How Do You Feel About the Death Penalty?

[MediumTex]

shoestring,

Lots of good stuff in your post...

The short version of this is I’m actually sympathetic to the argument of the state being too incompetent to administer the penalty, and that’s pretty much the only argument I’m sympathetic to, because while some cases are bungled, there have also been specific cases where there was so much proof that the person so accused was guilty of what they were charged with that they clearly earned the penalty by the law of the land.

What would be an acceptable rate of the state killing innocent people if we presuppose that there will always be errors in any system?

The argument we should take the death penalty away because the system that enforces it is broken is a flawed one because it implicitly assumes that it’s acceptable to have a flawed judicial system so long as we don’t give that system significant power.  That’s no way to run a railroad.  It is “Band aid on a broken arm “ thinking because we want to treat the symptom (cases improperly resolved) rather than the disease (incompetent courts).

I would say that a certain level of incompetence is an inherent quality of any government action.  Harry Browne put it this way: "If it ever looks like a government is competent because it wins a war, consider that the war was essentially a disagreement between two governments, and they couldn't both lose."

Consider this:  death penalty cases are our most highly scrutinized cases, and if the system is screwing these up, what else are we getting wrong?

That's really one of the basic points I was getting at.

Tacitly it seems most people who tell me they oppose the penalty actually agree it’s best to have confidence in our courts although they are flawed, so I see an inconsistency I can only chalk up to an emotional aversion to killing.

Isn't an emotional aversion to killing a sign of civilization?

For the record I am not meaning to imply the courts do a good job, rather that if you’re against the state administering the death penalty at all regardless of circumstances it seems to me the logical implications of that stance are so much bigger than this one issue that it seems rather misdirected to be putting effort into reforming something you don’t buy into in the first place, it’s like a Christian suggesting passages of the Koran be reinterpreted.

Maybe it's just a matter of priorities where we say "Let's get the government to stop killing people in the name of justice, and then we can talk about filling the potholes and delivering the mail on time."

Now I realize that everything humans do gets fucked up at some point, and badly, very badly, and it usually results in utter tragedy.  I understand that humans are very risk adverse and we tend to install some controls to mitigate these problems.

What if we said that the control we are going to put into place here is that we aren't going to allow the government to kill people, and that way we will know that no innocent people will be accidentally swept up in an irreversible sanction?

Universally hedging against using a tool, practice or behavior which is inappropriate for the sake of eliminating these outlying events always creates more problems and costs than allowing the thing to happen within parameters while accepting that the controls you create are just going to fail sometimes.

If the state stopped killing people as a penalty for certain crimes, I don't think that it would necessarily lead to more problems, especially considering that most criminal defendants would never be subject to the death penalty in the first place.

Bear in mind we entrust these systems and proceedings to the persons of exceptional qualifications, means and temporal power.  The legal profession wields power over us like no other, this one body of people creates most of the rules as our legislators and interprets them as our judges, and the executives who enforce them (POTUS for example) are most often attorneys.

That's part of my point as well.  These people are not as capable as you imagine.  Look at Congress.

Surely there are reasonable people who can make learned decisions in other fields and professions who could be brought in to serve as judicial officials to help mitigate this problem.

I think that this would take the form of actions like suspending the death penalty until some of the kinks can be worked out of the system or perhaps we decide that there are too many kinks to continue allowing the state to kill certain people.

But notice how this is a big issue with far reaching societal implications well beyond the death penalty, which is why no one wants to frame the argument this way.  It’s far easier cognitively to debate minutiae which is ultimately what the death penalty is.

I'm really kind of going in the other direction and asking the bigger question of whether we trust the state to decide who is going to be subject to ritualistic killing for certain crimes.  I would just say that as a society it might make sense to say that the state shouldn't be in the business of killing people, regardless of the circumstances, especially when we have all of these expensive prisons to warehouse our criminals.

I rather think the US already has an ideal system for it.  If you believe in the death penalty and find the risk of living somewhere that has it to be acceptable, you may live somewhere that has it, and if you wish to avoid it, live elsewhere, and those who are most at risk of suffering the penalty can simply commit crimes and murders in states which do not have it.  This largely mitigates the perceived risk.

