Death Penalty

[Martell Spy]

3 hours ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Negative.

We have a thread about the death penalty. 

And a separate thread about death in general. 

Quit spreading fake news. 

Vaccines? Who needs that crap? Next they'll be telling kids to read paper books.

[Ser Reptitious]

18 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Which is why judicial reform can't be done piecemeal. It must be comprehensive. 

I thought incrementalism was your thing?

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

31 minutes ago, Ser Reptitious said:

I thought incrementalism was your thing?

I do always say jokingly that I'm consistently inconsistent. Some things need to be improved by stacking small changes on top of one another. Others need top down reform. You have to evaluate each situation on its own and not go into it with any prejudice, best that you can.  

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

21 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

I agree, but there are obviously cases where there is no doubt as to guilt, where offences are caught on camera. Does that factor in? 

Personally some crimes are so abhorrent that I think the death penalty is too easy and quick. Let them rot in prison is a far worse punishment. 

To me in the very rare circumstances where I believe the Death Penalty is warranted it is not about “punishment”.  It is about society making the determination that someone is unsafe to live.  This means limiting executions to those who have a predilection for murder, rape, or molestation.

If someone has committed murder, rape, or molestation more than once in incidents sperated in time (so much so that they cannot be construed to be part of “the same” incident) and can be shown in seperate trials with seperate juries to have a committed each of the alleged crimes beyond a reasonable doubt and finally in each trial to have a predilection for committing these crimes then and only then do I believe execution is appropriate.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

19 hours ago, Simon Steele said:

I think U.S. society will be so much better off when (if?) it moves past the justice system as a mode of suffering, payback, vengeance or whatever. Like you said, I get the instinct. I saw a documentary on Chris Watts recently (family murderer), and he's a vile, sick person. Part of me wants to see him suffer for what he did. 

But a bigger part of me has come to understand that nothing happens in a vacuum. There's no excuse for what these people do, but in our worst cases of murders, pedophiles, etc., it's most common to find that the guilty party's life was filled with horrible abuse, or in the case of serial killers, a significant case of head trauma. As Liff said about murdering helpless people no matter how evil they are, I wholly agree. A good society has to move beyond this kind of barbarism, if not at the very least, because we've executed innocent people--often due to corruption in law enforcement and prosecution. 

Norway's the exemplar of why restorative justice works. Even the vile Anders Breivik is treated like a human, which is more than he did for his victims. The culture, though, it representative of this, and until the U.S. finds a way to shift cultural awareness to something much more humane, I don't see how this kind of reform could ever work in this country. For example, the father of one of Breivik's victims has said he supports Breivik's restoration as a citizen (though it's unclear Norway will allow Breivik to ever go free as while the maximum prison sentence is around 20 years, the country can override that if they fear the prisoner has not changed, might pose a danger).

I hate the spectacle of the U.S. justice system where we constantly have access to trials, where when a vile person is facing the death penalty, we parade the deceased's significant others in front of cameras to either give their point of view in support of the death penalty, or show us all "what human compassion really is" by saying they forgive the killer and don't want to see the killer die. It's cruel. So much about the justice system is fundamentally broken, but the death penalty is the clearest symbol of this.

As 

I believe in rehabilitative justice, with extremely rare exceptions.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

19 hours ago, DMC said:

First of all, the death penalty already is very limited from a statistical standpoint.  Since 1976, the annual number peaked at 98 in 1999.  So far this year it's at 17. 

Second of all, you have provided no logic for why the death penalty "reduces" any problems discussed.  Again, if at least 90% of Americans that have been executed did not want to be executed, that means that the "flaws" you're pointing out like prison conditions or lifetime sentences does not change the fact almost all the people actually being put to death would rather be alive and deal with such conditions than be dead.  How you think killing them "in a very limited context" can be part of a more humane "judicial reform" is just beyond the fucking pale.  Not to mention the overwhelming likelihood that if the death penalty was abolished that 90% would significantly increase, as it's safe to assume a lot of the remaining 10% have just given up and accepted their fate.

