Capital Punishment - What do you think?

[Eternal_Freedom]

What do you think of capital punishment. Should it be used or not? If used, under what circumstances, for what crimes etc? Which method is most effective?

To answer my own questions. Yes, it should be used, under certain conditions. Such as really brutal murders, or mass murder, or crimes which are involve such acts.

As for most effective method, I would probably say firing squad, but using heavy weaponry (such as a .50 cal machine gun, which i believe is used in the Phillipines or a country in that area) aimed at the head rather than the torso (although firing squads do aim for the brain stem if you consent to organ donation after execution). I consider this far more humane than gas chambers, electric chairs or lethal injection.

[K. A. Pital]

Yes, it should be used. Premeditated murder, as well as torture and child rape, is in my view grave enough to qualify as a capital offence, and society gains nothing by spending otherwise valuable resources on lifetime support for these miscreants. However, very advanced forensic proof should be the only legal basis to put someone on the death row - in case of rape, DNA matching, in case of murder - the same. If there is no DNA evidence, the punishment should not be applied.

[dragon]

I think capital punishment should only be used in extreme cases where the person persents a clear and present dangers to society at large and has no way of being reformed like you would a rabid dog.

For all others keep their asses in jail and make them live a long healthy life in confinement so they can enjoy the wonders of prison life. Especially since on average death row inmates spend years if not decades on death role costing more per year than normal inmates.

Rapists, especially child rapist should be placed in general population.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I presume you mean in the general prison population. Or rather, I hope you mean that

Obviously with capital punishment you have to be damn sure. But I think only allowing it when DNA matching or whatever is possible is a little extreme

Also, yes, premeditated murder, rape and torture are ones I should add to my list of capital crimes

Not sure about treason though

[Broomstick]

Since my ethics (very generally) are that the only legitimate reason to kill another human being is self-defense or defense of others I can't condone capital punishment unless there is no means to safely confine a criminal so that he (or she) can no longer harm others.

In other words, no matter how heinous the criminal I don't fee it's right for the state to execute him. If he escapes, however, kill Mr. Heinous like a rabid dog.

[dragon]

I presume you mean in the general prison population. Or rather, I hope you mean that

Obviously with capital punishment you have to be damn sure. But I think only allowing it when DNA matching or whatever is possible is a little extreme

Also, yes, premeditated murder, rape and torture are ones I should add to my list of capital crimes

Not sure about treason though

Yup general prison pop, used to just general population from all the cop shows. Premeditated murder can be a grey area, such as if the person being killed deserved it. Say a parent of a rape victim kills the rapist after planning it. Yes it's premeditated but does he deserve death for killing a rapist?

[Mr Bean]

Child rape followed by murder should be automatic Death penalty if proven. Treason of course remains a rare but valid use for death penalty. I'll also add serial killers or terrorism related murders. But then I'm crazy because I'd also automatically put to death anyone who has a life sentence without parole longer than a man can serve. IE you get 150 years in prison because of all of the charges against you? Have no hope for parole? Death penalty. Note a eightyis not enough. It must be greater than 150 years to qualify for moving up to the death penalty.

Of course I also support an automatic appeal system for Death row inmates and priority processing for all death row related cases. A standard person being tried for a death penalty related offense is the same as anyone else. But once convinced they are given a timetable. Get together with your lawyer, you have three years to file all the briefs you like. In three years from the date of sentencing (plus up to a week in case your on a federal holiday that year) your given a full second trial. No needing to attempt to prove you did not do it. If you strike out there your given one more year to file all the briefs you like about your first and second trials. If nothing comes of that at the end of year 4 you'll be given one last chance to appeal for clemency. The state governor will meet with you (personally, or electronically) and you'll do your best to convince him to spare you. After meeting with the governor your execution is scheduled for the next week. The state governor is free to act up until the day of execution. If that fails it's off for the chamber and the end of your life.

One of the reasons people can stay on death row for 15 years is by delaying tactics by a good lawyer. Part of is the cases themselves are given low scheduling priority once a conviction is secured.

