I agree Death Row is a Joke - he should have been executed within weeks of the trial, and not allowed to "redeem" himself overa period of 26 years.
We all have a social contract to fulfill....you blow a family to smithereens with a shotgun, you go too. I've neevr seen so many people froth over the life of a piece of crap criminal murderer-gone-saint in my life.
i think that is because, in general, the country and the world are backing off on their support from the death penalty because they do not see the value in it. even half of the victims families have forgiven him and did not want him to be executec.
ArchAngel where are you? In some taliban controlled area? I bet you you would be first in line at the soccer stadium to witness the executions of those that you consider "pieces of crap". you are so much better than those pieces of crap, huh? When people are viewed as pieces of crap and suitable for extermination bad things happen, you can always excuse murder.
I believe in that social contract, and in law and order, but state (and subsequently community) sanctined murder do not fit within those boundaries.
My posts on the Stanley Williams execution and my opposition to the death penalty has generated a number of comments and e-mails. One e-mail comes from a prosecutor who wrote such a good argument that it deserves a wider exposure, even though he disagrees with my position. I suspect it speaks for a number of CQ readers.
---
I'm a big fan of yours, and I read your blog daily. As a prosecutor in Los Angeles, I appreciated your comments today regarding the disgusting glorification cum martyrdom of Tookie Williams, particularly as you are personally opposed to the death penalty.
I'm not a good enough theologian to even try to convince you of the moral propriety of the death penalty, but I would like to take a stab at the LWOP argument. It seems to me that it isn't enough to say that the people of California could have simply chosen to keep a killer like Tookie locked up forever. Getting rid of the death penalty means that we have to also consider the foreseeable consequences of guaranteeing criminals that they can kill as many innocent people as they want, for whatever reason at all, without even facing the theoretical possibility of placing their own lives at risk.
A few examples to make my point: Suppose we have a career criminal with a long record of violent felonies, what we in California would call a "three-striker", who knows that he will be sent to prison for the rest of his life if he is ever caught committing a new offense. When he goes to rob the local convenience store, he doesn't want to hurt anyone - he just wants the money. But he also knows that, as there is no death penalty, he will face the exact same punishment (life imprisonment) whether or not he kills the clerk, the only witness to his crime. He would be a fool not to do so. If he happens to bump into a police officer on the way out, he may as well kill him too - there is no extra charge, so to speak.
If we somehow manage to catch the "three-striker" and place him on trial, it will be in his best interest to sabatoge his own trial by killling witnesses, jurors, prosecutors or judges. After all, if we can't convict him, he goes free. (Remember that scene from the movie Traffic, where the druglord walks?) And even if we manage to successfully prosecute him for one of these new murders, he will still only face the same life sentence that he was sure to get in the first place.
If we do manage to put a murderer like Tookie away for life, he can then kill anyone he wants to - inside or out of prison - with complete impunity. What are we going to do to him - give him two life terms? In California, we presently have something like 30,000 inmates serving life terms. Most of them have little or no prospect of ever being paroled. I would not like to be there on the day that they are told that they have been given a license to kill.
In short, we can be unreasonably tolerant in granting appeals and delays which put off the actual day of reckoning for decades or more (in California, were looking at about a 25-year process), but I cannot see how we can get rid of capital punishment altogether without creating powerful incentives for criminals to commit murders that they would otherwise not do. I would not want to be the legislator who had to explain to a prison guard's widow that we knew that we had created a system of justice that refused to set any punishment for the lifer inmate who killed her husband. I take these situations, where potential killers are facing or already serving life sentences, to be the "rare or practically non-existent" cases for which the Catholic Catechism permits the use of the death penalty.
And this from the Atlantic Monthly regarding a study I linked to on a similar thread.
"Is Capital Punishment Morally Required?: The Relevance of Life-Life Tradeoffs"
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Support for capital punishment is, of course, usually associated with the political right. But the lead author of a new paper making what might be termed the "big government" case for the death penalty is the noted liberal scholar Cass Sunstein. The paper draws in part on a study conducted at Emory University, which found a direct association between the reauthorization of the death penalty, in 1977, and reduced homicide rates. The Emory researchers' "conservative estimate" was that on average, every execution deters eighteen murders. Sunstein and his co-author argue that this calculus makes the death penalty not just morally licit but morally required. A government that fails to make use of it, they write, is effectively condemning large numbers of its citizens to death—a sin of omission like failing to protect the environment or to provide adequate health care. "If each execution is saving many lives," they conclude, "the harms of capital punishment would have to be very great to justify its abolition, far greater than most critics have heretofore alleged."
What the hell?
How many things have things liek this happened?
Only politicians get away with murder? Where is Condit?
At least this person has a serious attitude, and lathough I think he is off and Im sure he cannot prove any of his statements without rsorting to movies, he deserves to be listened to.
ArchAngel and nico want to throw tailgating parties at executions, without one argument why it helps besides soemthing that seems more like vengence than justice.
ive mentioned this before, but as is mentioned above, the fact that the state can take a mans life is atrocious. not only is it morally reprehensible, but in this case, it seriously damages perception of what our prison system really is. it is painfully obvious that it is nothing more than a warehouse where rehabilitation does not enter into the equation.
i always felt prison should be about rehabilitation... it is NOT naive to believe that people can turn their lives around. There is this disgusting and selfish notion in this country that we all must have some moral high ground on each other, on other nations etc. Stanley Williams may or may not have commited some horrible crimes, but he had turned his life around and was doing incredibly important work.
ive mentioned this before, but as is mentioned above, the fact that the state can take a mans life is atrocious. not only is it morally reprehensible, but in this case, it seriously damages perception of what our prison system really is. it is painfully obvious that it is nothing more than a warehouse where rehabilitation does not enter into the equation.
i always felt prison should be about rehabilitation... it is NOT naive to believe that people can turn their lives around. There is this disgusting and selfish notion in this country that we all must have some moral high ground on each other, on other nations etc. Stanley Williams may or may not have commited some horrible crimes, but he had turned his life around and was doing incredibly important work.
StupidAngel..."We all have a social contract to fulfill....you blow a family to smithereens with a shotgun, you go too." Who's social contract is that?
How about the guy that gets exonorated by DNA evidence 25 years later? What's your response? Ooops dopey us? If the system was anywhere near infallible you might have an argument. It would still be rooted in ignorance, but it would be an argument. Right now you are just wrong.
nicho didnt say anything particularly interesting e. I agree with his comments, I feel sorry for the victims and i too shed that tear, but... I still feel that no good reasons have been given for the execution of a man. I dont even care if he had changed in prison or not. NO MURDER.
am i missing something here, or is the idea that the death penalty is a deterent rendered moot by the fact that our friend tookie killed four people for a couple hundred bucks? in other words...how effective is a deterent that can be ignored for $200?
Is waking up, going to work and being evicerated by a shot gun the same as being executed when you are informed that murder is punishable by death? I think it can almost parallel the abortion argument of what constitutes murder. It's interesting that those who support the death penalty often oppose abortion (conservatives), but those who support abortion oppose the death penalty (liberals). It's essentially a conflict over the definition of murder.
A woman has the right to choose to end the life of her unborn child knowing that unprotected sex may lead to pregnancy. A person knows that murdering another person may lead to a death sentence.
Plus, and excuse me for my intervention on a subject that doesn't concern me directly, the exemples given (the fact that acriminal would kill the witnesses and so on...) are not very useful since these kind of events alreday occur, deah penalty or not. Some people are true criminal, but it doesn't justify death penalty...
