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The Case of Richard Glossip

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Re: The Case of Richard Glossip

#71

Post by voltagex_ »

mrdrozdov wrote: post #39

Vice released a special last night about mass incarceration related to non-violent drug crimes. It included President Obama visiting a federal prison and interviews with Former Atty. Gen. Eric Holder. Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjWSW94-P3Y Article: https://news.vice.com/article/president-obama-heads-to-priso...

I don't always agree with the content / viewpoints that Vice puts out, but this was one of the most well made and powerful documentaries I've seen in a while. I'd like to think that President Obama's reactions were genuine and that things might slowly start to change in the US.

Re: The Case of Richard Glossip

#72

Post by ianbicking »

So maybe 4% of people who get the death penalty are innocent. And some other portion probably don't deserve the death penalty according to the criteria we've established. So we get rid of it, and then what? They all get life without parole? How much better is that? And what about all the innocent people who are receiving that punishment right now? Or who are losing 5 or 10 years of their life? Getting justice right is tremendously important. The death penalty is something people can line up around without truly engaging with the justice system at all. It feels like a huge distraction to me.

We use the phrase "paying your debt to society" but no one pays any debts. They only incur debts. Debts to their family who they can't support. Debts to a society that ends up weaker than it started. The cruelty of this system isn't best exemplified in the death penalty.

Re: The Case of Richard Glossip

#73

Post by falsestprophet »

If Richard Glossip wasn't sentenced to death, he would likely have languished in prison as long as he lived. That would also be a horrible injustice.

People see more motivated by orders of magnitude to get death penalty cases right relative to life incarceration cases.

Counterintuitively, justice may be better served by abolishing life imprisonment and mandating the death penalty for cases where periods of imprisonment would exceed 20 years or so.

If the innocence rate for executions is 4%, then surely the innocence rate for long term incarceration must be much higher.

Re: The Case of Richard Glossip

#74

Post by kjs3 »

falsestprophet wrote: post #73

If Richard Glossip wasn't sentenced to death, he would likely have languished in prison as long as he lived. That would also be a horrible injustice. People see more motivated by orders of magnitude to get death penalty cases right relative to life incarceration cases. Counterintuitively, justice may be better served by abolishing life imprisonment and mandating the death penalty for cases where periods of imprisonme…

20 year olds commit heinous crimes, too. They might have a somewhat different opinion that you do.

Re: The Case of Richard Glossip

#75

Post by rhizome »

falsestprophet wrote: post #73

If Richard Glossip wasn't sentenced to death, he would likely have languished in prison as long as he lived. That would also be a horrible injustice. People see more motivated by orders of magnitude to get death penalty cases right relative to life incarceration cases. Counterintuitively, justice may be better served by abolishing life imprisonment and mandating the death penalty for cases where periods of imprisonme…

This is essentially removing the right of appeal for certain classes of cases, and combined with mandatory minimums would bring us back to the age of hanging judges.

Re: The Case of Richard Glossip

#76

Post by rhizome »

wtvanhest wrote: post #60
johnnyg wrote: post #15

RE: How people are and the death penalty The other day I was driving down the road and thinking about how people are. It was 33 years coming but here's what hit me: people do what they want, even in the face of devastating consequences. See that long line outside any burger joint? See the stats on the amount of hard drugs guaranteed to destroy your world we consume? See that person cheating? See that DA wanting a win…

Your point about 20 years vs 1 is really important. Sentences have gotten so long for relatively harmless crimes that benchmarking becomes distorted. If anyone thinks about all the tings they will do in the next 3 years, then compare that to losing 20 years it can help show how long of a sentence that is.

Criminal sentences have their own flavor of inflation that seems rarely studied.

Re: The Case of Richard Glossip

#77

Post by rhizome »

mistermann wrote: post #70
msabalau wrote: post #9

It's increasingly seems that the powers of prosecutors are deployed in arbitrary and unjust ways: either overreaching (as in the case of Aaron Swartz or Xiaoxing Xi) or non-prosecution of police brutality or corporate crime (just changing now that the statute of limitations run out on those responsible for the 2008 financial crisis) It's not clear what can be done about it, other than occasionally writing a check to…

I honestly think the only thing that could ever change it is if some vigilante with nothing to lose started bringing the same flavor of extreme justice to the doorsteps of the people passing it out - fear of potential ramifications will very quickly change behavior.

Consider that the behavior that is changed is that of everybody but the prosecutor: taxes go to personal security and maybe their staff, increased controls and inconveniences for those sharing space with them, like at the courthouse, and increased penalties for behavior not previously considered to be threatening. That is, the person acting with nothing to lose, "at all costs," may be misunderestimating where those costs will be borne.

Re: The Case of Richard Glossip

#78

Post by late2part »

ianbicking wrote: post #72

So maybe 4% of people who get the death penalty are innocent. And some other portion probably don't deserve the death penalty according to the criteria we've established. So we get rid of it, and then what? They all get life without parole? How much better is that? And what about all the innocent people who are receiving that punishment right now? Or who are losing 5 or 10 years of their life? Getting justice right i…

How much better is life without parole than death? By almost all measures, it's much better.

Re: The Case of Richard Glossip

#79

Post by URSpider94 »

peterwwillis wrote: post #18
URSpider94 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, if I'm innocent, I should take a plea bargain (which, let's not forget, involves me standing up before God and everyone and saying, "yes, I did it," so that I can spend the rest of my life in a maximum security penitentiary, so that I can avoid being put to death? Not sure I agree with your logic there.

Here's a diagram of the logic. Do you want to die? Y -> Reject offer. -> Death penalty. N -> Accept offer. -> Life in prison. I don't know how I could simplify this further.

Now I'm very, very confused.

Are you saying that every person charged with a capital offense should instantly take a plea deal for life in prison? Because that's what your flow chart is suggesting.

If so, then that's seriously messed up.

Re: The Case of Richard Glossip

#80

Post by rhizome »

plaguuuuuu wrote: post #47
lazyant wrote: post #32

Appalled that people are killed legally based only on a criminal's word. Also appalled that we still have the death penalty in some countries, these are pretty much all backwards countries with the outliers of US and Japan; it's a litmus test for humans rights imho.

Define backwards? Singapore has the death penalty. Taiwan has the death penalty. Singapore is probably the most advanced economy in the world. one of Taiwan's main exports is computer engineering R&D for most of the hardware in your PC (as the hardware itself is now manufactured and assembled in China) Taiwan has nationalised health care - score 1 for Taiwan over the US. I consider any country implementing the death…

I'm sure there are some critiques that can be raised as to methodology, but just as a point of conversation you may be interested in the World Happiness Report, on which none of those countries rate higher than the US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report

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