[Temujin]

I'm a bit split on the matter. On one hand I'd like us to be beyond (or at least try to move beyond) such brutality. On the other, collectively speaking we often are clearly quite savage in are behavior, and in cases where an individual has committed a horrendous crime and there is irrefutable proof regarding their guilt, I really have to question the logic of wasting resources to keep such a rabid creature around when those resources could go to help someone far more deserving. It's bad enough that there are many who commit far less severe offenses, yet are beyond rehabilitation, and we have to either keep them locked up or suffer their repeated transgressions.*

*And I'm referring to individuals whose actions truly make them a danger to society, not the guy who keeps getting caught with a Joint in his pocket.

[Themightytom]

At the moment I don't see value in capitol punishment. Anyone "too far gone" to even think of rehabilitating isn't likely to be competent enough to understand whats happening to them, which strikes me as cruel. unless we decide to start executing the mentally retarded or the insane, its inconsistent.

I think in terms of a deterrent, the reality of capitol punishment is only perceived when it is imminent and not before the crime. if we WERE going to employ it as an effective deterrent, you'd be talking public hangings, and i don't think anyone wants to bring that back.

It doesn't really fit in a rehabilitation model in my opinion.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I would agree that people put away for a hundred or more years should have sentences changed to the death penalty. Heck, if i was put away for the next two hundred years all told without possibility of parole I would probably ASK for the death penalty

I would also propose that there needs to be less chance for appeals. I would say you get one shot, plus an appeal to the governor/non-US equivalent. Otherwise, you end up with people being executed for crimes ten or twenty years previously, which makes it an ineffetive deterrent at best.

Obviously we don't want Judge Dredd style courts, but I think something with a little less beuracracy would be much more effective

[Simon_Jester]

I think that capital punishment is probably justifiable for extreme crimes, given a high enough standard of evidence... but that it's extremely hard to build a court system reliable enough to be trusted with the death penalty. For the US I oppose the death penalty because I don't think our legal system that good.

For nations with better systems, I think the death penalty is a matter of "social choice:" choosing to do it or not do it are equally valid ways to design your civilization, and I don't feel qualified to tell others which way it should be done.

At the moment I don't see value in capitol punishment. Anyone "too far gone" to even think of rehabilitating isn't likely to be competent enough to understand whats happening to them, which strikes me as cruel. unless we decide to start executing the mentally retarded or the insane, its inconsistent.

It's not just that they're not competent to understand what's happening (or to act on that understanding, which amounts to the same thing). It's that they are persistently dangerous to others. Most mentally ill or retarded people aren't dangerous as long as the people caring for them don't do anything idiotic. But if you've got someone who's such a maniac that they have to try and kill someone, it's like a compulsion... what do you do? Keep them strapped to a gurney for the rest of their lives and feed them with a tube down their throat to keep them from biting your fingers off? What kind of "life" is that, anyway?

At some point, you're left with no options but to kill someone like that or lock them up in solitary and slide them food through a slot in the door until they die because you can't send anyone into the room. At that point, the problem isn't that the punishment doesn't fit into a rehabilitation-oriented system. It's that the prisoner doesn't fit, because they are not a viable candidate for rehabilitation.

You can keep them locked up anyway if you are that loath to be directly responsible for their death, of course. But I think it should be understandable why someone else wouldn't make the same judgement call.

I think in terms of a deterrent, the reality of capitol punishment is only perceived when it is imminent and not before the crime. if we WERE going to employ it as an effective deterrent, you'd be talking public hangings, and i don't think anyone wants to bring that back.

Also, nitpick: capital, not capitol. "Capitol" is for specific buildings that house the top level of a national government.

I would also propose that there needs to be less chance for appeals. I would say you get one shot, plus an appeal to the governor/non-US equivalent. Otherwise, you end up with people being executed for crimes ten or twenty years previously, which makes it an ineffetive deterrent at best.

