Civilized countries
by tdaxp ~ May 5th, 2009
The man who shot this woman in the face got seven years in prison.
In civilized countries, that man would be executed.
Do you believe that Obama wants to ramp up our executions of criminals, like the man who took this woman’s face? Or would he rather go after bondholders who get in the way of the oligarchs?
The New York Times uses top 1% of income, not wealth. From the legend:...
May 6th, 2009 at 2:55 am
Just asking, but do we execute people who have not committed murder or child rape?
May 6th, 2009 at 3:36 am
We don’t execute child rapists anymore [1].
Hence, our barbarous legal system.
One function of the courts is to allow criminals to gain physiological thrills thinking of the lasting damage they have done victims, while the victims lead a long and perhaps quite painful life.
[1] http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/06/25/scotus.child.rape/index.html
May 6th, 2009 at 4:03 am
In countries that execute liberally, they would probably rule she just wasn’t listening.
May 6th, 2009 at 4:41 am
I support the liberal application of the death penalty for crimes beyond just murder and child rape, to include:
drunk driving resulting in fatalities
white collar crime that results in massive job loss and investor losses
covering up product flaws or problems (like the peanut mess in Georgia) that results in fatalities
etc, etc.
It is just absurd this creep only got 7 years. People who smoke crack get longer prison terms than that in some cases!
May 6th, 2009 at 7:48 am
Of course, a robber just received 21 years for robbing an NBA player. Me wonders if maybe the jury in this Ohio case was given some sob story about the husband’s rough childhood or capitalist oppression getting him down?
http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/West-Sider-Gets-21-Years-for-Antoine-Walker-Assault.html
May 6th, 2009 at 8:23 am
Eddie & sonofsamphm1c,
An important theme for both your comments, I think is honor violence. Honor violence presents the best functioning alternative to a functioning justice system.
sonofsamphm1c notes that in Muslim or African countries in the gap, high rates of state execution exist alongside high rates of honor violence.
In China, by contrast, high rates of state execution exist alongside low rates of honor violence.
Eddie supports the death penatly for drunk driving that results in fatalties, but I find it hard to defend this. Death by drunk driving is not honor violence, is not a form of de facto terrorism, it is merely recklessness.
worg’s comment was deleted as trolling [1].
[1] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2008/06/22/trolls.html
May 6th, 2009 at 8:50 am
Recklessness can at least be manslaughter!
I have seen far too many drunk driving fatalities (and other forms of reckless activity) that result in hand slaps. Perhaps I have been brainwashed by weekly lectures in the Navy about drunk driving, but I just don’t buy recklessness as an excuse or an exception. Too many people think they are above the law, or that they can get away with it. I don’t want to claim expertise, but I sat in on dozens of drunk driving and drug use interview sessions with people who had pretty much the same excuse: “I didn’t think I’d get caught.” That shows contempt for the law and contempt for the safety of others.
So whether you are drunk, high, sober or just arrogant, if you killed someone with your recklessness, its murder.
I don’t want my tax dollars to pay for imprisoning someone who was stupid and killed somebody. Neither do I want them on the streets relatively soon afterward. I prefer a reform of the prison system that gets work out of prisoners and pays for itself, or a wider application of the death penalty.
May 6th, 2009 at 9:06 am
Eddie,
You are using a fanciful definition of murder I have not heard anyone use since elementary school.
If you want the death penalty for homocide, just say so. As it is, you are changing the meaning of terms as you go along, which makes reasoned discussion impossible.
May 6th, 2009 at 9:43 am
To repeat my earlier statement:
“I support the liberal application of the death penalty for crimes beyond just murder and child rape”
I find it heinous we rarely utilize the death penalty for murder.
