17 rules for being a good Democrat

Going to have to disagree. Executions are not and should not be used as a deterent to crime, well...because it just doesn't work.

Our process of performing capital punishment is extremely cruel, I'll give you that. Making a guy wait 20 years before being executed for a crime does nothing for the victim, the victim's family and little for society in general and at the end of the day you are executing someone that isn't the same person they were 20 years prior in most cases. But that still does not excuse the act that got them there in the first place. The victim is just as dead.

That being said the government does screw up and that several overturned Dallas, TX rape cases that have been cleared through DNA evidence is testimony to that fact. Where capital punishment cases are brought to bear however the rules of evidence are or should be strict to the utmost and generally are (unlike those rape cases were). In addition a district attorney has to have enough evidence to recommend a death penalty and be willing to see the case all the way through, a jury has to be convinced to recommend a verdict of death penalty and a judge should then consent and in many cases that is exactly what happens though the judge is often given the burden of actual "sentencing" the fact of the matter is, it is a jury that condemns the damned, not the "government". The jury can and is any one of us.

In cases of heinous crimes a death penalty in my opinion is the only option. Otherwise the one may counter that the government provides no recourse or justice and you encourage a victim's family to take the law into their own hands (and this happens more often than you may think). In Brazil for example, there was the rape of a minor by a convicted sex offender, the rapist was given a light sentence and sent back into the streets. Soon he was caught raping yet another minor and a riot ensued, the police attempted to pull the rapist from the mob to safety but failed as the crowd basically stoned, beat, stabbed and hacked the rapist to death in a public street.

Another case in Texas involves a former biker, serving a life sentence today, whose wife was killed by an outlaw biker gang. Fearing they would not be brought to justice because of lack of evidence, they're ability to remain organized and being well funded he decided to kill them himself and he did, all six of them. In both cases it was the fear or perception that justice would not be served that resulted in anarchy.

The context of the argument then does not merely boil down to the government makes mistakes and one has to be okay with innocent people being killed by said government. Steve you know me personally and know that I have no regard for the motives, talent and abilities of our government but neither do I consider capital punishment to be a government affair. Instead the government in this case is carrying out ( and poorly I might add) the direct and explicit will of a jury drawn from any Tom, Dick and Harry (or Jane) walking the street. The rules of evidence are tight but not fool proof but by and large the burden of proof to see a capital punishment recommendation through (by the district attorney) is much, much harder than taking a plea or making a lesser case. Capital punishment cases in most (if not all modern cases) carry an overwhelming burden of proof, at least in most of the states that actually do carry the sentence out, are difficult to prove, do not rely on circumstantial evidence and mere eye witness (as those rape cases did) but also require physical evidence which in most cases also involves DNA.

 

Thanks Bill. As for executions, I agree in a tribal society this would serve as a self defense mechanism. In our modern society capital punishment is a system designed to preserve the government, not so much the lives of those within society. It is a mechanism to keep the peace and prevent anarchy or vigilantism. Once vigilantism begins to take place you have a populace who has lost so much faith in their government that they disregard the law and are willing to do violence in place of said government. This would preclude a fall of the current power structure or by and large be a symptom of that power structure's inability to govern. This is why so many states with a few exceptions, have the death penalty on the books and even occasionally will sentence someone to such a fate, yet the sentence is never carried out. The reason in my opinion is once people hear a verdict of "death" and the condemned is escorted out of the room, society at large just goes back to doing whatever they were doing before and don't give it a second thought. It doesn't necassarily serve the victim, nor even society but instead placates the masses.

 

I guess I focused on one aspect of an overall bigger picture, vigilantism isn’t the reason the state should have a death penalty, but it is part of that reason. The reason is social contract. As you and pretty much anyone reading this is aware there is the concept of social contract within any society, people give up a measure of freedom in exchange for protection for instance, however in this case it is in the foreknowledge of justice. The social contract is if someone kills me they do so at the jeopardy of their own life. In turn I do not walk around armed 24/7, including on planes, trains, courthouses, etc. nor do I have an agreement with my family that if anyone does them harm I will see to harm being done in return. Instead I pay my taxes and follow the law, giving up some of my own personal liberties in exchange for this implied protection/service.