Hasselhoff
For me the problem here is that the Governement gets involved. Murder is murder and should not be condoned by the Government. As for abortion, I think it is a dispicable practice, and it should be stopped. A law is not the answer though, many women would die in "back alley abortions" Ihate the practice, but ending it would potentially cause more pain (and possible death).
The best is to have a system by which women can feel free to give their children up for adoption or something else like that. Telling poeple what to do or not do doesnt work often, and criminilizing it is a mistake.
abortion v. death penalty is a common, but ultimately false comparison.
abortion is largely about a womens right to privacy, and whether the government should be allowed to interfere in that right. opponents question that right saying it is not specifically spelled out in the constitution. hence the religious rights argument for strict constructionists.
the death penalty is not a constitutional argument - beyond the 8th amendment which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. the 5th amendment pretty much allows for the death penalty.
i would prefer to live in a world where the government interfered in my life as little as possible, and society had evolved beyond pointless barbaric punishment.
interestingly enough the right claims to want less government interference in private lives - except when they want to interfere in private lives. for instance; abortion, terry schiavo, gay marriage, etc. they are however all for the death penalty. "every life is important" - except the ones we deem unimportant. oh the hypocrisy.
i'm amazed at the number of moral relativists here who quickly shift to moral absolutism when it comes to the death penalty. killing is always wrong? killing = murder = killing = murder?
killing a man found guilty of murdering 4 innocent people is no different than murdering 4 innocent people?
no.
[scroll up in this discussion to learn that] murder is killing but killing isn't necessarily murder. this seems a childish point for some of you to be stuck on.
i would say it would be a more barbaric society that gives murderers impunity...at worst a murderer gets life in prison, all expenses paid.
those of you who are against the death penalty, what do you think justice is? the victims are erased forever, having done nothing wrong. your idea of justice is having the murderer do 'enough' community service?
maybe Tookie reformed, maybe he got his mind right, maybe he was a 'new man', maybe he was helping a lot of people. how does that even relate to the victims? i'm supposed to take solace because in the future if i'm murdered, the murderer will 'make things right' by helping some other people i never knew? hell, let him out if he's truly reformed, right? why keep a changed man in prison when he could be helping so many more people out of prison?
if 'helping people' is your idea of punishment then you've just nullified the idea of punishment. you help people on your own, not having committed crimes, what changes after you commit a crime? you're idea of justice is to bring the criminal up to the level of normalcy?
this kind of thinking destroys the idea of the individual, after all, you say the murderer can atone for his crime by helping society. the murderer must have only offended society.
if a thief steals $1,000 from me, justice determines he'll be forced to return the money and be punished.
if an assailant slashes me with a knife unprovoked, justice determines he'll be forced to pay my hospital bills and be punished.
how is a life returned to a victim? it isn't. in murder, the criminal has committed an extraordinary crime in which there is no possibility of making right with the victim. justice calls for extraordinary punishment, or do you claim murder no different than any other crime?
the criminal must make right with the victim....and with society. never either, always both. murder means both isn't possible...so maximum justice means killing the murderer as soon as possible after he's proven guilty.
nico...
a murderer commits an atrocity. that doesn't justify society commiting an atrocity. two wrongs etc. etc...
"...maximum justice means killing the murderer as soon as possible after he's proven guilty..." there are degrees of justice?
justice is conforming to what is morally right. murder is morally wrong. therefore murder cannot be just.
i like the papillon solution. they don't want to follow societies rules?put 'em all on an island - away from society. perhaps the moon.
who among us is qualified to kill people? i can't think about this question without thinking of george bush giggling about executing people during the 2000 debates. no one among us is qualified to kill people. and the system we have set up is extremely fallible. not to mention flat out biased. so much for justice.
meet me at the bar and we can argue some more...got to go.
The "capital punishment is not a deterrent" argument is an awfully tired line, and it just really misses the point. Victims deserve equal justice -- period. Who among us does not rightly demand justice when wronged in some way? My point is that the proper serving of justice is completely independent of how other potential perpetrators may act at a later date. You'll notice that our legal sytem bases quite a bit on precedent, but not much on notions of what someone MIGHT do in the future.
thank you finoki, that was a good piece upthere. i've read it 3;30 am this morning. right after you've written it which was a couple of hours after the state killing took a place.
death penalty, if this is a telling story about a society, i see an exteremly violent society that is way behind the advancements achieved. how many of death row inmates are high school or jr college educated? what are we giving to these people in terms of education, economic comfort, peaceful environment to grow up, healthy food and health care, guidance?
yes, when it comes to shiny consumer goods and high tech systems we have a clothes patch in american flag that depicts #1, but where are we in terms of social divide, racism and violance? why do we have one of the highest murder rate in the world and top prison population?
is +,-300 million people who leave in this country, too much population when we brag about being the richest giant in the world? and why do we say 'barbaric' when a person beheaded, hanged and shot in other countries? are we less of a barbaric people? are the death rowers not part of us? weren't they born like a tiny innocent baby? what happened between the time they were born and they were executed? do we care? can you imagine yourself being born and raised in the other side of tracks with no or insignificant chance to make it in the mainstream society? each time we are watching someone executed, aren't part of us is also being punished? do you feel that? are you getting a little chill? doesn't our justice system with death penalty, giving us a little warning each time it condems someone to death? one less murderer or gang member make us any safer? can a person change and turn around from the crime he committed? does that make any difference? is this the end of crips? is south central any safer? would you take your family to watts towers? who are you? where would you like to live? how would you like to live?
why are you so vengeful? why don't we going all the way, cutting the hands of a person who stole our bycyle? is this thief's hands more valuable than our 10 speed? whats the difference? an eye for an eye is good justice?
the fear is slowly eating our souls, do you know that?
For you death penalty fans, how the f--- do we know that every single one of these people is innocent. And if not, is it okay to kill innocent people, but only if you are the justice system?
that's a great line of questioning. too bad this country's mode of administering justice not only takes a complete lack of interest in those issues, but in the most systemic way only contributes to all that is unresolved about them, as well.
i regret not being there at the SQ gate last night with the rest of his supporters, b/c the bottom line for me: the only thing capital punishment does is promote a self-righteous culture bent on rationalizing more killing, and that i see actaully produces more killers than it executes. that, i see, is the crux of our everything wrong with american culture.
Tookie was simply more valuable to society alive than dead, his reparations were better paid through his leadership in prison, doing the work that the system itself has failed to do all along. taking another man's life is not justice, it does not bring back the victims, it does not get the muderers in any way to contribute anything back, not to the victim's survivors nor to society. in that sense it is letting both the murderer and the prison system off way too easy.
"Last May, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger changed the Department of Corrections to the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, a renaming many believed signaled a shift of the state from exclusively punishing criminals to a belief that with help, prisoners could turn their lives around." (beyondchron). But Arnold decided to go ahead and terminate him anyway, just before "the California Assembly will consider the merits of AB1121, which would impose a moratorium on capital punishment while a commission assesses whether its application in this state is "fair, just and accurate." The first hearing on that bill, authored by Assemblyman Paul Koretz, D-West Hollywood, is Jan. 10" (chron). Because apparently a significant number of Californians are beginning to realize just how ridiculous capital punishment really is.
the State has no business being in the ultimately fallible business of killing people. even if it is just 1 in a 1000 when an innocent man is wrongly executed, that still makes capital punishment utterly not worth it.
perhaps the rest of the country will slowly wake up to all this, as Tookie will be martyred now, and the U.S. prison system will be exposed abroad for all its heinous practices, and all those would be killers out there will stop for a moment, consider the humane side of their actions, realizing, before killing again, that the state will not credit you with transformation or redemption regardless of how far you come to atone for your sins. and so, instead the state just greases the killing machines again, lubes the killing logic, saying its perfectly okay to kill, just dont get caught or we will have to kill you, too. brilliant justice at work!
