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The Case of Richard Glossip

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Re: The Case of Richard Glossip

#211

Post by philwelch »

justin_vanw wrote: post #148
afandian wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In all of the mistrials and cases where innocent people have been killed, someone has thought the party was guilty. The thing that makes the death penalty barbaric is that people have misplaced confidence in their opinions.

There are two issues here that most commentary about this case seems to be happy to conflate: - Is he guilty - Should he be executed These are independent questions. One is a question of fact, and there seems to be almost no credible reason to doubt his guilt. The other is a question of ethics and policy. As for your argument on why the death penalty is barbaric, it is not a valid argument. Reductio ad absurdum, your…

These are not two independent questions, it turns out. When you are acting upon a judgment of fact, one's certainty in that judgment is a deciding factor in the severity of the action one takes in responding to it.

For example, suppose you have a family friend, Randall, who is accused of being a child molester. If you are perhaps 5% certain that Randall is a child molester, you would be justified in not letting your children stay at his house unattended. Just to be safe. If you are 51% certain that Randall is a child molester, that's more certain than not, but 49% is still "reasonable doubt". Ok, let's say we're about 90% certain Randall is a child molester, which is probably enough to get a jury to convict. 1 out of 10 times, that's a false conviction, but that's ok because people can be released from prison and dropped from the sex offender registry if it turns out they were innocent. Let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that we agree that child molesters should get the death penalty. What level of certainty is needed before we kill Randall? Surely more than 90%, or else 1 out of 10 people we kill will be innocent, and while that's an acceptable margin for imprisonment, it's probably not good enough for doing something completely final and irreversible. So does the level of certainty have to be 99%--so that 1 in 100 executed inmates is innocent? 99.9%--perhaps 1 out of 1000 is a more palatable rate of innocent people being executed? 99.99% then?

The question isn't whether someone is guilty, the question is whether we are confident enough in his guilt to take the risk of killing an innocent man. "Is he guilty?" isn't a binary question of fact, it's a question of certainty and implicit in that question of certainty is the acceptance of killing some innocent people as well.

The more nines we need to kill someone, the fewer people are left as candidates for the death penalty. Getting those nines means an exponential increase in legal costs. It also means spreading the fixed costs of execution infrastructure over a smaller number of executions. At some point, either you have to stomach a lot of innocent people being executed or the death penalty just becomes completely impractical, even if you start from the assumption that it's morally justified.

Re: The Case of Richard Glossip

#212

Post by philwelch »

pdabbadabba wrote: post #64
gizmo wrote: post #24

I encourage everybody to read up on the horrors of how the death penalty functions in practice. Especially in combination with the plea-bargain system, that effectively robs > 95% of suspects from their constitutional right to a fair trial. Finally -- and I know this is only a minor point in comparison -- it's worth noting that pg doesn't have anything to gain by writing this, and people who stick their neck out by w…

> I encourage everybody to read up on the horrors of how the death penalty functions in practice. Especially in combination with the plea-bargain system, that effectively robs > 95% of suspects from their constitutional right to a fair trial. What do you mean by "in combination with," here? If you mean that the death penalty is used to convince people to plead guilty, I'm with you. But if you're saying that a large n…

It's a real life Prisoners Dilemma, it turns out--plead guilty and finger this other guy we have in Holding Cell B, you get life in prison and he gets the death penalty.

Re: The Case of Richard Glossip

#213

Post by protomyth »

happyscrappy wrote: post #189
acqq wrote: post #179

The death penalty: Of the 49 European countries, only 1 (Belarus) still has the death penalty and executes people. Last time a civilian executed in Mexico: 1937, Canada: 1962, UK: 1977, Russia: 1999 In 2014, only these countries executed more people per million than the US: Equatorial Guinea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan, Somalia, Yemen, Sudan, Palestine, China, Singapore, Belarus, Taiwan, Afghanistan and Egypt A…

The death penalty is to the left what partial birth abortion is to the right. When groups are making emotional pleas to push their agenda then you know you are being played.

Actually, I guess I would be on the right, and I am against the death penalty for specifically the reason the article states. I have no moral problem with killing someone who has removed themselves from the society by killing fellow people, but my experience tells me that government is supremely unqualified to make that terminal determination. It is also quite a bit less costly to keep the person in prison until they die than go through with the court system with all the appeals.

So, both fiscally and an understanding of government's failing will often lead people on the right to be against the death penalty. It is really about which pillars of conservative belief you hold most dear.

Re: The Case of Richard Glossip

#214

Post by protomyth »

acqq wrote: post #190
happyscrappy wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The death penalty is to the left what partial birth abortion is to the right. When groups are making emotional pleas to push their agenda then you know you are being played.

Can be being not worse than Equatorial Guinea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan, Somalia, Yemen, Sudan, Palestine, China, Singapore, Belarus, Taiwan, Afghanistan and Egypt and possibly North Korea considered as being left or right? And what about the universal human rights? "The right of every individual to protection from deprivation of life" and "no one shall be subjected to cruel or degrading punishment."

