Hope you rot in hell!!!!!

[The Mad Monk]

Originally posted by paiktis22
What did the Apache do already

From what little I know, probably either something involving sunshine, honey, and ants, or something involving a small knife and hot coals.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by paiktis22
What did the Apache do already

They were very creative. Innovative use of cactus, slow fire (think barbecue), skinning, the desert sun, ants, scorpions, dull knives, surgically removed eyelids (think nice bright desert day). They liked to make sure their victims weren't too uncomfortable though - don't want him dying on you the first day.

[Imran Siddiqui]

False.

How do average murder rates = average crime rates?

Secondly there are certain states listed as 'death penalty states' like New Jersey who haven't executed ANYONE (they are still waiting on their first execution since the 1800s, IIRC).

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

Quote:

False.

How do average murder rates = average crime rates?

Since the death penalty is only enacted for the crime of murder, what's the point of comparing crime rates instead of murder rates? Surely you don't think a state having the death penalty prevents someone from stealing a woman's purse, do you?

At any rate, look at the states without death penalties...do you really think they'll have a higher crime rate than the ones with it? Of course, you could just cite sources for your claim.

Secondly there are certain states listed as 'death penalty states' like New Jersey who haven't executed ANYONE (they are still waiting on their first execution since the 1800s, IIRC).

New Jersey last executed someone in 1963. Regardless, it does have the death penalty on the books. You didn't make any stipulation for states who hadn't used it in a while.

Besides, NJ murder rate is 3.5 per 100,000, which is still considerably lower than the most of the active DP states.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by GhengisFarb
Isn't it nice that pot-smokers and child molesting murderers get the same fate from our justice system.

So why keep the pot smokers in there?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Since the death penalty is only enacted for the crime of murder, what's the point of comparing crime rates instead of murder rates? Surely you don't think a state having the death penalty prevents someone from stealing a woman's purse, do you?

Agathon said the countries without the death penalty have lower overall CRIME. He was asserting that getting rid of the death penalty would lower crime.

At any rate, look at the states without death penalties...do you really think they'll have a higher crime rate than the ones with it?

Tying into the next question. States which haven't used the DP since it first became unconstitutional, I do not consider to really have the DP. They have death row, but if they haven't executed anyone yet, then they really don't have the DP (no one has gotten the penalty). In addition Illinois has a moratorium on the DP, so it should be moved to the other list.

Do you think that if the states without the DP put it on the books they'd have higher crime? You have states without the death penalty on the list who's murder rate is higher than their neighbors (Vermont & New Hampshire; Michigan & Ohio; Minnesota & Montana, etc)

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Agathon said the countries without the death penalty have lower overall CRIME. He was asserting that getting rid of the death penalty would lower crime.

No, that's not what he said:

"Countries that don't have the death penalty have much lower rates of this sort of crime."

"That sort of crime" clearly equating to crimes that are punishable by the death penalty.

In addition Illinois has a moratorium on the DP, so it should be moved to the other list.

Um, the list stops at 1999, and Illinois didn't enact its moratorium until 2002, IIRC.

You have states without the death penalty on the list who's murder rate is higher than their neighbors (Vermont & New Hampshire; Michigan & Ohio; Minnesota & Montana, etc)

And you have ones without the DP with lower murder rates than their neighbors: North Dakota vs. S. Dakota and Montana; Massachusetts vs. NY, CT; Wisconsin and Minnesota vs. IL, MO, etc. You're being remarkably selective in how you're looking at the rates.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Funny,

All these folks screaming for the death of Ronald Reagan in one breath and defending scumbag piece of shite child murderers in the next.

Somethings amiss.

[Q Classic]

no to death penalty. yes to sticking this guy into a 3x3x2 box for the rest of his life.

[Q Classic]

beats me. i've always been against the death penalty, and really dislike abortion and euthanasia. though the last two you can't legislate yet, and there are far too many youth in asia, too.

[Imran Siddiqui]

And you have ones without the DP with lower murder rates than their neighbors: North Dakota vs. S. Dakota and Montana; Massachusetts vs. NY, CT; Wisconsin and Minnesota vs. IL, MO, etc. You're being remarkably selective in how you're looking at the rates.

So are you. Such as states like New Jersey, New York, Kentucky, etc., who haven't killed anyone in the last 30 or so years considered DP states because they have the law on the books, which is never used.

States like Iowa, Massachusettes, Maine are going to have low murder rates no matter if they have the DP or not.

