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

Just read this: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/07/090907fa_fact_grann?currentPage=all

I hate the idea that someone actually has to die when innocent, to acknowledge the “execution of a legally and factually innocent person”, rather than just admitting that it could theoretically happen.

http://www.courant.com/news/politics/hc-death-penalty-vote-0405-20120404,0,402342.story

malloy is OK

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/05/yes-america-we-have-executed-an-innocent-man/257106/

shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone

only one?

relevant: http://www.salon.com/2012/05/15/why_do_conservatives_hate_freedom/

If American conservatives really believed their talk about the threat of government tyranny and government incompetence, they would unanimously oppose the death penalty. Nothing could illustrate arbitrary, despotic government power more than the possibility that execution might depend on the vagaries of jury selection or the incompetence of state-appointed legal counsel. And yet when it comes to the death penalty, American conservatives abruptly forget their qualms about state power in its most lethal form. The same conservative movement that claims that government cannot be trusted to run the postal system or administer Social Security insists that wise and flawless government never applies the death penalty to the guilty inconsistently and never executes an innocent person by mistake.

well, it's the first one where the evidence is completely unequivocal xxp

new salon sucks btw

apparently there was a pretty brutal botched execution just now in oklahoma. the guy got the drugs but i guess there was some extravasation and after 40 minutes he still hadn't died. they rushed him to the hospital after he started seizing; it's being reported that he died en route

http://www.kjrh.com/news/local-news/double-execution-planned-tuesday-night-for-2-oklahoma-inmates-clayton-lockett-and-charles-warner

6:37 p.m. - Lockett sat up and said "something's wrong."

ughhhhh

I understand that doctors do not participate in lethal injections due to their oath.

What do you say when someone claims your utter disgust at the existence of capital punishment in America makes you soft on violent, often sexual criminals and that there are people in the world who don't deserve compassion? Furthermore, how do you respond to the claim that your hippieish pacifistic we're-all-people stance is totally the result of your privilege, having never been victimized by a violent predator? This second part of the argument gets to me and I think there's much validity to it. But I still feel the state shouldn't throw away human lives, even those destined to be lived behind bars.

def make a gimmick sock account based on a bad impression of a celebrity and hide yr true feelings in it

Should I receive a lethal injection because the James Franco sock was only funny to me and very few others?

i'd like the names of the very few others before any decisions are made

I understand that doctors do not participate in lethal injections due to their oath.

― and yo-yos (abanana), Wednesday, April 30, 2014 12:30 AM (21 minutes ago

i don't know if this was meant to be sarcastic, but doctors do participate in executions. it's normally done secretly, since the AMA is strongly against physicians having any role in them

I'd like to have an answer to zachlyon's q, also find out why you kept it up despite everyone knowing it ws you, and also why yr annoying

cool derail guys

Sorry for being a part of it. The story is horrifying, obviously, as is the existence of the death penalty in 21st century America.

*furthermore, how do you respond to the claim that your hippieish pacifistic we're-all-people stance is totally the result of your privilege, having never been victimized by a violent predator? This second part of the argument gets to me and I think there's much validity to it*

there is no validity to it.

I've been victimised a few times and gbx otm

Two wrongs don't make a right.

Furthermore, how do you respond to the claim that your hippieish pacifistic we're-all-people stance is totally the result of your privilege, having never been victimized by a violent predator?

You point to all the families of murder victims who are nevertheless anti-capital punishment activists and say "QED, motherfucker," then drop the mic.

You can also imagine a world where nobody has a hippiesh pacifist stance, and just trying picturing if violent crime in such a society will be a thing of the past.

How do you respond to the claim that your "cars are great" stance is totally the result of never losing a family member to an auto accident?

etc

Good points and I said stuff like that. I was just thrown offguard bc this came during a larger discussion of how my sheltered life has prevented me from really acknowledging the reality of evil etc, wanting to assign blame for social dysfunction on institutions rather than individuals all the time

people who are heavily into punishment, revenge etc will often level accusations of naivety or gullibility to account for others' puzzling lack of bloodlust

[obvious sub-question about reasoning with people about opinions not formed purely in reason]

also, to not understand the desire for revenge or punishment or justice understood in those terms, how is that different to not understanding how somebody comes to kill another human being? the problem isn't "not understanding how it feels", it's about what you think human beings should or shouldn't legislate for, irrespective of how they feel

Really, if 'evil' is just some force that causes random people to do horrendous stuff, then how can you be 'sheltered' from it? The whole fact that you've lived in a part of society without true 'evil' proves that it shouldn't be blamed on individuals.

