[Gerben42]

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I think sentencing people to death may be more costly to the state than life sentences. First of all, they often spend decades on death row (Troy Davis was sentenced about 30 years ago), so you're not saving much on the incarceration costs. Second, there are likely to be more appeals - I think some states have a mandatory appeal for all death sentence convictions.

My personal position is that death penalty is something that should not be dismissed as morally unacceptable in principle. For persons who can never again function in society, it may even be the best for everyone. But for the death penalty to be applied there should be hard evidence (adamantium type hard), and then it should be gotten over with quickly and not after 25 years on death row.

I could live with a state who would impose a death penalty on people like Dutroux or Breivik. In both cases the question of guilt is not even the tiniest bit in doubt, and when the court then decides that these people will never be able to function in society again, then death penalty may be the right sentence.

That being said, I fear that the American system includes the possibility of a death penalty for an innocent man, and in that case I'd rather get rid of the death penalty, risking that I will have to spend many resources looking after madmen after their sentence is over, before I kill a possibly innocent man.

[BunnyGo]

 Gerben42, on 2011-September-25, 09:58, said:

But for the death penalty to be applied there should be hard evidence (adamantium type hard).

I'll say that the Talmud (the oldest text I know of which has debates of the legal procedure of capital cases) said that the required "adamantium hard" evidence was two eye witnesses who had warned the perpetrator the the crime he was about to commit was punishable by death. They also had to actually see the murder committed, not just "strong evidence" (the example given was a person is seen chasing another into a room and comes out with their knife bloody isn't good enough evidence).

The "bloody court" was the one that executed two people in 70 years.

[blackshoe]

Why does a judge get to decide that somebody "will never be able to function in society again"? What are the criteria? How "adamantium hard" are they?

"My personal position is that death penalty is something that should not be dismissed as morally unacceptable in principle." Why not?

[Winstonm]

The following is from a useful website called deathpenaltyinfo.org. This is the best reason I know for life sentence without the possibility of parole:

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It is sobering to recall that when the Supreme Court overturned all the existing death sentences in 1972 on constitutional grounds, a number of innocent lives were spared. Five of those who were on death row at the time went on to prove their innocence.

[hrothgar]

 hrothgar, on 2011-September-23, 07:35, said:

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Would you extend your theory to.. say, taxes?

As far as I know, individuals don't have the right to tax one another and yet this is commonly accepted as a power granted to the government.

Bumping, since I don't recall seeing a response from Blackshoe...

[blackshoe]

 Winstonm, on 2011-September-26, 14:34, said:

The following is from a useful website called deathpenaltyinfo.org. This is the best reason I know for life sentence without the possibility of parole:

This, of course, presupposes that "death" and "life without parole" are the only possible sentences.

No, I don't have an alternative to suggest. I'm only saying that we shouldn't necessarily get stuck in that particular box, if an alternative can be found.

[Cascade]

Indefensible Punishment

[Gerben42]

Since you asked:

 blackshoe, on 2011-September-25, 14:33, said:

Why does a judge get to decide that somebody "will never be able to function in society again"? What are the criteria? How "adamantium hard" are they?

Of course this needs a psychiatric evaluation. In my previous post I mentioned two cases. One of a serial child molester and murderer, who has been at it for years. The other recent case of the Norwegian who knowingly went to an island with the plan to kill as many people as possible. Luckily such cases are rare, so like the "death court" there would be few such cases. But for them, one should take the death penalty into consideration. How to get the case hard enough is a complicated matter, but if it were simple, I guess cases like Troy Davis wouldn't happen (I like to repeat that I am very much against what happened there).

Quote

"My personal position is that death penalty is something that should not be dismissed as morally unacceptable in principle." Why not?

I think the question is the wrong way around. Dismissing something in principle as morally unacceptable is only possible in a certain framework of axioms.

It is easy to say "I'm against the death penalty" or many other things, based on the axioms of society. But my point is, it's not that simple. There might be cases where the death penalty may be the ethical thing to do. The hard part is to recognize them and make rulings based on that.