"you're idea of justice is to bring the criminal up to the level of normalcy?"
yes
"how is a life returned to a victim? it isn't"
>>IT ISN'T<< what else is there to say?
I might not be able to fullfill the task of forgiving the person if it would be my sister, son, wife etc. who has been raped or shot for 100 bucks.
But I pray that I could accept the fact, that this person can live a life in prison being no threat anymore to others, while my loved one would have died a senseless death.
and now you (who try to tell me that there is something as a "sense-ful" death) can call me an idealistic liberal softie or catholic ***hole, whatever you want.
If someone is put to death & we as a society approve of it, then we as a society have sunk to the level of the (alleged) criminal & the sinner that we execute.
All ya'll who think yer GAWD, raise yer hands. If you did, you'll see Little Nicky (& harvey Keitel) not Mr. St.Peter (& Reese Witherspoon) one day.
BTW, e. I for one am glad that Angola ain't on that list - but I don't want to go to one of their jails. Oh & I'm also glad Brasil ain't on that list either - I'm going there (I hope) tomorrow.
"you're idea of justice is to bring the criminal up to the level of normalcy?"
yes
"how is a life returned to a victim? it isn't"
>>IT ISN'T<< what else is there to say?
so your idea of justice in the case of murder is for the victim to remove forever dead, their life completely ended, while the murderer lives out their entire life and can 'redeem' himself, pretending he's the same man as he was before he murdered?
your logic requires you to let this murderer loose once he's 'redeemed' himself.
MysteryMan:
if we had gone out a picked up a random innocent guy on the street (who happened to be Tookie), shoved him face-down on the floor and fired two shotgun blasts into his back, giggled at the gurgling sounds he was making, stole $150 from him, and left him for dead, then you could say we'd stooped to his level. you'd have to be pretty tricky with this dimension called time, though, in order to execute a guilty man in the state of his innocence.
Nico, you are avoiding the question - how do you reverse capital punishment for someone wrongly convicted? All of your bluster about the loss of Tookie's innocent victims doesn't address the question of what happens when the State kills an innocent.
How many times has that happened, Janosh. Go On with the hypotheticals.
What amazes me sre the parallels drawn between executing a criminal and a criminal executing an unsuspecting citizen...
Why? It's not the same....like an algorithm, it if a then b...not a=a!!
You are getting stuck in your own incognitive thought loop. If you kill someone (murder) then you are killed (capital punishment). You make it seem as if murder is encouraged for the sport of capital punishment. One cannot happen without the other, and they are not the same....
The following is a copy/paste job of info related to the unlikelihood of a wrongful execution:
Hard to kill a wrongly convicted criminal
Edward Laijas:
Another reason that many people are against the death penalty is that they feel that innocent people will be wrongfully executed all in the name of justice. This is not true at all. There are many safeguards guaranteeing protection of the rights of those facing the death penalty. These safeguards are:
" Capital punishment may be imposed only for a crime for which the death penalty is prescribed by law at the time of its commission.
Persons below eighteen years of a age, pregnant women , new mothers or persons who have become insane shall not be sentenced to death.
Capital punishment may be imposed only when guilt is determined by clear and convincing evidence leaving no room for an alternative explanation of the facts.
Capital punishment may be carried out only after a final judgment rendered by a competent court allowing all possible safeguards to the defendant, including adequate legal assistance.
Anyone sentenced to death shall receive the right to appeal to a court of higher jurisdiction.
Anyone sentenced to death shall have the right to seek pardon or commutation of sentenced.
Capital punishment shall not be carried out pending any appeal, recourse procedure or proceeding relating to pardon or commutation of the sentenced.
Also capital punishment shall be carried out so as to inflict the minimum possible suffering." (5)
These safeguards will insure that justice will be served without having it suffer. Also these safeguards ensure that the death penalty is not racially biased.
Jon Manning:
Every year approximately 250 new offenders are added to death row. In 1994 there were 2,850 persons awaiting execution. Yet no more than thirty-eight people have been executed a year since 1976. This is a ridiculously low number compared to 199 persons executed in 1935 (all from Cole 451). The reason for this slow execution rate is the process of appeals, from sentencing to execution there is about a seven to eight year wait. The convict's cases' are reviewed by the state courts and through the federal courts (Cole 451). With all this opportunity for the case to be turned over or the sentence to be changed it is almost impossible for an innocent person to be executed. Only two people have been proved innocent after their execution in the United States. These wrongful deaths occurred in 1918 and 1949 (Death Penalty Discussion). Since then the justice system has undergone a lot of fine tuning making this extremely unlikely today.
Abel Martinez:
How is the death penalty a punishment that fits the crime? Well, not every prisoner deserves the death penalty. People who kill someone in self defense should not be treated as one who kills just for the sake of killing. This is one instance anti-death penalty supporters will bring up. The criteria for evaluating whether or not a person is sentenced to death varies from state to state. The states that have death penalty laws are: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, and Wyoming. The choices of execution are: hanging, electrocution, gas chamber, firing squad, and lethal injection (BJS 12-92). These also vary from state to state. There are guidelines that are followed before a prisoner is sentenced to death. Of those, one of the most important reads: Capital punishment may be imposed only when guilt is determined by clear and convincing evidence leaving no room for an alternative explanation of the fact (Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Branch 5-25-84).
Jessica Spinler:
Despite the moral argument concerning the inhumane treatment of the criminal, we return to the "nature" of the crime committed. Can society place an unequal weight on the tragically lost lives of murder victims and the criminal? This is not an exam question in a college philosophy course but a moral conundrum at the core of perhaps the most intriguing issue facing the U. S. Supreme Court today. Punishment is meted out because of the nature of the crime, devoid of any reference to the social identity of the victim. Compassion and political calculation have combined to transform victims and their advocates into a potent lobbying force. Beginning in California, 1987, the Supreme court carved out a crucial exception: Neither the life of the victim nor the suffering of his survivors could be a factor in any state or federal case punishable by death (Shapiro, 61). The catch is that every reduction in the elaborate legal process that has evolved to ensure that only the guilty die increases the chances that an innocent person, victim, will be subjected to this most irreversible and final of punishments, injustices. The possibility of an innocent person being put to death is another factor some people have against the death penalty. According to the 1987 Stanford University survey, at least 23 Americans have been wrongly executed in the 20th century (Kramer, 32).
Jana Wofford:
An automatic appeal has been instituted in 35 of the 36 death-penalty states in an effort to reduce the amount of time spent by the court's appeal system reevaluating capital cases.(Capital Punishment 1992) Mandatory appeals shorten the length of time spent on death row and therefore could not be considered cruel and unusual punishment, although some opponents of the death penalty argue that appeals themselves are a form of torture as they keep inmates on death row for many years. This argument is contradictory because they also assert that there is a possibility of executing an innocent person. With no appeal, the chance of freeing a falsely convicted felon is also decreased. They cannot make this argument because arguing against mandatory appeals in that they bog down the system defeats the purpose of their argument against killing an innocent person. There must be a balance between these concepts two and to argue one side or the other is illogical. Though this logic may seem twisted, mandatory appeals expedite the execution process, which is currently an average of 9 years and 6 months on death row before the sentence is carried out.(Capital Punishment 1992)
archangel, all in all one can almost agree with the notion you express of an eye for a night-type of justice, although one could always argue that society/the government is a contract between people, and not a living entity, and as such it should be free from all the feelings that tamper human judgement (that is the reason for any democratic country to have a legal system), and revenge is one of such feelings.
