Capital Punishment

I firmly believe in capital punishment, but with a strong caveat.

The crime should be unusually heinous- rape-murder, torture-murder, serial killing, killing of children etc.

There shuld be overwhelming evidence that the person is guilty- any doubt at all, and execution should not be an option.

Whenever the question of capital punishment comes up the liberals are quick to condemn it. I was wondering what the reaction would be on a post which was sans liberals. Do you believe there are times when capital punishment is warranted? Or no matter the crime it should never be imposed?

I am of two minds on this. On a philosophical level, I don't think capital punishment should be legal. Taking a human life is a serious event and should never be taken lightly. For the most part, life in prison is a more serious punishment because the offender must live every day with the knowledge of what they did. I also feel that many (not all) murders are a product of the heat of the moment and rehabilitation is possible.

On an emotional level, I know that if someone ever muredered anyone I know that I would them dead. Legally, or not. Some people don't deserve to live after the atrocities they commit. If they are dead, it will be assured that they will never be able to repeat those offences.

this is why I try not to discuss capitol punishment...

Capital punishment is difficult to justify. Numerous studies have shown it ineffective in deterring the commission of capital crimes. The equity argument for it may be emotionally satisfying, but when applied to criminal law is jarring. The economic argument that it is cheaper and safer to execute the worst convicts than to keep them confined is crass, but has some validity. Most persuasive is the certainty that innocents will be executed.

For all my objections to the death penalty, I expect that the criminal justice system will continue to impose that penalty appropriately under law. Juries should not on their own decide to be lenient only because they are against the statutory penalty. The appellate system should continue to hear death penalty cases, but should not overturn cases willy-nilly. Governors should review cases objectively and grant clemancy when appropriate, but let the sentence be carried out in most cases.

The State Legislatures are the appropriate bodies to outlaw the death penalty. This is a matter that properly resides in the State, not the Federal Government. The capital crimes found in the Federal Law can be eliminated by the Congress. personally I favor the death penalty in the case of Treason, though it is rarely imposed.

There are some cases where I believe capital punishment to be justified. I do think it is applied to often and in many cases, unjustly. There are probably 1 or 2 cases a year where I could see justification. The actual application at this point seems a little staggering to me.

I used to be a strong proponent of CP. As I've stated elsewhere, as a resident of South Carolina during the Susan Smith fiasco--I changed my mind. I believe the justice system is greatly flawed, and until the problem is rectified--no one should be killed.

The rules that assign Death Penalty status are not applied fairly, IMO.

Now that is a provocative statement, and one that many people agree with. I'm not so sure I agree, and tinkering with the justice system would be very dangerous to our overall liberties. Our legal system is based on the English Common Law, and derives much of it's power from precedent. The law is in constant evolution as the Appellate Courts interpret the law in light of narrow questions that come up in individual cases. Systems with variants of the Napoleonic Code, are much more rigid. No written code is so complete, or definitive, that questions as to the laws actual, real meaning and intent is. In such systems basically the defendant is regarded as guilty of violation of a particular part of the written code, and must then prove themselves not guilty. Few of those who have lived under Anglo-American law would prefer the stricter system.

Our institution is, like the Constitution, deliberately designed to be slow, cranky and cumbersome. The system is designed to let emotion, anger, and the desire for revenge to cool so that a more rational and objective consideration of the case can occur. Swift justice is far too often injustice. The system is adversarial. The defence stands before the Bar on an equal footing with the State. The defense has an array of tools at its disposal to "level the playing field". It can subpoene witnesses, and the State must produce them. The evidence and witnesses that will be utilized at trial must be shared in advance. The defense often has some control over the time and place of the trial, and Judge "shopping" is a fine art in many jurisdictions. The defense doesn't have to prove anything, only to tear away at the prosecution's case. voir Dire is another highly developed art. Who sits on the jury? In other systems, the jury may consist only of the Judge, or perhaps a small panel of Judges all employees of the State. Our juries consist of a jury of one's peers, and that means 12 citizens who agree upon a verdict in criminal cases. All the defense has to do is to make one juror unconvinced of the defendant's guilt. Knowing the difficulty of winning criminal cases, our prosecutorial offices seldom file charges against a defendant unless they have a very good case. That means that the State is greatly restrained in seeking to convict citizens without compelling evidence of guilt.

Some, usually the more radical Left, argue that the Police can not be trusted. Actually American police agencies are generally very professional. They have to be, because the law is very demanding about how they must investigate crimes and gather evidence of a suspect's guilt. Evidence that is tainted, is excluded and that often means that a whole criminal case collapses. Police are careful, but they aren't perfect. Confessions play a relatively minor part in most criminal cases. More and more the police build their case on facts derived from forensic science.

Our Constitution divided the powers of government, to protect us from ourselves and from the danger that one part of government might become predominant over the other two. So far the reach of Executive power has grown considerably. Congress, never intended to be efficient, has become almost frozen into immobility. The reasons are the destruction of political parties, the 17th Amendment, and most importantly the rise of the power of the masses and special interests over the legislative and executive arms of government. The Justice System, alone has been able to retain it's independence. Anything, ANYTHING that might degrade the system must be avoided.

Our system has evolved over many hundreds of years, but could be demolished in a decade by unwise tinkering.

