Centerfield

For example, I don't have a big ethical problem with the death penalty. But I have all sorts of practical problems with it, from the expense to racial and economic bias to the error rate I mention above.

I doubt seriously Sean knows how he truly feels about this issue after a statement like that. So, you only have a problem with death unless you know absolutely know for sure? Don't we only know absolutely for sure if we see the actual crime committed, and isn't that a very, very rare occurence? It seems he is trying to justify in his head something that he knows is wrong.

Killing people should be illegal for any reason. This isn't a gray area, there is no reason to put anyone to death. It doesn't make us safer, it isn't cost effective, and it is morally wrong. Unlike certain Presidential candidates who are too busy running for office to stand up for what they believe in, I oppose the death penaly at all times in all cases, terrorists, killers, and rapists, period. Trying to draw a line to decide who lives and dies seems to be a ridiculous practice to me. Public policy should address measurable goals, the only thing we are doing with capital punishment is quelching our own emotional reactions based on anger and fear. This is not an activity of a just and moral nation.

Yes, I am very passionate about this one.

That first paragraph is a blockquote from Sean's post.

Mathew,

So let me ask you from a parctical sense... what do you with an individual who is already serving a life sentance without possibility of parole and CONTINUES to commit crimes (i.e. kills guards and fellow inmates, escapes from prison multiple times and kills people)?

Does a "just and moral" nation allow it's populace to repeatedly victimized by individuals who have amply demonstrated that they have no respect for human life or human dignity? It's entirely fallacious to assume that simply sentancing some-one to prison entirely neutralizes the threat they can continue to pose to society.

As a society we seem to,IMHO, apply the death penalty for incorrect reasons - anger, revenge, moral outrage, wishfully thinking that it will deter others etc. There is only one reason where we should apply it - that society will better off without the individual in it.
By what criteria should we measure this? I would submit that the death penalty should be applied only for premeditated murder WITH a great probability that the defendant would kill again.
Evidence of this would be a second murder conviction, a murder conviction after an assault with intent to kill, a political act of mass murder etc.
I would also recommend that the guilt phase be tried without jury knowledge of previous offenses and the penalty phase be adjudged by a different jury with all information available. They only would judge if the death penalty is applicable and the judge would have the reesponsibility to apply it or not.

So let me ask you from a parctical sense... what do you with an individual who is already serving a life sentance without possibility of parole and CONTINUES to commit crimes (i.e. kills guards and fellow inmates, escapes from prison multiple times and kills people)?

Yeah, this is the typical scare tactic used by those who support the death penalty. Show me that it is actually a problem, quantitatively that is, and we will talk.

It's entirely fallacious to assume that simply sentancing some-one to prison entirely neutralizes the threat they can continue to pose to society.

Cengel,

The Death Penalty exists, and this is happening. Sean and Rick are arguing that the death penalty should be used less than it is now. Are your arguing that anyone convicted of murder be put to death? Otherwise, your solution doesn't solve your problem.

I am not assuming anything. Statistics show that prison crimes are hardly ever proven. In other words, you don't know that it was the prisoner convicted of murder who did it. Furthermore, they are rare... Maybe we are watching to much Prison Break on television. Second of all, the percentage of prisoners that escape from prison is so ridicously low it isn't a viable issue. Give me numbers. Show me where the death penalty has stopped further violence and I will seriously reconsider my position.

Tmitch,

I respect the effort, but I don't know how that addresses the problems that Sean discusses.

They only would judge if the death penalty is applicable and the judge would have the reesponsibility to apply it or not.

I would be opposed to this... I don't see how a judge is any less effected by emotion than a jury. Furthermore, this amplifies a major problem I have with the death penalty in that nobody seems to want to take responsibility for it. The executioner can blame the court, the judge can blame the jury, the jury can blame the law, etc., etc. If this is a policy of this government than it's people should own it, we should implement it, we should have to see it on television. Personally, I think the jury that hands down a sentence of death should be forced to watch it and one of the jurors should randomly be selected to pull the switch. Something tells me that public support for the death penalthy would be much less if we were force to quit passing the buck and actually had to accept responsibility for it.

Mathew,

My usual examples of a justifiable death penalty are Timothy McVeigh, or Saddam Hussein, or Bin Laden. Guilt is beyond doubt, crime was beyond heinous, and it was committed deliberately and after careful consideration.

I can respect a moral opposition to all executions, but I do not share it. That said, if the death penalty were abolished I wouldn't shed a tear nor fight to reinstate it. Lengthy prison terms are fine by me.

For instance, I opposed the execution of Tookie Williams. Not because his guilt was in doubt, which was the main point of this post. But starting the Crips isn't a capital offense, and the specific crime for which he was executed did not IMO rise to the level of the three listed above. I think life in prison without parole was sufficiently harsh punishment. And as a side effect it left open the possibility of redemption in this life instead of the next one.

Mathew,

Just to be clear, what DO you propose as a penalty (if any) for someone who a) is already in prison without possibility of parole, and then b) commits further crimes such as murder (either by hiring it done by someone outside, as has happened here in California albeit unsuccessfully, or by killing other inmates or guards)? What to you propose be done?