The death penalty has little deterrent effect because most people committing capital crimes are not conducting a risk/benefit analysis before they act.

As far as the risk of living somewhere that has the death penalty, I don't perceive it to be a risk to me personally, I just don't like the idea of the government killing people in light of the fact that I know how sloppy anything the government does will always be.  Sloppiness is an inherent quality of any government action.  That's what happens in virtually any sphere when there is no competitive pressure to fuel improvement and quality.

[moda0306]

You guys with this HTML... is there a training course I can go to on this?  Even with the buttons I find it incredibly clumsy trying to respond so prettily to everyone's points.

Plus, if my post is long enough, the typing-area bucks around like an epileptic at a strobe light convention.

(no offense to anyone with epilepsy)

[6 Iron]

If we presuppose that in all potential death penalty cases we are talking about whether to lock up the killer for life or kill him, I think that the idea that he will be returned to the streets to kill again should be removed from consideration

I beg to differ.

http://www.google.com/search?q=convicte ... ent=safari

It sounds like you are saying that you support the death penalty in principle, but do you support it in practice?  Do you think that the state's criminal justice apparatus is sturdy (and wise) enough to handle the option of ordering the death of selected criminals?  Having seen the criminal justice system up close as an attorney, I do not have anywhere near that much faith in the system.  Criminal justice proceedings rarely have much to do with justice.  Most prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges treat it sort of like a board game, with the criminals serving as the game pieces.

I think this is the best argument against having a death penalty. Still, I believe that as a society, when we rise above a world of revenge killings, it is critical to see justice administered by the agent selected to administer it.  If not, I have no problem imagining said society back-sliding into vendettas and revenge killings, be it because of insufficient punishment for the crime, or persistent failures to convict on legal technicalities meant to protect the innocent. So, yes, I do support a death penalty in our legal system.

[MediumTex]

If we presuppose that in all potential death penalty cases we are talking about whether to lock up the killer for life or kill him, I think that the idea that he will be returned to the streets to kill again should be removed from consideration

I beg to differ.

http://www.google.com/search?q=convicte ... ent=safari

I would propose then that for purposes of this discussion we assume that in lieu of capital punishment we are going to be providing sentences of life without parole for criminals who would otherwise be candidates for the death penalty.

I'm not looking for a way to go easy on anyone.  I just think that the government shouldn't be killing people, as a matter of principle.  I certainly think, however, that there is plenty of harsh punishment available short of having the state kill certain criminals.

So many states have gone to the life without parole model for certain offenses, I would be surprised if very many of today's criminals who succeed in avoiding the death penalty would ever ever released from prison.

To your second point about how doing away with the death penalty might trigger more revenge killings by private citizens, how would this work if the criminal was in a maximum security prison?  Wouldn't it be necessary to break into the prison in order to perform the revenge killing?  This seems unlikely.  I wonder if there is a higher incidence of revenge killings (assuming the vigilante had access to the defendant) in countries and states without the death penalty.

As far as the public being dissatisfied with life without parole in a modern state penitentiary as sufficient punishment, I wonder if many members of the public are actually aware of how terrible life is in these places.  Imagine being told you are going to spend the rest of your life in a dehumanizing, violent and depressing place, with the bulk of your time spent in a space about the size of a typical household bathroom, and there would never be any hope that things would ever get better, no matter what you did.  That frankly sounds like just about the worst punishment I could conceive of imposing on another human being.

For the typical criminal who commits his crime in the 18-30 age range, we're talking about 40-50 years of living like an animal in a cage, surrounded by violent and mentally ill people, with the knowledge that the only way you will ever leave will be in a body bag.  Surely that's harsh enough punishment for any crime.

If we say that we accept the death penalty as a legitimate exercise of state power, what about torture?  Is there any reason that we wouldn't also condone torture in selected cases where the defendant committed a REALLY bad crime?  What would be wrong with perhaps torturing certain prisoners for some period before they were executed?  If we are ready to kill them, and content to inflict the mental torture of having them live on death row in constant fear for their lives, I don't see that it would be a great leap to inflict some physical suffering on them prior to executing them.  What if the collective wisdom in a state legislature voted in favor of torture for certain felons?  Would that make it legitimate?