Obviously we don't want Judge Dredd style courts, but I think something with a little less beuracracy would be much more effective

...How, exactly, do you propose to reduce the amount of "beuracracy" without making the courts less reliable at determining guilt and innocence? We have multiple layers of appeals courts for a reason, EF.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I was thinking more in terms of only being allowed to appeal the sentence a fixed number of times, rather than being allowed to appeal it ad naseum

[Simon_Jester]

I was thinking more in terms of only being allowed to appeal the sentence a fixed number of times, rather than being allowed to appeal it ad naseum

How do you think the system works now? Each appeal goes to a different court; there are only so many layers of courts in the system. The reason the appeals process takes so long isn't because you can make a thousand appeals. It's because making even one appeal takes years.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Then in that case, we should give priority in the appeals courts to death row inmates,

[Eternal_Freedom]

So what thoughts have all you people on what method is most appropriate for capital punishment?

As I said in the OP, I consider a firing squad to be the most effective, as it is usually quick, relatively simple to set up and does not require hazardous chemicals like a gas chamber does. Additionally, if aimed correctly it will cause death very quickly

[Serafina]

So, for what reason are you advocating the death penalty? Why is it a good, necessary thing? Remember, we are talking about killing a human being here.
All answers that i have seen so far are "because that person deserves it". Which is...not really an answer at all. Law should not be based on revenge, just because someone deserves something it's not necessarily the right thing.

I am not totally against the death penalty - but i see no place in it in a civilised nations legal system. It might be reserved for utterly extreme cases (such as warcrimes), but even then i see no justification other than the one named above. And when i see no reason to do something, i do not see why i should support it.

[Formless]

As an exercise, read and contrast this and other threads about the death penalty with any thread on this or other forums about prison abuse/overpopulation. How different are the responses people have to the two issues? What rhetoric and arguments do the two share or conflict upon? Of the people posting about the issues, how many that post about both issues stay consistent with their ethics? (naturally, of course, this will also shed light on why rehabilitation is relevant to the discussion)

I have no ideological conviction saying that its impossible to conceive of a situation where the death penalty is warranted. Indeed, for now some people may be genuinely impossible to rehabilitate with current techniques and are too dangerous to imprison without putting other prisoners and prison faculty at risk. But I do think that all deaths, no matter how necessary, are tragic (at least to someone involved), and I have seen nothing to indicate that such cases are anything but the exception to the rule. Most of the arguments I see touted in favor of the death penalty seem to either inflate the necessity of it (or punishment-driven models of justice in general) or seem to prey on people's emotions often via the (mis)use of stereotypes ("that person is a serial killer! A psychopath! BURN HIM").

For instance take the idea that imprisonment is expensive compared to just killing the person: it wouldn't be so expensive if we took more steps to lower the prison population, whether through rehabilitation to deal with recidivism rates, socio-economic improvement to deal with the main sources of crime, legal changes to de-criminalize trivial shit like marijuana possession, and a general willingness to use non-punishment solutions to crime. To say nothing of the price of making sure you killed the right person, and not some poor shmoe the jurors in Texas decided to throw the book at. Or how about the notion that we show our disapproval of things like murder, treason, and rape by killing them back: hypocrisy much? What that really tells people, one would think, is that it is wrong to kill unless commissioned by a government to do so. This has some fairly obvious negative implications on how people might view such things as war, police operations, and politics. I won't even touch the idea of deterrence, which is well known to be overrated.

Basically, my take is that to the degree that the death penalty is necessary or practical, the effect it has on people's perceptions of the law, the legal system, and ethics means it should remain limited in application. The more common the worst case crimes are perceived as being, the more society will overcompensate at the expense of the taxpayers and lesser criminals of society. That's a recipe for a society I for one don't want to live in.

[Packbat]

As Simon_Jester pointed out, the primary problem with the death penalty is justice - if the system cannot be sufficiently relied upon to give just verdicts, then it should not be used. How reliable is necessary is an interesting question, of course - I have no objection to Simon_Jester's judgment that the U.S. system is not up to the necessary standard.

That said, I have two further objections, both minor, to the death penalty: harm to the executors and benefit from inmates.