The whole deal with saying Michigan has higher DP rates than Ohio, etc., is debunking Agathon's claim that places that don't have the death penalty are safer than those do.

[DinoDoc]

If we insist on dealing with the minute details of the deterrence arguement, can we at least do a proper test for it and deal with if executions produce fewer murders than if the death penalty did not exist.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
So are you.

I made no false claims such as you did with your assertion that DP states had lower average crime rates than non-DP states. You still haven't backed that up. I just pointed out that you were wrong.

The whole deal with saying Michigan has higher DP rates than Ohio, etc., is debunking Agathon's claim that places that don't have the death penalty are safer than those do.

That doesn't debunk Agathon's claim, it shows that comparing the states in this manner is a bad method of determining such an effect. The only way to really guage it is to compare the murder rates of a country/state that had the DP and then dropped it (or vice versa) to a comparable country/state with no change.

Since Agathon provided Canada as an example, and their murder rate clearly declined dramatically since nixing the DP, his point stands that there is no evidence of deterrence in the DP.

[Imran Siddiqui]

The only way to really guage it is to compare the murder rates of a country/state that had the DP and then dropped it (or vice versa) to a comparable country/state with no change.

Only with all things being equal. Why does the correlation equal causation? IE, what is the reason that murder rates would drop after the death penalty was eliminated. Are you saying that the death penalty creates more murder? How? Why?

[VJ]

It is the concept and knowledge that they will be punished for their actions they keeps them from doing a bad deed.

"Us", not "they".

All of us.

no to death penalty. yes to sticking this guy into a 3x3x2 box for the rest of his life.

Murdering him (I assume he's a male, can't be arsed to read a pointless article about yet another kid getting killed) would be more merciful to him than that.

I used to be for captial punishment but not anymore. I changed my mind not on moral grounds but on economic grounds. It's cheaper to keep an inmate alive in the system until he drops of old age or whatnot as opposed to trying to bring him to the death chamber. A prisoner sentenced to death has right to appeal, appeal, appeal, and appeal for how many times I don't know.

Why not take that right off from them?

[Imran Siddiqui]

And there are studies showing the DP as a deterrant:

http://www.ncpa.org/ea/eama87a.html

Every execution of a convicted murderer results in about 18 fewer murders. Increased arrests and convictions also reduce the number of murders. On the average:

* A one percent increase in arrests of murderers results in about 250 fewer murders.

* A one percent increase in convictions of murderers results in about 105 fewer murders.

Capital punishment reduces the number of murders because it discourages potential murderers from committing the crime. When criminals believe that arrest, conviction and execution are more likely, they commit fewer homicides.

* Of the approximately 20,000 murders committed each year in the United States, only 38 percent result in a conviction.

* Only one-tenth of one percent result in execution.

The first scholarly study of the effects of capital punishment on the murder rate was done in 1975. The study was introduced in argument before the Supreme Court in the case of Gregg v. Georgia, which upheld the constitutionality of capital punishment.

The latest study shows that the deterrent effect of capital punishment is more than twice as strong as the 1975 study found. --DRH

Source: Southern Economic Journal, July 1985, 300 Hanes Hall 019-A. Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27514. (919) 966-5261.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Only with all things being equal. Why does the correlation equal causation? IE, what is the reason that murder rates would drop after the death penalty was eliminated. Are you saying that the death penalty creates more murder? How? Why?

It doesn't really matter, because if you can demonstrate such a trend, then you've shown that the DP is not a deterrent, which is all that needs to be shown.

But the DP might just create more murder in that the spectacle of killing, plus the notion that killing's ok so long as it's revenge for someone doing something you deem wrong, ultimately reduce the sanctity of human life and reinforce the notion that it's ok to kill if you think the reason's good enough.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
And there are studies showing the DP as a deterrant:

http://www.ncpa.org/ea/eama87a.html

Oh come on. They don't cite the study at all, nor its methodology, sampling, or how it came to its conclusions. Plus this is a conservative think tank group--hardly an impartial source for such claims.

