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A Man Whos Probably Innocent Will Die Today, And Lawyers Cant Save Him
- Thread starter Vanillalite
- Start date
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Could you please provide evidence that the death penalty doesn't deter crime, and that a large number of people on death row are innocent?
Yup.
Resident_UA
Member
There's plenty of evidence of that. In fact there's so much it would be a waste of time to provide anything. Just google those 2 things.
Gentleman Jack
Member
The same imperative that makes murder a crime in the first place. Are you for real right now?
Earthstrike
Member
A legal system can not have 3 states of prosecution. We can't have "guilty, not guilty, and definitely very super guilty"
How is a system supposed to function where the line between guilty and not guilty is "beyond reasonable doubt" is different from the line between guilty, and super guilty? What is the line between guilty and super guilty, that is somehow more stringent that super guilty?
And at this point all of the arguments are going around in circles. No one can actually tell me why I should value the life of a murderer. No one can seem to answer what happens when someone kills more than one person do we continually give them life in prison over and over and over again. When do we say enough is enough? When do we say enough innocent people have been killed by one person before we finally put that person away permanently?
Resident_UA
Member
But executing innocent people is also a murder. You can make exactly the same statement about death penalty.
"No one can seem to answer what happens when [government] kills more than one person... When do we say enough is enough? When do we say enough innocent people have been killed... before we finally..."
We do. It's called life in prison.
I don't understand why some people like the death penalty so much. Whether it's execution or life in prison, it's either the convict sits in prison until he dies, or he sits in prison even longer until he dies. The latter would probably be a worse experience, and it at least leaves a lot more room for overturning wrongful convictions....something that science has thus far been unable to make possible for convicts already put to death.
minor effort
Banned
Because that's not the argument. I don't see many bleeding hearts in this thread pleading for us to consider the feelings of murderers. People are arguing for what they feel is the most consistent, least fallible form of justice in this country. Secondary to that, yes, I do feel there is a societal value in not giving into the impulse to execute incarcerated people in a justice system that is imperfect or otherwise.
In my view nobody in this thread has convinced me why capital punishment is a proven necessity.
As to your other point that sometimes murderers escape. I agree, that is unacceptable. I'd rather support increased prison security and oversight. Besides, not all murderers are on death row anyways.
Gentleman Jack
Member
Because there's a fundamental inconsistency between the underpinnings of murder statues 'life is valuable, you're not allowed to take it away from somone else' and a death penalty 'unless you're really really bad and we kind of sort of tried to prove it but even then we're not really sure.'
If we want a justice system to represent the best in humankind then we actually have to hold it to at least the same standards we hold society.
All of my examples are examples of people who killed multiple people multiple times. If we have the death penalty for people like that, that means that they won't kill again. That is my biggest issue with no death penalty.
LaserBuddha
Member
Life in prison is putting someone away permanently, or near to it. Do you imagine there are people committing murders, living out life sentences, then committing more murders and living out more life sentences?
Your argument presupposes a situation where we ultimately have to kill someone as opposed to just keeping them away from causing any more harm. False premise.
Resident_UA
Member
But the law can't just apply to examples you picked. It has to apply to everything. Sure in a case where serial killer confesses and is caught on tape in an act I'm probably going to be OK with death penalty, but there's no law that can be written for this specific scenario.
Alcotholic
Banned
An eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. The death penalty isn't the issue, the issue is the stubborn absolution of these judges. Once they have set their minds there is no changing and that is a major problem.
Gentleman Jack
Member
And yet your hypotheticals do not align with how capital punishment is implemented. Within that gap, innocent people are being murdered by the state.
Metaphoreus
This is semantics, and nothing more
"You provide my evidence!"
Not how it works, dude.
Of course you can. In fact, we already have such a system! Some governmental actions--such as terminating parental rights and involuntary commitments--require proof by clear and convincing evidence. Crimes require proof beyond a reasonable doubt. There's no reason an even higher standard--say, proof beyond all doubt--couldn't be required for the death sentence.
Amory
Member
I can't possibly answer all of these questions or I'd be here all night.
First off, I'm not sure I'd call lethal injection "humane" even under ideal circumstances. They're still told the day they're going to die by the government, get to watch the time tick away as the day approaches, and then are led to a death chamber, tied down to a table, and "put to sleep" in front of mostly strangers.
