"If this does not qualify for the death sentence, then there is no case that would''

[Velociryx]

Not directly, no...quite right.

However, society makes choices about both, by virtue of laws passed, and right now, *today* it would be possible from a technical standpoint to build multi-passenger vehicles that reduce highway fatalities to zero.

But we don't.

We don't because society places more value on speed than safety where autos are concerned.

For the inverse reason, our society (in the states using the death penalty) place more emphasis on certainty than uncertainty.

Same type of issue, and society at large makes its will known, again, by virtue of the types of laws passed.

IF society valued highway safety more than speed of transit, we'd have very differently designed cars.

IF society valued the kinder, gentler approach toward serial or spree killers over the certainty that a death sentence brings, then there would BE no death penalty.

-=Vel=-

[Arrian]

IF society valued the kinder, gentler approach toward serial or spree killers over the certainty that a death sentence brings, then there would BE no death penalty.

Not quite. Allow me to attempt a rephrase:

"If society preferred to reject the risk of executing innocents, there would be no death penalty."

It's not about being nice to murderers for most of us (in opposition to the DP). It's about the inherent fallibility of the justice system, and the fact that innocents have been executed in the past. That's what many of us wish to avoid.

Life sentence without possibility of parole, that's the way to go. Of course we have to make sure they stay locked up. The "w/o parole" part is to make sure the justice system's fallibility doesn't result in letting a monster back out into society. But not killing the convict allows for appeals, which in some cases may lead to a reversal, and then we - society - haven't gone and murdered an innocent. We've still probably cost them years of their life, but it's better than killing them.

-Arrian

[Kidicious]

for Arrian

[Arrian]

Oh dear.

You win Vel.

-Arrian

[Velociryx]

I see your point, of course, and if our current justice system were set up such that there were no appeals once a death sentence had been handed down, I'd agree 100%.

But even AFTER a death sentence has been issued, there are appeals, and more appeals, then a few more appeals, and the ever present possiblity of a last minute stay of execution.

Even through all this, mistakes are sometimes made, and innocent people lose their lives, and when that happens, it's a sorrowful event, just like it is when someone dies on our nation's highways.

It is an entirely avoidable, sorrowful event on both counts, but we tend to hear more about aboloshing the death penalty than we do about reducing highway fatalities to zero, even though far more people lose their lives to the latter societal choices than to the former. Why? If both are entirely avoidable, and both can be corrected via legislation, why is it that the lesser (in terms of sheer number of lives lost) gets more press than the former?

I contend that it's because one (being anti-death penalty) is relatively easy from an individual perspective, and the other (reducing highway fatalities to zero) is relatively hard.

All a person has to do to be anti death penalty is say so. That's it. Easy.

But if you're anti-highway death, then you (everybody)have to buy a specially engineered car that'll prolly cost you a hundred grand, and live with low speed vehicles (5-10kph, or thereabouts) and that pinches the ol' wallet.....that's more than most folks care to pay for saving the lives of their fellow highway travellers. It "costs too much" to save those lives, so we don't. We want fast cars and convenience, and if a few people die on the road as a result of that, we're okay with it.

Innocent people who have done NOTHING to us.

People far more innocent than the vast majority who are put to death by the state.

-=Vel=-

[yavoon]

Originally posted by Aeson
So are you then a pacifist who desires torture yavoon? You seem to think killing or torturing people is wrong, so you must be a pacifist... and all pacifists desire to torture as you said.

I was appealing to ur(tho I didnt originally respond to u) pacifism. not my own.

[Aeson]

The methodologies you advocate WERE used in the cases I brought up here. They were used, and used, and used some more.

No they weren't. No more than if "Well we hit him in the back of the head with this club, didn't check if he was dead, and threw him out back of the prison... " would prove that the DP the way you are advocating doesn't work. Completely ludicrous Vel.

The entire prison system needs rework from top to bottom, and if you are suggesting I advocate how it works right now (and in the past) you are sadly mistaken. I've mentioned this several times already, but you seem to think that the state of the prison system is still what I am advocating?

-----------------

You're right Vel. Society advocating needless death in one area is comparable to society advocating needless death in another. That makes the DP alright because other needless death occurs. Oh wait, nobody said that advocating needless death is alright.

Like you said, there is also less personal cost to be anti-death penalty than anti-vehicle. On one hand we forgo frying these people, on the other we upset and restrict our ability to move around. One is hard, or rather impossible (as you formulate it), we don't even have 100% safe cars to choose, and most couldn't afford them if we did. The other is easy (as you say) to implement, but it shouldn't be chosen because the other is hard. Ignore the alternatives that actually are chosen by some in any case (walking, riding bikes, mass transit, even airline travel is much safer). Issue 1 is wrong, so because issue 2 is wrong, issue 1 is right.

