No argument is strong enough to convince me that people like Breivik or Joshua Komisarjevky do not deserve a death sentence for their depravity.
What I think you fail to grasp is that opposing the death penalty has very little to do with any compassion for the criminal. You can trot out case after case, after case, and depravity, after depravity, but it makes zero difference. Because what we're talking about here is the fact that society should not operate on the level of a murderer, and by snuffing out the lives of those it condemns, that's exactly what it's doing: committing murder. Opposition to the death penalty is not about people feeling sorry for somebody being executed, and about wishing to white-wash over whatever crime they may have committed. This boils down to a choice between wanting to live in a society that promotes blood-lust and killing as solutions to problems (i.e, reactions based on emotions, such as revenge), and a society that demonstrates that it values life above all else, and exists on a higher footing than that of emotions, violence, and murder. If the society you live in hopes to set an example for people that murder is wrong, and that violence shouldn't be used as a solution to lifes problems, then it should quit killing people in the name of justice. The death penalty brutalizes society by stepping onto the same playing field, and playing by the same rules, as those it seeks to punish. How does this benefit that society in the long term? It doesn't. It just creates a vicious circle.
Also, a life behind bars is a far worse punishment than a needle in the arm and a switching off of the lights. It forces the prisoner to have to live with the gravity of his crime for the rest of his life. And not only that, but it would free up millions of $$ which could be used to get more dangerous individuals off the streets.
So this just happened... http://gu.com/p/3nenq Exonerated after 30 years in prison, 25 on death row.
Lucky for Glenn Ford that America's capital "justice" system is even more incompetent, inefficient and dysfunctional than it used to be. Used to be that the average time on Death Row before the state got around to killing you was 12 years. At least this man only had 30 years of his life stolen from him instead of all of it. He could very easily be dead now, killed by the state for something he didn't do, and even though the state had clear reason to believe he was not guilty. Every time these cases crop up - and this is #144 - the already hopelessly threadbare "justifications" for the warped and ineffective perversion of justice that is the death penalty fall apart all the more.
The US death penalty system is a joke - discriminatory, arbitrary, inconsistent, incoherent and demonstrably ineffective in achieving its supposed aims. The notion that it apportions justice, that it effectively reduces crime, that it makes society safer than life imprisonment is nothing but so much self-deluding horseshit. If those who defend the death penalty would stop appealing only to moral outrage and revenge, and instead have sense enough to use reason and consider the actual objective facts, they would see what a complete and hopeless failure the death penalty is in terms of real justice.
It's time the US grew up and caught up with the rest of the developed democratic world in putting this worthless, backwards, ethically bankrupt practice behind it, and actually start dealing in something that can meaningfully and responsibly be called justice. Until then, the miscarriages of justice will just keep piling on up.
Death row inmate Glenn Ford released 30 years after wrongful conviction
Man found guilty of murder by all-white jury in deeply flawed trial had one of America’s longest-ever waits for exoneration
Ed Pilkington in New York theguardian.com, Wednesday 12 March 2014 06.36 GMT
Glenn Ford has been freed from the notorious Angola prison in Louisiana having lived under the shadow of the death sentence for 30 years. He becomes one of the longest-serving death row inmates in US history to be exonerated.
Ford was released on the order of a judge in Shreveport after Louisiana state prosecutors indicated they could no longer stand by his conviction. In late 2013 the state notified Ford’s lawyers that a confidential informant had come forward with new information implicating another man who had been among four co-defendants originally charged in the case.
He was sentenced to death in 1984 for the murder the previous November of Isadore Rozeman, an older white man who ran a Shreveport jewellery and watch repair shop. The defendant had worked as an odd jobs man for Rozeman. In interviews with police Ford said that he had been asked to pawn a .38 revolver and some jewellery similar to that taken from Rozeman’s shop at the time of the murder by another man who was among the initial suspects.
Asked as he walked away from the prison gates about his release, Ford told WAFB-TV, “It feels good; my mind is going in all kind of directions. It feels good.”
Ford said he did harbour some resentment at being wrongly jailed: “Yeah, cause I’ve been locked up almost 30 years for something I didn’t do.
“I can’t go back and do anything I should have been doing when I was 35, 38, 40 stuff like that.”
Ford’s conviction bears all the hallmarks of the glaring inconsistencies and inadequacies of the US justice system that are repeatedly found in cases of exoneration. The fact that despite serious qualms among top judges about his conviction this innocent man was kept on death row for so long is certain to be seized upon by anti-death penalty campaigners.
Among the many all too typical problems with his prosecution was the composition of the jury. An African American, Ford was sentenced to death by a jury that had been carefully selected by prosecutors to be exclusively white.
His legal representation at trial was woefully inexperienced. The lead defence counsel was a specialist in the law relating to oil and gas exploration and had never tried a case in front of a jury; the second attorney was two years out of law school and working at the time of the trial on small automobile accident insurance cases.
At the trial the state was unable to call any eyewitnesses to the crime, nor was it able to produce a murder weapon. Instead Ford was convicted largely on the testimony of a witness who was not a detached observer – she was the girlfriend of another man initially suspected of the murder.
Under cross-examination the witness, Marvella Brown, admitted in front of the jury that she had given false testimony. “I did lie to the court… I lied about it all,” she said.
In another classic element frequently found in exoneration cases, cod science provided by “expert” witnesses also helped to put Ford on death row. One such expert testified that the evidence pointed to the defendant because he was left-handed; another expert told the jury that particles of gunshot residue had been found on his hand; and a third talked about fingerprint evidence implicating him.
The testimony from all three expert witnesses was later shown to have been at best inconclusive, at worst wrong.
Ford continued to profess his innocence throughout the 30 years. In the appeal process that ensued, the Louisiana supreme court, the state’s highest legal panel, acknowledged that the evidence against him was “not overwhelming” and that the prosecution case was open to “serious questions”, yet it decided to keep him on death row.
More recently it emerged that state prosecutors had failed to disclose evidence to Ford’s legal team that could have been crucial in his defence. It included evidence from confidential informants pointing the finger at Ford’s co-defendants, who faced initial charges that were then dismissed as the prosecution bore down against the wrong man.
In a statement Ford’s current lawyers, Gary Clements and Aaron Novod, said they were pleased by the exoneration. “We are particularly grateful that the prosecution and the court moved ahead so decisively to set Mr Ford free.”
Ford becomes the 144th death row inmate to be exonerated over the past four decades.
(emphasis mine)
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93: Slane
96: Cork, Dublin
00: Dublin
06: London, Dublin
07: London, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
09: Manchester, London
10: Dublin, Belfast, London & Berlin
11: San José
12: Isle of Wight, Copenhagen, Ed in Manchester & London x2
I hear people say that the DP can be made cheaper and more efficient. That's ridiculous. If you saw this line form Byrnzie's article --"Meanwhile, according to Amnesty International, more than 130 death row inmates have been released because of wrongful convictions since 1973" -- you'd realize that it should be expensive. Appeals should be in order. Innocents should never be executed. It has to be expensive to help eliminate ridiculous mistakes.
Can you imagine if they hurried things up and didnt allow appeals? 130 innocent men/women wouldve been killed by our government because of shitty law practices.
I've said before, the prospect of executing an innocent man is the strongest argument against the DP- one that is hard to refute.
And the following fact doesn't enter into your calculations?
'According to the Death Penalty Information Center, between 1990 and 2010, the murder rate in states that don’t have the death penalty was consistently lower than the murder rate in states that have the death penalty.'
No.
Byrnzie, geezuz man. There might be a correlation there, but I've painfully detailed to you the fact that drawing any conclusions- either for or against the DP serving as a deterrent- is impossible given it's very rare application (0.0007% of the time).
But if you insist on going there:
Bronx just offered a piece that detailed China's liberal usage of the DP. And, wouldn't you know it? China's murder rate was nearly the lowest in the world, well below countries such as Japan and Switzerland, according to statistics from the Ministry of Public Security, the People's Daily reported Tuesday. China's homicide rate stands at 0.8 cases per 100,000 people.
One country employs the DP with great frequency and nearly has the lowest homicide rate in the world. Another country rarely uses it (0.0007% of the time)... and enjoys a homicide rate 6X greater,
I've said before, the prospect of executing an innocent man is the strongest argument against the DP- one that is hard to refute.
And the following fact doesn't enter into your calculations?
'According to the Death Penalty Information Center, between 1990 and 2010, the murder rate in states that don’t have the death penalty was consistently lower than the murder rate in states that have the death penalty.'
No.
Byrnzie, geezuz man. There might be a correlation there, but I've painfully detailed to you the fact that drawing any conclusions- either for or against the DP serving as a deterrent- is impossible given it's very rare application (0.0007% of the time).
But if you insist on going there:
Bronx just offered a piece that detailed China's liberal usage of the DP. And, wouldn't you know it? China's murder rate was nearly the lowest in the world, well below countries such as Japan and Switzerland, according to statistics from the Ministry of Public Security, the People's Daily reported Tuesday. China's homicide rate stands at 0.8 cases per 100,000 people.
One country employs the DP with great frequency and nearly has the lowest homicide rate in the world. Another country rarely uses it (0.0007% of the time)... and enjoys a homicide rate 6X greater,
Hmmmm? Interesting.
It might be interesting if you were able to demonstrate evidence that the only limiting factor in curtailing China's homicide rate is the presence of the threat of execution.
Aside from that, considering the enormous societal differences between the US and China and the fact that the death penalty is on the cards in China for 54 other offences, from producing counterfeit medicine on up, I don't think it's particularly likely that you're going to be able to nail down such a simple and direct correlation to make that a valid analogy. It's hardly a case of "all other things being equal."
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96: Cork, Dublin
00: Dublin
06: London, Dublin
07: London, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
09: Manchester, London
10: Dublin, Belfast, London & Berlin
11: San José
12: Isle of Wight, Copenhagen, Ed in Manchester & London x2
One country employs the DP with great frequency and nearly has the lowest homicide rate in the world. Another country rarely uses it (0.0007% of the time)... and enjoys a homicide rate 6X greater,
Hmmmm? Interesting.
As Wolf said, there's no comparison. The majority of those executed aren't executed for committing violent crimes, which is a rarity in this country, but for anything from tax evasion, to 'subversion of State power' (I.e, upsetting those in authority), and a long list of petty crimes, including minor drug offenses. The low homicide rate in China has nothing to do with any deterrence effect from the application of the death penalty.
