The Death Penalty

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Terra Nullius
First time I saw this, thought "OK, that proposition is entirely contrary to the most fundamental Christian teachings. So, there must be something worthwhile about it."

But the fact is, I can't think of a single legitimate philosophical context which would support those statements.

So I surrender. Clearly, serial killers are a brand new species of life. Unlike man, teh serials cannot change or be rehabilitated. They should therefore be exterminated before they are allowed to go out and colonise other galaxies.

Or not. A large part of your arguments seem to hinge on the assumption that there exists a certain class of beings which are not subject to change. I really do not understand. What is the basis of this proposition?

The basis of the proposition is not a philisophical one, it is from experience - it's simply known that serial killers don't change. Perhaps if you release them at age 90 or something, they're no longer able to kill - but mentally, I do not know of one case where a psychotic serial killer has been clearly reformed. People who murder ten, twenty, or a hundred people because they saw 'evil in their eyes' (bonus points if you know who I'm talking about here) and show no remorse can't remain a part of society. It's really quite obvious.

[Max Webster]

Originally posted by Terra Nullius


serial killers

Or not. A large part of your arguments seem to hinge on the assumption that there exists a certain class of beings which are not subject to change. I really do not understand. What is the basis of this proposition?

umm they kill people and when they are done killing people they go out and kill some more people.

So I would agree with their extermination. Either that or let them live in neighbourhoods full of people that don't support the DP.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Terra Nullius

Very shoddy thinking

It's true.

Would your attitude towards prison time change if the prospect of violent, forced anal sex was removed?

And this thread shows that religion should be eliminated from the Justice system completely.

[Terra Nullius]

Originally posted by Max Webster
umm they kill people ...
So I would agree with their extermination.

Well, that makes sense then. I would also agree with their extermination.

They, them and those should all be wiped the fkuc out.

Certainly, as long as they are doing it (and their behaviour is clearly inhuman) they must themselves be other than human.

So sure, if you contend that "serial killers" are not human, then it makes sense to wipe them out.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Terra Nullius

Well, that makes sense then. I would also agree with their extermination.

They, them and those should all be wiped the fkuc out.

Certainly, as long as they are doing it (and their behaviour is clearly inhuman) they must themselves be other than human.

So sure, if you contend that "serial killers" are not human, then it makes sense to wipe them out.

Jesus Christ... what planet did you beam down from?

[Terra Nullius]

Originally posted by Agathon
Would your attitude towards prison time change if the prospect of violent, forced anal sex was removed?

Damn straight! I'd have to think about applying for parole.

So let me get this right. You oppose the DP because it doesn't give you any bang for your socio-economic buck. But you're all in favour of the barbaric treatment of prisoners (at least where it includes a little rectal stimulation).

And this thread shows that religion should be eliminated from the Justice system completely.

How so?

[Terra Nullius]

Originally posted by Cyclotron

it's simply known that serial killers don't change.

How is this a known fact?

[Agathon]

You guys are missing the whole point about punishment.

Punishment, except where resitution is possible (i.e. property crimes), exists to prevent future crime.

All the other justifications for punishment fail.

This means that punishment should not be visited upon people to any degree greater than what is necessary to prevent future crime, and that if it is possible to use resources to prevent crime by means other than punishment, we should exhaust those opportunities first.

This leaves two things: deterrence and preventing the criminal himself from committing more crimes.

Deterrence works in most cases. The cost of committing a violent crime is so high for most people that they won't do it even if they want to.

However a few people slip through the cracks. They must be punished, otherwise the threat of punishment would lose all deterrent effect.

In most cases for which the death penalty is sought, the crimes are non-deterrable. Either the people involved are psychopaths, or some other emotional or chemically induced state leads to the crime.

In the former case we simply can't deter these people from committing crimes in the future if they are set free. The best we can do is prevent them from ever being in a position to commit another crime in society.

Does this mean we should put them to death?

No.

Remember that the justification for the evil of punishment (which is obviously a bad thing) is to prevent future crime. Given two sorts of punishments that will prevent a person from ever committing another crime against society, we should always choose the lesser one because that is all we are entitled by our principle to do. Anything more than that would be arbitrary.

Lifetime preventive detention is a lesser evil than death, so it follows that even in the case of completely undeterrable crime, the death penalty is not justified. It is an overreaction.

It's simply unnecessary and panders to a large constituency on the right, who seem to revel in the sadistic pleasure of killing people. For them, force is an end in itself, to be savored and enjoyed. This is why they love war, and why some of them call for the reintroduction of flogging. Instead of treating crime as the inevitable social problem that it is, the right has to turn it into a crusade of good against evil, such that the evil can be sacrificed to make the good feel better about themselves.

Punishment is one of the best issues for demonstrating how conservatism is a form of mental illness.

[Agathon]

So let me get this right. You oppose the DP because it doesn't give you any bang for your socio-economic buck. But you're all in favour of the barbaric treatment of prisoners (at least where it includes a little rectal stimulation).

I'm not in favour of it. It's just one of the things that gives prison its deterrent value. We could probably get the same bang for our buck without having butt rape in prison, but I think the punishment lovers in society like the idea of people they consider "evil" being raped and tortured.

We already know the American right loves this, and is prepared to allow for innocent people to be tortured as long as some "evil" people are being tortured in the name of righteousness. I guess the same principle operates in their thinking about regular prisons.

[Terra Nullius]

oops,..

forgot to stop in at the checkout and collect my bonus.

