Al Johnston
"Cheer up!" they said, "It could be worse!" So I did, and it was.
Posts: 1,453
|
Post by Al Johnston on Nov 29, 2005 6:40:01 GMT -4
It's probably worth mentioning that Albert Pierrepont, Britains's last official executioner changed his mind about capital punishment once he retired: he stated in his autobiography that his career had been of no benefit to the public and had not deterred a single murderer nor saved a single life.
I'm against it myself, on pretty much the same grounds as Peterb.
IIRC there have been some definite examples of unjust executions in the US; DNA evidence having been produced for some of them. As Colinr points out, Police anywhere have not been above getting a "result" by illicit means.
Peterb's fifth point actually harks back to a historical legal issue: under Saxon jurisprudence the crime of homicide was primarily seen as depriving a family of their breadwinner, so it was up to the murderer to make restitution by supporting his victim's family. The idea of the state taking retribution by executing the murderer came with the Norman invasion.
|
|
|
Post by PhantomWolf on Nov 29, 2005 8:59:16 GMT -4
Hmmm. I've described my brother-in-law a number of ways, but I've never thought that selling engineering equipment was a crime... Depends on the markup.
|
|
|
Post by gwiz on Nov 29, 2005 14:16:51 GMT -4
IIRC there have been some definite examples of unjust executions in the US; DNA evidence having been produced for some of them. Just been looking this up. Can't find anyone actually executed before being cleared by DNA evidence, but the ACLU reports 13 cleared while on death row.
|
|
Al Johnston
"Cheer up!" they said, "It could be worse!" So I did, and it was.
Posts: 1,453
|
Post by Al Johnston on Nov 29, 2005 15:03:45 GMT -4
The classic example is, unfortunately British: Timothy Evans was hanged for a murder later proved to have been committed by his landlord, Christie.
|
|
lonewulf
Earth
Humanistic Cyborg
Posts: 244
|
Post by lonewulf on Nov 29, 2005 16:04:04 GMT -4
I think that the main question we have to ask our jail system is, "What are you there for?"
Revenge? Should we just punish people to "feel good about ourselves"? Or rehabilitation? To make criminals "useful members of society"? Or do we just keep them away from mainstream society, lock them away and forget about them, so they no longer affect us?
Rehabilitation is out. 70% of people that get out of jail just end up committing crimes again.
Locking them out of society is expensive, and they just commit the crime again. We can keep them in prison for as long as possible, but then what? It just gets more and more costly.
Revenge is something that I do not personally agree with. "Justice" does not equal "revenge". Revenge is going out of your way to harm someone because they harmed you; this is detrimental. "An eye for an eye, and the world goes blind". At least, that's my personal opinion.
Jail systems seem to be more about revenge than anything else. Many jail authorities are working to torture their prisoners with work; men get raped by other men (sometimes the jailors actually put men in cells with sexual predators to "teach them a lesson"). So, of course, you're exposing them to AIDs as well; a nice little death penalty snuck in there.
I think that we really need a working definition of the purpose of jails before we really go about wondering if it's moral or not to kill someone. If it's just a matter of revenge, then by all means, go ahead with the death penalty; and if you're going to complain about cost, then just use a shotgun at point-blank range. Aim for the brain. Messy, but painless and cheap.
|
|
|
Post by PeterB on Dec 1, 2005 18:40:32 GMT -4
Lonewulf
You've raised an interesting issue. That's why I like the idea of diversionary conferencing for first-time young offenders - they're put in a room with the people they committed the crime against and made to listen to the effects of their crime on the victim. It's intended to bring home the human side of crime and achieves its end through shaming. I understand that the process has a fairly good success rate in preventing re-offence. This way the offenders never enter the formal side of the juvenile detention system, which generally leads to a life of crime.
But getting back to the death penalty itself, one other problem I have with it is that it's an incomparable punishment. That is, it can't be graded according to the scale of the offence. Jail terms and fines can be moved up or down. The death penalty provides only one level of punishment. But it's applied to crimes which vary in scale.
Finally, an Australian has just been executed in Singapore by hanging. He was convicted about three years ago for trafficking 400 grams of heroin. He immediately admitted his guilt, immediately showed remorse, assisted police with their enquiries, and it's been confirmed he couriered the heroin to pay off a debt incurred by his twin brother.
Now Singapore, like many Asian countries, has very severe punishments for drug crimes, yet, strangely, Singapore apparently has very close relations with Burma, a country which is a major source of drugs, and which is ruled by a cruel and violent military junta. So it seems to me a little hypocritical that it doesn't use its apparent relationship with the Burmese government to encourage it to put more effort into fighting the drug trade at its source.
|
|
|
Post by Retrograde on Dec 2, 2005 1:30:56 GMT -4
Finally, an Australian has just been executed in Singapore by hanging. He was convicted about three years ago for trafficking 400 grams of heroin. He immediately admitted his guilt, immediately showed remorse, assisted police with their enquiries, and it's been confirmed he couriered the heroin to pay off a debt incurred by his twin brother. Haven't followed the case, and not the familiar with the Singapore legal system, but the court may have had no choice; at least the immigration cards state that the death penalty is mandatory in nice big red letters. But one rather suspects that the next person accused in Singapore will not be so quick to confess... Some opinion pieces on this issue: www.burmalibrary.org/show.php?cat=218www.burmawatch.com/friskodude.blogspot.com/2005/11/singapore-and-burmese-drug-cartel_24.htmlNot really my thing, but I do get the sense that there is an unwillingness to criticize other governments, which seems a common phenomenon in countries where memories of colonialism are still fresh...
|
|
lenbrazil
Saturn
Now there's a man with an open mind - you can feel the breeze from here!