Now I am not so foolhardy as to believe that the government can really protect you, thus I advocate for concealed handgun laws. Nor do I believe the police to be a proactive or protective measure, only reactive, which is the nature of their existence. If it were not for the expectation of justice, why have police at all? After all, they cannot necessarily protect you. And every once in a while the police will unjustly shoot and kill someone, yet we do not have people running about advocating their abolishment as an institution nor do we have people running about calling for the police to be disarmed.

I believe that the death penalty does not deter killing, but the social contract is not that the killer will be dissuaded from carrying out his/her action but instead that should this occur it will not be incumbent upon my family to see that justice is carried out. Remember the government views crime not in light of the victim as an individual but instead the victim is the concept of “society”, “we the people”, etc. This is the social contract in action.

The fact is there are some people who need to be killed, not for their good, or for some punitive reason, not for the sake of revenge or for the prevention of future crimes of like nature but instead because of this social contract.

As to the fallibility of a jury, absolutely, they are the untrained spectators and can and are influenced by judges and attorneys, both prosecution and defense. Though our justice system is poorly executed (excuse the turn of phrase) the design is ingenious. A crime is committed, the police who investigate the crime must demonstrate probable cause to arrest the offender and an arraigning judge must agree with the facts and circumstance the police present. The prosecutor must then review the case and determine that the probable cause is in fact clearly the case beyond a reasonable doubt and be willing to push the man hours and resources through to see the case be tried as a capital offense and based upon the facts, circumstances and letter of law, recommend the death penalty. The judge must review the facts, determine their admissibility in a court of law and allow the case to be argued upon these facts, circumstances and letter of law. The defense council gets to review and dispute these facts, circumstances, letter of law and even the admissibility of such. It is incumbent upon the prosecution to prove guilt, not the other way around. But usually by the time the police, the DA and the judge have allowed the facts to be tried as is, especially in a capital offense case, you have a guilty party, but a jury of 12 people ignorant of the law or procedure must be convinced further still of the guilt of the party and be so convinced that they endorse the penalty of death. This then is passed on to the judge who will again check the letter of law to ensure that the death penalty is warranted and carry out a sentence, though they are not required to agree with the DA or the jury on the death penalty.

This is an extreme oversimplification of the processes to establish guilt as you often have a grand jury hearing the facts prior to a jury trial. It also discounts that endless appeals based upon letter of law that take place after the trial. Then to put the cherry on the cake you have, at least in Texas, the governor’s office who can and does review the case prior to an execution being performed. Depending upon the state and their laws the governor can stay the execution or pardon the offender or do nothing and allow the system to carry through.

Now that the government is made up of normal, fallible people is true. However where they differ from a jury is in education, training, experience and knowledge of procedure and law. Though they are fallible they have strict regulations and procedures to follow which determine their ability (or lack thereof) to influence a case. The legal system cannot pass a unilateral verdict in either in form or reality.

I for one do not agree that innocent people are put to death. That would have to be a most extreme of unlikely events, carried out in such a sequence, with the stars being so perfectly aligned that it would almost have to seem as fate, relying upon a complete system breakdown at every level of the process from the collection of evidence to the judgment of the jury and the misapplication of law by an appellate court.

But for the sake of argument let’s say an innocent person was put to death, should that halt the entire process? I do not think so, though the error should be acknowledge, people should be held accountable and the cause should never be duplicated. But then people die daily driving or riding in cars or being struck by a vehicle while on foot, yet we do not ban cars. They die in planes, but we do not ban planes. They die at the hands of the police when they have committed no wrong or otherwise a non-capital offense, yet we do not ban the police. They die through a form of euthanasia (by denying treatment or sustenance) in hospitals, retirement homes, homes for the insane, etc. yet this practice is never debated. They die in abortion clinics, they die playing sports, they die during boxing matches and martial arts competitions. People die, sometimes because of a legalized yet reprehensible practice such as the denial of treatment or sustenance (neglect), or because they are aborted yet these deaths are legal and the victims most certainly innocent. People die because of accidents or the negligence of others or as we’ve seen in the case of Toyota, corporate greed, yet nothing to the extent of banning a practice, convenience or way of life is discussed. What makes the death penalty unique is the application of the death is so clinical, so impersonal and yet there is a face to it, it is publicized. But banning the practice predicated on the ideal that someone undeserving of death may actually be killed is a bit narrow sighted in my view, social contract or not.

