Stitch on 7/7/2008 at 00:06

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Easy on the trigger there, I genuinely didn't know what you were asking. My reading skills are just fine.

Don't be absurd. It sounds like the problem with your system is it's too lenient (or under-resourced). The death penalty is hardly needed to correct that.

Muzman on 7/7/2008 at 03:13

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A look at some of the pathetically circumstantial cases that have landed people on death row and dead ought to make sure that last part chills everyone to the bone. Jurors can tend to presume guilt of the accused as does the public, for they have faith in the system. Otherwise they wouldn't be accused now would they.
We can't assume the system has failed for all even though we already know that it has? I don't really see why not given the consequences of failure in this case. What worth is a system designed to dispense justice that kills even one innocent person? Nothing really. At best it is the thin end of the wedge splitting the whole concept of justice from accountable authority. And since that's already happened quite a bit the only way really is down.
This is not to say that the legal system has no right to decide (because if the death penalty gets it wrong then everything by the same procedure can also be wrong). Clearly the law must act, and that's why we put up with its herky jerkey, self correcting limp through time with the odd outrage and bout of idealism. But given that it seems perfectly reasonable that we not let it do anything permanent. Unless of course people are making some sort of 'greater good/sacrifice' argument, which is going to be a little hard for me to reconcile.
There's usually an undercurrent in all this (others might have discussed, I didn't read everything so far) that for some people capital punishment just has to be there in some form or anther. Whatever anyone says about it, it boils down to "Yeah but I really really really want it to be there". Why is a bit of a mystery to me. Anyone can say 'oh you're not a parent' or 'you've never suffered or known someone who has' and I really don't get that this is any sort of argument (as others have said). I don't have kids, but I have a cat and I know perfectly well that if one of those cat haters that randomly hurt animals got her I'd probably try to skin them alive, general physical ineptitude not withstanding. I would certainly want to very badly, that's for sure. And this is merely the imagined scenario. My feelings at some real event would likely be about ten times worse. So I get the rage. It's not special or a peculiar kind of sympathy only certain people have.

The idea that seems to be put forward, though, is that the actions of the law must reflect the impassioned desires of the public in order to be just or be seen to be relevant, or something. It doesn't make that much sense to me, if that's the case. Three hundred years ago it fits better. We've stumbled elsewhere now.
Anyway, I was trying to say something else. If anyone is going to let off capital punishment's mistakes on the grounds of the greater good, when my turn comes up y'all can report in my place. Just leave your names and addresses.

So you see (anyone and everyone), I can't really think of any argument for its existence that's not fairly easily deflected. What's it supposed to do exactly? Deter would be serious criminals; nope. Make the streets safer; nope, see above. Provide justice for the victims/victim's families; surprisingly not everyone wants someone's death on their conscience, even if said personage is supposed to have killed someone they cared about or worse. Do these people get a say? No, because the law must operate independantly like that. And since when is justice this Newtonian thing anyway? Save money in imprisonment costs; nope, thanks mostly to all the added machinery surrounding CP. I mean we wouldn't want to get it wrong now would we (the cost of prisons is like welfare in that it's not really all that much in the scheme of government spending, but its real easy to complain about 'My tax dollars" because people in jail and the unemployed are an irresistable free kick). Make some symbolic gesture about what the community thinks of people who commit crime X; hmm, bit trickier that one. Wouldn't making a symbolic and practical gesture about what a dispassionate and reflexive legal apparatus means be better? Appease and outraged wider community; They'll forget like everything else, better to spend that effort on prevention. Indeed, the emotional hit of retribution is something of the easy way out, civicly speaking.
It's the want of it being there, like it's comforting to some people, and I don't get it. Of all the mistakes to be made in law it has the worst and people have to see it propped up and pared back over and over again and still won't let it go and mostly they have no connection whatsoever to the contentious cases, or even those of high certainty. Armchair executioners. Sure any sector of the law can be held up to this criticism of flawed processes. But it can be shown that most punitive measures actually have some effect, or if not are fairly easy to adjust.

But capital punishment is like some loud, dangerous machine in the corner of a factory. Every now and then some passing person gets pulled in and chewed up. The neighbours don't like the noise or the fumes, people who work on it can't stand it and have to be rotated regularly. But there's enough people that think it's integral to the whole enterprise because it's the oldest machine in the building, so it gets painted up, danger signs, guard rails, additional machines built around it to prop it up, keep stray people away, until it's this huge clanking monstrosity. It's impossible to shield it completely or it wouldn't function. And obviously if you've got it, it's got to be used. I mean, people's jobs are at stake with all that investment. So after all that effort and its classic status no one has noticed or is at liberty to admit that it doesn't actually do anything (in fact it might shatter a few people's world view and concept of humanity to say this out loud). The factory would run as well without it, possibly better. But we can't do that so it runs, night and day, giving someone somewhere some sort of oblique peace of mind (somone who's probably never going to see the thing in action) until the next accident.

Dunno if the analogy works that well, but the only practical reason I can think of for capital punishment is that it makes good leverage for the cops to use on suspects. But if its pared back to just child rapists or something the amount of cases it applies to is tiny. The only sort of capital case that I can think of that might sidestep these problems is the removal of tyrants, but that's almost outside of criminal law anyway.
I've probably just long windedly rehashed a lot of other people's stuff, but even if we ignore all the moral quandries of killing, if you (that is, anyone) want capital punishment you are a particular sort of idealist. Even if you prescibe to a pragmatic sort of politics normally (or think you do). But its an ideal that cannot survive the practicalities of a considered and dispassionate process in any sort of free civil society that's learned a thing or two about itself. Not without a great deal of denial anyway.

mopgoblin on 7/7/2008 at 04:20

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Assuming revenge is considered unethical, the first two seem pretty clear - the past victims and their families can't be justified as a special case unless there's reliable evidence that they're at much greater risk. And as I argued earlier, protection of "potential victims" is a pretty dodgy justification in general, since it requires a notion of culpability for future crimes. In fact, it creates an additional issue with prison sentences, because prisons are full of potential victims who can't escape this potential violence and abuse that you want to protect people from.

Scots Taffer on 7/7/2008 at 23:22

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If the only difference between life imprisonment and the death penalty was that there was the chance for appeal for wrongful imprisonment, but they were otherwise, for all intents and purposes, dead to the world - I can't understand why the argument exists in the first place?

Stitch on 8/7/2008 at 01:26

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Because that isn't the only difference.