One country employs the DP with great frequency and nearly has the lowest homicide rate in the world. Another country rarely uses it (0.0007% of the time)... and enjoys a homicide rate 6X greater,
Hmmmm? Interesting.
As Wolf said, there's no comparison. The majority of those executed aren't executed for committing violent crimes, which is a rarity in this country, but for anything from tax evasion, to 'subversion of State power' (I.e, upsetting those in authority), and a long list of petty crimes, including minor drug offenses. The low homicide rate in China has nothing to do with any deterrence effect from the application of the death penalty.
I wouldn't be so sure of that. The threat of a strong-armed judicial system may very well have some influence on the homicide rate- it's remarkably low. You haven't offered alternative reasons for the remarkably low homicide rate when discounting the possibility that the heavy hand of the law might have a part in it.
I offered the comparison because it is at least as strong as some of the unsubstantiated assertions you continue to make that have no legitimate statistical backing (as expressed by the scientific community after comprehensive review).
One country employs the DP with great frequency and nearly has the lowest homicide rate in the world. Another country rarely uses it (0.0007% of the time)... and enjoys a homicide rate 6X greater,
Hmmmm? Interesting.
As Wolf said, there's no comparison. The majority of those executed aren't executed for committing violent crimes, which is a rarity in this country, but for anything from tax evasion, to 'subversion of State power' (I.e, upsetting those in authority), and a long list of petty crimes, including minor drug offenses. The low homicide rate in China has nothing to do with any deterrence effect from the application of the death penalty.
I wouldn't be so sure of that. The threat of a strong-armed judicial system may very well have some influence on the homicide rate- it's remarkably low. You haven't offered alternative reasons for the remarkably low homicide rate when discounting the possibility that the heavy hand of the law might have a part in it.
I offered the comparison because it is at least as strong as some of the unsubstantiated assertions you continue to make that have no legitimate statistical backing (as expressed by the scientific community after comprehensive review).
With all due respect, it's nowhere near as strong. The studies might not be conclusive but they are at least based upon large amounts of research. Just because they are not conclusive, does not mean everything in them can just be discounted out of hand.
In comparison, your point is simply speculation without any research or evidence to support it and based on cherrypicking a single factor and ignoring all others.
By the way, you seem to have accidentally ascribed your words to me...
Post edited by wolfamongwolves on
93: Slane
96: Cork, Dublin
00: Dublin
06: London, Dublin
07: London, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
09: Manchester, London
10: Dublin, Belfast, London & Berlin
11: San José
12: Isle of Wight, Copenhagen, Ed in Manchester & London x2
No argument is strong enough to convince me that people like Breivik or Joshua Komisarjevky do not deserve a death sentence for their depravity.
Also, a life behind bars is a far worse punishment than a needle in the arm and a switching off of the lights. It forces the prisoner to have to live with the gravity of his crime for the rest of his life. And not only that, but it would free up millions of $$ which could be used to get more dangerous individuals off the streets.
Yah. Brevik is really remorseful right now. You can tell by the way he's threatening a hunger strike because his game modem is outdated and he doesn't get his choice of video games and that his allowance is not enough and... and...
In a recent post I acknowledged that Stephen Hayes is a remorseful type, but he's a rarity. Most of the losers on death row care very little for the people rotting in pieces, in the ground, at their hands- they care about themselves and thankfully for them, despite the fact that you suggest otherwise, there are others that care for them as well.
Justice for 77 people gunned down as a madman played real life video game is not affording their murderer a country club experience and a university degree on the taxpayers' dime. This doesn't make us 'enlightened' and 'sophisticated'... this makes us soft. We don't ask to deal with these events- we are forced to deal with them. Given such... the punishment should fit the crime.
Everywhere I look in society we have lowered the bar and consequences and look at how our society has degenerated. For example, in schools, kids now cannot receive late marks because it is not a true indication of their level of achievement. In other words, measure the learning outcomes and not the process. Heaven forbid a kid gets a zero for not turning an assignment in on time. While some kids legitimately need more time to complete assignments, many others, who do not need it, take the time anyways and submit pieces of crap well after the deadline. The nice sounding concept, in effect, has resulted in many kids taking the path of least resistance knowing full well the consequences for doing so are... nothing.
On the larger scale, look at our governments and how they conduct themselves with impunity.
Standard operating procedure for mankind: do what the fuck you want because really... who's going to do anything about it and what are they going to do if they bother?
We will never solve murder. There are serial murderers conducting their business right now. As we speak, someone is at the hands of some sick lunatic and as they are in their final moments... they can take some comfort in knowing that, with any luck, their captor will get caught and they will be forced to eat three squares a day, play outdated PS3s and sub-rate video games, earn a pension, get an allowance, and access internet and fan mail.
Tell them that's justice. You might feel better that we've taken the high road... but I can pretty much assure you the victims wouldn't be feeling the same way.
One country employs the DP with great frequency and nearly has the lowest homicide rate in the world. Another country rarely uses it (0.0007% of the time)... and enjoys a homicide rate 6X greater,
Hmmmm? Interesting.
As Wolf said, there's no comparison. The majority of those executed aren't executed for committing violent crimes, which is a rarity in this country, but for anything from tax evasion, to 'subversion of State power' (I.e, upsetting those in authority), and a long list of petty crimes, including minor drug offenses. The low homicide rate in China has nothing to do with any deterrence effect from the application of the death penalty.
I wouldn't be so sure of that. The threat of a strong-armed judicial system may very well have some influence on the homicide rate- it's remarkably low. You haven't offered alternative reasons for the remarkably low homicide rate when discounting the possibility that the heavy hand of the law might have a part in it.
I offered the comparison because it is at least as strong as some of the unsubstantiated assertions you continue to make that have no legitimate statistical backing (as expressed by the scientific community after comprehensive review).
With all due respect, it's nowhere near as strong. The studies might not be conclusive but they are at least based upon large amounts of research. Just because they are not conclusive, does not mean everything in them can just be discounted out of hand.
In comparison, your point is simply speculation without any research or evidence to support it and based on cherrypicking a single factor and ignoring all others.
By the way, you seem to have accidentally ascribed your words to me...
Large amounts of research? What research? Have you been following? There is no credible research either for or against the DP serving as a deterrent. Surveys that ask what your hunch is do not count. This has been established by a community much smarter than you or I. The 'deterrent' argument is moot, but if one side insists on serving up ideas that support it... then the other can do so just as easily. And this has just been done.
No argument is strong enough to convince me that people like Breivik or Joshua Komisarjevky do not deserve a death sentence for their depravity.
Also, a life behind bars is a far worse punishment than a needle in the arm and a switching off of the lights. It forces the prisoner to have to live with the gravity of his crime for the rest of his life. And not only that, but it would free up millions of $$ which could be used to get more dangerous individuals off the streets.
Yah. Brevik is really remorseful right now. You can tell by the way he's threatening a hunger strike because his game modem is outdated and he doesn't get his choice of video games and that his allowance is not enough and... and...
In a recent post I acknowledged that Stephen Hayes is a remorseful type, but he's a rarity. Most of the losers on death row care very little for the people rotting in pieces, in the ground, at their hands- they care about themselves and thankfully for them, despite the fact that you suggest otherwise, there are others that care for them as well.
Justice for 77 people gunned down as a madman played real life video game is not affording their murderer a country club experience and a university degree on the taxpayers' dime. This doesn't make us 'enlightened' and 'sophisticated'... this makes us soft. We don't ask to deal with these events- we are forced to deal with them. Given such... the punishment should fit the crime.
Everywhere I look in society we have lowered the bar and consequences and look at how our society has degenerated. For example, in schools, kids now cannot receive late marks because it is not a true indication of their level of achievement. In other words, measure the learning outcomes and not the process. Heaven forbid a kid gets a zero for not turning an assignment in on time. While some kids legitimately need more time to complete assignments, many others, who do not need it, take the time anyways and submit pieces of crap well after the deadline. The nice sounding concept, in effect, has resulted in many kids taking the path of least resistance knowing full well the consequences for doing so are... nothing.
On the larger scale, look at our governments and how they conduct themselves with impunity.
Standard operating procedure for mankind: do what the fuck you want because really... who's going to do anything about it and what are they going to do if they bother?
We will never solve murder. There are serial murderers conducting their business right now. As we speak, someone is at the hands of some sick lunatic and as they are in their final moments... they can take some comfort in knowing that, with any luck, their captor will get caught and they will be forced to eat three squares a day, play outdated PS3s and sub-rate video games, earn a pension, get an allowance, and access internet and fan mail.
Tell them that's justice. You might feel better that we've taken the high road... but I can pretty much assure you the victims wouldn't be feeling the same way.
Thirty: I don't question the honesty of the outrage that you feel, and certainly not the outrage and grief that the victims' families must feel. But - and I've made this point over and over and over again - it is not ethically or logically valid to base a penal system on the outrage that we feel. That is not 'enlightened' and 'sophisticated'. And it is most definitely not just.
Nor does it make a society "soft" to not stoop to the easy reaction of killing its own citizens - it makes its claim to enacting true justice far stronger. It makes that society more civilised and more ethical, more advanced and more effective at handling crime. The evidence for that fact is all around you in the majority of other countries that have abolished the death penalty and still maintained functioning societies with lower levels of violence than yours.
Also, though you may think the nature of Brevik's incarceration is unfair - and maybe it is - and you may be outraged at his arrogance (as am I) - but it is a false conclusion from deeply specious reasoning to say that it is therefore justifiable to kill him. That just doesn't follow, and once again illustrates the inescapable fallacy in thinking it is justice to act on our outrage instead of on our reason.
You're right that we'll never "solve murder". But adding to the stack of bodies is going to get you further from that, not closer.
Post edited by wolfamongwolves on
93: Slane
96: Cork, Dublin
00: Dublin
06: London, Dublin
07: London, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
09: Manchester, London
10: Dublin, Belfast, London & Berlin
11: San José
12: Isle of Wight, Copenhagen, Ed in Manchester & London x2
No argument is strong enough to convince me that people like Breivik or Joshua Komisarjevky do not deserve a death sentence for their depravity.
Tell them that's justice. You might feel better that we've taken the high road... but I can pretty much assure you the victims wouldn't be feeling the same way.
Thirty: I don't question the honesty of the outrage that you feel, and certainly not the outrage and grief that the victims' families must feel. But - and I've made this point over and over and over again - it is not ethically or logically valid to base a penal system on the outrage that we feel. That is not 'enlightened' and 'sophisticated'. And it is most definitely not just.