Ironically (to you at least) I believe in the death penalty because I respect the sanctity of life and demand an account for the taking of one. Thus I also am against clinical euthanasia and abortion.

I find it ironic that people who are so often pro-abortion are also anti-death penalty but as to where that sequence of values based logic applies, I am at a loss, but then I do not make a living understanding the nature of people.

 

On the first point, "the fact is" is a mis-statement, you got me. Mannerism of speech. I do not see life in prison as accomplishing the same thing as a death penalty at all. In fact (mannerism of speech again, what follows is merely an opinion) I believe (note I qualified it as an opinion here) that death row, even in states that do not actually carry out such sentences are more for the effect of the public perception (and the notion of justice) and not for the inmate's punishment or the safeguarding of the public.

To your second point, Wikipedia isn't necessarily the most reliable of sources but let's look at some of the cases anyway. The first case was tried in 1972, based upon eye witness testimony (which I do not agree is beyond a doubt) but in this case it doesn't matter who did the shooting. A capital murder offense committed during the commission of a felony in some states provides the same death penalty option for all involved regardless of who shot who. For example in Texas if you rob a store and your partner guns down the clerk, you both are tried for the clerks murder. In this case I've read several recounts of the story and they tend to go from "sleeping in a car"...to "at some point"...the officer "was shot". What happened during that time frame is critical, were they resisting? Was it an ambush? Were both parties aware of the shooter's intent?

I decided to dig a little deeper and it turns out that the "wrongfully convicted" person minding their own business was in fact a previously convicted of a violent felony, which aggravated the charges against him (in a legal sense). In the appeals process the court further looked into the supposed "confession" of an accomplice and dismissed the testimony as not being "worth of belief", etc. In other words the court lists multiple attempts by the convicted to overturn the case, each defeated and the court's BS meter went into the red with the latest "confession" of another party. There's a ton more but see it here http://www.law.fsu.edu/library/flsupct/75909/op-75909.pdf

As for case number 1? Convicted felon A and convicted felon B posses a firearm illegally, fight with police ensues, 2 officers are killed, felons A & B flee the scene and police and are apprehended, both tried on murder. Felon B cops a plea to evade the death penalty, felon A doesn't. Felon A gets the death penalty. After sentencing felon B has a change of heart and says 'never mind, I done it' but the court feels this to be yet another one of felon A's multiple attempts to evade the sentence (and likely rightfully so)....etc.

Had it been tried without the testimony of felon B the death penalty could still have been applied. Why? Because during that critical time gap a shooting occurred, the witnesses statements were somewhat ambiguous as to who the shooter was and by themselves may not have been enough to establish probable cause beyond a reasonable doubt, but add to the equation that felon A had the ballistic verified weapon in his possession at the time of arrest, had gun powder residue consistent with the possibility of discharging the weapon. Add to this felon A was sill on parole, ran a roadblock while in the process of a kidnapping, willfully evaded arrest (a pile on felony charge as at this point they had more than enough to prove "in the commission of").

Now in this case there was a jail house snitch whose testimony was used as corroborating evidence (circumstantial in my opinion), a crappy defense lawyer who was disbarred for drug abuse later in his career, a colorful judge, etc. and you have the makings of a fine drama for the papers, but the core facts on which the case was built do not change. This was not an innocent person put to death. If this guy had done the same in present day Texas and it was known his partner pulled the trigger, he could still face the death penalty as being an accomplice to the murders during the commission of a felony.