May 6th, 2009 at 10:53 am
if oppenheimer funds is not a member of the “financial oligarchy”… then who would be?
i notice there is no mention of the 8th amend. to the constitution. is the 8th amendment “barbarous”? really? barbarous? when the founders the framed the 8th amend, were they pulling that principle out of thin air? or did some eastern religion subtly coax them in to adopting a barbaric notion of justice?
it seems pretty central to developed western legal thought throughout the last 400 years or so. and given its slow, but steady and rather reasonable advance in meaning over the same period, i wouldn’t really think that a post critical of the punishment system would be able to maintain such criticism without so much as a bare mention of the relevant law on the subject.
at least, insofar as you are talking about the law. maybe you’re talking about something else, i don’t know. the hyperbole perhaps is confusing me.
which reminds me… why do you speak in such hyperbolic language? seriously. i really don’t understand it. you have a point that certain criminals will get psychological satisfaction by stewing over their conquests (by the way, such satisfaction merely highlights the probability of their deep psychological illnes) while the victim walks away in pain, but the hyperbole totally obscures what is in fact a decent point to consider. the hyperbole makes it seem unserious, and that you haven’t really thought much about it. i know that isn’t true, so i wonder why you use it?
May 6th, 2009 at 11:04 am
Fed X.,
I didn’t catch the meaning behind the reference to Oppenheimer. Can you explain?
Eighth amendment is besides the point here, except to the extent it has been used in recent years by judges as a tool. The US has a long history of applying the death penalty in cases beyond murder or killing.
What hyperbole are you referencing? If you are suggesting something is hyperbolic in the original post, here is the original text, line-by-line, with commentary
The man who shot this woman in the face got seven years in prison.
This is factually true. [1]
In civilized countries, that man would be executed.
Obviously, by “civilized” I am refring to morally and intellectually advanced socieites, as opposed to the literal meaning of a society in which the people live in cities.
The meaning could be made more specific, by rephrasing the sentence this way: “In societies with more morally and intellectually advanced criminal justice systems than ours, that man would be executed.”
Do you believe that Obama wants to ramp up our executions of criminals, like the man who took this woman’s face
The question is rhetoric, and the answer is no. Obama has traditionally shown little interest in paying the political expense necessary to role back violent crime. [2]
Or would he rather go after bondholders who get in the way of the oligarchs?
Obama’s political capital (as well as his time and energy) are limited. Attacking violent crime, and attacking those who stand in the way of the oligarchs, are both priorities. The former is a priority for obvious reasons. The latter is obviously demonstrated as a priority even to skeptics, as a system in which all losses by major financial institutions are socialized (as Geithner has urged since the summer) requires large-scale buy-in to avoid collapse under the weight of free-riders.
[1] http://www.wtrf.com/story.cfm?func=viewstory&storyid=2168
[2] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2008/04/24/obama-and-urban-coin.html
May 6th, 2009 at 11:21 am
If that is your standard of civilized, then call me a barbarian. Even if this happened to me I would not want the man executed. I may not be a Christian, but forgiveness is one thing I held dear when I was, and the lack of willingness to forgive among self-proclaimed Christians is one of many reasons as to why I am proud to say I am not among them anymore.
And no, I don’t think 7 years is enough in the context of deterring such crimes, but I will be damned if this country adopts China’s model like you want it to.
May 6th, 2009 at 11:27 am
Jeffrey,
This is not a question of forgiveness. That is a question of public safety.
The State exists to war against nature, and to establish peace. Foreign armies, terrorist cells, honor violence, and disease are all threats to our common peace.
The idea that many people think that prisons exist for the sake of punishment scares me. How these people get joy out of the suffering of others — and act as if it is only the lack a sentiment of forgiveness on their part which keeps the prisoner in his chains.
May 6th, 2009 at 11:45 am
we only have a history of applying the death penalty to people who are, in fact, legally culpable for a capital crime they committed. one of the elements of any capital offense is intentionality. if you can’t prove intentional behavior, you can’t win the case. and if you can still kill them without proving intentional behavior, you run square up against the 8th amendment. i don’t think the 8th amendment is a tool. it is a principle of law that our country’s legal system is built around and upon. it is further not beside the point, but rather, rather square in front of the point you are trying to make. you are assuming legally sufficient culpability in the cases you propose to utilize the death penality, but you do not know whether that exists in each case.
now, if on the other hand, you are asking for our country to abandon its legal maxims for the sake of convenience and lower crime statistics, then i think you should just go ahead and get on with that idea then and actually argue why you think that is so.
if the state is allowed to execute for merely reckless behavior, then you’ve asked us to reform the constitution, because that wasn’t the original bargain when we constituted.
the reference to oppenheimer is, they are one of the major bondholders you referenced. so to me, your reference sounds like: “would he rather go after the financial oligarchs who get in the way of the way of financial oligarchs” or “would he rather go after oppenheimer funds who get in the way of oppenheimer funds.”
