caretaker

Capital punishment may or may not be an effective deterrent to crime, but may serve a political function in some cases. Remember the thread about the ex-soldier's suicide in Leavenworth after he and 3 others had raped and murdered a 14 year old Iraqi girl and her family? If the US Army had tried those men in Iraq and hung them in public in the town where they commited the crime it would have given the locals a sense that their occupiers were capable of justice. The way it played out is that the victims aren't worthy of justice. Wrong, wrong, wrong sounds ok in Canada but it's no secret that women aren't regarded in India as they are here, (honour killings, etc) and the society that considers killing a rape victim acceptable because she's bringing dishonour on her family or incinerating a daughter-in-law because her dowry is insufficient wants a gallows downtown as a little reminder. I'm not buying into the idea that we're too civilised to execute each other, (not this morning anyway); we still go to war. We aren't any less midieval than we ever were, just more efficient.
edit: yes, vengence is part of it, just as punishment is part of imprisonment - it's the payment exacted for the crime (the debt to society) by which definition when completed the criminal is allowed to re-join society.

Jingsamichty

That is a very powerful observation. Unpalatable, sure, but undeniably true. We in the West DO place higher value on our rules than theirs.

Shard

Good post.

jwtimmon

Capita punishment, no. no way back if you make a mistake and there have been a lot of mistakes. Corporal punishment, yep bring back flogging!!!!!

Shard

What if you don't make a mistake? Is that possible? Lee Rigby case, you have any doubt that the convicted actually committed the crime?

iaink

Capital punishment does not work as a deterrent, but you could just as easily argue that many religionists would in fact be happier to become martyrs via execution anyway.

Justice in a civilised society is supposed to be blind, I doubt that many of the hundreds of people wrongfully executed over the years were sent to their death with the prosecutors believing that they may be innocent! It has been proven time and time again that the system has the capacity to get it wrong, even in supposedly water tight cases. Worse still there is evidence that its been systematically used against one group by another, look at the relative chances of poor whites vs poor blacks convicted in the US.

The punishment meeted out is defined with respect to the crime. In a blind justice system you should not be able to pick and choose where you choose to apply it, and history has shown that you have no way to know where mistakes might have been made.

And what of redemption? What of people whose lives change after conviction? Is there no place in a civilised society to hope that people may reflect on their actions and see the error of their ways? How much better would it be for religious extremists to have an epiphany and work in future to prevent further outrages, thats what is important in the long run isnt it? Granted, its not likely, but its certainly not going to happen if they are dead, and the circle of violence turns once more as others seek to avenge their death at the hands of the government.

An eye for an eye is so last millennium.

Granted I am a wooly minded liberal who likes to think that some people can change for the better, but ultimately there is no benefit to the death penalty. Arguments about deterence and vengence and the rest are just so much horseshit anyway, because the bottom line is very simply that we try murderers because as a society we recognize that killing is wrong. If killing is wrong, then its wrong to kill convicted killers. The fact that we fairly often kill innocent people wrongly convicted just makes it that much worse.

lookingtogo

Seriously? WTF. Jerk.

lookingtogo

Read on NYT (or somewhere) that women used to be subject to poison if they were accused of adultery. If they died, then they were judged as so. If they vomited, then God deemed her innocent.

I voted no.

Shard

I agree that there may be an argument based on possible redemption vs the (asserted negative) value of vengence. That would be an interesting morality argument for society to have, and it may indeed confirm that CP is the inferior option.

The arguments that I dispute are deterrence effect and blind justice. This is at best "that's they way we've always done it" type thinking and at worst logically flawed.

The statistics on deterrence are only statistics and do not measure true deterrence. How many people did not commit a CP crime in a CP state, nobody knows. It would have little bearing on sudden crimes of passion, but intuitively, it must have a bearing on cases where murder is planned, especially where the murder is conflicted about whether to murder. Humans are generally rational, and take into account punishments, it's fallacious to dismiss the entire deterrence effect on the basis of aggregate statistics.