[Boris Godunov]

And ***-for-tat:

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/arti...ATES%20WITHOUT

CRIMINOLOGISTS' VIEWS ON DETERRENCE AND THE DEATH PENALTY
A survey of experts from the American Society of Criminology, the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, and the Law and Society Association showed that the overwhelming majority did not believe that the death penalty is a proven deterrent to homicide. Over 80% believe the existing research fails to support a deterrence justification for the death penalty. Similarly, over 75% of those polled do not believe that increasing the number of executions, or decreasing the time spent on death row before execution, would produce a general deterrent effect. (M. Radelet and R. Akers, Deterrence and the Death Penalty: The Views of the Experts, 1995)

And:

Research reported in Homicide Studies, Vol. 1, No.2, May 1997, indicates that executions may actually increase the number of murders, rather than deter murders. Prof. Ernie Thomson at Arizona State University reported a brutalizing effect from an execution in Arizona, consistent with the results of a similar study in Oklahoma.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
But the DP might just create more murder in that the spectacle of killing,

Does putting people in jail encourage kidnapping?

[Imran Siddiqui]

if you can demonstrate such a trend, then you've shown that the DP is not a deterrent, which is all that needs to be shown.

Actually you haven't. Unless all other things are equal you haven't shown anything. How can you be sure that without the death penalty the murder rate would not be higher? Have we accounted for social or cultural changes at all?

And of course, you haven't addressed the people who don't care if the DP is a deterrant (like me).

Oh come on. They don't cite the study at all, nor its methodology, sampling, or how it came to its conclusions.

They gave the cite. It probably wouldn't have been very good of them to give the entire study without permission.


Interesting chart:

[Lancer]

"And no, if someone murders my children, they will not get a "civilized" response from me."

I disagee Mike. I believe that what they would get from you would be a 'civilized' response'. You might take it out on them, but this to me is in favor of civilization. What the guy did is in the extreme, anti civilization. Skinning this guy and BBQing him WOULD be civilized, because it would be justice. No. It wouldn't be. Nothing can bring justice after the fact, but it would be as close to justice as could be had without undoing the horrific crime, which isn't possible, sadly. It might or might not deter crime, but extreme punishment for the misuse and murder of children would still be as close as humanly possible to justice.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Does putting people in jail encourage kidnapping?

Putting people in jail doesn't equate to holding tailgate parties and BBQs outside a prison and cheering when another human being is put to death. The latter would have a much more significant effect on how people view the sanctity of life.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe
Funny,

All these folks screaming for the death of Ronald Reagan in one breath and defending scumbag piece of shite child murderers in the next.

Somethings amiss.

There is a difference between what you hope to see happen and actually comitting an action to make it happen.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Actually you haven't. Unless all other things are equal you haven't shown anything. How can you be sure that without the death penalty the murder rate would not be higher? Have we accounted for social or cultural changes at all?

Since I said that the comparison had to made across states undergoing comparable social and cultural occurences, I'd say I did account for such a thing. If you compare states as such, you will get a better sense of how effective a deterrent it is.

And of course, you haven't addressed the people who don't care if the DP is a deterrant (like me).

And, of course, we've only been arguing about deterrence, so whether or not you care about it is irrelevant to the discussion.

They gave the cite. It probably wouldn't have been very good of them to give the entire study without permission.

They could give links, and quotes. They don't quote, they just make the claims. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if they were taking it out of context. And they seem to be willing to ignore the statistical comparisons that do show there is no demonstrated deterrent. The fact that this study supposedly quantifies the number of lives saved per execution is rather tell-tale.

Interesting chart:

Indeed, but it also fails to address the points you made above, doesn't it?

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

????

I fail to see the relevance of your comment UR. Both sets of statements reflect a hope or deathwish on an individual.

[Imran Siddiqui]

And they seem to be willing to ignore the statistical comparisons that do show there is no demonstrated deterrent.

Most of them just say that since DP states have variances in murders, just like non-DP states, that means it isn't a deterrant. Which doesn't begin to explain things, such as what would the murder rate be if the state had/didn't have the DP.

No one wants to die. It is seen by the incredible amounts of appeals that those guilty of DP utilize. If they are so scared of death then, why wouldn't they be before they committed the crime?

Oh, and of course, it is a specific deterrant - the person killed can't kill anyone else anymore.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Bipolarbear,

What a beautiful post


Does the DL dance

[MrFun]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
Soooooo....who's for the death penalty?

I'm not

[Shi Huangdi]

It is never acceptable to take a life for outrage or vengeance. Only if there is some need of societal defense- if he will continue to pose a danger in some way in prison, or if there is a reasonable expectation of detterent would I be for it.

As I understand the man is insane so I don't see detterance as a likely result here, nor it does seem likely he'll pose a danger in prison. Lock him up and throw away the key, but no death.