China parades foreign Mekong killers before execution

[Betonov]

Yep, I can try to look trough their cultural glasses, but I can't agree with them.

What do you do when the police makes a mistake. It's a communist state, they're not exactly known for eficiency.

[August]

Originally Posted by Betonov

Yep, I can try to look trough their cultural glasses, but I can't agree with them.

What do you do when the police makes a mistake. It's a communist state, they're not exactly known for eficiency.

I'm no fan of the death penalty for the same reason. You just can't trust the state not to screw up or even deliberately scapegoat an innocent man. But the mistake, if there is one, is in the execution itself, not in the lead up to it.

If it were up to me all convicted criminals would be paraded through the streets before beginning their sentence. Give the public a chance to toss a few rotten pieces of fruit and maybe a slap or three and publicly shame the miscreant before sentence is carried out.

[Betonov]

Originally Posted by August

If it were up to me all convicted criminals would be paraded through the streets before beginning their sentence. Give the public a chance to toss a few rotten pieces of fruit and maybe a slap or three and publicly shame the miscreant before sentence is carried out.

Yeah, I'd throw a a rotten salad or brick myself. I just don't want to give those that take pleasure in other people suffering (convicted or not) an excuse to go wallow in it like a pig in mud.

A: Look, he screwed hundreds of workers out of their hard earned money, lets throw a half composted pile of potatoes at him as he deservers to be humiliated and then locked, I'm OK with that.

B: Look, he screwed hundreds of workers out of their hard earned money, lets throw a half composted pile of potatoes at him so I can feel better about my drunkard wife, my incompetent children and my ability to not get myself promoted because I have no spine to get anywhere in this world... I am soooo not allowing that

I've seen too much of that public feel-good-about-myself mockery in my hometown

[Buddahaid]

Originally Posted by August

I'm no fan of the death penalty for the same reason. You just can't trust the state not to screw up or even deliberately scapegoat an innocent man. But the mistake, if there is one, is in the execution itself, not in the lead up to it.

If it were up to me all convicted criminals would be paraded through the streets before beginning their sentence. Give the public a chance to toss a few rotten pieces of fruit and maybe a slap or three and publicly shame the miscreant before sentence is carried out.

Why stop there? Why not bring back the guillotine for some public blood fest?

Seriously, if I felt that there were no innocents behind bars I could become ruthless, but there are too many people serving time for the crimes of others.

[August]

Originally Posted by Buddahaid

Why stop there? Why not bring back the guillotine for some public blood fest?

Because that would be a death penalty that I said I oppose in the very quote you posted.

Seriously, if I felt that there were no innocents behind bars I could become ruthless, but there are too many people serving time for the crimes of others.

Sure there are. But I still think public shaming is a valid deterrent tactic. We send criminals to jail with the idea that only the government really disapproves of their actions. They need to know that disapproval also comes from their community as well.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Betonov

Yep, I can try to look trough their cultural glasses, but I can't agree with them.

What do you do when the police makes a mistake. It's a communist state, they're not exactly known for eficiency.

Communist? That is just a misleading label. The party is more confucian-technocratic and, as we recently learned, nationalistic, than anything else, and like all autocracies, it is highly vulnerable to corruption. Nevertheless the Chinese have since decades now created a bigger amount of economical growth in a given time and a bigger number of people benefitting to some degree from growing wealth in said short amount time, than anyone else ever has demonstrated the capability in history.

The philosophy behind their justice system is much different than in our cultural sphere. We must not like it, but it does not matter. But we are not in a position to tell them they have to change it.

That death penalties cannot be corrected, is a principle point in criticism against it, and I share it. Too many cases in American history of executions get demonstrated later to have been ended in execution innocents. But my impression with this thread is that the primary criticism is against the delinquents being paraded on TV, not about the fact that they have the death penalty in China.

FTR, I am against the general use of death penalties, because death as a penalty to me is a contradiction, a penalty is a measurement by which the behavior of the subject should be sanctioned (focus in the past) and/or altered (focus on the future), but if the subject is dead, the whole thing becomes pointless. However, I accept executions to be used in very rare and specific cases as a means or prevention. But like with torture, it obviously should not be an accepted procedure as a standard tool, but be reserved for very rare and specific cases. It is not the ordinary every-day crime we are talking about, may it be street crime, may it be robbery with murder.

[Ducimus]

Sorry to say, I have no sympathy for scumbags. No matter where they may be, or what nation they call home. Anyone guilty of multiple murders SHOULD be made an example of. It wasn't too long ago in US history where executions were done publically. The last one being done in 1936.
(edit: though i fear race may have been a factor, so maybe thats not such a great example)

Nonetheless, in the case of someone proven guilty of multiple homicides, I think capital punishment should be given, and carried out more often, as I do not believe it is possible to rehabilitate such people. They are a waste of good oxygen.

[Cybermat47]

Originally Posted by Ducimus

Nonetheless, in the case of someone proven guilty of multiple homicides, I think capital punishment should be given, and carried out more often, as I do not believe it is possible to rehabilitate such people. They are a waste of good oxygen.

What if it turns out that they're innocent?

[Stealhead]

Originally Posted by Cybermat47

What if it turns out that they're innocent?

He did not imply that the sentence was to be handed out without a fair trial.In his very post Ducmis clearly implies that he does not wish for an innocent person to be killed.

You missed a key word in there.

[Ducimus]

Originally Posted by Cybermat47

What if it turns out that they're innocent?

Well, look closely at what i caveated,

in the case of someone proven guilty of multiple homicides

Now, I think it is possible for someone to be wrongly accused and convicted of a single homicide. It has happened. But multiple? The chances of an incorrect verdict on the case of a multiple homicide i think is extremely low. The other murders also have to be proved beyond a shadow of a doubt just as much as the first murder. Multiple murders are just collaborating evidence that capital punishment is in order.

[Buddahaid]

It's the proven guilty part that falls short. Everyone behind bars was proven guilty, yet people are still being released after being proven innocent later through DNA testing, or other testimony.

[August]

Originally Posted by Buddahaid

It's the proven guilty part that falls short. Everyone behind bars was proven guilty, yet people are still being released after being proven innocent later through DNA testing, or other testimony.

This is very true although now going forward hopefully dna testing will continue to distinguish the guilty from the innocent and we'll have less instances of mistaken identity.

I don't know how helpful it will be against prosecutor misconduct though. That why I say hang the cost of housing convicts. Put them in a small grey cell with no decorations and few other distractions (ie no TV or internet) until they die of natural causes.

It gives plenty of time for their innocence to be revealed and for the guilty they will have the knowledge that there is another 50 to 75 years of this joyless existence before death releases them. That's a far greater punishment imo than a quick and painless lethal injection.