergency killing in a hostage situation, getting rid of cruel dictators who you can't get in any different way, etc).
Remember by executing someone you are doing the same thing that the criminal did. Maybe in a more "humane" way (if there is something like that) but the result is the same nonetheless.
Besides there is still the problem that not all cases are crystal clear. Mistakes WILL happen as they happened before. Maybe not so many but still I would say that even just one innocent in the death row is one too much for supporting this kind of punishment.

Just my 2c.

There's a huge moral difference between the criminal act of murder and an execution based upon the preponderance of the evidence as set forth in the guidelines created by a society (the same guidelines that would allow killing in an emergency situation).

Saying that it would be difficult to to teach the difference to a child is misleading as you already suggested that you COULD teach the diffence in certain cases. You're just fading the distinction in the circumstance that supports your beliefs - which is no more right or wrong than any other circumstance, including emergency actions.

Personally, however, I find it difficult to see how you can find a parallel being a criminal killing someone and society executing that person after a trial in front of a jury of their peers, an exhaustive appeals process, all according to the rules set in place by that society. From where I stand, there is no moral equivocation there. First of all, the criminal was proactive in committing the crime - society is REACTIVE in committing the punishment - which is a risk the murderer accepts should he decide to remove another person's life.

I have no problem telling my children that bad people are killed because they have done bad things. It is the REASON, not the ACTION that determines morality.

One must understand that there's a huge difference between what can earn a conviction now versus in previous years. If there is any doubt at all about someone's guilt, they shouldn't be convicted in the first place.

Also, we should consider real life rather than theory here. In states where there is the death penalty, it is not as though they are just going to town executing murderers. Rather, the punishment is typically reserved for the worst of the worst.

In addition, consider that (as far as I recall, and I may be completely wrong on this) the last person wrongly executed by the justice system in this country was in 1985, and "wrongly" is only an allegation. That means that person would have to have been convicted in the 60's or 70s. Surely we've made progress since then.

The death penalty as applied by the several states is only for capital crimes, where premeditation can be proven. No one is executed for self defense or so called crimes of passion.

There is currently federal law which permits the death penalty for those convicted of killing/murdering governmet employees. Beyond that death penalty cases are very rare.

The thing with labour camps as someone said is that you have to pay for them. Anyone who has committed a crime worthy of such extreme measures as the death penalty should just be snuffed out. Otherwise we have to pay for them to continue their sorry existence breathing air that would otherwise be used by normal people. I support the death penalty in certain circumstances, and such measures would only be taken in the case of a violent murder proven by substancial forensic evidence supported by witness statements... or a crime that whilst didn't kill the victem, left such traumatic phycological scars that the victem couldn't continue normal life. At present people in prison go back there because its a holiday camp, free gym's, good accomodation... they get f**king games consoles and plasma TV's now. There is no deterrance to crime. If people thought that they could be killed for commiting violient crime then they might bloody well think against it, and act like a civilised human being instead of the scum we have wondering our streets at the moment.

If you read again what I tried to express and gave examples for in post #10, you will see that I do not see it that much different than you do when talking of last resorts.

No. Motivation counts, and it is different motivations for the criminal, and the victim acting in self-defence, or the law enforcment or a judge acting according to the law.

Law also considers motivations. In German laws we have the conception of a crime committed for lower motives (= Verbrechen aus niederen Beweggründen), which means that the crime is considered to be even more serious than the same crime rated without that "seal of malice", and a more severe penalty must be spoken out - for example that early release from prison is explicitly ruled out, and any penalty must be the maximum allowed by law.

Also, state of mind and emotions matter in doing a deed, both legal and illegal. I would even say it matters most.

That is true, and I fully accept the argument ofr too many death penalties that have been proven to have been wrong - I haven given it myself in earlier debates over death penalty and showed some statistics (that can be easily found via Google). However, if you read again what I wrote, you see that I argued against the "death penalty", and that I gave a totally different understanding of when the execution of a criminal eventually is justifiable. Death as a regular penalty in cases of "ordinary" crime (to cut it short and not writing a long novel of explanation) I explicitly excluded. The two-word term "death penalty" is a contradiction in itself.

There is an appeals process.

they have X number of times to appeal their sentence and can serve X number of years in order for the defense to accumulate evidence which will clear their name.

Im not saying execute them right when the gavel bangs.

but there is no point in any of us paying millions of dollars to keep scum like this alive in a prison for 25 years.

I dunno GR. I don't think I'd really want cost to be a factor in sentencing.