May 6th, 2009 at 11:50 am
i should add on thing here. by what mechanism would obama be allowed to dictate to the 50 states what will and what won’t be a capital crime? i supose that is “beside the point” as well. but i guess, if it can’t be done, it isn’t worth worying about is it?
May 6th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
Well, according to Hollywood legend, where I grew up we used to hang horse thieves and cattle rustlers.
It was also a place where givin’ your woman a good lickin’ was considered fine husbandhood, and that part continued until not so long ago.
May 6th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
SOS: thats because those offenses were deemed capital by the states or territories at the time. just like it used to be a capital offense for a black man to own a gun in certain southern states. i might add that even in the most broad application of a capital offense, there was almost always an element of intentionality. not universally, but almost always. and where no intentionality was to be had, a claim for violation of the 8th amend (by way of the 14th) would be had (even if never litigated).
but the states have said what is a capital crime. the feds may do so, by act of congress i might add, on issues of federal criminal law only. tdaxp would have us believe the president can dictate the terms of criminal codes to the states. which is unbelievable.
May 6th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
Fed X.,
I am not sure what you are arguing here.
If you are saying that the death penatly is not appropriate in cases of reckless manslaughter, I agree with you.
I don’t think anyone has claimed that oligarchy is a stable system. Certainly the kind that we are reinforcing is not, as the experience of Russia shows.
The source of profit and wealth for large financial systems is political connections and friendships, and it’s trivially true that this is not stably, evenly, or transparently distributed among the oligarchs.
Obama has the same power to force the states to change their laws as he has to force the federal laws to change: none.
But he possess a bully pulpit, and he can use his political influence to make some outcomes easier for others to achieve. Most recently, for instance, he is urging Congress to punish companies who invest oversees, instead of in “American” jobs” [1]
sonofsamphm1c,
You are repeatingly (for an earlier example today: [2] ) engaging in a logical fallacy, arguing that (as I understand you)
X and Y both exist in some places P
X is bad
Therefore, Y is bad
The logic is fallacious, of course, and not helpful to me. Cease engaging in this monologue.
[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/04/AR2009050401903.html
[2] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2009/05/05/civilized-countries.html/comment-page-1#comment-272329
May 6th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
tdaxp: i credit you for admitting obama has no power to change the criminal laws of the 50 states. i also credit you for realizing his only power is the bully pulpit, which can only be powerful if used sparingly. so, are the legal systems of our 50 states barbarous? and where is the popular will you cite for support that our 50 state democracies are indeed in desperate need of wholesale criminal reform of the capital offenses?
it seems to me in the last 10 years, the grassroots support capital reform has been on the issue of wrongly executing individuals for crimes they did not commit. witness the great work the innoncence project has done in the past decade or two, and the sometimes large scale popular demonstrations against executions at state prison facilities administrering the penalty over the past few years.
i see no crisis in the states that says that to me that the people are outraged that not enough criminals are being executed. instead i see, if anything at all on this issue, deep and profound deliberation on whether the state should even be involved in the execution of the criminal.
if it was the case, and please show me if i’m wrong, that violent crime was causing the nation’s fabric to rip, i would agree that obama should and must act with whatever bully pulpit powers he may have to stem the national harm.
but i just don’t see it. i sort of see, actually, the opposite. but only sort of.
May 6th, 2009 at 1:30 pm
The eighth amendment is a fairly slippery bit of law and it’s interpretations have been altered by various interesting legal precedents in the distant to not so distant past. Have a look at Coker v. Georgia [1] in which the court decided that rape, while “short of homicide, it is the ultimate violation of self,” was not a capital offense because it didn’t constitute “serious injury.” The basis for that logic seems to be that physical injury is measurable while emotional injury is not. The basis for the ultimate ruling seems to be that the because death was not a result of the crime, death is not a fitting punishment. Which is interesting, because by that logic one could flip the whole deal 180 degrees and suggest that while death did not result, an “ultimate violation” did and so a reciprocal “ultimate violation” would be a fitting punishment. Of course the court made no such argument nor distinction.