Circuit Judge Richard Kuhn allowed details from Watts' prior acts into evidence to establish a motive and common plan for how Watts targeted his victims. "You must not use the evidence to decide the defendant is a bad person," Kuhn warned the jury before they heard the testimony.

http://www.courttv.com/trials/watts/111504_ctv.html

OK, now back to reading how I'm missing Aggie's point,..

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Terra Nullius

How is this a known fact?

No parole board in the US has ever released a known serial killer. I'm having trouble even finding a single serial killer who was paroled, though there may be a few. I'll qualify what I said; it may be possible to rehabilitate one - mental institutions and criminal therapy are much more advanced than they once were - but we don't have that ability now. One could argue we don't even have that ability for your "standard" murderer - while some are rehabilitated, others murder again once released, making the assertion that someone is reformed dubious at best. These people are the worst of the criminally insane, and the risk involved in attempting to rehabilitate them - when it doesn't seem to be possible - isn't worth it.

Punishment, except where resitution is possible (i.e. property crimes), exists to prevent future crime.

This is true.

[Aabraxan]

Opinions on the death penalty are somewhat like opinions on abortion. They tend to be very personal, dearly held opinions. From what I've seen, there are statistics and reports on both sides of the issue, supporting and denouncing the death penalty.

For all of the talk about "the system" imposing the death penalty, that's not quite accurate. It's jurors who impose the death penalty, not "the system." Normal, everyday people who happen to be registered to vote. The death penalty is reserved for the most heinous of crimes, and usually requires that the jury unanimously find aggravating circumstances, such as killing purely for monetary gain, torture, or some such. I don't know about other states, but, in Arkansas, it also requires unanimous findings that (1) Aggravating circumstances exist beyond a reasonable doubt; and (2) Aggravating circumstances outweigh beyond a reasonable doubt all mitigating circumstances found to exist; and (3) Aggravating circumstances justify a sentence of death beyond a reasonable doubt. In other words, all of the jurors must agree on all three of the above before a death sentence can be imposed. Then there's the automatic appeal process.

I've heard the arguments about the death penalty being racist, about it being more imposed more often on the lower economic classes, its ineffectiveness in terms of deterrence. I've heard both sides of it. And I've read the statements on here about how being sentenced to prison with the prospect of brutal, forced sodomy is a better deterrent than the death penalty. The question you get to from that point is whether sentencing someone to a lifetime of anal rape, where it's known that there's a high probability that the defendant will be subjected to such, could qualify as violative of the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on "cruel and unusual" punishment.

The death penalty does not exist in a vacuum. It is imposed within the context of a case. I suspect that jurors who sit on cases where the death penalty is an option will never be the same. If they impose it, they spend the rest of their lives hoping that they made the right decision. If they don't, they've still had to look at pictures as gruesome as any you can imagine, and listen to testimony about how the defendant tortured or disfigured some poor sould before finally killing them. If you don't believe me, go down to your state supreme court and ask to see the record on appeal.

[Cyclotron]

That's all very true. However, while I understand that there is always context involved - and it's important to keep in mind - if it is wrong, it should be wrong regardless of context. That's what it means to be wrong.

As far as jurors deciding the issue based on gruesome testimony, I think this, if anything, points out my biggest problem with the system. For all the talk about how the DP is about proper punishment and/or deterrance, the people who decide it, as you pointed out, are doing so in large part based on the revulsion we all feel when considering the most heinous crimes and seeing the grisly evidence firsthand (or secondhand). I don't believe that justice - whose purpose should be (in these cases) to prevent future crimes - should appeal in such a manner to what is essentially the "ick factor" to determine whether somebody lives or dies.

[Aabraxan]

Originally posted by Cyclotron
That's all very true. However, while I understand that there is always context involved - and it's important to keep in mind - if it is wrong, it should be wrong regardless of context. That's what it means to be wrong.

As far as jurors deciding the issue based on gruesome testimony, I think this, if anything, points out my biggest problem with the system. For all the talk about how the DP is about proper punishment and/or deterrance, the people who decide it, as you pointed out, are doing so in large part based on the revulsion we all feel when considering the most heinous crimes and seeing the grisly evidence firsthand (or secondhand). I don't believe that justice - whose purpose should be (in these cases) to prevent future crimes - should appeal in such a manner to what is essentially the "ick factor" to determine whether somebody lives or dies.

Well, I never said "in large part," but the ick factor is clearly relevant the jury. And I will concede that the jury's revulsion may frequently be a big part of their decision. But don't underestimate juries. They're probably terrified at the prospect of imposing the death penalty and later finding out that they were wrong.

Also, that "ick factor" is one of the ways that the jury determines whether or not the DP is the proper penalty, just as it does with any other criminal penalty. For any crime, there's a range of possible penalties, and within one crime, some are worse than others. And that "ick factor," for the jury as a face. Typically, some family member has gotten to get up and give a victim impact statement. So, the jury doesn't hear "the defendant skinned the victim." What they hear is that "the defendant skinned Tiffany," or something like that. And the defendant has counsel, someone who's responsibility it is to make the defendant look as sympathetic as possible, to try to get evidence excluded and generally attack the prosecution's case.

There's more to a penal system than just preventing future crime. There's also the punitive element for the offender, and segregation from society. I question whether or not the deterrent effect can be effectively studied simply because of the nature of the question. Are there potential offenders out there who did not commit crimes because of the possibility of the death penalty? Maybe. If so, how do we find them to determine if the DP was a factor in their not committing said crimes? The only ones we can find to study are those who were not deterred by the DP.

[Aabraxan]

The other comment that I guess I'd make is that I've seen a number of posts about how the judicial system imposes the death penalty. But the judicial system doesn't decide what penalties are available for a given crime. That's a legislative decision. If you want the DP removed as an option in your state, write to your representative.