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jrjones9933
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04 Jun 2011, 8:21 am

@MarketAndChurch By your reasoning, then, everyone who uses a product bears responsibility for anyone killed in an industrial accident while working at a job manufacturing that product. I'd rather work for increased job safety than sit in a vigil, which I consider better suited to my skills, and prevent further deaths. Again, do you feel comfortable supporting a system where 78% of executions are for crimes against whites, and 13% are for crimes against blacks when the number of victims of each race is fairly equal?

I find the growth of the private prison industry extremely disturbing, especially when I see the money they spend on lobbying and contributing to political campaigns. However ineffectively the government operates, I'd prefer to keep the prisons in the public sector.

As long as we seem stuck in the hypothetical, let's bring it closer to the achievable. We could uses fines more effectively if we assessed them on a sliding scale based on assets (criminal income being difficult to measure). Between that and ending the drug war, we'd have a lot more to spend on rehabilitation and on safety for the workers in the prisons. Incarceration in its current form provably increases criminality, and reduces opportunities to succeed in mainstream society.

As far as peoples' need to punish and have the state mete out vengance on their behalf, I just don't know. Do we as a society want to cultivate this attitude with all its devestating consequences, or should we spend some effort and money on helping the victims of crimes?


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Vexcalibur
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04 Jun 2011, 8:53 am

Killing the killer would not revive a family member, and I don't trust the legal system enough to be 100% the guy they catch is the real killer.

Finally, I'd rather he spent a horrible life in prison next to a very friendly cell mate.


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ruveyn
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04 Jun 2011, 10:37 am

Vexcalibur wrote:
Killing the killer would not revive a family member, and I don't trust the legal system enough to be 100% the guy they catch is the real killer.

Finally, I'd rather he spent a horrible life in prison next to a very friendly cell mate.


Unfortunately you approach is expensive. Food, board and security cost quite a bit. Philosophically I agree with you. I would not trust our legal system for one second.

ruveyn



Philologos
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04 Jun 2011, 10:52 am

ruveyn wrote:
Vexcalibur wrote:
Killing the killer would not revive a family member, and I don't trust the legal system enough to be 100% the guy they catch is the real killer.

Finally, I'd rather he spent a horrible life in prison next to a very friendly cell mate.


Unfortunately you approach is expensive. Food, board and security cost quite a bit. Philosophically I agree with you. I would not trust our legal system for one second.

ruveyn


ruveyn, please to talk with Master Pedant:

Philologos wrote:
Master Pedant:

"it costs much more to administer than life imprisonment"

Unless you mean moral cost, surely it does not NEED to? "Take this man outside and dispose of him" Or are you figuring in productive work the prisoner may be compelled to do?


I'm not speaking of pointless thought experiments or bizarre, never going to happen situations. Sure, if we tried everyone with a make-shift, pro-bono, Kangaroo Court and line prisoners up in front of firing squad, it could be cheaper. But prosecuting people in a liberal democracy is a lot more expensive then that due to the presumption of innocence and the appeals process.

Unless you have any idea about the workings of the judicial system or the change of reforms, I highly doubt your in any position to judge the viability of "cost-cutting" measures.

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

I do NOT know the relative cost of maintaining a prisoner for life versus performing an execution.

I do NOT know the relative cost of legal proceedings when the outcome is death versus when the outcome is life imprisonment.

I WISH I were as sure as Master Pedant that there will not be firing squads here.



ruveyn
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04 Jun 2011, 10:55 am

Philologos wrote:
.

Unless you have any idea about the workings of the judicial system or the change of reforms, I highly doubt your in any position to judge the viability of "cost-cutting" measures.

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

I do NOT know the relative cost of maintaining a prisoner for life versus performing an execution.

I do NOT know the relative cost of legal proceedings when the outcome is death versus when the outcome is life imprisonment.

I WISH I were as sure as Master Pedant that there will not be firing squads here.


I have nothing but doubts about what you brought up.