I’m not a fan of the current death penalty, for reasons to do with the fallibility of human systems. But, even supposing every case tried is 100% true and no innocent people are ever convicted, I’d have a hard time with death sentences for people who’d committed crimes lacking malice and aforethought (two elements that separate first degree murder from manslaughter.)
Addressing Eddies take on reckless behavior resulting in death. Dan mentions the triumph of the killer or rapist who stews in jail and looks fondly back on his exploits while the exploited are either no longer or suffering a painful existence. The opposite side of that coin is the person who suffers the pain and guilt associated with having committed an act that unintentionally killed or maimed another, during and beyond a jail sentence. Add to that social stigma, the loss of certain civil rights and the virtual destruction of whatever life they’d managed until the crime was committed and you’ve got a pretty hefty bit of penalty.
Killing drunk drivers, overtired truckers, novice hunters with buck fever, or rock band managers ignorant of how pyrotechnics might invite disaster in a night club seems a bit over the top to me. I think a measure of malicious intent needs to qualify those that meet the “needle” and those that don’t.
May 6th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Sorry, forgot to provide a link for the above citation:
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coker_v._Georgia
May 6th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
I want to agree Jay, though I wouldn’t add hunters, overtired truckers or ignorant managers to that list in the first place.
My issue with drunk driving and truckers who speed excessively leading to a fatal crash is that it is a conscious choice disregarding the law and basic safety concepts, thus being malicious in itself (just as similar to a young man who steals a car, is chased by the police and ends up killing an innocent bystander in a vehicle crash, something that resulted in first degree murder charges on numerous occasions in high speed chase cases in the last 25 years) but its outside the bounds of this thread so I apologize to Dan and you for taking it so far.
As it is, the death penalty is a flawed system given all the continuing problems we have with its application. What can be done to clean it up is the right question so that we can at least address some of the serious concerns people have with it that go beyond any religious, moral or political opposition they have that are irrelevant to its efficacy.
With regards to rape, that is a heinous assumption by the Court in Coker vs. GA to say it does not involve serious injury that I simply cannot take seriously. It is tragic they reaffirmed it with the recent Louisiana decision. Thank you for sharing it nevertheless!
May 6th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
Here we go with Aristotle again.
I’m pointing out that approval of the abuse of women is in our culture, and that the hangover of that cultural trait is probably what lies behind the light sentence. Furthermore, in cultures where the death penalty is liberally utilized, abuse of women is sanctioned. Where we grew up, in South Dakota, the approval of the abuse of women continued long past the cessation of hanging horse thieves and cattle rustlers. When I was a kid one of local doctors used beat the tarnation out of his wife. Nobody lifted a finger to help her.
As this country began rejecting inappropriate applications of capital punishment, widespread approval of the abuse of women held on for a long time.
One day I was listening to talk radio on a day when a man was no billed for killing his wife. He had come home for lunch and caught his wife and her lover in the act. He calmly shot and killed her. The grand jury no billed him. Local talk radio generally affirmed his choice to shoot the wife and not her lover. Others thought should he have shot them them both. A few thought he should have just shot the lover. And the fewest of all thought he shouldn’t of shot anybody. This was not in 1950s or 1960s, it was in the late 1990s. I don’t think he even lost his highly paid job with the city. I’m sure her loved ones would have gladly taken 7 years. As far as I know, that was the end of that case. He got off scott free.
May 6th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
China:
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-wochin123751694apr12,0,5062485.story
May 7th, 2009 at 6:13 am
Jay: I don’t agree that the 8th amendment is fairly slippery. It has been broadened the least of almost any of the bill of rights over the last 200 years. Liberalized? Sure. But not to the degree the 1st Amend has been liberalized. It is a very narrow concept, which contains within it societal norms about what constitutes disproportionate response to crime. These MUST change over time so long as society changes. If society remains stagnate, so will the 8th amend. But when compared to its counterparts, it is the least progressive right we have under the constitution. Personally, thats as it should be in my opinion.