Then of course there is the issue of intent. Everyone who is killed by the DP is meant to be killed. Is that the same for all who die in traffic accidents? The difference between not protecting ourselves vs executing someone. Not really a 1:1 relationship there. If you analyze the DP stance posted here, no one says it's impossible that further harm would come from an inmate who otherwise would have been executed. It should be guarded against as much as possible but not if the guarantee means doing what is to be guarded against in the first place (ie. killing someone). The same stance is the one I would take on highway accidents. They should be guarded against as much as possible, but not if that means we should forcefully cause traffic accidents to try and stop them. (I agree traffic safety isn't all it could be, but that's another issue)

We aren't Gods. We aren't perfect. Neither are our systems that we put in place to protect us. That doesn't mean we should just give up and not try the best we can.

(I respect your stance on the DP, I don't respect your attempts to rationalize that stance by comparing it to other issues that need work. All it does is compare one problem to another.)

[Aeson]

Originally posted by yavoon
I was appealing to ur(tho I didnt originally respond to u) pacifism. not my own.

I was appealing to ur pacifism.

(May I ask if there is significance to the fact you only capitalize your references to yourself?)

[yavoon]

Originally posted by Aeson


I was appealing to ur pacifism.

(May I ask if there is significance to the fact you only capitalize your references to yourself?)

i looks silly

and I'm not terribly pacifist.

[Ramo]

You cannot say that a killer who has been sentenced to solitary confinement has never killed again. I have shown you an example of that very thing.

I however, can tell you absolutely that no killer who has ever been hit with an application of the death penalty has ever killed again.

That's not true. Well, it literally is true, but you know it takes time after a death penalty sentence for a person to be executed. Often times, many, many years. The murderer would have plenty of time to escape or kill again from death row, as your Gaskins example demonstrated. So, why don't we not let them have any appeals and just kill 'em the day after the sentence. Since your methodology failed with him, we ought to try something more effecient at stopping murders, right? Isn't that what you're saying about the system I advocate?

As I asked earlier, why don't we go even further, like the needle for every convicted criminal? No, scratch convicted, anyone the police suspects of being a criminal. Surely the murder rate would become insignificant then.

It's interesting that when a convicted murderer kills again, you say that's a fundamental problem with the system and ought to be remedied with the death penalty, while when the state kills an innocent man, it's some sort of force of nature and ought to be dismissed as a problem.

And I am curious. How is lifelong (20+ years....a thing that has been advocated here) solitary confinement (which is torture, no matter how you slice it) "morally better" than death? Not only is it less certain to work (for the reasons mentioned above), but it carries with it the risk that the killer will get loose and do it again.

There's an extremely small chance that it won't work, yes. There's also an extremely small chance that a person would escape from death row.

And I hardly advocate this for every killer, just the relatively few that need it (like Gaskins). Even if it is hard to bear, it's still better than death.

[Aeson]

Originally posted by yavoon

and I'm not terribly pacifist.

So you condone violence as a means to solve disputes?

[yavoon]

Originally posted by Aeson


So you condone violence as a means to solve disputes?

depends on the dispute.

[Aeson]

And I am curious. How is lifelong (20+ years....a thing that has been advocated here) solitary confinement (which is torture, no matter how you slice it) "morally better" than death?

I would advocate giving the convict the choice. When society deems it necessary to remove an individual from society, there are only so many options to choose from. Giving the choice (some people do commit suicide in prison, so would prefer death obviously) is the best we could do.

[Aeson]

Originally posted by yavoon

depends on the dispute.

And your solution to the DP/life/X argument would be?

[yavoon]

Originally posted by Aeson


And your solution to the DP/life/X argument would be?

interestingly I have very little opinion. I think either provides a reasonable working solution.

I have stronger opinions on more common crimes and conditions.

[Aeson]

Originally posted by yavoon

interestingly I have very little opinion. I think either provides a reasonable working solution.

I figured so. Thanks for your answers.

[Velociryx]

Got wrapped up doing housework (great way to spend a day off, eh?)

Ramo: Again, you know I'm not advocating mass purgings of people in our society. I have been, from the start, talking about the real monsters. Gaskins, the guy that is the leadin to this thread, others.

People who leave a trail of bodies behind them, shattering families (sometimes killing entire families), and who WILL NOT STOP.

