And for a little grim pre-Christmas reading, it has preserved all of their last statements on the web.
I wonder how many of them were innocent?
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
And for a little grim pre-Christmas reading, it has preserved all of their last statements on the web.
I wonder how many of them were innocent?
“Uh, I don’t know, Um, I don’t know what to say. I don’t know. (pauses) I didn’t know anybody was there. Howdy.”
Well, you’ve got to admit, there aren’t too many atheists in the Electric Chair…
We know for a fact that at least one was innocent. After Congress passed the law allowing only three appeals, one condemned man had the odd experience of having the killer who really committed the murder confess. Texas argued that they didn’t need to hear a fourth appeal, since the other appeals had all been legal, and three appeals are all that are required. Innocence, the state argued, is not a good enough reason to get a condemned person off of death row.
Texas won at the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which is no surprise. But the U.S. Supreme Court reviewed, and they found that the condemned man had his three bites at the apple. Innocence was not a good enough reason to reopen the case. At that phase, reopening usually requires a showing of malfeasance on the part of the prosecutor. The state argued the prosecutor, while withholding evidence it was required to give, hadn’t significantly violated the prisoner’s rights in doing so, as demonstrated by the jury’s having found the man guilty.
So, with another man confessing to the crime and the state no contending that the confession was faulty in any way, Texas executed someone other than the confessed killer. The killer could not be prosecuted, of course, at that point.
This occurred before George Bush even became governor, but it’s a pretty famous case, and one wonders whether he knew he was lying when he said Texas had never executed an innocent man, or whether he really is that clueless.
Sadly, there are more cases:
http://www.texasmoratorium.org/article.php?sid=1188
I can’t help but google the guys that proclaim their innocence and see what I can find out.
It’s rather depressing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonel_Torres_Herrera
/save the west memphis three
One is too many. On second thoughts, zero is too many. No judicial system should perform irreversible punishments, as all legal processes are potentially flawed.
It’s criminal …
Seems like they threw the switch a little too soon on that one.
#5: Well, imprisonment is also irreversible, last I checked. I’m not sure what sort of punishment could be meted out without an increase of entropy…
I never cared much about the death penalty, in principle, but in practice, the documentary The Thin Blue Line made my mind up.
The state argued the prosecutor, while withholding evidence it was required to give, hadn’t significantly violated the prisoner’s rights in doing so, as demonstrated by the jury’s having found the man guilty.
*shakes head Lewis Black style*
that’s as perfect a circle as I’ve seen today.
he’s guilty because he was found guilty.
case closed.
wait, what’s the purpose of an appeal again?
*shakes head again*
Where are all the women? There are virtually no women executed for violent crimes in this country, ever. That in itself should be a caution to any enthusiast for the death penalty: it is inherently inequitable in practice, and thus can’t be justified in a civilized society.
I kind of think that death is at least somewhat less irreversible than imprisonment! Also, wrongly imprisoned people can at least be offered compensation on their release. Sentence should be able to be reduced as a result of new evidence at any time after the initial trial. Truth should not have an expiry date. People have been released years or even decades after their false convictions. Even assuming a civilized society should impose the death penalty, it implies a certainty about the evidence and the verdict that simply can’t be justfied.
To amplify on my point above (#10), only three of the over four hundred executed in the last 25 years in Texas were women. Believe it or not, those three represent 30 percent of all women executed since 2002.
Facts and figures available here provide more context.
Here is the case of a judge who took a chance on a 14-year-old killer.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071222/ap_on_re_us/youth_on_trial_judge_s_gamble
I know of atheists who think that the only answer is to lock ’em up and throw away the key. But at 14?
I wonder how many of them were innocent?
They were ALL innocent, don’tcha know. Just like O.J. The real question is how many innocent people have not been killed by escaped prisoners serving long sentences, like these guys.
Where are all the women? There are virtually no women executed for violent crimes in this country, ever.
Perhaps because the overwhelming majority of murders are committed by men?
No judicial system should perform irreversible punishments, as all legal processes are potentially flawed.
That eliminates imprisonment, since there’s a statistically significant probability that any offender (particularly a murderer) will be murdered while incarcerated. Jeffrey Dahmer comes to mind.
The real question is how many innocent people have not been killed by escaped prisoners serving long sentences, like these guys.
So, we should kill prisoners to prevent them from escaping jail? Are you insane?
On the subject of incarceration:
Drug Offenses: 98,622 (53.6 %)
Weapons, Explosives, Arson: 26,870 (14.6 %)
Immigration: 19,233 (10.4 %)
Robbery: 9,333 (5.1 %)
Burglary, Larceny, Property Offenses: 6,783 (3.7 %)
Extortion, Fraud, Bribery: 8,172 (4.4 %)
Homicide, Aggravated Assault, and Kidnapping Offenses: 5,589 (3.0 %)
Miscellaneous: 2,069 (1.1 %)
Sex Offenses: 4,997 (2.7 %)
Banking and Insurance, Counterfeit, Embezzlement: 1,006 (0.5 %)
Courts or Corrections: 742 (0.4 %)
Continuing Criminal Enterprise: 563 (0.3 %)
National Security: 96 (0.1 %)
http://www.bop.gov/about/facts.jsp
I have a souvenir that belonged to my grandfather. It’s a small pencil holder that has a political advertisement. A judge up for election in Louisiana, sometime in the 1930’s if I recall correctly. It’s pretty sturdy, mostly metal. When closed, it has the appearance of a largish bullet, with the Judge’s advertisement all the way around the middle of the shell.
Even comic book authors have a better, more realistic, more nuanced concept of justice than any politician. I won’t even go into my usual Texas/redneck/christian/republican rant. My often reasonable homestate has the death penalty as well, and way too many harmless people doing unreasonably long sentences. Even so-called liberals here bang the Law and Order drum all the damn time, and we employ at least twice as many cops as any civilized society could need. Alleged democrat Gray Davis wouldn’t even lift our ban on certain kinds of felony parole. We have a backlog of almost 300 felons who have been consistently recommended for parole by our parole board(you know, the people we hire to make these decisions on an individual basis.) Some of them have been recommended for parole for up to twenty years, but Pete Wilson decided he knew best in every instance without all the fuss of reviewing the cases. Arnold actually made an unusual promise to relieve prison overcrowding partially by letting those eligible for parole have a chance at getting it. As provided for by existing but ignored law. But he sure didn’t bring it up too often after the election, and all we’ve done is build a few more prisons and hire more cops.
Still, we look pretty peachy by comparison. Except of course in certain northern California counties, where asking for your appointed public defender just gets you a longer sentence. Bullshit approaches to achieving the mythical state of “Law and Order” is one area of politics in which Californians are unfortunately doing their best to catch up with Texas.
re the wiki entry in the comment above:I am appalled at the relevant Supreme Court justifications. While upholding the state’s right to run it’s own judicial affairs, it undermines the whole purpose of having an evidence based, individual case court system in the first place. I applaud the dissenting opinion to some degree, but I object to the assertion that executing a known innocent is “perilously close” to simple murder. It is simple murder, but with fancy death toys and lots of black robes and uniforms involved. “Flamboyant murder” might descibe it even more accurately. But hey, you have to keep the peasants in line, right?
bernarda,
I know tons of Christians who think children should be eligible for the death penalty.
I agree with everyone who said the death penalty is far too permanent to use in our imperfect justice system.
Well, I think the christian thing to do is to only fry ’em if they admit to being athiests. Hmmm, that sounds to me like a neat get out clause for your backward, medieval society.
Some of the final statements are awfully verbose and stylised for people who are statistically more likely to be poorly educated and of lower socio-economic background. You have to wonder how many had words put into their mouths so to speak. Interestingly too I notice all the men in their 20’s are either black or hispanic. I’m thinkng a few reasons for this, including poorer access to legal advice therefore a short appeal process etc etc. I can only see one woman, Karla Faye Tucker but there are some ambigous names and I haven’t checked them all. There’s just too many.
..that should read MOST men in thir 20’s were black or hispanic,not ALL.
This blog exhibits as big a case of T-envy as I have seen lately…Hook em!
Up is down right?
Let’s do it, man. Lock and load. Ain’t life a [expletive deleted]?
G.W. Green #576
These are the last words of Lionell Rodriguez, executed 06/20/2007:
This is the offence for which Rodriguez was executed:
I consider that a just punishment for what Rodriguez did.
Cases like that of Herrera do not mean that capital punishment is unjust. Rather, they are evidence that the justice system in Texas needs improving.
Killing people is wrong.
Eye for an eye, Ian?
Really?
phat
Pro-death Texans, and conservatives in general would rather kill an innocent man rather than have a guilty man serve life in prison. (Kill ’em all and let god sort ’em out.)
We know this because they say only Jesus was perfect, so they agree the justice system, as a construct of man, must be imperfect.
@22
So what was gained by killing him?
Besides satisfying some diffuse concept of revenge?
why doesn’t it surprise me in the least that Ian is anti-abortion, but pro death penalty?
utter shocker, i tells ya.
but this is even more inane:
That eliminates imprisonment, since there’s a statistically significant probability that any offender (particularly a murderer) will be murdered while incarcerated. Jeffrey Dahmer comes to mind.
so, uh because a tiny number of prisoners are murdered by other prisoners, we should of course conclude that prison is defacto a death senetence.
this guy needs to smoke less crack.
Botching it up is also very common and incredibly cruel.
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=8&did=478
The last sentence of case number 31 is testimony to the insane biblical retribution some people get off on with executions. Senator Ginny Brown-Waite (R-Fl)is a fucking weirdo.
You wonder how many were innocent; I wonder how many innocent victims were saved… . Looking at the “offender information”, one of them served three years for muder in California and was then paroled. Perhaps his victim in Texas would have benefited from a more Texan approach to justice in California?
Perhaps his victim in Texas would have benefited from a more Texan approach to justice in California?
perhaps.
perhaps the same person might have gotten killed in a totally different way, or by a different person, if you had axed the “offender” instead.
you’re on a very slippery slope there, buddy.
sounds to me like instead of promoting the death penalty, you should be trying to help figure out ways to help fund more and better prisons.
PZ, don’t worry God will sort them out.
Since all murderers were at one time pre-murderers, or rather innocent of murder until such time as they committed it, their deaths before that time would have saved their victims.
Therefore the logical conclusion is that all humans must be killed. It’s the only way we’ll ever be safe.
Re: #28
So it’s all just a numbers game? As long as the number of innocents put to death by the state is <= the the number of innocents put to death by an individual then the death penalty is justified? How about an alternative, true life sentences for those normally sentenced to death, with the opportunity to prove their innocence? That should drop the number of innocents killed by the state to zero without increasing the number of innocents killed by individuals.
My comment above should be
So it’s all just a numbers game? As long as the number of innocents put to death by the state is less than or equal to the number of innocents put to death by individuals then the death penalty is justified?
(Forgot about the HTML delimiters)
I agree with Ian on this one.
The problem is not capital punishment. The problem is a flawed criminal justice system too incompetent to prevent innocent people being convicted, as well as being racially biased.
From a moral standpoint, I have no issue with capital punishment. I would go so far as to say that the family of any murder victim has a moral claim on the life of the killer. Every breath that person draws is on sufferance. The family has the right to decide if he lives or dies. Just seems common sense to me. To the people who whine, “But that’s just revenge!”…so? Explain why revenge is morally wrong.
Makes you want to get a jump on polishing up those last words, eh? Hmmm, let’s see…
“I have discovered a most elegant proof, but time does not permit…”
From a moral standpoint, I have no issue with capital punishment. I would go so far as to say that the family of any murder victim has a moral claim on the life of the killer.
So, the families of the executed people have a moral claim on the lives of the executioners.
They are, after all, murderers. Their acts are premeditated (often days or months in advance), and there are several witnesses to the incident.
But not one of them is ever prosecuted for murder, nor the other guards and attendants for being accessories to the act.
The law, it seems, is enforced capriciously at best.
“Kill ’em all, y’all, and let Gawd sort ’em out. Yahoo!”
“If violence is wrong in America, violence is wrong abroad. If it is wrong to be violent defending black women and black children and black babies and black men, then it is wrong for America to draft us, and make us violent abroad in defense of her. And if it is right for America to draft us, and teach us how to be violent in defense of her, then it is right for you and me to do whatever is necessary to defend our own people right here in this country.” Malcolm X
How can a supposed Christian nation ever reconcile war and capital punishment with the fact that one of only ten commandments handed down by their supreme being is that they shall not kill? Not to mention Christ’s admonition to judge not… or the emphasis placed on forgiveness… If it’s wrong here then it is wrong over there.
OK, what about Eichmann?
So, the families of the executed people have a moral claim on the lives of the executioners.
They are, after all, murderers. Their acts are premeditated (often days or months in advance), and there are several witnesses to the incident.
Typical inability to make meaningful distinctions from the bleeding-heart side.
The person executed by the state is executed for the crime of premeditated murder against an innocent person. Once they have chosen to commit this crime, they themselves are no longer innocent citizens, but criminals. As their execution is a form of legal punishment for the murder they committed, their execution cannot itself be considered murder, as it is legally mandated punishment decided upon by a court of law and a jury. By taking an innocent life, they have forfeited the right to their own.
You might as well argue that anyone thrown in jail for the crime of kidnapping has himself been kidnapped.
That’s the problem I find with most people against capital punishment. They throw their umbrella wide to make baseless generalizations, and they cannot distinguish between crime and punishment. They think that simply by turning your points back on you they have refuted them, when reality is more complex than that.
Still, these are general moral points, and do not take away from the fact the American criminal justice system is too corrupt and not sufficiently competent to mete out capital punishment without sufficient safeguards.
Scott, Joyce Brown, was wrongly convicted of murder and then freed in 1989; right about the time that Randall Dale Adams was finally released.
I wrote about this last week, after New Jersey decided to cancel the Death Penalty. Just Google “Faster Texas Kill Kill.” You will find my post on the first link.
They throw their umbrella wide to make baseless generalizations
You mean, like the baseless generalization you just made – that everyone executed by the state is a person who has actually committed murder? Those kinds of baseless generalizations?
When the state executes a man whose innocence is no longer in dispute, why aren’t murder charges brought forward? Seraphs point about capricious law enforcement holds true. When judges sentence the innocent to death, why don’t judges receive the death penalty?
