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

Looking up favorability rates for capital punishment has been a big eye-opener for me.

support in the us has fallen fairly dramatically over the last 10-20 years. even people who think that hardcore no-doubt serial killers deserve death are learning that it's never that clear-cut

In the USA there are state prisons with 50 different sets of rules, plus federal prisons with varying levels of security and thererfore a different set of rules for each level.

America is unusual among rich countries in that it still executes people. It does so because its politicians are highly responsive to voters, who mostly favour the death penalty. However, that majority is shrinking, from 80% in 1994 to 60% last year. Young Americans are less likely to support it than their elders. Non-whites, who will one day be a majority, are solidly opposed. Six states have abolished it since 2007, bringing the total to 18 out of 50. The number of executions each year has fallen from a peak of 98 in 1999 to 39 last year.

To the extent I am unsure on an abstract level whether it should be completely banned, I still think we execute too many people and generally favor the decline of its usage here.

Xpost in orbit I don't disagree with anything you said. I was just thinking out loud about ways prisons could soften the spiritual blow of taking away someone's autonomy. I definitely don't think anyone should profit off prison labor, certainly not private contractors, or that prisoners should do work they don't choose to do. I was thinking like, shifts at the prison library or something to break up the monotony of sitting in a cell. I'm a big fan of the programs that allow prisoners to work toward college degrees.

being in favor of the death penalty as a thing that the gov't should do makes you a monster imo full stop

thinking that murder rapists should die horribly is fine, i get it, that is a basic human response to disgusting behavior (cf dude that buried that woman alive, one of the most horrible things i can imagine, i hope that guy dies in a terr---OH WAIT). we are all allowed to take revenge in our brains

but if you can't pump the brakes between "i wanna kill that motherfucker, or at least know that he died in a sick way" and "the gov't should kill the people i hate and think are bad" then there is no hope for you.

Why do Americans commit so many horrifying crimes?

why are there crows

There are a lot of them stacked up next to each other, and work/consumerism is spiritually fulfilling.

unfulfilling i mean, gah.

we are def number one at shooting each other, but horrifying crimes are the sort of thing that humans are great at worldwide

gbx otm

Humans worldwide also look up to the US culturally, and our consumerist culture is by nature self-destructive and violent. Just look at how much murder is on TV vs. sex.

Janet Jackson's titty upsetting the purity of two dozen giant men repeatedly running into each other.

Frederick earlier was talking about how that one killer is infamous in Denmark. In the US we have had hundreds of serial killers over the past several decades.

Maybe there aren't more horrifying crimes here than elsewhere but it seems that way.

That's because the TV is saturated and oversaturated with cop dramas and has been since the 70s.

gbx otm. this is a moral issue: you're either cool with the government killing people or you're not, imo

gbx is highly otm and adam bruneau has a thing or two to learn about worldwide humans' upward looks.

but if you can't pump the brakes between "i wanna kill that motherfucker, or at least know that he died in a sick way" and "the gov't should kill the people i hate and think are bad" then there is no hope for you.

Because you don't *really* think the person should die, and you recognize that it's just a vengeful fantasy, or because you aren't comfortable with someone actually having the responsibility for doing the thing you think should be done?

I guess I'm feeling overly thought-experimenty and I know ILX usually does not like thought experiment mode (and usually neither do I), but I'm just trying to figure out if we're saying that the death penalty could/should never possibly be a punishment under any circumstances or we're saying the death penalty as it exists is fucked. Because if it's the latter I 100% agree and I would much rather have a world with no death penalty at all than what we have now. If it's the former, I think I agree but I'm not completely sure. Ultimately if the government was about to completely ban the death penalty I'd be the last person to be unhappy about it.

gbx otm. this is a moral issue: you're either cool with the government killing people or you're not, imo

― k3vin k., Thursday, May 1, 2014 12:35 AM (15 minutes ago)

this is clear, right?

i mean, with all respect man, how are you not "sure"? you're what, in your thirties, a lawyer, you've never thought about this issue before? are you ok with the government putting an unequivocally guilty violent criminal to death or are you not?

In the US capital punishment can be used against non-violent drug offenders:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/3591

Are you aware of that ever happening? Because the way I read it, without further research, it seems very very unlikely.

ctrl+f "resto" : me semblait aussi

the supreme court ruled a few years ago that the death penalty is unconstitutional if the crime didn't involve loss of life

xp

these thoughts are maybe muddy so do not read them in too priestlike a voice, but: "i wanna kill that motherfucker" != "this person should die". the state is not just a rly big human. if you, a human being, personally murder your daughter's rapist (or hire someone to do it), in the knowledge that you are committing murder in the eyes of the state and of god, i will probably still be your friend. to have the mechanism of the state, in its supposed impartiality and overriding concern for justice, decree that your daughter's rapist does not deserve his life--that he has forfeited his sanctity as a human being, objectively, not just in the damaged hearts of those he's hurt--and go on to ceremonially confiscate it in solemn self-righteousness is not the same thing. one is a moral transgression made because the heart can only take so much. the other is an elevation of revenge to the status of a principle. now, probably almost every society since the dawn of time has performed such an elevation, so it's still a personal question, obv, as to whether you think it's valid. but it's not only not the same as wanting to kill someone; it's not the same as killing someone.

(semi-)similarly i think the question of whether someone "deserves compassion" is a category error. compassion isn't something you deserve.

xxp, that was Kennedy v. Louisiana, but it didn't go as far as you suggest, and Adam's not wrong that there are still non-homicide federal capital offenses that are theoretically enforceable.