To me the extremely limited circumstances wherein (as stated above) I think execution is warrented it is not about frightening others away from rape, murder, or molestation.  It is about ensuring that individuals who have done these things on more than one occasion and have a predilection for doing these things cannot (not will not) cannot do it again.

[MercenaryChef]

in the late 90s i worked on some campaigns and lobbying against the death penalty. my stance hasn't changed since then. 

it is a barbaric practice the is all about vengeance and targets minorities unfairly. 

nobody is too dangerous to be allowed to live. we have some very secure facilities that are fine places to confine these people. 

for me the worst part is that as a nation we have absolutely executed innocent and mentally incompetent or disabled people in the name of justice. we are talking about ending a human life. ending the life of someone innocent or not able to understand their actions is not worth risking. 

fuck the death penalty. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 hour ago, MercenaryChef said:

in the late 90s i worked on some campaigns and lobbying against the death penalty. my stance hasn't changed since then. 

it is a barbaric practice the is all about vengeance and targets minorities unfairly. 

nobody is too dangerous to be allowed to live. we have some very secure facilities that are fine places to confine these people. 

for me the worst part is that as a nation we have absolutely executed innocent and mentally incompetent or disabled people in the name of justice. we are talking about ending a human life. ending the life of someone innocent or not able to understand their actions is not worth risking. 

fuck the death penalty. 

I think your position is rational.  If the death penalty were never used again it would be a net positive.  But I don’t think we should say it is never appropriate.

Pee Wee Gaskins was a serial killer convicted of his killings during the 1970’s moratorium on the Death Penalty.  He was serving a life sentence and murdered another inmate in the penitentiary he was incarcerated inside.  This was after the death penalty had been reinstated.  He was tried, convicted and sentenced to death.  

The day of his execution he was attempting to arrange the kidnapping and murder of children the solicitor who had won the death penalty conviction against him.  

He would have continued to kill until he died himself.  He is one of the extreme examples (and thankfully rare) where I believe death is warrented.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.thestate.com/news/special-reports/state-125/article44056854.html

[Jace, Extat]

2 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

To me the extremely limited circumstances wherein (as stated above) I think execution is warrented it is not about frightening others away from rape, murder, or molestation.  It is about ensuring that individuals who have done these things on more than one occasion and have a predilection for doing these things cannot (not will not) cannot do it again.

So it takes two ruined lives (at least) in two different criminal expressions before someone forfeits their right to spread further pain and death? At least victim no.2 or 3 will know their society isn't barbaric.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

18 minutes ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

So it takes two ruined lives (at least) in two different criminal expressions before someone forfeits their right to spread further pain and death? At least victim no.2 or 3 will know their society isn't barbaric.

You’re still looking at execution as “punishment”.  I’m not.  Without “number 2” there is no way to know “number 1” wasn’t something isolated.  We cannot impose the ultimate sanction without a extreme degree of confidence it is proper.

It should almost never be used.

[Martell Spy]

32 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

You’re still looking at execution as “punishment”.  I’m not.  Without “number 2” there is no way to know “number 1” wasn’t something isolated.  We cannot impose the ultimate sanction without a extreme degree of confidence it is proper.

It should almost never be used.

One of the big problems of using the death penalty at all is you've created an exception. And you having created this exception then others will create exceptions to use it. And in the U.S. there are a lot of KKK racists in lawyer suits itching to use the legal system to destroy or kill African-American men.

Keeping prisoners safe is an important issue, but it shouldn't be used as a reason to keep this barbaric practice of state-sanctioned killing. I'd go the opposite direction. Be very careful who you are putting in to jails and prisons in the first place.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

19 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

One of the big problems of using the death penalty at all is you've created an exception. And you having created this exception then others will create exceptions to use it. And in the U.S. there are a lot of KKK racists in lawyer suits itching to use the legal system to destroy or kill African-American men.