On the subject of error rates in the death penalty, for anyone who is in favor of the death penalty, what do you consider to be an acceptable error rate?  We are already probably quite a ways past zero in the modern death penalty era (here is a list of five potential executions of the wrong person), so from here forward it's just a question of how many more innocent people we are willing to allow the state to kill in order to maintain this form of punishment for certain crimes.

[WildAboutHarry]

If we say that we accept the death penalty as a legitimate exercise of state power, what about torture?...On the subject of error rates in the death penalty, for anyone who is in favor of the death penalty, what do you consider to be an acceptable error rate?

Every human enterprise has some inherent error rate.  I suspect the error rate for capital punishment in the US is very low (i.e. executing someone innocent of a capital crime).  The problem, of course, is that there is no remedy for the error, at least for the individual in question.

I hate to drag out another Heinlein quote, but he was quite thoughtful on this subject:

Anything that is moral for a group to do is moral for one person to do.

In other words, the group derives its power from the individual, not the other way around.  Capital punishment really is a stylized form of individual revenge/retribution mediated by the group (society).  Unfortunately it has become so distanced from the individual level (victim, family, time between crime and punishment, etc.) and so institutionalized that it is meaningless.

If it were possible to sequester such criminals from society permanently - short of execution - that strikes me as a reasonable alternative.  It is the durability of hat permanence that is the problem.

[6 Iron]

If it were possible to sequester such criminals from society permanently - short of execution - that strikes me as a reasonable alternative.  It is the durability of that permanence that is the problem.

I agree with this, but I would add that some of these predators continue their attacks in prison. Prison rape and murder is an ugly but tacitly accepted aspect of our prison system. There is no justice in that.

[MediumTex]

If it were possible to sequester such criminals from society permanently - short of execution - that strikes me as a reasonable alternative.  It is the durability of that permanence that is the problem.

I agree with this, but I would add that some of these predators continue their attacks in prison. Prison rape and murder is an ugly but tacitly accepted aspect of our prison system. There is no justice in that.

I would say that such inmates should be placed in solitary confinement, even though extended periods of solitary confinement tend to induce psychosis, and these people tend to be about half-crazy to start with.

Maybe bring back the "prison island" concept. 

[WildAboutHarry]

Maybe bring back the "prison island" concept.

Is Snake Plissken still available?

I agree with this, but I would add that some of these predators continue their attacks in prison. Prison rape and murder is an ugly but tacitly accepted aspect of our prison system. There is no justice in that.

I agree.  The modern prison system is horrible.  But what is the alternative?

[MediumTex]

Maybe bring back the "prison island" concept.

Is Snake Plissken still available?

I agree with this, but I would add that some of these predators continue their attacks in prison. Prison rape and murder is an ugly but tacitly accepted aspect of our prison system. There is no justice in that.

I agree.  The modern prison system is horrible.  But what is the alternative?

Simply decriminalizing marijuana would alleviate a huge strain on the prison system.

I'm very surprised that there isn't more talk around this aspect of decriminalization--i.e., the fact that it would act to unclutter the criminal justice system and save taxpayers a lot of money.

Being mentally ill, antisocial, having violent tendencies, or just feeling like you don't fit into society is stressful.  I don't blame people on the fringes of society for wanting to have some kind of escape, and smoking marijuana is a relatively harmless thing to do, IMHO, and all things considered.

The marijuana decriminalization discussion is a separate topic, but from my perspective a society that has a bar or liquor store almost on every corner, while locking up tens of thousands of people for smoking pot, is a strange arrangement.

[Gosso]

Maybe bring back the "prison island" concept.

Is Snake Plissken still available?

I agree with this, but I would add that some of these predators continue their attacks in prison. Prison rape and murder is an ugly but tacitly accepted aspect of our prison system. There is no justice in that.

I agree.  The modern prison system is horrible.  But what is the alternative?