In order to enact the death penalty, it is necessary that there be one or more persons directly responsible for the killing of the convict. That this is a matter not taken lightly is reflected in the procedures for execution by firing squad: specifically, the use of "conscience rounds", randomly-selected guns secretly loaded with blanks or wax shot, so as to allow the members of the firing squad to pretend that they did not fire the killing shot. Compared to the harm inflicted by death penalty offenders, this cost is small, of course - but the relevant comparison is to the alternative of life imprisonment. Opposed to the risk of escape and the expense of incarceration, the brutalizing effect must be considered.

The second thing that must be considered is the possible benefits that a prisoner can provide to society, and for this I turn to the curious case of William Chester Minor. Minor was almost certainly suffering from mental disorders when he shot and killed a man - otherwise he would have been executed - but what happened afterward would be no less possible from a sane man: in his imprisonment, he learned of the call for volunteers on the project which would, in time, create the Oxford English Dictionary. And William Chester Minor, mad murderer, sent over twelve thousand citations to be included in this work. This work would have had to be done by others were Minor dead, and been done worse or taken longer. Yes, most inmates never produce material of similar value - but every execution is a lost chance, and this, too, must be included in the balance.

[Themightytom]

It's not just that they're not competent to understand what's happening (or to act on that understanding, which amounts to the same thing). It's that they are persistently dangerous to others. Most mentally ill or retarded people aren't dangerous as long as the people caring for them don't do anything idiotic. But if you've got someone who's such a maniac that they have to try and kill someone, it's like a compulsion... what do you do? Keep them strapped to a gurney for the rest of their lives and feed them with a tube down their throat to keep them from biting your fingers off? What kind of "life" is that, anyway?

At some point, you're left with no options but to kill someone like that or lock them up in solitary and slide them food through a slot in the door until they die because you can't send anyone into the room. At that point, the problem isn't that the punishment doesn't fit into a rehabilitation-oriented system. It's that the prisoner doesn't fit, because they are not a viable candidate for rehabilitation.

You can keep them locked up anyway if you are that loath to be directly responsible for their death, of course. But I think it should be understandable why someone else wouldn't make the same judgement call.

You could have just written what I bolded. The issues you have with criminally insane maniacs or whatever your calling them are the level of threat they represent. Zero if you effectively incarcerate them.

In terms of rehabilitation, the deficit isn't in solutions, it is in resources effectively applied and commitment to ideals. Even your case of the guy locked in a room is workable, using appropriate intervention. If therapeutic intervention isn't yet possible they would probably medicate him through his food.

Nobody wants to think about the criminal though its easier to just write the person off and be done with it right? Why's that guy getting free room and board when he murdered a little girl that's not "Fair".

In a rehabilitation model you would have to take it as a given that everyone is capable of recognizing negative behaviors and learning not to repeat them given the proper stimuli. Without this absolute there would be no objectivity, you have to have a subjective framework of which crimes are more severe, which behaviors are untreatable, etc. What quality of life is preferable to no life etc.

That's why capitol punishment doesn't fit, it is completely at odds with the objectivity of the core premise.



That being said,. I can see that as a public safety issue some criminals would need to be executed, if the assumption is that effective incarceration is impossible. While Occam's razor supports capitol punishment in the short term, i don't see why that kind of incompetence should define our response to the value of life.

[Simon_Jester]

It's not just that they're not competent to understand what's happening (or to act on that understanding, which amounts to the same thing). It's that they are persistently dangerous to others. Most mentally ill or retarded people aren't dangerous as long as the people caring for them don't do anything idiotic. But if you've got someone who's such a maniac that they have to try and kill someone, it's like a compulsion... what do you do? Keep them strapped to a gurney for the rest of their lives and feed them with a tube down their throat to keep them from biting your fingers off? What kind of "life" is that, anyway?

At some point, you're left with no options but to kill someone like that or lock them up in solitary and slide them food through a slot in the door until they die because you can't send anyone into the room. At that point, the problem isn't that the punishment doesn't fit into a rehabilitation-oriented system. It's that the prisoner doesn't fit, because they are not a viable candidate for rehabilitation.