Alright, lets me see if I can put it easy points so they can be dealt with in a way that doesn't require linguistic playings....

The death penalty is not - and never has been - a punishment that is successful to dissuade a criminal from committing his capital crime. Contrary to what some death penalty advocates try and sing - its simply not factual. Most who choose to murder have lost the capability to value their own life, and thus they fail to value the life of others.

One can make the argument that its INTENT is that - but its effectiveness can be shown to be nil in the face of history. Look at every treasonous act committed by people to overthrow nobility, and you can see that the death penalty has NEVER been successful as a deterrent.

Thats one argument off the table.

Next is the issue of "moral" authority to kill. Well, currently it resides in the State, put there by society. You might not like it, but you have the choice to be active and try to change it - or not. The State is empowered - by the people - to judge guilt or innocence through a process. That process is SUPPOSED to be blind - and while one could argue back or forth if it is or not, the moral authority comes from society - so don't blame the state for what you have allowed to be put into place. The state holds that mandate at the will of the people, and if you doubt it - look what happens when a state's citizenry speak on the issue - for or against. You see moratoriums put in place - or lifted - at the will of the people. The state simply applies the law - the people are responsible for it. Like it or not. So if you don't like the "blood on your hands", then do something about it. But claiming that a State lacks the authority to act on the will of its society is a false argument. Another one bites the dust...

Thirdly - the question of when or if a capital crime deserves the death penalty. Again - justice in its purest form is blind. Think of the statue - a woman, blindfolded - with scales. The cost to the victim - was their life ended. Justice is for the criminal to suffer the same as the victim. Call it an eye for an eye if you want - but it is how we - as society - have said we want justice to be served. Yet killing in the way the victim died is often horrendous. So, that often would call for cruel and unusual punishment. Thus, in the interest of justice with some mercy - though not absolvement - a criminals life is ended in a manner that is - most of the time - much more peaceful than that the victim had to endure. This is the definition of justice with mercy for society. Is it warranted? According to just about every moral system ever codified, yes.

Lastly you have the issue of the innocent that pay the ultimate price. I once was told by a friend who was a defense attorney - that he would rather see 100 guilty men go free than one innocent man in jail. That is a wonderful ideal, but we do not live in a utopian society. If we did, there would be no guilty - and all would be innocent - thus the question would be moot. So you have to consider not only the loss to the individual - but also to the rest of society if you allow 100 guilty to go free.

An innocent death is a tragedy. I recognize that and it saddens me to the core. Yet the DOJ's data says recidivism for violent felons was last closely tracked at 67.5%. So basically you let 100 murderers go to spare one innocent man - and guess what - you just killed 67 or 68 more people..... 1 innocent life - or 67? The system is NOT perfect, and should be reviewed regularly. However, the idea that the cost to society is higher to make a mistake and execute an innocent than it is to let murderers do free - is demonstratably flawed. I wish that my friend was around to argue the point, but one of the clients he got off on a murder charge later was responsible for his death....... So - its more than just statistics. He was a damned good man with a wife and kids - and didn't deserve to die just because he knew too much for a paranoid murderer to be comfortable sleeping at night.

After taking a deep breath - there is the final issue - the cost to society to keep these in prisons. The data a quick search showed was a study from Virginia - in which the amount was - per prisoner - $24,888 every year. Thats an average. Other states are likely similiar. That is more than the welfare cost for a single destitute person in society. See anything wrong with that? The fact that these people are going to continue to stay in jail - for the rest of their natural lives - and assuming a 3.5% annual inflation rate - in 20 years that amount totals 700k - in 40 years the cost to the taxpayers has now been 2.1 million. So its obvious that to continue to house a "lifer" is nothing but a wasted drain on the taxpayer's dime, that does no good. Contrast that with the cost of execution via lethal injection. Per the Texas Department of Criminal Justice - the 2007 cost was $86.08 - so the monetary cost of execution in a timely manner is obviously better than decades incarcerated.

Thus - the death penalty is a valid punishment, but only in the proper instances - and only if it balances the interest of justice for society regarding the common good as well as the rights of the innocent accused.

As I said - no system is perfect. We should reform ours.... but not take the death penalty off the table.

A couple points Haplo.

Yes there are people that have ignored the potential consequences of their actions, usually because they don't think they will be caught and sure there are those that don't care either way, but one thing is undeniable. The murderer that has been put to death will never murder again. What other criminal punishment can produce these results?