:D

the amount of sunday lunch discussions in my youth where my mum's husband would be all "no, but what if your mum was raped and murdered, you wouldn't want the death penalty then? what sort of son are you?"...

I think this fellow met an appropriate fate.

The comments on that article are revolting.

But yeah, re "evil" I think some crimes are so horrifying, reveal such a lack of empathy on the part of the perpetrators, that my humanism can't account for it, like no amount of rehabilitation would most likely help. Clearly, my answer is for them to be treated with dignity but removed from society -- that's clear enough -- but still their existence is troubling, and I'm not sure circumstances can account for it. Some countries have max sentences though, which I think is interesting that that can work. What does Denmark do about serial killers?

I am not aware of any European countries that don't have the option of indefinite detention for people who are thought to pose an ongoing threat to the public.

Denmark doesn't really have serial killers. It can keep people in psychiatric treatments indefinitely, but otherwise the largest punishment is 'prison for life', but always with posibility of parole. The medium length of that is 17 years, the record is 33.

You point to all the families of murder victims who are nevertheless anti-capital punishment activists and say "QED, motherfucker," then drop the mic.

― bi-polar uncle (its OK-he's dead) (Phil D.), Wednesday, April 30, 2014 8:18 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_serial_killers_by_country
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_serial_killers_in_the_United_States

The US gets its own page! How special!

Denmark apparently has had 2 serial killers, Dagmar Overbye who was sentenced to death but was reprieved and ended up dying in prison. The other, Bjarne Skounborg, lived in the US for most of his life until being sentenced to life imprisonment. He was released from prison for capacity reasons, and was deported to Denmark. He ended up killing again, and in 2001 was sentenced to life imprisonment in Denmark.

Sounds like US prison overcrowding is a bigger problem.

Also, Dagmar Overbye was sentenced in 1921. My guess is there was probably more serial killers back then, I've heard of feared bandits roaming the periphery and killing pretty indescretely. Peter Lundin - as Bjarne Skounborg is known over here - is the boogeyman. This is a famous picture, that I think every Dane knows about, unless they were too young:

http://a.bimg.dk/node-images/13/620x411-c/13410-lundin-griner-i-fngslet--.jpg

But the people he killed were his own mother and his mistress and her sons. It isn't really John Wayne Gacy Jr territory. He is a psychopath, though. The bodies from his last murder were never found, but he's admitted to dismembering them.

But it's not as if I doubt that horrendous crimes can exist in a society like Denmark. I remember Utøya quite well, have a lot of Norwegian friends.

What do you say when someone claims your utter disgust at the existence of capital punishment in America makes you soft on violent, often sexual criminals

You being 'soft' here depends on the axiom that

there are people in the world who don't deserve compassion?

if this is not true then you can't be 'soft'. Your interlocutor needs to defend his argument that some people don't deserve compassion for his argument that treeship is soft to hold up

Furthermore, how do you respond to the claim that your hippieish pacifistic we're-all-people stance is totally the result of your privilege, having never been victimized by a violent predator?

But until you are victimised you don't know what your response would be and neither does your interlocutor, they're assuming that your positions on law are determined by your own feelings and experiences

I think my feelings were at issue more than my positions. My instinct is to be kind of naively trusting -- in Thailand my brother was horrified I wasn't phased when the unmarked cab started taking us off course to "different sights" (we got out of it, thanks to him) -- and this person thinks that has to do with male privilege, and never being forced to consider myself as a potential victim of violence. They then connected this to my belief in a rehabilitative, rather than punitive justice system, like it's just too easy for a person like me to have these attitudes of universal compassion. I think there's something to this, even though I would never even entertain the idea of entertaining the idea of capital punishment. But whatever, I like my way of being in the world.

i would think that there is some basic human capacity--even inclination, in certain circumstances--for bloodlust and revenge. it helps to explain why revenge narratives are effectively cultural universals. but the fact that i would likely want blood if a loved one were harmed in some horrible way doesn't change the fact that as a civilization we would be better served by abolishing the death penalty.

treeship, a lot of poor (= not "privileged") people are opposed to capital punishment, often because they have inherited belief systems that oppose it.

Yeah you're right about the second thing. These were just sophistries I encountered I guess.

If we are talking "priveleged" then we at least need to consider a complete restructuring of our national justice system because the law is stacked against minorities. I suppose you could weigh the benefits of killing a potentially innocent person vs. being called "soft on crime" or "a hippie" but that would make you just as much a monster as a murderer imo.

The law does not apply to everyone equally.

Why does "compassion" allow us to put someone in a horrific prison for life but not execute them? What is so particularly anathema to "compassion" about death, vs. a lifetime of suffering?