Wikipedia entry on Karla Faye Tucker:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karla_Faye_Tucker
“In 1999, during the 2000 Republican Presidential primary race, conservative commentator Tucker Carlson interviewed Bush for Talk Magazine (September 1999, p. 106). Excerpt from this interview is quoted below:
“In the weeks before the execution, Bush says, a number of protesters came to Austin to demand clemency for Karla Faye Tucker. “Did you meet with any of them?” I ask. Bush whips around and stares at me. “No, I didn’t meet with any of them”, he snaps, as though I’ve just asked the dumbest, most offensive question ever posed. “I didn’t meet with Larry King either when he came down for it. I watched his interview with Tucker, though. He asked her real difficult questions like, ‘What would you say to Governor Bush?'” “What was her answer?” I wonder. “‘Please,'” Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, “‘don’t kill me.'” I must look shocked — ridiculing the pleas of a condemned prisoner who has since been executed seems odd and cruel — because he immediately stops smirking.””
Note: Karla Faye Tucker was born again on death row (who isn’t?) and even Pat Robertson pleaded for clemency.
It doesn’t seem like common sense to the majority of commenters here. Why don’t you bring up some arguments that don’t reduce to blind faith in the potential perfectability of the judicial system and a suspicious degree of personal enthusiasm on your part for killing?
And what of the cases where the victim had no family? or where there are multiple vicdtims and the families disagree about the death penalty? It would seem very much like removing the responsibility for capital punishment from the states shoulders onto the victim/s family.
Therefore the logical conclusion is that all humans must be killed. It’s the only way we’ll ever be safe.
thankyou, craig, for seeing the logical end of that slippery slope.
seriously, since people die from drunk drivers, all drunk drivers should be executed to minimize the harm they might cause to others.
in fact, we of course should execute anyone who has gotten a speeding ticket, or any moving violation for that matter, since they’re obviously a risk to the public at large.
The argument that a murderer has forfeited their right to live really makes no sense.
Are you arguing that punishments must, in some way, be equal to the crime committed? What about assault, or rape?
Just what sort of moral calculus to you use to come to the conclusion that a murderer should be executed?
phat
From one-time anti death penalty to pro death penalty.
I live in South Africa. Since capital punishment was abolished around 1989 the murder rate has escalated and, not counting war zones, we now have the world’s 2nd highest murder rate (Columbia beats us by a whisker). I recognize the two main arguments against the death penalty. Restitution cannot be made for wrongful conviction and it’s a brutal and barbarous punishment which arguably demeans us as a society. I’m convinced however that the death penalty has a deterrent effect. In this article http://www.wesleylowe.com/cp.html the author presents a graph correlating the US murder rate between 1930 and 2000 with the number of executions. The data comes from the US Dept of Criminal Justice. Maybe it’s over-simplified, but the data would infer that one execution prevents around 180 murders.
Can we get the last statements of all the people Bush has killed in Iraq?
I wonder how many of them were innocent?
I consider that a just punishment for what Rodriguez did.
Hardly surprising from a so-called pro-life person.
From a moral standpoint, I have no issue with capital punishment. I would go so far as to say that the family of any murder victim has a moral claim on the life of the killer. Every breath that person draws is on sufferance. The family has the right to decide if he lives or dies. Just seems common sense to me.
This isn’t common sense, it’s the sense of the mentally ill.
well, I know of one person on that list, through his mother admittedly, who should never have been sentenced to death for what he did.
yes, he killed someone. no one denied that – but it was not first degree murder by anyone’s definition except the judge and prosecuting attorney. Suffering from Gulf War Syndrome, the guy would have gotten life at most anywhere else.
In the strangest twist of fate, however, the mother supported Dubya’s election, even though he was the governor when her son was executed…because she thought he was “more” anti-abortion than Kerry.
Yeah – unsurprisingly she was a bit of a fundy.
That graph from Wesley Lowe isn’t a very good argument. I would expect that people posting on this website would have a more rigorously scientific set of evidence.
Link to a little bit better information.
There has never been a legitimate study done that shows that the death penalty deters any crime.
As an example, I always compare Nebraska (where I live and until recently was the director of Nebraskans Against the Death Penalty) with Iowa (our neighbor to the east). Iowa abolished the death penalty in the 60s. Nebraska has nearly twice the number of murders per capita as Iowa. If anything, the numbers in the US show that getting rid of the death penalty deters murder. I wouldn’t draw that conclusion, as crime rates are very complicated things. Correlation vs. causation and all that.
phat
“I wonder how many of them were innocent?”
They were ALL innocent, don’tcha know.
Not only don’t we know that, we know otherwise, moron.
Just like O.J.
O.J. was not innocent, moron.
The real question
“how many of them were innocent” is a real question, moron.
how many innocent people have not been killed by escaped prisoners serving long sentences
All the living ones and almost all of the dead ones, moron. This is what a moron calls a real question?
For a rational discussion of justice and retribution, see http://www.naturalism.org/criminal.htm
Archaeopteryx wrote:
I shoot dead a man who is about to shoot you dead. Am I wrong?
That’s not an especially strong argument for executions, or anything, for that matter.
phat
I think there’s a case to be made for prosecuting drunk driving as attempted homicide, as a deterrent measure. I wouldn’t condone execution, though.
Needless killing is wrong, poor phrasing notwithstanding. Explain the need for executions.
(Though arguing with a person who thinks that a single fertilized egg has more of a right to life than a conscious, sentient human who may be innocent is probably akin to giving medicine to the dead…)
You must have great difficulty on reading comprehension tests. Martin has made clear, twice, that the various criminal justice systems in the United States are inadequate and incompetent, and that he was addressing the fundamental moral issues involved. There is no honest way to read his comments as indicative of a belief in the infallibility of the state. This is a Discovery Institute-level quote-mine, and you should be ashamed.
In a situation where the facts really were this clear, they probably should be. But capital punishment is not the appropriate punishment for all murders.
For the same reason people whose negligence causes accidental death aren’t themselves put to death. Capital punishment is reserved for cases of malice and wanton disregard for life, not for mere accidents and mistakes. Making sentencing decisions is part of a judge’s job. To pretend not to see the difference between being a piss-poor judge and going out with a loaded gun and blowing out the brains of a random passer-by for the hell of it is beyond disingenuous: it shows an inability to make moral judgments on an adult level.
damn, Phat has beaten me to the punch twice now. I was thinking the same thing earlier with the correlation not equalling causation, and was just about to ask Ian what in the hell his example has to do with capital punishment.
If you’re on the West Coast, I’d love to do a few rounds with ya sometime.
cheers
I’m convinced however that the death penalty has a deterrent effect. In this article http://www.wesleylowe.com/cp.html the author presents a graph correlating the US murder rate between 1930 and 2000 with the number of executions. The data comes from the US Dept of Criminal Justice. Maybe it’s over-simplified, but the data would infer that one execution prevents around 180 murders.
Funny how supposedly scientific people abandon scientific principles when it comes to matters in which they are emotionally invested. Being convinced by a polemical, non-peer-reviewed article is absurd, the ultimate in intellectual dishonesty.
P.S. data imply, you infer.
phat: “There has never been a legitimate study done that shows that the death penalty deters any crime.”
Getting off Death Row: Commuted Sentences and the Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment
H. Naci Mocan, R. Kaj Gittings
The Journal of Law and Economics, vol. 46 (October 2003)
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/382603?journalCode=jle
Abstract
“This paper merges a state‐level panel data set that includes crime and deterrence measures and state characteristics with information on all death sentences handed out in the United States between 1977 and 1997. Because the exact month and year of each execution and removal from death row can be identified, they are matched with state‐level criminal activity in the relevant time frame. Controlling for a variety of state characteristics, the paper investigates the impact of the execution rate, commutation and removal rates, homicide arrest rate, sentencing rate, imprisonment rate, and prison death rate on the rate of homicide. The results show that each additional execution decreases homicides by about five, and each additional commutation increases homicides by the same amount, while an additional removal from death row generates one additional murder.Executions, commutations, and removals have no impact on robberies, burglaries, assaults, or motor‐vehicle thefts.”
————
The Impact of Incentives on Human Behavior: Can We Make it Disappear? The Case of the Death Penalty
H. Naci Mocan, R. Kaj Gittings
National Bureau of Economic ResearchWorking Paper No. W12631
2006
Abstract excerpt:
“…In this paper we extend the analysis of Mocan and Gittings (2003). We alter the original model in a number of directions to make the relationship between homicide rates and death penalty related outcomes (executions, commutations and removals) disappear. We deliberately deviate from the theoretically consistent measurement of the risk variables originally employed by Mocan and Gittings (2003) in a variety of ways. We also investigate the sensitivity of the results to changes in the estimation sample (removing high executing states for example) and weighting. The basic results are insensitive to these and a variety of other specification tests performed in the paper. The results are often strong enough to even hold up under theoretically meaningless measurements of the risk variables. In summary, the original findings of Mocan and Gittings (2003) are robust, providing evidence that people indeed react to incentives induced by capital punishment.”
phat wrote:
Let the punishment fit the crime.
Basic principle of justice.
Capital punishment is reserved for cases of malice and wanton disregard for life
drunk driving would seem to qualify, then.
so would regular speeders and other reckless drivers.
as far as “malice” goes, that has little to do with who has been executed in Texas… just check the offender details for the 400 or so in that list.
moral judgements on an “adult” level?
highly debatable that you are doing more than projecting your own personal set of standards in making such an argument.
Let the punishment fit the crime.
hmm, what’s the crime in this forum for insipidity?
You must have great difficulty on reading comprehension tests.
You’re the one who fails the test; Martin made the very generalization he was accused of, “that everyone executed by the state is a person who has actually committed murder”, when he wrote
The person executed by the state is executed for the crime of premeditated murder against an innocent person. Once they have chosen to commit this crime, they themselves are no longer innocent citizens, but criminals. As their execution is a form of legal punishment for the murder they committed, their execution cannot itself be considered murder, as it is legally mandated punishment decided upon by a court of law and a jury. By taking an innocent life, they have forfeited the right to their own.
just as Chet wrote. If Martin doesn’t believe the state to be infallible, then he shouldn’t have written what he wrote, but the statement incorporates the assumption nonetheless.
There is no honest way to read his comments as indicative of a belief in the infallibility of the state.
There is no honest way to read the above statement in a way such that it does not make the assumption claimed.
This is a Discovery Institute-level quote-mine, and you should be ashamed.
There was no quote-mine; the quote of Martin was not changed in its meaning. To call it quote-mining is to suggest that he doesn’t actually object to baseless generalizations. To call it quote-mining is shameful.
Phat, comment #56
The graph in Lowe’s article is based on US Dept of Criminal Justice data. Is it incorrect? The murder rate trend and the number of executions trend are mirror images of each other. That seems pretty conclusive to me.
I’ve looked at studies comparing murder rates between US states. Why is that relevant? I think some of these studies search for data to support a conclusion. Singapore has one of the lowest murder rates and the death penalty while South Africa has no death penalty and a horrendous murder rate. Does that negate the DPIC argument? Of course not. The causes of high murder rates are complex. Nevertheless within a country or state, it seems to me that abolishing the death penalty results in more murder victims.
Phat, comment #56
The graph in Lowe’s article is based on US Dept of Criminal Justice data. Is it incorrect? The murder rate trend and the number of executions trend are mirror images of each other. That seems pretty conclusive to me.
I’ve looked at studies comparing murder rates between US states. Why is that relevant? I think some of these studies search for data to support a conclusion. Singapore has one of the lowest murder rates and the death penalty while South Africa has no death penalty and a horrendous murder rate. Does that negate the DPIC argument? Of course not. The causes of high murder rates are complex. Nevertheless within a country or state, it seems to me that abolishing the death penalty results in more murder victims.
Ichthyic wrote:
So where’s the contradiction?
A pro-lifer places the highest value on human life. One corollary of that must be that the needless and unlawful taking of human life is the worst offence that can be committed by people against one another. On the principle of proportionality, that offence should incur the worst punishment which is the death penalty.
Sorry for the double post
Ichthyic wrote:
Crime or punishment? You seem to have trouble distinguishing between the two.
hmm, what’s the crime in this forum for insipidity?
A most fitting word. One can only imagine what punishment Ian thinks fits burglary, rape, forgery, drunk driving, assisting a suicide, running a red light, illegal abortion …
Crime or punishment? You seem to have trouble distinguishing between the two.
well, since you obviously knew what I meant, add your response to the growing list of evidence supporting the case for your insipidity.
And to call something “quote-mining” when it occurs on the same fucking page as the original is…kind of silly.
Mocans and Gittings, it warms my heart that someone brought them up.
Read this.
Read the whole paper. There are others that challenge Mocans and Gittings, too.
phat
A pro-lifer places the highest value on human life.
None that I know of does.
One corollary of that must be that the needless and unlawful taking of human life is the worst offence that can be committed by people against one another. On the principle of proportionality,
I’m unaware of such a principle or the justification of it. In any case, as I suggested above it can’t be applied to most crimes.
that offence should incur the worst punishment which is the death penalty.
But who loses the value of the life? Not the deceased. By your logic, this is a horrible punishment of the prisoner’s friend and relatives.
[damn but I feel icky actually interacting with the Spedding slime]
And to call something “quote-mining” when it occurs on the same fucking page as the original is…kind of silly.
The term you’re searching for is “intellectually dishonest”.
phat wrote
In case you hadn’t noticed, jaywalkers are not usually executed nor violent rapists let let off with a fine and warning not to do it again. Sentences are scaled, however crudely, to the gravity of the offence, although I agree it’s hardly an exact science.
P.S.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quote_mining
Chet’s quote of Martin, “They throw their umbrella wide to make baseless generalizations” is not a quote-mine in any sense. cbutterb’s charge is shameful.
In case you hadn’t noticed, jaywalkers are not usually executed
Nor are they jaywalked against, you insipid twit.
nor violent rapists let let off with a fine and warning not to do it again
Nor are they raped, you insipid twit.
Sentences are scaled, however crudely, to the gravity of the offence, although I agree it’s hardly an exact science.
Completely undermining your justification for “eye for an eye”, you insipid twit. No one disagrees that the punishment should fit the crime, so that formula gets you nowhere, you insipid twit.