Nor does it make a society "soft" to not stoop to the easy reaction of killing its own citizens - it makes its claim to enacting true justice far stronger. It makes that society more civilised and more ethical, more advanced and more effective at handling crime. The evidence for that fact is all around you in the majority of other countries that have abolished the death penalty and still maintained functioning societies with lower levels of violence than yours.
Also, though you may think the nature of Brevik's incarceration is unfair - and maybe it is - and you may be outraged at his arrogance (as am I) - but it is a false conclusion from deeply specious reasoning to say that it is therefore justifiable to kill him. That just doesn't follow, and once again illustrates the inescapable mistake in thinking it is justice to act on our outrage instead of on our reason.
You're right that we'll never "solve murder". But adding to the stack of bodies is going to get you further from that, not closer.
When you say most definitely not just... I disagree. I feel it is.
When you say The evidence for that fact is all around you in the majority of other countries that have abolished the death penalty and still maintained functioning societies with lower levels of violence than yours... you obviously mean except for China.
When you say Nor does it make a society "soft" to not stoop to the easy reaction of killing its own citizens... I say it's not an easy reaction. it's a very hard one.
When you say adding to the stack of bodies is going to get you further from that, not closer... I feel such an attitude doesn't truly address the problem thrust upon us.
Bottom line for me: leave other people alone. If you leave other people's kids alone... you don't have to worry about getting executed. If you simply cannot refrain from murdering children... then sorry, you shouldn't be expecting anything from anyone- you are lower than filth.
Other bottom line: I respect your and other's opinions that are contrary to mine. We are not the bad folk. For the time being, I'm stuck with my beliefs, whether right or wrong. I haven't heard or read anything that makes me think a few of the individuals we have used as examples are worth saving because of what they have done.
Large amounts of research? What research? Have you been following? There is no credible research either for or against the DP serving as a deterrent. Surveys that ask what your hunch is do not count. This has been established by a community much smarter than you or I. The 'deterrent' argument is moot, but if one side insists on serving up ideas that support it... then the other can do so just as easily. And this has just been done.
Obviously you've missed the point. There are many studies that have been done, even if they have proven inconclusive. That the meta-study concludes that those studies do not show conclusively whether there is a deterrent effect does not mean that research was not done. It certainly doesn't meant that the extent of the research of all of those studies amounted to nothing more than "what is your hunch?" That is a ridiculous and unrealistic oversimplification. The lack of conclusive outcomes does not make research completely invalid, it only makes it inconclusive.
So I'll say it again: speculation without any support whatsoever on what "may very well have an influence" (to use your words) is nowhere remotely as strong as extrapolating from inconclusive research. Neither are definitive, granted, but to claim that your speculation is "at least as strong" is nonsensical.
Post edited by wolfamongwolves on
93: Slane
96: Cork, Dublin
00: Dublin
06: London, Dublin
07: London, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
09: Manchester, London
10: Dublin, Belfast, London & Berlin
11: San José
12: Isle of Wight, Copenhagen, Ed in Manchester & London x2
Large amounts of research? What research? Have you been following? There is no credible research either for or against the DP serving as a deterrent. Surveys that ask what your hunch is do not count. This has been established by a community much smarter than you or I. The 'deterrent' argument is moot, but if one side insists on serving up ideas that support it... then the other can do so just as easily. And this has just been done.
Obviously you've missed the point. There are many studies that have been done, even if they have proven inconclusive. That the meta-study concludes that those studies do not show conclusively whether there is a deterrent effect does not mean that research was not done. It certainly doesn't meant that the extent of the research of all of those studies amounted to nothing more than "what is your hunch?" That is a ridiculous and unrealistic oversimplification. The lack of conclusive outcomes does not make research completely invalid, it only makes it inconclusive.
So I'll say it again: speculation without any support whatsoever on what "may very well have an influence" (to use your words) is nowhere remotely as strong as extrapolating from inconclusive research. Neither are definitive, granted, but to claim that your speculation is "at least as strong" is nonsensical.
I haven't missed anything. I guess I should have prefaced 'research' with valid.
Why should I be forced to accept extrapolation from inconclusive evidence, while at the same time having any point offered to the contrary scoffed at?
And 'nonsensical' is a little strong in dismissing a legitimate point. Can we so easily dismiss the notion that China's heavy-handed approach to punishment has a bearing on it's extremely low homicide rate? Are you sure it's usage of the DP has 'nothing' to do with a homicide rate 6X lower than the US? I'm not necessarily saying it does, but I'm not inclined to say it doesn't either just because it fits my belief system.
No argument is strong enough to convince me that people like Breivik or Joshua Komisarjevky do not deserve a death sentence for their depravity.
Tell them that's justice. You might feel better that we've taken the high road... but I can pretty much assure you the victims wouldn't be feeling the same way.
Thirty: I don't question the honesty of the outrage that you feel, and certainly not the outrage and grief that the victims' families must feel. But - and I've made this point over and over and over again - it is not ethically or logically valid to base a penal system on the outrage that we feel. That is not 'enlightened' and 'sophisticated'. And it is most definitely not just.
Nor does it make a society "soft" to not stoop to the easy reaction of killing its own citizens - it makes its claim to enacting true justice far stronger. It makes that society more civilised and more ethical, more advanced and more effective at handling crime. The evidence for that fact is all around you in the majority of other countries that have abolished the death penalty and still maintained functioning societies with lower levels of violence than yours.
Also, though you may think the nature of Brevik's incarceration is unfair - and maybe it is - and you may be outraged at his arrogance (as am I) - but it is a false conclusion from deeply specious reasoning to say that it is therefore justifiable to kill him. That just doesn't follow, and once again illustrates the inescapable mistake in thinking it is justice to act on our outrage instead of on our reason.
You're right that we'll never "solve murder". But adding to the stack of bodies is going to get you further from that, not closer.
When you say most definitely not just... I disagree. I feel it is.
And I've repeatedly pointed, justice by definition must be dispassionate, objective, equitable and impartial. (Hence the blindfold and the scales) If subjectivity - feelings, passion, moral outrage, disgust - are part of the deciding factors in a penal system, then it is not - by definition - justice.
This is not opinion. This is linguistic and legal fact, whether or not you disagree.
When you say The evidence for that fact is all around you in the majority of other countries that have abolished the death penalty and still maintained functioning societies with lower levels of violence than yours... you obviously mean except for China.
China is not a country that has abolished the death penalty. It's not one of the countries I'm talking about.
When you say Nor does it make a society "soft" to not stoop to the easy reaction of killing its own citizens... I say it's not an easy reaction. it's a very hard one.
well, I think it's always going to be easier - and weaker - to react with anger than it is to have the strength to rise above your anger and act with reason.
When you say adding to the stack of bodies is going to get you further from that, not closer... I feel such an attitude doesn't truly address the problem thrust upon us.
Nor do I think that a system that kills killers is addressing the problem, but rather contributing to it. What sense, reason, coherence or logic is there in a system built on the notion that "When you kill me, it is the most abhorrently immoral thing you can do. But when we kill you it is noble and moral and just"?!
Bottom line for me: leave other people alone. If you leave other people's kids alone... you don't have to worry about getting executed. If you simply cannot refrain from murdering children... then sorry, you shouldn't be expecting anything from anyone- you are lower than filth.
Bottom line for me is, even if I consider someone who killed someone else to be lower than filth, even if I in my horror and grief think they are a monster and deserve to die, that still doesn't give me any right to kill them, no more than they had any right to kill.
Other bottom line: I respect your and other's opinions that are contrary to mine. We are not the bad folk. For the time being, I'm stuck with my beliefs, whether right or wrong. I haven't heard or read anything that makes me think a few of the individuals we have used as examples are worth saving because of what they have done.
I don't think you're a bad person either, and you wouldn't think or say the things you say unless you felt passionately about them. However, my other bottom line is this: whether you are a murdering individual or a state or national government, if it is not 100% necessary for you to kill a person, you have zero right to kill that person - regardless of their actions. In fifty pages of this thread, in example after example of horrendous crimes, I still have not seen a single post that presents a situation where no alternative but execution was available - not one person has presented a single true scenario where killing a prisoner was 100% necessary. More than that, cosidering that the great majority of countries on the planet have successfully abolished the death penalty without noticeable consequence, it can only reasonably be concluded that the death penalty is not by any means 100% necessary. It is therefore unnecessary. My bottom line is that that makes it logically and morally impossible to kill someone and call it justice.
And a last word; as long as the kind of situation which I posted earlier can happen - a situation that for nothing robbed Glenn Ford of thirty years of his life (and could very easily have robbed him of his whole life for nothing) - then the capital system is dysfunctional and not fit for purpose. It is a warped and shameful abuse, affront and mockery of the very notion of justice.
Post edited by wolfamongwolves on
93: Slane
96: Cork, Dublin
00: Dublin
06: London, Dublin
07: London, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
09: Manchester, London
10: Dublin, Belfast, London & Berlin
11: San José
12: Isle of Wight, Copenhagen, Ed in Manchester & London x2
Had a couple more crime labs in US investigated due to contamination/shoddy work. Our crime lab in Houston was shut down for a while due to bad work.
Though I shouldn't, read all the local news..and daily some scumbag shoots and kills someone. Texas executes more people than any other state yet criminals are killing as they always have. Is this scientific...no...absolutely not but doubt seriously that the DP stops these idiots from killing. Now easy access to guns does.
Also have lots of crooked cops...every month or so have a Houston area cop busted for something or another. Trust them...hell no.
And I know we've hashed this out over and over but Wollf readdressed above.....killing is wrong period. It is not a means to fix anything..it cannot be viewed as a solution to a problem.. If the state is okay to do that then we as a socieety tell one another killing is just for some things..and its not. We ahve to stop the cycle. Lock em up for life....give em just enoght creature comforts to limit expense...how is this not a reasonable solution?
Glenn Ford's case (and other similar cases) speak exclusively to the investigative and judicial processes that find innocent people guilty of crimes they did not commit than they do of the 'punishment' (whether death or life in prison) after having been found guilty.
I'm not saying it is something we should not consider as a safeguard for the inherent flaws in the aforementioned processes- I'm saying it bears no weight when considering the appropriateness or morality of the penalty itself.
Glenn Ford's case (and other similar cases) speak exclusively to the investigative and judicial processes that find innocent people guilty of crimes they did not commit than they do of the 'punishment' (whether death or life in prison) after having been found guilty.
I'm not saying it is something we should not consider as a safeguard for the inherent flaws in the aforementioned processes- I'm saying it bears no weight when considering the appropriateness or morality of the penalty itself.
