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| Home Front: Politix |
| Re-Rethinking the Death Penalty |
| 2005-06-12 |
| h/t to the Atlantic for a short summary and a reference to this paper. Sunstein is a strong liberal, politically. Is Capital Punishment Morally Required? The Relevance of Life-Life Tradeoffs CASS R. SUNSTEIN, University of Chicago Law School ADRIAN VERMEULE, University of Chicago Law School March 2005 Abstract: Recent evidence suggests that capital punishment may have a significant deterrent effect, preventing as many eighteen or more murders for each execution. This evidence greatly unsettles moral objections to the death penalty, because it suggests that a refusal to impose that penalty condemns numerous innocent people to death. Capital punishment thus presents a life-life tradeoff, and a serious commitment to the sanctity of human life may well compel, rather than forbid, that form of punishment. Moral objections to the death penalty frequently depend on a distinction between acts and omissions, but that distinction is misleading in this context, because government is a special kind of moral agent. The familiar problems with capital punishment - potential error, irreversibility, arbitrariness, and racial skew - do not argue in favor of abolition, because the world of homicide suffers from those same problems in even more acute form. The widespread failure to appreciate the life-life tradeoffs involved in capital punishment may depend on cognitive processes that fail to treat "statistical lives" with the seriousness that they deserve. The full paper can be downloaded from the linked page. |
| Posted by:too true |
| #10 Look, Jackal, I ain't buying it. I worked for a department that sent an innocent man to death row (former employer, Phoenix Police Department....the man they sent there was Ray Krone.) If his execution would have been speeded up, the exonerating evidence (ie. borderline criminal incompetence from the PPD) would never have come to light in time to save him from death row. Before you say, "big freakin' deal!", stop to consider....what if you were Mr Krone, or someone you love was in his position? I don't think perfection is too high a standard for the death penalty. What is more precious to you than your own life? And how do you make it up to someone who has been wrongly executed? If they were imprisoned, there are some things that can be done to rectify the wrong. EU, the big difference is the death penalty is being carried out in all of our names. It is not trivial or unreasonable to demand that the government be absolutely, positively right if they are going to take a life. Why do you have a problem holding the state to a higher standard than some homicidal idiot out on the street? How can you honestly believe that justice is being done when someone who didn't do the crime is killed when the perp walks free? That's not justice, that's appalling. People who kill fall into two categories: premeditated (ones who plan it out and generally make attempts before or after the murder to escape detection), or "crimes of passion" (under the influence of emotion, insanity and/or drugs). The first category generally thinks they are so friggin' clever that they will get away with it, the second, well, they're not really thinking. Neither one generally stops to consider, "Hmm....I don't want to have a lethal injection...." If it has such a deterrent effect, why are the murder rates higher in Texas and Florida (two death penalty states) than Wisconsin and Hawaii? |
| Posted by: Desert Blondie 2005-06-13 00:06 |
| #9 0 for 2 moose |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-06-12 20:59 |
| #8 Sorry Moose, but 1) There is no perfect 2) No one said life's fair To screw over everyone else declaring that perfect has to be achieved first is just another attempt to stop capital punishment. This is a society of men not angels. If we were angels there would be no need for a death penalty. However, lets use your own arguement. Why imprison anyone? Cause your same arguement means that unless you're white good looking middle class female you are going to receive inequitable treatment for a life sentence or any sentence as punishment for crimes committed. Bah! Meanwhile the death penalty is being carried out over 18,000 times a year on our streets, in our homes, our neighborhoods, and our schools. There is no due process and no appeal, just swift quick death. The state that can not or will not deal out the same to these social-pathic murders says basically that the rest of us are expendable for the 'greater good'. I repeat - consent withdrawn. |
| Posted by: Ebbereck Uneregum5631 2005-06-12 19:28 |
| #7 Don't try the "perfection trap" on us: That is, if it can't be done PERFECTLY, WITHOUT FLAW, then it shouldn't be done at all. Iraq war. Death Penalty. The whine is always the same. The Roman sense of Justice is that we're willing to let SOME of the guilty go free to make sure that the innocent is not punished. This, however, implies that SOME of the guilty WILL BE PUNISHED. The whine NOW is that some of the guilty get off, while others get what they deserve, so NOBODY should be given what they deserve. Not accepted. |
| Posted by: Ptah 2005-06-12 19:21 |
| #6 Pappy: My list is pretty inclusive. Has Texas taken to executing Martha Stewart types? If so, I would be amazed. I know some of those cheerleader mother types can be pretty homicidal, but find it hard to imagine someone getting a death sentence whose shoes match her designer purse. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-06-12 19:05 |
| #5 First of all, if you are white, female, attractive, middle class or above, and able to hire a private attorney, you WILL NOT get the death penalty for ANY crime. Not applicable in Texas, 'moose. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2005-06-12 17:57 |
| #4 People on "life" terms get out of prison, through pardons or escapes. There is a long list of people murdered by ex-cons. Anyone who opposes quick and frequent executions needs to justify those murders. |
| Posted by: Jackal 2005-06-12 17:30 |
| #3 The death penalty is less an issue that the ability to avoid the death penalty. Over and over again, sober and serious judges and political leaders, not squishy types, look at how the death penalty is used, and are appalled at how it is mis-used. First of all, if you are white, female, attractive, middle class or above, and able to hire a private attorney, you WILL NOT get the death penalty for ANY crime. However, if you are a minority, male, unattractive, lower middle class or poor, and must rely on a public defender, the dice have been tossed. By this, I mean that all the things we hold dear about the rationality or reasonableness of the court system mean *nothing*, compared to what can only be called "corruption" of the system. At that point, you trial stops being an adversarial debate and becomes a toy for bias, prejudice, political ambition, misconduct, incompetance, and other subjective sins that make honest people gag. For this reason alone, these honest judges and political leaders say that NO executions are tolerable until THE SYSTEM is restored to SOMETHING more equitable, fair, or rational. This is really not debateable, in that the statistics for who receives the death penalty are open to review. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-06-12 16:56 |
| #2 Vox populi, vox dia. Yes, please teach the American people that government is a farce and disregards their wishes. Teach them that they are to be ruled rather than they rule themselves. Disregard their unquestionable desire to have upon due process their right to require a individual to forfeit their life if they are properly convicted of hidious crimes. If life and death is the ultimate power on this planet, then teach them that 'their' government is ineffectual while the thugs and scum of society hold far more power, enough to cause the good citizenry to change their behavior - by locking themselves up in their abodes, to fear to travel to parts of their own cities, and to fear for the lives of their children when the sun goes down. Consent withdrawn. |
| Posted by: Ebbereck Uneregum5631 2005-06-12 14:52 |
| #1 I've never understood the big hoopla about the death penalty. You don't give the death penalty as a deterrent - though it works out to be one. You give the death penalty because an individual is unfit to live in a civilized society. It matters less to me whether or not you kill them or just put them away. Seems to me personally - and it's just MHO - that it's more humane just to put them down than to keep them in a cage forever. Not to mention the cost and for what purpose? If you've decided they are unfit to live in society then it seems mean to lock them in a closet for life. but hey, that's just me. we don't allow lions to walk down the street and eat our children. It's nothing against the lion, it's just a "it's you or me and I choose me" kind of thing. If you don't like the death penalty fine. Come up with someplace to put the unfit that makes you happy. But it should not be about deterrent. It should be about a decision, one person at a time: are they fit to live among us, or not? And if not, then what? |
| Posted by: 2b 2005-06-12 13:46 |