You can keep them locked up anyway if you are that loath to be directly responsible for their death, of course. But I think it should be understandable why someone else wouldn't make the same judgement call.

You could have just written what I bolded. The issues you have with criminally insane maniacs or whatever your calling them are the level of threat they represent. Zero if you effectively incarcerate them.

In terms of rehabilitation, the deficit isn't in solutions, it is in resources effectively applied and commitment to ideals. Even your case of the guy locked in a room is workable, using appropriate intervention. If therapeutic intervention isn't yet possible they would probably medicate him through his food.

You haven't really addressed what I see as the problem. I myself already said: "You can keep them locked up anyway if you are that loath to be directly responsible for their death, of course." Pump enough drugs into their food and they will be too sedated to be a threat; tie them down firmly enough while they're not drugged and they won't be a threat even then.

The question is: what's the point? You object to my having a deficit of "commitment to ideals." What ideal is being served here? Is the ideal "nobody dies, ever, and failing that all deaths are prolonged to the very limit of our civilization's ability to provide resources to stave them off?"

Because at that point you fall prey to some of the same arguments raised in the euthanasia debate: quality of life issues. Is it worth burning every last penny of an old man's savings to keep him alive as his body shuts down around him and his mind falls apart at the seams, even if he himself wished it otherwise?

Likewise, is it worth keeping an exceptionally deadly criminal alive for twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years, pumping him full of drugs as necessary and keeping him trapped in a concrete box all his life, purely so that we can say that he is still alive, that we didn't kill him? Not just is it worth it to us; is it worth it to him?

If there is viable hope for rehabilitation, or even for him to perform productive activities while in prison, that's one thing. But there are exceptions to that: not every member of the species is sane enough to function in society, even the restricted version of society found in the prison population.

But if the ideal here is just "nobody dies, ever..." well, I don't really have a lot of respect for that ideal, not when it puts us in situations that come out as a net utilitarian bad in any system that doesn't define death as infinite and utter evil that is worth paying any price to avoid.

Nobody wants to think about the criminal though its easier to just write the person off and be done with it right? Why's that guy getting free room and board when he murdered a little girl that's not "Fair".

I don't know what you're talking about. This isn't really about the nature of the crime; it's about the logistics of imprisoning the criminal and whether there is any way to keep them imprisoned, without their hurting anyone, under conditions that a reasonable person would want to remain alive under.

If that guy murdered a little girl, but is a danger only to little girls, or can be deterred from attacking people by the threat of a painful beating or something... fine. Keep him alive in prison. I can accept that. I may consider him a waste of oxygen, but oxygen is not a scarce resource. But if not only did he murder a little girl, but he keeps trying to kill people he dislikes in jail, to the point where he will fashion a knife out of saran wrap so as to have something to stab people with, then maybe we're in a different situation.

Rehabilitation is the main mission of a good prison system. But where rehabilitation isn't possible, the secondary goal must be neutralization: we must protect those we can rehabilitate (or those we don't need to) from those we can't rehabilitate. If keeping a prisoner neutralized requires placing them under pitiful conditions (locked in a cement box and pumped full of sedatives) at great expense, then, again, we're in a different situation. A situation where executing the criminal may well be the most humane option compared to the alternative of keeping him alive so we can congratulate ourselves on the fact that we didn't kill him.

In a rehabilitation model you would have to take it as a given that everyone is capable of recognizing negative behaviors and learning not to repeat them given the proper stimuli.

Is that objectively true? Is that an accurate statement about reality, that we can treat every person in ways that will teach them not to behave badly? Or is that just an article of faith for you?

---

So, for what reason are you advocating the death penalty? Why is it a good, necessary thing? Remember, we are talking about killing a human being here.
All answers that i have seen so far are "because that person deserves it". Which is...not really an answer at all. Law should not be based on revenge, just because someone deserves something it's not necessarily the right thing.