Sean,

I get it, I just can't see that there is a clear line.

wj,

That depends on the case, the crime, and whatever the state law is where that prison exists. I don't propose blanket penalties for anything or anyone. Again, it happened once in California isn't good enough for me. Show me we are actually dealing with a real problem here before I say it is okay for the government to commit sanctioned murder.

For all you hard asses supporting the death penalty, you sure seem to care a lot about the lives of prison inmates.

there is no reason to put anyone to death. It doesn't make us safer

Name one person who has committed additional crimes after being executed. Just one. What? There are none, you say?

Now, name one person that has committed additional crimes after being sentenced to life imprisonment....hmmm. A list with actual contents. You see the problem? The idea that executions don't make society safer is false-to-fact. Executed criminals have a zero recidivism rate, by definition and barring John Carpenter films.

I would have no problem at all with abolishing the death penalty if "life in prison" really MEANT just that, and we had the Super Max isolation cells to house them all.

My main objection to the death penalty isn't that it's inhumane or anything else like that. (For some crimes I think it's downright inadequate, but we're not allowed to torture, just kill.) My objection would be that innocent people can and do get convicted, and there's no way to take back an execution.

Make life in prison actually MEAN life in prison, and I'm good either way.

What Tully said. The problem with life in prison is that after the monster hits 70 or so, people start feeling sorry for him and forget what he did. The public sympathy generally moves to "why are we paying umpteen thousand dollars a year to incarcerate this man; let him go home to die with his family."

Well, that's a luxury the murderers did not give their victims. Their are survivors of the victim who survive for a long, long time. The continued existence of the murderer by itself causes them on-going pain. Letting him out, for any reason, causes them A LOT of pain.

So let life mean life in a hole somewhere with no contact with family or friends, by correspondence or otherwise, and fine, I'll give up the death penalty. But as long as convicted murderers can still enjoy any part of life, then for some of them, life in prison is too good. They deserve to die.

Pat, that's one of those "agree to disagree" points in the death penalty debate. Just as I understand but don't share Matthew's opposition to all executions, I find your viewpoint understandable but, frankly, atavistic.

Isn't it enough to take away someone's freedom? To prevent them from ever being able to lead a normal life? To subject them to the hundreds of daily humiliations that life in prison involves?

They will spend their entire existence looking at bars and cinderblock walls. They won't get to build a family, watch their kids grow up, attend weddings or funerals or own a dog or do any of the thousands of other things that free people do. I'm not trying to build sympathy for them; their actions justifiably landed them in that situation. But all of that strikes me as punishment enough.

As for your alternative, I simply do not see the point of going the extra mile to ensure prisoners are miserable, dehumanized and tormented. If they weren't animals before, such treatment will surely turn them into one. More importantly, such treatment dehumanizes us, just like torture dehumanizes the torturer.

"He didn't show his victims any mercy" goes the common refrain. Well, no. But we are not like him. And one way we demonstrate that is by showing some minimum degree of mercy even to those we think don't deserve it. We do it for us, not for him.

Sean, for those who will and should get out of prison one day, I agree that we should not dehumanize them, should provide job training and other treatment to make them less likely to commit more crimes in the future.

The murderers I am talking about (and it is not all murderers) are those who get the death penalty these days. I've witnessed an execution, back when I worked for the governor of our state. The guy, I am convinced, was a serial killer who society was fortunate enough to catch after his first murder. He picked up a young woman at a bar, took her to a barn, raped her, cut her tongue out, gouged her eyes out (so she could not testify against him), then strangled her and, for good measure, put a 2x4 on top of her neck and jumped up and down on it. His last words were not of remorse but telling a joke to his lawyer. I lost not a bit of sleep after watching him die.

Having worked as our governor's pardon attorney, I've met many, many survivors of murder victims. They live in fear (reasonable or not) that the man who murdered their mother or father or son or daughter will be released one day by a soft-hearted parole or pardon board. An elderly friend of mine's father was murdered 20 or 30 years ago. About 10 years ago, the murderer had a pardon board hearing, asking to cut his sentence from life to 60 years, to make him eligible for parole. The widow, my friend's mother, overheard the pardon board chair tell the murderer he had made a fine presentation, and next time he would almost certainly succeed in having his time cut. The widow died of a heart attack less than 2 months later.

The effects of the crime linger not for years but for decades. THe suffering wreaked by the murderer lasts until the last loved one of the victim dies. The penalty must last that long, as well, no matter the cost. And no, just depriving them of their liberty to lead a normal life is not enough. First, as I pointed out, human nature is such that after awhile, people feel more sympathy for the on-going suffering of the inmate and his family rather than his long-forgotten victims.

