Capital Punishment: Should the Death Penalty Still Exist In A 'Civilised Society'?

But it's not because I respect the sanctity of life or some bullshit. Human beings are ultimately expendable, probably more so than other mammals. But giving the federal government that kind of power? Ultimate DUD.

This is one cause I'd probably march for. It's a deeply flawed (and proven so!) system - biased, cruel and barbaric.

Being 'civilised' has nothing to do with it. It's common sense. Don't make me quote that overused "First they came for the Jews..."

Well, the perversely more amusing (?) thing is that Allawi and crew just reinstated the death penalty in Iraq, so smiles all around!

The death penalty as such is an abomination.

Killing people is a-ok so long as the government doesn't do it?

right. which is why study after shows that the death penalty is a deterrent to crime.

NOT.

Plus, as a system, it's 'racist,' etc etc etc

this is one of the scariest things that i've read. look around the next time you're out in public.

Putting emotions aside (always difficult in this debate), the death penalty does not serve any interest of the state that could not be better served through other means.

The state has an interest in preventing heinous criminals from continuing to commit crimes. But that interest can be equally well served through life imprisonment. The death of the criminal provides no added benefit.

The state has an interest in promoting justice. No system can ensure perfect justice. Given that we know our justice must necessarily be imperfect, the best remedy requires that all mistakes, when discovered, must be corrected. The very nature of the death penalty thwarts this requirement.

The state does not have an interest in promoting revenge. Revenge does not provide any tangible benefits to the state or anyone else. The fact that certain people connected to the crime declare a sense of satisfaction or relief at the death of the criminal is of very doubtful benefit, even to those who seek it, and a sense of satisfaction or relief are not sufficient ends to justify taking life.

x-post

"The death of the criminal provides no added benefit."

except financial. Just playing Devil's advocate here, but it costs taxpayers a lot of money to keep a 19 year old prisoner alive for that long.

some people deserve it

especially very fat people

ugh, they're so gross

One nice thing about money is that it can be measured with great accuracy. It should therefore be possible to compare average costs per inmate between death penalty states and non-death penalty states to get a handle on which approach is more expensive and by how much. Just guessing is not a good approach.

If mere cost-effectiveness turns out to be the strongest and best reason for the state to execute certain prisoners, I think that would be a good indicator of just how weak the practical argument in favour of capital punishment is.

Then how come every European government is still in charge of things? In Finland the death penalty isn't lawful even during wartime.

Why is there the death penalty in USA but not UK? Does mainland Europe have it?

The EU regulations say that a member state cannot have the death penalty, so none of the EU countries have it. I'm pretty sure it's same with most of the non-EU countries, though some Eastern European countries, like Belarussia, probably still have it.

are you being funny?

It doesn't?

maybe im being a bit too Hobbsian, but since i think anarchy is untenable there needs to be strong (read: effective) means for enforcing order. what means are "moral" (by what definition?) or reasonable is i suppose what the death penalty debate is all about. i dont think the death penalty really meets any needs that U.S. in particular has, and should therefore be abolished.

I find it slightly disturbing that you rate the threat to order over the threat to human life.

and i tend to see the threat to order as a threat to human life.

I'm pessemistic too. We'll more than likely blow ourselves up/iredeemibly poison our environment/regress to a new dark age before we achieve a post-scarcity anarchistic society. But that doesn't mean it's untenable, and that doesn't mean we shouldn't continue to strive for it.

As for the order/human life thing, it's very easy for a government to justify an atrocity by saying it was to maintain order. Remember Tianiman Square.

It's the end of the world, I tell you!

doesnt capital punishment work against the criminal justice system anyways, at least in principle? crimes are against the state. feelings, except when they speak towards the motive and intent of the accussed, shouldnt factor at all. that is what allows the system to be relatively fair and universal. capital punishment is often justified on emotional terms ("so what if they raped your daughter, what then? wouldnt you want death?") but the idea of "victim's rights" is sort of ludicrous insofar as there is no "right" to revenge or "closure". in fact, revenge, if committed by the victim's family, usually ends up being illegal in its own right, so to reinsert it as a sentencing option is a bit odd isnt it?

(my diction sux but you get it i hope)

xpost

Yet in the states it does seem to be a vote winner.

Why is this?

Not only a 12 year old state, but the biggest 12 year old state in the goddamn playground.

Refer to my earlier statement regarding the end of the world.

Reminds me of one of my service-industry friend's rules: "If a commissary can't afford to feed its employees, it's a failure."

See Fahrenheit 9/11 kthxby

By MIKE BRANOM
Associated Press Writer
Published August 8, 2004, 9:31 PM CDT

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- An ex-convict who blamed a young woman for taking his video game system and clothes recruited three teenagers to stab and beat her and five others to death, investigators said Sunday.

The 22-year-old woman was singled out for an attack so vicious that even dental records were useless in trying to identify her. Some of the victims were attacked in their sleep, according to authorities.

The victims' bodies were found Friday in a blood-spattered home.

All four suspects have been charged with first-degree murder and armed burglary, the Volusia County sheriff's department said.

Suspected ringleader Troy Victorino, 27, of Deltona, was "very guarded" during questioning, Sheriff Ben Johnson said. Three 18-year-olds were also arrested Saturday: Robert Cannon of Orange City and Jerone Hunter and Michael Salas, both of Deltona.

All four were jailed in Daytona Beach while awaiting bail hearings Monday. Johnson wants prosecutors to seek the death penalty, saying, "These families will never get over this."

Police said the attack was the culmination of events revolving around a nearby vacant home owned by one of the victims' grandparents and used by Victorino and other squatters as a party house. The four men and two women who were slain had reported being harassed by the alleged assailants.

"Officials struggling to come up with a motive for the crime believe the killings were committed over the theft of some clothes and an Xbox game system owned by Victorino," a statement from the sheriff's office said.

All four suspects were armed with aluminum bats when Victorino kicked in the locked front door, according to arrest records. The group, who wore black clothes and had scarves on their faces, grabbed knives inside and attacked victims in different rooms of the three-bedroom house, authorities said.

The victims, some of whom were sleeping, did not put up a fight or try to escape, Johnson said. All had been stabbed, but autopsies determined the cause of death was the beating injuries.

Victorino has spent eight of the last 11 years in prison and was arrested Saturday for a probation violation. His first arrest was in an auto theft when he was 15, according to state records. He has prior convictions for battery, arson, burglary, auto theft and theft.

Hunter, who was with Victorino when he was arrested Saturday, agreed to accompany investigators for questioning. Police said he admitted his role in the slayings and identified the other two suspects.

All four suspects appeared before a judge Saturday without attorneys. They will have a chance to ask for court-appointed lawyers on Monday.

Hunter, a high school wrestler, moved out of his family's house in May but recently agreed to return home for his senior year.

"He never seemed to be that type ... that was violent," his father Dan Washington said. "He was a good kid, he just got with the wrong crowd."

The sheriff's office has identified five of the victims as Michelle Ann Nathan, 19; Anthony Vega, 34; Roberto "Tito" Gonzalez, 28, who recently moved from New York; Francisco Ayo Roman, 30; and Jonathan Gleason, 18.

The sixth victim was believed to be Erin Belanger, 22, whose grandparents own the vacant home and spent the summer in Maine.

Joe Abshire, Belanger's brother-in-law, said she described heading to the vacant house to go swimming one day and finding about six people living there. The squatters were kicked out, but deputies were called to the grandparents' house six times in 10 days before the killings. The victims reported a tire-slashing at their home and a threat.

The squatters warned Belanger that "they were going to come back there and beat her with a baseball bat when she was sleeping," Abshire, who is married to Erin's sister Jennifer, told The Sun of Lowell, Mass., for Sunday editions.

Victorino complained that his belongings were removed from the grandparents' house while he was in jail following a July 29 arrest for battery, Johnson said. He said Victorino found his things boxed up at the victims' house and took them after the killings.

The bodies were discovered in the rental home in the working-class community about 25 miles north of Orlando after one of Nathan's co-workers at a Burger King asked someone to visit the house because she had not arrived for work.

My justification, which you are welcome to disagree with:

* if wrongly convicted, it would be a crime in turn to have them killed -- Marcello's point holds, there are many other examples

* if rightly convicted, death is almost too easy a release -- maybe some would thrive on it, but to my mind, no form of better mental torment could be imagined than to live out a huge amount of time, if not the rest of your life, in such a state. It is the type of fate I would wish for someone like Saddam Hussein, used to power and control of a country and now reduced to a room somewhere. It may be roomier than the hole he was found in, but that doesn't change the basic dynamic any.

It's quite worrying how blase people are about 'A BULLET doesn't cost more than keeping them in jail does it?' type attitudes.

The problem with the justice system all along has been the uncertainty of conviction and the possibility that someone could be wrongly convicted or unfairly punished. There comes a point however when constantly providing for the possibility of someone's innocence reaches the point of total absurdity, if you find a person irredeemable enough to let them die in prison, why not just kill them anyway?