Thanks for the tip on the paper on Mocans and Gittings, phat. In any case, the issue of the relationship between legal incentives and social behavior is an interesting one.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/us/18deter.html?pagewanted=all
New York Times
November 18, 2007
Does Death Penalty Save Lives? A New Debate
Adam Liptak
“… According to roughly a dozen recent studies, executions save lives. For each inmate put to death, the studies say, 3 to 18 murders are prevented.
The effect is most pronounced, according to some studies, in Texas and other states that execute condemned inmates relatively often and relatively quickly.
The studies, performed by economists in the past decade, compare the number of executions in different jurisdictions with homicide rates over time — while trying to eliminate the effects of crime rates, conviction rates and other factors — and say that murder rates tend to fall as executions rise. …
“I personally am opposed to the death penalty,” said H. Naci Mocan, an economist at Louisiana State University and an author of a study finding that each execution saves five lives. “But my research shows that there is a deterrent effect.” …
Critics of the studies say they are based on faulty premises, insufficient data and flawed methodologies. …
“The evidence on whether it has a significant deterrent effect seems sufficiently plausible that the moral issue becomes a difficult one,” said Cass R. Sunstein, a law professor at the University of Chicago who has frequently taken liberal positions. “I did shift from being against the death penalty to thinking that if it has a significant deterrent effect it’s probably justified.”
Professor Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule, a law professor at Harvard, wrote in their own Stanford Law Review article that “the recent evidence of a deterrent effect from capital punishment seems impressive, especially in light of its ‘apparent power and unanimity,’ ” quoting a conclusion of a separate overview of the evidence in 2005 by Robert Weisberg, a law professor at Stanford, in the Annual Review of Law and Social Science.
“Capital punishment may well save lives,” the two professors continued. “Those who object to capital punishment, and who do so in the name of protecting life, must come to terms with the possibility that the failure to inflict capital punishment will fail to protect life.” …”
No one is disputing the numbers. Murder rates have declined in the US.
Nobody, however, has made a strong case that executions are what cause the change in murder rates. I didn’t expect to have to explain this to someone on this blog.
Correlation does not equal causation.
The numbers I mentioned concerning Iowa vs. Nebraska show as strong (if not stronger, I haven’t actually done the math) a correlation that getting rid of the death penalty lowers the murder rate. This is basic statistics. That graph doesn’t really show anything. I could just as easily claim that “grunge” music being at the top of the charts in the early 90s in the US coincided with a drop in murder rates.
There, I corrected it for you.
Let’s rape all the rapists. Let’s beat all the beaters and rob all the robbers. Hell, we can pickpocket all the pickpocketers, too. Maybe we can abort all the abortionists!
phat
The effect is most pronounced, according to some studies, in Texas and other states that execute condemned inmates relatively often and relatively quickly.
Regardless of whether they are guilty, apparently.
New York Times
A fine peer-reviewed scientific journal.
The studies, performed by economists in the past decade,
Performed by what?
Critics of the studies say they are based on faulty premises, insufficient data and flawed methodologies. …
Move along, folks, nothing to see here …
a law professor
A what?
a law professor
A what?
quoting a conclusion of a separate overview of the evidence in 2005 by Robert Weisberg, a law professor
A what?
The murder rate trend and the number of executions trend are mirror images of each other. That seems pretty conclusive to me.
What do you do for a living?
I think some of these studies search for data to support a conclusion.
Why do you think that, other than that the conclusion differs from your prior belief?
Singapore has one of the lowest murder rates and the death penalty while South Africa has no death penalty and a horrendous murder rate.
Uh, do you know anything about these countries?
It occurs to me that there are two categories of death penalty opponents:
1) Pragmatic death penalty opponents, who are opposed to the death penalty on practical grounds: criminal justice system error (compounded by the sentence’s irreversibility), wasted resources, demographic sentencing bias, lack of efficacy etc. Presumably, if these problems were eliminated – that is, if the death penalty was demonstrated to be fairly applied, virtually error-free in sentencing and implementation, proven effective in deterring crime, and so on, pragmatic opponents would have no problem with supporting the death penalty.
2) Absolutist death penalty opponents, who are opposed to the death penalty on principle. Even if the death penalty were fair, virtually error-free and effective, they would still be opposed to it on the grounds that the state should not kill a prisoner. Of course, absolutist death penalty opponents tend to also accept pragmatic arguments and also use these arguments, especially when addressing fence-sitters.
Colugo:
I’m not sure what to think of Sunstein anymore.
His paper isn’t especially strong, either.
It’s been argued, too.
But the deterrence issue isn’t really the point of all this.
Harsh sentences for any crime haven’t been shown, adequately, to be valuable public policy, at least in terms of claimed outcomes of these policies. The deterrence argument is, I think, a red herring. There is little, if any, conclusive data to back that argument up. And it’s been used, only recently I might add, to bolster the other arguments for executions. It was assumed for a long time that harsh punishments for crimes kept those crimes from happening. The numbers really don’t show that.
Of course, there is more to this debate than deterrence.
phat
[damn but I feel icky actually interacting with the Spedding slime]
If you think being misguided, illogical, emotional, or insipid in defense of innocent life (and Ian isn’t actually any of these things, at least in this thread, but let’s say you’re right and he is) makes him “slime”, then your experience with people who actually desrve that description must be limited. You read Ian’s post at 24, right?
To respond to the quote-mining issue, it is of course possible to take something out of context even right next to the original, and I maintain that Chet at 45 did so. When I see Martin at 43 say:
then I think it’s accurate to say that anyone who accuses him of believing in the infallibility of the state is in fact taking him out of context.
Presumably, if these problems were eliminated – that is, if the death penalty was demonstrated to be fairly applied, virtually error-free in sentencing and implementation, proven effective in deterring crime, and so on, pragmatic opponents would have no problem with supporting the death penalty.
That’s like saying that, if the problem of God not existing could be eliminated, we would have no problem being religious.
Colugo:
As to your comments about two camps of death penalty opponents.
That seems to be a fairly accurate description. However, is it not possible that the values that inspire the pragmatists aren’t especially divergent from the values that inspire the absolutists?
They may be on the same page but don’t know it.
phat
I think it’s at least fair to accuse him of having confidence that the criminal justice system, despite its flaws now, could plausibly be rendered infallible. Which isn’t much better.
If you think being misguided, illogical, emotional, or insipid in defense of innocent life (and Ian isn’t actually any of these things, at least in this thread, but let’s say you’re right and he is) makes him “slime”, then your experience with people who actually desrve that description must be limited.
I have ample reason to think he’s slime, and it doesn’t just come from this thread.
To respond to the quote-mining issue, it is of course possible to take something out of context even right next to the original, and I maintain that Chet at 45 did so.
I maintain that you’re a lying jackass.
then I think it’s accurate to say that anyone who accuses him of believing in the infallibility of the state is in fact taking him out of context.
So much the worse for you; on a plain reading, his statement incorporated the assumption that Chet stated. And Chet didn’t quote that statement, so your “out of context” is bullshit. And Chet made no claim about what Martin believes — Martin’s statement incorporates the assumption regardless of what he believes. But I just said that, so I must conclude that you too are slime. I have to go wash.
Truthmachine comment 88.
Time to throw a few cyber grenades.
What do you do for a living?
I’m a retired industrial engineer. I spend a lot of time reading inane irrelevant posts. So what?
Why do you think that, other than that the conclusion differs from your prior belief?
I was opposed to the death penalty based mainly on belief that it was barbaric. I changed my viewpoint based on facts such as South Africa’s murder rate pre and post death penalty moratorium.
Uh, do you know anything about these countries?
Uh, yes.
I’m open to arguments against the death penalty. go ahead, convince me.
I think it’s at least fair to accuse him of having confidence that the criminal justice system, despite its flaws now, could plausibly be rendered infallible. Which isn’t much better.
I think that’s a quite different, and in context irrelevant issue. What cbutterb seems incapable of comprehending is that Martin, like all human beings, is sometimes inconsistent. As I said earlier, “If Martin doesn’t believe the state to be infallible, then he shouldn’t have written what he wrote, but the statement incorporates the assumption nonetheless”. Rather than address the point, cbutterb just bleats on about poor Martin being accused of believing something he doesn’t. Again, if he doesn’t believe that, then he shouldn’t have written something that incorporates the assumption. But what he does or doesn’t believe doesn’t change the fact that he did write that, and Chet called him on it.
I’m a retired industrial engineer. I spend a lot of time reading inane irrelevant posts. So what?
So I wondered what sort of person finds a post hoc ergo propter hoc argument conclusive, and hoped that you aren’t a scientist.
I’m open to arguments against the death penalty. go ahead, convince me.
Ah, but you say you’re already convinced. I suggest that you first stop being convinced of things.
I changed my viewpoint based on facts such as South Africa’s murder rate pre and post death penalty moratorium.
Uh, do you know anything about these countries?
Uh, yes.
Your statement suggests otherwise. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_South_Africa
P.S.
You never answered this question:
Why do you think that, other than that the conclusion differs from your prior belief?
What caused you to come to that belief is irrelevant to why you think that people who reach contrary conclusions are seeking data to support their conclusions. Well, it would be irrelevant except that it suggests that you become “convinced” of things easily, and being convinced is a psychological state that entails a very high confirmation bias.
phat: “is it not possible that the values that inspire the pragmatists aren’t especially divergent from the values that inspire the absolutists?”
I am mildly pro-death penalty, but I can see the legitimacy of pragmatic anti-death penalty arguments. As far as common ground between pragmatists and absolutists: concern for fairness and socioeconomic structural problems are shared by the two camps, which are ultimately rooted in human rights and civil rights principles. (Not that such concerns are the exclusive domain of opponents. A death penalty proponent could argue that the already socioeconomically disadvantaged are disproportionately victims of murder and would therefore most benefit from any deterrent effect of the death penalty.)
Where absolutists differ from pragmatists is that they derive from broadly shared human and civil rights principles the precept that a civilized state cannot, by definition, be in the business of taking human life as an end. (In war, human lives are taken, but that is not the objective. Of course, there is surely some overlap between absolutist death penalty opponents and an absolutist antiwar position.) It’s important to emphasis that this argument is about the nature of the state (“civilized” versus “not civilized”), not the nature of the criminal (redeemable, sympathetic, heinous and so on). Some proponents of the death penalty misunderstand this point about their adversaries, unfairly accusing them of cozying up to vicious criminals. However, some factions within the anti-death penalty movement forget this too, and in some quarters there is an unfortunate romanticization of death row inmates.
Where absolutists differ from pragmatists is that they derive from broadly shared human and civil rights principles the precept that a civilized state cannot, by definition, be in the business of taking human life as an end.
There’s a false dichotomy here, which I alluded to above. The state isn’t capable of meting out perfect justice. Accidentally taking an innocent life violates civil rights principles, thus pragmatic and your so-called “absolutist” objections cannot be disentangled.
in some quarters there is an unfortunate romanticization of death row inmates
In some quarters there’s an unfortunate tendency toward bullshit built out of overgeneralization. “death row inmates” includes a bunch of different people, some of whom draw more sympathy than others — especially if there is evidence of innocence or of rehabilitation. You have provided no reason to think that there is any “quarter” in which any particular death row inmate has been unduly romanticized, let alone the entire class of death row inmates.
#66
The particularly funny when you consider the origin of that phrase.
Capital punishment is indefensible, and anyone who thinks otherwise is morally retarded, as the pro-death penalty crowd continuously demonstrates.
Some proponents of the death penalty misunderstand this point about their adversaries, unfairly accusing them of cozying up to vicious criminals.
Some proponents of the death penalty are incapable of grasping that some convicted criminals might be innocent, and what that implies. And some proponents of the death penalty who are incapable of imagining that some criminals may be rehabilitable, or that there could be just punishments that fall short of execution. That they think that those who disagree with them are “cozying up” has nothing to do with those who disagree with them, and everything to do with their own pigheadedness.
truth machine comment #99
Let’s try to be constructive here. The Wikipedia article you cite reports an extremely high murder rate in SA. There’s nothing there I disagree with. I’m aware of the facts therein. I’ve lived in South Africa since 1976. So I do know a bit about the place. Can we keep things civil?
Here’s an article showing crime rates from 1980, http://www.iss.co.za/Pubs/CRIMEINDEX/98VOL2NO3/CrimeAndCountry.html
Of course there are many reasons for the escalation in crime, such as dysfunctions in the law enforcement and justice system, as well as social inequalities. Restoring the death penalty would not necessarily be a quick-fix solution I admit.
Nevertheless, look at Figure 3 in the above link. The murder rate in South Africa jumped in 1990, just after the death penalty moratorium. It jumped again in 1994 when the ANC government replaced the Nationalist government. Why did it jump in 1990 if it was not due to the moratorium? There was no change in government or in the constitution. The death penalty moratorium was the only relevant change in the judicial system. After 1994 there was an overhaul of the police and judiciary which, some would argue, made them less effective.
There’s a false dichotomy here, which I alluded to above. The state isn’t capable of meting out perfect justice. Accidentally taking an innocent life violates civil rights principles, thus pragmatic and your so-called “absolutist” objections cannot be disentangled.
This is borne out by the anti-death penalty arguments I’ve found in a brief web search. For instance,
Why did it jump in 1990 if it was not due to the moratorium?
Argumentum ad ignorantiam.
Nevertheless, look at Figure 3 in the above link. The murder rate in South Africa jumped in 1990, just after the death penalty moratorium. It jumped again in 1994 when the ANC government replaced the Nationalist government.
some people just refuse to grasp the correlation /= causation thing.
some people just refuse to grasp the correlation /= causation thing.
Apparently it’s not something that’s taught to industrial engineers.
I’m not in favour of the death penalty (in fact, I’m generally against it), but I don’t find this unyielding, absolutist opposition convincing. Some argue that it’s a violation of “fundamental human rights” (or some other such abstraction). This is almost religious in its arrogance. Who are they to dictate this “fundamental” morality, which a huge chunk of the human population clearly disagree with?
People also say that capital punishment is irreversible and might be applied on an innocent whenever it is applied. In some particular cases, when the chance of someone’s innocence is negligible, this is a fatuous objection. Are we to seriously entertain the possibility that someone by his own admission guilty, who was caught on CCTV raping and killing, could really be innocent?