Simply decriminalizing marijuana would alleviate a huge strain on the prison system.

I'm very surprised that there isn't more talk around this aspect of decriminalization--i.e., the fact that it would act to unclutter the criminal justice system and save taxpayers a lot of money.

Being mentally ill, antisocial, having violent tendencies, or just feeling like you don't fit into society is stressful.  I don't blame people on the fringes of society for wanting to have some kind of escape, and smoking marijuana is a relatively harmless thing to do, IMHO, and all things considered.

The marijuana decriminalization discussion is a separate topic, but from my perspective a society that has a bar or liquor store almost on every corner, while locking up tens of thousands of people for smoking pot, is a strange arrangement.

But think of all the poor private prisons, they would surely have to close-up shop with all of their "customers" removed.  What would all of those security guards do now?  They would likely go on unemployment and start taking drugs.  For shame!

The solution is to place more people in jail for non-violent crimes -- this would be a great boost to the economy and help solve the unemployment problem.  Two birds, one stone.

[Xan]

It seems pretty clear to me that there should be no "controlled substances" at the federal level.  If it took a constitutional amendment to give the feds the authority to ban alcohol, and another to remove that authority, then how did they have the power later to declare themselves the rulers of all food and drugs in the land?

In fact, in general, the concept of it being illegal to possess something is tenuous at best.

[MachineGhost]

Animal Control in many locales does this (sans rope and electric chair) quite often.  And sometimes the dogs don't have to kill another creature to get the punishment--just be caught in public without a license or other evidence of human ownership, and stay in jail past some arbitrary point.  Then it's to the gas chamber, or to a pet bed for lethal injection.

And even that is considered barbaric and anarchronistic nowadays.  See: http://nkla.org/

MG

[MachineGhost]

It is my opinion when you do something like kill a peace officer trying to maintain public safety in the commission of his duties in front of multiple witnesses, or there’s video and forensic evidence of your slaughter of several infants, the safest thing to do for the rest of us is string you up.  Some will disagree but that’s academic to me.

Do you feel that speeding up their return to the earthly plane via reincarnation is well advised?  Serious karma issues are not limited to one lifetime.

I think one of the more rational ways of dealing with murderers, rapists, etc. is incarcerated rehabilitation to learn job skills and earn income with the aim of going back into society as a productive citizen, as Norway (I believe) practices.  But, I have no idea what they do about the the truly heinous, psychopathic criminals.  I also think bringing back debtor's prisons, but only for criminal manners, to pay restitution to the victim(s) is also a splendid idea.  Just rotting away practicing their spirituality at taxpayer expense or sending them on to an early heavenly relief is just not good enough.

MG

[MachineGhost]

For the typical criminal who commits his crime in the 18-30 age range, we're talking about 40-50 years of living like an animal in a cage, surrounded by violent and mentally ill people, with the knowledge that the only way you will ever leave will be in a body bag.  Surely that's harsh enough punishment for any crime.

It can get far worse.  Check out "Black Dolphin Prison":

http://natgeotv.com/asia/inside-russias ... st-prisons

MG

[MachineGhost]

It seems pretty clear to me that there should be no "controlled substances" at the federal level.  If it took a constitutional amendment to give the feds the authority to ban alcohol, and another to remove that authority, then how did they have the power later to declare themselves the rulers of all food and drugs in the land?

In fact, in general, the concept of it being illegal to possess something is tenuous at best.

Drugs aren't "illegal".  They're "regulated and controlled substances" via the tax stamp act.  Another one of Tricky Dick's infamous proscriptions.

MG

[dualstow]

This is such a good thread, and I look forward to upcoming threads on torture and the morality of drones.

Except for a few fleeting moments of sympathy, I have always been for the death penalty. I understand that it's costly and inefficient, but rather than eliminate capital punishment, I would like to make the appeal process less expensive. I also get that it is not proven to be an effective crime deterrent, and of course it will not bring the victim back. From there, I am forced to admit that it just feels right. Prison seems like hell on earth. Why not put the killer out of his misery? Everybody wins.