And we're largely not even using the chemicals we're supposed to be using because they come from companies and countries who don't want their drugs used to execute people. So instead we've found "functional equivalents" used to put down animals and we're using them instead, but accounts indicate it's quite painful.
Now, who cares right? They're murderers so it doesn't matter if they suffer mentally and physically. But (as in this case) there isn't always 100% certainty that you're even executing the right person. Changing the law to basically make executing someone impossible unless you're perfectly certain they're the culprit would be just as hard if not harder than just banning it outright.
There are racial and socio-economic problems with the death penalty as well. There will always be good lawyers and bad lawyers, and people who are going to be on trial where the death penalty is on the table are far more likely to have not-so-good lawyers. Is that just?
If you think rationally about the nature of murder you quickly see that someone who would murder in cold blood isn't going to be deterred by the death penalty. If you get caught, life as you know it is over either way whether you get the death penalty or you spend your life in a cage. And yet it's far more expensive to execute someone than to put them in prison for life.
Friends and family of murder victims deserve all the sympathy in the world. But (at least in my opinion) whatever comfort they may get by seeing the murderer put to death shouldn't justify keeping the death penalty.
Edit: And prison escapes are very rare. And when they do happen it's unlikely that they're going to go out and kill again, they're trying to stay undetected. Two murderers just escaped jail in NY and though people in the area were rightfully scared, there isn't any evidence they harmed anyone before ultimately being killed by police when they were discovered.
I agree with you. I was driving so my previous responses were short as I went through rush hour stop and go traffic.
My problem is, the scenarios I'm envisioning, you can't have a doubt. Someone joked that hey, is he holding a paper up and two different forms of ID, but we have cases where there are multiple camera angles Etc. We know that these people definitely did $thing. That's when I get so annoyed. If there's even a chance that someone can be innocent, I mean, there's no sort of video proof that puts them there or whatever, then I can see going "nope, off the table". I mean, isn't that why we have "degrees" of murder in the first place?
I think that any sort of death penalty should go through several litmus tests, not just "jury thinks he should hang". There should be investigations done on multiple levels. That could get expensive and time consuming though and I can see that being not at all feasible.
But I don't understand the whole "no, capital punishment should be abolished in its entirety". There are just some people, frankly, who are too damn evil to let live. And I don't care about the "there's something wrong when you want to kill people to punish them killing". There has to be an ultimate punishment and life in prison where someone can murder again (even if we invest in more secure prisons, etc) just doesn't cut it for me.
I know I'm against the thread in that but to me, life in prison is a really really really shitty punishment but it, to me, shouldn't be the only final. The line has to be drawn somewhere and if you cross that line, there has to be a final punishment. Sitting in jail for the rest of your life with knowing you can never leave is shitty, but it's technically better than being "in the ground."
I'm exiting stage left at this point. I love the conversations and I've taken a lot away from the information and opinions presented. Thanks.
Metaphoreus
This is semantics, and nothing more
Resident_UA
Member
boiled goose
good with gravy
There are tons of studies showing that sentences after 20 years dont really deter more crime.
Also plenty of studies showing innocent people on death row based on overturned cases on dna evidence.
I can find it for you but you dont really care about the facts.
Metaphoreus
This is semantics, and nothing more
boiled goose
good with gravy
Easy. System isn't perfect. Death is irreversible.
Also, someone has to do the execution.
Earthstrike
Member
I'm talking about those burdens of proof existing in the same system. You are mixing in the civil burden of proof, which is a preponderance of the evidence, with the criminal justice systems beyond reasonable doubt.
Let me ask you a question, would mitochondrial DNA evidence constitute proof beyond all doubt? How about several decades ago, when it was considered to be, proof beyond all doubt (but not anymore).
I'm surprised someone as intellectually cautious as yourself would attempt to defend a notion as philosophically broken as "Are we sure this person is guilty? Are we super sure?". Are you not aware of the epistemological issues with this?
Amory
Member
minor effort
Banned
The bolded. I hear this same line, almost verbatim, every time I read a debate on capital punishment. "Some people are too evil to let live". It always strikes me as strange.
Anyways, please don't text/post and drive. Get home safe.