Why did it jump in 1990 if it was not due to the moratorium?
Argumentum ad ignorantiam.
On top of how stupid the “I can’t think of any other reason, so that must be the reason” argument is in general, in this case a large jump in the number of murders as a result of a suspension of the death penalty is highly implausible.
truth machine and Ichthyic. OK, so there’s a correlation, but not necessary a causation. How then would you explain the situation in South Africa?
Who are they to dictate this “fundamental” morality, which a huge chunk of the human population clearly disagree with?<
Uh, who is “dictating” anything? People take political positions — it’s called democracy; in the U.S., those opposed to the death penalty generally don’t have their political desires realized. As for “a huge chunk of the human population”, the U.S. is not the human population; most civilized countries have rejected the death penalty.
People also say that capital punishment is irreversible and might be applied on an innocent whenever it is applied. In some particular cases, when the chance of someone’s innocence is negligible, this is a fatuous objection. Are we to seriously entertain the possibility that someone by his own admission guilty, who was caught on CCTV raping and killing, could really be innocent?
Funny how you talk about fatuous objections and then put forth a completely fatuous objection.
How then would you explain the situation in South Africa?
Go look up “argumentum ad ignorantiam”, please.
How then would you explain the situation in South Africa?
not living there, I’m not familiar with the local history or sociology.
you live there, though, right?
any reason you couldn’t examine these things yourself? what ELSE might have been going on around the time of the rise of the ANC that might also explain a rise in the murder rate? maybe the shift in how civil authority was run allowed for a lot of old grudges to be “settled”? just a guess, of course, but there must be at least several other things that were going on at the time. then, of course, you have to figure out a way to go beyond just competing correlations; you have to figure out a way to rule out correlations based on either experiment, or in this case, direct information. interviews with suspects, maybe? Heck, I’m not a cop, nor a sociologist, so I’m just guessing here. At the very least, you need to rule out potentially competing correlations.
The point being is that you should attempt to disprove your own hypothesis. that’s always the next step.
never stop at a correlation; a correlations only suggest directions to take further inquiry.
The point being is that you should attempt to disprove your own hypothesis. that’s always the next step.
Whatryou, some goddamn scientist?
Apparently it’s not something that’s taught to industrial engineers.
actually, given the preponderance of engineers who also claim to be supporters of ID, that’s likely not so far from the case.
I recall not being shown the lesson from an actual experimental design standpoint until my first year in grad school, for example.
now that I recall, my own grad prof. lamented over tea once the fact that it is not one of the things that is commonly taught in undergraduate science programs, or in secondary schools, and so explains why most of the public accept merely correlative poll data at face value.
I guess I shouldn’t be overly critical when someone initially concludes causation from a correlative study (it just wears when it happens on a near daily basis), or at least only be critical AFTER it has been clearly pointed out that the results are just correlative in nature.
at least Bryson is asking the right question, now:
How then would you explain the situation in South Africa?
a lot of people would consider the correlative data to be “case closed”, without even bothering to ask that question (and not even knowing they should).
Whatryou, some goddamn scientist?
yeah, every once in a while I put my Mr. Science cap on.
:p
only when there is the slightest glimmer that it might be worth it, though.
Mark/TrashcanMan in the other thread?
hopeless.
… but I think Bryson in recognizing the limits of correlation, might be on the right track.
yeah, i know, sounds sanctimonious and all, but I’d dearly love to see someone actually make it beyond the obvious correlations and start looking at some of the other possibilities. figure out how to really tease out what are the real causative factors before they decide the matter is concluded.
probably pointless for an internet thread.
Funny how you talk about fatuous objections and then put forth a completely fatuous objection.
he was preparing us.
“fundamental human rights” (or some other such abstraction)
so a right to life is nothing but an abstraction.
interesting.
You and Ian should have an wonderful time discussing that.
As someone from death-penalty free Old Europe, I was a death penalty agnostic all my life until I spent a few years in Texas. The omni-presence of the death penalty there radicalized me in two directions.
On the one hand, I came to appreciate the simple logic and beauty of “an eye for an eye” (and, yes, I know where that phrase originated, and, no, I don’t think that in itself is an argument against it). It is the simplest and most perfect way of achieving justice. Even if there is an element of revenge in it, what is wrong with that? Revenge is a satisfying experience, just like altruism, sex or cheese cake.
On the other hand, I came to realize that there is no way that any punishment could ever be meted out in a completely fair fashion. This is true of fines, prison sentences and executions, but it matters more, the more invasive and irreversible the punishment is. For this reason alone, I think that any society that claims to be “moral” or “civilized” or both must do without capital punishment.
Speaking of baseless generalizations, your admonishment of baseless generalization was a baseless generalization. Maybe it’s you just don’t want to here what they’re saying. Maybe you just don’t have enough humanity to understand where they’re coming from. I, frankly, don’t give a shit.
As author Michael Radelet writes, “A civilized society must be based on values and principles that are higher than those it condemns.” We’re not that society. And it’s obvious we’re not that society.
The problem with the death penalty is that, frankly, it makes you no better. You took a life. You didn’t have to take the life because, in fact, we do have the ability to protect society from the defectives with life imprisonment. We’re no longer bronze age, quasi-savages who have few other realistic options. Which means we need to act like it and put away this bronze-age, eye-for-an-eye mentality.
In short, by your actions you are measured. You take a life when you don’t need to take a life, you’re no better than the putrid piece of shit who’s life you’ve taken.
No, basic principle of a lack of empathy and moral development. A bronze-age mentality. Angry chimps killing the transgressor.
And, BTW, there’s not such thing as “Justice.” There is the law and it’s application.
at least Bryson is asking the right question, now:
How then would you explain the situation in South Africa?
Except that he seems to think that, if we can’t answer it, he’s justified in his conclusion. That’s why I say “argumentum ad ignorantiam” rather than get sucked into trying to explain a single data point.
Dey live original sins.
Bronze age. What dat?
Cook, or eat, I say, but you clean the dishes.
Chimps will gladly kill. Did I say Chimpy?
Poor Barney.
Yeah, chimpanzese are absolutely ruthless. They will kill, then forget about it. They may wonder later where everyone is, but that’s it.
Except that he seems to think that, if we can’t answer it, he’s justified in his conclusion
perhaps, but in mentioning his recognition that he is relying only on the correlative data he offered, I saw a glimmer of hope.
you’re probably right in that he just mentions it as a challenge, rather than with genuine interest in mind.
but, I’ll leave it to Bryson to clarify.
…my point being that it IS the right question to ask, but Bryson should be directing it at himself, first, and be far more skeptical of the correlative data he used to make his initial conclusion.
It is the simplest and most perfect way of achieving justice.
What makes it justice at all, let alone perfect justice? As has been noted, we do not respond to rape with rape, disfiguration with disfiguration … — so apparently we don’t think that’s justice.
Even if there is an element of revenge in it, what is wrong with that?
It rewards primitive impulses, for one.
Revenge is a satisfying experience, just like altruism, sex or cheese cake.
Actually it rarely is.
Revenge is a satisfying experience, just like altruism, sex or cheese cake.
so’s murder for some. oh wait, was there a relevant point I missed in there somewhere?
Thanks from a humble engineer for the science lessons.
I’m no more enlightened however. Is the death penalty a deterrent or not? Does it reduce murders if it is imposed? Are murders reduced if it is abolished?
– Another condemned prisoner released after 20 years on death row. Apparently in this case there wasn’t even a crime.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article3075159.ece
“A British citizen who spent 20 years on death row in the American state of Ohio has accepted a plea bargain and is expected to be freed in time for Christmas.
Kenneth Richey, whose case prompted the intervention of Tony Blair, the Pope, the European Parliament and Amnesty International, was convicted of setting a fire that killed his ex-girlfriend’s 2-year-old daughter in 1986.
In August this year that conviction was quashed by a federal appeals court after doubts were cast on the testimony of witnesses, the scientific evidence was shown to be unsound and Mr Richey’s defence lawyer at the trial was ruled incompetent.”
– As to South Africa, I don’t know the sociological aspects of the end of Apartheid, but it is easy to think that there might be some unique circumstances there.
Did people in Europe become less safe after individual countries and finally the EU eliminated the death penalty completely? That would seem to me to be a better comparison.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime-murders-per-capita
– Mark Twain observed, “No penal law can deal out justice; it must deal out injustice in every instance. Penal laws have a high value, in that they protect — in a considerable measure — the multitude of the gentle-natured from the violent minority.
For a penal law is a Circumstance. It is a warning which intrudes and stays a would-be murderer’s hand — sometimes. Not always, but in many and many a case. It can’t stop the real man-tiger; nothing can do that.” . . .
“Holmes, the Chicago monster, inveigled some dozens of men and women into his obscure quarters and privately butchered them. Holmes’s inborn nature was such that whenever he had what seemed a reasonably safe opportunity to kill a stranger he couldn’t successfully resist the temptation to do it.
Justice was finally meted out to Slade and to Holmes. That is what the newspapers said. It is a common phrase, and a very old one. But it probably isn’t true. When a man is hanged for slaying one man that phrase comes into service and we learn that justice was meted out to the slayer. But Holmes slew sixty. There seems to be a discrepancy in this distribution of justice. If Holmes got justice, the other man got 59 times more than justice.”
http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/twainwp.htm
BTW, if you want to read about the Holmes case he mentioned, read the book “The Devil in the White City” by Erik Larson.
Is the death penalty a deterrent or not? Does it reduce murders if it is imposed? Are murders reduced if it is abolished?
I’m satisfied you aren’t clear on the answer any more.
you shouldn’t be.
If anything, none of the studies so far have been conclusive, except perhaps for specific times and places.
I doubt there is a general conclusion that can be made about the efficacy of the death penalty as utilized within varying justice systems.
one might be able to conclude something concrete about it’s efficacy in a given situation, but I rather doubt you would be able to extend it past that situation.
but, like i said, you’re much closer to the actual situation than I am. why can’t you do the background work yourself? contact the authors of the correlative study you read about (you didn’t do the correlation yourself, right?), and find out if they ever did the necessary work to rule out other potential factors, for example.
if they didn’t, who did?
if nobody did…
I am moderately anti-death-penalty.
I find the pragmatic argument more inherently appealing (but then, I find pragmatic arguments more appealing in general), but I do feel that given perfect justice, the death penalty would still be wrong … though I think that given perfect justice AND the death penalty being shown to have a meaningful deterrent effect, I could be persuaded to support it.
All that said, Bryson, the problem with most death-penalty related studies is that there’s not really a lot of data, you can’t carry out experiments (so there’s massive confounds – the variable that shows the strongest correlation to crime rates is the economy, for instance, so you’d have to control against that, and then there’s the question of is it the actual executions that would have a deterrent effect, or would the risk be sufficient deterrent, or might it be possible that life imprisonment might scare some potential criminals more than the death penalty?) and as a topic that people feel very strongly about, studies tend to be ideologically motivated and twisted.
Just like you can’t find good data about the minimum wage – there are reasons to think that raising it hurts the poor, there are reasons to think that raising it helps the poor, there are reasons to think that raising it helps the economy as a whole, and there are reasons to think that raising it hurts the economy as a whole. And studies say different things, and economies are complex beasts, and nobody really wants to look at them neutrally.
Sometimes, the only really honest thing to say on a topic is “I don’t know.”
Well we can only wish that more states will folow New Jersey.
the site also used to include their last meals, but Texas DOC later took that down. I guess that is too voyeuristic even for Texans. Or maybe the yahoos were complaining that their tax dollars were going to buy some poor bastard one last bucket of fried chicken.
@truth machine (#128)
I think it would be justice. The problems with these kind of punishments are purely practical, which is why I am against such them just like I am against the death penalty.
Primitive relative to what?
@Ichthyic (#129)
What is wrong with murder is not that it is a satisfying experience to some or an unsatisfying experience for most. What is wrong with murder is that it rather drastically violates somebody else’s freedom to live their life as they choose to live it. In contrast, nothing is wrong with revenge, since it merely mirrors a violation that the target of revenge has committed first. The only two arguments I have ever heard against it were: “It is a base impulse” (see truth machine’s reply) and “It leads to further violence”. My point was addressed to the first argument — I pointed out that, for many people (me included), it is actually a satisfying experience, and a “primitive impulse” only in the sense that sex, altruism or the enjoyment of cheese cake are “primitive impulses”. Now, the second argument would be more interesting — revenge is a violent act and it can easily lead to a spiral of violence. But Danish cartoons of a fictional prophet can also lead to a spiral of violence and that does not make them wrong.
Mind restating this in a fashion that explicitly verbalizes the unstated assumptions?
Bryson’s data on violent crimes in South Africa convinced me (#52): we should all campaign for the restoration of apartheid…
My attitude is largely pragmatic. While I would be against capital punishment even if the justice system were perfect, this is in a sense immaterial because we live in the real world where it will NEVER be perfect. So the wickedness AND inevitability of executing innocent people gives us a flag behind which all opponents of capital punishment can rally, as well as the argument most likely to convince fence-sitters.
In contrast, nothing is wrong with revenge, since it merely mirrors a violation that the target of revenge has committed first.
Revenge works out so well in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
Cheap shot Arnaud(#137). Crime affects everyone in South Africa. A recent newspaper report said that 85% of South Africans wanted the death penalty restored. No one is suggesting we restore apartheid.
As I said previously, restoring the death penalty would not necessarily be a quick fix solution. Other factors have an influence such as poverty and dysfunctions in law enforcement and judiciary. We have to nail and jail the bad guys and improve the apprehension rate. To my simple mind, the death penalty must be a greater deterrent than a long prison sentence.
I am rather puzzled by those who think that revenge is justification for using the death penalty. Revenge in this context something that could only be done by, or on behalf of, those immediately affected by the original crime. A major tenet of judicial systems in civilized countries is that judges, and prosecution and defence have a professional detachment which hopefully allows for fairer justice. So revenge far from being a good thing is something we should seek to remove from the judicial process.