Of course, it's not so cut and dried. There are some important thoughts to contemplate on these pages. Perhaps there is some hypocrisy here if I also admit that I'm glad that it's not in my hands. I am not as upstanding as, say, a Chicago police officer (this is a tongue-in-cheek reference to a Bogleheads thread) so I would vote for Medium Tex to be chief of the clan if it came to that. A cop-out you say? Well, I'm fairly certain that while I am a meat-eater with an aversion to slaughtering my own animals, I think I could muster the nerve to execute a legal execution. Could I live with myself afterwards? Who knows.

My ex's father was murdered by a guy who had broken into his home to steal money to pay off gambling debts. I don't think any amount of time would change my mind about wanting him to be executed. What if he turns his life around while in prison? I don't think so.

It is fascinating to me that the death penalty exists in some U.S. states and not others. So arbitrary.

What if our lifespans increase so that healthy humans have a chance of living hundreds of years? That might give me pause when considering the execution of a 22-year-old murderer. Then again, it makes the original murder all the more heinous.

What if there were an opt-in choice for murderers who want the death penalty because they feel they deserve it?

[MediumTex]

dualstow,

How about the problem of the inefficiency of the government-enforced justice mechanism ensuring that at least a few innocent people will be exectued?

What if your ex-father-in-law had been executed for a crime he didn't commit?  How would you feel about that?

The occasional innocent person being executed is probably what bothers me the most about the death penalty, though I also think that in general the ritualistic killing of certain criminals should not be part of the suite of services provided to the public by the government.

[dualstow]

dualstow,

How about the problem of the inefficiency of the government-enforced justice mechanism ensuring that at least a few innocent people will be exectued?



The occasional innocent person being executed is probably what bothers me the most about the death penalty, though I also think that in general the ritualistic killing of certain criminals should not be part of the suite of services provided to the public by the government.

I suppose the best argument against the death penalty is that it doesn't teach us to respect human life. As in the Elvis Costello song:

if killing anyone is such a terrible crime / why does this bloodthirsty chorus come round from time to time?

If I answer your first question by saying that I can tolerate the killing of a few innocents, that doesn't make me look like someone who respects human life, does it>  :) All I can say is that no system is perfect. You argued earlier that we don't punish an assault with an assault, and that's true. We don't punish a loudmouth in class by interrupting his/her life with loud talking (although I would like to do this to cellphone squawkers). It is neither practical nor logical. Sometimes, we take them out of the classroom. I think of an execution as removing offenders from the classroom.

What if your ex-father-in-law had been executed for a crime he didn't commit?  How would you feel about that?

I was just thinking about that after my previous post while doing dishes, except that I was imagining someone dearer to me: my brother. This is someone whom I cannot imagine committing murder, and among the people I'd miss the most. Of course I would feel terrible. There is no right answer, and there is no perfect system.

I do take note of the fact that so many countries have long since dropped the death penalty. That doesn't make it the right answer, necessarily, but ... when I was younger, I respected the opinion of my elders. Now that I'm older, I respect the opinions of those I consider to be intelligent.
I've got a very intelligent friend who is in favor of Jack Bauer '24'-type torture in order to defeat terrorism, and I disagree with that, but I'll save it for a future thread. There is no perfect answer.

How would you feel if you were that Connecticut man who awoke to find he had been badly beaten while his wife and daughters were sexually assaulted and then murdered, and the house set on fire, by repeat offenders? (William Petit)

[Gosso]

i have always taken a "it is a necessary evil" stance on the death penalty.  Necessary in that until you come up with something more humane and cost effective, that meets the need to permanently remove psychopaths and those who we have determined to be "irredeemable" from society, and satisfy the "probably wrong" but fully understandable need of the victims family's  to get their pound of flesh. we are stuck with it..  evil for many of the reasons already outlines by others in this thread..