The fallibility of our forensic apparatus should be accounted for but it should not be used as an excuse to completely limit the powers of the people and the state (which exercises the will of the PEOPLE, you cannot be sentenced to death by a judge, and legislation is the product of representational democracy, whether you like it or not) to dispose of convicted/confessed criminals as they see fit.

I'm still just confused as to why premeditated murderers and rapists are ever given the option to walk? Parole what? Mercy who?

xpost Fergal: Well they DON'T!

in the real world, it has been estimated that at least ten per cent of executions in the last thirty years in america have been of innocent people. the racial breakdown is absurd. the inconsistencies between what warrants prison or execution are appalling. and the physical act of execution is hardly surgical in its precision. far far better to abolish capital punishment than to make any of these mistakes.

I'd be disappointed, I think, to believe that we eventually reached a point where we were so unsure of ourselves and our ability to reach a sound conclusion in a court of law that we had to just let the worst criminals of our society continue to live and breathe out of sheer uncertainty. A civilized society doesn't bother itself by keeping scum like Gacy, Brisbon or Fourniret alive, penned up or not.

And then there's Sally Clark and all the other supposed baby-killers jailed on the hearsay evidence of a quack paediatrician with a Moral Majority axe to grind. Clearly it would have been far cheaper and a far better use of taxpayers' money just to string them up and have done with it.

And of COURSE morality comes into it. Trying to look at positive/negative effects to society and the death penalty's economic viability are red herrings of the highest order - it's upside-down thinking, at least to my mind.

I agree with this! I think it's immoral NOT to shoot people like Henry Brisbon.

Fergal: Ethics 210. Utilitarianism
Categorical Imperative

I find it very funny that many of the same people wearing their Old Testament indoctrinations on their sleeves are the same people who will take any opportunity offered on ILX to ridicule and denigrate Christianity.

xpost what are you all arguing about?

then they came for the shoplifters, ethically obtuse, .... etc etc

actually "why is it wrong to kill" is an interesting question.

I find it very funny that many of the same people wearing their Old Testament indoctrinations on their sleeves are the same people who will take any opportunity offered on ILX to ridicule and denigrate Christianity.

In the Old Testament, you've got the whole "eye for an eye" argument, which seems to bolster the pro-death penalty one, whereas the New Testament is where Jesus' "turn the other cheek" comes about. The two are not compatible, and obv. supply the greatest break between Judaism and Christianity.

I'd also argue that the European strand of anti-death penalty sentiment probably stems way more from the Enlightenment, Rationality and various post-French Revolution debacles than from Christianity itself.

aside from, like, Jesus being the Messiah, too. But you know that.

I don't think people and animals are comparible (one reason why I prefer to be referred to as 'a woman' rather than 'a female', but that's a whole nother rant).

Aha, this is a point of contention which I think it is best not to argue here. I don't really think serial killers or child rapists qualify as "people," though. It's interesting to note that I actively try to avoid referring to certain types of criminals as human, in fact, I just realized I even do this in normal conversation.

Maybe I'm the crazy person.

how does the death penalty not constitute "cruel and unusual punishment," as defined and prohibited by the Constitution?

The same way jailing Eugene Debs until he was practically crippled and incapacitated was not cruel and unusual, the same way interning Japanese-Americans was not cruel and unusual: like pretty much everything about our purposefully ambiguous US constitution, it's all up to the interpretation of the Court. If the Court says that the "eye for an eye" concept is not cruel or unusual, then it isn't. That's how our system is set up.

I'm not saying I agree with the Court, mind you. The system really is completely fucked up (justice in being handed out unevenly shockah), and I think that until a better system is set up perhaps a moritorium on the death penalty, as was in the early '70s, is perhaps called for. Not that that actually fixed the system back then, though, and one could make the point that the amount of false imprisonments in general and people getting handed really strict penalties for what seems to be petty crimes (the 3 strikes law, for example, is a pile of bullshit being used to hand what I would deem cruel and unusual punishment to fairly inane, boring, completely unthreatening "criminals") would imply that perhaps our entire justice system should be on moritorium, following the logic to its extreme.

The system en totale is just not really great. I do theoretically agree with the death penalty (I mean, would anyone here argue that the handful of executions of Nazis post-WWII were unjust?) but in practice it hasn't exactly done anything worthwhile enough to balance out the problems we have implementing it.

Also, the Messiah thing is NOT the biggest breaking point between Judaism and Christianity! Jews for Jesus 4eva!

the Jews for Jesus dudes in the Broadway-Nassau stop freak me out. Who funds these wackos?

(I am anti-death penalty, BTW.)

(OK I fully admit I'm just saying this because it came into my head--my grandfather used to threaten my mother when she was stroppy with that exact line)

If we developed a way to prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that someone had really killed other people in cold blood, with malice, for pleasure, would the death penalty still be a bad thing?

Also it is worth noting, to Tom I suppose, that death penalty is not something generally (read: ever, see here) applied to rape. Actually, real punishment is not something often applied to sex crimes. God help you if you're a Puerto Rican talking on your cell phone in your car in NYC though, tombs for a weekend.

xpost that's what I mean, hsilly!

lots of xposts

are "jews for jesus" really jew? i mean, were they ever actually jews? or is it just an evangelical organization with a strange twist?

Back to capital punishment.

And yes, hstencil, I agree, but you could pull a whole lot of issues and point to how they are extremely inconsistent vis a vis the issue of mitigating factors or historical precedent, in particular (the state legislature one is a little odder, they do seem more likely to tell the states to go done fuck themselves). It's like, ok, for example, part of Roe v. Wade cites that there WERE no anti-abortion laws prior to the 20th Century so therefore historical precedent says this is no one's business. However, historical precedent in cases like Debs or Abrams or Schenck (and I'm assuming whenever someone actually goes ahead and challenges Patriot Act) pretty much shows that the US didn't have draconian speech restrictions for 120 years and went thru several periods of tension/war without these laws but hey, dude, we gots to make you all shut yo' face. The 20th Century Court is wholly inconsistent, Holmes court v. Warren court v. Current Court etc.

Should I start a Supreme court thread?

btw everybody: http://www.ncadp.org/

Quite.

This is a no-brainer for a Supreme Court Justice cause when the states ratified the ban on cruel an unusual punishment they also included a provision for the execution of traitors.

Amendment V (1791)

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. (Italics mine)

I'm sure in the late 18th century hanging was seen as neither cruel nor unusual.

xpost I know about the Alien and Sedition Act, that was prior to the period I deliniated (120 years)--it was a failed law, only applied occasionally, and was deplored by Jefferson (who called it something like a witch trial or a reign of witch trials or something similarly pat and quaint and 1700s-y). It was only on the books a short period and was never an issue dealt with by the Court (unlike, say, segregation issues). It couldn't be used as a precedent (and isn't mentioned as such in any of the decisions).

I just don't understand why everybody seems to think that actually performing the action of executing dangerous animals is somehow a horrible idea and should be completely dismissed.

I'm also beginning to think I may not share the kneejerk distrust of The State that seems to pervade this board. Shocker.

i imagine her like that girl in secretary, doggedly remaining in her seat on the S.C. bench, wetting her pants, etc.

Allyzay, rumors like that about justices retiring are spread every election year.

Yes, I understand it means nothing. Aren't they all like 100 years old now anyway?

I agree but I think that the promotion of equal protection under the law is paramount especially inasmuch as, from a revenge point of view, spending the rest of one's days incarcerated seems as cruel as death, and from a rehabilatory point of view death seems counter-productive.

xpost

(xpost)
()

xpost Dan, I know, that's why I personally think the death penalty should be halted for now, the system is waaaaaaay too flawed and is not being used in any way I'd approve of persnoally.

yep, you only need to look at ILX for this (excuse sarcasm)

This was originally a morbid joke on my part. Unless anybody knows of any upstanding undead citizens, killing criminals is the ultimate expression of our determination of their un-rehabilatibility.

"This is the worst thing that I've ever seen in my career," said Johnson, a 33-year veteran of law enforcement. "The brutal force used against the victims ... it's indescribable."

Rehabilitate my ass. You're goddamn right it's about revenge. I'll be watching for a jury of the people of Florida to do the right thing and fry that guy.

*moves to Castro's Cuba*

[ asinine one liner not really germane to anything ]

*kills Nicky Wire*

In which case, the fault would appear to not solely be the murderers', strange to say.

i hate to joke about this stuff, but has anyone seen a picture of the cells there? its almost as bad as a studio apartment in manhattan.

xpost Impartiality is virtually impossible to begin with on any high profile case; the only answer to that is to shut down the press completely on reporting crime--whether or not the cop said a damn thing, people still could read the story and see for themselves that it is an absolutely horrific case, so I don't see how the cop per se is causing a problem for the prosecution.

my brain is addled from too much cream of broccoli soup.

hstencil: ok, that's kind of what i was thinking. got ya.

xxx-post

Yeah.