Ninja Scooter
Member
Some people just don't respect the sanctity of life. Let's kill them.
You don't find the fact that can't tell you if they were innocent concerning?
(And the deaths of said innocent people)
Monocle
Member
It's in everyone's best interests to consistently uphold fundamental human rights at all levels of society. Innocent people suffer when we cheapen human life by treating it as disposable. The historical examples are too numerous to count. Hell, all you have to do is watch the news to see how institutionalized prejudice is affecting black Americans. You dehumanize a group of people for their crimes, or their opinions, or their ethnicity, or whatever else, and what happens next? Well? I'm going to assume you're an educated person, so I won't belabor the point.
If we're to stay civilized, we have to maintain our ethical standards. But say, for the sake of argument, it weren't wrong to compromise human rights in special circumstances. The problem we have now is that many more people are affected than the immediate victim of inhumane treatment. A lower ethical standard spreads around. You cross that line and abuse becomes easier to justify. Torture becomes OK, if you're torturing the right people in the right conditions. All you have to do is have a good enough reason. Humans aren't emotionless creatures that operate on pure logic. It's inevitable that the wrong people will be hurt and killed on account of human error, whether it's by pure accident, stupidity, power tripping, or outright sadism.
Execution is too extreme and permanent a punishment to be wielded by a vast, complex, highly fallible institution like a state or national government. They're guaranteed to screw it up, and as a member of a society that could plausibly turn against you if your religion or skin color happens to be the same as a set of people that the public currently despises and fears, you should find that unacceptable. Haven't you seen the way everyone can lose their minds? Just now a Muslim kid was arrested for taking a homemade clock to school, because he happens to match the profile of a terrorist (i.e. he was a brown Muslim with a gadget). Fortunately, that nonsense was nipped in the bud. You think every story like that has such a happy outcome?
Think of the "don't kill" policy as a moral heuristic. We know that completely innocent people have suffered the death penalty. We know that other innocents are behind bars right now. We know that far from judging emotionally fraught issues with cool logic, everyone, especially people in positions of authority, is afflicted by a long list of cognitive biases. All this to say: mistakes happen, no matter what. Knowing this, it's arrogant and cruel to deal death to people who are already locked away from the public and completely at the mercy of the law. We avoid inevitable tragedy, and protect our own rights as free citizens in the process, by saying no to capital punishment in all circumstances.
If you were actually interested, you could have googled it yourself. It takes all of 3 seconds.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...-no-evidence-that-executions-deter-criminals/
And Ami provided evidence of the second point back on page one.
The fact of the matter is, whether 90% of death row inmates executed were innocent or just 1% were, supporting the death penalty as a law means you think being able to execute a murderer is worth occasionally executing an innocent person too. It's a net loss policy.
minor effort
Banned
It always comes down to ridding the world of evil spirits, which starts getting way too metaphysical for me wrap my head around.
Yes, there are people on death row who definitely, absolutely did what they're guilty of. And there are people on death row -- and were executed, if not still awaiting execution or already exonerated -- where the convictions were far from open and shut, if not completely fucked.
In an ideal world, the death penalty would only be reserved for those 100% he-absolutely-did-it cases. But the criminal justice system is quite clearly worlds away from ideal, and as long as the death penalty is on the table as an option, it can, has been and will continued to be used to convict and kill innocent people. That's a historical and statistical fact.
VistraNorrez
Member
DeathPenaltyInfo.org is a great resource. They have a page on murder rates broken down by states with the death penalty and states without. Spoiler alert: the murder rate is lower in states without the Death Penalty. And the page will show you that some states with the DP have a lower rate than some without it. But the average is not in favor of the DP. Nonetheless there is nothing on the page that proves the death penalty is a deterrent.
Also to keep in mind is why people kill in the first place. There are crimes of passion. In that state of mind no one is thinking clearly, they are so involved in their own emotion that logic does not enter into their minds. They want to kill and do not consider the consequences or care about them. Then there are crimes of profit, such as the mafia. The mafia knows they can get killed for their crime, if not by the government than by another family. They very rationally decide to kill even though they know they may be killed for it or think they will not be caught. Then there are crimes of compulsion like those of Serial Killers. They often hide their killings because they don't want to be caught, but they keep killing, the death penalty cannot deter them because they have a psychotic compulsion to murder.