Oh come off it, Thirty! Do you really think the investigative and judicial processes are isolated from the ethical considerations of a judicial system that seeking to execute those investigated and tried by those processes?! They are inextricably intertwined and they actively contribute to the wider questions of the morality of the penalty. To use Glenn Ford's case as an example, it is the investigative and judicial processes that sought the death penalty for him, that actively sought an all-white jury, that propagates a capricious system in which a black man is far more likely to be killed for the same crime as a white man, that disregarded falsified testimony, that provided him with hopelessly unqualified legal support, that continued to seek his execution despite severe questions over.his guilt. The staggering injustice of all of these investigative and judicial processes contribute enormously to the wider reasons for the moral and legal legitimacy of state-sanctioned killing. To suggest they are "exclusive", that they are somehow not connected, to say they "bear no weight" to the overall ethical question of the penalty itself is as hopelessly naive as it is flatly false.
93: Slane
96: Cork, Dublin
00: Dublin
06: London, Dublin
07: London, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
09: Manchester, London
10: Dublin, Belfast, London & Berlin
11: San José
12: Isle of Wight, Copenhagen, Ed in Manchester & London x2
Glenn Ford's case (and other similar cases) speak exclusively to the investigative and judicial processes that find innocent people guilty of crimes they did not commit than they do of the 'punishment' (whether death or life in prison) after having been found guilty.
I'm not saying it is something we should not consider as a safeguard for the inherent flaws in the aforementioned processes- I'm saying it bears no weight when considering the appropriateness or morality of the penalty itself.
Oh come off it, Thirty! Do you really think the investigative and judicial processes are isolated from the ethical considerations of a judicial system that seeking to execute those investigated and tried by those processes?! They are inextricably intertwined and they actively contribute to the wider questions of the morality of the penalty. To use Glenn Ford's case as an example, it is the investigative and judicial processes that sought the death penalty for him, that actively sought an all-white jury, that propagates a capricious system in which a black man is far more likely to be killed for the same crime as a white man, that disregarded falsified testimony, that provided him with hopelessly unqualified legal support, that continued to seek his execution despite severe questions over.his guilt. The staggering injustice of all of these investigative and judicial processes contribute enormously to the wider reasons for the moral and legal legitimacy of state-sanctioned killing. To suggest they are "exclusive", that they are somehow not connected, to say they "bear no weight" to the overall ethical question of the penalty itself is as hopelessly naive as it is flatly false.
What are you saying here?
Are you saying that only the judicial system interested in executing a man operates unethically to achieve their end result? Are you implying judicial systems interested in incarcerating a man for the remainder of his life have not operated with similar unethical methodology to achieve their end?
The investigative and judicial processes that sought the death penalty for him (Ford) were unethical tactics employed to establish him as 'guilty'. States have differing viewpoints on what justice should look like for some murderers, but they have similar examples of blatantly corrupt tactics to see some cases brought to closure- whether that means life in prison or execution. Both sentences are intertwined to the processes that lead a man to them somewhat- it's not strictly the death penalty that is in question given the imperfect systems allowed to occur prior to issuing such a sentence.
As such, the innocent man in jail or the innocent man on death row are victims of these processes I speak to much more than they are the punishments that await them after the fact.
Glenn Ford's case (and other similar cases) speak exclusively to the investigative and judicial processes that find innocent people guilty of crimes they did not commit than they do of the 'punishment' (whether death or life in prison) after having been found guilty.
I'm not saying it is something we should not consider as a safeguard for the inherent flaws in the aforementioned processes- I'm saying it bears no weight when considering the appropriateness or morality of the penalty itself.
Oh come off it, Thirty! Do you really think the investigative and judicial processes are isolated from the ethical considerations of a judicial system that seeking to execute those investigated and tried by those processes?! They are inextricably intertwined and they actively contribute to the wider questions of the morality of the penalty. To use Glenn Ford's case as an example, it is the investigative and judicial processes that sought the death penalty for him, that actively sought an all-white jury, that propagates a capricious system in which a black man is far more likely to be killed for the same crime as a white man, that disregarded falsified testimony, that provided him with hopelessly unqualified legal support, that continued to seek his execution despite severe questions over.his guilt. The staggering injustice of all of these investigative and judicial processes contribute enormously to the wider reasons for the moral and legal legitimacy of state-sanctioned killing. To suggest they are "exclusive", that they are somehow not connected, to say they "bear no weight" to the overall ethical question of the penalty itself is as hopelessly naive as it is flatly false.
What are you saying here?
Are you saying that only the judicial system interested in executing a man operates unethically to achieve their end result? Are you implying judicial systems interested in incarcerating a man for the remainder of his life have not operated with similar unethical methodology to achieve their end?
No, of course I'm not saying that, and I'm at a loss to see how on earth you could have concluded anything of the sort from anything I said.
Nevertheless, it's completely beside the point, and makes no difference whatsoever to my point. Whether or not similar flaws also exist in other areas of the justice system does not excuse or justify them existing in the capital system. Your point is irrelevant, and in any case ignores the infinitely more serious and uniquely irreversible consequence - death - that result in the capital system from those flaws.
The investigative and judicial processes that sought the death penalty for him (Ford) were unethical tactics employed to establish him as 'guilty'. States have differing viewpoints on what justice should look like for some murderers, but they have similar examples of blatantly corrupt tactics to see some cases brought to closure- whether that means life in prison or execution. Both sentences are intertwined to the processes that lead a man to them somewhat- it's not strictly the death penalty that is in question given the imperfect systems allowed to occur prior to issuing such a sentence.
As such, the innocent man in jail or the innocent man on death row are victims of these processes I speak to much more than they are the punishments that await them after the fact.
I'm sorry, but this is still nonsense. It is just not valid to try and divorce the judicial system from the penal system as though the left hand does not wash the right hand. They are connected elements of the same system. Cases are tried as capital cases with the potential of the death penalty implicit - or even explicit - in the trial. It is simply not true to suggest it only becomes an issue at sentencing.
Furthermore, while you are right that both penalties are intertwined and it is not strictly the DP that defines the ethics of the process, it's again putting the cart before the horse and as such makes no difference to my point. The fact still remains that unethical processes that deny a person a fair trial, that discriminate, that ignore key evidence and allow false evidence are all elements in why executing someone is unethical and unjust. There are other elements beyond the processes that also affect the ethics of the penalty, but - I'll say it again because my point still stands - it is false and naive to suggest that the failures in the processes do not contribute to the overall ethical failure in the death penalty itself.
Post edited by wolfamongwolves on
93: Slane
96: Cork, Dublin
00: Dublin
06: London, Dublin
07: London, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
09: Manchester, London
10: Dublin, Belfast, London & Berlin
11: San José
12: Isle of Wight, Copenhagen, Ed in Manchester & London x2
Glenn Ford's case (and other similar cases) speak exclusively to the investigative and judicial processes that find innocent people guilty of crimes they did not commit than they do of the 'punishment' (whether death or life in prison) after having been found guilty.
I'm not saying it is something we should not consider as a safeguard for the inherent flaws in the aforementioned processes- I'm saying it bears no weight when considering the appropriateness or morality of the penalty itself.
Oh come off it, Thirty! Do you really think the investigative and judicial processes are isolated from the ethical considerations of a judicial system that seeking to execute those investigated and tried by those processes?! They are inextricably intertwined and they actively contribute to the wider questions of the morality of the penalty. To use Glenn Ford's case as an example, it is the investigative and judicial processes that sought the death penalty for him, that actively sought an all-white jury, that propagates a capricious system in which a black man is far more likely to be killed for the same crime as a white man, that disregarded falsified testimony, that provided him with hopelessly unqualified legal support, that continued to seek his execution despite severe questions over.his guilt. The staggering injustice of all of these investigative and judicial processes contribute enormously to the wider reasons for the moral and legal legitimacy of state-sanctioned killing. To suggest they are "exclusive", that they are somehow not connected, to say they "bear no weight" to the overall ethical question of the penalty itself is as hopelessly naive as it is flatly false.
What are you saying here?
Are you saying that only the judicial system interested in executing a man operates unethically to achieve their end result? Are you implying judicial systems interested in incarcerating a man for the remainder of his life have not operated with similar unethical methodology to achieve their end?
No, of course I'm not saying that, and I'm at a loss to see how on earth you could have concluded anything of the sort from anything I said.
Nevertheless, it's completely beside the point, and makes no difference whatsoever to my point. Whether or not similar flaws also exist in other areas of the justice system does not excuse or justify them existing in the capital system. Your point is irrelevant, and in any case ignores the infinitely more serious and uniquely irreversible consequence - death - that result in the capital system from those flaws.
The investigative and judicial processes that sought the death penalty for him (Ford) were unethical tactics employed to establish him as 'guilty'. States have differing viewpoints on what justice should look like for some murderers, but they have similar examples of blatantly corrupt tactics to see some cases brought to closure- whether that means life in prison or execution. Both sentences are intertwined to the processes that lead a man to them somewhat- it's not strictly the death penalty that is in question given the imperfect systems allowed to occur prior to issuing such a sentence.
As such, the innocent man in jail or the innocent man on death row are victims of these processes I speak to much more than they are the punishments that await them after the fact.
I'm sorry, but this is still nonsense. It is just not valid to try and divorce the judicial system from the penal system as though the left hand does not wash the right hand. They are connected elements of the same system. Cases are tried as capital cases with the potential of the death penalty implicit - or even explicit - in the trial. It is simply not true to suggest it only becomes an issue at sentencing.
Furthermore, while you are right that both penalties are intertwined and it is not strictly the DP that defines the ethics of the process, it's again putting the cart before the horse and as such makes no difference to my point. The fact still remains that unethical processes that deny a person a fair trial, that discriminate, that ignore key evidence and allow false evidence are all elements in why executing someone is unethical and unjust. There are other elements beyond the processes that also affect the ethics of the penalty, but - I'll say it again because my point still stands - it is false and naive to suggest that the failures in the processes do not contribute to the overall ethical failure in the death penalty itself.
Forgive me for not following your writing efforts as efficiently as some others might. Among the various idioms, dramatics, and efforts to paint me the moron... I believe you might have said something along the lines of:
The unethical processes that deny a person a fair trial, that discriminate, that ignore key evidence and allow false evidence leave the death penalty in a precarious position. If this is what you have said, I'd tend to agree with you. I said as much in an earlier post.