If you kill someone with a baseball bat, does it really make the crime any more heinous if you also smash the teeth into tiny pieces? I mean presumably the people were long dead by the time they got finished with all the teeth, right? Sure, it indicates some kind of insane rage, but is it really a more heinous crime that your regular run-of-the-mill death-by-bludgeoning?

Anyway I think there are two ways to look at why that's an indicator of it being "different": the insane rage part. It indicates, I suppose, either the person is completely insane and mentally ill (well, I guess you'd have to be but hopefully you know what I mean), which I guess would actually make them ineligible for the death penalty. Or it implies they just really get off on torture and abuse and death, which is really heinous. Run-of-the-mill bludgeoning/shooting/etc you still have that possibility of like heat-of-the-moment or OMG that was actually a one time thing, I think, in some people's minds...

Of course the whole dynamic is fucked because I think getting off on bashing in people's teeth with baseball bats IS a sign of being completely mentally ill so the whole "mental illness" conundrum is a false one.

TOMBOT, aren't you being a little defeatist?

it happens, sometimes.

xpost

Meanwhile, having read a book last week about Stalin's time in Russia and the millions dead there thanks to him, I will more than happily concede that I'm rather glad to be here now rather than there then, for instance. At the same time, it reaffirmed the sheer unabiding hatred I can have for the species as a whole -- but that in turn fighting against the death penalty is a way to sublimate that hatred and turn something positive out of it. There have been enough horrors committed in this world already, I am not keen to add more fuel to the fire.

I think my conception of society -- not something I've reflected on much, so this will be a brief teasing out -- is less one of place and role as it is of existence.

Maybe Jesus is one of the highest profile defeatists ever (cf "You'll always have the poor.").

Well yeah, if your concept of ethics involves maximising utility how is considering the benefit to society some misleading separate issue to this, is all I meant.

I dunno, I don't think she stabbed anyone.

word

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/04/08/lunsford/index.html

When will America's bloodlust ever end??? It's a mockery of everything God stands for when a modern society kills its own citizens! Oh where oh where is the humanity!

By Susan Kuczka and Lisa Black
Tribune staff reporters
Published May 11, 2005, 1:30 PM CDT

Bond was denied today for a 34-year-old Zion man who allegedly admitted he punched his daughter because she refused to come home with him, punched her friend who came to her aid then repeatedly stabbed the children, killing them.

"This was a slaughter of two little girls," Lake County Assistant State's Atty. Jeffrey Pavletic said.

Jerry Branton Hobbs III, 34, released from a Texas prison less than a month ago, faces two counts of first-degree murder in the stabbing and beating deaths Sunday of his daughter, Laura Hobbs, 8, and her best friend, Krystal Tobias, 9.

Hobbs is being held in Lake County Jail. His next court date is June 9.

Speaking at a news conference following this morning's bond hearing in Waukegan, Pavletic said, "You can see from the injuries to these individuals the rage that was exhibited."

"Laura had 20 stab wounds. She was stabbed in the neck, she was stabbed in the abdomen, she was stabbed once in each eye," Pavletic said.

One thrust went so deep into Laura's neck, the knife struck the child's spine, he said.

"Krystal had also been stabbed, 11 times," the prosecutor said. "She had been stabbed in the neck and stabbed in the abdomen as well."

In a statement to investigators, Hobbs allegedly admitted being angry that Laura's mother, Sheila Hollabaugh, was supposedly letting the child off easily for having taken a small amount of money from her last week.

He said he went looking for her between 4:30 and 7 p.m. Sunday and found the child and her friend in a wooded area north of Beulah Park in north suburban Zion, Pavletic said.

Hobbs ordered his daughter to come home with him, the prosecutor said. When Laura refused, he allegedly punched her at least twice, knocking her down. When Krystal came to her friend's aid, Hobbs allegedly punched her, too.

The defendant told investigators Krystal pulled what the suspect called a "potato knife"—believed to be Texas slang for a small knife with a blade 4- to 6-inches long, Pavletic said.

Hobbs allegedly said he grabbed the knife, killed the youngsters and dragged their bodies to a wooded area of Beulah Park. Their bodies later were found, faces beaten and bloodied, lying side by side with their shoes neatly placed next to them. Hobbs then went home, got alcohol and tried to clean himself off, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors were skeptical a young girl would have been carrying a weapon or that either child posed a physical threat to Hobbs.

"This guy is approximately 6 feet 1, and you're talking about 8- or 9-year-old girls," Lake County State's Atty. Michael Waller said.

Later Sunday evening, after family members reported the two girls missing, Hobbs joined police and volunteers searching all night for them. He supposedly was the first person to find the bodies about 6 a.m. Monday.

In subsequent interviews with police, investigators became suspicious when the man told them he approached no closer than 20 feet to the bodies, yet gave details that someone standing from far away could not have seen.

Hobbs also allegedly did not display the grief police expected him to show about the loss of one of his children.

Under questioning, the man eventually admitted killing the children, giving investigators an oral confession and a videotaped and written statement, prosecutors said.

stfu stormy davis

2004 was a weird year

do you still believe that shit or is it in iraq war killfile now?

no, no def penalty

the best argument against the death penalty is the possibility of wrongful conviction. i mean, isn't it better to keep 50 killers in prison for life than accidentally execute one innocent person?

i hope human sacrifice makes a comeback some day

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/29/us/29execute.html

Good ol' George. There's nothing he likes about being in charge better than gettin' folks kilt.

no

gershy otm

haven't read this yet - john paul stevens explaining his position on the death penalty and his reversal during his time on the court

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/dec/23/death-sentence/?pagination=false

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/12/us/12bar.html

Alabama allows judges to reject sentencing decisions from capital juries, which sounds like a sensible idea. You might want a mature and dispassionate jurist standing between a wounded community’s impulse toward vengeance and a defendant at risk of execution.

What Justice Marshall probably did not anticipate, though, was that judges in Alabama would not use their power for mercy — that they would, in fact, be even tougher than juries. Since 1976, according to a new report, Alabama judges have rejected sentencing recommendations from capital juries 107 times. In 98 of those cases, or 92 percent of them, judges imposed the death penalty after juries had called for a life sentence.

Judges in Delaware are appointed and generally use their authority to reject death sentences. Alabama judges are elected, often running on tough-on-crime platforms. Overrides are more common in election years.

here's a (imo) very good dissent on this issue from justice stevens from 15 years ago: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/93-7659.ZD.html

death penalty is always wrong imho

The dealth penalty skews the system and costs too much money. Also it is evil.

In 98 of those cases, or 92 percent of them, judges imposed the death penalty after juries had called for a life sentence.

omg alabama is westeros

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/09/opinion/09dow.html

Since 1976, Texas has carried out 470 executions (well more than a third of the national total of 1,257). You can count on one hand the number of those executions that involved a white murderer and a black victim and you do not need to use your thumb, ring finger, index finger or pinkie.

not to defend texas or state-sanctioned murder or anything, but I would think white-on-black murder is relatively infrequent, so that stat would need to be put in perspective

sure

it should not, but i could be persuaded to make a handful of exceptions

xxps lulz at NYT giving classy middle finger to Texas

well...i don't think there's anything particularly mean-spirited about that, and it's an op-ed, not an editorial or something

besides nothing wrong with pointing out shitty things about texas

i think it's hilarious. a little mean-spirited, tho, but i don't have a problem with that.

Texas to execute dude who ran around shooting people if they looked to him like they were Muslim; one of his victims who survived is pleading with the state for clemency.

“Excuse me?” I asked. As soon as I spoke I felt the sensation of a million bees stinging my face, and then heard an explosion. Images of my mother, my father, my siblings and my fiancé appeared before my eyes, and then, a graveyard. I didn’t know if I were still alive. I looked down at the floor and saw blood pouring like an open faucet from the side of my head. Frantically, I placed both hands on my face, thinking I had to keep my brains from spilling out. I heard myself screaming, “Mom!” The gunman was still standing there. I thought, “If I don’t pretend I’m dead, he’ll shoot me again.”

This was not a robbery but it was a hate crime. It was just after the tragedy of the World Trade Center on September 11th. The man with the gun was Mark Stroman, a white supremacist, and he was in the middle of a shooting rampage to express his anger towards those of Middle Eastern descent. He shot and killed Waqar Hasan, a man from Pakistan, on September 15; he shot me, a man from Bangladesh, on September 21, 2001, and shot and killed Vasudev Patel, a man from India, on October 4. All the victims were shot while working at gas stations and convenience stores in Dallas.

This incident changed my life, and has helped me to realize that hate doesn’t bring a peaceful solution to any situation. Hate only brings fear, misery, resentment and disaster into human lives. It creates obstacles to healthy human growth, which, in turn, diminishes society as a whole. Mark Stroman’s hate only brought more pain and suffering to an already mourning nation.