one possible solution i have considered would be "free range prisons", wall off a huge area of farm land with survivable weather, hand each prisoner a handcart filled with a couple years worth of food, some animals, tools, building materials and some how to books covering all the skills necessary to have an independent agrarian society then set them loose in there. i would make the rules simple - try to leave you die - no contact with the outside world - the outside world doesn't get to hear about life on the inside (fear of the unknown is a potentially powerful deterrent, is it a mad max cannibal nightmare inside or do they work together and live relatively peacefully?? ) - no guards on the inside -no rules on the inside except those the prisoners make for themselves ("eye for an eye" violate society's fundamental rules you get put in a place where your survival depends the rules you create to live by, along with a group of others who break fundamental social rules)

i don't know how well it would work, but it would be cheap, a few guards on the wall and the one time cost for each prisoners grubstake and then they are responsible for providing for there own food and shelter, it fills the need for permanent separation from our society and it might be harsh enough to satisfy the criminals victims..

Norway has implemented something similar, and MG hinted at it earlier (5:04):

http://youtu.be/Uj3SMiDvjdg

Apparently the prisoners released from this "Farm Prison" have a 10% recurrence of crime, whereas prisoners released from the "normal prison" have a 30% recurrence of crime.  In some ways this makes sense...most criminals are likely the result of their environment, rather than naturally born bad.  If they are given the chance to find themselves and given some degree of trust, then they can likely become decent members of society.  It's an interesting perspective on how to deal with criminals.

This does not satisfy the urge for revenge, but I'm reminded of this quote from Gandhi: "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."

[MediumTex]

How would you feel if you were that Connecticut man who awoke to find he had been badly beaten while his wife and daughters were sexually assaulted and then murdered, and the house set on fire, by repeat offenders? (William Petit)

Personally, I would probably initially have the desire to kill them.

When we're talking about what the law is going to be, though, it seems like one of our goals is to transcend the emotion and anger that would drive the response to crime if the victims were the ones to decide the punishment.

In other words, if my desire to kill the perpetrators was simply carried over into a rule where the state is going to instead be the one doing the revenge killing, then is that really all that enlightened?  What I mean is that I think that we all believe that the law is a reflection of the rational side of our society, but simply taking a raw individual desire for revenge and turning it into a governmental program of state administered homicide doesn't seem to reflect much rationality IMHO.

I fully agree that there is no right answer that will be satisfactory to all people, but I think that a person can change his mind about this issue, which is what happened to me.

Did you read the story about the guy Texas executed last year who was convicted of killing his three children through arson (there is a link to the story a few posts up)?  It now looks like the fire was simply a tragic accident and his conviction was based on essentially junk science testified to by a fire investigator with almost no formal training.  The man sat on death row for 15 years or so and was called a "baby killer" before finally being killed by the state.  At some point after that, people began to realize that he was probably innocent, though the panel that could have stopped the execution was provided with the scientific report strongly suggesting that he was innocent before the execution and apparently didn't read it before deciding to let the execution proceed.  Now no one wants to talk about it.  Very sad.

[MediumTex]

I have always taken a "it is a necessary evil" stance on the death penalty.

It's interesting that you use that expression, because I was listening to a program on the way home this evening in which the speaker pointed out that there is no such thing as a "necessary evil."  If it's evil, it's not necessary, and if it's necessary it's not evil.

Necessary in that until you come up with something more humane and cost effective, that meets the need to permanently remove psychopaths and those who we have determined to be "irredeemable" from society, and satisfy the "probably wrong" but fully understandable need of the victims families to get their pound of flesh. we are stuck with it.

I believe that this is the type of accommodation enjoyed by the Unabomber and his associates at the Colorado Supermax prison:



This is the space that they inhabit for all but one hour or so a week, and this is what they do until they die.  They are allowed no contact with any other human beings, other than the occasional guard.

That sounds to me like pretty effective removal from society.

[dualstow]

When we're talking about what the law is going to be, though, it seems like one of our goals is to transcend the emotion and anger that would drive the response to crime if the victims were the ones to decide the punishment.

In other words, if my desire to kill the perpetrators was simply carried over into a rule where the state is going to instead be the one doing the revenge killing, then is that really all that enlightened?  What I mean is that I think that we all believe that the law is a reflection of the rational side of our society, but simply taking a raw individual desire for revenge and turning it into a governmental program of state administered homicide doesn't seem to reflect much rationality IMHO.