I believe you might also be saying something like the death penalty is (excuse my own idiom) 'part in parcel' with malicious investigative and trial processes that ultimately places the death penalty under the same microscope as the investigative and trial efforts. If this is what you have said, I choose to disagree with you. I think malicious investigate and trial work does not place the death penalty on trial- it places malicious investigative and trial work on trial.
I think I have been respectful to this point in time, but when you begin to use words such as 'nonsense' and 'naïve' in your responses to me... I begin to bare my fangs as well. Trust me when I say I accept some of the things you say even though they are not even remotely close to my way of thinking. I don't, however, attempt to belittle you when I challenge them. In fact, it is my opinion that once a person begins to resort to such tactics... well... I'll leave it at that.
One country employs the DP with great frequency and nearly has the lowest homicide rate in the world. Another country rarely uses it (0.0007% of the time)... and enjoys a homicide rate 6X greater,
Hmmmm? Interesting.
As Wolf said, there's no comparison.The majority of those executed aren't executed for committing violent crimes, which is a rarity in this country, but for anything from tax evasion, to 'subversion of State power' (I.e, upsetting those in authority), and a long list of petty crimes, including minor drug offenses. The low homicide rate in China has nothing to do with any deterrence effect from the application of the death penalty.
In 2012, an estimated 14,827 persons were murdered in the United States. This was a 1.1 percent increase from the 2011 estimate, but a 9.9 percent decrease from the 2008 figure, and a 10.3 percent drop from the number in 2003
China’s statistics bureau does not disclose which crimes are included in its murder data. Chinese scholars say that a single case might include several deaths, and that some killings which occur in the course of other violent crimes such as rape or robbery might be excluded. In a 2006 report, the World Health Organisation estimated that in 2002, when 26,300 murder cases were recorded in China, 38,000 people died from “homicide-related injuries”.
I offered the comparison because it is at least as strong as some of the unsubstantiated assertions you continue to make that have no legitimate statistical backing (as expressed by the scientific community after comprehensive review).
Th scientific community? What scientific community? Wasn't your 'study' taken from a blog?
In 2012, an estimated 14,827 persons were murdered in the United States. This was a 1.1 percent increase from the 2011 estimate, but a 9.9 percent decrease from the 2008 figure, and a 10.3 percent drop from the number in 2003
China’s statistics bureau does not disclose which crimes are included in its murder data. Chinese scholars say that a single case might include several deaths, and that some killings which occur in the course of other violent crimes such as rape or robbery might be excluded. In a 2006 report, the World Health Organisation estimated that in 2002, when 26,300 murder cases were recorded in China, 38,000 people died from “homicide-related injuries”.
1. Do you feel that the death penalty acts as a deterrent to the commitment to murder—that it lowers the murder rate, or not?
Yes: 5.3% No: 88.2% No Opinion: 6.6%
2. Abolishing the death penalty (in a particular state) would not have any significant effects on the murder rate (in that state).
I'm sure it is true 33.8% I think it's true 53.2% I have no idea whether it is true or false 2.6% I think it's false 5.2% I'm sure it's false 5.2%
3. Over the years, states which have had the death penalty have had lower murder rates than neighboring states which did not have a death penalty.
I'm sure it is true 2.7% I think it's true 6.7% I have no idea whether it is true or false 16.0% I think it's false 40.0% I'm sure it's false 34.7%
4. Politicians support the death penalty as a symbolic way to show they are tough on crime.
Totally accurate 23.4% Largely accurate 67.5% Largely inaccurate 5.2% Totally inaccurate 1.3% Not sure 2.6%
5. Debates about the death penalty distract Congress and state legislatures from focusing on real solutions to crime problems.
Totally accurate 27.3% Largely accurate 48.1% Largely inaccurate 10.4% Totally inaccurate 1.3% Not sure 13.0%
6. The death penalty significantly reduces the number of homicides.
Totally accurate 0% Largely accurate 9.2% Largely inaccurate 32.9% Totally inaccurate 56.6% Not sure 1.3%
The questionnaire was answered by 84% of 'every living person who (1) was a Fellow in the American Society of Criminology (ASC), (2) had won the ASC’s Sutherland Award, the highest award given by that organization for contributions to criminological theory, or (3) was a president of the ASC between 1997 and the present. The American Society of Criminology was founded in 1941 and is the world’s largest organization of academic criminologists, boasting a membership in 2008 of 3,500 criminologists from fifty countries. ASC presidents who served prior to 1997 were not included in this survey because they were already surveyed by Radelet and Akers in 1996, and we did not want the opinions of this group to unfairly weight the 2008 results. Using this methodology, we identified ninety-four distinguished scholars as our pool of experts.'
One argument in support of capital punishment is that the threat of death deters murder more effectively than prison. However, research indicates that the death penalty is no more effective as a deterrent to murder than the punishment of life in jail. States with the death penalty on average do not have lower rates of homicide than states without the penalty. The average murder rate per 100,00 people in 1999 among death penalty states was 5.5 and the average murder rate among non-death penalty states was 3.6 (US Dept. of Justice, 2001). A study examining executions in Texas between 1984 and 1997 found that the murder rate was steady and that there was no evidence of a deterrent effect. The number of executions was found to be unrelated to murder rates (Sorenson, Wrinkle, Brewer and Marquart, 1999). Furthermore, a survey of experts from the American Society of Criminology, the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, and the Law and Society Association shows that the overwhelming majority of these experts do not believe that the death penalty is a proven deterrent to homicide. Over 80% believe the existing research fails to support a deterrence justification for the death penalty. Similarly, over 75% of those polled do not believe that increasing the number of executions, or decreasing the time spent on death row before execution, would produce a general deterrent effect (Radelet and Akers, 1995). Additionally, Attorney General Janet Reno stated at a Justice Department news briefing, "I have inquired for most of my adult life about studies that might show that the death penalty is a deterrent. And I have not seen any research that would substantiate that point." (US Dept. of Justice, 2001).
Advocates of the death penalty argue that if more executions actually take place, the death penalty will work better to deter crime. Only a small proportion of first-degree murderers are sentenced to death, and even fewer are executed. The option of having a mandatory death penalty law was ruled unconstitutional in the 1976 case, Woodson v. North Carolina (428 U.S. 280) so this cannot be used to increase the number of executions. The lengthy appeals process that occurs in death penalty cases also reduces the number of executions. In order to reduce the delays and costs of the death penalty, the rights of American citizens would be impaired by abandoning the constitutional rights of suspects, defendants, and convicts. There is also the chance of convicting the wrong person and executing an innocent human being (Cheleff, 1987).
Deterrence is the number one reason that supporters of the death penalty cite (Newsweek Poll 2000). However, 26% of people claim that their justification for supporting the death penalty is "eye for an eye" (Newsweek Poll 2000). Furthermore, 55% would favor the death penalty even if it were found that it does not act as a deterrent, that it does not reduce the murder rate (Gallup Poll 1999).
Sources
Bright, Stephen. 1996. Capital Punishment. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.)
Bureau of Justice Statistics. 2001. www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs
Cheleff, Leon S. 1987. Ultimate Penalties. (Columbus, OH: The Ohio State University Press.)
Cook, Philip & Slawson, Donna. 1993. "The costs of processing murder cases in North Carolina." Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy, Duke University.
Dallas Morning News. March 8, 1992.
Death Penalty Information Center. 2001. www.deathpenaltyinfo.org
Gallup Poll. Feb. 8-9, 1999. Published at www.pollingreport.com
Lacayo, Richard. 1987. "Clearing a Path to the Chair." Time. 129:80. May 4, 1987.
Miami Herald. July 10, 1988.
Newsweek Poll. 2000. Published at www.pollingreport.com
Sorenson, J., Wrinkle, R., Brewer, V., & Marquart, J. 1999. "Capital Punishment and Deterrence: Examining the Effect of Executions on Murder in Texas." 45 Crime and Delinquency. pp. 481-493.
State of Vermont Department of Public Safety. 2001. www.dps.state.vt.us
Murder Rates in Death Penalty States and Non-Death Penalty States
The murder rate in non-death penalty states has remained consistently lower than the rate in states with the death penalty, and the gap has grown since 1990.
The statistics speak for themselves. Other than that, we can only go on empirical research, and on the opinions of those who work in the field - the top criminologists. Ad what do they say? 88% say that it does not work as a deterrent.
The death penalty might deter some murders, but it could also stimulate others.See, e.g.,William J. Bowers & Glenn L. Pierce, Deterrence or Brutalization: What Is the Effect of Executions?, 26 CRIME & DELINQ. 453, 481 (1980) (finding that in the state of New York, every execution leads on average to two additional homicides in the following month). Furthermore,the proper question for public policy is the death penalty’s marginal deterrent effect—that is,whether it deters homicides over and above the deterrent effect of life imprisonment without parole.
....The first question included in the 2008 questionnaire is also regularly asked in Gallup Polls. Here, 88.2% of the polled criminologists do not believe that the death penalty is a deterrent, up slightly from 83.6% in 1996. With the not sure responses eliminated, the proportion of responses that reject the deterrence argument increased from 87.5% in 1996 to 94.3% in 2008. This difference is not statistically significant, which indicates that there has been virtually no change in the experts’ opinions over the twelve years between the two surveys. In contrast, when the question was last posed by Gallup in 2006, 64% of the general public expressed the belief that the death penalty did not lower homicide rates.
Question 2 asks the experts if they believe that abolishing the death penalty in a given state would affect that state’s homicide rate. Again, the data is similar between the two samples: 86.5% of the experts in 1996 responded that they are “sure” or “think” it is true that abolition would significantly affect the murder rate, compared to 87% in 2008.
...our survey indicates that the vast majority of the world’s top criminologists believe that the empirical research has revealed the deterrence hypothesis for a myth. There isn’t a shred of evidence that supports the New York Times’s assertion that there is “an intense new debate about one of the central justifications for capital punishment,”namely deterrence. Recent econometric studies, which posit that the death penalty has a marginal deterrent effect beyond that of long-term imprisonment, are so limited or flawed that they have failed to undermine consensus. In short, the consensus among criminologists is that the death penalty does not add any significant deterrent effect above that of long-term imprisonment.
Yah. Brevik is really remorseful right now. You can tell by the way he's threatening a hunger strike because his game modem is outdated and he doesn't get his choice of video games and that his allowance is not enough and... and...
In a recent post I acknowledged that Stephen Hayes is a remorseful type, but he's a rarity. Most of the losers on death row care very little for the people rotting in pieces, in the ground, at their hands- they care about themselves and thankfully for them, despite the fact that you suggest otherwise, there are others that care for them as well.