It's getting late but I'm sure the other cases are very similar...

Quickly the Willingham case is very familiar to those who took any interest of it in Texas, in short, Willingham set his house on fire (which is arguable depending on whose evidence is looked at), neighbors watched as he crouched down and watched it burn (that is a fact) and attempted to re-enter the house after authorities arrived and were able to restrain him. (my opinion? the old "somebody hold me back" ploy). But of the cases I have heard this one did bother me the most as the evidence was so politically tainted on both sides. Experts said definitely, he did it, other experts (non-law enforcement) said "inconclusive" as in enough to cast doubt but certainly not disprove. Then you had our moron of a governor (and that is a fact) mess with the appeal panel investigations committee like the heavy handed, simple minded, grab a$$ed cretin that he is but that does not undue the evidence that convicted Willingham in the first place (note, I don't care for the idiot, and that's a fact). His wife changed her story, he did it, no he didn't, he was an abuser, no wait, he wasn't, etc. There there was the ubiquitous jail house informant (where do they get these people) and the rest reads like a bad crime drama. Great for headlines, but still I'm nowhere near convinced the guy was innocent. I'm sure if I went by them one by one I wouldn't find conclusive evidence to see the total and complete failure of the modern justice system. But even if I did, even if there was just 1, I would still not be willing to scrap the whole system.

As to Maniac Craniac...

To your first point. My statements are not contradictory, I point to individual people and even portions of the justice system as fallible. But I also espouse that for them all to fail simultaneously is highly unlikely to the point that I do not believe it to have occurred within the modern justice system.

Second, to my knowledge there has not been any conclusive evidence which disproved an execution that has occurred within the modern justice system in a death penalty case. There have been many cases in lesser offenses however, especially in rape cases, especially in Dallas, TX. However to date I am not aware of a capital murder case. Again, the stakes go up, the burden of proof goes up, whether by design or by practice. It's pretty hard to convince 12 strangers to kill someone they've never met as opposed to simply locking them away "just in case"...(a statement I have personally heard said before). Anyhow in rape cases for some reason often a single unreliable eyewitness testimony is enough for an arrest (something I think is wrong with the system but fortunately they aren't killing people for it...yet anyways).

As for the "...if you find yourself in this situation..." I'm not saying it's impossible, but the chance of that happening is less than my being struck by a 747 landing in my bedroom as I slept, yet I still sleep at night. Besides that, these cases of supposed wrongful convictions seem to follow a pattern, a key point being a colorful criminal history in each (more often than not a violent history). I for one am 32 years old (and aging daily) and have yet to so much as get a speeding ticket. Not that I don't speed, but I don't do it so routinely as to favor the odds of getting caught.

I have what I call an A-hole theory. My theory is that an A-hole who gets caught for a crime has in fact committed tens, hundreds or thousands of crimes for which they have not been caught. They are habitual enough that the odds catch up to them and wham...you get a guy off the streets and all of a sudden the crime rate drops. The fact is (and it is a fact) it is such a small fraction of society who are convicted of felonies and recidivism (regardless of cause) is so likely that it's amazing many of these guys stay on the free world side of prison walls as long as they do. Criminals are criminals because they commit crime. Sometimes they get caught, more likely most of the time they are not. When you have a criminal background, especially a violent one and you are charged with another violent crime, the odds are in favor that if physical evidence points to you it's likely that you did it (even if just statistically so). But to your point, if it ever happens to me you can say "I told you so" and I'll concede my folly. I do believe we have wrongfully convicted men in prison today (for lesser offenses, especially non-violent ones), I also believe the corrections system is a tragedy, I think the opportunity for criminals to redeem themselves is all but nonexistent but that still does not negate the fact that criminals are statistically very likely to commit more crimes even after being released from a sentence for a previous crime or as in the case above, even while finishing said sentence. Fortunately for me, those odds are against my being tried and convicted in a like manner.