For his actions, he was found guilty on April 4, 2002 in the death of Mr. Patel, with a scheduled execution date of July 20th, 2011.

I am requesting that Mark Stroman’s death penalty be commuted to life in prison with no parole. There are three reasons I feel this way. The first is because of what I learned from my parents. They raised me with the religious principle that he is best who can forgive easily. The second reason is because of what I believe as a Muslim, which is that human lives are precious and that no one has the right to take another human’s life. In my faith, forgiveness is the best policy and Islam doesn’t allow for hate and killing. And, finally, I seek solace for the wives and children of Mr. Hasan and Mr. Patel, who are also victims in this tragedy. Executing Stroman is not what they want, either. They have already suffered so much; it will only cause more suffering if he is executed.

let me be half as decent as this guy for like a single day in my life and I'll consider my life a success

a very moving follow-up of sorts:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/19/us/19questions.html

stroman, the shooter, was just executed about 90 minutes ago

terrible thing

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/31/opinion/sunday/executions-should-be-televised.html

I knew the man they executed. He was a friend of mine a few years before the crime, though we fell out of touch as high school went on (he went to a different school). I talked to him briefly six months or so before the crime; he was dressed head-to-toe in camo.

I'm going to shut up because I don't want to honor his memory. It's still bizarre to me what happened.

Damn, Euler. That's all I can say. Just...damn.

I know that I've argued in favor of the death penalty before on ilx, if not on this thread. I came around on this recently, for the record.

I'm still massively sympathetic to the people who are in favor of it however, especially victims and victims' families.

I am against it, but it's strange since in some little way it's a part of my life. I didn't know his family.

reading about the case, he's about as clear a psychopath as you get I think

and I don't think psychopaths can really be 'held accountable'

death penalty is always wrong imho

― a man is only a guy (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, July 12, 2011 8:44 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark

I guess he was a psychopath. We played a lot of Dungeon & Dragons together. & kill the carrier, where he was an absolute beast. At dinner he'd eat a dozen hot dogs, or if we ordered pizza, a whole large pizza.

You know, I had a friend I played D&D with. He was a normal, seemingly-gentle soul. His family moved away to Virginia and when I ran into him like a year later, he had been through the juvenile system for stabbing a guy.

death penalty is always wrong imho

― a man is only a guy (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, July 12, 2011 8:44 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark

― Richard Nixon's Field of Warmth (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, July 29, 2011 6:47 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark

I still don't think it would be wrong, from a moral perspective, if applied to someone who deserved it. But the idea of someone innocent getting trapped in the web is too frightening. And the system itself is too cumbersome and expensive. And lastly, I sort of think that putting someone in prison for life punishes them for longer (obviously). : ) It's probably just better that way.

it's morally wrong because it is the state committing an act of vengeance, which should not be the role of the state.

i'm sure the church would be happy to step in

Even most churches are against capital punishment these days.

i'm very sorry euler, i'm sure it's a difficult situation

shakey otm. lol catholicism in my case

basically killing someone who poses no imminent threat to anyone else is barbaric imo and is unjustifiable

Nah, it's no biggie for me really, but it's really strange to remember this again: he was on death row since the mid 90s. & I hadn't had much contact with him since the early 90s.

Fuck Stroman. Also fuck tim mc veigh, who deserved to die.

Hell, my grandfather used to tell me that people who cheated at cards when he was growing up got shot. So no real sympathy here if some child rapist gets the gas.

you're an idiot.

otm

You both should get the gas

i don't see a problem with criminals getting their just deserts. criminal acts are freely chosen acts of pre-meditated evil, which is why there's no discernible pattern relating criminality to education, poverty, childhood socialization etc.

my great uncle was in a concentration camp so I have no real sympathy if a bill magill gets beaten mercilessly by a stranger with a baseball bat

criminal acts are freely chosen acts of pre-meditated evil, which is why there's no discernible pattern relating criminality to education, poverty, childhood socialization etc.

i think this is way OTT - there aren't people whose circumstances you hear and think, maybe it's slightly more likely that they would do this than i would? eg, the woman who worked as a prostitute and killed seven or eight guys, either in self-defence or not in self-defence. i'm not saying, 'sure kill some guys' so much as 'i can see how you got there'. 'freely chosen acts' of 'pre-meditated (???) evil' seems to lionise the fact that we technically 'choose' to do most things we do, irrespective of the causes. i don't think the lack of data on it being endemic to people of certain backstories makes sense of the people who do it.

nv was being sarcastic

thanks :) also i don't think i believe in "free will" but hey i've got no say in the matter

jeez i'm sorry i keep doing that on here it's really embarrassing

nah it's my bad

i always try to salvage some sense of having righteously stood up for the downtrodden against ridiculous + sarcastically lampooned allegations but it is no comfort, i have been a fool

i mean would it kill you to ;)

i was wondering tho, and shoot me down if i'm talking bollocks here, if one of the reasons the US retains the death penalty (or i assume the majority of states do anyway) is that the belief in an individual's control over their own destiny is such a central part of the idea of the USA? the same thinking that anybody can achieve anything if they work hard and persevere has as its shadow the belief that some murders are purely acts of personal volition and hence deserving of unrestrained retribution?

and i'm 99 percent certain that a quick examination of yr execution stats for any given year wd show a huge skew in the social class and educational achievement of the condemned ;)

not to get off topic but

( Mr. Bhuiyan was discharged the day after being treated; he was told he did not have health insurance. For the next several months, he slept on people’s couches and had to rely on physicians’ samples for medication, including painkillers and eye drops. He had several operations on his right eye; he now has only limited vision in it.)

jesus fucking christ get shot in the face then kicked out the next day

i was wondering tho... if one of the reasons the US retains the death penalty (or i assume the majority of states do anyway) is that the belief in an individual's control over their own destiny is such a central part of the idea of the USA

I can see that - and I like that idea - but on the other hand, it is the ultimate example of the state using its muscle against the individual.

think of it more of a casting out of Eden?

I think that it's more an issue of - when someone is murdered, there is nothing that can be done to bring them back. That's the end. A brother, a sister, a daughter, a mommy, a daddy, a friend. They're fucking gone and all the beautiful hope and potential that they could have had in life bleeds out in an instant - or over a long fucking period of time in some cases. And the pain of that murder branches out - it touches friends, family, a community where you can't even fucking feel safe anymore. "This guy was obliterated for no fucking reason. What if that happens to me? What if that happens to my dad?"

The idea that someone's social class and educational achievement should factor into the decision to punish someone for committing such a crime is sad and ludicrous. There is no level of social class or educational achievement that exists where someone wasn't told that murder is like, the worst transgression that you could ever commit.

that isn't my point. if murder, or criminality in general, is unrelated to those factors then we should expect the class etc. of murderers to be reasonably evenly distributed. it isn't. does that make it okay to commit murder if you're poor? i wouldn't say that. but if your upbringing impacts on the likelihood of your committing a crime then how can we attribute criminality to some internal badness that is untouched by external causes?

and then: do we want the state to try to reduce the amount of violent crime, or do we want the state to focus on punishing those who commit it?

but if your upbringing impacts on the likelihood of your committing a crime then how can we attribute criminality to some internal badness that is untouched by external causes?

I don't think we have to attribute it as such. I think the nature of the crime is sufficiently severe as to merit the most severe punishment available, regardless of excuses.

do we want the state to try to reduce the amount of violent crime, or do we want the state to focus on punishing those who commit it?

It should absolutely be both, and without a doubt, the American state (can't speak for the wider world) doesn't focus enough on preventing crime, both at a roots quality-of-life level or at a policing level.

when someone is executed, there is nothing that can be done to bring them back. That's the end. A brother, a sister, a daughter, a mommy, a daddy, a friend. They're fucking gone and all the beautiful hope and potential that they could have had in life bleeds out in an instant - or over a long fucking period of time in some cases. And the pain of that murder branches out - it touches friends, family, a community where you can't even fucking feel safe anymore. "This guy was obliterated for no fucking reason. What if that happens to me? What if that happens to my dad?"

or maybe the friends and family and dependents of the executed are complicit in their guilt somehow?

Well, yeah to your xpost. And that's why I made the decision to not support the death penalty any longer.

Although less about someone being executed at all than someone wrongfully being executed.

As far as the family/friends of a guilty person being executed goes, I would view them as his victims, not the state's.

i can't reconcile premeditated killing being regarded as the worst possible crime with premeditated killing being regarded as a prerogative of the state. the death penalty doesn't appear to deter, but it inevitably amplifies the violence it punishes - another set of victims, more lives blighted by killing. i think it sends a message that there is a point where killing is a legitimate solution to transgressions: but how citizens interpret transgression isn't likely to be identical to how the state interprets it. it tells citizens that vengeance is a noble instinct.

i think it sends a message that there is a point where killing is a legitimate solution to transgressions: but how citizens interpret transgression isn't likely to be identical to how the state interprets it.