Justice for 77 people gunned down as a madman played real life video game is not affording their murderer a country club experience and a university degree on the taxpayers' dime. This doesn't make us 'enlightened' and 'sophisticated'... this makes us soft. We don't ask to deal with these events- we are forced to deal with them. Given such... the punishment should fit the crime.
Everywhere I look in society we have lowered the bar and consequences and look at how our society has degenerated. For example, in schools, kids now cannot receive late marks because it is not a true indication of their level of achievement. In other words, measure the learning outcomes and not the process. Heaven forbid a kid gets a zero for not turning an assignment in on time. While some kids legitimately need more time to complete assignments, many others, who do not need it, take the time anyways and submit pieces of crap well after the deadline. The nice sounding concept, in effect, has resulted in many kids taking the path of least resistance knowing full well the consequences for doing so are... nothing.
On the larger scale, look at our governments and how they conduct themselves with impunity.
Standard operating procedure for mankind: do what the fuck you want because really... who's going to do anything about it and what are they going to do if they bother?
We will never solve murder. There are serial murderers conducting their business right now. As we speak, someone is at the hands of some sick lunatic and as they are in their final moments... they can take some comfort in knowing that, with any luck, their captor will get caught and they will be forced to eat three squares a day, play outdated PS3s and sub-rate video games, earn a pension, get an allowance, and access internet and fan mail.
Tell them that's justice. You might feel better that we've taken the high road... but I can pretty much assure you the victims wouldn't be feeling the same way.
Once again you trot out examples of brutal murderers in the hope of convincing us that they need to be killed in turn, while continuing to ignore my earlier point:
What we're talking about here is the fact that society should not operate on the level of a murderer, by snuffing out the lives of those it condemns, that's exactly what it's doing: committing murder. Opposition to the death penalty is not about people feeling sorry for somebody being executed, and about wishing to white-wash over whatever crime they may have committed. This boils down to a choice between wanting to live in a society that promotes blood-lust and killing as solutions to problems (i.e, reactions based on emotions, such as revenge), and a society that demonstrates that it values life above all else, and exists on a higher footing than that of emotions, violence, and murder. If the society you live in hopes to set an example for people that murder is wrong, and that violence shouldn't be used as a solution to lifes problems, then it should quit killing people in the name of justice. The death penalty brutalizes society by stepping onto the same playing field, and playing by the same rules, as those it seeks to punish. How does this benefit that society in the long term? It doesn't. It just creates a vicious circle.
Comments
This boils down to a choice between wanting to live in a society that promotes blood-lust and killing as solutions to problems (i.e, reactions based on emotions, such as revenge), and a society that demonstrates that it values life above all else, and exists on a higher footing than that of emotions, violence, and murder.
If the society you live in hopes to set an example for people that murder is wrong, and that violence shouldn't be used as a solution to lifes problems, then it should quit killing people in the name of justice.
The death penalty brutalizes society by stepping onto the same playing field, and playing by the same rules, as those it seeks to punish. How does this benefit that society in the long term? It doesn't. It just creates a vicious circle.
Also, a life behind bars is a far worse punishment than a needle in the arm and a switching off of the lights. It forces the prisoner to have to live with the gravity of his crime for the rest of his life. And not only that, but it would free up millions of $$ which could be used to get more dangerous individuals off the streets.
Lucky for Glenn Ford that America's capital "justice" system is even more incompetent, inefficient and dysfunctional than it used to be. Used to be that the average time on Death Row before the state got around to killing you was 12 years. At least this man only had 30 years of his life stolen from him instead of all of it. He could very easily be dead now, killed by the state for something he didn't do, and even though the state had clear reason to believe he was not guilty. Every time these cases crop up - and this is #144 - the already hopelessly threadbare "justifications" for the warped and ineffective perversion of justice that is the death penalty fall apart all the more.
The US death penalty system is a joke - discriminatory, arbitrary, inconsistent, incoherent and demonstrably ineffective in achieving its supposed aims. The notion that it apportions justice, that it effectively reduces crime, that it makes society safer than life imprisonment is nothing but so much self-deluding horseshit. If those who defend the death penalty would stop appealing only to moral outrage and revenge, and instead have sense enough to use reason and consider the actual objective facts, they would see what a complete and hopeless failure the death penalty is in terms of real justice.
It's time the US grew up and caught up with the rest of the developed democratic world in putting this worthless, backwards, ethically bankrupt practice behind it, and actually start dealing in something that can meaningfully and responsibly be called justice. Until then, the miscarriages of justice will just keep piling on up.
Death row inmate Glenn Ford released 30 years after wrongful conviction
Man found guilty of murder by all-white jury in deeply flawed trial had one of America’s longest-ever waits for exoneration
Ed Pilkington in New York
theguardian.com, Wednesday 12 March 2014 06.36 GMT
Glenn Ford has been freed from the notorious Angola prison in Louisiana having lived under the shadow of the death sentence for 30 years. He becomes one of the longest-serving death row inmates in US history to be exonerated.
Ford was released on the order of a judge in Shreveport after Louisiana state prosecutors indicated they could no longer stand by his conviction. In late 2013 the state notified Ford’s lawyers that a confidential informant had come forward with new information implicating another man who had been among four co-defendants originally charged in the case.
He was sentenced to death in 1984 for the murder the previous November of Isadore Rozeman, an older white man who ran a Shreveport jewellery and watch repair shop. The defendant had worked as an odd jobs man for Rozeman. In interviews with police Ford said that he had been asked to pawn a .38 revolver and some jewellery similar to that taken from Rozeman’s shop at the time of the murder by another man who was among the initial suspects.
Asked as he walked away from the prison gates about his release, Ford told WAFB-TV, “It feels good; my mind is going in all kind of directions. It feels good.”
Ford said he did harbour some resentment at being wrongly jailed: “Yeah, cause I’ve been locked up almost 30 years for something I didn’t do.
“I can’t go back and do anything I should have been doing when I was 35, 38, 40 stuff like that.”
Ford’s conviction bears all the hallmarks of the glaring inconsistencies and inadequacies of the US justice system that are repeatedly found in cases of exoneration. The fact that despite serious qualms among top judges about his conviction this innocent man was kept on death row for so long is certain to be seized upon by anti-death penalty campaigners.
Among the many all too typical problems with his prosecution was the composition of the jury. An African American, Ford was sentenced to death by a jury that had been carefully selected by prosecutors to be exclusively white.
His legal representation at trial was woefully inexperienced. The lead defence counsel was a specialist in the law relating to oil and gas exploration and had never tried a case in front of a jury; the second attorney was two years out of law school and working at the time of the trial on small automobile accident insurance cases.
At the trial the state was unable to call any eyewitnesses to the crime, nor was it able to produce a murder weapon. Instead Ford was convicted largely on the testimony of a witness who was not a detached observer – she was the girlfriend of another man initially suspected of the murder.
Under cross-examination the witness, Marvella Brown, admitted in front of the jury that she had given false testimony. “I did lie to the court… I lied about it all,” she said.
In another classic element frequently found in exoneration cases, cod science provided by “expert” witnesses also helped to put Ford on death row. One such expert testified that the evidence pointed to the defendant because he was left-handed; another expert told the jury that particles of gunshot residue had been found on his hand; and a third talked about fingerprint evidence implicating him.
The testimony from all three expert witnesses was later shown to have been at best inconclusive, at worst wrong.
Ford continued to profess his innocence throughout the 30 years. In the appeal process that ensued, the Louisiana supreme court, the state’s highest legal panel, acknowledged that the evidence against him was “not overwhelming” and that the prosecution case was open to “serious questions”, yet it decided to keep him on death row.
More recently it emerged that state prosecutors had failed to disclose evidence to Ford’s legal team that could have been crucial in his defence. It included evidence from confidential informants pointing the finger at Ford’s co-defendants, who faced initial charges that were then dismissed as the prosecution bore down against the wrong man.
In a statement Ford’s current lawyers, Gary Clements and Aaron Novod, said they were pleased by the exoneration. “We are particularly grateful that the prosecution and the court moved ahead so decisively to set Mr Ford free.”
Ford becomes the 144th death row inmate to be exonerated over the past four decades.
(emphasis mine)
96: Cork, Dublin
00: Dublin
06: London, Dublin
07: London, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
09: Manchester, London
10: Dublin, Belfast, London & Berlin
11: San José
12: Isle of Wight, Copenhagen, Ed in Manchester & London x2
Can you imagine if they hurried things up and didnt allow appeals? 130 innocent men/women wouldve been killed by our government because of shitty law practices.
Byrnzie, geezuz man. There might be a correlation there, but I've painfully detailed to you the fact that drawing any conclusions- either for or against the DP serving as a deterrent- is impossible given it's very rare application (0.0007% of the time).
But if you insist on going there:
Bronx just offered a piece that detailed China's liberal usage of the DP. And, wouldn't you know it? China's murder rate was nearly the lowest in the world, well below countries such as Japan and Switzerland, according to statistics from the Ministry of Public Security, the People's Daily reported Tuesday. China's homicide rate stands at 0.8 cases per 100,000 people.
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/764415.shtml
The US homicide rate is 4.8 per 100,000.
One country employs the DP with great frequency and nearly has the lowest homicide rate in the world. Another country rarely uses it (0.0007% of the time)... and enjoys a homicide rate 6X greater,
Hmmmm? Interesting.
Aside from that, considering the enormous societal differences between the US and China and the fact that the death penalty is on the cards in China for 54 other offences, from producing counterfeit medicine on up, I don't think it's particularly likely that you're going to be able to nail down such a simple and direct correlation to make that a valid analogy. It's hardly a case of "all other things being equal."
96: Cork, Dublin
00: Dublin
06: London, Dublin
07: London, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
09: Manchester, London
10: Dublin, Belfast, London & Berlin
11: San José
12: Isle of Wight, Copenhagen, Ed in Manchester & London x2
I offered the comparison because it is at least as strong as some of the unsubstantiated assertions you continue to make that have no legitimate statistical backing (as expressed by the scientific community after comprehensive review).
In comparison, your point is simply speculation without any research or evidence to support it and based on cherrypicking a single factor and ignoring all others.
By the way, you seem to have accidentally ascribed your words to me...
96: Cork, Dublin
00: Dublin
06: London, Dublin
07: London, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
09: Manchester, London
10: Dublin, Belfast, London & Berlin
11: San José
12: Isle of Wight, Copenhagen, Ed in Manchester & London x2
In a recent post I acknowledged that Stephen Hayes is a remorseful type, but he's a rarity. Most of the losers on death row care very little for the people rotting in pieces, in the ground, at their hands- they care about themselves and thankfully for them, despite the fact that you suggest otherwise, there are others that care for them as well.