You are stretching those statistics way beyond accuracy. First off "violent felons" includes a lot more crimes than just murder and nobody is advocating executing muggers, and recidivism among violent felons does not automatically mean they got out and committed murder so your "guess what" example does not hold water.

well of course not... cost shouldnt be a factor in sentencing.

but august i want you to think of something.

spoke to a medic today about this very story... ok so here goes because this is gross.

you are a paramedic and you show up on the scene of an "unresponsive infant" call.

you examine the child and he has clearly been physically abused.

but how do you determine he has been "raped"?

the medic's answer was simple but disgusting.

"because the infants horribly mutilated, bloody wound of an anus will be stretched out to about 2 - 2.5 inches across. :dead: "i've seen it before in baby boys AND baby girls." he said

THE GUILTY PARTY...

....DESERVES....

...TO DIE.

im sorry august but you cannot convince me that he deserves to sit in prison and watch TV/ play basketball and eat 3 square meals all day for the rest of his life on anyone's dollar.

:nope:

Of course not, but the DP has never just been applied to such inhuman monsters. It has been repeatedly abused throughout human history by both governments and individuals and as such is just not something I want the state to be engaging in.

However, I do agree with you about living the good life in prison. Rather than giving said monsters a quick clean death, i'd much rather lock them up in a very small cell for the rest of their lives in solitary confinement and withOUT TV, books, newspapers or other amenities. They should have nothing but time to reflect on the crime that put them there and without outside input I think that time will be a heavy burden for them to bear.

In fact I think prison in general should be made as difficult and unpleasant as possible. Convicts should be worked like dogs every waking hour, if for no other reason than to make them so worn out that they won't have the energy left to prey on each other.

Very well, I shall elaborate further.



What good is being sorry for a few months, or even a few years? Make them sorry for the rest of their lives, and then ensure that they are miserable lives.

That hardly seems like penance. I think you overestimate the effects of fear on people who are capable of such atrocious acts.

Yes, I've seen Papillon. No, I do not mean something like that or a gulag in the Soviet style (well at least, not totally:DL)
In order to be Constitutional, the camp could not practice anything regarded as cruel and unusual punishment. So all we have to do is find state-sponsored employment with terrible standards, and we have the worst possible environment for them whilst remaining legal through precedent. The military should serve admirably as a precedent for the measures needed. It would be a hard case to argue but it could be done if Congress backed it.
The gulag had doctors and libraries and al kinds of amenities, they were just so bad that no one would ever use them.;)


It all depends on how the case is presented, and whether or not it has media support.

No, you can't break people's legs. That would be cruel and unusual punishment. What you can do is break their spirit, and push them to the limits of physical endurance. Impose very long solitary confinement periods for disobedience and then give them the choice between that and some almost equally unpleasant alternative.
That's pretty much what solitary confinement is, but with a little more food, a lot more water and it has to be the same for everyone, with an acceptable caloric intake. But nobody said anything about sleep deprivation:DL

One more thing I forgot to mention; No shooting people. All uses of force should be non-lethal except in the most extreme circumstances. You don't want captives escaping their fate by taking suicidal actions, do you? Truncheons, tazers, and CS gas should serve well enough.

12 hrs might be hard to pass of as not being cruel and unusual, but if it could be done, I say go for it.

That, or particularly undesireable duties. Perhaps even a few hours of forced excercise.
Well, if it's a life sentence in the literal sense, they're going to die in the camps one way or the other. I'm pretty sure using the bodies in any way other than what they desire would be a violation of human rights, though.

Why liquidate them when you can break them?

There are worse things than death. Since death is a fate we all suffer, why not precede it with a hellish life repaying one's debt to society? Which is more punitive in the end?
One of Stalin's favorite tricks was to give a person a tenner or a quarter, and if they survived it, tack on another sentence. While this is not permissable under the U.S. Justice system, there's no rule against insinuating that one's sentence might be commuted, only to dash their hopes on the day before the expect to be released.
A lifetime with a broken spirit and mind is more hellish than a few moments with a broken body.

Well then, if you're a down to Earth person that does not trust uncertainty, you should love the idea of labor camps. It guarantees adequate punishment while the guilty are amongst the living. I take it that you like the idea already.


What part of the execution part? The money we would save? I'll admit that remains in doubt until we know exactly how much product we can squeeze out of these felons, but it has to be better than the current system, where they produce virtually nothing.
The death penalty is very expensive and time-consuming, I can only assume that a reversible lifetime labor sentence would not warrant so much debate, and with production factored in, would be cheaper.