The economic argument does not stand, as the lenght of the process, and the exteneded number of appeals that a capital punishment-convicted felon goes thru (many more than someone who'se been given life without parole) makes it on average more expensive that keeping that person alive in the jail system.
Then there is the fact that the united states are the last of the great democracies who still use capital punishment. really, look at the list of other countries that have capital punishment. and think.
I;m not saying criminals are really good people and tookie was a saint. But let's face it. Death penalty does not work. It's a simple matter of logic, which goes beyond any ethical judgent
(which by the way, you are completely avoiding. and law theory bases itself entirely on the notion of ethics. law is simply the ethic backbone of a society, and i think that goes a long way in showing what huge difference there is between america and the rest of the civilized world.you kill someone=capital punishment is a huge step backward in the law of ethics, its a simplistic non-answer to th problem)
it takes too long (it couldn't take less time! the lenght of the process is intended to reduce the risk for errors!), it is not a deterrent for criminals (everytime it was reintroduced it never caused a reduction of crime rates) because when someone commits a crime, being caught is not taken into consideration as an option. It does not re-educate the convict, it's not cost effective. It just keeps people like you happy, in the knowledge that yes, i am part of a nation that gives those fuckers what they deserve. and that is the only reason why is being kept, because it feeds a monster that has generated itself, the american public opinion. scary scary scary.
the load of crap is just wrote is not to convince you or change your mind, just to tell you that you scare me!
but more than you, is the people you support, who lie to you in order to keep you scared, and offer solutions to that problem which do not solve the problem, but give you an outlet to your fear, which is only temporary, and then you go back to being scared, and therefore controllable.
it has happened ArchAngel-I respect your opinion, just happen to think that the death penalty is:
-Racist
-Barbaric
-Not good for the public good (crimes go up during executions)
-Not what MY GOVERNMENT should do.
Less people support the death penalty now than 20 years ago, and i can only hope that trend will continue.
as far as I know the death penalty has worked every time it's been carried out...except for Mr. JC.
but seriously, should we ban police from pulling people over because it's claimed the act of pulling someone over is 'racist'? sure, racist cops will abuse their power in different parts of the country but does that mean the act itself of pulling someone over is racist? of course not.
'is racist' in some minds here really means 'can be abused by racists'.
a racist goes to a baseball game...then by your logic 'going to a baseball game' is racist. a racist throws a paper airplane at a man of the race he hates...by your logic 'throwing a paper airplane at someone' is racist.
there is nothing inherently racist in the death penalty.
...how do you reverse capital punishment for someone wrongly convicted? All of your bluster about the loss of Tookie's innocent victims doesn't address the question of what happens when the State kills an innocent.
Janosh:
how does the State deal with accused individuals whom the jury finds 'not guilty'? the State doesn't reimburse them for their time - as if the whole judicial process is worthless without a conviction.
a cop pulls me over for speeding...turns out he realized his speed gun was broken, apologizes to me and i'm on my way. what do i get for being mistakenly pulled over? i've done nothing wrong yet i'm being encumbered by the justice system.
the judicial process is far from an exact science...so call it 'imperfect justice'. one alternative that many here are implying is 'don't act if there is a chance a mistake will be made'. in that case there ought not be any prisons or punishments because we are not perfect, mistake-free beings. call this 'justice for all through justice for none'.
the alternative you're probably advocating is to treat the ultimate punishment as a special case, because it's irreversible. but is a mistaken punishment of life in prison reversible? 35 years as an innocent man in jail...is that reversible? 10 yrs in your prime?
i don't know if 'morally' is the right word, but any wrongful punishment of an 'ultimately' innocent individual is 'morally' irreversible with respect to that individual. the punishment has proceeded in space-time. that individual will never be the same...though they sometimes can be made 'materially' whole.
so in answer to your question, a mistaken capital punishment would be the ultimate in irreversibility. the problem you have is that we don't build our justice system around the idea that after a man is convicted of a crime, he's innocent! once found guilty (whether 'ultimately' guilty or not), one is expected to abide by the system of punishment...the alternative is anarchy.
but back to the idea of eliminating death as a punishment as a way of 'increasing justice'. that pencils out if you're only considering justice with respect to the criminal. you have to totally ignore the victims. justice isn't a one-sided concept.
by deciding to err on the side of life in order to prevent a miniscule quantity of injustice, you're actually increasing injustice much more (that with respect to the victims).
it seems that the disconnect between us is that you disagree with my premise that justice to the murder victim means death to the murderer. a Fate-oriented 'universal' justice would mean that the murderer ought to meet the same Fate as his victim. he busted in a door and fatally shot a man he'd never seen before...therefore the same thing ought to happen to him (think along the lines of Kant's Categorical Imperative-First Formulation or the golden rule, or just plain Fate or Fortune).
since we can't execute a guilty man in the state of his innocence, the best we can do to achieve the most justice is to execute the guilty man. note that complete justice isn't possible...unless by chance the murderer hadn't got caught and then one day was killed in the exact same way he killed his victims.
when the murderer kills more than one victim, complete justice is impossible (in this world) as the murderer can only be killed once.
for pragmatic reasons, we make our method of execution consistent.
it's not 'eye for an eye' across the board. we don't rape rapists for their punishment (though the type of Fate justice I alluded to above would require this). there is only one appropriate punishment, which still doesn't even come close to achieving complete justice for a victim irrevocably destroyed, and that is the death of the murderer.
nico: "your logic requires you to let this murderer loose once he's 'redeemed' himself."
yes
just to let you doubt about MY state of mind (as much as I doubt yours...)
to "let murderer loose" after they have spent their life long sentence, which is NOT life-long in most cases isa common practice here in our part of the world, where the homicide rate is about 1.7 per 100.000 population (EU 1997-1999). Just to show you how silly this talk about prevention and capital punishment is.
Nico -- some really good posts... and I'm in general agreement with you. Unfortunately, you've clearly outlined the necessity and fairness of capital punishment for a group of individuals that will not hear you --or at least are responding as such.
Among those arguing with you, most need to read and think quite a bit more -- while being influenced by the bien pensant masses quite a bit less. This helps, too: Never bring a knife to a gunfight.
Facing a gun, where another guy is in control. Standing there wondering if he ever thought about the death penality. Wondering,
wondering...and then Bang....I'm Dead....he is alive. Wonder what
my last thoughts would be. Missed the boat Charlie...could have should have ask the question...."What do you think about the Death
Penality?" I'm not sure the guy with the gun could have responded...my response is if your an adult...you should know better...
and if your a youth...I don't know if you should grow into an adult if you don't value life.
1,000
I agree Death Row is a Joke - he should have been executed within weeks of the trial, and not allowed to "redeem" himself overa period of 26 years.
We all have a social contract to fulfill....you blow a family to smithereens with a shotgun, you go too. I've neevr seen so many people froth over the life of a piece of crap criminal murderer-gone-saint in my life.
i think that is because, in general, the country and the world are backing off on their support from the death penalty because they do not see the value in it. even half of the victims families have forgiven him and did not want him to be executec.
ArchAngel where are you? In some taliban controlled area? I bet you you would be first in line at the soccer stadium to witness the executions of those that you consider "pieces of crap". you are so much better than those pieces of crap, huh? When people are viewed as pieces of crap and suitable for extermination bad things happen, you can always excuse murder.