> And what about the universal human rights? "The right of every individual to protection from deprivation of life" and "no one shall be subjected to cruel or degrading punishment."

The basic argument against that is that a person who has committed such a crime has broken their social compact with the rest of society. Having declared war on their fellow people they deserve none of the protection of their fellows.

// also, doesn't Japan still have the death penalty?

Re: The Case of Richard Glossip

#215

Post by knodi123 »

bhickey wrote: post #201
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…

An eye for an eye creates bad incentives. If the state is going to kill as punishment for some crime, rationally a criminal should go for broke once that line is crossed. In the worst case, they'll be killed by police. Trapping someone just dissuades them from surrender.

That same logic goes for anybody who has already earned the maximum possible punishment for their crime. If there was no death penalty, and kidnapping+rape earned you life without parole, why not kill the victim too? That way you have a better chance of getting away with it.

Re: The Case of Richard Glossip

#216

Post by philwelch »

barney54 wrote: post #63

I support the death penalty, but I believe all executions should be carried out Ned Stark style. As in, if you are the Governor, and can commute the sentence, then you should be there and actually carry out the execution. If you can save a person's life, you owe it to them and society to bear the responsibility of not commuting the sentence and see what death looks like.

At the very least, it would make it that much harder for some governors to be elected President.

Re: The Case of Richard Glossip

#217

Post by acqq »

gadders wrote: post #210
acqq wrote: post #179

The death penalty: Of the 49 European countries, only 1 (Belarus) still has the death penalty and executes people. Last time a civilian executed in Mexico: 1937, Canada: 1962, UK: 1977, Russia: 1999 In 2014, only these countries executed more people per million than the US: Equatorial Guinea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan, Somalia, Yemen, Sudan, Palestine, China, Singapore, Belarus, Taiwan, Afghanistan and Egypt A…

You seem to be labouring under the illusion that the UN has some kind of moral authority. I'm not particularly pro-death penalty, but using the UN as an appeal to authority doesn't really work.

It's not about the "authority" (yes, Smith and Wesson always beats four aces) but about the international understanding of the universal human rights and the effective position of the US in the context of the whole world regarding that understanding.

The human rights and the world.

Re: The Case of Richard Glossip

#218

Post by jessaustin »

jessaustin wrote: post #168
voltagex_ wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any precedent for anything like that?

Andrew Johnson pardoned everyone who fought for the Confederacy, other than Jeff Davis and a few other bigwigs. Sure, armed insurrection is a less serious crime than getting high, but I think the precedent stands.

Strictly speaking however "precedent" doesn't apply to pardons since they are a power specifically granted the president by Article II, Section 2 of the United States Constitution. Precedents are important in courts, so if e.g. the Supreme Court had previously ruled that pardoning pot smokers is unconstitutional then that precedent would be relevant. My impression is that the courts don't want to touch pardons, which is only right, since the point of putting them in the Constitution was to give the executive the ability to rein in the vindictiveness of the legislative and judicial branches. I expect that if Congress passed a law attempting to restrict the use of pardons, even the most conservative jurist would toss that shit right out of court.

Re: The Case of Richard Glossip

#219

Post by dlandis »

> at least 4% of people sentenced to death are innocent

It should be made clear that this statistic was not derived from counting up actual innocent people who were sentenced. It was a statistical estimate with a number of assumptions built in to it. Not defending the death penalty, just pointing out something that was not stated precisely in my opinion.

Re: The Case of Richard Glossip

#220

Post by knodi123 »

justin_vanw wrote: post #143

So I just read whatever I could find on Richard Glossip and the case against him. On it's face it seems very likely that he is guilty. It appears that someone had been stealing money and cooking the books at the hotels Glossip managed, and about the time his boss became aware of the theft, the boss was murdered. He admits to knowing that the boss was murdered and Glossip admits attempting to cover up the murder, his…

> someone had been stealing money and cooking the books at the hotels Glossip managed

From https://theintercept.com/2015/07/09/oklahoma-prepares-resume... ,

"[the victim's] brother Kenneth, who took over operation of the motel after the murder, testified in 2004 that the motel’s financial shortages were “really insignificant amounts of money” and would not have worried Barry. The Oklahoma City motel, he said, was a “very profitable operation.” "

> Glossip, as manager of the hotel the body was hidden in, reassigned cleaning staff specifically to prevent them from discovering the body

"Sneed would [later] testify that he was the one who told the maid to ignore Room 102."

> The person who is known to have performed the killing, an employee of Glossip's, says he was paid to do the killing by Glossip.

From http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudenc...

The murderer was threatened with the death penalty unless he fingered Glossip. He says he would recant his testimony in a heartbeat if he could be assured he wouldn't be executed himself.

> Glossip has had a trial and a retrial, and was convicted in both of them.

Said one juror, "“If the defense would have presented the case that they are presenting now in the original trial,” the juror said, “I would have not given a guilty verdict.”"

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