I reject that for these people, there is any reasonable hope for "reconditioning," and it makes my skin crawl to think that my tax dollars are spent coddling these apes.

I realize that you anti-DPers are talking about a total revamp of the current prison system, but a total revamp takes time and money. Money, we can get....time...another matter. We have to deal with these monsters RIGHT NOW. We can't very well put them up in a luxury hotel and tell them to "hang on a while" so we can put our prisons in order and there are lots of places where society wants no part of locking them away, because in doing so, the risk is run that some weak willed politician will pander to some voting block and relase a nutjob back onto the streets, or some underpaid prison psycholgist will deem one of these monsters magically cured and set him free.

These are the folks who say a big no thanks to the kinder, gentler approach, and I don't blame them. I'm one of them.

In my mind, the risk that one of these people will escape and leave an even longer trail of blood overshadows the risk of making an occassional mistake, and while it is unfortunate when mistakes ARE made, it's also a foregone conclusion.

I can express genuine remorse when such mistakes are made and still be utterly unapologetic in my position toward this subset of prisoner.

I don't want them studied in large numbers.

I don't want them coddled.

I don't want them tortured for decades.

I don't want them to do it again...EVER.

There's a solution in place that provides for that, and I support it.

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

Aeson: I'm definitely not saying that two wrongs make a right...just pointing out that there are other societal choices where it's perfectly acceptable to say "that's too expensive" or "that's too much of a risk" and nobody bats an eye.

If it works in one instance, it works in another.

-=Vel=-

[Aeson]

Which doesn't mean it's ok to say "that's too expensive" or "that's too much of a risk" to ignore a problem.

I fail to see the relevence to the issue of the DP. It sounds like you are trying to justify your DP arguments by referencing automobile accidents and general concern (or lack thereof) on that issue. It just doesn't apply unless you think the validation of "that's too expensive" or "that's too much of a risk" should apply to opinions about everything?

Otherwise you have to accept that the validity (and humanity) of those statements is directly tied to the issue they are referencing. Just because it's "acceptable" to say those things in regards to one subject (ie. automobile accidents) does not mean it's "acceptable" to say those things in regards to another (ie. raising orphans?).

[Velociryx]

I absolutely agree that it's not okay to make such statements and then blissfully ignore a problem.

In the instance of the DP, there are those of us who aren't convinced that there IS a problem, however, and to spend money to fix something that many view as not being broke in the first place...well, that seems rather a waste of resources. (granted, the current system is far from perfect, and I'm not saying it is....but as a DP supporter, I believe that some criminals--the subset mentioned previously--should be permanantly put out of society's misery. And they are. (I'll also be quick to say that I do NOT support the DP in it's current, relatively wide scale application, and if I were to suggest a change it would be to reserve it for those murderers (mass murderers) whose crimes are of a particularly heinous nature--not crimes of passion, robberies gone awry, etc). In other words, the worst of the monsters.

In the same vein, as a society without the benefits of unlimited resources, yes, it is acceptable to ask "at what cost" any time resources are spent to save lives, and where possible, we should spend those resources such that the greatest number of lives are saved FOR that cost first, and work from there. That's far too broad a generalization, I realize, and will address it further after I finish making dinner...

-=Vel=-

[Aeson]

So why did you bring up automobile accidents at all? If your arguments apply to the DP, then show how they apply to the DP (which I admit you are doing otherwise, even if I don't agree), not how they apply to automobile accidents!

[Alexander's Horse]

There are 3 main arguments against the death penalty:

1. The state should not have the power to kill it's own citizens.

2. If even one innocent person is wrongly executed the death penalty isn't worth it.

3. Life in prison is a worse punishment and a bigger deterrent than execution.

Of these, it's been cases of wrongful execution of people later found to be clearly innocent, or over whom doubts remain about their guilt, which has persuaded voters to turn against capital punishment.

The case that did it in Australia was that of a man named Ronald Ryan who was hanged in about 1968 over the death of prison guard in a prison escape. Ryan was sentenced to death for murder but there was a lot of doubt about how the prison guard died, with an accidental shooting by another prison guard during the confusion of the escape being a strong possibility.

His execution became a big political issue. Ryan was a likeable character, a bit like cool hand Luke, just a petty criminal, no major crimes on his record before the escape attempt. He had a young family.

After Ryan was hanged, most of the Australian public completely lost their confidence in the death penalty. Noone wanted to go through that again.

Just about everyone involved in the execution became a passionate opponent of the death penalty, including the chief prison warden. The warden revealed recently that he and his wife pray for Ryan every night.