I’m glad you brought up Coker. Coker was all about what is a proportionate response to rape AND at the same time, whether execution for the rapist was making it less likely to convinct rapists. Do you know what the conviction rate for rapists was in the deep south at the time? It was horribly low, especially for white defendants, but even by comparison to other crimes, for black defendants. After Coker, the conviction rate for rape went up astronomically high (realtively speaking). And coupled with the liberalization of crimes against women in our criminal codes over the last 30 years, there are more sex offenders with convictions than ever before. Some jurists think we’ve become obsessed with sex offense prosecution to the detriment of other more serious crimes (e.g., financial fraud, etc.).
But the Court was convinced by briefs (one written by Ginsburg in fact) that the capital punishment for rape was actually hurting more women than helping by allowing juries to let off more guilty offenders because juries don’t like to convict in death cases unless (you guessed it) they’re sure the SOB killed someone.
So in fact, at the time, the people who were pushing that it be ruled unconstitutional were DAs, women’s groups, and other law and order types wanting to make sure fewer rapists got off without so much as a pat on the hand.
And of course, had it not been for jurors’ widespread reluctance to convict in rape cases where the death penalty was sought, I doubt the Court woudl have reached the conclusion it reached. But when so many rapists are getting off without any retribution at all, rape becomes generally accepted in society, and victims marginalized.
I’m not saying that is the right way to reach a legal opinion, but I do think that it shows how social norms can totally upend what we think the right result ought to be.
May 8th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
I predict a future in this country when killing white people (by non-whites especially African Americans) will become a minor offense or even at some point; decriminalized. It will work similar to when whites used to hang blacks in the South for whistling at white women. Any perceived “racism” on the part of whites (non-whites can’t be racist) will result in either “jungle justice” or extreme penalties in the criminal justice system. White liberals will defend this practice by saying “well, ‘we’ did it to them before.” White Conservatives will say “I just think anyone who says something ‘racist’ should be punished.”
May 10th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
Seerov,
De jure legalization would be unnecessarily. Blacks enjoyed de jure ability to vote from the Civil War on.
Fed. X,
It certainly is sickening when the Court takes a technical question as an excuse to limit the ability of local governments to answer technical problems.
The site of lawyers trying to work out cause-and-effect in the social sciences would be hilarious, if it hadn’t already led to so much disaster in so many areas.
sonofsamphm1c,
Your reptition of the same logical fallacy, and your bizarre argument-against-authority (“Here we go with Aristotle again.”) makes it clear that you are engaging in a monologue. Too bad, as I was enjoying the dialogue.
If you wish to continue your monologue, do so in an open thread. If you wish to engage in a dialogue, please return to your previous level of discourse!
May 10th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
Eddie,
Are you referring to the felony murder rule? [1]
Jay,
Agreed on the “slippery” bit. Activst judges have used the 8th amendment as a tool to expand the scope of their power, at the expense of the written Constitution, the legislative branches, and the executive branches.
Fed. X,
Thank you. I wish you had not stated that I believed otherwise.
Indeed. This makes his waist of this resource all the more dispiriting.
In this, compared to more just systems, obviously.
I assume in the same place that the popular will exists to gave financial institutions trillions in welfare.
Your next two paragraphs are thus disposed of, as Obama has proven himself quite willing to go against popular opinion and the tide of recent years when deciding which causes to champion.
This is both a non sequitor and a fallacy of the excluded middle. Many policies are executed for reasons other than a ripping in societies fabric.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_murder_rule
May 14th, 2009 at 5:49 am
Thank you for that link which does inform one’s thinking about the subject and its history.
May 15th, 2009 at 3:29 am
Eddie,
No problem!
Because our soceity and economy depend on trust, I think it is also sensible people who purposefully destroy online databases. [1]
The Pentagon has begun stating that attacks that begin with cyberattacks may end with dead cyberattackers [2]. Our judicial system should have a similar process (though the courts, of course).