I believe in that social contract, and in law and order, but state (and subsequently community) sanctined murder do not fit within those boundaries.
From Ed Morrisey this morning:
My posts on the Stanley Williams execution and my opposition to the death penalty has generated a number of comments and e-mails. One e-mail comes from a prosecutor who wrote such a good argument that it deserves a wider exposure, even though he disagrees with my position. I suspect it speaks for a number of CQ readers.
---
I'm a big fan of yours, and I read your blog daily. As a prosecutor in Los Angeles, I appreciated your comments today regarding the disgusting glorification cum martyrdom of Tookie Williams, particularly as you are personally opposed to the death penalty.
I'm not a good enough theologian to even try to convince you of the moral propriety of the death penalty, but I would like to take a stab at the LWOP argument. It seems to me that it isn't enough to say that the people of California could have simply chosen to keep a killer like Tookie locked up forever. Getting rid of the death penalty means that we have to also consider the foreseeable consequences of guaranteeing criminals that they can kill as many innocent people as they want, for whatever reason at all, without even facing the theoretical possibility of placing their own lives at risk.
A few examples to make my point: Suppose we have a career criminal with a long record of violent felonies, what we in California would call a "three-striker", who knows that he will be sent to prison for the rest of his life if he is ever caught committing a new offense. When he goes to rob the local convenience store, he doesn't want to hurt anyone - he just wants the money. But he also knows that, as there is no death penalty, he will face the exact same punishment (life imprisonment) whether or not he kills the clerk, the only witness to his crime. He would be a fool not to do so. If he happens to bump into a police officer on the way out, he may as well kill him too - there is no extra charge, so to speak.
If we somehow manage to catch the "three-striker" and place him on trial, it will be in his best interest to sabatoge his own trial by killling witnesses, jurors, prosecutors or judges. After all, if we can't convict him, he goes free. (Remember that scene from the movie Traffic, where the druglord walks?) And even if we manage to successfully prosecute him for one of these new murders, he will still only face the same life sentence that he was sure to get in the first place.
If we do manage to put a murderer like Tookie away for life, he can then kill anyone he wants to - inside or out of prison - with complete impunity. What are we going to do to him - give him two life terms? In California, we presently have something like 30,000 inmates serving life terms. Most of them have little or no prospect of ever being paroled. I would not like to be there on the day that they are told that they have been given a license to kill.
In short, we can be unreasonably tolerant in granting appeals and delays which put off the actual day of reckoning for decades or more (in California, were looking at about a 25-year process), but I cannot see how we can get rid of capital punishment altogether without creating powerful incentives for criminals to commit murders that they would otherwise not do. I would not want to be the legislator who had to explain to a prison guard's widow that we knew that we had created a system of justice that refused to set any punishment for the lifer inmate who killed her husband. I take these situations, where potential killers are facing or already serving life sentences, to be the "rare or practically non-existent" cases for which the Catholic Catechism permits the use of the death penalty.
And this from the Atlantic Monthly regarding a study I linked to on a similar thread.
"Is Capital Punishment Morally Required?: The Relevance of Life-Life Tradeoffs"
---
Support for capital punishment is, of course, usually associated with the political right. But the lead author of a new paper making what might be termed the "big government" case for the death penalty is the noted liberal scholar Cass Sunstein. The paper draws in part on a study conducted at Emory University, which found a direct association between the reauthorization of the death penalty, in 1977, and reduced homicide rates. The Emory researchers' "conservative estimate" was that on average, every execution deters eighteen murders. Sunstein and his co-author argue that this calculus makes the death penalty not just morally licit but morally required. A government that fails to make use of it, they write, is effectively condemning large numbers of its citizens to death—a sin of omission like failing to protect the environment or to provide adequate health care. "If each execution is saving many lives," they conclude, "the harms of capital punishment would have to be very great to justify its abolition, far greater than most critics have heretofore alleged."
What the hell?
How many things have things liek this happened?
Only politicians get away with murder? Where is Condit?
At least this person has a serious attitude, and lathough I think he is off and Im sure he cannot prove any of his statements without rsorting to movies, he deserves to be listened to.
ArchAngel and nico want to throw tailgating parties at executions, without one argument why it helps besides soemthing that seems more like vengence than justice.
sorry: How many times have things like these happened?
ive mentioned this before, but as is mentioned above, the fact that the state can take a mans life is atrocious. not only is it morally reprehensible, but in this case, it seriously damages perception of what our prison system really is. it is painfully obvious that it is nothing more than a warehouse where rehabilitation does not enter into the equation.
i always felt prison should be about rehabilitation... it is NOT naive to believe that people can turn their lives around. There is this disgusting and selfish notion in this country that we all must have some moral high ground on each other, on other nations etc. Stanley Williams may or may not have commited some horrible crimes, but he had turned his life around and was doing incredibly important work.
ive mentioned this before, but as is mentioned above, the fact that the state can take a mans life is atrocious. not only is it morally reprehensible, but in this case, it seriously damages perception of what our prison system really is. it is painfully obvious that it is nothing more than a warehouse where rehabilitation does not enter into the equation.
i always felt prison should be about rehabilitation... it is NOT naive to believe that people can turn their lives around. There is this disgusting and selfish notion in this country that we all must have some moral high ground on each other, on other nations etc. Stanley Williams may or may not have commited some horrible crimes, but he had turned his life around and was doing incredibly important work.
StupidAngel..."We all have a social contract to fulfill....you blow a family to smithereens with a shotgun, you go too." Who's social contract is that?
How about the guy that gets exonorated by DNA evidence 25 years later? What's your response? Ooops dopey us? If the system was anywhere near infallible you might have an argument. It would still be rooted in ignorance, but it would be an argument. Right now you are just wrong.
+q, i think in general nico offers rather intelligent arguments for the other side even though i mostly don't agree with them. i appreciate that.
and norm, do we really have start with the name calling? how third grade.
you're right.
my bad.
nicho didnt say anything particularly interesting e. I agree with his comments, I feel sorry for the victims and i too shed that tear, but... I still feel that no good reasons have been given for the execution of a man. I dont even care if he had changed in prison or not. NO MURDER.
i should have said the idea that we have a social contract that demands an eye for an eye is worse than stupid.
am i missing something here, or is the idea that the death penalty is a deterent rendered moot by the fact that our friend tookie killed four people for a couple hundred bucks? in other words...how effective is a deterent that can be ignored for $200?
Devil's Advocate posting/question:
Is waking up, going to work and being evicerated by a shot gun the same as being executed when you are informed that murder is punishable by death? I think it can almost parallel the abortion argument of what constitutes murder. It's interesting that those who support the death penalty often oppose abortion (conservatives), but those who support abortion oppose the death penalty (liberals). It's essentially a conflict over the definition of murder.
A woman has the right to choose to end the life of her unborn child knowing that unprotected sex may lead to pregnancy. A person knows that murdering another person may lead to a death sentence.
I don't think there is a black or white answer.
Plus, and excuse me for my intervention on a subject that doesn't concern me directly, the exemples given (the fact that acriminal would kill the witnesses and so on...) are not very useful since these kind of events alreday occur, deah penalty or not. Some people are true criminal, but it doesn't justify death penalty...
Hasselhoff
For me the problem here is that the Governement gets involved. Murder is murder and should not be condoned by the Government. As for abortion, I think it is a dispicable practice, and it should be stopped. A law is not the answer though, many women would die in "back alley abortions" Ihate the practice, but ending it would potentially cause more pain (and possible death).