When people who witnessed the execution were asked about it, including hardened journalists, they just burst into tears, even 30 years after the event people who were at that execution are still suffering over it, at the brutality and cruelty of hanging.

One thing that stuck in everyone's mind was how quickly the guy was despatched. Not like Hollywood. The prisoner appeared, the hangman put the noose around his neck and slipped a sack over his head and in a flash the trapdoor opened and the body stopped below the gallows with a sickening thud. Witnessese remember, the hangman actually leapt across to room to pull the lever the moment he had the head covered.

And then it was over and everyone thought, what a waste of time, what a pointless, futile punishment. That was the last one for us.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Arrian
"If society preferred to reject the risk of executing innocents, there would be no death penalty."

Yup.

Nothing wrong with that.

Human life has a value - it is not of infinite worth. Otherwise, as Vel has pointed out, we would drive the nerf-tanks, we would have complete and utter safety as our goal. However, we recognize that life isn't of infinite worth - in fact, we even trade convenience for life (again, the nerf-tank).

In fact, the military has a term for this... it's called "collateral damage".

[yavoon]

I WANT MY NERF TANK!

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
1. The state should not have the power to kill it's own citizens.

Why the heck not?

2. If even one innocent person is wrongly executed the death penalty isn't worth it.

Again, even life has a price.

3. Life in prison is a worse punishment and a bigger deterrent than execution.

Which is a completely different argument than what is going on in this thread.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I did promise the study, and so it is. Being versed in statistics will help.

http://people.clemson.edu/%7Ejshephe/CaPuJLE_submit.pdf

(love the graph on page 41, btw )

Hashem Dezhbakhsh & Joanna M. Shepherd
The Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment: Evidence from a 'Judicial Experiment'
Dept. of Economics, Emory University Working Paper No. 03-14 (July 2003)

Abstract: Does capital punishment deter capital crimes? We use panel data covering the fifty states during the period 1960-2000 period to examine the issue. Our study is novel in four ways. First, we estimate the moratorium's full effect by using both pre- and postmoratorium evidence. Second, we exploit the moratorium as a judicial experiment to measure criminals' responsiveness to the severity of punishment; we compare murder rates immediately before and after changes in states' death penalty laws. The inference draws on the variations in the timing and duration of the moratorium across states provide a cross section of murder rate changes occurring in various time periods. Third, we supplement the before-and-after comparisons with regression analysis that disentangles the impact of the moratorium itself on murder from the effect on murder of actual executions. By using two different approaches, we avoid many of the modeling criticisms of earlier studies. Fourth, in addition to estimating 84 distinct regression models--with variations in regressors estimation method, and functional form--our robustness checks examine the moratorium's impact on crimes that are not punishable by death. Our results indicate that capital punishment has a deterrent effect, and the moratorium and executions deter murders in distinct ways. This evidence is corroborated by both the before-and-after comparisons and regression analysis. We also confirm that the moratorium and executions do not cause similar c es in non-capital crimes. The results are highly robust.

[Velociryx]

I think the crux of it is that we're arguing from two different perspectives.

I am utterly uninterested in prescribing a "worse punishment" for these serial killers. My only goal is to make damned sure they NEVER do it again ("never" being bold faced and underlined twice). Nor am I reconciled IN THE LEAST with the notion that lifelong solitary confinement (read: torture lasting decades) is somehow more "morally right" than death. It isn't. I'm not interested in torturing them. I'm interested in stopping them....permanantly.

Not..."almost permanantly"

Not...."well, 'permanantly' unless we let them out again"

Not...."well gee whiz, he's been a model prisioner, and after he cut that movie deal with Paramount (with Danny DeVito playing the lead role!) and conveniently found Jesus he must be okay...surely he won't do it again!"

Not any of that. I mean 100%, absolute certainty that these monsters WILL NOT kill again.

Locking them up and throwing away the key doesn't get it done, for reasons mentioned ad nauseum.

And for the record:
If a society is enabled to send its citizens off to war, then that society is, by default, empowered to end the life of its citizenry.

Human life is not infinitely valuable, and so it is false to say that one innocent death invalidates an entire course of action.

and

Prescribing a "worse punishment" is not, and should not be the goal.

Also, given the stance I advocate, Mr. Ronald Ryan would never even have been a candidate for state-sanctioned death. He doesn't fit the profile I have outlined from the start.

-=Vel=-

[Jaguar]

I Vel.

[Velociryx]

Thanks JW!



-=Vel=-
(Nerf-Tanks, coming to a City near you!)

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Jaguar Warrior
I Vel.