I think the cases where it is reasonable are those where:

-Rehabilitation of the subject is effectively impossible because of the danger they pose to others. It's hard to rehabilitate someone when anyone who gets close to them when they're not restrained is putting their life at risk.
-Imprisoning them is exceptionally expensive and difficult, again because of the danger they pose to others.
-Imprisoning them under conditions where they pose no danger to others requires placing the subject under conditions so unpleasant (solitary confinement, extensive restraints, etc.) that it's debatable whether it is any form of kindness or mercy to "grant" the subject a long life under such conditions.

In that case, a rehabilitation-oriented prison system has no recourse but to warehouse the criminal under conditions that would leave anyone miserable, at which point, again, it's not clear that you're doing them a favor by not executing them.

For instance take the idea that imprisonment is expensive compared to just killing the person: it wouldn't be so expensive if we took more steps to lower the prison population, whether through rehabilitation to deal with recidivism rates, socio-economic improvement to deal with the main sources of crime, legal changes to de-criminalize trivial shit like marijuana possession, and a general willingness to use non-punishment solutions to crime. To say nothing of the price of making sure you killed the right person, and not some poor shmoe the jurors in Texas decided to throw the book at. Or how about the notion that we show our disapproval of things like murder, treason, and rape by killing them back: hypocrisy much? What that really tells people, one would think, is that it is wrong to kill unless commissioned by a government to do so. This has some fairly obvious negative implications on how people might view such things as war, police operations, and politics.

I disagree. When you get down to it, the reason government works at all (and the reason some people seem to resent its very existence) is its monopoly on force. The entire point of the exercise is to place the power of lethal force in the hands of a body that can be trusted not to use it to interfere with the citizenry's everyday life, so that they can go about their business without fear of being randomly killed.

That power has to go somewhere: if the state does not have the power to resort to the ultima ratio of lethal force, someone else willing to use it has a clear shot at breaking up the society the state is charged to protect.

So honestly, I would say: who better than a well-policed, carefully monitored government to have the power to kill? The mere fact that we trust a government with an army is a sign that we have endorsed it having the ability to kill, even to kill people far less offensive than the average violent criminal, under circumstances where that is the least-bad option.

So I don't think the argument "we should bar the state from the use of lethal force as punishment because of its effect on politics" holds water. We already permit the state the use of lethal force in other areas; punishment of the worst type of criminals is no less reasonable a situation to use lethal force than other situations where almost no one would deny the government authority to use lethal force.

Basically, my take is that to the degree that the death penalty is necessary or practical, the effect it has on people's perceptions of the law, the legal system, and ethics means it should remain limited in application. The more common the worst case crimes are perceived as being, the more society will overcompensate at the expense of the taxpayers and lesser criminals of society. That's a recipe for a society I for one don't want to live in.

This is definitely an excellent case for limiting the death penalty sharply, especially in societies where the just treatment of people suspected of crimes is not guaranteed.

The degree to which a state should be trusted with the death penalty is more or less inverse to how good it is at protecting the rights of the citizen and at not punishing the innocent in general. In practice, of course, most of the states that are good enough about these things that I would trust them with the death penalty are the same ones that refuse to use the death penalty in the first place... which is probably the strongest argument against my position- I have to admit the possibility that this is not a coincidence.

[Knife]

I don't see it as a revenge thing, although vengeance is a needed factor in justice, rather there are some people just too toxic to be in any social group. Yes, even in prison, some people are a danger to others and themselves I don't think we should write off the life of someone in prison just because they did something wrong, and feed them like a meat grinder to truly sick, mean, and evil people. A serial killer would meet this definition for me, put them in jail and they'll just prey on the inmates, and just because someone is in prison for smoking pot or writing bad checks, I don't think they should be prey for series killers.

So, until we come up with a valid exile place, there are some people too dangerous to keep alive. That's what capital punishment should be for.

[Lord of the Abyss]

I oppose it because I don't trust the justice system that much; the justice system is racist, sexist, and classist and which of those categories you fit into determines whether or not you get the death penalty; not what you crime you committed.

And also because it appears to me to be an overly expensive indulgence in indiscriminate vengeance. I say "indiscriminate" because so many of the death penalty supporters I run into don't seem to really care if the system is bigoted or if the death penalty does any good or not or even if the person being executed is actually guilty. They just want blood, and if that blood turns out to be innocent "that's just the price we have to pay".