The best is to have a system by which women can feel free to give their children up for adoption or something else like that. Telling poeple what to do or not do doesnt work often, and criminilizing it is a mistake.
abortion v. death penalty is a common, but ultimately false comparison.
abortion is largely about a womens right to privacy, and whether the government should be allowed to interfere in that right. opponents question that right saying it is not specifically spelled out in the constitution. hence the religious rights argument for strict constructionists.
the death penalty is not a constitutional argument - beyond the 8th amendment which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. the 5th amendment pretty much allows for the death penalty.
i would prefer to live in a world where the government interfered in my life as little as possible, and society had evolved beyond pointless barbaric punishment.
interestingly enough the right claims to want less government interference in private lives - except when they want to interfere in private lives. for instance; abortion, terry schiavo, gay marriage, etc. they are however all for the death penalty. "every life is important" - except the ones we deem unimportant. oh the hypocrisy.
i'm amazed at the number of moral relativists here who quickly shift to moral absolutism when it comes to the death penalty. killing is always wrong? killing = murder = killing = murder?
killing a man found guilty of murdering 4 innocent people is no different than murdering 4 innocent people?
no.
[scroll up in this discussion to learn that] murder is killing but killing isn't necessarily murder. this seems a childish point for some of you to be stuck on.
i would say it would be a more barbaric society that gives murderers impunity...at worst a murderer gets life in prison, all expenses paid.
those of you who are against the death penalty, what do you think justice is? the victims are erased forever, having done nothing wrong. your idea of justice is having the murderer do 'enough' community service?
maybe Tookie reformed, maybe he got his mind right, maybe he was a 'new man', maybe he was helping a lot of people. how does that even relate to the victims? i'm supposed to take solace because in the future if i'm murdered, the murderer will 'make things right' by helping some other people i never knew? hell, let him out if he's truly reformed, right? why keep a changed man in prison when he could be helping so many more people out of prison?
if 'helping people' is your idea of punishment then you've just nullified the idea of punishment. you help people on your own, not having committed crimes, what changes after you commit a crime? you're idea of justice is to bring the criminal up to the level of normalcy?
this kind of thinking destroys the idea of the individual, after all, you say the murderer can atone for his crime by helping society. the murderer must have only offended society.
if a thief steals $1,000 from me, justice determines he'll be forced to return the money and be punished.
if an assailant slashes me with a knife unprovoked, justice determines he'll be forced to pay my hospital bills and be punished.
how is a life returned to a victim? it isn't. in murder, the criminal has committed an extraordinary crime in which there is no possibility of making right with the victim. justice calls for extraordinary punishment, or do you claim murder no different than any other crime?
the criminal must make right with the victim....and with society. never either, always both. murder means both isn't possible...so maximum justice means killing the murderer as soon as possible after he's proven guilty.
kill'em all, nicomachinator, down to the last bit of scum.
eventually the world will be thankful and much better off.
nico...
a murderer commits an atrocity. that doesn't justify society commiting an atrocity. two wrongs etc. etc...
"...maximum justice means killing the murderer as soon as possible after he's proven guilty..." there are degrees of justice?
justice is conforming to what is morally right. murder is morally wrong. therefore murder cannot be just.
i like the papillon solution. they don't want to follow societies rules?put 'em all on an island - away from society. perhaps the moon.
who among us is qualified to kill people? i can't think about this question without thinking of george bush giggling about executing people during the 2000 debates. no one among us is qualified to kill people. and the system we have set up is extremely fallible. not to mention flat out biased. so much for justice.
meet me at the bar and we can argue some more...got to go.
The "capital punishment is not a deterrent" argument is an awfully tired line, and it just really misses the point. Victims deserve equal justice -- period. Who among us does not rightly demand justice when wronged in some way? My point is that the proper serving of justice is completely independent of how other potential perpetrators may act at a later date. You'll notice that our legal sytem bases quite a bit on precedent, but not much on notions of what someone MIGHT do in the future.
justice=vengence
interesting concept true legal scholars we have in archinect.
thank you finoki, that was a good piece upthere. i've read it 3;30 am this morning. right after you've written it which was a couple of hours after the state killing took a place.
death penalty, if this is a telling story about a society, i see an exteremly violent society that is way behind the advancements achieved. how many of death row inmates are high school or jr college educated? what are we giving to these people in terms of education, economic comfort, peaceful environment to grow up, healthy food and health care, guidance?
yes, when it comes to shiny consumer goods and high tech systems we have a clothes patch in american flag that depicts #1, but where are we in terms of social divide, racism and violance? why do we have one of the highest murder rate in the world and top prison population?
is +,-300 million people who leave in this country, too much population when we brag about being the richest giant in the world? and why do we say 'barbaric' when a person beheaded, hanged and shot in other countries? are we less of a barbaric people? are the death rowers not part of us? weren't they born like a tiny innocent baby? what happened between the time they were born and they were executed? do we care? can you imagine yourself being born and raised in the other side of tracks with no or insignificant chance to make it in the mainstream society? each time we are watching someone executed, aren't part of us is also being punished? do you feel that? are you getting a little chill? doesn't our justice system with death penalty, giving us a little warning each time it condems someone to death? one less murderer or gang member make us any safer? can a person change and turn around from the crime he committed? does that make any difference? is this the end of crips? is south central any safer? would you take your family to watts towers? who are you? where would you like to live? how would you like to live?
why are you so vengeful? why don't we going all the way, cutting the hands of a person who stole our bycyle? is this thief's hands more valuable than our 10 speed? whats the difference? an eye for an eye is good justice?
the fear is slowly eating our souls, do you know that?
For you death penalty fans, how the f--- do we know that every single one of these people is innocent. And if not, is it okay to kill innocent people, but only if you are the justice system?
hi ab's,
that's a great line of questioning. too bad this country's mode of administering justice not only takes a complete lack of interest in those issues, but in the most systemic way only contributes to all that is unresolved about them, as well.
i regret not being there at the SQ gate last night with the rest of his supporters, b/c the bottom line for me: the only thing capital punishment does is promote a self-righteous culture bent on rationalizing more killing, and that i see actaully produces more killers than it executes. that, i see, is the crux of our everything wrong with american culture.
Tookie was simply more valuable to society alive than dead, his reparations were better paid through his leadership in prison, doing the work that the system itself has failed to do all along. taking another man's life is not justice, it does not bring back the victims, it does not get the muderers in any way to contribute anything back, not to the victim's survivors nor to society. in that sense it is letting both the murderer and the prison system off way too easy.
"Last May, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger changed the Department of Corrections to the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, a renaming many believed signaled a shift of the state from exclusively punishing criminals to a belief that with help, prisoners could turn their lives around." (beyondchron). But Arnold decided to go ahead and terminate him anyway, just before "the California Assembly will consider the merits of AB1121, which would impose a moratorium on capital punishment while a commission assesses whether its application in this state is "fair, just and accurate." The first hearing on that bill, authored by Assemblyman Paul Koretz, D-West Hollywood, is Jan. 10" (chron). Because apparently a significant number of Californians are beginning to realize just how ridiculous capital punishment really is.
the State has no business being in the ultimately fallible business of killing people. even if it is just 1 in a 1000 when an innocent man is wrongly executed, that still makes capital punishment utterly not worth it.
perhaps the rest of the country will slowly wake up to all this, as Tookie will be martyred now, and the U.S. prison system will be exposed abroad for all its heinous practices, and all those would be killers out there will stop for a moment, consider the humane side of their actions, realizing, before killing again, that the state will not credit you with transformation or redemption regardless of how far you come to atone for your sins. and so, instead the state just greases the killing machines again, lubes the killing logic, saying its perfectly okay to kill, just dont get caught or we will have to kill you, too. brilliant justice at work!