Yeah, but we have an appeals system to prevent that. Bear in mind the nature of the U.S. Justice system before you go around shooting people for the first conviction of a transgression.
Labor camps preserve the lives of the innocent until they can be exonerated. The death penalty is irreversible.

We already suffer from backlash for retaining the death penalty. I doubt we'd suffer more for using a system that productively incarcerates heinous criminals while not breaching the taboo against cruel and unusual punishment.
Then again, who knows? It depends on the spin.

Well yes, it does. Remember that the U.S. Justice system was founded upon the protection of the defendant, rather than furthering the goals of the prosecutor. That is because injustice is so much more harmful than flawed justice.
Rehabilitation is a natural extension of that philosophy, but prone to abuse by those who really deserve terrible punishments.
I think that labor camps, in the context I have presented, are a happy medium. Miserable enough for the guilty, and hopeful enough for the innocent.
The important thing is that they be reserved only for those who are found gulty, beyond a shadow of a doubt, of crimes like premeditated murder, rape, slave trafficking, and the like.

He who thinks he can decide in a state of aroused emotions, is wrong. He gets decided.

Eventually it happens that an offender really realises the wrong he did, and truly regrets and changes. I do not say this happens in all cases, I say that it does happen in some cases. That'S why the door usually should not get closed forever. If such a true change takes place in somebody, he indeed is no longer the person he has been before.

Eventually it happens that the person most affected by a crime - the victim - forgives as well.

And for once I agree with August. Costs should be no argument in sentencing. It would be an extremely dangerous precedence that easily could spread from death penalties to all kind of law cases and penalties in general. You should think twice before accepting that to happen, else we end up with putting people into coffins, linking them to life-support system inside (if that is not too expensive), and stacking the boxes near the garbage dump.

The appeals process very often failed, and still fails. The numbers of death sentences proven to have been wrong, are telltaling. The system does not work precise and flawless enough to allow acceptance of terminal, irreversible "penalties". A residual risk for a false sentence remains in most court cases. That's why one should stay away from making irreversible sentences a regular routine. And I do not accept something like "I can live with 1 innocent killed per 5 criminals executed, that is a good rate, that's the price of justice."

What would be next?

August,

I am in agreement that the death penalty has its good points. My issue above regarding its use as a deterent is that the argument holds no water in a historical view. But I touched on recividism later, as you noted. I personally am fine with the death penalty, provided the process itself underwent a review.

As far as my taking statistics inaccurately, I noted that the stats were for violent felons - not murderers. There is no data quickly found on murder recividism. However, that means there is nothing to suggest that the percentage is somehow lower for the MOST VIOLENT kind of crime. Even if we cut that number in half - to 33% - your still talking 33 dead people....

I agree that the numbers could be viewed with some question on how it relates to murder - but even being generous with the idea that murderers that get out are somehow "rehabilitated" at twice the rate as muggers - your still looking at way too many innocents dead.

Simply put - I have no problem with a death for a death - provided the accused is given every REAL opportunity to true, blind justice. My objection to the Death Penalty as it is today - is that the system is currently flawed in a way where its doubtful that the trials in question are truly impartial.

Well we, along with a whole host of countries, don't have the death penalty and the last I looked our violent crime levels are not particularly high in comparison to the US. I think it would be fair to say that the death penalty doesn't work, it doesn't reduce violent crime.

If what you claim is true about recidivism there should be a lot of it here, but there isn't.

I would support death penalties if these issues where solved first.

Government corruption.
Police state.
Bias, corrupted and racist laws.
Absolute proof!

Then I would consider death penalties worth while. Because there would be no margin of errors.

One theory is that in a way criminals who are caught and imprisoned should be viewed very much like disease carriers. They are isolated from the society when they are 'active' but once the disease has been cured they could re-join the society. The way it can be seen from a sociological viewpoint is that crime is like a disease or a social malaise and once we know what makes a criminal 'tick' we've learned something and that data can be used to prevent similar crimes from happening in the future, in a way creating a 'vaccine' against that particular crime.

IMO it is the sign of a societies strenght that it can take a criminal and make that person into a good citizen, not just kill him off in some horrid ceremony used to thirst some collective bloodlust akin to the ancient times when people were sacrificed to whatever diety.

I think people should be allowed to go with the 'biblical' rule, "eye for an eye" etc., that the death penalty represents. But then they shouldn't use any aspect of sociological sciences in their societies. Or any aspects of modern society. They should live like the Amish and kill off the criminals of their little backward community.