[Formless]

So, for what reason are you advocating the death penalty? Why is it a good, necessary thing? Remember, we are talking about killing a human being here.
All answers that i have seen so far are "because that person deserves it". Which is...not really an answer at all. Law should not be based on revenge, just because someone deserves something it's not necessarily the right thing.

I think the cases where it is reasonable are those where:

-Rehabilitation of the subject is effectively impossible because of the danger they pose to others. It's hard to rehabilitate someone when anyone who gets close to them when they're not restrained is putting their life at risk.

How many people are so dangerous that they lash out at anyone who comes within arms reach? Not that I disagree with the argument, but the way you present it is exactly what I'm talking about: blowing the problem out of proportion by appealing to an almost comically exaggerated stereotype.

-Imprisoning them is exceptionally expensive and difficult, again because of the danger they pose to others.

Except that, again, the real reason imprisoning people is so expensive because our system just throws everyone in jail for every minor offense, leading to a prison population that is unsustainable. In other words, this is a problem now, but need not remain a problem in the future.

I disagree. When you get down to it, the reason government works at all (and the reason some people seem to resent its very existence) is its monopoly on force.

Self defense law disagrees with this over-simplification.

The entire point of the exercise is to place the power of lethal force in the hands of a body that can be trusted not to use it to interfere with the citizenry's everyday life, so that they can go about their business without fear of being randomly killed.

That power has to go somewhere: if the state does not have the power to resort to the ultima ratio of lethal force, someone else willing to use it has a clear shot at breaking up the society the state is charged to protect.

So honestly, I would say: who better than a well-policed, carefully monitored government to have the power to kill? The mere fact that we trust a government with an army is a sign that we have endorsed it having the ability to kill, even to kill people far less offensive than the average violent criminal, under circumstances where that is the least-bad option.

So I don't think the argument "we should bar the state from the use of lethal force as punishment because of its effect on politics" holds water. We already permit the state the use of lethal force in other areas; punishment of the worst type of criminals is no less reasonable a situation to use lethal force than other situations where almost no one would deny the government authority to use lethal force.

:facepalm: You've missed the point entirely. First, we live in a democratic society. The perceptions of the people directly impact public policy. Second, and building from this, is the fact that the culture we live in glorifies violence. You can see this in our media, you can in the very successful "tough on crime" rhetoric of our politicians (especially on the right) use, you can see this in the fact that we can barely go two decades without going to war with someone. The problem is NOT just that our system does not conform to your pie in the sky "carefully monitored government," its that the government is but a tool of society. A society that wouldn't know justice from a smoking hole in the ground where an Afghani village once stood.

Also, you're strawmanning. I am NOT advocating that the government should never use lethal force. I argued that it should limit its use of lethal force because the death penalty, being part of the culture of "tough on crime" bullshit that is endemic here in america, effects the larger perceptions of what the legal system is for. When people keep hearing about the serial killer under every bed, the child molester hiding behind every curtain, or the psychopath lurking in the shadows of every alleyway, there is no way you're going to convince the voters of the utility of rehabilitation.

This is definitely an excellent case for limiting the death penalty sharply, especially in societies where the just treatment of people suspected of crimes is not guaranteed.

The degree to which a state should be trusted with the death penalty is more or less inverse to how good it is at protecting the rights of the citizen and at not punishing the innocent in general. In practice, of course, most of the states that are good enough about these things that I would trust them with the death penalty are the same ones that refuse to use the death penalty in the first place... which is probably the strongest argument against my position- I have to admit the possibility that this is not a coincidence.

... so you don't actually disagree with my larger point.

[Formless]

I don't see it as a revenge thing, although vengeance is a needed factor in justice, rather there are some people just too toxic to be in any social group.

Just out of curiosity, why do you think vengence is needed but mercy and forgiveness not? Or is it, in your opinion?