One man's trash is another man's martyr.
this is...
...the twilight zone...
to nico:
"you're idea of justice is to bring the criminal up to the level of normalcy?"
yes
"how is a life returned to a victim? it isn't"
>>IT ISN'T<< what else is there to say?
I might not be able to fullfill the task of forgiving the person if it would be my sister, son, wife etc. who has been raped or shot for 100 bucks.
But I pray that I could accept the fact, that this person can live a life in prison being no threat anymore to others, while my loved one would have died a senseless death.
and now you (who try to tell me that there is something as a "sense-ful" death) can call me an idealistic liberal softie or catholic ***hole, whatever you want.
If someone is put to death & we as a society approve of it, then we as a society have sunk to the level of the (alleged) criminal & the sinner that we execute.
All ya'll who think yer GAWD, raise yer hands. If you did, you'll see Little Nicky (& harvey Keitel) not Mr. St.Peter (& Reese Witherspoon) one day.
BTW, e. I for one am glad that Angola ain't on that list - but I don't want to go to one of their jails. Oh & I'm also glad Brasil ain't on that list either - I'm going there (I hope) tomorrow.
[nonplused]
"you're idea of justice is to bring the criminal up to the level of normalcy?"
yes
"how is a life returned to a victim? it isn't"
>>IT ISN'T<< what else is there to say?
so your idea of justice in the case of murder is for the victim to remove forever dead, their life completely ended, while the murderer lives out their entire life and can 'redeem' himself, pretending he's the same man as he was before he murdered?
your logic requires you to let this murderer loose once he's 'redeemed' himself.
MysteryMan:
if we had gone out a picked up a random innocent guy on the street (who happened to be Tookie), shoved him face-down on the floor and fired two shotgun blasts into his back, giggled at the gurgling sounds he was making, stole $150 from him, and left him for dead, then you could say we'd stooped to his level. you'd have to be pretty tricky with this dimension called time, though, in order to execute a guilty man in the state of his innocence.
Nico, you are avoiding the question - how do you reverse capital punishment for someone wrongly convicted? All of your bluster about the loss of Tookie's innocent victims doesn't address the question of what happens when the State kills an innocent.
How many times has that happened, Janosh. Go On with the hypotheticals.
What amazes me sre the parallels drawn between executing a criminal and a criminal executing an unsuspecting citizen...
Why? It's not the same....like an algorithm, it if a then b...not a=a!!
You are getting stuck in your own incognitive thought loop. If you kill someone (murder) then you are killed (capital punishment). You make it seem as if murder is encouraged for the sport of capital punishment. One cannot happen without the other, and they are not the same....
The following is a copy/paste job of info related to the unlikelihood of a wrongful execution:
Hard to kill a wrongly convicted criminal
Edward Laijas:
Another reason that many people are against the death penalty is that they feel that innocent people will be wrongfully executed all in the name of justice. This is not true at all. There are many safeguards guaranteeing protection of the rights of those facing the death penalty. These safeguards are:
" Capital punishment may be imposed only for a crime for which the death penalty is prescribed by law at the time of its commission.
Persons below eighteen years of a age, pregnant women , new mothers or persons who have become insane shall not be sentenced to death.
Capital punishment may be imposed only when guilt is determined by clear and convincing evidence leaving no room for an alternative explanation of the facts.
Capital punishment may be carried out only after a final judgment rendered by a competent court allowing all possible safeguards to the defendant, including adequate legal assistance.
Anyone sentenced to death shall receive the right to appeal to a court of higher jurisdiction.
Anyone sentenced to death shall have the right to seek pardon or commutation of sentenced.
Capital punishment shall not be carried out pending any appeal, recourse procedure or proceeding relating to pardon or commutation of the sentenced.
Also capital punishment shall be carried out so as to inflict the minimum possible suffering." (5)
These safeguards will insure that justice will be served without having it suffer. Also these safeguards ensure that the death penalty is not racially biased.
Jon Manning:
Every year approximately 250 new offenders are added to death row. In 1994 there were 2,850 persons awaiting execution. Yet no more than thirty-eight people have been executed a year since 1976. This is a ridiculously low number compared to 199 persons executed in 1935 (all from Cole 451). The reason for this slow execution rate is the process of appeals, from sentencing to execution there is about a seven to eight year wait. The convict's cases' are reviewed by the state courts and through the federal courts (Cole 451). With all this opportunity for the case to be turned over or the sentence to be changed it is almost impossible for an innocent person to be executed. Only two people have been proved innocent after their execution in the United States. These wrongful deaths occurred in 1918 and 1949 (Death Penalty Discussion). Since then the justice system has undergone a lot of fine tuning making this extremely unlikely today.
Abel Martinez:
How is the death penalty a punishment that fits the crime? Well, not every prisoner deserves the death penalty. People who kill someone in self defense should not be treated as one who kills just for the sake of killing. This is one instance anti-death penalty supporters will bring up. The criteria for evaluating whether or not a person is sentenced to death varies from state to state. The states that have death penalty laws are: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, and Wyoming. The choices of execution are: hanging, electrocution, gas chamber, firing squad, and lethal injection (BJS 12-92). These also vary from state to state. There are guidelines that are followed before a prisoner is sentenced to death. Of those, one of the most important reads: Capital punishment may be imposed only when guilt is determined by clear and convincing evidence leaving no room for an alternative explanation of the fact (Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Branch 5-25-84).
Jessica Spinler:
Despite the moral argument concerning the inhumane treatment of the criminal, we return to the "nature" of the crime committed. Can society place an unequal weight on the tragically lost lives of murder victims and the criminal? This is not an exam question in a college philosophy course but a moral conundrum at the core of perhaps the most intriguing issue facing the U. S. Supreme Court today. Punishment is meted out because of the nature of the crime, devoid of any reference to the social identity of the victim. Compassion and political calculation have combined to transform victims and their advocates into a potent lobbying force. Beginning in California, 1987, the Supreme court carved out a crucial exception: Neither the life of the victim nor the suffering of his survivors could be a factor in any state or federal case punishable by death (Shapiro, 61). The catch is that every reduction in the elaborate legal process that has evolved to ensure that only the guilty die increases the chances that an innocent person, victim, will be subjected to this most irreversible and final of punishments, injustices. The possibility of an innocent person being put to death is another factor some people have against the death penalty. According to the 1987 Stanford University survey, at least 23 Americans have been wrongly executed in the 20th century (Kramer, 32).
Jana Wofford:
An automatic appeal has been instituted in 35 of the 36 death-penalty states in an effort to reduce the amount of time spent by the court's appeal system reevaluating capital cases.(Capital Punishment 1992) Mandatory appeals shorten the length of time spent on death row and therefore could not be considered cruel and unusual punishment, although some opponents of the death penalty argue that appeals themselves are a form of torture as they keep inmates on death row for many years. This argument is contradictory because they also assert that there is a possibility of executing an innocent person. With no appeal, the chance of freeing a falsely convicted felon is also decreased. They cannot make this argument because arguing against mandatory appeals in that they bog down the system defeats the purpose of their argument against killing an innocent person. There must be a balance between these concepts two and to argue one side or the other is illogical. Though this logic may seem twisted, mandatory appeals expedite the execution process, which is currently an average of 9 years and 6 months on death row before the sentence is carried out.(Capital Punishment 1992)
archangel, all in all one can almost agree with the notion you express of an eye for a night-type of justice, although one could always argue that society/the government is a contract between people, and not a living entity, and as such it should be free from all the feelings that tamper human judgement (that is the reason for any democratic country to have a legal system), and revenge is one of such feelings.