And here is the wikipedia page on exonerated death row inmates. There have been "152 exonerations of prisoners on death row in the United States since 1973."
We've had murderers in plenty of other states who do not go on committing more murders in prison. I wouldn't be surprised if most prison deaths were due to gang violence rather than straight up throwing someone who has only committed homicide into the mix. Are there people being killed left and right by those convicted of murder in states that have abolished the death penalty?
Look at crime statistics in US States that allow the death penalty v states and countries and don't. easy.
that's what beyond reasonable doubt should already be. if you're not sure then they shouldn't be convicted in the first place! there is no magical standard above beyond reasonable doubt!
Ha, exactly. Though even presupposing a failure on the part to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, the death penalty being an option offers far less margin of error than if you were to wrongfully convict someone with prison.
How would you anti-death folks feel about the convicted person being given the choice of life in prison or death? Because frankly, life in prison sounds like a pretty cruel punishment to me, and I'd vastly prefer death. I'd probably look for a way to kill myself in the jail, but having the option of a quick and painless lethal injection would be nice.
minor effort
Banned
Opposed. You lose options and controls over your life when you enter prison.
Besides, let's focus on allowing assisted suicide and protecting the right to a dignified death for those suffering from terminal illness nationwide. I wouldn't want to give prisoners that right before the rest of the country.
One word: coercion.
IdreamofHIME
Member
Sky news gets a lot of shit, but their specials yesterday on this was very good. So sombre and sad, really made it look like process was more important than justice. Horrible.
More like dead man walking, since the Nun sarandon played I that movie has befriended this guy too.
More like dead man walking, since the Nun sarandon played I that movie has befriended this guy too.
Metaphoreus
This is semantics, and nothing more
The point is, when the government wants to terminate a parent's parental rights to his or her child, it must make it's case by clear and convincing evidence. When the government wants to throw a parent in jail for abusing his or her child, it has to make it's case beyond a reasonable doubt. There's no barrier to adding a third, higher standard of proof when the government seeks to impose the death penalty.
The prosecution's case is cumulative. It's impossible to say that one type of evidence would provide proof beyond all doubt. The question would be whether all of the evidence, taken together, provides such certainty.
Tell me what issues you're concerned about.
To begin with, my problem with some of the comments in this thread is that people think they have no obligation to support their claims with evidence. Shifting the burden of proving one's case to the person opposing it is intellectual laziness in the extreme. If you're making an argument, it's your obligation to build your own case. If you're so unfamiliar with the evidence for your position that you can't readily amass such supporting evidence, then your opponent has every reason to reject your argument out of hand. This is especially so when the evidence is supposed to be so overwhelming that anyone conducting a simple Google search would see the truth of the argument supposedly proven by it. If it's really that easy, why are you being so lazy?
That said, I think one is acceptable. I think some number higher than one is acceptable. An earlier figure quoted in the thread was from 1 to 4ish percent. I don't find that especially troubling. A success rate of 96-99% is pretty much what one would expect from a standard of "proof beyond a reasonable doubt" (though it's really not appropriate to think of that standard in terms of a percentage certainty). If you think that figure is unacceptably high, you can tighten the legal standard for imposing the sentence. You needn't get rid of the death penalty altogether.
And "there is no way to tell how many of the people executed since the '70s may have been innocent" is a euphemistic way of saying, "We can't prove any of them were." They've already been proven to be guilty, after all.
*****
Another note: the death penalty isn't murder. Murder is traditionally defined as the unlawful taking of a human life; the death penalty is a lawful taking of a human life. That may seem like a merely semantic distinction, or one born of pedantry, but it isn't. A lawful execution (in the U.S., at least) is a killing that (1) has been authorized by the democratically formed and elected government of the political entity imposing the punishment; (2) follows proof in a disinterested court of law beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant has committed a crime for which the punishment is death, in an action in which the defendant was permitted to participate and be represented by counsel; (3) is imposed only after all avenues for appeal have been exhausted, including appeals in state court, appeals and habeas actions in federal court, and requests for clemency to the appropriate executive; and (4) is carried out in accordance with legal procedures established by the government ahead of time, subject to Constitutional oversight. This makes executions clearly distinct from most killings.