[1] http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/15/0138204&from=rss
[2] http://www.salon.com/wires/ap/2009/05/07/D981KASO0_us_cyber_warfare/
May 18th, 2009 at 5:54 pm
Open question for everyone: If a felon you feel should be executed were given life without possibility of parole, would you still feel they got off lightly?
May 19th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Michael, I oppose lifetime imprisonment as it is cruel and counterproductive. I often feel sick when I hear people gleefully discuss such retribution.
May 19th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
So you consider the death penalty more humane? I can respect that. For myself, I’m bothered by the permanent nature of the death penalty–you can release someone found to have been wrongfully convicted, but you can’t raise them from the dead.
Not an easy subject:(
May 20th, 2009 at 4:03 am
The permanence of the death penalty is what makes it attractive in our current legal environment. I offer the example of Ruben “Hurricane” Carter as someone who committed multiple murder, was convicted and sentenced (twice) and then was let out of prison anyway by a bunch of legal activists because Bob Dylan wrote a song about him.
Only the death penalty prevents that sort of miscarriage of justice.
May 21st, 2009 at 12:23 pm
But sentenced to what? I’ve seen a lot of lefty campaigns to free people on death row, but I’ve yet to hear of one to free prisoners sentenced to life (in this country, anyway). Have I missed something?
May 22nd, 2009 at 5:09 am
I have seen repots of 2 other cases like this. An young Australian woman who was shotgunned in the face by her flatmates ex boyfriend who was tring to force his way in the door, and a British girl of about 10 who was horrifically burnt after a burgler torched the house.
If I remember rightly the judge wouldn’t let photos of the burns victim be shown to the jury. In the other case a photo showing the shotgunning victim as she was before (she was beautiful) was not shown to the jury as the judge ruled it ‘too emotive’.
Both perpetrators got about 5 years.
May 26th, 2009 at 7:38 am
Michael,
Governor’s quietly commute sentences, and because it is not a shocking event, it rarely gets reported.
Here’s the very first example from a google search. This case made the news because a mom killing kids is interesting. Most murders aren’t, and so don’t.
Lere,
Good point.
And we are told that using the death penalty here would result in lenient juries! Ha!
[1] http://www.suntimes.com/news/24-7/1554450,quinn-commutes-post-partum-woman-050109.article
May 27th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Fair enough, though I think you’re both overlooking two things. Death sentences can be commuted as well, and the time between sentencing and execution allows a lot of time for that to happen. Unless you’re willing to eliminate most or all of the appeal rights for death penalty prisoners, commutation can still happen.
Given your expressed horror at mandatory life sentences w/o parole, and my discomfort with the death penalty, a compromise suggests itself. Anyone convicted of a crime above a certain level of nastiness (including the crimes discussed here) is offered a choice: execution or life w/o parole. People who chose the former are shipped straight to the death house for their last meal; people who chose the latter (or are ruled incapable of making such a decision) have to suck it up. Any pardons or commutations have to be publicly announced along with the official’s reasoning.
May 29th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Michael,
Obvious, true, and irrelevent.
The goal is to create a more civilized penal system, not a perfect one. Therefore, arguing that a better alternative is itself imperfect does not stick as a criticism.
I don’t believe that people — let alone the felon population — are competent to make such a decision for themselves.
Recall that one of my concern’s was physiological self-reinforcement of violence. If I thought more of felons, I would worried about them developing a higher meta-ethics that contextualize their bad behaviors.
Perniciously, a choose-your-own fate sentencing system probably does away with the more reflective, pain-averse, and/or time-conscious of the felon population, and grants long life to those who we should most want dead.
May 29th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
“Perniciously, a choose-your-own fate sentencing system probably does away with the more reflective, pain-averse, and/or time-conscious of the felon population, and grants long life to those who we should most want dead.”
You followed an irrelevant comment with one of your own? Because the people we’re talking about are- by definition- not people we want out on the streets again no matter how thoughtful or remorseful they are. And, like you pointed out, the long life we’re granting to those less-than-desirable individuals isn’t exactly a treat.