The economic argument does not stand, as the lenght of the process, and the exteneded number of appeals that a capital punishment-convicted felon goes thru (many more than someone who'se been given life without parole) makes it on average more expensive that keeping that person alive in the jail system.
Then there is the fact that the united states are the last of the great democracies who still use capital punishment. really, look at the list of other countries that have capital punishment. and think.
I;m not saying criminals are really good people and tookie was a saint. But let's face it. Death penalty does not work. It's a simple matter of logic, which goes beyond any ethical judgent
(which by the way, you are completely avoiding. and law theory bases itself entirely on the notion of ethics. law is simply the ethic backbone of a society, and i think that goes a long way in showing what huge difference there is between america and the rest of the civilized world.you kill someone=capital punishment is a huge step backward in the law of ethics, its a simplistic non-answer to th problem)
it takes too long (it couldn't take less time! the lenght of the process is intended to reduce the risk for errors!), it is not a deterrent for criminals (everytime it was reintroduced it never caused a reduction of crime rates) because when someone commits a crime, being caught is not taken into consideration as an option. It does not re-educate the convict, it's not cost effective. It just keeps people like you happy, in the knowledge that yes, i am part of a nation that gives those fuckers what they deserve. and that is the only reason why is being kept, because it feeds a monster that has generated itself, the american public opinion. scary scary scary.
the load of crap is just wrote is not to convince you or change your mind, just to tell you that you scare me!
but more than you, is the people you support, who lie to you in order to keep you scared, and offer solutions to that problem which do not solve the problem, but give you an outlet to your fear, which is only temporary, and then you go back to being scared, and therefore controllable.
it's late, and i've got work to do!
ArchAngel you havent heard avbout the San Antonio case yet?
IT WAS PROVEN THAT AN INNOCENT HISPANIC YOUTH WAS PUT TO DEATH FOR A CRIME HE DID NOT COMMIT IN SAN ANTONIO TEXAS.
the real criminals have come forward, and said so themselves. The are going to try them for the death of the innocent man too.
CANTU WAS KILLED BECAUSE COPS JUST WANTED HIM TO BE GUILTY
http://www.slate.com/id/2131194/
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/11/20/texas.execution.ap/
it has happened ArchAngel-I respect your opinion, just happen to think that the death penalty is:
-Racist
-Barbaric
-Not good for the public good (crimes go up during executions)
-Not what MY GOVERNMENT should do.
Less people support the death penalty now than 20 years ago, and i can only hope that trend will continue.
ya can get away with murder if you got a badge
you can get away with the disney hall if you're called gehry
as far as I know the death penalty has worked every time it's been carried out...except for Mr. JC.
but seriously, should we ban police from pulling people over because it's claimed the act of pulling someone over is 'racist'? sure, racist cops will abuse their power in different parts of the country but does that mean the act itself of pulling someone over is racist? of course not.
'is racist' in some minds here really means 'can be abused by racists'.
a racist goes to a baseball game...then by your logic 'going to a baseball game' is racist. a racist throws a paper airplane at a man of the race he hates...by your logic 'throwing a paper airplane at someone' is racist.
there is nothing inherently racist in the death penalty.
...how do you reverse capital punishment for someone wrongly convicted? All of your bluster about the loss of Tookie's innocent victims doesn't address the question of what happens when the State kills an innocent.
Janosh:
how does the State deal with accused individuals whom the jury finds 'not guilty'? the State doesn't reimburse them for their time - as if the whole judicial process is worthless without a conviction.
a cop pulls me over for speeding...turns out he realized his speed gun was broken, apologizes to me and i'm on my way. what do i get for being mistakenly pulled over? i've done nothing wrong yet i'm being encumbered by the justice system.
the judicial process is far from an exact science...so call it 'imperfect justice'. one alternative that many here are implying is 'don't act if there is a chance a mistake will be made'. in that case there ought not be any prisons or punishments because we are not perfect, mistake-free beings. call this 'justice for all through justice for none'.
the alternative you're probably advocating is to treat the ultimate punishment as a special case, because it's irreversible. but is a mistaken punishment of life in prison reversible? 35 years as an innocent man in jail...is that reversible? 10 yrs in your prime?
i don't know if 'morally' is the right word, but any wrongful punishment of an 'ultimately' innocent individual is 'morally' irreversible with respect to that individual. the punishment has proceeded in space-time. that individual will never be the same...though they sometimes can be made 'materially' whole.
so in answer to your question, a mistaken capital punishment would be the ultimate in irreversibility. the problem you have is that we don't build our justice system around the idea that after a man is convicted of a crime, he's innocent! once found guilty (whether 'ultimately' guilty or not), one is expected to abide by the system of punishment...the alternative is anarchy.
but back to the idea of eliminating death as a punishment as a way of 'increasing justice'. that pencils out if you're only considering justice with respect to the criminal. you have to totally ignore the victims. justice isn't a one-sided concept.
by deciding to err on the side of life in order to prevent a miniscule quantity of injustice, you're actually increasing injustice much more (that with respect to the victims).
it seems that the disconnect between us is that you disagree with my premise that justice to the murder victim means death to the murderer. a Fate-oriented 'universal' justice would mean that the murderer ought to meet the same Fate as his victim. he busted in a door and fatally shot a man he'd never seen before...therefore the same thing ought to happen to him (think along the lines of Kant's Categorical Imperative-First Formulation or the golden rule, or just plain Fate or Fortune).
since we can't execute a guilty man in the state of his innocence, the best we can do to achieve the most justice is to execute the guilty man. note that complete justice isn't possible...unless by chance the murderer hadn't got caught and then one day was killed in the exact same way he killed his victims.
when the murderer kills more than one victim, complete justice is impossible (in this world) as the murderer can only be killed once.
for pragmatic reasons, we make our method of execution consistent.
it's not 'eye for an eye' across the board. we don't rape rapists for their punishment (though the type of Fate justice I alluded to above would require this). there is only one appropriate punishment, which still doesn't even come close to achieving complete justice for a victim irrevocably destroyed, and that is the death of the murderer.
nico: "your logic requires you to let this murderer loose once he's 'redeemed' himself."
yes
just to let you doubt about MY state of mind (as much as I doubt yours...)
to "let murderer loose" after they have spent their life long sentence, which is NOT life-long in most cases isa common practice here in our part of the world, where the homicide rate is about 1.7 per 100.000 population (EU 1997-1999). Just to show you how silly this talk about prevention and capital punishment is.
Nico -- some really good posts... and I'm in general agreement with you. Unfortunately, you've clearly outlined the necessity and fairness of capital punishment for a group of individuals that will not hear you --or at least are responding as such.
Among those arguing with you, most need to read and think quite a bit more -- while being influenced by the bien pensant masses quite a bit less. This helps, too: Never bring a knife to a gunfight.
Facing a gun, where another guy is in control. Standing there wondering if he ever thought about the death penality. Wondering,
wondering...and then Bang....I'm Dead....he is alive. Wonder what
my last thoughts would be. Missed the boat Charlie...could have should have ask the question...."What do you think about the Death
Penality?" I'm not sure the guy with the gun could have responded...my response is if your an adult...you should know better...
and if your a youth...I don't know if you should grow into an adult if you don't value life.
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