In any case, efficacy of deterrence like morality is a side concern to most who against CP. If CP were shown (in your aggregate statistics) to have a moderate-strong deterrence effect, would the wooly-minded liberals have a change of heart? Something tells me no.

The real issue is that the anti-CP people are somehow hypnotised into thinking that the past cannot be improved upon; that the nature of justice cannot be changed; that there really is one size fits all. So the miscarriages of the past, where someone pleading innocence and with very sketchy information is convicted (maybe by a racist jury) of a crime that they did not or could not commit. Of course, nobody wants that or to even risk that. But there are situations where there is no identity issue. And situations which are horrific, where there are multiple deaths and or horrific deaths. It's in these narrow cases where I think CP should be an option. There's nothing to say a specific set of criteria could be defined (much narrower than in the past) whereupon particularly odious murderers could be killed.

We talk of being civilised and valuing life, yet we deprive so many sick and frail individuals of the life-saving treatments they need in order that we can preserve the life of certain evil criminals. Wooly minded liberals need to look a bit harder at the big picture.

iaink

Sorry, I didnt think saying that killing in the name of the law was wrong under any circumstances offered any ambiguity.

I dont see how you can talk about anti-CP people as a collective mass any more than it makes sense to paint all pro-CP people as the same. People come at this from different viewpoints, some would argue for instance that the death penalty is an easy cop out for someone who would otherwise face the prospect of spending every day of the rest of their life behind bars. Thats perhaps what a life sentence should mean in most cases, but thats not the case (in the US) because of all the stupid mandatory drug convictions filling the jails with mandatory sentences with no option of parole, even for 1st time offenders. That has led to crowding, which has led to early release for many killers as they are eligible for parole in most cases. I read somewhere that 6 years time spent is about the average, and that aint right, but I wonder how many of those deemed rehabilitated go on to reoffend anyway? Outside of gangs very few is my guess.

Statistics regarding large populations generally do not lie. CP is not an effective deterrent. In fact there is a theory that crimes of passion escalate on the grounds that they can only kill you once so you may as well take out as many people as you can if you are going to be caught.

Society has many limits on what its willing /capable of. I dont see how there is a connection between CP and medicines for the needy any more than there is to military spending to pick just one low hanging fruit. As an argument goes its a bit pointless, if you are worried about healthcare spending for the needy why not just mandate a slightly higher tax rate to pay for it. Besides the current system of CP in the states is very expensive, and cheaper models elsewhere in the world with less legal room for manouver are not exactly models for judicial rectitude.

Now, Euthanasia may be a different kettle of fish.

Jericho79

What you seem to be advocating is that it's a life term if you're guilty, or CP if you're really guilty.

Shard

No, I'm advocating a special category for killers like those who killed Lee Rigby or those that massacre school children. Where do you draw the line? I don't know, but I think society could and should find a mutually agreeable set of criteria.

jwtimmon

I have absolutely no issue with capital punishment if you can be absolutely sure that the person convicted is indeed guilty. But we have seen so many cases of wrongful convictions. look at the poor sod in Lousianna released after 30 years in death row? http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/11/us...nn-ford-freed/

Want an example a bit closer to home how about the guilford 4? If capital punishment had been in place do you really think they would have had their cases reinvestigated once they'd been executed?

Thats the problem with capital punishment, there is no going back. It's why there are so many appeals, why the death row prisoners spend so long on death row.


John

mikelincs

No, but you can't pick and choose what constitutes the need for capital punishment. Just look at the case only last week of a guy in the US being cleared and released from death row and prison after 30 years. This why the death penalty should NEVER be in place, and is the reason I could never have seerved on a jury in any trial where the possibility of the death sentence was there.

jwtimmon

in the Lee rigby case it was a pity that no armed soldiers were nearby who shot the attackers in self defence. Not a jury in the land would have convicted them.

But if they were shot or were even legally executed wouldn't that make them martyrs? In fact I'd argue the best punishment is to lock them in a hole somewhere and forget about them and never mention their names again. Publicity is the oxygen they crave.