World Court urges U.S. to stay 5 executions

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
When did precedent not become a basis of our legal system?

ie, it doesn't just affect him.

[SlowwHand]

I suppose not, if you extrapolate it throughout his family; but I doubt they're overly proud of how his life, and death, turned out. I'd be surprised if they really blame Texas. I don't know. Surely, they know what he did was terrible. He's been here since he was 3. It's not like he grew up in Mexico, who by the way has no death penalty, and it's evident by the drug cartels gunning down police AND their families.
We don't tolerate that, and he knew it.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Zkribbler
Map:

Very nice map.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

Third, if the convicted is NOT the murder (shockingly it has happened) but is convinced by his lawyer to plead guilty, then he's screwed over without ever knowing his rights.

There was a recent case in Alabama where a guy had spent 20 years on death row and was days away from being executed when the real killer came forward and admitted it was him and not the convicted who committed the murder 20 years ago. It turns out the DA who originally prosecuted the poor guy knew his DNA excluded him from possibly being the killer but suppressed that fact at trial because he wanted to convict somebody, any body, for this high profile murder then to be seen as weak and possibly lose reelection.

Classic case of the death penalty going wrong and innocent people getting sent to death row because of some politician's vanity.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by SlowwHand



I have never in my life been offered a courtesy call to the Texas consulate over being banned here.

That's because Texas doesn't have any consulates. You'd have to talk to a US consulate.

[SlowwHand]

Aside from your slanderous ending post , the previous has nothing to do with this. It's known that he's guilty.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Oerdin


There was a recent case in Alabama where a guy had spent 20 years on death row and was days away from being executed when the real killer came forward and admitted it was him and not the convicted who committed the murder 20 years ago. It turns out the DA who originally prosecuted the poor guy knew his DNA excluded him from possibly being the killer but suppressed that fact at trial because he wanted to convict somebody, any body, for this high profile murder then to be seen as weak and possibly lose reelection.

Classic case of the death penalty going wrong and innocent people getting sent to death row because of some politician's vanity.

The death penalty isn't really about justice. The only way to understand it is to see it as a peculiarly modern form of human sacrifice.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
I suppose not, if you extrapolate it throughout his family

No, you numbnuts . Cases in the future will refer to these cases for how to apply the law. It doesn't matter if he actually was a murdering bastard beyond all doubt here; in the future, there may be someone who confessed to something he didn't know he was confessing to, due to crappy public defenders because he didn't get to go to his consulate and they use this case to defend that BS.

[Jon Miller]

Eh, I disagree. I don't see how you can say it isn't justice.

You can say that it isn't about bettering society, or making up for wrongs. And I could agree. But justice? Any time a person murders someone else, they deserve to die. That is what is just. That isn't what is merciful/etc though.

JM

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
Eh, I disagree. I don't see how you can say it isn't justice.

You can say that it isn't about bettering society, or making up for wrongs. And I could agree. But justice? Any time a person murders someone else, they deserve to die. That is what is just. That isn't what is merciful/etc though.

It's a religious form of justice. Thomas Lacqueur wrote a good book about it. The summary is basically this (from a blog, because his article is subscription only):

Ultimately, he concludes that the death penalty functions as a ritual - a ritual that symbolises the transcendent status of the state's right to assert the rule of law and mete out punishment.

edit: found a copy of the paper here.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Secular societies do not see the state as having a transcendent status or transcendent power over the individual. The secular state has only the power given it by citizen agreement, and this is always conditional and utilitarian, not transcendent and authoritarian. There are two views of justice here: one is the secular view, where justice is subordinated to the welfare of states and individuals, and the theological, where justice is the requirement of a divine dictator.

When religious people say that "God can take our lives at his whim", they are (ironically) expressing the same basic idea that informs capital punishment in the US. It's very clear once you think about it.



In addition, criminals do things that many people sometimes feel like doing (it's a rare teenager who hasn't wanted to blow up his school, for example). Endorsing the extinction of criminals is a way of exorcising and purging one's own guilt. From the secular view in this respect it functions just as a religious sacrifice (since secularists tend not to interpret religious sacrifice as literal).

There's also a decent amount of sadism involved, but that isn't as interesting.

[Jon Miller]

BS

When there is no rule of law, out in the 'wild' what is considered justice is if someone kills yours, you kill theirs. Eye for eye and all that. So the basic level of justice is death deserves death, and so on. It is only in society where people attempt to make life easier and introduce things like paying restitution or being removed from society/etc.

JM

[SlowwHand]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui


No, you numbnuts . Cases in the future will refer to these cases for how to apply the law. It doesn't matter if he actually was a murdering bastard beyond all doubt here; in the future, there may be someone who confessed to something he didn't know he was confessing to, due to crappy public defenders because he didn't get to go to his consulate and they use this case to defend that BS.

Listen to me. One of his pardners was already executed; at least one was executed. He confessed. He bragged before the crime scene was even discovered. Let the future use this as a precedent, that's fine. I don't know if they have DNA or not. I don't know that it's really needed.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
BS

When there is no rule of law, out in the 'wild' what is considered justice is if someone kills yours, you kill theirs.

There is no such thing. Stop it with the fairy tales.

Eye for eye and all that.

This is something made up by people. It is not a natural law (because there are none). If anything, it has a basis in the tit for tat strategy which underpins many sanctions (and is the subject of much talk in evolutionary psychology). But that can no longer be maintained as reasonable. No sane person believes that if someone punches you in the face, that they should be sentenced to being punched in the face back, or that the state must rape rapists and so on.

So the basic level of justice is death deserves death, and so on. It is only in society where people attempt to make life easier and introduce things like paying restitution or being removed from society/etc.

You might want to take a look at ancient laws regarding compensation before you say that.

There's no such principle in any case. People often wish to seek revenge against others, but the mere existence of an emotion is not sufficient justification for a moral claim. Primitive societies often objectify this emotion by claiming that God warrants such draconian measures, but this has no place in a modern secular society. Even someone as long ago as Protagoras pointed out that people who behave like this are not properly human and are enemies of civilization.

In fact, the most promising line of argument against capital punishment is a complicated one that suggests that it is a violation of the boundary between church and state. That's because the theory it operates under (retributivism) involves religious metaphysics by stealth.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
Listen to me. One of his pardners was already executed; at least one was executed. He confessed. He bragged before the crime scene was even discovered. Let the future use this as a precedent, that's fine. I don't know if they have DNA or not. I don't know that it's really needed.

Are you really this sloww or are you just being deliberately obtuse?

If, for example, a cop finds evidence of crime, but he did so in violation of the 4th Amendment, all that evidence is tossed out unless it can be obtained otherwise. That is to prevent the cops from taking advantage of violating the person's rights (which protects those rights).

If it was that easy. He confessed, etc. What's the big deal with having another review by the Mexican attorneys and allow them to represent him? If it was that clear cut, he'd be sent to the chair anyway. At least that way you don't set a precedent of ignoring the rights of foreign nationals to consular council (as Americans are offended when one of us are arrested overseas and not told of that right)

[SlowwHand]

Most laws are, like it or not.