Gentleman Jack
Member
Most people are making moral, rather than strictly legal, judgements when making comparisons between the implementation of capital punishment and murder. When the very evidence used to convict and execute is called into question then there can be no assessment that such executions were 'lawful.' This is more than enough to engender doubt that our legal standards are good enough for such condemnation, and that allowing the status quo to continue until we theoretically start getting it right is unconscionable.
No innocent deaths are acceptable, even if the current measurement is in the 90% that's just because of what we're currently able to measure. Anti-capital punishment sentiment is pessimistic about that success rate going up, or even staying the same.
No innocent deaths are acceptable, even if the current measurement is in the 90% that's just because of what we're currently able to measure. Anti-capital punishment sentiment is pessimistic about that success rate going up, or even staying the same.
My point is, whether he gets jailed or gets a death sentence has nothing to do with the fact that he was supposedly unfairly or wrongly convicted in the first place. If he is innocent, being sent to jail or sentenced to death are both huge injustices anyway.
Whether you believe in capital punishment or not has no bearing in this specific instance. The issue lies with the poor judicial system and the people who enable it.
Earthstrike
Member
That you can't add another criterion to the notion of "certainty" since human fallibility necessarily means we can make mistakes in what we classify as certain. The reason I brought up mitochondrial DNA is because it's the perfect example of this. Scientists back then were just as certain of the capacity of mitochondrial DNA to be unique to a person as they are that regular DNA is unique to a person nowadays. We know now that mitochondrial DNA has at best 50% chance og being accurate despite people actually being convicted via mitochondrial dna evidence. "Certainty" is a function of what humans believe they can be confident about, but we know, based on historical evidence, that what humans can be really confident about are also things we can be really wrong, rendering the whole notion of various certainty classes of "beyond reasonable doubt" moot.
So you're saying that we should force people to suffer as part of their punishment? That sounds pretty cruel to me. And what if the person's truly innocent, but they have no hope of ever having their verdict overturned, so they'd rather take the quick way out? Are you saying that you'd prefer to force an innocent man to suffer just so that you can make sure all actual criminals suffer, too? But... wait. Replace "suffer" with "die" and you get exactly the anti-death side of the argument, don't you? Huh. Funny, that.
Either way, the undesirable element is removed from society. And that is, or should be, the point of the justice system: discourage crime, reform those who commit crimes who can be reformed, and remove those who can't be reformed from society. The point of the justice system isn't to take vengeance on criminals.
flatearthpandas
Member
Not going to jump on the death sentence train though i personally don't give a shit. Wrongful life in prison makes me just about as angry. I just loathe our legal system every time damning evidence is not permitted in court for any reason.
The justice system is broken and is just killing and punishing people. No efforts are genuinely made to rehabilitate, and society doesn't accept prisoners even after they get out and find god. We have to fix a lot in society before even considering it.
In only extreme circumstances, should we even consider the state killing someone. Not just the casual next step of weird torture and punishment at prison.
I dont support it due to that. It's a farce. Just a machine making money off of people, killing, and psychologically torturing them. Thats not a punishment. It serves society no purpose than to make those owning private prisons and politicians wealthier. It doesn't help citizens become better contributors. It creates more future victims. It does nothing, as desperate times are the status quo in America. People will always kill when they have no value for life. Mainly because they feel without value. These are problems to try to fix. Stop blowing trillons on military waste. Give people free education and healthcare. Get rid of ghettos and the place crime starts.
Weve gone to far in allowing govt to make that call, in non emergency situations.
In only extreme circumstances, should we even consider the state killing someone. Not just the casual next step of weird torture and punishment at prison.
I dont support it due to that. It's a farce. Just a machine making money off of people, killing, and psychologically torturing them. Thats not a punishment. It serves society no purpose than to make those owning private prisons and politicians wealthier. It doesn't help citizens become better contributors. It creates more future victims. It does nothing, as desperate times are the status quo in America. People will always kill when they have no value for life. Mainly because they feel without value. These are problems to try to fix. Stop blowing trillons on military waste. Give people free education and healthcare. Get rid of ghettos and the place crime starts.
Weve gone to far in allowing govt to make that call, in non emergency situations.
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