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

the aggregated logic of the community should win out over individual desire for revenge, is the thing. Enshrining revenge in the law is stupid and counterproductive, just from a cost/benefits analysis (leaving aside any moral arguments).

You don't have to persuade me!

"The aggregated logic of the community" will lose against "He's a fucking monster whose flesh should burn in that chair"

in most countries it's prevailed. not in this one, unfortunately.

Mostly just us and everyone we currently like to bomb!

i used to agree w/ camus that if the death penalty is meant as a deterrent surely we should make it a public spectacle. i think the implicit argument there is that ppl would be turned off to the death penalty if they actually saw it in practice. but now i'm not so sure and i think if we made executions public that might be a step to arenas, and lions, and crowds shouting for blood

― Mordy, Friday, May 2, 2014 1:18 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there is pretty much no historical support for mr. camus' argument.

Right. The very oldest objections to the death penalty I can recall seeing all boil down to "People have too much fun watching criminals get killed."

If a movie about a talking pig can turn people vegetarian don't lose hope

http://media.giphy.com/media/P8yIb9Hqib7tm/giphy.gif

Arizona killer Joseph Wood dies almost two hours after execution began

Convicted killer 'gasped and snorted' as officials attempted to execute him, as lawyers filed an emergency motion to halt the process

these botched executions are proof positive that we as a society are not nearly as civilized as we pretend to be.

don't get me wrong, all executions are a scourge on the public conscience but the brutality has been much more blatant lately.

we are occasionally torturing men to death.

What's the humanitarian argument for lethal injection over firing squad again?

A convicted murderer in Arizona gasped and snorted for more than 90 minutes after a lethal injection Wednesday, his attorneys said, dying in a botched execution that will probably reinvigorate the national debate over the death penalty in the United States.

Joseph Rudolph Wood III’s execution began at 1:52 p.m. at the Arizona State Prison Complex in Florence. He was declared dead at 3:49 p.m. Wood had fought in court without success for more information about the drugs that would be used and the expertise of his executioners.

A spokeswoman for the Arizona attorney general’s office, Stephanie Grisham, disputed that account. She said she witnessed the execution too and did not think Wood was gasping.

“There was no gasping of air. There was snoring. He just laid there. It was quite peaceful,” Grisham said.

fuck that

An individual’s opinion on capital punishment is the personal moral decision of the individual. A physician, as a member of a profession dedicated to preserving life when there is hope of doing so, should not be a participant in a legally authorized execution. Physician participation in execution is defined generally as actions which would fall into one or more of the following categories: (1) an action which would directly cause the death of the condemned; (2) an action which would assist, supervise, or contribute to the ability of another individual to directly cause the death of the condemned; (3) an action which could automatically cause an execution to be carried out on a condemned prisoner.

Physician participation in an execution includes, but is not limited to, the following actions: prescribing or administering tranquilizers and other psychotropic agents and medications that are part of the execution procedure; monitoring vital signs on site or remotely (including monitoring electrocardiograms); attending or observing an execution as a physician; and rendering of technical advice regarding execution. In the case where the method of execution is lethal injection, the following actions by the physician would also constitute physician participation in execution: selecting injection sites; starting intravenous lines as a port for a lethal injection device; prescribing, preparing, administering, or supervising injection drugs or their doses or types; inspecting, testing, or maintaining lethal injection devices; and consulting with or supervising lethal injection personnel.

The following actions do not constitute physician participation in execution: (1) testifying as to medical history and diagnoses or mental state as they relate to competence to stand trial, testifying as to relevant medical evidence during trial, testifying as to medical aspects of aggravating or mitigating circumstances during the penalty phase of a capital case, or testifying as to medical diagnoses as they relate to the legal assessment of competence for execution; (2) certifying death, provided that the condemned has been declared dead by another person; (3) witnessing an execution in a totally nonprofessional capacity; (4) witnessing an execution at the specific voluntary request of the condemned person, provided that the physician observes the execution in a nonprofessional capacity; and (5) relieving the acute suffering of a condemned person while awaiting execution, including providing tranquilizers at the specific voluntary request of the condemned person to help relieve pain or anxiety in anticipation of the execution.