This is an interesting thought. I'll think on it.

i shd be clear that my main opposition to capital punishment is based on repugnance at violence wherever it comes from, i guess. but i do have a secondary pragmatic objection in that it doesn't seem to be effective at preventing violent crime. i could argue that more effective policing might reduce the popularity of the death penalty because the probability of detection has more of a deterrent effect than the severity of punishment.

I can't ever side with the death penalty and its advocates. There are so many reasons why I am against it. From wrongly convicted to being more expensive than life imprisonment and the fact it doesn't deter other people from killing/stealing whatever...

my great uncle was in a concentration camp so I have no real sympathy if a bill magill gets beaten mercilessly by a stranger with a baseball bat

― iatee, Saturday, July 30, 2011 12:52 AM (21 hours ago) Bookmark

How sad it wasn't one of your direct ancestors so we wouldn't be subjected to your stupidity. Go fuck yourself.

can't wait for bill magill's sb

happy to contribute there

Same. Consider ingesting a chill pill, William!

I don't blame you Bill, but you might want to go for a walk...

my great uncle was in a concentration camp so I have no real sympathy if a bill magill gets beaten mercilessly by a stranger with a baseball bat

― iatee, Saturday, July 30, 2011 12:52 AM (21 hours ago) Bookmark

How sad it wasn't one of your direct ancestors so we wouldn't be subjected to your stupidity. Go fuck yourself.

― You're a notch, I'm a legend (Bill Magill), Saturday, July 30, 2011 10:47 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk281/duhflushtech/GIF%20Files/friday.gif

can you really support suggest banning if you don't support the death penalty, though

i support wiping humanity of the face of the earth, so i've got no problem starting with bill magill?

^^^ tough on the causes of crime

i'm pretty much down with vengeance as a motivator, i think? Even for the state. I'm not strongly for death penalty tbh, but saying that in eg 1st degree murder cases where no real doubt exists it's not a huge moral quandary that i'd personally struggle with.

i think i understand the impulse to vengeance, but then i think i understand the impulse to murder. i feel like we shd try to legislate for our society to be better than we are as individual people.

see, I think we should legislate society so that the government is in charge of the serious jobs that individual citizens would almost certainly fuck up. obviously it doesn't work like this in reality, but that's how it should be, damn it.

and in turn that's understandable, of course, just.... not to an unrealistic/unrepresentative extent, maybe?

Should point out i'd gleefully hang the little shits bouncing on the beds in the next room

xp to nv, that

Darragh, bouncing on the bed is actually mad good exercise in a word where kids have increasingly fewer outlets for (particularly state-sanctioned) exercise.

murder cases where no real doubt exists

this is always an intriguing notion, are you suggesting there should be two verdicts: guilty and totally guilty?

well yeah y'know

Of greater concern is the possibility that broadcasting executions could have a numbing effect. Douglas A. Berman, a law professor, fears that people might come to equate human executions with putting pets to sleep. Yet this seems overstated. While public indifference might result over time, the initial broadcasts would undoubtedly get attention and stir debate.

This is wrong, I think. I wish I thought well enough of people in general to think that broadcasting executions would make them think "this is barbaric," but within minutes of each execution animated gifs of "funny" jerks and twitches would be getting play all around the web, and it would further desensitize an already terrifyingly desensitized population.

if you'll excuse me now I'm off to listen to some goregrind

Lol

maybe they'd see that y'know it's not such a bad way to go tbf?

i mean the method isn't really the debate, or am i wrong there?

What's the point of a form of vengeance where one party is no longer around afterwards to see how badly he's been pwned after the act of vengeance is done?

Not really into the idea of the state taking vengeance btw, just saying capital punishment hasn't really been thought through from that POV.

Capital punishment is pretty draconian. At one time, I opposed the death penalty on pure 'oh noes don't execute innocents' grounds, which are valid, but now have just grown to detest the entire practice. It serves no function except to convince American citizens that the government killed the "monster in the closet". It doesn't clear out overcrowded prisons significantly, so that argument doesn't really work.

The problem with it as a deterrent is that a basic psychological tenet is that punishment is most effective when doled out immediately and consistently. If we all knew that if, after killing someone in pre-meditated fashion, we were arrested, we would be executed, say, in two days time, regardless of circumstance, race, socioeconomic status, etc...we might think twice. And there are some people out there who quite (erroneously) say we should do things like this.

But, that cuts into the accused's civil rights, and we know way too many people have been exonerated from Death Row to say "oh, nobody is ever wrongfully convicted of murder" with a straight face.

Likewise, the death penalty is inconsistently handed out, and much more likely to be given to a minority of low socioeconomic status. This is one major reason it doesn't work as a deterrent.

I do have a major issue with the State deciding it has the right to determine when someone lives or dies. Like, I will never bat an eyelid when the military commits a tactical strike against someone (say, Bin Laden) in the name of battle. Or when the police incarcerate someone. But the State condemning someone to death is them intervening on moral, and not punitive grounds -- after all, if the subject is incarcerated, for life or not, he/she is removed from society and therefore unable to commit said crime again.

I'm terrified that the state might execute the wrong person, so NO. Also I just think that flipping the switch corrupts people, it debases them. I think it debases a culture and a nation.

so much so that the Pixies wrote a song about it

but ya in all srsness, dudders to death penalty

La La 'Lectrocute You? xp

wouldve only made the album better imo

vengeance isn't for the person receiving it, tbf nick

I'm against the death penalty for people who are innocent, fwiw.

even pope innocent x?

x? is an unrecognised emoticon

"i'm pretty much down with vengeance as a motivator, i think? "

Where does it end then?

I'm cool with the government doling out whatever punishments make them feel good

oh yeah, exactly.

just govt after govt getting their kicks offing random citizens

even pope innocent x?

― MY WEEDS STRONG BLUD.mp3 (nakhchivan), Sunday, 31 July 2011 14:42 (30 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
x? is an unrecognised emoticon

― CH3C(O)N(CH3)2 (darraghmac), Sunday, 31 July 2011 14:44 (28 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

http://agaudi.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/300px-study_after_velazquezs_portrait_of_pope_innocent_x.jpg

pope innocent D:

Thread revive just in time for Guido Fawkes latest attempt to prove he's got a big cocktougher than the rest.

http://www.restorejustice.org.uk/

I imagine it's about whipping up Euroscepticism as much as it is reintroducing the death penalty.

I imagine it's about whipping up Guido Fawkes profile as much as it is reintroducing the death penalty.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/04/death-penalty-e-petition-commons

The e-petitions goes live to-day so I imagine Staines will be working hard to get his 100,000 signatures in fast.

cool, thks for link

No problem, I'm in favour of the debate. The Pro-death penalty lobby have had it their way too long.

LOL, I'm working at Amnesty International just now so I better follow the company line or else

Let the public decide, not many MP's killed, but many of the public are. YES 2 DEATH

finally the voice of that one guy who stands up and somehow manages to correlate littering w/the absence of capital punishment on question time has been heard

How about in the case of child sexual abuse?

well, at the very least you'd move them to another parish iirc

Breaking news:
* LATEST: Government's e-petitions website crashes under weight of calls for return of capital punishment. More details soon ...

Don't hurry to fix it guys plz

Perhaps not an unrelated story:

Public perception of crime higher despite falling figures, report says
Social Trends report shows two-thirds of people think crime is on rise, while statistics reveal it is at lowest level for 30 years
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/04/public-perception-crime-higher

I've been watching that story for a few years now. The optimist in me finds it heartening, a breath of fresh air, a godblessed relief. The other side of me is fairly confident that the reason the stats are dropping is that they are being systematically juked.

dara o'briain to thread

for example, Baltimore rape statistics between 1995 and 2009.

BREAKING NEWS 2009: Baltimore rape statistics at all time low

In other news 2009: Baltimore rake statistics at all time high

LOL

http://lilla.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Simpsons-rake-scene.png

I'll tell ya about capital punishment though. Nothing makes me suffer more than when a state's capital is not the most populous or well-known city. Portland isn't the capital of Oregon, you say? What's up with that?

I've been watching that story for a few years now. The optimist in me finds it heartening, a breath of fresh air, a godblessed relief. The other side of me is fairly confident that the reason the stats are dropping is that they are being systematically juked.

Pretty much any way you look at it crime has fallen (in most categories) but people are never going to believe they weren't safer back in the (g)olden days. I'm sure I've mentioned this before but I've spoken to people at meetings in villages where the biggest crime was someone stealing a bicycle that one time and they were still convinced they were lucky to get through the day without being murdered (I am exaggerating only slightly). If they couldn't think of examples of crime from their neighbourhood they would mention things in the news from elsewhere as if it had happened locally to back up their overwhelming belief that it was all GTHiaH. I can only assume that they actually wanted to be scared.

Capital punishment? OK, it's a pretty crap station but how come Magic and Heart FM get off scot free?

The scottish aren't allowed to listen to Heart FM?