[Themightytom]

You haven't really addressed what I see as the problem. I myself already said: "You can keep them locked up anyway if you are that loath to be directly responsible for their death, of course." Pump enough drugs into their food and they will be too sedated to be a threat; tie them down firmly enough while they're not drugged and they won't be a threat even then.

Oh come on you're not trying to pass off attitude inoculation as agreement are you?? You added a little rider that one would have to be "loath to be directly responsible for their death" which implies moral cowardice. That's ridiculous, it would take more moral fortitude to support an ongoing system of rehabilitation than a system that provides the quick and easy solution execution represents.

The question is: what's the point? You object to my having a deficit of "commitment to ideals." What ideal is being served here? Is the ideal "nobody dies, ever, and failing that all deaths are prolonged to the very limit of our civilization's ability to provide resources to stave them off?"

The ideal would be that crime is a reversible phenomenon, obviously, the result of behaviors that can be rehabilitated. Capitol punishment is pretty much "Nope, some people are beyond hope and too much trouble to keep around"

Because at that point you fall prey to some of the same arguments raised in the euthanasia debate: quality of life issues. Is it worth burning every last penny of an old man's savings to keep him alive as his body shuts down around him and his mind falls apart at the seams, even if he himself wished it otherwise?

Well why be afraid of that discussion?

Likewise, is it worth keeping an exceptionally deadly criminal alive for twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years, pumping him full of drugs as necessary and keeping him trapped in a concrete box all his life, purely so that we can say that he is still alive, that we didn't kill him? Not just is it worth it to us; is it worth it to him?

That is a strawman as you have substituted a more elaborate means of incarceration for actual attempts at rehabilitation.

If there is viable hope for rehabilitation, or even for him to perform productive activities while in prison, that's one thing. But there are exceptions to that: not every member of the species is sane enough to function in society, even the restricted version of society found in the prison population.

I like that you bothered to scale the definition of sane to the relative population, but i don't see why you decided to use it with such a permanent connotation in reference to a rehabilitation scenario. Mental health follows an illness model. Someone who is "insane" can become sane again, and unfortunately vice versa. When you assert that "not every member of the species is sane enough" you are accepting a point in time assessment that again completely misses the core tenet of rehabilitation. your argument boils down to "insanity isn't reversible" and I would love to see you produce evidence of that. beyond the obvious, its not reversible if you execute them.

But if the ideal here is just "nobody dies, ever..." well, I don't really have a lot of respect for that ideal, not when it puts us in situations that come out as a net utilitarian bad in any system that doesn't define death as infinite and utter evil that is worth paying any price to avoid.

You are talking an entirely different language from me. I said I don't see execution has having any value, not "death is evil."

I don't know what you're talking about. This isn't really about the nature of the crime; it's about the logistics of imprisoning the criminal and whether there is any way to keep them imprisoned, without their hurting anyone, under conditions that a reasonable person would want to remain alive under.

Well it could be about that, but you've been seriously on about who "can" be rehabilitated and who "can't". What kinds of criminals are "too dangerous" which obviously begs the question as to which crimes are worse. You are arguing on two fronts here, quality of life during treatment, and risk management.

Rehabilitation is the main mission of a good prison system. But where rehabilitation isn't possible, the secondary goal must be neutralization: we must protect those we can rehabilitate (or those we don't need to) from those we can't rehabilitate. If keeping a prisoner neutralized requires placing them under pitiful conditions (locked in a cement box and pumped full of sedatives) at great expense, then, again, we're in a different situation.

Apparently we have moved into a situation where life has a dollar value now... so, quality of life, risk management, and expense are your objections.

In a rehabilitation model you would have to take it as a given that everyone is capable of recognizing negative behaviors and learning not to repeat them given the proper stimuli.

Is that objectively true? Is that an accurate statement about reality, that we can treat every person in ways that will teach them not to behave badly? Or is that just an article of faith for you?

Thanks for wasting my time with a no true Scottsman fail. i don't have to prove that everyone in the world can be saved, I only have to prove that mental health treatment can be effective, in order to justify a model that proceeds on that assertion. because the your converse argument would be that execution is more effective treatment for the subject. Good luck with that one...