Of course in many respects the US is not a civilized country when it comes to its judicial system. You only have to look at how many people are locked up for long periods for committing minor drugs offences, or how the US rates in international tables of judicial killings. Pretty high up, only behind countries such as China, Iraq and Burma. And we all know how good a record those countries have on human rights and judicial fairness. Someone earlier said that the US should build more prisons. Given that the US already locks up a greater percentage of its population than any other Western nation that does not seem to be the answer. Maybe imprisoning those who commit violent crimes for longer, and those who commit drugs offences for shorter, or not at all, would free up some space.
I used to be a firm believer in the death penalty until an incident a few years back. I had a few unexpected bills and had to hock a spare vcr and stereo. Long story short, the serial number falsely came up stolen and if I hadn’t purchased it with a credit card and still had the receipt the least I could have expected was a receiving stolen goods felony (they were trying to pin the robbery on me).
The detective was reprimanded and I thought the incident was finished. About 3 months later, same detective pulls into my drive with his lights flashing and proceeds to question me about a rape.
The only connection was the perp was around the same height as me(I later learned he’d already been identified). Again I wonder what would have happened if I had been unable to account for my whereabouts. I’m a musician and had about 300 witnesses as an alibi.
Arnaud:
But even if apartheid reduced the murder rate, unlike capital punishment it is an immoral use of state power that often harms innocent powerless peopl…hey…wait a minute…
What a bunch of wimpy last statements! You’d think more condemned killers would speak like they had a pair:
Arguing that the State shouldn’t kill people is kind of like arguing that a dog shouldn’t piss on a fire hydrant. It’s just what they do.
Analysis of convictions and executions usually finds about 10% of those convicted of murder are innocent. I believe Illinois was the most famous case where the pro-death penalty governor was so convinced by the evidence that he commuted the death sentence of all 156 people on Illinois’ death row as he left office. This analysis found four of those on death row had actually been tortured by the police into making confessions.
The commission he established, due to evidence found by first year law school students, found that:
death sentences were given disproportionately to the poor, people from ethnic minorities and in cases in which informers’ evidence was used.
And this was in a state where the system was “reformed” when they re-instituted it in 1976. The Death Penalty Information Center has the data from Northwestern university examining 86 wrongful convictions, it found that 17 of the 86, 20%, where due to government misconduct:
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?&did=2304
On top of all of that, numerous studies have found that the death penalty, when implemented in a way that tries to compensate for these wrongful convictions, is 3-7 times more expensive than life in prison.
That is what turned me against the death penalty. It’s annoying that it costs more, it’s criminal that you have a margin of error of 10%, and a sizable chunk of that is government employees knowingly executing innocent people.
This is why I like having libertarians around- every now and then you just get a hankering for an irrelevant, doctrinaire comment, and they’re always ready to oblige!
“Well, you’ve got to admit, there aren’t too many atheists in the Electric Chair…” -thanks for speaking for everyone, Greg. Sorry to shoot down your pseudo-clever statement, but I was in a foxhole in combat, and am an atheist. My personal belief that there aren’t any gods have never wavered, so sorry to burst your bubble on Jeebus Eve. Maybe you should stop waxing philosophic, and wonder how many people believe that it’s okay to kill in the name of their gods.
Arguing that the State shouldn’t kill people is kind of like arguing that a dog shouldn’t piss on a fire hydrant. It’s just what they do.
Arguing that a homicidal maniac shouldn’t kill people is kind of like arguing that a dog shouldn’t piss on a fire hydrant. It’s just what they do.
While this discussion is interesting and the topic complex, one thing seems simple: there is no more basic human right than the right to life. You can take away a persons freedoms and possessions in the interest of protection. I have yet to hear one rational explanation for taking a life. As inevitable as it seems in situations of self-defense, there can be no argument that the taking of the most fundamental human right is immensely unfortunate and should be avoided as much as possible. I hardly see how killing another human being could be considered punishment. What example is set by a society that open endorses the taking of human life?
tyaddow,
Generally the claim is that the death penalty make certain that the criminal is never able to commit the crime again (barring reincarnation) and that it serves as a deterrent.
On the one hand, I’m of the personal opinion that executing an innocent person doesn’t make up for that “they’ll never do it again” claim. Also, maximum security doesn’t experience many escapes, so the claim is rather a moot point.
On the other hand, the claim that it is a deterrent has been shown to be causally false. States that have the death penalty generally have higher violent crime rates, those that exercise the “right” to execute, having the highest.
OK, so is life a basic human right or is it not? Am I missing something here? Who really wants to give the power to an individual or an institution like the government to decide who lives and who dies? What kind of message does that really send? Government-sanctioned killing is still killing. What’s more, it does nothing to help prevent those individuals from killing the first time and only assumes that it will prevent others from killing in the future.
How can anyone justify the “an eye for an eye” mentality that permeates our self-righteous society? It’s amazing how shallow our government is by not practicing what it preaches. How can states or the federal government say it’s wrong to murder, then justify it by murdering somebody- does government mirror society, or does society mirror government? You can try to gloss over my last by saying that it isn’t murder, but what else can you realistically call strapping down a defenseless person, and then whacking them “excessive water-boarding”? What baffles me is how easily people pass off our leaders that spout the “an eye for an eye” BS- that’s for your god to decide, not you. Anyone who actually thinks that their god(s) speak through their leaders need to get fitted for straightjackets so you can’t vote, drive, or procreate. Another thing that gets me is people that ask “Well, how would you feel if somebody murdered someone in your family?”- it’s not up to my local government to mirror my temporary insanity, folks, because that’s what it would be- temporary. If you think that way on a long-term basis, you’re morally just as bad as the people that they execute. If you really want to punish people, why not let them sit in jail for the rest of their life- all alone in a prison cell, thinking about what they did. If you are religious enough to believe that they are going to hell, why send them right away? Why not let them dwell on where you believe they’re going for several decades? I estimate that the vast majority of people heinous enough to be put on Death Row don’t have the ability to understand that what they did was wrong- neither before, nor after they did it- which kills the idea that execution is a preventative measure. If it works so well, how come the states with the most murders-per-capita have the death penalty? All that it seems to say is “if my government can justify killing, so can I”. Last: anyone who says that execution is a cost-cutting measure, of the amount of people that are held on death row appealing their punishments- go check into your local mental facility, because you’re just as pathological as the people you want offed.
To some people. Others would find death more welcome than a life in a cage. Of course the more relevant thing to ponder is whether those that are not deterred from committing murder by the possibility of life imprisonment are deterred by the possibility of death. Psychological profiles of murderers generally indicate not.
I skimmed the comments fairly quickly, so pardon me if I missed someone that brought this up. Can someone find me the information related to how much it costs to execute someone as opposed to life imprisonment? I would be interested to see what the numbers are.
The system is flawed, that’s for sure. In the cases that the system worked, beyond a doubt, I’m sure execution is cheaper. Yes, I do know how that sounds. I just reduced a human being’s life to a financial burden on the state, and that’s the epitome of immorality yada yada. Those that committed such heinous crimes in the first place reduced human life to money, drugs, etc. I’d much rather see state funds go towards education, health care, state parks, roads; instead funds get wasted everyday giving a murderer a 9×9 cell.
Our current prison system is overflowing with convicts, prison violence is at an all time high, and the rampant overabundance of gangs in prisons ensures that most prisoners are exposed to more violence everyday. I don’t see how anyone is more comfortable with sending someone away for life. That’s not really taking the moral high ground here.
Murder is still murder, whether Government run or not, but where do you suggest we put them all? It’s all fine and good to put your nose in the air and cast a finger at those that understand the need for the death penalty, with your air of high morality; at least offer up a suggestion as to how to change the system for the better. What do you suggest we do with all the murderers in the country?
End their life, or pay their rent?
I just did the most remarkable thing.
I saw a man with a shopping cart full of stuff beside a church.
I sat hi at him, try to take out a fiver, gt 20 instead.
Silly me. So I just gave him it.
He smiled and told me his name. He is another friend for always. I got a gift. It was his smiles.
He says he is out from shelters now 16 months. I hope I get him warm like he did me when he shared to me.
He is a man.
To tell you the truth, I will not eat Calimarri
Ever. Not respect. Yuch :)
Can someone find me the information related to how much it costs to execute someone as opposed to life imprisonment?
Pay rent to them. They will not impose anything on us, okay?!
But………. pay his rent.Be very nice to him. why, because you a atheist, it is what we do.
No vitriol today. I want you to know (always with the allusions!)
Zero, click here. Short answer–it’s much cheaper to keep someone in jail for his natural life than to execute him legally.
Although cost ought to be the least of our considerations.
‘Cause killing people is wrong.
No be cynic, ‘kay PZ?
Despite her religious conservatism, she held progressive views in other areas (accepting Darwinism and supporting Irish Home Rule), and her influence on Bertrand Russell’s outlook on social justice and standing up for principle remained with him throughout his life – her favourite Bible verse, ‘Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil.’ (Exodus 23:2), became his mantra. However, the atmosphere at Pembroke Lodge was one of frequent prayer, emotional repression and formality; Frank reacted to this with open rebellion, but the young Bertrand learned to hide his feelings.
Russell’s adolescence was thus very lonely, and he often contemplated suicide. He remarked in his autobiography that his keenest interests were in sex, religion and mathematics, and that only the wish to know more mathematics kept him from suicide [8]. He was educated at home by a series of tutors,[4] and he spent countless hours in his grandfather’s library.
I only live to get as fucking much of you people into me. Why do you live?
It is special (understatement of the 13.5 billion year) to live.
We will stop these people, be letting them run wild. Common sense prevails, e-fucking-ventually, but it does.
No one has used bad yet. They won’t. Do you know why?
http://www.antiwar.com/ = wrong. These people do not know why, they are scared. i am not scared, and niether is an atheist. I am not for a good reason.
Let Texas float away. Be nice, people will listen to you. Be strange, people will be interested in you.
Be real, that is all for now.
How do the citizens of other Western countries view capital punishment?
‘Morality Policy and Political Unaccountability: Capital Punishment, Abortion, and Gay Rights in Canada, United Kingdom, France, and Germany’
Raymond Tatalovich, Professor of Political Science, Loyola University Chicago
Paper delivered to the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association, May 30-June 1, 2003, Halifax, Nova Scotia.
“(B)y the end of the Twentieth Century, nearly seven-in-ten British
respondents wanted a return to capital punishment. …
High levels of support for capital punishment have been the norm in Canada, except that public opinion had no impact on the decision by Canada to abolish the death penalty. … (D)uring the past two decades, usually no less than three-fifths of Canadians express their support. …
The French National Election Surveys probed whether “the death penalty should be
reestablished” and found that the percentages ofaffirmative responses declined from1988 (64% said
yes), to 1995 (56%), and 1997 (50%). …
(T)he abolition of the death penalty in
Great Britain, Canada, Germany, and France occurred at a time when public opinion was not supportive (with the possible exception of France where public acceptance lagged behind the law by more than a decade). Today polls continue to find lopsided majorities favoring the restoration of capital punishment in all those countries, except France.”
Also see the book ‘Cultures at War: Moral Conflicts in Western Democracies’ by T. Alexander Smith and Raymond Tatalovich (Broadview Press, 2003).
The long trend is decline in support for the death penalty, with mass opinion lagging government policy. A recent Canadian poll show the majority shifting towards opposition to the death penalty.
Angus Reid Global Monitor : Polls & Research
May 04, 2007
Favor/oppose the death penalty
United States: 69% / 29%
Britain: 50% / 45%
France: 45% / 52%
Canada: 44% / 52%
Germany: 35% / 62%
Of course, caution should be taken in interpreting polls. The phrasing of the question can make a big difference. For example, even some of those generally opposed to the death penalty will be more favorable if the murder involves the killing of a child or other circumstances that make it more heinous.
Hmm. How about, “perhaps if we didn’t remove the lung cancer they might have died from the snake bite instead”. I don’t care what *reasonable* arguments there are against the death penalty, and there are reasonable ones, this isn’t one of them. As arguments go, its just absolutely absurd.
All this talk of deterrents is predicated on the assumption that murderers are thinking rationally at the time and that they’ve calmly and unemotionally thought out all the consequences of their actions. In my experience, this is a crock. OK, I’m talking New Zealand, where we expect 1 to 2 homicides a week, but the vast majority are down to dumb, angry, heat-of-the-moment lashing out, semi-accidental kicking people to death in gang brawls, mental illness and people nutting off after taking too much methamphetamine. The huge majority of offenders aren’t thinking straight at the time of the offence due to drugs and alcohol. Pre-meditated or planned killings are a real rarity, less than 10%.
As to the above graphs – are the earlier figures from a time when the murder rate was much lower, and all offenders were routinely executed? If so, there’s no significant correlation due to deterrence. It’s just the same people being counted once for each category.
I have no numbers for this, it’s just speculation, but what about the effect of changes in other areas of legislation? When divorce became easier and less stigmatising, pre-meditated spouse-poisonings virtually disappeared, something that the threat of hanging had never achieved. Probably coincidentally, the last man to be hanged in New Zealand (in the mid-50’s) was convicted of poisoning his wife with arsenic. That guy really does mark the end of an era.
Bryson: On the deterrent issue …
As far as I’m concerned, for myself, I’d view a life sentence (one which I didn’t expect to be overturned once my innocence came out, anyway) as essentially being the loss of my life, and thus tantamount to the death sentence.
If I were in a position where the possibility of life imprisonment on top of all the moral issues etc was not enough to stop me from killing someone, this would basically be because either I felt they absolutely HAD to die and damn the consequences, or because I thought I wasn’t going to face life imprisonment in the first place, so the death penalty wouldn’t be any more scary.
Augie –
I can sympathize… not that I’ve been in a foxhole, mind you.. but hearing the snap and whirr of various velocity small masses go by my ears has given me a slightly different outlook on life than I had *before* the cordite perfume.
However, I must submit, that there is a fundamental and very important difference between a firefight and an execution. In a firefight, you might die. In an execution, you might survive. In a firefight, it starts/stops in a relative hurry – even if you prep for it as realistically as possible for your entire military career (or whatever). Execution involves a wait of .. what, 15, 20 years? That’s a lot of time to prepare for a single known-to-be-coming event (how many senior NCO/WO/O did you see in those foxholes with you?).
So, I think the generalization was justified, really.