They aren't allowed to work there

It's all been snakes and ladders, the career of Paul Coia.

He coulda been a contender

i don't understand this british business - you guys don't have the death penalty now, right? and so some assholes are trying to petition for it to be reinstated? i thought to be a member of the EU a state had to abolish the death penalty

well they want us to withdraw from the EU first

oh i see your right wing idiots are about as realistic as ours. carry on

can't wait for the commons debate on whether prison diets should be restricted to bread and water

oh i see your right wing idiots are about as realistic as ours

Probably less

the death penalty should only be allowed for those who venture to the planet Talos IV

This E-petition thing seems a bit silly...as the House of Commons doesn't have to do a thing about it other than a quick debate, which is good in the case of the Death penalty, but a worthy issue may come along...but to me the E-petition will be hijacked by right-whingers, and J. Marbles types, it would seem.

Where is Rebekah Brooks now there's a pitchfork-wielding campaign to run?

I'll tell ya about capital punishment though. Nothing makes me suffer more than when a state's capital is not the most populous or well-known city. Portland isn't the capital of Oregon, you say? What's up with that?
--kkvgz

otm btw

How about in the case of child sexual abuse?

― kkvgz, Thursday, August 4, 2011 7:15 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

well, at the very least you'd move them to another parish iirc

― CH3C(O)N(CH3)2 (darraghmac), Thursday, August 4, 2011 7:17 AM (5 hours ago)

rueful lol

but srs a: still no

"Some of the children featured in these images and videos were just infants and in many cases, the children being victimized were in obvious and also intentional pain, even in distress and crying, just as the rules for one area of the bulletin board mandated. They had to be in distress and crying."

Not sure a change to the law that would effectively encourage paedophiles to kill their potential accusors has been entirely thought through.

i don't think that's logical tbh, a paedophile who genuinely thinks their victim will tell or that they can be caught is probably sufficiently motivated to kill anyway.

People who make child porn. Jesus. Hard to think rationally about what to do with them. Hard to justify the effort in doing so.

I'm against capital punishment if only because it is as chilling as it is horrific. I'm intrigued though by the argument that the death penalty is more expensive than a life sentence. Is this really right? Can somebody show the thinking here / any refs?

i believe it refers to systems that allow lengthy delays in trials and appeals processes, etc.

The countries that have the death penalty, but not the above, i dunno would you want to live in those countries

People who make child porn. Jesus. Hard to think rationally about what to do with them. Hard to justify the effort in doing so.

― CH3C(O)N(CH3)2 (darraghmac), Thursday, August 4, 2011 6:37 PM (57 minutes ago)

jail/mental institutions seem ok to me?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zl_D-WkDAw

I don't know. It really doesn't seem enough. Can't we do something with steaming entrails?

i can't tell if you're serious abt the first part \o/

i am, i think? A striongly rehabilitative system seems too dispassionate for a crime like that, it doesn't tend address the outrage that a lot of people tend to feel when hearing details of the offence- an offence which is committed pretty much wholly on the individual, at such cost to them, yet it's hard to feel that a system that relies on a rehabilitative method doesn't at the same time somehow almost remove any focus on the victim impact in favour of dry diagnosis of treatment of the perpetrator.

This dispassionate approach is widely held to be a good thing, but sometimes i struggle to see why, and high-minded rhetoric doesn't fill the gap. I'm finding the point elusive, tbh kev, but i think it's one a lot of people struggle with when eg taking issue with what they see as light sentencing for what are often pretty horrific crimes- 'if that were my kid' type of reflection.

it doesn't tend address the outrage that a lot of people tend to feel

I'm not sure why that needs to be addressed. Not trying to be some wide-eyed ingenue or adopt some holier-than-thou stance here - I feel this outrage as much as the next person (well maybe not if the next person is a daily mail reader...) and yes there's a part of me that wants to see these people struck down with a great vengeance and furious anger. But there's another part of me that thinks - what practical purpose does that achieve?

fair question.

It comes back, maybe, to what i was talking about with nv above- if a justice system doesn't represent the victim's interest (save perhaps in the broadest, loftiest 'societal justice not individual justice' of ways), then, if it doesn't reference public opinion, exactly who is being represented? Our 'higher ideals?' what the oiks 'would think' had they but the benefits of a classical education?'

I know that the HYS mentality is a descent to mob rule, and i can see the connect with what i'm trying to think through here. I'm not advocating that. But it makes me uneasy when views are held to be disregardable because they're disagreeable to, well eg a liberal group such as ilx.

Personally speaking i still can't help feeling that the liberal ideal of redemptive justice ignores a lot of fundamental human feeling that won't be balanced out by eg the reading out victim impact statements before sentencing, which is again very lofty and noble, but yadda yadda disconnect btwn lawmasters and the masses yadda yadda who should be leading who i guess

i vote lawmasters

Not trying to be some wide-eyed ingenue or adopt some holier-than-thou stance here

Don't be bashful - You're doing fine! ; )

xxp Yeah, I do get all that. Logically speaking, I could say that you're suggesting the practical purpose of placating public outrage is - to placate public outrage. Haha! You are trapped in a vicious circle. But that is a mean and unhelpful dodge. Essentially though, while I do understand the need for victim representation etc, with NV I would prefer our legislative system to aim for higher things than we might sometimes do as individuals.

Or I could just stop pussyfooting around and say public opinion can fuck right off.

The answer is because history has repeatedly proved that "referencing public opinion" has led to nothing but grief, misery and death.

Salem? Burn those witches! The majority of the public agree!

Thomas Cranmer? To the stake with him! The majority of the public want it (and then when he thrust his hand which signed the confession into the fire, the "public" were suddenly overcome by remorse for what they had allowed to be done)!

Throw out the Jews? Fine! It's what most Germans want!

So, as an oik with a classical education, I say "higher ideals" go first or else we're never going to evolve, either as a species or as a society.

oh whither democracy!

Nah, on a good day i'd be making the same argument tbf

I hate victim impact statements for two reasons. The courtroom is no place for sentimentality; the low creep of same is, I think, responsible for both over-vituperative judges' statements given with an eye towards the headlines and punishments that 'set an example' for gratuitous or strictly irrelevant reasons. There is also the issue of whose statements deliver the most impact in that setting: is it, as with damn near everything else, the articulate middle classes getting more attention and respect for their submissions? Not that people shouldn't be able to express their sense of loss, but things as they are now is just... cheap theatre.

When Britain abandoned the death penalty, one of the reasons was that this sort of state-sanctioned killing was not a hallmark of a civilized society, so restoring this punishment would be a tacit admission of a decline in civility and would endorse the idea that less civility is OK. I'm anti-DP in all circumstances; it's not for the prison system to assert its authority by killing killers - there are other ways of leading by example and that's what the HYS crowd fails to understand, or do.

xp to ledge, tho i was entertained greatly by mc

good days and bad days

one of the problems with asking for input on important issues from the thoughtless or ill-informed or mental general public

classical education, right?

important issues like....elections?

yep, suzy otm.

an election shouldn't be an issue

suzy,

Re: the decision that britain was now too civilized- decided by whom? all decisions of govt are unquestionable, irreversible? Or only in the case of decisions that march towards a progress that, well, is depends on one's own POV as far i can see?

I see it as a human rights issue as well; backpedalling on human or civil rights is never, ever the right thing for a government to do.

Throw out the Jews? Fine! It's what most Germans want!

Dawg, are you really equating the Jewish people with murderers?

No, he's equating an ignorant general public with an ignorant general public. Don't be a dick.

no, he's equating a general public discrmiating en masse against jews with a general public divided on how they feel about child molestors, don't any of us be dicks

I can't stand victim impact statements, they make me cringe and they're utterly triumphalist and stupid. I like to think "if it was my son" etc I'd have the dignity (which many families do) to maintain some calm and not just hurl my poorly conceived anger into the public sphere on the steps of a courthouse. I'm sure it would be difficult but at the least the state shouldn't facilitate media opportunities with victim's families. It's like the media has become so important that it's a civil right to have your say after a crime.

I also find this e-petition thing offputting. Most people don't know enough about the law or about crime or criminals to have any right to decide how it's made. The whole modern culture of "WHAT ARE YOUR VIEWS" is completely unchained and out of control. It's like as if there's more authenticity to people's opinions the less they know about something.

At a certain point people's opinions need to be questioned. Who are you? Who are you to say this? What experience have you? What have you done?

This raw unquestioned "real people's real views" opinion is as omnipresent as oxygen. And the funny thing is the more right wing and illogical the view the more "real" people in the media perceive it to be.

love ya man

not sure how to interpret that but thank you!

Also, how many of these illogical right wing views which "real people" hold were influenced by pronouncements in the media to begin with?

and continuously perpetuated by using these opinions as the devil's advocate view in every news story...

if public opinions rule - then should a paedophile who abused an english child get punished more than a paedophile who abused a foreign child?