Posts: 1,045
|
Post by lenbrazil on Dec 4, 2005 9:45:54 GMT -4
I oppose the death penalty for reasons spelled out by others, however i normally have no sympathy for the people who get executed in the US.
|
|
lonewulf
Earth
Humanistic Cyborg
Posts: 244
|
Post by lonewulf on Dec 4, 2005 12:46:20 GMT -4
My main problem with the Death Penalty is that the court system seems to be confused as to what it wants. "We sentence you to DEATH! So we'll wait for several decades..."
If you say you'll kill someone then *DO IT!* Don't give them life in prison if you say that you'll execute them. It's just misleading when you say you'll do one thing, and do another.
I"m against the Death Penalty unless it can be shown to be *WORTH* something (as in, really getting rid of the people that really are beyond help, and we're sure they are guilty), but I'm also against hypocrisy and plain lies.
|
|
|
Post by turbonium on Dec 8, 2005 2:50:35 GMT -4
peter wrote: It's inappropriate. The justice system in many cases seeks to make the guilty person make recompense for their crime, rather than simply extract vengeance. For example, if someone damages your car, the punishment is not to damage their car, but to get them to pay for your repairs. Why does this change when it comes to murder?
I have a problem with this analogy. You can put a dollar figure on a car repair. But you can't compensate for taking a life with any amount of money - it is simply impossible, no matter how large the sum. Of course, putting the murderer to death does not bring back the victim, nor provide worthy compensation for the crime, either.
Basically, no restitution, imprisonment or death penalty can ever make amends for taking a life. Justice - true justice - for murder can never be meted out.
|
|
lenbrazil
Saturn
Now there's a man with an open mind - you can feel the breeze from here!
Posts: 1,045
|
Post by lenbrazil on Dec 8, 2005 11:14:14 GMT -4
It must be a crime of a heinous nature. Killing children, multiple murder, killing a Police Officer.
This would discount anyone under the influence of drugs, alcohol, or with a psychiatric condition, or other mental impairmentWouldn't that put the number of those who you feel merit the death penalty down to zero? I mean, who would not be deemed several bricks short of a load if they commit said "heinous" crime, such as to savagely kill and maybe dismember someone? Not to mention serial killers? I don't think mental impairment should necessarily prevent all murderers from the death penalty. Jeffrey Dahmer (killed by fellow inmate) and Clifford Olson (still alive) are two prime examples of very sick and twisted multiple murderers I believe are (or were) definitely worthy of execution. Peter, you also have presented very valid points to consider from an anti- capital punishment view. I concur for the most part, with the exception of a very small percentage of cases, as I noted above. Mental health experts and the justice system make the distinction between people who are legally insane and those who are sociopathic. The legally insane are unable to distinguish between right and wrong, sociopaths know what they are doing is wrong but don't care. Under current thinking insanity is treatable and possibly curable but sociopathic disturbances aren't. Contrary to popular belief the insanity defense is rarely used by defendants or accepted by juries. Also those found insane normally spend as much time locked up as those found guilty. In most states murderers with diminished mental capacities are not subject to the death penalty, but I remember a recent case in Texas(?) where a retarded man was put to death.
|
|
|
Post by PeterB on Dec 8, 2005 22:20:56 GMT -4
Turbonium said:
Maybe so.
But there are varying levels of culpability when someone is responsible for the death of someone else. This is why we have varying levels of charge - manslaughter, murder, and so on. The problem is, as I said in my first post, that the death penalty is an incomparable - there's only one level of punishment regardless of the nature of the crime (unless one subscribes to execution involving various levels of pain to the person being executed).
In determining the level of culpability, a large part of the decision relies on the state of mind of the accused at the time of the death, and IMHO this can be very hard to decide. The result is the potential for unfair application of the death penalty.
Another problem which comes to mind is the potential for the death penalty to be used as a bargaining chip in plea bargains.
|
|
lenbrazil
Saturn
Now there's a man with an open mind - you can feel the breeze from here!
Posts: 1,045
|
Post by lenbrazil on Dec 9, 2005 8:21:27 GMT -4
But there are varying levels of culpability when someone is responsible for the death of someone else. This is why we have varying levels of charge - manslaughter, murder, and so on. The problem is, as I said in my first post, that the death penalty is an incomparable - there's only one level of punishment regardless of the nature of the crime (unless one subscribes to execution involving various levels of pain to the person being executed). The daeth penalty of course is considered the maximum punishment. And in theory if used at all should only be used in the most exteme circumstances If this only happens when a guily person is coerced into confessing I wouldn't have any problems with that.
|
|
Al Johnston
"Cheer up!" they said, "It could be worse!" So I did, and it was.
Posts: 1,453
|
Post by Al Johnston on Dec 9, 2005 9:26:26 GMT -4
Unfortunately, there's no guarantee on that: it can be just as easy to coerce the innocent into confessing.
|
|
|
Post by turbonium on Dec 10, 2005 5:50:04 GMT -4
I'm curious what those here would think if they witnessed first-hand the (God forbid) murder of a loved one, such as a family member. Let's say the murderer was caught and found guilty. He was found to be sane and in full control of his actions at the time. After serving 30 years of a life sentence, he is released from prison into the general population.
Would you still want to let this scumbag live out his days in the free world? If you had the chance to use him as a speedbump at 80 mph, with no chance of being caught, would you do it?
It would be a tough choice for me...
|
|