—- other opinions mentioned ——
As for the death penalty… I freely admit I am adamantly in favor of it. I am also adamant that it be exercised only in those situations that warrant it – and proof is a part of that situation.
I don’t hold with it being applied in any situation where momentary rage (as an example) plays a part.
However, John Wayne Gacey, Dahmer, Ted Bundy, BK… just to name a few.. cases where it’s obvious to any sane being that the individual in question is not sane.
Yes, it’s my opinion that people guilty of cold-bloodedly taking the life of a human being have declared that they, themselves, are *not* human. As a non-human, they have given up any and all of their rights – including the right to life.
They are morally equivalent to the dog down the street that bites the face off your neighbor’s kid, and I don’t see anybody but the farthest left PETA morons begging for clemency on the part of those animals.
I won’t bother pointing to this report or that report about deterrence or how large a percentage of those on death row are actually innocent. Every study I’ve found has its share of detractors. Whatever else it does, it gives the families – of both victim and of guilty party – a sense of closure.
“Not guilty by reason of insanity” is the stupidest argument I have ever heard, given that, by any reasonable definition, one MUST be insane to commit murder.
Equating the U.S. to states such as Iran, Pakistan, China and Burma is about as stupid as equating hockey to basketball. Sure, they both use twine, wood, and metal – but after that, the similarities rather fall apart. There’s a big difference between a societally applied court system and one applied arbitrarily by individuals.
————-
Ichthyic – actually, drunk driving is given too lenient a brush off in this country. Speaking as an ex-drinker/driver, DUI should be about on a par with the aforementioned wanton and reckless endangerment – and if a DUI driver causes the death of somebody, at the very least it should be considered manslaughter.
————–
Re the Supreme Court decision, way back at the behinning of this thread. The problem was, they weren’t deciding the man’s guilt or innocense – they were deciding whether or not the state had the obligation to re-open the case, and determined, essentially, that it was up to the state to make that determination. As a constitutional issue, the guilt or innocence of the man was immaterial.
There is no blame to the SC… but, yes, Texas *completely* screwed that one up. Even if the courts were justified in essentially ignoring the case, the Governor should have stepped in.
——–
cthulhus minion – I understand your situation, but realistically, your experience is *vastly* different from a murder investigation. Further, I don’t see anything in your narrative that indicates you spent any time in jail, much less that you were wrongly convicted. Seems to me the police did a right proper job of it with regards the pawn shop incident.
Sure, you ran into an idiot detective. There isn’t an organization in the world that doesn’t have its share of assholes. But by your own accounting, in neither case were you seriously inconvenienced.
Sure, it’s annoying being involved in an investigation when you know you are innocent – but you obviously haven’t been any sort of judicial victim or scapegoat. I also don’t see any indication that said detective has made a career of messing with your life.
I’m curious to know – if you know yourself – why the detective was reprimaned in the pawn shop event. There’s nothing in your narrative to indicate he did anything wrong there.
What strikes me about that list – and I suggest that more people actually bother to read some of the offender information – is both the age of the executed, when the admittedly terrible crimes were committed, as well as the circumstances involved.
Most of those that I have looked at were either still teenagers or in their early twenties when they committed the murders, and most seem to have been a by-product of a bungled robbery or drug related activity.
Of course, none of this reduces the seriousness of the crimes involved, but it does, in my opinion, open up many more questions about a society. I notice that many people point to extremes in a discussion like this (South Africa being one, where it is far more likely to be a consequence of the history of that country), but what about the nations that don’t permit the death-penalty, have (relatively) low crime rates (including murder rates), and a focus on rehabilitation rather than punishment, as well as a general attitude towards creating a more just, liberal and non-violent society?
Obviously, I would like to see some serious research that included many nations. Some countries seem to be on the right path, and the US is not one of them. We are highly critical of the number of people in prison in Britain (which is the highest in Europe, I believe), and it interesting that Britain straddles between the US and Europe in many areas, including attitudes to crime, punishment and rehabilitation, and that the US has by far the highest prison population – as a percentage of the overall population – in the western world.
Even without the necessary information, I would still prefer Britain to follow the European model, which is producing better results, at present. Surely the cause of such crimes should be the focus, not revenging them? I would suggest that the US being the most unequal society in the western world is just one reason (of many). Still, it is easier to just get rid of people, I suppose. Lovely.
Talk about failing logic. A drunk driver is impaired. While an argument might be made that they chose to get drunk, its not a valid argument that, once drunk, they have the capacity to judge if they can/can’t drive safely enough to avoid killing someone. That the later follows the former choice isn’t really relevant, since its a treatable condition, unlike someone that intentionally kills someone, and it differs from person to person. Someone that is allergic to alcohol would, under such a system, be in serious trouble the *first* time they so much as had half of a glass. You might as well arrest everyone that doesn’t have 20/20 vision, on the grounds that if their impairment resulted in someone dying they where culpable on the basis of the fact that they *knew* they didn’t see well.
As for speeding and reckless driving.. Most of the people that do that should lose their licenses *until* there is some reasonable expectation that they learned their lesson. The problem is, you get places like where I live where the city council is more concerned with the titty patrol at the beach than doing anything about bad driving, and where the police department agree with them, because, in our case, every ticket written goes to Phoenix, before our city gets its cut. So, if our of every $100, your city, where the crime took place, only gets like $10, the thinking is, “Why the $@%#@$#$ bother, since we can’t get better equipment or hire more officers on that $10 to do the damn job?”
The biggest problem is that, in most cases, you would have to arrest and charge 90% of the population between 16 and 25 on charges of speeding or reckless driving. The better option is to give them “real” tests, instead of the stupid 5 minute BS one we do here as well (yeah, if you aren’t going to charge anyone for traffic offenses, why bother making sure they know how to drive….), driving education based on *real* skill, not just, “Do you know where the gas and break peddles are, and can you park without scraping paint?”, and actual fracking enforcement.
The problem with speeding and reckless driving isn’t that its reckless, its that in most places the entire driving+enforcement system is not much better than if some police force started handing out hand guns to the local gang bangers, then let them leave with, “Now, just don’t go and shoot yourself in the foot, OK.” Well, not ‘quite’ that bad, but not real sane either.
A touchy subject, and one which I will leave to the mind
of Ernest van den Haag.
“Capital Punishment”
“No matter what can be said for abolition of the death penalty, it will be perceived symbolically as a loss of nerve: Social authority no longer is willing to pass an irrevocable judgment on anyone. Murder is no longer thought
grave enough to take the murderer’s life, no longer horrendous enough to deserve so fearfully irrevocable a
punishment. When murder no longer forfeits the murderer’s
life (though it will interfere with his freedom), respect
for life itself is diminished, as the price for taking it is. Life becomes cheaper as we become kinder to those who
wantonly take it. If life is to be valued and secured, it
must be known that anyone who takes the life of another
forfeits his own.”
I am intransigent in this as in my hatred of religion.
Forfeiting your freedom is enough.
The logic above is wrong. There’s plenty of disrespect for life that causes death that is not murder.
I think Bush is proof of that.
Well Bryson, the best argument I can give against it with respect to your own experiences, since that is what is relevant here, is that it is a case of diminishing returns. In a place where violence is the norm, *most* of the people committing it are not a) delusional enough to believe they won’t get caught, b) willing to die, or c) obsessed/mentally ill enough to do it anyway, despite (a) and (b). In *that* sort of environment, discovering that getting caught **will** result in a very quick death from the authorities is very likely to discourage the behavior. In more stable environments you get *mostly* one of several types, a) those that are sure they won’t get caught, b) those that are willing to die for some stupid BS, c) those that are mentally unstable and can’t think rationally, and d) crimes of passion. None of these categories are going to be particularly discouraged by the police finding them, and the court system executing them. A and C literally don’t believe it will happen, B thinks is a just cause anyway, and doesn’t care if they do get caught and D wasn’t thinking about the consequences **at all** when it happened. So much for using it to deter anything… Well, at least not in large numbers. There will always be some morons that think they could get caught, but do it anyway. probably 90% of all crimes committed though, in the US, the morons usually figure, “Man, they will never catch me, if I am clever enough!”, only less than 0.5% of them are ever right, let alone right more than twice.
I’d just like to point out that the Bryson in this thread is in no way connected to the Bryson Brown who also sometimes posts here – the name is unusual enough that I thought I’d mention it (especially since his reaction when I read him some of Other-Bryson’s comments was a hearty “What? Arrgh!”).
In contrast, nothing is wrong with revenge, since it merely mirrors a violation that the target of revenge has committed first.
I don’t think you’ve got the concepts of either “wrong” or “since” down — it’s sad that someone had to invent the phrase “two wrongs don’t make a right” because there are people who don’t get it if it isn’t spelled out for them.
Best way to kill yourself.
get full of yourself.
Bought the T-shirt, paul.
I’m open to arguments against the death penalty. go ahead, convince me.
Consider #146. Consider #89:
Pragmatic death penalty opponents, who are opposed to the death penalty on practical grounds: criminal justice system error (compounded by the sentence’s irreversibility), wasted resources, demographic sentencing bias, lack of efficacy etc. Presumably, if these problems were eliminated – that is, if the death penalty was demonstrated to be fairly applied, virtually error-free in sentencing and implementation, proven effective in deterring crime, and so on, pragmatic opponents would have no problem with supporting the death penalty.
So, have those problems been eliminated in South Africa? Or do you just not care about miscarriages of justice as long as some chart shows a correlation to reduced murders? Would you favor a “justice” system that was much quicker on the trigger, spending less time making sure they didn’t get the wrong person, since that would mean more executions and presumably an even greater lowering of the murder rate?
Hmm. We could try manditory treatment, in a system they a) can’t get out of until clean and b) is sufficiently cut off from the outside that they can’t get it smuggled in to them. But, the Republicrats wouldn’t go for that. Not only would it mean using drugs as part of the treatment, it would require studies to determine the real harm and most effective treatment of each drug, and finally, every since the first and only one of their own to suggest such a thing turned out to be a lying sneaky crook, and the person that he was going to have run the program a similarly lying sneaky crook, they haven’t wanted to touch the idea with the ten foot pole. Sadly, the Democrats haven’t been much better at it, and are often just as stupidly delusional about what would be allowed/needed to make it happen (which includes better research into some drugs that seem to trigger a cascade in the brain that can reset the addiction, but which research was banned on, *solely* on the grounds that it got you high *while* doing it, and didn’t always work on everyone). Can’t imagine why studying the effect and finding a better drug to reset the bodies systems would be useful after all. Its not like we don’t also have **multiple** other types of addictions that use the same transmitter pathways or cause a wide range of other problems, which just happen to be less radical than taking crack… Sigh…
You are a very, very, very good man. The world needs you.
I need you.
Pet the kitty. Look at plants. What is important to you.
What is. Are you. no. i am not either. no one is.
We make differences, and our friends remind us. we have friends, that is longer than the life of a proton(sorry for the physics reference, poor biologist) in warmth to it. Me. You. ALL
Jim Jordan –
That all sounds logical, but how does it actually play out in reality? Words are just that. The actual evidence suggests that people respect life a whole lot more if you create a society that respects life, and especially the everyday lives of the citizens of a nation. It is admittedly a complicated issue, but that only suggests that simplistic notions are unlikely to be helpful.
After all, what are you trying to achieve? The murder rate in the US suggests that too many people don’t respect life (theirs or that of anyone else), as it is, and the inevitable conclusion that follows from those who suggest that capital punishment reduces the murder rate is that the US is one fucked up society (if it would be worse than it already is, without the death penalty). I don’t believe that, though. I think that the priorities are wrong.
To continue with the line that you have just espoused, you would have to find a rational explanation for the nations that take a vastly different stance on numerous issues – including the death penalty – and yet manage to create a society with a far lower murder rate.
“kay, i show you bust myth.
Free energy. So called, we all heard of Touring.
So, i have a fridge. It is absolute zero. You know, it is fucking cold.
No, you do not know it yet. Some people around here, they work outside.
i been out minus 40 C with bitter wind, and in one second, I was afraid, it was cold, I had to run to the cab at the place away from me (okay, i was at the U of A watching them kich ass to montreal in V-Ball, but I digress) and I ….
I wouldn’t out. Spit. No more than five secs. It was cold it was
50 below. Spit. No wind. Working 8 hours shift. No light from sun, you desire that thing to show even a bit above the horizon.
Lets just lie down in the bank, that is easiest, Fuck, I am not even as warm as those kids fell in a river, under ice,
I would give my soul to be that wet and what, I can’t think, finally. Not happy now, my family, I won’t….. again, kill my doggy and put hands inside, dying now, never see my dauther…
Not yet cold. How cold is cold, no warmth, okay so then you put pizza in there and it gat’s hot.
Zero point energy.
The fucking stupidist idea I have ever heard, and we have heard at lot of them. Right, GOD?
In that fridge, with no … it is cold. I will remind you again..Within one second, you are wearing so much clothes yous can’t hardly move.
You know when it is freezing and you get outside?
I am just warming you up. Think about laying down in a snow storm, I put oil on you and rub it in, not oil water, don’t worry I have big ‘uns. but it is windy.
Be right back. lay in the snow. It is so cold that you take banana from you lunch bucket, is shatter when dropped.
You still die rom cold, but less than one one millionth way to cold, and frost is instant, no it it not, there is no atmosphere, there is you dead, not yet, worse. Put on the place you heard. Pluto, if you lucky.
Froze less than instant.
You are fucking solid, think?
Then, a guy puts his coffee into you hands, and it starts to get hot.
That is zero point energy, and I am being lamer.
The actual evidence suggests that people respect life a whole lot more if you create a society that respects life, and especially the everyday lives of the citizens of a nation.
You get it, Damian.
Capital punishment is reserved for cases of malice and wanton disregard for life, not for mere accidents and mistakes.
But it was neither an accident or a mistake. Did you read the post? The man in Texas was innocent and everybody knew it, because the real murderer had confessed. Everybody accepted his innocence as a point of fact.
But it was concluded that innocence of the charges was an insufficient justification to overturn a guilty verdict and a sentence of death. At that point, how is it not murder to go ahead with the “execution”?
That’s what I asked. I get top marks on reading comprehension tests. Maybe you should look into tutoring.
Mimik. Take your meds. Stop babbling.
mikmik, what the hell point are you trying to make here?