When looking at a set of ideas in action, it draws its supplies of additional troops and intellectual matériel not only from its own depots but also from those of its opponents

I'm not sure that the public are "divided" over the issue of child molesters; who would come out in favour of them? But I don't see how stringing them up just because the media says that it makes their street a safer place and provides a panacea for "the public" amounts to anything resembling progress (see R Brooks' "campaign" and the subsequent hounding of paediatricians).

Always worth remembering that this isn't a domestic issue, really. Regardless of which European country might like to reintroduce the death penalty, none are able to without removing themself from the EU or the Council of Europe (in the case of non-EU states like Russia). It's not a case of British politicians clashing with domestic public opinion, it's 'Europe' as a whole that has drawn a line in the sand on this issue, as it has with torture, and said it's not even a debate any more. The question of how legitimate that is will always be a live one but it's clear that any move in that direction would have serious consequences in terms of the way the UK is treated by the rest of the world.

'progress' = again, 'movement in the direction i personally favour' though, why can't 'progress' be 'guilty, inject em full of lead' or 'bread and water for life, put the money towards war memorials'

D-.

xp I don't think you can blame the right-wing media for a fairly atavistic desire for eye-for-an-eye justice. They play to it because it's popular - it wasn't cooked up in newspaper offices. For me the death penalty issue has always been the strongest argument against direct democracy. If it leads into elites-know-best territory on this occasion well so be it.

Why can't 'progress' be 'guilty, inject em full of lead'

Because that idea (minus the lead injection) goes back centuries, ergo not progress. Would stoning adulterers or shunning menstruating women be progress?

'progress' = again, 'movement in the direction i personally favour' though, why can't 'progress' be 'guilty, inject em full of lead' or 'bread and water for life, put the money towards war memorials'

tbf in the first case surely by definition it would be a regression to go back to using the death penalty.

i think the biggest indictment of the death penalty is to imagine the last person being killed and how they'd possibly still be alive if the law had been made what, 3 months earlier, a year earlier? death by legislation.

Top ten arguments against the death penalty: the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six.

no in fairness it was fairly lazy. DL otm, tho again convicted criminals != historically repressed minorities or genders imo

xps arguing in the theoretical for a cert-guilty eg murderer. You might posit that sufficient certainty rarely exists, and i'd agree with that, so can we take it as a given for this that there's no question of innocence?

convicted criminals != historically repressed minorities or genders imo

quite often they do though

i'd also like to amend my last lazy post- just the last one, mind- to not really arguing about the direction of progress (i'm well right of ilx on social issues, i'm aware, but i'm generally in favour of the ways things have been going since the 1400's) but i'm wondering if it can happen that the pace of change can be too far ahead of general public opinion at times, which i think causes the feedback loop of pub-backlash, media-backlash, FRENZY

xp stevie yeah fair point

the pace of change is nowhere near fucking fast enough, cf the length of time gay rights groups have been told to just wait for public opinion to inch incrementally forward

'progress' = again, 'movement in the direction i personally favour' though, why can't 'progress' be 'guilty, inject em full of lead' or 'bread and water for life, put the money towards war memorials'

One answer might be because it make's everyone's lives better. The death penalty is not a deterrent and treating prisoners like shit doesn't make them less likely to offend when they come out. So having the death penalty and treating prisoners like shit is more likely to make everyone's life more unpleasant.

well again yeah, there are things that are none of the general public's fuckin business, so i'm not gonna defend that either, lex, but i think punishment of violent offenders is more legitimately a public issue.

Though y'know that's in question too i suppose, as ledge and ronan and p much everyone else have said

It would also make everyone's lives as they might have been in the early nineteenth century, when the "might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb" principle of one-size-fits-all-crimes capital punishment applicable in English law at that time meant that, for example, if you robbed someone, well you might as well kill them into the bargain since you're going to get hung anyway. Did nothing to improve crime rates or people's understanding of crime.

...nor indeed their understanding of right and wrong.

xp it's likely to make prisoner's lives short and/or unpleasant, certainly

xp marcello, nobody's advocating that one-size-fits-all system, so i'm not sure i see that's relevant

xp it's likely to make prisoner's lives short and/or unpleasant, certainly

― 10/11 of a dead jesus (darraghmac), Friday, 5 August 2011 11:25 (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

The death penalty is for sure but, unless you're advocating killing them all (which you specifically say you are not), then you're just making prisoners lifes unpleasant. Are you advocating keeping these people in prison forever? Huge prisons full of lifers paid for by an increasingly begrudging populace (esp. when they see no decrease in crime)?

My problem is (and it's one that we're unlikely ever to reach a compromise on) is that I don't regard child molesters (or mass murderers for that matter) as evil.

i find it hard to conceptualise evil or call anyone evil. not that i totally am amoral or something, i just can't wield the word really, i don't know what evil means.

what the fuck at you two

really?

if you want some kind of working definition, i guess:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Mengele

back in your box a second, i don't think we're saying the same thing, define "evil" then. it's not that i don't think certain acts are disgusting or patently wrong, i just think evil goes too deep into issues of someone's nature/intent that are hard to prove, it's not a v useful term.

x-post that's right, rely on the nazis for dismissal of moral relativism, what a cheapshot!

xp, nobody's advocating a one-size-fits-all position but the possibility of redemption and release exists for almost all criminals, barring a relatively small number who have either done something exceptionally horrific or are simply too dangerous to ever consider letting out.

The reintroduction of the death penalty in Trinidad amplified the scale of crime enormously. When people started to realise that drug / robbery related killings would get them the death penalty, they started targetting witnesses. They didn't shoot the one person they had a grudge against, they started killing three or four people who they suspected could identify them. Why wouldn't you if you had literally nothing to lose?

hey ned i'm a questions man not an answers man you're the guy paid for sorting this out, right?

and fuck no i'm not going near 'evil', i nearly drove grimly fiendish to murder on the shannon matthews thread before. It's not a helpful word.

i have no problem using the word 'evil.' it seems like a useful term for someone who's capable of intentionally, unapologetically committing acts that are beyond the pale. i'd use it to describe a rapist as easily as a nazi. i can't think of a better way to describe such ppl.

as a rapist or a nazi? seems better since it actually describes them and their acts.

nouns before adjectives

as obscure and relative as words like 'right', 'wrong' or 'progress' imo

I can take acts or behavior as evil but its more difficult for me to accept the concept of evil as applied to a person rather than the behavior, just like stupid or angry

Like if we say a person is evil when they are murdering someone...ok I'm fine with that...but are they evil two days later when they are making a cup of tea and feeding their rabbits...like are they evil right at that minute...what about when they are asleep?

i have no problem using the word 'evil.' it seems like a useful term for someone who's capable of intentionally, unapologetically committing acts that are beyond the pale. i'd use it to describe a rapist as easily as a nazi. i can't think of a better way to describe such ppl.

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Friday, August 5, 2011 7:52 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

thank you.

exactly...it implies knowledge of someone's thoughts as well as their deeds. in the case of systematic murder and degradation and torture like the nazis i feel it's the best possible case for it to be used, but again moreso because that entire system and its rules and structures seem suited to the word evil.

x-post there are two better words tho, see above.

What if they are capable of it some of the time? Are they evil only at those times?

I just think that "evil" tends to be such an unhelpful term when looking at the causes of "horrendous" crimes because it means so many different things to different people.

I mean, the thing I always keep in mind, when dealing with, specifically, child molestors, was reading an interview with someone who was working with abused children - and also with abusers - and how much the two groups *overlapped*. And they said something which has always stuck with me, which was "there are (sexual abuse) victims who are not yet offendors, but I have never yet worked with an offender who was not themselves a victim (of sexual abuse)."

That when you're dealing with people calling for the death penalty, working on an "eye for an eye" mentality, the problem is, that is often the same motivation or compulsion that is, in a way, driving the perpetrators of these crimes?

That is maybe very specific to one crime, and an emotive one, but it still colours my approach to the treatment of criminals.

lake otm

If you are capable enough of murder to have committed it, the amount of evil in you is sufficient to qualify you as an evil person, no matter how many rabbits you feed.

Like if we say a person is evil when they are murdering someone...ok I'm fine with that...but are they evil two days later when they are making a cup of tea and feeding their rabbits...like are they evil right at that minute...what about when they are asleep?

well, tbh, yeah. for me the very horror of such ppl lies in the fact that such mundanity, ordinariness, etc., exists side by side with the capacity to commit horrific crimes.

things are complex

the centre cannot hold

basically comes down to the age old thing

is it what we are

or what we do

I've read dozens of studies of *rapists* over the past year or so, there's been a small, but quite crucial kind of research into this - and it's really unhelpful to say that "ppl rape because they're evil" because that seems to give this protective halo to "oh but ppl who aren't evil can't possibly rape" when the fact is, ppl do not rape because they are "evil", but because they have a very specific and pernicious set of attitudes towards women, towards sex, and towards violence, domination and control.