As to the cost of execution, one dollar and fifty cents for a 45 calibre bullet to blow the brains out of the person to be executed. Quick, cheap, simple. And relatively low tech.

ruveyn



b9
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04 Jun 2011, 11:35 am

the death penalty may be appropriate for people who are found guilty of attempted suicide.

but because i am a philanthropist, i would sentence them to life in prison instead.



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04 Jun 2011, 11:40 am

I'm against the death penalty, but not cuz I give a s**t about some serial killer or child molester's life. They can go burn to death and die slow for all I care. It's cuz there is a high level of fallibility and ambiguity when it comes to forensic science. Also both the system and forensic science are subject to the constraints of time, funding and manpower which leaves an even bigger margin of error. There is also politics involved in the system which leaves potential for corruption. If a politician who wants to appear tough on crime cuts corners in the system, then this can lead to either haphazard death sentencing or weak links in the procedures.

donnie_darko wrote:
jrjones9933 wrote:
Everyone who supports the death penalty qualifies their support by making the justice system magically infallible and fair. Does anyone support the death penalty as it is practiced in reality? Better yet, does anyone who supports it in their hypothetical fair world, oppose it in reality?

Please, when you start to work on perfecting the criminal justice system, let me know. I'll help! When we finish, we'll start executing fools from dawn to dusk! Otherwise, it's just another case of taking pride in deliberate ignorance.


Even if the justice system was totally fair, how is the death penalty in any way appealing? It's just more violence in the end. Doesn't bring anyone back.
Nothing is completely fair. Without the death penalty, there is the risk of em murdering and raping other inmates or CO's. These murders can provoke retaliation leading to a vicious cycle or a possible riot, especially if it is between different races. Also, they can call shots from behind bars and get people on the streets killed. Overcrowding leaves more blind spots for the CO's meaning more places to hide weapons and drugs, more places for murders and rapes to occur, and more strategic advantages for the inmates to take advantage of. You can't have your cake and eat it too, you have to decide which one of the risks are worth taking.

donnie_darko wrote:
jrjones9933 wrote:

Trying to make a point, here, about political support, which matters more to me in reality than philosophical support. Let's hold off on this conversation until we perfect the criminal justice system. You get what I'm saying? Feel free to think I'm a bad person until then, though. :roll:


I don't think you're a bad person. I just don't think that's a good belief to have (supporting the death penalty, that is).
I don't mind really. My reasons for opposing the death penalty has nothing to do with how those who hurt innocent people feel about it

Vexcalibur wrote:
You and your puny "justice". What if the legal system actually gets it wrong and they condemn the wrong guy. Want the society to become murderous of innocents just in exchange of managing to have this 'justice' you are talking about?

Death penalty does not seem to stop crime rates. It does increase the risk to have innocent people killed by inept governments in attempts to make citizens feel 'safer'.
There's nothing puny about preventing inmates from killing CO's and other inmates, calling shots from behind bars to get people on the streets killed, or from overcrowding the prisons which give em even more opportunities to do their dirt. There are more of the guilty put to death than innocents, so it's a matter of weighing the risks and rewards.



blauSamstag
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04 Jun 2011, 12:12 pm

MarketAndChurch wrote:

I don't know why:

    having or not having remorse

    ability to be rehabilitated

    history of unstable, violent, or psychopathic ways, and

    the horribly nastiness of a crime

are given any weight at all... what if he was just a computer science guy at intel in a middle class suburb who came home and flipped out catching another man with his wife and kills them both. You take a life, you don't get to keep your own.



Because justice doesn't exist. There is no such thing.

What anyone "deserves" is immaterial. Killing people for vengeance is as invalid as killing people as a deterrent.

It's about what is best for society as a whole. If a person has potential to contribute, they should be allowed to. Some might argue that they should be compelled to, but i won't go that far.

As a fully licensed and bonded idealist, I don't think punishment is something the state is qualified to dole out. We don't currently make much of an effort to rehabilitate anyone - we just warehouse criminals to get them off the street.

We should make it about providing a return on investment for society.

If a criminal can be transformed into a productive member of society, we should do that.

If they can't, we should keep them the hell out of society.

If their disposition is so grave that there is no chance they will ever be of any value to their fellow man, they should be put down.

This is all "perfect world" scenario because, as i said, I'm wearing my idealist hat.