A nice ethical dilemma is:

If you would be able to travel back in time to 1920 and kill Hitler before he rises to power and so doing avoid the Holocaust, would you? If you are strictly against killing, you would say no without having a choice.

Quoting myself:

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I could live with a state who would impose a death penalty on people like Dutroux or Breivik.

Having said that, on the other hand I realize that you have to draw the line somewhere, and my line is of course harder to define than the "no death penalty" line. Just because it's hard doesn't mean one shouldn't try to define it. What is essential though, is that there is NO possibility of killing an innocent man.

[cherdano]

 Gerben42, on 2011-September-28, 11:37, said:

A nice ethical dilemma is:

If you would be able to travel back in time to 1920 and kill Hitler before he rises to power and so doing avoid the Holocaust, would you? If you are strictly against killing, you would say no without having a choice.

What does this have to do with the death penalty? If I were able to travel back in time to 1920 and put Hitler in jail for life, then of course I would do that.

[blackshoe]

 Gerben42, on 2011-September-28, 11:37, said:

What is essential though, is that there is NO possibility of killing an innocent man.

Good luck with that. You're asking for the impossible.

[blackshoe]

 Gerben42, on 2011-September-28, 11:37, said:

If you would be able to travel back in time to 1920 and kill Hitler before he rises to power and so doing avoid the Holocaust, would you? If you are strictly against killing, you would say no without having a choice.

 cherdano, on 2011-September-28, 11:49, said:

What does this have to do with the death penalty? If I were able to travel back in time to 1920 and put Hitler in jail for life, then of course I would do that.

Years ago there was a science fiction story about a 21st (or perhaps later) Century Jew who developed a method of sending his consciousness back in time, into the brain of someone living in the past. This man got the bright idea that maybe he could persuade Hitler not to do the terrible things he actually did. So the Jew inserted his consciousness into Hitler's brain, and set out to try to persuade him to leave the Jews alone. Unfortunately, the "voice in his head" drove poor Mr. Hitler insane, and a man who, left alone, would not have committed or ordered the commission of genocide, did so.

This doesn't have much to do with the death penalty question. It does have a lot to do with the idea of changing the past. Actions have consequences. Often these consequences are unforeseen. Equally often, they are bad.

[gwnn]

 blackshoe, on 2011-September-28, 15:21, said:

Good luck with that. You're asking for the impossible.

How about: no death penalty for people who plead innocent?

[mike777]

I am against the death penalty on moral reasons.


With that said with you need to do something with guys who keeps killing and raping even while in jail.


There seems to not be enough money to keep everyone in isolation cells since states are running out of money and courts, police etc are being cut back. in EUROPE IT sounds like even some Central govts are running short of cash.


For the last 30 years or so the partial solution has been to let prison gangs mete out justice gang style.

[blackshoe]

 gwnn, on 2011-September-28, 15:54, said:

How about: no death penalty for people who plead innocent?

Sure. Of course, the obvious consequence of that is that everyone will plead innocent.

[Fluffy]

 Gerben42, on 2011-September-28, 11:37, said:

A nice ethical dilemma is:

If you would be able to travel back in time to 1920 and kill Hitler before he rises to power and so doing avoid the Holocaust, would you? If you are strictly against killing, you would say no without having a choice.

Very off topic, but when people talk about travelling in time they often reffer to changing something from WWII. I find interesting the fact that Japan attacked US, US maybe let Pearlr Harbor die on purpose, and then US conquered Germany just before they got jets for aircrafts and nuclear bombs. It doesn't take that much imagination to think that perhaps, if travelling in time was possible, WWII might have already been changed.

[Lobowolf]

 blackshoe, on 2011-September-21, 19:10, said:

In my opinion, capital punishment is morally wrong. The State cannot have the power to do things that individuals have no right to do. But what's the alternative? Put 'em in jail? Who pays? What if they escape? Does the State have any more right to put people in jail than to execute them?