I wouldn't call it enlightened, but it's a compromise. It's an alternative to the angry mobs or vigilantes mentioned earlier in this thread. Not a deterrent for those agents, but simply the best we have to offer, in my opinion.

Part of the point of the "ritualistic" killing that you're against is that it doesn't have the anger or the emotion. We don't, for example, allow the victim's family member to charge the murderer and then behead them with a halberd. It's all between the criminal and the state. Now, I can't tell you exactly why the state is executing certain murderers. It just happens to be one of those rare cases in which the state's wishes and my own are in alignment.

Perhaps state administered homicide does not stem directly from an individual desire for revenge. Perhaps it's just considered to be a better option than allowing a criminal to continue to live. I also don't think imprisonment is elightened- it's also a compromise.

Also, look at all the crimes people commit within prisons. Violence in prison, assassinations ordered from within prison...

I fully agree that there is no right answer that will be satisfactory to all people, but I think that a person can change his mind about this issue, which is what happened to me.

Did you read the story about the guy Texas executed last year who was convicted of killing his three children through arson (there is a link to the story a few posts up)?  

It is indeed sad.

late Edit:

This does not satisfy the urge for revenge, but I'm reminded of this quote from Gandhi: "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."

Colin Quinn's answer to that was, "No it doesn't. It leaves everyone with one eye." ;-)

[MediumTex]

This does not satisfy the urge for revenge, but I'm reminded of this quote from Gandhi: "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."

Colin Quinn's answer to that was, "No it doesn't. It leaves everyone with one eye." ;-)

That would only be if every person in the world committed just one serious crime.  Lots of them would commit no crimes and many would commit two or more.

I suspect that there would be a lot of people with two eyes, a smaller number with one eye, and a still smaller number who were blind.

I'll bet at least one unanticipated consequence of such an arrangement would be that lots of those blind people would be very dangerous, since they would basically have nothing to lose.  The fact that they couldn't see anything, however, would probably mitigate this dangerousness somewhat.

[dualstow]

That would only be if every person in the world committed just one serious crime.  Lots of them would commit no crimes and many would commit two or more.

I suspect that there would be a lot of people with two eyes, a smaller number with one eye, and a still smaller number who were blind.

I'll bet at least one unanticipated consequence of such an arrangement would be that lots of those blind people would be very dangerous, since they would basically have nothing to lose.  The fact that they couldn't see anything, however, would probably mitigate this dangerousness somewhat.

Now if we port that back to the actual punishment for murder- sometimes imprisonment, sometimes the death penalty, we could say that those in prison for life are extremely dangerous and have nothing left to lose. For the others, death would mitigate their level of dangerousness.

Seriously, though, I do believe there's far too much time between sentencing and execution. It's a huge problem.

[rhymenocerous]

On the issue of the death penalty as a completely moral question, I've always vacillated between some abstract notion of what I think society should be and reality, where real people are affected by the actions of others.  On the one hand, the issue is purely conceptual and selfish.  I say, "I don't want to live in the kind of society that executes its own citizens."  This view is centered on me, my feelings, and reflects the world I want to live in.  Notice that specific cases involving real people don't even enter into the equation.  I also don't really think about the guilty party as an actual person.  In the thought experiment, he's just a generic, faceless person.  

When confronted with the kinds of cases that warrant death penalty sentences, however, it is hard to restrain the desire for retribution in the name of victims.  Here my thoughts are centered on the feelings of others, and bringing them some sense of justice to appease their suffering.  Also, it's usually hard to feel any sympathy for the actual assailant.  

I usually move between these two ends of the spectrum, but once you factor in the practical issues like cost and the possibility of executing innocent people, I usually stand on the side of abolishing the death penalty in the US, as has already been established in almost every other developed country.  Some cases though just make you want to make an exception to the rule, like that gunman in Norway who killed 85 people, most of them teenagers.  I don't even think they have life sentences in Norway, but I seriously wonder if anyone would care if he is executed.  You may care in some abstract sense that he is a person in general, and we shouldn't kill people.  But I doubt that few would mourn the loss of this specific individual.