May 29th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
Michael,
And, like you pointed out, the long life we’re granting to those less-than-desirable individuals isn’t exactly a treat.
How someone can argue for lifetime imprisonment on the grounds that it is physical, emotional, and spiritual torture is beyond me.
I cannot imagine the sadism that drives such a perspective.
May 29th, 2009 at 7:03 pm
It’s much the same logic that encourages the death penalty for crimes. If one looks at criminal sentencing as a means of punishment, that’s what the issue of death penalty vs life imprisonment becomes: Which is the harsher punishment?
If one eliminates punishment from the list of acceptable motivations and concentrate on keeping violent people off the streets, then my compromise makes sense. We don’t necessarily care whether the criminals are executed or not, we mere want to keep them off the streets; offering them a choice of methods becomes, at this point, a humane courtesy. People who feel remorse for what they did, or who dislike the notion of life imprisonment, can shuffle themselves off the mortal coil. People who were wrongly convicted, have religious convictions against suicide, aren’t competent to decide their own fates or (regrettably) value their own lives more than those of their victims can be kept alive in prison.
May 29th, 2009 at 7:57 pm
Michael,
Thank you for your comment.
If our concern was harsh punishments, then quartering would be a better punishment then either. However, I oppose torture, as I’ve made clear.
No, it doesn’t, as summary execution has a lower recidivism rate than life imprisonment. Further, crimes are committed in prisons, but cannot be committed by the head.
I have no idea how you can say this. Would abolishing OSHA be a humane courtesy to workers, because they can then freely choose to work in dangerous and inhumane work environments? This sort of hard libertarianism barely makes sense to begin with, let alone when applied to a prison context.
May 29th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
“If our concern was harsh punishments, then quartering would be a better punishment then either. However, I oppose torture, as I’ve made clear.”
So we’ve eliminated punishment as an issue.
“No, it doesn’t, as summary execution has a lower recidivism rate than life imprisonment. Further, crimes are committed in prisons, but cannot be committed by the head.”
I didn’t say “keep them from committing crimes”, I said “keep them off the street”. Once they’re in a highly controlled environment, the issue of reducing or eliminating recidivism becomes a matter of costs and political willpower.
“I have no idea how you can say this. Would abolishing OSHA be a humane courtesy to workers, because they can then freely choose to work in dangerous and inhumane work environments? This sort of hard libertarianism barely makes sense to begin with, let alone when applied to a prison context.”
The only way this comparison would make sense would be if the only jobs available for a given worker were non-OSHA compliant.
May 30th, 2009 at 3:35 am
Michael,
Agreed.
The only way this comparison would make sense would be if the only jobs available for a given worker were non-OSHA compliant.
As I said, this hard liberterian barely makes sense to begin with.
You demand for inmates the human right to choose painful, dangerous, and torturous paths for themselves. You give this choice to a population that nearly by definition has great problems in visualizing long-term consequences or making responsible decisions.
Analogously, OSHA protects workers from choosing painful, dangerous, and tortorous forms of employment. OSHA regulations exist whether or not non-OSHA-regulated workplaces are available.
May 30th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
“You demand for inmates the human right to choose painful, dangerous, and torturous paths for themselves. You give this choice to a population that nearly by definition has great problems in visualizing long-term consequences or making responsible decisions.”
1. Are there any safe, pleasant and/or non-dangerous paths society can offer them without risking a repeat of their crimes?
2. Assuming the answer to #1 is no, what is the risk in them making “the wrong decision”? If worse comes to worse, they can be offered execution whenever they get tired of life in prison.
May 30th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
1. A preferable method is execution, as I’ve repeatedly argued.
2. Your faith in the self-awareness, time-preference, and rationality of violent felons is much higher than mine.
If you believe they are this aware of their surroundings and the consequences of their actions, why not just let them out?
It’s trivially easy to imagine a program of hellish torment that, because of an individual’s (1) ability to adjust his expectations down and (2) inability to imagine even worse conditions, is never aborted by an individual.
June 6th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
1. Being executed is safe??
2. It’s not a faith in their self-awareness so much as an awareness of how little their self-awareness really matters- to them and to society- in a maximum security environment.