“No matter what can be said for abolition of the death penalty, it will be perceived symbolically as a loss of nerve: Social authority no longer is willing to pass an irrevocable judgment on anyone. Murder is no longer thought
grave enough to take the murderer’s life, no longer horrendous enough to deserve so fearfully irrevocable a
punishment. When murder no longer forfeits the murderer’s
life (though it will interfere with his freedom), respect
for life itself is diminished, as the price for taking it is. Life becomes cheaper as we become kinder to those who
wantonly take it. If life is to be valued and secured, it
must be known that anyone who takes the life of another
forfeits his own.”
Sheer sophistry. No intelligent person could take this as a valid argument.
I am intransigent in this as in my hatred of religion.
Hate is the common factor.
P.S. The same sorts of arguments have been made in favor of corporal punishment of children.
Er, corporeal. “Spare the rod, spoil the child.” — ancient non-wisdom.
I thought Greg cracked a neat little joke, tying in the “atheists in foxholes” sentiment together with the notion of evil, immoral atheists. Did I miss what was supposed to be a “pseudo-clever statement”?
Augie, I came to the same jestful conclusion as Greg, after reading through some of the final statements. It struck me how many of them were God-fearing folk. Greg correctly pointed out (tongue in cheek, I thought) that there literally weren’t many atheists in the electric chair.
Greg, I’m sending you a “militant atheist” flag to wave about while you “wax philosophic”, just to indicate to the uninitiated that you don’t live inside a bubble.
Hear you people. i do babble.
Azkyroth. get your own point from what I say.
I got 40.
My point is that wer sit here a wax extraneously. What else can we do while we sit at the keyboard.
Believe me, I am literat. Salut.
Give fucking money(no one has got one of my allusions!)
It is Music.
Get your own points. You are , what, priveledged to get them?
Lucky, see my friend with no place to live. He was actually quite smart, very much so. He told me some important ideas.
Funny, that. 30 year old, look like 50, so nice to a men like me.
I aks him, then I give to him.
I already get from him, do you know? He smiled o me and said rthat he wants me to have a good day and love my family.
He has no family, when I asked this to him.
I felt his handin mine. You find the meaning in that. That will be my gift.
I am not a scientists. I only know things. I took one year at U of A.
I Got The BooT. Play Soccer Scholarship.
Only make reason from understanding.
You?
I met a dude on the street. He was full of ideas.
That is what I meant to say.
Why don’t I just say it? i am looking for her, lets say that.
Or If PZ smarts, I like itz
Bryson,
Not a cheap shot, mate. Since 1989 a lot of things happened in South Africa, to say that among all this upheaval the abolition of the death penalty was the cause of the rise in violent crimes is at best deluded…
My argument against the death penalty would stand even in the existence of a perfect judiciary backed up by a perfect police. In a democracy, the state is the expression of the citizen’s will, it is theoretically the instrument the citizens use to enact their choice. The death penalty in Iran or China is not the same thing as the death penalty in the US. In a democracy you cannot hide behind your government, you cannot even hide behind the majority’s opinion (as the statistics given above showed, in most countries where the DP was abolished, that was against public opinion).
In a democracy, even if you are opposed to it, the death penalty makes murderers of you all…
Mikmik. Stop. Write coherently or shut up.
I live in NYC. I get enough of the mentally unbalanced on the subway.
Okay, it is like this. These people have very obviously wrong ideas.
Then it is up to us to react. Shall we set them straihgt? Is that it?
They want to teach very disturbing ideas that will not instill critical thinking abilities into little ones.
What we do. What are we going to do.
How do we decide we are right.
Is there a right.
Yes there is.
That si why I am so screwed up. Cain’t spell is, haha.
Tink me with, hey? Childs have brains. Some are not developed. I was lucky, as I have explained. Is it our duty to explain anything?
Listen to me, stupid fucks.
Get it yet? wink, very loud.
Be a friend, listen. That is a start. A tiny one, but we have weapons.. Starts with the letter “Rreason”
We are made of it. It is intrinsic.
Be intrinsic.
Hi, steve. i will write the way i think. If you cannot get what I am saying, thhen sak a queation.
Or shut the heck up,hah
Read me? What make you. We do. STFU.
Steve_C:
Consider yourself relatively lucky. I moved from NYC to the Midwest. I get the mentally unbalanced controlling the state government.
We make each other.
I told you that, that poor man, I …. what
Steve.
I am Mike.
Fountainhead??????
Movie sucked.
Good taste, though, i
I get it now., your name.
it is good.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to live anywhere else.
I just feel bad for mik. He has no idea how posting the way he does reflects poorly on him and stops him from contributing in any constructive way.
It’s just annoying, lazy and indulgent. (If he’s not unbalance.)
I am mentally unballanced but I am smarter than you steve.
Shouldn’t hae sayd hi ta me.
to go to the top of the page, hit your ‘Home’ key. Then you can read the topic, ‘kay steve?
Make me look dumb, then. what is your claim to fame?
Been far worse than NYC, get fucked up on hastings. Then spek at my.
Easy. You been downtown? Been afraid?
I have. Badly.
Dats why I say not be cynical to paul.
BTW, I talked my out of it. Be only one one there man picks on you inside the place. He sit aside you says how the place is armed is also in you saet. Freaks. Over my head, that shit. Way over.
They liked me. Finally.
Think in a tough situation, that is creativity, then they said I can always walk safe.
Been with youse popes?
Me, lucky, but smart, always.
Tell me how to explain my ideas. You have a question, steve, I will tell you the answer.
Do not go into the hood.
I can. ‘Cause I can, that is brains.
Oh yeah, got knowledge of QEM. Wan to know about photons?
You do not have any idea, Steve.
Get to where you are going to be shot. Then bitch at me and make friends.
I will make you look stupid, in a hurry.
Why is light refracted? (physics)
Why do we look down on others? (psych shit)
Why are you afraid of me. (hah)
Now, what is important. What makes you.
Capital punishment is one of those subjects that can never be decided by rational argument alone. Everybody has a view which they defend vigorously, based on their emotions, and then try to justify (pro or anti) retrospectively with partial data.
If you fear most being an innocent person on death row (by mistake) you will probably be anti capital punishment.
If you as an innocent person fear being killed by a released murderer you will probably be pro capital punishment.
There are of course many other emotional reasons pro or anti, but the two above are useful examples of different views..
As such the only rational(!) course is a pragmatic one – if the number of innocent people executed is lower than the number of murderers who kill again (it is in the UK), we should allow capital punishment, otherwise we are sacrificing more innocent people than we need to. The state is meant to look after innocent people. You may care to argue that this pragmatism is unsupportable in a civilised society – but in doing so you condemn a greater number of people to death.
Reply to # 177 and # 183
Wanting to redress a wrong could not be more reality than
one can imagine. And in the same stance what the hell does
intelligence have to do with vengeance against criminals ?
You bet hate is the factor. My greatest hatred in life is
for criminals, and if it were up to me, I would eliminate
them in any way possible. The factor of crime prevention
is sophistry; most criminals are caught after the act, so
this renders prevention moot. There are two blatant
realities to crime: they did not have to do it, and they
know that what they are going to do is wrong. Simple as
that, no extenuating reasons considered.
Whenever I look at that sweet little face of Megan Kanka
who gave her sweet life to institute Megan’s Law, I cry
with such emotion for her, and with uncontrollable rage
for that male slime who brutually beat, raped, and killed
her. Now that New Jersey has eliminated the Death Penalty
that freaking scum will remain alive to breathe, eat free
food, shit, pay no taxes, free medical and dental care, TV
and all the other things denied that little girl. He may be
in prison for the rest of his life, but life is still better than death. Megan will be forever dead and never
enrich hers or someone’s life. If she was my little girl,
I would want to get to him before the police do. I would
take him to a secret hideaway and torture him for days on
end. Can you comprehend little Megan yelling out “Mommy,
Mommy” while this fucking slime is brutalizing her, and no
mother will come to rescue her. Can you imagine the awful
finalizing terror she is going through? The last thing that
slime feels before he dies is extreme pain. And if I heard
sirens coming to his rescue I would kill him immediately
with extreme prejudice, for he is definitely not going to
prison for a life of restriction coupled with surcease.
Ted Bundy I reserve my most extreme hate and vengeance for,
and if it were possible to clone that horrendous slime back
to life, it would be to inflict on him endless and horrific torture. BTK is another slime I would exact my
most extreme torture on; hanging that young girl on a rafter in the cellar after raping and strangling her, only
compels me to do the same, but he would still be alive while hanging there and wishing and screaming out to kill
him. These and so many horrific and needless crimes would
be dealth with in the manner with which they were inflicted
and done with no hard feelings. I would give no guarter to
criminals and and consider no mitigating circumstances as
molesting because they were molested. My hatred of crime in
no way lessens my regard and love for life and for all it’s
myriad qualities. I could torture Bundy and Btk and still
listen to Mozart, Bix, George Gershwin, fully admire the
art of Corot, Vermeer, Hobbema and so many others, and still be amazed at the pictures the Hubble Space Telescope
transits from deep space. There is no conflict in this,
and in no way diminishes my intelligence or reasoning.
Reality is all, and when applied to dealing with horrendous
criminal acts, this is the only course I espouse.
Of course I hate, but only those things that disrupt this
already precarious life and which cries out for retribution
and redress. Life is still worth much, and to those whose
actions demean it with criminalty shoud bear the full
weight of retribution. No quarter to criminals.
If you as an innocent person fear being killed by a released murderer you will probably be pro capital punishment.
Murder has the lowest rate of recidivism of any crime in the US. (Sexual offenses have the second-lowest.)
There are rational fears and irrational fears. We have much more to fear from paroled car thieves than we do paroled murderers.
“Murder has the lowest rate of recidivism of any crime in the US. (Sexual offenses have the second-lowest.)”
How does the incidence rate of murderers out of jail compare to that for the general population?
IOW, who is a bigger threat? A convicted murderer who has served their time? Or random member of society?
For me, the whole question of whether capital punishment is appropriate or not is irrelevant. So long as the the judicial process is flawed (which apparently even the pro-death penalty admit) then an irreversible sentance is obviously unacceptable.
If we can ensure that only actually guilty people will be subject to the penalty, then I will worry about whether I think it is appropriate or not.
I could torture Bundy and Btk and still
listen to Mozart, Bix, George Gershwin, fully admire the
art of Corot, Vermeer, Hobbema and so many others, and still be amazed at the pictures the Hubble Space Telescope
transits from deep space.
So could they, Jim. What’s obvious to everybody reading your post – particularly your gorenographic descriptions of various killings – is that you want to rape and torture people, but you don’t want to be punished for it, even by guilt – so you want to do it to people who you think deserve it, so that it’s “ok.”
People torture because they love torture. It’s never been otherwise. It’s never to extract information, or to punish transgressors; it’s always to gratify the torturer’s love of causing pain in others. That they “deserve it” is a rationalization. Bundy and BTK thought their victims deserved it, too, I’m sure, based on some twisted logic.
I don’t see that it’s a legitimate use of state power to pleasure torturers like Jim at the expense of human beings.
“And in the same stance what the hell does
intelligence have to do with vengeance against criminals ?”
-couldn’t have said it better myself, Bud.
It’s not the government’s job to wreak vengeance- it’s about justice. Our country has the large amounts of violence, drug abuse, alcoholism, rape, murders and poverty because we have yet to arise above it- like most nations have done. We Americans still live in a puritanical society that caters to the bottom line, and breeds hatred and fear of anyone that’s not like us. Our culture of violence makes these pedophiles, rapists, drug addicts, murderers, thugs, et al, because that is how we’re taught to deal with the difficulties and roadblocks that life throws us- acting out our anger. We can’t do anything about the ones already in jail- we can only prevent others from doing the same in the future. The a-hole that abducted, raped and murdered poor Megan Kanka did it in a state that had the death penalty, so the death penalty as a preventative measure is what’s moot. We will always have this revolving door cycle of violence until we do one thing: change how we are. I’m not some sniveling optimist that believes all you have to do is click your heels and chant “there’s no place like home”, but we can change how we treat others and ourselves. We treat our elderly, children, poor, minorities, (and all others that may not look, act or think like we do) like criminals, then are surprised when they act criminals. It’s amazing how we shrunk violence dramatically when we were in the economic boom of the ’90s, so obviously criminal activity is directly linked to economic status. I wonder what would happen if we could alleviate some (if not most) of the factors that create tensions that can lead to crime: poverty, health care, education for our children, housing, jobs, or even elect politicians that are good examples for our citizens? Nawwwww, let’s just whack anybody that is an example of what we are, or could possibly become- it’s easier.
@205 Jim Jordan
I suggest you try to get professional help, since you’re obviously psychologically unbalanced and in need of a treatment.
You don’t value life, you just pretend to. You have to dehumanize people to satisfy your violent fantasies of torture, killing and self justice.
“The path to hell is plastered with good intentions” is an old saying which fits very well to you, though you don’t even seem to have pure intentions, just some blurry hate and lust for maiming and killing without having to take the responsibility for it.
Chet: Why do you find it so hard to comprehend my diatribe
against criminals with what seems to be that I would be
the first to initiate torture against any human being ?
I would never harm an innocent person, yet could do so
with extreme measures against anyone that would harm an
innocent person. Why is it that you don’t seem to evaluate
the difference between the two? Let me be plainly explicit
and try to inculcate into your obvious liberal ideas on
criminals that I could only wreak extreme retribution on
the perpetrators of heinous acts. I would not rape a rapist
as that borders on perversion which repels me greatly. But
I would beat a rapist senseless and perhaps even consider
killing him, as I consider rape a grevious crime and one
that deserves death. I would do it just to enact just and
vengeful retribution, and not to gratify the torturer’s
desire to do so. My acts would only be directed at the
perpetrator of such heinous acts. Does this make me the
same as the initial criminal? Would I somehow find that I like this business and go out and do the same to innocent
people? Are you serious, or do you just assume that I would
develop into such a horrid state and enjoy doing it to
innocent and guilty alike? Of course it would gratify me to
inflict pain on a criminal that deserves it. As I said
earlier, I grieve and rage over the horrendous crimes that
are daily without letup. No, you are wrong, those innocent
victims did not deserve it as you so gratuitously expressed
it in the minds and deeds of those freaking criminals.