Physicians should not determine legal competence to be executed. A physician’s medical opinion should be merely one aspect of the information taken into account by a legal decision maker such as a judge or hearing officer. When a condemned prisoner has been declared incompetent to be executed, physicians should not treat the prisoner for the purpose of restoring competence unless a commutation order is issued before treatment begins. The task of re-evaluating the prisoner should be performed by an independent physician examiner. If the incompetent prisoner is undergoing extreme suffering as a result of psychosis or any other illness, medical intervention intended to mitigate the level of suffering is ethically permissible. No physician should be compelled to participate in the process of establishing a prisoner’s competence or be involved with treatment of an incompetent, condemned prisoner if such activity is contrary to the physician’s personal beliefs. Under those circumstances, physicians should be permitted to transfer care of the prisoner to another physician.

Organ donation by condemned prisoners is permissible only if (1) the decision to donate was made before the prisoner’s conviction, (2) the donated tissue is harvested after the prisoner has been pronounced dead and the body removed from the death chamber, and (3) physicians do not provide advice on modifying the method of execution for any individual to facilitate donation. (I)

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/arizona-execution-court-transcript

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/03/us/2-convicted-in-1983-north-carolina-murder-may-be-freed-after-dna-tests.html

In 1994, when the United States Supreme Court turned down a request for review of the case, Justice Antonin Scalia described Mr. McCollum’s crime as so heinous that it would be hard to argue against lethal injection.

ie a case used by Scalia to defend the death penalty is now being overturned

It feels facile to tut-tut this but what a fucking travesty

tbf wasn't Scalia saying "whoever done this should be executed?"

fuck him anyway, but let's be fair

Joe Freeman Britt, the original prosecutor, told The News & Observer last week that he still believed the men were guilty.

tbf wasn't Scalia saying "whoever done this should be executed?"

handily ignoring the problem of the courts inability to determine with any certainty who did it

making a purely logical point, fuck Scalia and fuck a death penalty

Interesting point made in a Guardian article about this that about a third of people who have been exonerated through DNA evidence had either incriminated themselves or actually confessed to the crime they didn't commit.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/a-governor-threatens-to-execute-prisoners-out-of-spite/394949/

Under Eighth Amendment caselaw, Glossip is a hard case. But the legalities fell away when Justice Samuel Alito asked this question: “Is it appropriate for the judiciary to countenance what amounts to a guerilla war against the death penalty which consists of efforts to make it impossible for the States to obtain drugs that could be used to carry out capital punishment with little, if any, pain?”

Justice Antonin Scalia elaborated that the approved “drugs have been rendered unavailable by the abolitionist movement putting pressure on the companies that manufacture them so that the States cannot obtain those two other drugs. And now you want to come before the Court and say, well, this third drug is not 100 percent sure. ... [ T ]he abolitionists have rendered it impossible to get the 100 percent sure drugs, and you think we should not view that as—as relevant to the decision that—that you're putting before us?”

Scalia’s colloquy, along with Alito’s evident fury, was among the most bizarre I have ever seen in the Court chamber. Even The Washington Post’s George Will felt obliged to reprove his fellow conservatives: “The answers are: Public agitation against capital punishment is not relevant to judicial reasoning,” he wrote. “And it is not the judiciary’s business to worry that a ruling might seem to ‘countenance’ this or that social advocacy.” Ken Jost of Jost on Justice wrote that “Alito’s critique wrongly conjures up images of massive civil disobedience or direct action by death penalty opponents.” That hasn’t happened. In Jost’s column, University of Richmond Professor James Gibson (who has written a detailed article on the drug shortage) rejected the idea of “guerrilla warfare.” In an email, Gibson elaborated that the current shortage is “caused by political speech and foreign legislation.”