It's not about what might make the victim feel as though they were made whole. They will never be made whole. We should stop trying. It doesn't benefit anyone.

I have been the victim of very few crimes.

If the guy who did $2000 worth of damage to my car to steal my $150 stereo had somehow been compelled to put my car back together exactly the way he'd found it, I would still feel violated.

I still feel as though I'd like to break both of his knee caps and force him at gun point to learn how to extract a stereo from a dashboard with the proper tools, but neither of us would benefit, and i would harm myself in the course of doing that. So i should put it out of my mind.

I spent hours and hours repairing my car. I hated every minute of it. I want revenge. But revenge won't really make me feel better, and won't benefit society as a whole. My need for revenge is invalid.

I don't know what drives a guy to develop a mindset where doing what he did is OK. Clearly he wasn't raised right. I personally think he's an as*hole and would just as soon break his nose as tell him the time of day, but i don't know who he is and wouldn't recognize him if i met him.

There is no reason why he can't be retrained and transformed into a worthwhile human being. And THAT is what's best for society.

But in the USA today, we have a justice system that incents finding someone to pay for a crime, rather than incenting identifying the actual perpetrator. We find a good enough defendant and see if we can make it stick. The people who do this sleep at night by telling themselves that even if those weren't the right defendants, they were still "bad people" who "deserved" it. It's BS.



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04 Jun 2011, 1:03 pm

Philologos wrote:
Master Pedant:

"it costs much more to administer than life imprisonment"

Unless you mean moral cost, surely it does not NEED to? "Take this man outside and dispose of him" Or are you figuring in productive work the prisoner may be compelled to do?


MP is right, from what ive heard. Its counterintuitive but true that feeding and housing a felon for six decades in a prison actually SAVES the taxpayer money over executing him! This is because of the appeals process thats required for the death penalty. The guy get appeals, and then the state has to mount a case against the appeals. So by the time they finnaly really decide to actually go through with toasting you on the chair theyve spent the equivalent of several lifetimes of prison room and board on you on DA's, public defenders, forensics, and other court costs that they wouldnt spend on a prison lifer.

So advocate the death penalty if you will, but dont do it on economic grounds.



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04 Jun 2011, 2:01 pm

b9 wrote:
the death penalty may be appropriate for people who are found guilty of attempted suicide.

but because i am a philanthropist, i would sentence them to life in prison instead.


:lol:



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04 Jun 2011, 2:51 pm

jrjones9933 wrote:
@MarketAndChurch By your reasoning, then, everyone who uses a product bears responsibility for anyone killed in an industrial accident while working at a job manufacturing that product. I'd rather work for increased job safety than sit in a vigil, which I consider better suited to my skills, and prevent further deaths. Again, do you feel comfortable supporting a system where 78% of executions are for crimes against whites, and 13% are for crimes against blacks when the number of victims of each race is fairly equal?



If I understand you correctly, then I don't find that surprising. It is an ethnically white nation we live in... crimes are committed by and against the majority.

The point made is that one should be intellectually honest that they only empathize for "the few" who deserve to die(are on death row), not "the majority" who did die at the hand of these murderers. Just like immigration, compassion to one group often comes at cruelty to another.

And yes, in addition to showing up and protesting this "inhumane" institution, they do sit at candle vigil for the person on death row, and I haven't heard too many cases in which they also do that for the deceased.


jrjones9933 wrote:
As long as we seem stuck in the hypothetical, let's bring it closer to the achievable. We could uses fines more effectively if we assessed them on a sliding scale based on assets (criminal income being difficult to measure). Between that and ending the drug war, we'd have a lot more to spend on rehabilitation and on safety for the workers in the prisons. Incarceration in its current form provably increases criminality, and reduces opportunities to succeed in mainstream society.


That wouldn't be so much an issue if we killed all of the murderers which we know beyond the shadow of a doubt are guilty of murder. I also think that the current justice system, with its flaws, are better then the preference for 100% fair system, or no system at all. It is also odd that even when presented with a hypothetical - wherein we know that a murderer has murdered someone - anti death-penalty supporters are still squeamish about the concept of killing a murderer... I would like to know the values that guide that view. Compassion, I know, but why for the murderer?