Here is another fact which so many people seem to twist
into pathetic drivel. I would never state that the death
penalty deters crime and would never argue it on that case.
It is obvious that it doe not deter crime. It is so simple
as to be redundant to even hash it over: you kill, you will
be killed. That criminal will never kill again, and I don’t
give a crap if the message is lost on potential criminals.
If there is any doubt about a person’s potential for the
death penalty, then don’t do the wrong thing but just put
him in prison for life. Doubt is the qualifying condition
here, and I would never be so callous as to be cavalier
and say to kill him anyway. There is nothing more heart=
breaking besides the deaths of innocent victims, than to
see a person convicted of a crime that he did not commit,
and twenty years later find that he was innocent after all.
This also reduces me to heartbreaking grief with all it’s
ramifications. So my innate regard for vengeance is always
tempered with a sorrow for justice gone awry. As I have
stated previously, my stance on the death penalty will never waver, just as my stance on the utter insanity of
religion remains equally steadfast.
“I could torture Bundy and Btk and still
listen to Mozart, Bix, George Gershwin”
Yeah, so could that dude in American Psycho. I think Chet’s got your psyche worked out here- you’re projecting a lot.
# 210
“The path to hell is plastered with good intentions”.
This religious statement says all that need be said
abut you. And I will take the responsibility for eliminating savage criminals. And I will realize that there
are countless and gutless characters who are almost brain-
dead to offer such assinine comments to appease their
pathetic and useless lives. Here is something I devised
years ago to evaluate sorry beings like yourself:
“I think that 95 percent of people I meet are crap, and
I’ll always give them a chance to prove it.”
This religious statement says all that need be said
abut you.
Actually it’s not a religious statement, it’s a metaphor. A religious statement would be: “Because I believe in hell, people who think they act good but do evil will be sent to hell.”
What the metaphor means is that you can’t just do things because you think they’re right and justified for the greater good or for whatever. You’ll also have to ponder the implications of your actions. Which, in your case would be to react to wrongdoings of humans with the same wrongdoings.
But I have to admit, it’s not the best saying to be used on you. You actually seem to believe that you’re better and more worthy of life and humaneness then other humans.
You seem to think that you’re in a jungle, where it’s a fight to death of humans (yourself) and the “savages”. The non-humans, the killable, the outlaws. It’s a veritable you vs. them. And them aren’t worthy of life.
I will realize that there
are countless and gutless characters who are almost brain-
dead to offer such assinine comments to appease their
pathetic and useless lives.
“I think that 95 percent of people I meet are crap, and
I’ll always give them a chance to prove it.”
As I said above, try to get professional help. You really need it.
mikmik, would you mind if I published your comments in a little surrealistic novel?
I’m thinking of calling it “Comments, Christmas and Crack: These things do not mikmiks”.
These things do not mikmiks
Ingenious! I laughed out loud.
if the number of innocent people executed is lower than the number of murderers who kill again (it is in the UK), we should allow capital punishment
Great idea.
You go first.
Why is it that you don’t seem to evaluate
the difference between the two?
“Innocent” and “guilty” are fairly arbitrary ways to classify individuals, since laws and transgressions of laws are themselves arbitrary. And the monsters who thirst for torture and pain, as you do, have always found post-hoc rationalizations to consider their victims “guilty.” “If they weren’t guilty,” rationalizes the torturer, “it wouldn’t feel so right to torture them.”
For all that you seem to rail against religion, you’ve failed to take any of the lessons to heart.
That criminal will never kill again
But killers almost never kill again, anyway. Murderers have the lowest recidivism rate of all criminals. If the goal of the criminal justice system was to prevent people from committing further crimes, we’d execute car thieves.
But we don’t.
Jim:
We understand that murder and rape are horrific crimes.
Do you understand anything else?
PS: PZ, I suggest we keep Jim Jordan’s statements on hand in case the police need them as supporting evidence in a year or two.
If you fear most killing an innocent person (on death row or anywhere, by “mistake” or otherwise) you will probably be anti-capital punishment.
Graculus beat me to it. First question for all Grande Social Schemes, including the ones in current practice, is whether their promoters are volunteering for the pawn line.
Azkyroth wrote:
It would be a good idea to keep all the comments in this thread on hand, then.
After all, if we are going to indulge in pop psychology, what are we to make of those who argue that dwelling on the suffering of murder victims is somehow perverted and immoral?
Oh, they say all the right things, pay lip service to the depravity of these offences but they would really prefer that we didn’t talk about them. Apparently, they feel no outrage themselves and seem to feel that the outrage of others is both overstated and prejudicial to the rights of the offenders.
We should note here that an inability to empathise with the suffering of others is one symptom of a psychopathic personality which might also be of interest to the police.
That’s if we are going to indulge in pop psychology.
I read this quote on a police officers in favour of drug legalization website:
“I never arrested anyone who thought that they would get caught.”
If this is typical, how much deterrent effect can there be from the death penalty?
The great majority of people who are convicted of murder in the US are not executed.
The minority of convicted murderers who ARE executed are even more overwhelmingly poor and black than the total population of convicted murderers.
It’s kind of difficult to escape the inference that they’re being executed for being poor and black rather than for their murders they’re alleged to have committed.
Whereas a documented example of confusing “being deeply disturbed by the visceral pleasure another commenter proudly takes in sadistic revenge fantasies” with arguing “that dwelling on the suffering of murder victims is somehow perverted and immoral” would be a pretty good argument in support of an insanity plea.
But yes, when “dwelling on” means “fantasizing about” personally or vicariously inflicting tremendous suffering on what, in the terms of the fantasy, will eventually become murder victims, I would most certainly argue that it most certainly is perverted, and in cases where there is good cause to believe the person is immature, unstable, or delusional enough to have any chance of acting on those fantasies (as Jim seems to feel no shame in admitting he is), it is most certainly immoral as well.
Assuming your statements here are serious, Mr. Jordan, I suggest your first effort in that enterprise should involve a washtub, a razor, and a handwritten note. By the sound of it, you’re either a pathetic loser hoping to feel powerful by trying to look “tough” and “formidable” and maybe a little “crazy” or a Vlad Tepes waiting for a princedom.
“I think that 95 percent of people I meet are crap, and
I’ll always give them a chance to prove it.”
Jim Jordan – meet Jim Jordan.
Are you implying that those who oppose the death penalty, for whatever reason, have no empathy for the families and loved ones of people who have been murdered? Are you seriously doing this? I ask this because I think that is a seriously disgusting implication on your part.
That might be one of the most disgusting things I’ve run across on this blog or any public forum in my life.
One of the most inspiring people I have ever known is a man whose daughter was killed in the Oklahoma City bombing. Bud Welch did all he could to stop Timothy McVeigh from being executed. His wishes were ignored. His feelings were tossed aside. You claim that people who oppose the death penalty have no empathy for the victims families?
I’ve spent hours and hours talking to this man about the death penalty and he is as opposed to it as any human I’ve ever met.
Your attempt to cast death penalty opponents as being callous (which is a nice interpretation of your comments) is at best, ignorant. I would hope that that ignorance isn’t willful.
I’ll grant you some opportunity to claim that you had no idea that some murder victims families may not support execution of those that killed their loved ones. I shouldn’t give you that much. But I will.
phat
I think the point he’s trying to make is that he thinks my interpretation of Jim Jordan’s bloodthirsty commentary is as unfounded as his hypothetical comments. He’s dead wrong, of course.
My sympathies to your friend. *hugs Koboldling on the way to bed*
phat –
Ian is simply not worth getting upset over.
seriously.
cheers!
humph – well, for whatever reason, my post from last night is not here. That is most annoying.
(No, I don’t think it was deleted/banned/whatever. It was certainly less vituperative than many posts I see here. Probably just a glitch.)
You mean this post?
I personally don’t care for the death penalty – seems barbaric- there has to be SOME intrinsic value in a life- even if that person killed someone- and it seems ironic that the cure for war is just for people to stop killing people, just like the solution for murder is to just….stop killing people- in both cases, the answer is clear and yet people persist-why can’t humans just stop being violent- I do not admit to being a member of YOUR disgusting human race
As far as personal positions go, I find the death penalty distasteful but I agree with Ebonmuse’s sentiments on Paul Hill’s execution:
In other words, I don’t think it’s enough merely to prove that the person in question actually committed the crime and that there was no misconduct, intentional or otherwise, on the part of the judicial authorities and prosecution. I would argue that the level of evidence in favor of the crime must place the accused’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt by a significant margin, and that there must be sound evidence – preferably in the form of multiple concurring psychiatric opinions with detailed supporting statements – that the accused unambiguously has not been, and has no significant chance of being, reformed. Note that Jim Tepes’ “please, please, PLEASE, give me someone I won’t feel bad about venting my sociopathic bloodlust on!” angle would not qualify under this.
Additionally, misconduct by attorneys, law enforcement, and judicial authorities needs to be cracked down on, hard. Frankly, it wouldn’t be inappropriate for people who deliberately conceal, or fabricate, evidence to “prove” a person guilty to face the same penalty as that person in addition to whatever is deemed appropriate for the type of misconduct itself.
D’oh. …Ebonmuse’s post can be found here.
the only rational(!) course is a pragmatic one – if the number of innocent people executed is lower than the number of murderers who kill again (it is in the UK), we should allow capital punishment, otherwise we are sacrificing more innocent people than we need to.
People imprisoned for life for murder rarely kill additional innocent people.
So much for your rationality.
Even more telling than the race of those executed is the race of the victims of those executed.
Azkyroth,
Thank you. I figured it was a glitch… didn’t expect it to be in my software, though!
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Regarding the fact that a heavy majority of death row members are non-white..one must, perforce, ask how many non-death row inmates are whites convicted of murder. That question, of course, leads to “how many whites commit murder in any given time frame?”.
It’s only for one year, but mayhap this offers some small explanation:
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/race.htm
“The minority of convicted murderers who ARE executed are even more overwhelmingly poor and black than the total population of convicted murderers.”
Did you miss the part where the ratios of death row inmates differed from non death row inmates, Lurch? Your link only accounts for the general murder rate.
Regarding the fact that a heavy majority of death row members are non-white..one must, perforce, ask how many non-death row inmates are whites convicted of murder. That question, of course, leads to “how many whites commit murder in any given time frame?”.
Perhaps you should try drawing a Venn Diagram.
I read as far as #122 and will stop there because Moses nailed it. My vote for Molly.
Yes, Moses’s post is good.
He quotes Michael Radelet, too. He’s one of the goofiest people you are likely to meet.
phat
phat wrote:
I am well aware of the fact that the families of some murder victims oppose capital punishment. I am also aware, as I presume you are, that there are others who feel the exact opposite. Some families have found it within themselves to forgive the killer for what they did while others feel that, though God may forgive, they cannot.
There are reports of victims who have been able to forgive their attackers even as they faced their own death while others have fought back desperately or been paralyzed by terror. All of us respond to extreme situations as best we can, each according to his or her nature.
I am also aware of Bud Welch’s opposition to Timothy McVeigh’s execution but could the same have been said of the families of all the victims of the Oklahoma City bomb? Why should Welch’s view have been given any more consideration when deciding McVeigh’s fate than those who believed that he deserved everything he got?
According to his own accounts, Welch initially felt great hatred for McVeigh and would gladly have killed the bomber with his own hands if he’d had the chance. Later, he came to realize that he could not sustain the intense anger and bitterness and grief he felt without suffering long-lasting emotional damage himself. By adopting an attitude of forgiveness towards McVeigh, he was able to shed much of what had become a crushing emotional burden and move on with his life. He also reports that most of the other families of the Oklahoma bombing victims eventually came to a similar conclusion.
From this and other accounts, we can infer that, whatever its moral value, forgiveness can be viewed as a mechanism for coping with the often unbearable grief and anger aroused by a terrible tragedy like the death of a loved one at the hands of a killer.
Another point about forgiveness is that we can only forgive someone for what they have done to us, not others. Welch can forgive McVeigh for all that he suffered following his daughter’s death but he cannot speak for her nor any of the other victims and, quite obviously, we have no way of knowing how they might have felt.
In any event, whether the families forgive the killer or not makes no difference to the gravity of the offence nor should it necessarily make any difference to the nature or severity of the punishment.
As for opponents of the death penalty being indifferent to the suffering of the victims or their families, no, I do not believe they are. But we can be forgiven for thinking that if we read or listen to their words. Much is written or said about the killers, their background, their welfare, their rights. Can you honestly say the same attention in detail is given to the victims, their sufferings and the violation of their rights?
When PZ linked to that website listing the last words of executed offenders, the general reaction here seemed to be that it was a distasteful thing to publish, to say the least, and to wonder how many of them were actually innocent. Apparently, out of all the moralising, high-minded defenders of reason, humanity and truth here, I was the only one to find out what some of these people had actually been convicted of and, in the case of Lionell Rodriguez, to post a basic description which gives some idea of what happened to the victim. From that , given the evidence found on Rodriguez, you can imagine what a high-velocity rifle bullet does to the human head when fired from nearly point-blank range. If anyone was a suitable candidate for the death penalty, he was.
By all means speak out against capital punishment if that is what you believe, but I say that if you want these offenders to be considered for more lenient treatment then common justice requires that you be completely honest, with both with yourself and others, about what they did to their victims – or is that asking too much of such sensitive and caring people?
Finally, we have the reactions to Jim Jordan’s post. He may have used more intemperate language than I might have but all he was doing was expressing his entirely justifiable revulsion and outrage at what was done to a murder victim. For that he was roundly abused and accused of being a potential rapist and torturer himself. This unedifying display was capped by this charming little suggestion from Azkyroth:
You were saying something about “seriously disgusting”?
Did you actually read any of Mr. Jordan’s comments?
I suppose I should know better than to be surprised by yet another display of intellectual dishonesty from you, though.
Given that he had already publicly fantasized about torturing and killing people he thought deserved it, I see nothing inconsistent in pointing out that if he wishes to rid the world of violent criminals he should start with himself, now, presumably before he’s taken a life.
Perhaps if I’d instead written a whole paragraph about how much I’d love to help him do it I would meet with your approval? Or does that double-standard depend solely on agreeing with your general conclusions?