Second, the suffering of being deprived a normal life is not enough, frankly. I've met and spoken with many convicted murders. Some are normal people who snapped one day, or were involved in a mutually-violent confrontation which had a really bad outcome. I don't demand eternal suffering for those, for the most part. They didn't plan it, they didn't really want to kill the person, they just made a really bad decision in one really bad moment. But others DID plan it. And they still deny it. They're habitual liars, always minimizing and distorting what they did, contradicting all evidence, no matter how clear. They blame other people for all of their problems and generally are con men as well as murderers, constantly filing petition after petition trying to fool some soft-hearted judge or parole board into letting them lose. For them, yeah, prison is bad, but not that much worse then the miserable existence they generally made for themselves before they were caught. And it's not anywhere near the level of suffering they imposed on their victims.

Showing mercy to him sounds nice... but it in fact causes more pain to the innocents suffering from the effects of the murder. I'm not willing to do that. It would be mercy enough to allow him to live.

Pat: I think we're pretty close then. It turns on what constitutes an execution-worthy offense. I think the bar should be set high simply to reduce the chance of a mistake, and also because my evidentiary standards will probably make capital cases longer, more difficult and more expensive. But as long as my evidentiary standards are met, the exact height of the bar isn't a big concern. Though other issues remain -- racial and economic bias in sentencing, for example.

I can agree with that. I have no problem funding capital defense attorneys to make sure the state really proves the guilt of the accused. Sadly, most anti-death penalty defense attorneys really don't do that very much; they spend most of their time (and our taxpayer dollars) with BS "mitigation experts" to tell what a wretched childhood the defendant had, etc... and more important things, like whether the accused actually committed the crime, are afterthoughts to them at best.

Of course, the other problem is that too often death penalty cases are handled by not-very-good, overworked public defenders who don't have the resources to hire private investigators or do other work to really scrutinize the evidence of guilt. But that's a topic for another day.

Yep. If it wasn't that innocent people are sometimes convicted, I would have no real problem with the death penalty for certain criminals who commit certain crimes. Like these guys, whose multiple death penalties were thrown out when the Kansas death penalty statute was ruled unconstitutional.

Fortunately Judge Paul Clark had the good sense to make their sentences on the 80+ other counts each that the jury convicted them on consecutive, so short of jailbreak or record longevity they'll never be free again. But it's nice to be sure.

The clause that invalidated the statute was not used in their trial, BTW--they just got lucky. As did John Robinson Sr., the so-called "first Internet serial killer" who lured women to his farm for S&M sessions that often ended in murder. Several bodies were found in barrels in a pond on his farm. Other women are still missing. As did this guy, whose known and proven crimes were committed when no DP statute was on the books here.

Hard as it is to believe, there are worse people out there than those.

Oh my, yes, there ARE people for whom the death penalty is all too kind, but we're too civilized to apply the penalties they truly deserve. You might say that life in prison is adequate for societal purposes, but it's nice to be 100% sure there is NO possibility, however small, that they will ever under ANY circumstances be loose again, and there's only way to be sure.

At the same time, mistakes do get made, and innocent people do get convicted. The level of proof required for a death sentence should be IMHO greater than the "reasonable doubt" standard. It should be a reviewable and confirmable "no doubt at all" standard. The three cases I cited would all meet that standard.

The most "humanitarian" death sentences I ever heard of were for a very retarded serial killer. His guilt was certain, but no one really wanted to kill him, as he was obviously retarded, even though he met the legal standards for conviction. At the same time no one wanted him to ever be free again, because he was 100% certain to re-offend. He said so himself. So the judge sentenced him to life-no-parole on the first murder count, and death on the next six. Sentences to be served consecutively. No chance of him ever applying for parole, and structured so he would have to appeal the first sentence first--which if succesful would leave him staring at six death sentences.

"Yeah, this is the typical scare tactic used by those who support the death penalty. Show me that it is actually a problem, quantitatively that is, and we will talk."

Seriel killing is not a problem QUANTITATIVELY... nor is domestic terrorism really.... nor are bear attacks.... does that mean we just ignore them when they actualy DO occur?

That would be a rather absurd don't you think? I'm not talking about basing sentancing decisions upon the possibility that such incidents might occur (and they do, in fact, occur) as a preventive measure against a hypothetical problem..... I'm talking about using them as a RESPONSE to such incidents when they DO occur.

"The Death Penalty exists, and this is happening. Sean and Rick are arguing that the death penalty should be used less than it is now. Are your arguing that anyone convicted of murder be put to death? Otherwise, your solution doesn't solve your problem. "

No I am arguing that anyone ALREADY serving a Life Sentance who commits ANOTHER violent felony while serving his sentance be subject to the death penalty if the standard of evidence for having commited the crime is high enough.

It's very simple. You commit murder once.... we remove you from society in order to protect society from you. You commit murder again after already being removed from society..... you've just demonstrated that incarceration is an insufficient measure to protect society from you... and leave us no choice but to enact a measure which is...namely terminating your life.

Simple, no executions based upon vengance or moral outrange or potential deterence of other crimes.... just a straightforward course of action based upon doing the minimum neccesary to protect society from violent criminals.... and leaving it upto the criminals themselves to determine what that is. Don't want to be executed.... it's real simple....don't commit violent crimes once your already serving a life sentance.

Aw, c'mon...what's wrong with vengeance? ;-)