Calling someone "evil" is just excuse making which completely evades the responsibility (both individual and on a cultural level) of actually looking at *why* ppl commit crimes. I'm not having it.

because they have a very specific and pernicious set of attitudes towards women

or men

If you are capable enough of murder to have committed it, the amount of evil in you is sufficient to qualify you as an evil person, no matter how many rabbits you feed.

― kkvgz, Friday, August 5, 2011

then can there ever be redemption?

Using the word "evil" sparingly and with great precision doesn't mean we shouldn't use it at all.

Calling someone "evil" is just excuse making which completely evades the responsibility (both individual and on a cultural level) of actually looking at *why* ppl commit crimes. I'm not having it.

Surely we can do both...?

OK, "towards sexual partners, or people they perceive as weaker than them" might be a phrase there, but the studies I was reading focused specifically on male rapists of females.

Karen OTM in regard to abuse and the use of the term 'evil'.

Some people are capable of crime of unimaginable brutality but what's never been clear is why that should be the case. There's obviously something wrong with them, mentally or emotionally, but using 'evil' as a shorthand doesn't really get us anywhere, even if it's a perfectly valid / natural personal response to their actions.

Using the word "evil" sparingly and with great precision doesn't mean we shouldn't use it at all.

― livin in my own private Biden hole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, August 5, 2011

I have no problem with using the word I'm just more comfortable using to describe behaviour rather than a person

@ KDT The people I have known who were victims of child molestation have not gone on to molest children. I do not feel particularly sympathetic to the ones who continue the cycle of abuse.

Surely we can do both...?

I rarely see people do both. I see people file it under "evil" and not look at the other stuff. If you want to call an activity or a person evil, that's your mental filing cabinet for preserving your ideas about humanity, but it says nothing about why they do this stuff.

Alfred OTM

wanting to understand the reasons why someone acts the way they do is not the same as having sympathy for them

then can there ever be redemption?

― lake, Friday, August 5, 2011 8:04 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

Not for murder. Not as I see it.

I do not feel particularly sympathetic to the ones who continue the cycle of abuse.

That's the difference between you and me. The fact that they offend against others does not change their victimhood in my eyes, it compounds it. And "sympathy" is the wrong word, as Lex points out. It's about understanding.

Yeah, sorry I bought up the whole 'evil' thing now as, frankly, it's a distraction. What I meant was that because people tend to say X = EVIL therefore there's no point in trying to deal with them, treat them humanely, whatever, I tend to think that even people who you may think of as evil can be treated, rehabilitated, something...and that that's better in the long run than locking them up with only bread and water and/or killing them.

My experiences of people who have been through the CJS is that they are overwhelmingly mentally ill or poor or abused or have substance abuse issues (and any combination of the above). I see no point in abusing them further. And killing those people is even worse. You've only got to look at the cases of Timothy Evans or Derek Bentley or Stefan Kiszko or Barry George to know that.

The case of Sean Hodgson is a particularly depressing tale relevant to this. Found guilty of a murder he didn't commit, locked away for 27 years in prison (depite suffering from depression and schizophrenia, and despite someone else confessing to the crime 16 years before Hodgson was released, and despite DNA evidence suggesting he was innocent 10 years before he was released), he was released with no support and went on to assault a mentally ill woman in the care home he was in.

Not for murder. Not as I see it

Surely there has to be a recognition that not all murders / murderers are the same?

I mean, if you're talking about something like a self-defense situation?

well murder as opposed to manslaughter, etc, i imagine?

xps It took me a long time to compose that post and I can see now the discussion has moved on somewhat. What I mean to say is that discussions arounf the nature of evil are all very well and good but they tend (in my experience) to distract from the actual practicalities of what actually happens to people in this system.

h8 evil ppl so much

well murder as opposed to manslaughter, etc, i imagine?

It's a fine and almost entirely legalistic line. Satpal Ram was convicted of murder. Many women who have killed abusive husbands have also been convicted of murder because the circumstances of their crime don't fit with the requirements of a manslaughter plea.

Even where there was intentional malice, is someone who attacks someone else in a pub, not necessarily intending to kill but intending to do serious damage, the same as someone who ruthlessly plots and executes a crime? Is a crime motivated by a short burst of anger or jealously in exactly the same moral space as a killing for pleasure? Is a deprived kid who pulls out a knife in a mugging and ends up stabbing someone without really having thought things through as bad as a cold-blooded spree killer? Is a political murder exactly the same as a venal one? Is someone who had a clear mental defect that doesn't absolve them of responsibility the same as someone who bumps off an old lady to steal her pension?

The answer to some of those questions might be 'yes' but it's not clear cut.

i think a lot of them are, actually, but again it's all moral relativism

someone who attacks someone else in a pub

Who the fuck attacks people in pubs? Don't go to pubs if that's what you're going to do. Stay at home, stay sober, and immerse yourself in a hobby, is what I say.

Is this another one of those moments where my blinking boldface irony tags are not working on ILX?

KDT, read that with a light tinge of irony in that, I know that's not what people are going to do. But my view is that people are crazy to drink alcohol. It's a really foolish and dangerous thing to do in any amount.

(sorry about the comma-splice)

any amount???

In any amount? Why?

It's a really foolish and dangerous thing to do in any amount.

o_O

What about crack? Is crack OK?

then can there ever be redemption?

― lake, Friday, August 5, 2011 8:04 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

Not for murder. Not as I see it.

― kkvgz, Friday, 5 August 2011 12:08 (40 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this post make me sad.

no redemption and no booze. and evil is the only word and no explantion.

It can slow down your reaction times, make you sleepy when you don't intend to be. People who develop longstanding alcohol addiction can experience negative mood and personality changes with even small amounts. Potential for addiction huge. Playing russian roulette imo.

I'm counting down til this becomes a US/UK "wow, you banned drinking, but you allow handguns?!?!?!?" o_0 clusterfuck, but maybe that's just me.

Peace, bitch out.

Slow reaction times only a problem when cunts attack you in the boozer tbf

I'm not saying anyone should ban drinking, nor that it would ever happen in the United States. I don't begrudge other people for drinking. But my personal choice is to avoid it, just based on risk-assessment.

xp: LOL

You're killing my buzz here kkvgz. If I can't have redemption for murder I'm going to need that drink.

reminds me of this
http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?showall=true&bookmarkedmessageid=125&boardid=40&threadid=43393

idk risk-assessment would lead to me not doing an awful lot of things like eg crossing the road, leaving the house

kkvgz back up man back up. I slow down and get sleepy after too much pasta ffs.

I would support capital punishment for teetotalers.

I don't see why there can't be redemption for the most absolute heinous unforgivable unimaginable of crimes. What we do with that redeemed person is another matter.

I mean, any time you assault someone, you have to realize that you could kill them, whether intentionally or not.

if everybody drink booze then all our reaction times will slow down, maybe it'll mean less jumping the gun knee jerk HYS opinions.

compulsory alcohol consumption i say.

Herndon Youth Soccer? idgi.

I dunno, this whole thing started because someone upthread posited the idea that there are times that some people go about assaulting people with a cool and calm and totally thought out intention, and there are other times that people go about assaulting people with complete spur of the moment, irrational, are-not-thinking because decision making circuits have been inflamed by strong drink or strong emotion and these two cases are just *not* the same, nor should they be treated the same (in either sense of the word "treated" - as in sentencing, and in rehabilitating)

n.b. yes I am one of those bleeding heart lefties who believes that rehabilitation is possible in some subset of criminal cases

otm about these things being clearly different, obv

They are definitely different, but people who go out drinking in pubs and end up in fights are fucking stupid.

I want to reiterate for the record, because it may have been lost beneath the fold, that I don't support capital punishment, but that we moved on to tangential topics such as the nature of evil and forgiveness, etc.

is murdering for meat better/worse than murdering for pleasure?

Wow, that post makes me think that *you* are incredibly stupid, also unrealistic, and incredibly culturally blinkered. x-post

This bit:

They are definitely different, but people who go out drinking in pubs and end up in fights are fucking stupid.

Because you aren't saying that, you're essentially saying

They are definitely different, but people who go out drinking in pubs are fucking stupid.

And this is just unbearably naive.

Does everybody who goes out to pubs get in fights?

I have been out to bars and never been in a fight.

um, not everyone but.......

if people come up to me in a bar and tell me that drinking is stupid, then..

i do agree that getting drunk enough that you're going to get into fights is stupid, i am very confused as to how we got here though

Should pbus still exist in a `civilised' society?

I just...I mean I used to go to bars and drink a lot and I can't have seen more than a handful of fights.

I'd be really happy to agree with you, if you substituted "football games" for pubs, and wanted to argue against football because some football fanatics get in fights, but hands off British/Irish people's pubs or *you* will be in a fight, and not a judge in this country would hang us for kicking you. Oh wait, we don't do that. Or do we?

</blinking irony tags>

are pubs different to bars?

would it make a difference depending on how much you tip?