Obviously, the solution is not to put them in jail. By your rationale, the state has no right to do that, since individuals have no right to confine people against their will. As individuals, we do have freedom of speech, so perhaps for convicted murderers, what we should do as a group is verbally (and in print) express our disapproval.

[Lobowolf]

 gwnn, on 2011-September-22, 12:17, said:

Partly unrelated: I think all people found guilty of such crimes should have a choice between life sentence and capital punishment. It seems like cruel and unusual punishment to keep someone locked up who does not want to live like that. It is definitely cruel and unusual punishment to kill someone who does not want to die. I am particularly disturbed by scenes in which honest pleads for clemency by fellow human beings are rejected by civilised, elegant human beings.

If it's cruel and unusual punishment to keep someone locked up who doesn't want to be, and to kill someone who doesn't want to die, then per the 8th Amendment, we need a third alternative.

[blackshoe]

 Lobowolf, on 2011-October-03, 16:39, said:

Obviously, the solution is not to put them in jail. By your rationale, the state has no right to do that, since individuals have no right to confine people against their will. As individuals, we do have freedom of speech, so perhaps for convicted murderers, what we should do as a group is verbally (and in print) express our disapproval.

Interestingly, the Quakers (I think, it may have been another of the "Pennsylvania Dutch" sects) don't have a "penal system" in their society. Instead, if someone does something they don't like, they "shun" the person. No one will have anything to do with them. No talking, no exchange of goods, nothing. The idea seems to be that the miscreant will just go away. This means, of course, that he becomes someone else's problem, which is, well, a problem in itself when the planet is as crowded as this one. The British Empire had a pretty good solution for its day — and in the view of the BE. They shipped folks off to Botany Bay. Of course, times change. Nobody is shipping criminals to Australia today - and if they tried, Australia wouldn't take them.

It seems to me we — society as a whole — have put ourselves in an awkward position. Either we keep the death penalty and imprisonment, or we let predators run loose in a society whose members are not prepared to protect themselves. To me, either situation is immoral. Unfortunately, the only answer I see would require a pretty drastic change in societal attitudes, and I don't see that happening any time soon. So basically, absent that change in attitudes, it's a problem with no solution.

Regarding the death penalty, there is Juan Rico's conclusion after one of his mates deserted from boot camp and killed a four year old girl in the novel Starship Troopers. The MI brought him back, tried and convicted him at court martial, and hanged him in front of the entire regiment. Rico worried quite a bit over whether the death penalty was right. In the end, though, he concluded "all I knew was he wasn't going to kill any more little girls. That suited me. I went to sleep". Of course, in that case the guy's guilt was, by authorial fiat, certain.

Note, btw, that I have no problem whatsoever with any citizen retaliating to deadly force with deadly force. There was a case here a few years ago. Guy walked into a crowded bar, pulled a gun, pointed it at the ceiling, looked up, fired the gun, yelled 'this is a stickup!' and looked at the room, expecting, I guess, to see everybody cowering in fear. What he saw instead was the muzzles of forty two guns. He'd picked a cop hangout to rob. The robber surrendered immediately, so "stupid, not crazy" fits. But if he hadn't, I wouldn't have had a problem if he'd ended up full of holes. I wouldn't have had a problem if none of the forty two had been cops, either.

[gwnn]

 Lobowolf, on 2011-October-03, 16:44, said:

If it's cruel and unusual punishment to keep someone locked up who doesn't want to be, and to kill someone who doesn't want to die, then per the 8th Amendment, we need a third alternative.

Well my alternative was to let them choose. I didn't say "locked someone up who wants to be free", I said like lock someone up for the rest of his life when he would rather die (not live locked up for the rest of his life).

[hotShot]

A society believes that killing people is wrong, so they kill murderers.
They consider killing people to have a finanzial advantage is even more unethical, but they argue that executions are cheaper than paying for a lifetime in jail.

Moral is hard .......