"Our concern here is limited to crimes against individual persons. We do not address, for example, crimes defining and punishing treason, espionage, terrorism, and drug kingpin activity, which are offenses against the State. As it relates to crimes against individuals, though, the death penalty should not be expanded to instances where the victim’s life was not taken." 554 U.S. 437.

(that second post not in reply to hurting but to something treeship said hours ago while i was on a plane.) xp

gbx absolutely nailing it

I didn't really want to jump in here, but to respond to an earlier comment, yes, there are certainly cases in which survivors have specifically not wanted the death penalty but it has been imposed anyway. A friend of mine was murdered many years ago (I was, and still am, against the death penalty) and her parents wanted life in prison, because she wouldn't have wanted death. But he will be put to death at some point.

good thread

still a-ok with it obv

the absolute evil of capital punishment is one of the strongest moral certainties i have tbh

convictions, maybe that's a better word than certainties

Im ok with disagreeing about it, serious about it being a good thread. gbx and kev killin it (tho 'monster' or 'hurting ur a grown ass lawyer' comments seem incongruous enough to me tbh)

i do think it's one of those arguments where qualifications are disingenuous - "i would be okay with it if" - to me it's not an action allowing that kind of hedging. prove to me it has a deterrent effect, outline a system that cannot possible execute the innocent, i wd still say capital punishment is wholly evil.

otm, the only reason to mention those 2 conditions is because they are so plainly not the case & never will be, it's good to whittle these things down till ultimately there are few cogent reasons for being pro beyond just being into it, you know, for the yuks or whatever

God bless the goddamned Onion:

The heated debate over capital punishment has been reignited after the botched execution of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma, in which the inmate suffered what has been described as a tortured death at the hands of the state, having succumbed to a heart attack 43 minutes after an untested combination of drugs was injected into his bloodstream. Here are the leading arguments for and against the death penalty:

FOR

Every now and then you get a guilty one
Last meals often inmates’ only chance to have king crab legs
Hammurabi’s Code has never steered civilization wrong before
Deterrent effect on those considering snapping and killing family in blind rage
Your constituency is pretty gung ho about it
Bestows much-needed closure for executioners

AGAINST

Better for prisoner to be fully rehabilitated over course of seven consecutive life sentences
We don’t get to watch
Prevents brutal rapists and murderers from being subjected to cruel and unusual punishment
Wasn’t a huge fan of victim
Squanders tax dollars that could be better used to build larger, scarier prisons
Prosecuting attorney already living with guilt of knowing he falsely imprisoned someone

these thoughts are maybe muddy so do not read them in too priestlike a voice, but: "i wanna kill that motherfucker" != "this person should die". the state is not just a rly big human. if you, a human being, personally murder your daughter's rapist (or hire someone to do it), in the knowledge that you are committing murder in the eyes of the state and of god, i will probably still be your friend. to have the mechanism of the state, in its supposed impartiality and overriding concern for justice, decree that your daughter's rapist does not deserve his life--that he has forfeited his sanctity as a human being, objectively, not just in the damaged hearts of those he's hurt--and go on to ceremonially confiscate it in solemn self-righteousness is not the same thing. one is a moral transgression made because the heart can only take so much. the other is an elevation of revenge to the status of a principle. now, probably almost every society since the dawn of time has performed such an elevation, so it's still a personal question, obv, as to whether you think it's valid. but it's not only not the same as wanting to kill someone; it's not the same as killing someone.

― difficult listening hour, Thursday, May 1, 2014 1:57 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is a very good post imo

fwiw, I have been thinking lately a lot about death as the ultimate taboo in liberal societies, whereas it is not the ultimate taboo in all cultures. I think the fact that it is the ultimate taboo is probably a good thing, it's just something I've been wondering about. I think it's the same reason most liberal-minded people here probably don't support violent struggle in all but the most desperate contexts (if that), because it will inevitably involve killing people. Again, just thinking about this in a pretty abstracted way, not considering killing anyone/starting a violent uprising/calling for executions anytime in the foreseeable future. There's a lefty internet discussion group I read sometimes where people often half-jokingly call for the guillotine. I wonder sometimes whether they really believe it. I also wonder why attitudes about this have shifted so much since, say, the French revolution, or even the Cold War years. Anyway, this is meandery but what I'm saying is that my posts ITT are mostly just lonely guy thinking baout things. I like to reevaluate my moral feelings once in a while.

Any violent revolution is not going to change things, it's only going to place new bullies in charge. The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is not a good guy with a gun (to begin with, there is not an "only thing", what are we, predictable machines?). In the end, there is a binary choice between life and death. If you are choosing death, you are the same as the murderer you claim to be better than. The choice to inflict violence on another human is an anti-human choice.

Any violent revolution is not going to change things, it's only going to place new bullies in charge.

Right, this seems to have become the widely prevailing view some time in, idk, the last 30-40 years? Less?

I don't really think it's a popular view (it's probably the opposite: 2nd amendment paranoia, "we should just hang the bankers in the town square" talk on both the left and right). I don't think it's a popular view at all, frankly, otherwise you would see far less support for capital punishment.

Gandhi was talking about nonviolence 80 years ago.

i don't believe that violence if absolutely tactically necessary to displace an oppressive regime is in the same ethical playground as state execution of captives

"the jeff penalty" About 691 results (0.33 seconds)

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