Keeping prisoners safe is an important issue, but it shouldn't be used as a reason to keep this barbaric practice of state-sanctioned killing. I'd go the opposite direction. Be very careful who you are putting in to jails and prisons in the first place.

I will agree that far fewer things need to be illegal and subject to criminal sanction. 

[Jace, Extat]

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

You’re still looking at execution as “punishment”.  I’m not.  Without “number 2” there is no way to know “number 1” wasn’t something isolated.  We cannot impose the ultimate sanction without a extreme degree of confidence it is proper.

It should almost never be used.

"Something isolated." 

So we just can't know that James Holmes is a public danger?

We can't know that Brock Turner is a man who rapes?

Why in God's good name should I support these creatures' 'rehabilitation' as a taxpaying citizen? 

Execution is a punishment. "Justice" is punishment. That's why they mete it out punitively.

 

[DMC]

10 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

To me the extremely limited circumstances wherein (as stated above) I think execution is warrented it is not about frightening others away from rape, murder, or molestation.  It is about ensuring that individuals who have done these things on more than one occasion and have a predilection for doing these things cannot (not will not) cannot do it again.

I fail to see how this is an argument in favor of the death penalty - even in such very rare cases.  Beyond the "one occasion" gap in such logic Jace brings up (as one occasion could mean a mass shooting killing dozens of people), if someone is serving consecutive life sentences then they effectively have "nothing to lose" just as much as someone on death row.  Therefore, if they kill a fellow prisoner and/or arrange for violence against civilians outside of prison, that's on law enforcement/corrections officers/prison security/whatever to ensure that doesn't happen.  And, practically, the death penalty isn't really a solution considering the appeals process and how long it usually takes from sentencing to execution.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

7 hours ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

"Something isolated." 

So we just can't know that James Holmes is a public danger?

We can't know that Brock Turner is a man who rapes?

Why in God's good name should I support these creatures' 'rehabilitation' as a taxpaying citizen? 

Execution is a punishment. "Justice" is punishment. That's why they mete it out punitively.

 

Give socially desirable responses.

Josh Allen is an okay QB.

[MercenaryChef]

11 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I think your position is rational.  If the death penalty were never used again it would be a net positive.  But I don’t think we should say it is never appropriate.

Pee Wee Gaskins was a serial killer convicted of his killings during the 1970’s moratorium on the Death Penalty.  He was serving a life sentence and murdered another inmate in the penitentiary he was incarcerated inside.  This was after the death penalty had been reinstated.  He was tried, convicted and sentenced to death.  

The day of his execution he was attempting to arrange the kidnapping and murder of children the solicitor who had won the death penalty conviction against him.  

He would have continued to kill until he died himself.  He is one of the extreme examples (and thankfully rare) where I believe death is warrented.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.thestate.com/news/special-reports/state-125/article44056854.html

i am completely unmoved. 

we didn't become a better and safer nation from killing that man. you are actually just siting other failures and shortcomings of our horrific justice and penal system with your argument.

he should not have been given the ability to kill another inmate. prison overcrowding and a lack of personnel due to prisons being mainly for profit and an evolution of American slavery is another issue all together. 

our penal system is a joke and executions are immoral. 

[DireWolfSpirit]

14 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I believe in rehabilitative justice, with extremely rare exceptions

I think a lot of former death penalty proponents have moved to favoring life imprisonment because of the evidence of wrongful executions we've learned of. Advances in DNA evidence have opened our eyes .

However I still have doubts over the very concept of rehabilitative justice. What do we do with an inmate that comes out of the system and back onto the streets a much more hardened criminal than the one we locked up in the first place?

Aren't there a swath of criminals that are just not possible to rehabilitate?

I get the impression that penitentiaries are like a factory for producing cartel members, pimps and mobsters in those cases.

I do not have the answer to that issue but bring it up for discussion because I seem to be reading about so many repeat felons committing crimes after getting out.