Justice for 77 people gunned down as a madman played real life video game is not affording their murderer a country club experience and a university degree on the taxpayers' dime. This doesn't make us 'enlightened' and 'sophisticated'... this makes us soft. We don't ask to deal with these events- we are forced to deal with them. Given such... the punishment should fit the crime.
Everywhere I look in society we have lowered the bar and consequences and look at how our society has degenerated. For example, in schools, kids now cannot receive late marks because it is not a true indication of their level of achievement. In other words, measure the learning outcomes and not the process. Heaven forbid a kid gets a zero for not turning an assignment in on time. While some kids legitimately need more time to complete assignments, many others, who do not need it, take the time anyways and submit pieces of crap well after the deadline. The nice sounding concept, in effect, has resulted in many kids taking the path of least resistance knowing full well the consequences for doing so are... nothing.
On the larger scale, look at our governments and how they conduct themselves with impunity.
Standard operating procedure for mankind: do what the fuck you want because really... who's going to do anything about it and what are they going to do if they bother?
We will never solve murder. There are serial murderers conducting their business right now. As we speak, someone is at the hands of some sick lunatic and as they are in their final moments... they can take some comfort in knowing that, with any luck, their captor will get caught and they will be forced to eat three squares a day, play outdated PS3s and sub-rate video games, earn a pension, get an allowance, and access internet and fan mail.
Tell them that's justice. You might feel better that we've taken the high road... but I can pretty much assure you the victims wouldn't be feeling the same way.
Nor does it make a society "soft" to not stoop to the easy reaction of killing its own citizens - it makes its claim to enacting true justice far stronger. It makes that society more civilised and more ethical, more advanced and more effective at handling crime. The evidence for that fact is all around you in the majority of other countries that have abolished the death penalty and still maintained functioning societies with lower levels of violence than yours.
Also, though you may think the nature of Brevik's incarceration is unfair - and maybe it is - and you may be outraged at his arrogance (as am I) - but it is a false conclusion from deeply specious reasoning to say that it is therefore justifiable to kill him. That just doesn't follow, and once again illustrates the inescapable fallacy in thinking it is justice to act on our outrage instead of on our reason.
You're right that we'll never "solve murder". But adding to the stack of bodies is going to get you further from that, not closer.
96: Cork, Dublin
00: Dublin
06: London, Dublin
07: London, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
09: Manchester, London
10: Dublin, Belfast, London & Berlin
11: San José
12: Isle of Wight, Copenhagen, Ed in Manchester & London x2
When you say The evidence for that fact is all around you in the majority of other countries that have abolished the death penalty and still maintained functioning societies with lower levels of violence than yours... you obviously mean except for China.
When you say Nor does it make a society "soft" to not stoop to the easy reaction of killing its own citizens... I say it's not an easy reaction. it's a very hard one.
When you say adding to the stack of bodies is going to get you further from that, not closer... I feel such an attitude doesn't truly address the problem thrust upon us.
Bottom line for me: leave other people alone. If you leave other people's kids alone... you don't have to worry about getting executed. If you simply cannot refrain from murdering children... then sorry, you shouldn't be expecting anything from anyone- you are lower than filth.
Other bottom line: I respect your and other's opinions that are contrary to mine. We are not the bad folk. For the time being, I'm stuck with my beliefs, whether right or wrong. I haven't heard or read anything that makes me think a few of the individuals we have used as examples are worth saving because of what they have done.
So I'll say it again: speculation without any support whatsoever on what "may very well have an influence" (to use your words) is nowhere remotely as strong as extrapolating from inconclusive research. Neither are definitive, granted, but to claim that your speculation is "at least as strong" is nonsensical.
96: Cork, Dublin
00: Dublin
06: London, Dublin
07: London, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
09: Manchester, London
10: Dublin, Belfast, London & Berlin
11: San José
12: Isle of Wight, Copenhagen, Ed in Manchester & London x2
Why should I be forced to accept extrapolation from inconclusive evidence, while at the same time having any point offered to the contrary scoffed at?
And 'nonsensical' is a little strong in dismissing a legitimate point. Can we so easily dismiss the notion that China's heavy-handed approach to punishment has a bearing on it's extremely low homicide rate? Are you sure it's usage of the DP has 'nothing' to do with a homicide rate 6X lower than the US? I'm not necessarily saying it does, but I'm not inclined to say it doesn't either just because it fits my belief system.
This is not opinion. This is linguistic and legal fact, whether or not you disagree. China is not a country that has abolished the death penalty. It's not one of the countries I'm talking about. well, I think it's always going to be easier - and weaker - to react with anger than it is to have the strength to rise above your anger and act with reason. Nor do I think that a system that kills killers is addressing the problem, but rather contributing to it. What sense, reason, coherence or logic is there in a system built on the notion that "When you kill me, it is the most abhorrently immoral thing you can do. But when we kill you it is noble and moral and just"?! Bottom line for me is, even if I consider someone who killed someone else to be lower than filth, even if I in my horror and grief think they are a monster and deserve to die, that still doesn't give me any right to kill them, no more than they had any right to kill. I don't think you're a bad person either, and you wouldn't think or say the things you say unless you felt passionately about them. However, my other bottom line is this: whether you are a murdering individual or a state or national government, if it is not 100% necessary for you to kill a person, you have zero right to kill that person - regardless of their actions. In fifty pages of this thread, in example after example of horrendous crimes, I still have not seen a single post that presents a situation where no alternative but execution was available - not one person has presented a single true scenario where killing a prisoner was 100% necessary. More than that, cosidering that the great majority of countries on the planet have successfully abolished the death penalty without noticeable consequence, it can only reasonably be concluded that the death penalty is not by any means 100% necessary. It is therefore unnecessary. My bottom line is that that makes it logically and morally impossible to kill someone and call it justice.
And a last word; as long as the kind of situation which I posted earlier can happen - a situation that for nothing robbed Glenn Ford of thirty years of his life (and could very easily have robbed him of his whole life for nothing) - then the capital system is dysfunctional and not fit for purpose. It is a warped and shameful abuse, affront and mockery of the very notion of justice.
96: Cork, Dublin
00: Dublin
06: London, Dublin
07: London, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
09: Manchester, London
10: Dublin, Belfast, London & Berlin
11: San José
12: Isle of Wight, Copenhagen, Ed in Manchester & London x2
Though I shouldn't, read all the local news..and daily some scumbag shoots and kills someone. Texas executes more people than any other state yet criminals are killing as they always have. Is this scientific...no...absolutely not but doubt seriously that the DP stops these idiots from killing. Now easy access to guns does.
Also have lots of crooked cops...every month or so have a Houston area cop busted for something or another. Trust them...hell no.
And I know we've hashed this out over and over but Wollf readdressed above.....killing is wrong period. It is not a means to fix anything..it cannot be viewed as a solution to a problem.. If the state is okay to do that then we as a socieety tell one another killing is just for some things..and its not. We ahve to stop the cycle. Lock em up for life....give em just enoght creature comforts to limit expense...how is this not a reasonable solution?
Peace
I'm not saying it is something we should not consider as a safeguard for the inherent flaws in the aforementioned processes- I'm saying it bears no weight when considering the appropriateness or morality of the penalty itself.
96: Cork, Dublin
00: Dublin
06: London, Dublin
07: London, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
09: Manchester, London
10: Dublin, Belfast, London & Berlin
11: San José
12: Isle of Wight, Copenhagen, Ed in Manchester & London x2
Are you saying that only the judicial system interested in executing a man operates unethically to achieve their end result? Are you implying judicial systems interested in incarcerating a man for the remainder of his life have not operated with similar unethical methodology to achieve their end?
The investigative and judicial processes that sought the death penalty for him (Ford) were unethical tactics employed to establish him as 'guilty'. States have differing viewpoints on what justice should look like for some murderers, but they have similar examples of blatantly corrupt tactics to see some cases brought to closure- whether that means life in prison or execution. Both sentences are intertwined to the processes that lead a man to them somewhat- it's not strictly the death penalty that is in question given the imperfect systems allowed to occur prior to issuing such a sentence.
As such, the innocent man in jail or the innocent man on death row are victims of these processes I speak to much more than they are the punishments that await them after the fact.
Nevertheless, it's completely beside the point, and makes no difference whatsoever to my point. Whether or not similar flaws also exist in other areas of the justice system does not excuse or justify them existing in the capital system. Your point is irrelevant, and in any case ignores the infinitely more serious and uniquely irreversible consequence - death - that result in the capital system from those flaws. I'm sorry, but this is still nonsense. It is just not valid to try and divorce the judicial system from the penal system as though the left hand does not wash the right hand. They are connected elements of the same system. Cases are tried as capital cases with the potential of the death penalty implicit - or even explicit - in the trial. It is simply not true to suggest it only becomes an issue at sentencing.
Furthermore, while you are right that both penalties are intertwined and it is not strictly the DP that defines the ethics of the process, it's again putting the cart before the horse and as such makes no difference to my point. The fact still remains that unethical processes that deny a person a fair trial, that discriminate, that ignore key evidence and allow false evidence are all elements in why executing someone is unethical and unjust. There are other elements beyond the processes that also affect the ethics of the penalty, but - I'll say it again because my point still stands - it is false and naive to suggest that the failures in the processes do not contribute to the overall ethical failure in the death penalty itself.
96: Cork, Dublin
00: Dublin
06: London, Dublin
07: London, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
09: Manchester, London
10: Dublin, Belfast, London & Berlin
11: San José
12: Isle of Wight, Copenhagen, Ed in Manchester & London x2
you're a trooper & a good man
now... let's burn something down
you know - like a sick twisted monster
who has enjoyed hurting folks
http://vikingbrewhouse.com/viking/wp-content/Pics/Viking Fire Close 01.jpg
"Hear me, my chiefs!
I am tired; my heart is
sick and sad. From where
the sun stands I will fight
no more forever."
Chief Joseph - Nez Perce
The unethical processes that deny a person a fair trial, that discriminate, that ignore key evidence and allow false evidence leave the death penalty in a precarious position. If this is what you have said, I'd tend to agree with you. I said as much in an earlier post.
I believe you might also be saying something like the death penalty is (excuse my own idiom) 'part in parcel' with malicious investigative and trial processes that ultimately places the death penalty under the same microscope as the investigative and trial efforts. If this is what you have said, I choose to disagree with you. I think malicious investigate and trial work does not place the death penalty on trial- it places malicious investigative and trial work on trial.