June 11th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
Michael,
1. It is more humane.
2. The statement is absurd. The prison rape states alone make it clear that your point #2 is nonsensical.
June 12th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
1. You’re probably right, insofar as a life in prison would be miserable. Suppose, though, that you’re convicted of a crime you didn’t commit: Would it really be more humane to get executed knowing that you didn’t do it, will never have a chance to see your family (in this world, at least) and that your name is mud?
2. We’re talking about the choice between death and life in prison with no possibility of parole. Unless you’re proven innocent or somehow manage to escape, the odds of producing offspring are very low, if not non-existent–it is in society’s best interests to make sure of that, and to minimize the odds of escape. It is also in society’s best interests to make prisons safer even for non-capital prisoners (a sizable chunk of the gangs on Gangland started in prisons out of self-preservation). Think about what’s required to do these things, and you’ll see that it’s in society’s best interests to limit the negative consequences of prisoners’ actions to the greatest extent possible.
What we’re left with is, I think, a philosophical debate. Having established that a given action is PROBABLY best for any given member of a certain class of criminals, what is the best approach: to implement that action automatically, or to make sure that option is always available as a choice? You prefer the first, I prefer the second.
June 16th, 2009 at 12:03 am
Michael,
Thank you for your comment.
1. You’re probably right, insofar as a life in prison would be miserable. Suppose, though, that you’re convicted of a crime you didn’t commit: Would it really be more humane to get executed knowing that you didn’t do it, will never have a chance to see your family (in this world, at least) and that your name is mud?
Excellent point. Is it more ethical to unknowingly subject someone to quick and painless death, or a long, torture-filled, painful death?
I think our aversion to torture answers that question.
2. We’re talking about the choice between death and life in prison with no possibility of parole.
This is only true if you use “life in prison with no possibility of parole” as some sort of term of art, divorced from the plain meaning of the words. Obviously “lfie in prison with no possibility of parole” regularly leads to not only more crimes in prison, but walking free on the outside as well.
Unless you’re proven innocent or somehow manage to escape, the odds of producing offspring are very low, if not non-existent–it is in society’s best interests to make sure of that, and to minimize the odds of escape
The eugenics argument is interesting. Do you also support the sterilization of the siblings of felons? You would run into Constitutional problems here, wrt the corruption of blood, etc.
The way to prevent murderers from teaching murder to others is to kill them, and not allow them to communicate with the general prison popopulation. This is what you are opposing.
To the extent that any political debate is philosophical, sure.
No. Should read: Having established that torture and retribution are heinous acts which the state should not participate in.
No. Should read: to implement that action and reap benefits, or not implement that action and reap harm.
June 16th, 2009 at 6:54 pm
“Excellent point. Is it more ethical to unknowingly subject someone to quick and painless death, or a long, torture-filled, painful death?
I think our aversion to torture answers that question.”
So you would say “Whether you’re innocent or not, life in prison stinks, so we need to execute you to save you from that hardship.”? And that’s not the only situation (aside from blind fear) which would cause someone to pick life, either: How many of your coreligionists are opposed to the death penalty for the same reasons they oppose abortion? It’s not hard to imagine a prisoner getting religion and choosing a life sentence- hardship and all- to spare the executioner’s soul and to serve penance for his own crimes?
“Obviously “lfie in prison with no possibility of parole” regularly leads to not only more crimes in prison, but walking free on the outside as well.”
Hence my follow-up discussion of the need to reduce prison crime for all prisoners, not just lifers. As for politically motivated pardons, didn’t I discuss that in a previous post?
“The way to prevent murderers from teaching murder to others is to kill them, and not allow them to communicate with the general prison popopulation. This is what you are opposing.”
Who said I wanted them in the general prison population? I’m quite comfortable with the notion of keeping lifers separate from non-lifers, career criminals from first-timers.
“No. Should read: Having established that torture and retribution are heinous acts which the state should not participate in.”
That too. But we also seem to agree that- under current conditions- a prompt execution is probably more humane than life behind bars. I say probably because it fails to take into account the possibility that, for a given prisoner, the greater hardship of a life sentence might be worth it.