Looking here-

 https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/recidivism-rates-by-country

Our recidivism rate in the U.S. (and many countries frankly) really sucks.

 

[Altherion]

11 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

We cannot impose the ultimate sanction without a extreme degree of confidence it is proper.

This is a fair point, but there are two issues with it. The first and simpler one is that you will be imposing a fairly heavy sanction regardless with exactly the same degree of confidence so it only matters a little. The second is much more interesting: the problem underlying your objection is not a moral one, it is entirely technological. It boils down to the fact that we currently do not have a way to read minds or force human beings to speak the truth or even detect falsehood. There are a few machines and methods of dubious validity that claim to do one of these (the most famous being the polygraph), but, at the moment, there is no reliable way to ascertain what actually happened in any given crime unless one gets lucky and the crime is fully caught on high-quality video or something.

However, this is not likely to stay this way forever. There are advances being made in both mind-machine interfaces and biology which will eventually solve this technological problem. When it is finally solved, we can actually have an extreme degree of confidence more often than not and dispense with the stretched out system of appeals. Would you allow for the death penalty in that case?

[Ivan Tsarevich]

1 hour ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

However I still have doubts over the very concept of rehabilitative justice. What do we do with an inmate that comes out of the system and back onto the streets a much more hardened criminal than the one we locked up in the first place?

Aren't there a swath of criminals that are just not possible to rehabilitate?

I get the impression that penitentiaries are like a factory for producing cartel members, pimps and mobsters in those cases.

I'm not familiar with the subject, nor interested in starting a discussion, but your post reminded me of something and made me dig up this. So read if interested, I guess. (I've no idea whether the article is available to those in the US.)

Open prisons in Finland are 'like a holiday camp' — but they seem to work

Quote

"This is like living in a holiday camp," Mikko*, a prisoner at Ojoinen open prison near the city of Hämeenlinna, told Yle News.

Mikko's view is pretty common, and it's not without foundation. Prisoners in the Nordic country get their own rooms, access to plenty of recreation and are transferred to open prisons quickly to prepare for their release.

It's part of a long-standing policy aimed not at mollycoddling those inside, but at ensuring they don’t come back.

Sasu Tyni, a researcher at Helsinki University and the Criminal Sanctions Agency (RISE), says that the system is based on a belief that locking people up is a last resort.

"Closed prisons are more or less grounded in security purposes, while open prisons aim to be closer to society, family, work etc," explains Tyni. "The strategy of the Criminal Sanctions Agency has for years been to use closed prison as the last option. We assume an open prison system can decrease the risk of recidivism."

This philosophy seems to work.

A recent report on global recidivism rates — that is, the tendency of a criminal to reoffend after release — found that despite Finland’s perceived 'soft' approach to punishing crime, the reoffending rate of 36 percent was one of the lowest. By comparison, the recidivism rate in the United Kingdom was 48 percent, and in Sweden it was 61 percent.

Finland has the lowest per capita incarceration rate in the European Union, with just 51 people per 100,000 in some form of prison, according to the World Prison Brief. This compares with 59 in neighbouring Sweden, 140 in the United Kingdom and 235 in Lithuania, which has the EU's highest rate of incarceration.

The article also links to this NBC video: Reimagining Incarceration: Inside Finland’s Open Prisons, Where Inmates Are Almost Free

[Liffguard]

2 hours ago, Altherion said:

However, this is not likely to stay this way forever. There are advances being made in both mind-machine interfaces and biology which will eventually solve this technological problem. When it is finally solved, we can actually have an extreme degree of confidence more often than not and dispense with the stretched out system of appeals. Would you allow for the death penalty in that case?

Not directed at me, but I'll answer anyway. Christ, no.

I'm opposed to executions anyway, but the idea that the death penalty would be decided based on some tech bro algorithm is horrifying. The idea that there would be actual mind reading in the justice system is even more horrifying.