I think I have been respectful to this point in time, but when you begin to use words such as 'nonsense' and 'naïve' in your responses to me... I begin to bare my fangs as well. Trust me when I say I accept some of the things you say even though they are not even remotely close to my way of thinking. I don't, however, attempt to belittle you when I challenge them. In fact, it is my opinion that once a person begins to resort to such tactics... well... I'll leave it at that.
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2012/crime-in-the-u.s.-2012/violent-crime/murder
China had 13410 murders in 2010 but those numbers are definitely manipulated to the downside due to how they classify murders.
http://data.un.org/Data.aspx?d=UNODC&f=tableCode:1
China’s statistics bureau does not disclose which crimes are included in its murder data. Chinese scholars say that a single case might include several deaths, and that some killings which occur in the course of other violent crimes such as rape or robbery might be excluded. In a 2006 report, the World Health Organisation estimated that in 2002, when 26,300 murder cases were recorded in China, 38,000 people died from “homicide-related injuries”.
http://www.economist.com/news/china/21575767-official-figures-showing-sharp-drop-chinas-murder-rate-are-misleading-murder-mysteries
Its pretty amazing how you continue to downplay everything that goes on in that country.
Ha ha ha!
You're gonna be fucked when I leave China next month. How are you gonna attempt to deflect my comments then?
Scroll down to the appendix to see the questionnaire yourself. http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/files/DeterrenceStudy2009.pdf
2008 SURVEY
DO EXECUTIONS LOWER HOMICIDE RATES?
1. Do you feel that the death penalty acts as a deterrent to the commitment to murder—that it lowers the murder rate, or not?
Yes: 5.3%
No: 88.2%
No Opinion: 6.6%
2. Abolishing the death penalty (in a particular state) would not have any significant effects on the murder rate (in that state).
I'm sure it is true 33.8%
I think it's true 53.2%
I have no idea whether it is true or false
2.6%
I think it's false 5.2%
I'm sure it's false 5.2%
3. Over the years, states which have had the death penalty have had lower murder rates than neighboring states which did not have a death penalty.
I'm sure it is true 2.7%
I think it's true 6.7%
I have no idea whether it is true or false 16.0%
I think it's false 40.0%
I'm sure it's false 34.7%
4. Politicians support the death penalty as a symbolic way to show they are tough on crime.
Totally accurate 23.4%
Largely accurate 67.5%
Largely inaccurate 5.2%
Totally inaccurate 1.3%
Not sure 2.6%
5. Debates about the death penalty distract Congress and state legislatures from focusing on real solutions to crime problems.
Totally accurate 27.3%
Largely accurate 48.1%
Largely inaccurate 10.4%
Totally inaccurate 1.3%
Not sure 13.0%
6. The death penalty significantly reduces the number of homicides.
Totally accurate 0%
Largely accurate 9.2%
Largely inaccurate 32.9%
Totally inaccurate 56.6%
Not sure 1.3%
The questionnaire was answered by 84% of 'every living person who (1) was a Fellow in the American Society of Criminology (ASC), (2) had won the ASC’s Sutherland Award, the highest award given by that organization for contributions to criminological theory, or (3) was a president of the ASC between 1997 and the present.
The American Society of Criminology was founded in 1941 and is the world’s largest organization of academic criminologists, boasting a membership in 2008 of 3,500 criminologists from fifty countries. ASC presidents who served prior to 1997 were not included in this survey because they were already surveyed by Radelet and Akers in 1996, and we did not want the opinions of this group to unfairly weight the 2008 results. Using this methodology, we identified ninety-four distinguished scholars as our pool of experts.'
http://www.uvm.edu/~vlrs/doc/deathpenalty.htm
Studies on Deterrent Value:
One argument in support of capital punishment is that the threat of death deters murder more effectively than prison. However, research indicates that the death penalty is no more effective as a deterrent to murder than the punishment of life in jail. States with the death penalty on average do not have lower rates of homicide than states without the penalty. The average murder rate per 100,00 people in 1999 among death penalty states was 5.5 and the average murder rate among non-death penalty states was 3.6 (US Dept. of Justice, 2001). A study examining executions in Texas between 1984 and 1997 found that the murder rate was steady and that there was no evidence of a deterrent effect. The number of executions was found to be unrelated to murder rates (Sorenson, Wrinkle, Brewer and Marquart, 1999). Furthermore, a survey of experts from the American Society of Criminology, the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, and the Law and Society Association shows that the overwhelming majority of these experts do not believe that the death penalty is a proven deterrent to homicide. Over 80% believe the existing research fails to support a deterrence justification for the death penalty. Similarly, over 75% of those polled do not believe that increasing the number of executions, or decreasing the time spent on death row before execution, would produce a general deterrent effect (Radelet and Akers, 1995). Additionally, Attorney General Janet Reno stated at a Justice Department news briefing, "I have inquired for most of my adult life about studies that might show that the death penalty is a deterrent. And I have not seen any research that would substantiate that point." (US Dept. of Justice, 2001).
Advocates of the death penalty argue that if more executions actually take place, the death penalty will work better to deter crime. Only a small proportion of first-degree murderers are sentenced to death, and even fewer are executed. The option of having a mandatory death penalty law was ruled unconstitutional in the 1976 case, Woodson v. North Carolina (428 U.S. 280) so this cannot be used to increase the number of executions. The lengthy appeals process that occurs in death penalty cases also reduces the number of executions. In order to reduce the delays and costs of the death penalty, the rights of American citizens would be impaired by abandoning the constitutional rights of suspects, defendants, and convicts. There is also the chance of convicting the wrong person and executing an innocent human being (Cheleff, 1987).
Deterrence is the number one reason that supporters of the death penalty cite (Newsweek Poll 2000). However, 26% of people claim that their justification for supporting the death penalty is "eye for an eye" (Newsweek Poll 2000). Furthermore, 55% would favor the death penalty even if it were found that it does not act as a deterrent, that it does not reduce the murder rate (Gallup Poll 1999).
Sources
Bright, Stephen. 1996. Capital Punishment. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.)
Bureau of Justice Statistics. 2001. www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs
Cheleff, Leon S. 1987. Ultimate Penalties. (Columbus, OH: The Ohio State University Press.)
Cook, Philip & Slawson, Donna. 1993. "The costs of processing murder cases in North Carolina." Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy, Duke University.
Dallas Morning News. March 8, 1992.
Death Penalty Information Center. 2001. www.deathpenaltyinfo.org
Gallup Poll. Feb. 8-9, 1999. Published at www.pollingreport.com
Lacayo, Richard. 1987. "Clearing a Path to the Chair." Time. 129:80. May 4, 1987.
Miami Herald. July 10, 1988.
Newsweek Poll. 2000. Published at www.pollingreport.com
Radelet, M. & Akers,R. 1995. Deterrence and the Death Penalty? The Views of the Experts. http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~critcrim/dp/dppapers/mike.deterence
Sacramento Bee. March 18, 1988.
Sorenson, J., Wrinkle, R., Brewer, V., & Marquart, J. 1999. "Capital Punishment and Deterrence: Examining the Effect of Executions on Murder in Texas." 45 Crime and Delinquency. pp. 481-493.
State of Vermont Department of Public Safety. 2001. www.dps.state.vt.us
U.S. Census Bureau. 2001. www.census.gov
U.S. Department of Justice. 2001. www.usdoj.gov
The murder rate in non-death penalty states has remained consistently lower than the rate in states with the death penalty, and the gap has grown since 1990.
The statistics speak for themselves. Other than that, we can only go on empirical research, and on the opinions of those who work in the field - the top criminologists. Ad what do they say? 88% say that it does not work as a deterrent.
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/files/DeterrenceStudy2009.pdf
The death penalty might deter some murders, but it could also stimulate others.See, e.g.,William J. Bowers & Glenn L. Pierce, Deterrence or Brutalization:
What Is the Effect of Executions?, 26 CRIME & DELINQ. 453, 481 (1980) (finding that in the state of New York, every execution leads on average to two additional homicides in the following month). Furthermore,the proper question for public policy is the death penalty’s marginal deterrent effect—that is,whether it deters homicides over and above the deterrent effect of life imprisonment without parole.
....The first question included in the 2008 questionnaire is also regularly asked in Gallup Polls. Here, 88.2% of the polled criminologists do not believe that the death penalty is a deterrent, up slightly from 83.6% in 1996. With the not sure responses eliminated, the proportion of responses that reject the deterrence argument increased from 87.5% in 1996 to 94.3% in 2008. This difference is not statistically significant, which indicates that there has been virtually no change in the experts’ opinions over the twelve years between the two surveys. In contrast, when the question was last posed by Gallup in 2006, 64% of the general public expressed the belief that the death penalty did not lower homicide rates.
Question 2 asks the experts if they believe that abolishing the death penalty in a given state would affect that state’s homicide rate. Again, the data is similar between the two samples: 86.5% of the experts in 1996 responded that they are “sure” or “think” it is true that abolition would significantly affect the murder rate, compared to 87% in 2008.
...our survey indicates that the vast majority of the world’s top criminologists believe that the empirical research has revealed the deterrence hypothesis for a myth. There isn’t a shred of evidence that supports the New York Times’s assertion that there is “an intense new debate about one of the central justifications for capital punishment,”namely deterrence.
Recent econometric studies, which posit that the death penalty has a marginal deterrent effect beyond that of long-term imprisonment, are so limited or flawed that they have failed to undermine consensus.
In short, the consensus among criminologists is that the death penalty does not add any significant deterrent effect above that of long-term imprisonment.
What we're talking about here is the fact that society should not operate on the level of a murderer, by snuffing out the lives of those it condemns, that's exactly what it's doing: committing murder. Opposition to the death penalty is not about people feeling sorry for somebody being executed, and about wishing to white-wash over whatever crime they may have committed.
This boils down to a choice between wanting to live in a society that promotes blood-lust and killing as solutions to problems (i.e, reactions based on emotions, such as revenge), and a society that demonstrates that it values life above all else, and exists on a higher footing than that of emotions, violence, and murder.
If the society you live in hopes to set an example for people that murder is wrong, and that violence shouldn't be used as a solution to lifes problems, then it should quit killing people in the name of justice.
The death penalty brutalizes society by stepping onto the same playing field, and playing by the same rules, as those it seeks to punish. How does this benefit that society in the long term? It doesn't. It just creates a vicious circle.