Under the First Amendment, criticizing the death penalty, even effectively, is as protected as, say, corporate electioneering expenditures. Judges have no right to expect “abolitionists” to be silent—as long as they remain within the law. And on that point, I can’t find a single documented case of threatening or harassing speech by “abolitionists.” In a 2012 brief, the Texas Department of Criminal Safety called the British non-profit Reprieve “authoritarian ideologues who menace and harass private citizens” and compared them to a Texas prison gang. The TDCJ warned that “Reprieve's unrestrained harassment will escalate into violence against a supplier.”

those authoritarian guerrillas, trying to force the state not to do what's right and kill people

tbf, using economic warfare to destabilise a foreign country's governance is something no true American cd tolerate

Had no idea the pharmaceutical industry was so susceptible to ground roots activism.

lol @ Nino calling death sentence opponents "abolitionists" as if this is a witty and deserved slur.

xp yeah when it's the having the drugs that kills and not the withholding of them

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/08/us/louisiana-prosecutor-becomes-blunt-spokesman-for-death-penalty.html?_r=0

these are the lunatics pushing death sentences

rachel aviv deserves a byline on that

her article was linked and yeah also we'll worth a read

@the_intercept
Clinton's vow to feel relieved when others finally win the fight against the death penalty isn't exactly courageous. http://interc.pt/1pBLjEN

http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2016/07/the-death-penalty-and-the-liberal-constitutional-agenda

The fact that Bill Clinton’s two nominees — including Stephen Breyer, by far the squishiest liberal on the Court on civil liberties issues — have essentially come out for the position that the death penalty is categorically unconstitutional is another important signal. I’m not sure about Kagan, but I would be shocked if Sotomayor wouldn’t provide a fifth vote to rule the death penalty unconstitutional. If the Democrats can replace Scalia and Breyer and Ginsburg either remain on the court or are replaced by justices who share their views on the issue, it’s possible. Not inevitable by any means. But if public opinion continues to turn against the death penalty and the practice becomes increasingly rare outside of Texas — it’s possible. And at a minimum a Supreme Court with a Democratic majority is likely to place obstacles in front of the death penalty that might act to hasten its ultimate demise.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/10/us/dylann-roof-trial-charleston.html

Yet the verdict confers no certainty about whether Mr. Roof will ever be put to death at a federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind. His case could spur years of appeals — the courts could well consider his mental competency and even the tearful tenor of the sentencing phase — and the scarcity of lethal injection drugs could hinder his execution.

The federal government has not killed one of its prisoners since 2003. Mr. Roof also faces a separate capital prosecution for murder in South Carolina, where no inmate has been put to death in more than five years. The state trial, initially set for Jan. 17, has been indefinitely postponed.

That it at times seemed more important to Mr. Roof to not be depicted as mentally ill than to avoid execution prompted some in the courtroom to question whether he simply preferred to die than to serve a long life in prison. His writings and confession offered evidence on both sides of that question, wavering between glimmers of hope — even that he might someday be pardoned — and an attraction to the prospects of martyrdom. But his commitment to his cause — the restoration of white power through violent subjugation — never publicly flagged.

“I have shed a tear of self pity for myself,” he wrote in 2015. “I feel pity that I had to do what I did in the first place. I feel pity that I had to give up my life because of a situation that should never have existed.”

If a defendant is intent on portraying himself as mentally competent, represents himself in court (as Roof did), and is convicted on that basis, why would there be any appeals in which his mental competency is brought back into question?

death penalty is always wrong

ah now

yeah fuck the death penalty

lads lads its an emotive topic and yr president pays ppl to piss on him and i know yere upset but cmon will ye not think of what yere saying

That it at times seemed more important to Mr. Roof to not be depicted as mentally ill than to avoid execution prompted some in the courtroom to question whether he simply preferred to die than to serve a long life in prison.

life in prison is cruel as well. maybe even crueler.

kevin otm

lol i just looked upthread and even the cast is the same probably no reason to put this play on again

heh i'm pretty sure i've posted that same post a few other times. it's still true!

i appreciated kev abd gbx itt iirc even tho they are wrong in it iirc

not about cruelty to me, about the probability of putting an innocent person to death (which undoubtedly has happened) plus giving the State the right to determine whether someone lives/dies.

and of course the myriad of other factors such as perpetrator's mental standing, environment, etc......

the pope is v disappointed in ye xp

that is not breaking news or hearts

moscow hotel maids are seeking the source of the leak but trump alreadys says he has been consistent about his belief in trickle down economics etc etc