There are facets of the system that do need major work though Asherman. Most of those don't require any changes in law either. We've had several situations in recent months were it was discovered that tainted evidence was introduced at a wholesale level in to the system by civil servents who did see a need to do the job they are being paid to do. When coroners and forensics "experts" can get up in a courtroom and lie about tests results for tests they never performed there is a major flaw in the system that could easily be corrected by procedural steps that provide additional independent verification of the evidence.

The rules of evidence also shift from courtroom to courtroom since it is up to the individual judges to decide on a case by case basis whether evidence is admissable or not. This too could be streamlined and standardized across state or federal regions (depending on system involved, etc..).

There is plenty of room for improvement. The system we have, while good, is based upon the notion that all defense lawyers are good, honest, hard working and fully involved in their clients defense and all prosecutors are interested in fairness and justice. Sadly, neither of those ideas are true 100% of the time. The death penalty is however, very permenant.

I agree with the basis of Asherman's statement about not making major overhauls, but I do think there is a need for some changes.

Example-- Meeting all the criteria for the Death Penalty should mean a guilty verdict automatically earns the murderer death. For some to get a pass, and others to be executed in wrong.

Also, how do we explain the OJ verdict? I think we can all agree that the jury subverted justice. How can this problem be avoided?

Money often plays a role, where it should have no bearing on justice.

In my humble opinion, execution is not a punishment: it does not cause anyone's correction (at least, during the life time), neither it is efficient enough as a deterrent. Its goal is disabling dangerous members of society from their destructive potential once and forever.
A little digression: I was absent for a while since I had lots of problems with my computer, and I sent it to upgrade and repair. Now it is back, and I also installed ADSL and Windows XP for better efficiency.

How is it not a punishment streissd? Whether something causes correction or not, or is a deterrent or not, is entirely irrelevant to whether or not it is a punishment.

Well, maybe my approach is based on the goals of punishment, that I define as correction and/or deterrent. IMO, corrective potential of execution for obvious reasons is equal to zero, and as a deterrent it has realtively low efficiency. But it efficiently neutralizes a dangerous individual once and forever.

The objective of punishment is to punish the offender for a past event that is illegal or wrong - plain and simple.

Rehabilitation is a (possible) following step that attempts to cause a correction that prevents the offender from acting in a wrong manner at some future point in time.

The two are often related but shouldn't be confused for each other.

steissd
What is the corrective potential of a life sentence without parole? I would say it is the same as capital punishment. The only difference is the perpetrator gets to live out his years. People continually contend life in prison is worse than death. I doubt that the convict on death row feels that way.

Well, I do not know whether in the USA life sentence really means that the convict will get out of jail to the cemetery. In Israel all those having got life sentence were released by President's amnesty after 15-20 years. That is why I do not regard life sentence to be a real punishment.

steissd
Life without parole is just that. On the other hand a sentence of 25 years to life gets you released on good behavior in about 1/3 to 1/2 of the twenty five years [not sure of the exact amount of time that must be served]. That is why there are many convicted murders roaming free in our society.

That is what I mean. If they were hanged up, there would be less murderers at large... Well, maybe...

Whether we agree or not the rationales offered for state punishment of crime can generally be regarded as composed of various combinations of (1) retribution, (2) deterrence, and (3) reform, and (4) the protection of society. The emphasis and details change from place to place and time to time but the ingredients remain the same. All are at least partly effective, but none completely so.

The biblical injunction was "... an eye for an eye..." pure retribution. I believe this element also survives in Islamic Sharia law where, in effect, the state claims the exclusive right to revenge and exerts it from the criminal on behalf of the victim. I believe the systems also allows the victim or his family to forgive the offender in which case no punishment is exacted - at least in some cases.

In nineteenth century America the emphasis was on reform as evidenced by even the terminology created for prisons, "penitentiary".

In eighteenth and nineteenth century England there was an emphasis on the protection of society from the contagion of rebellion and crime - and there were conveniently available colonial dumping grounds in need of labor. 'Transportation' to America or Australia became a favored punishment for rebels and criminals.

The deterrent potential of punishment has always been a part of at least the rationalization for punishment, if not its justification.
Many here and on other threads have asserted that deterrence is often exaggerated in its effect - that, to the criminal mind, the possibility of getting caught is viewed as an unfortunate, but unrelated outcome. However, we can readily observe the historical record of chaos in times and places in which there was no enforcement of law, and must all concede that deterrence does indeed function at some level, if not perfectly.

Separate from the matter of the suitability, motivation, and efficacy of punishment, is the process for finding justice in the determination of guilt.
These processes will be as imperfect for determining outcomes for crimes involving only fines or imprisonment, as for those potentially involving capital punishment. Time lost in a prison can no more be recovered that that lost in death. I don't believe the two should be thoughtlessly mixed.

I believe the deterrent effect of punishment is largely determined by the speed and certainty with which it is applied. Sun Tzu provides many persuasive illustrations of this. The problem is that speed and certainty can fly in the face of justice in determining guilt. We are left with an almost quantum dilemma here - the needed complexity and deliberation in the process for finding justice - well described by Asherman above - can limit the deterrent effect of any resulting punishment, while the speed and certainty required for exemplary effect can lead to injustice.

I believe the result is that we are doomed to forever compromise among the various absolute values that can be applied here. For this reason I don't believe capital punishment should be completely eliminated any more than imprisonment.

Hard labor for 15 or 16 hours a day or solitary confinement for 23.5 hours a day (for the rest of the prisoner's life) is, imo, more of a deterrent than death.