Why not end the drug war and decriminalize drugs(which would free up our prisons immensely), use that money to improve prison safety, rehabilitate those who haven't committed murder, and give the death penalty to those who deserve it? It doesn't have to be either-or, the collective subsidizing of all murderers life imprisonment dwarfs the cost to execute the most vile of our society. There are some cases where there are reasons to be suspicious, but most cases of murder is pretty clear cut. The ones that could be considered as being on the fence would take decades in court, but there's no reason that murders that we are 100% sure of should spend as much time in court, especially if it is just to plea for the life of guy on death row.



jrjones9933 wrote:
As far as peoples' need to punish and have the state mete out vengance on their behalf, I just don't know. Do we as a society want to cultivate this attitude with all its devestating consequences, or should we spend some effort and money on helping the victims of crimes?


The State is representative of us. We want it to have a limited role in our lives, and one of those roles is carrying out public executions. Even with all its flaws, it is far more impartial then to have individuals carry out justice - since they are accountable to everyone. What are the devastating consequences from having an attitude of wanting to kill murderers? Why can't we cut costs by killing them off and freeing up our prisons? Why can't we do all of that and help the victims of crimes?

If I leave you one thing it is this:

    You take a life, you don't deserve to keep your own. It is that simple.


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jrjones9933
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04 Jun 2011, 3:17 pm

MarketAndChurch wrote:
jrjones9933 wrote:
@MarketAndChurch By your reasoning, then, everyone who uses a product bears responsibility for anyone killed in an industrial accident while working at a job manufacturing that product. I'd rather work for increased job safety than sit in a vigil, which I consider better suited to my skills, and prevent further deaths. Again, do you feel comfortable supporting a system where 78% of executions are for crimes against whites, and 13% are for crimes against blacks when the number of victims of each race is fairly equal?


If I understand you correctly, then I don't find that surprising. It is an ethnically white nation we live in... crimes are committed by and against the majority.

Clear now? Kill a white person, and you will more likely face the death penalty than if you kill a black person.

Stats and links to sources earlier in this thread, here.


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YourMother
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04 Jun 2011, 3:17 pm

John_Browning wrote:
I'm a big fan of the death penalty and I would like to see it use liberally for a wide variety of crimes as long as there is a really high standard of evidence. I'd like to see it used for most premeditated murders, sex crimes, robberies involving some sort of confrontation, anyone in the drug trade, most gang-related crimes, and making all illegal aliens who kill someone eligible for the death penalty regardless of circumstances. I also favor public executions (preferably at the scene of the crime when possible), I don't think that gas chambers and lethal injection are fitting for the crimes, and that we should use hanging, firing squads, and beheading. I also favor the use of chain gangs in place of longer sentences and corporal punishment in place of having crowded county jails. The biggest problem with the cost of capital punishment is the endless court appeal cases and holding them in a super high security cell block for 20+ years. By the time that a death penalty case goes through an appeal or two, it's usually pretty obvious that there's no reason for more unless they can submit new evidence. In old cases where DNA testing was not as available, such an appeal may have merit but that can be done in a local court. Taking it to the supreme court is usually a waste. Last of all, if one case is held up, that should not prevent others from going ahead of the people in front of them.


You're so...American.



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04 Jun 2011, 11:02 pm

If a rich person is killed, a "pillar of the community", the DA is far more likely to say "Someone must die for this", than if some derelict happens to be killed.



blauSamstag
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05 Jun 2011, 12:32 am

xenon13 wrote:
If a rich person is killed, a "pillar of the community", the DA is far more likely to say "Someone must die for this", than if some derelict happens to be killed.


Right. It's about revenge.

Revenge is BS. The victim cannot be made whole, so you should stop losing sleep over it.



DW
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05 Jun 2011, 3:02 am

I'm not gonna lie... I support the death penalty. As long as it is proved that the offender was not suffering (based on family history, etc) of some kind of condition that could somehow alter his reality, such as schizophrenia, the offender should be eligible to face the death penalty.