 

Being that I have debated this issues a few hundred times in the past, I will offer my humble OPINION. I will say this with the proviso that I have an admittedly fatalistic view of life in general, and I do believe the personification of true evil does exist. After all, if one purports to believe in A god, then they must logically also believe that evil exists. By the time I was seven, I saw a man's throat slit while he "bled out", taking his last breath of life. I always laugh when some try to portray me as some "scared liberal" who is afraid of his own shadow. Please folks, stop the bullshit and the tag lines.

But I digress. With the modern criminal DNA analysis, and the heightened levels of surety need to kill a criminal, the odds, I believe proof beyond a reasonble doubt can be concluded, thus errors are reduced. As citizens, we should ensure that only those with DNA match ups and hard evidence be put "to sleep". Sorry folks, for those that take the stance against capitol punishment, I would venture to say their opinions would change if a henious crime happened to their wife, husband, child, father or mother.

Do I have moral objection to execution in the face of UNQUESTIONED evidence, no. But then again, I also believe we are "human primates".

Just my humble opinion,

Gracias,

Abner

Yes, I have seen a few criminals truely redeem themselves.

 

My opinion is that these are all good arguments on both sides.

Another one not brought up yet is the greater world view. I believe that in most industrialized nations there is no capital punishment. I think that it seems to be generally viewed that it is more "civilized" to put people in jail for the rest of their lives. Okay maybe it hasn't been brought up yet because Americans don't generally consider the opinion of others around the world to be very important.

A mob lynching which is a large group acting out of rage I would view as worse than capital punishement which is a large group acting out in a very cold blooded manner on our hypothetical scale. Which is inconsistent even the opposite with my view that an individual killing out of rage is not as bad as a cold blooded killing.

 

I wrote another long post but when I tried to post it, the thing vanished. So rather than do all the work again I'll just get to the point.

Not everyone has the capacity to take a life regardless of whether it places them or their loved ones in danger. I understand this, the very idea of taking a life is disgusting, even to me and something I think most cops and soldiers hope they never have to do. Despite this human nature requires it at times. The death penalty is uniquely clinical and seemingly cold blooded in how impersonal it is vs. an in the heat of the moment shooting in self defense. But the reality that an offender's actions place them in the position to lose their own life remains the same and the only way I have been able to justify deadly force in my own mind as one who may have potentially had to carry out such force (thankfully I never had to) is that it would not be me dictating the circumstances of a suspect being shot but instead the suspect themself. Likewise a man (or woman) on death row placed themself there, not a court, judge or anyone else. I guess it comes down to belief in accountability.

I do not think less of people who choose not to defend themselves. I do not think less of people who are against the death penalty and I'm not equating the two other than to say the idea of killing is not something that every man can accept regardless of circumstance. Though we may have primal instincts there are limits as we are after all, human and at some point our values and beliefs will have to come into play, whether we choose to compromise these or not.

As to Steve's point of one not holding steadfast in times of adversity, Dr. Viktor Frankl had an interesting point on just that topic in summary, many people do not know their true nature until subjected to the most extreme type of adversity. I happen to agree...

 

Do we have a recent example? Say since the 1970's or heck maybe even the 50's where an innocent person has been executed? And that Wikipedia page took me to two cases where the person in question was IMHO guilty beyond a doubt. So I'm talking legal case study or even better a court decision.

 

Capital punishment doesn't save us any money, it costs us more than sending somebody to prison for life. There is no real benefit as far as I can tell and many potential moral problems beyond my ability to judge. Additionally life in prison is far more fearful an outcome than execution in my mind. I don't believe we should make perilous moral decisions without a really good reason. I therefore oppose it in its current form and am unlikely to support any reform that costs less at the expense of protecting due process on an issue of this scale. Even if we did save money given how few people we currently execute I think the benefits would be negligible and I am fearful of a solution that involves executing more people.

As for the argument that anybody who believes in capital punishment believes one of the two previously stated conditions, I disagree. That rational also easily applies to imprisonment and even traffic tickets. The question is that knowing the government screws up and occasionally convicts the innocent where do we draw the line?