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This year we can end the death penalty in California

paulgraham.com

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Re: This year we can end the death penalty in California

#61

Post by Analemma_ »

a13n wrote: post #47
jernfrost wrote: post #44

The death penalty makes no logical sense. It only appeals to primitive emotions. Why have a penalty which 1) Can never be reversed if you kill an innocent 2) Cost a lot more than life in prison. Now why it might be argued that a killer has no right to life, what about those close to the killer? Killers might have a wife, husband, brother, sister, friends, mother and a a father. By killing the killer you inflict hards…

The death penalty costs more than life in prison? Source?

It's a pretty well-known fact that execution typically costs around 10 times more than life imprisonment. Here's a page with links to multiple peer-reviewed sources, covering multiple states: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-death-penalty.

The issue is that the appeals process is extremely expensive and time-consuming. You could conceivably simplify and streamline it (to the extent permitted by the Supreme Court, which has been mandating ever-stricter requirements for capital punishment cases), but that would make it even more unacceptably error-prone than it already is.

Re: This year we can end the death penalty in California

#62

Post by mikestew »

murtnowski wrote: post #7

California already removed the death penalty in 1972 then later reinstated it. This resulted in killers like Charles Mason being relieved from execution and denying many victim's family member from obtaining a measure of justice they wanted. Since being reinstated only 13 people have been executed. And none in the past 10 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Californ...

This resulted in killers like Charles Mason being relieved from execution and denying many victim's family member from obtaining a measure of justice they wanted.

And thus the state protects the convicted from the vengeful desires of the victim's family members and doles out the justice the community has deemed appropriate. Just because the victims pay the state to "string 'em up!" instead of doing it themselves doesn't mean it's not mob justice.

Re: This year we can end the death penalty in California

#63

Post by jacquesm »

jernfrost wrote: post #52
Alex3917 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The single best reason why the death penalty should be abolished is because it does not have an 'undo' button. Neither does killing people with drones...

Exactly. I am astonished that there is no debate around this. Drone killing ought to be regarded as a war crime. When you go around performing targeted killing of people in peace time, then that is unlawful execution.

> Drone killing ought to be regarded as a war crime.

It is a war crime. That doesn't mean any drone wielders will ever be brought to justice, but the same goes for all those Blackwater (oh, sorry 'Xe', oh, sorry 'Academi', it's hard to keep track of these scumbags) contractors during the Iraq war.

War crimes as a rule will only see their day in court if they are committed by relatively powerless people on the losing side of some conflict. Otherwise you're probably in worse shape shoplifting or stealing a car.

Heck, America doesn't even subscribe to the international tribunal for warcrimes.

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

And they're the main users of drones for killing people in countries they are not formally at war with.

Re: This year we can end the death penalty in California

#64

Post by patall »

eikenberry wrote: post #24

Is it better to kill an innocent or let them spend their life in jail? Given the states of our jails, I'm not sure but I think I'd prefer death.

But that is only your choice. Someone else might prefer to see his kids grow up. And really, do you prefer death penalty even when you are innocent when there is the possibility to be pardoned one year later? And also, it's not like you are killed immediately now, so you spent time in jail anyways.

Being 20 years in jail destroys you live, innocent or not, I agree. But by killing people you are not giving them a choice either, so your argument can be negated with the same message.

(Not that I am for the choice of death for prison inmates either, a terrorist for example should not be allowed to become a martyr and escape prosecution.)

Re: This year we can end the death penalty in California

#65

Post by justabee »

jacquesm wrote: post #45
justabee wrote: post #32

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Except that historically it wasn't exactly a perfect record and faking evidence is still quite possible. Killing someone as punishment is simply not fault-proof and the whole idea behind a justice system worthy of the name is that it tries very hard to protect the innocent even if that means some of the guilty will go free or will escape punishment . 'Perfect' evidence rarely is, and even confessions are not always t…

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Re: This year we can end the death penalty in California

#66

Post by padmanabhan01 »

nf05papsjfVbc wrote: post #30
murtnowski wrote: post #7

California already removed the death penalty in 1972 then later reinstated it. This resulted in killers like Charles Mason being relieved from execution and denying many victim's family member from obtaining a measure of justice they wanted. Since being reinstated only 13 people have been executed. And none in the past 10 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Californ...

> This resulted in killers like Charles Mason being relieved from execution and denying many victim's family member from obtaining a measure of justice they wanted. That qualifies more as 'revenge' than as 'justice'.

what's the difference?

Re: This year we can end the death penalty in California

#67

Post by murtnowski »

jacquesm wrote: post #21

The single best reason why the death penalty should be abolished is because it does not have an 'undo' button. It's bad enough if people get jailed for a long time when they are innocent, it is much worse when they're murdered by the state for crimes they did not commit. Other important work done: http://www.innocenceproject.org/ edit: sad to see this thread flagged off the homepage.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/11/13/wrongly-con...

While the innocence project has saved many innocent people, it's important to remember that they also are wrong sometimes.

Re: This year we can end the death penalty in California

#68

Post by jacquesm »

matt4077 wrote: post #53
jacquesm wrote: post #21

The single best reason why the death penalty should be abolished is because it does not have an 'undo' button. It's bad enough if people get jailed for a long time when they are innocent, it is much worse when they're murdered by the state for crimes they did not commit. Other important work done: http://www.innocenceproject.org/ edit: sad to see this thread flagged off the homepage.

That's the single best argument. The single best reason is the immorality of killing. If you want to gouge a society's level of civilization, look at their prisons. What sets humanity apart is the ability of reason to control instinct. It has taken us from beast to philosopher to The Weather Channel, and its measure is how we treat those everyone hates.

One of the best measures for whether or not a country is civilized or not (or where it sits on a scale of civilization) is to see how they treat their prison inmates, people with mental issues and people without income.

In other words: those over which society wields a lot of power who do not have much power of their own.

Re: This year we can end the death penalty in California

#69

Post by __jal »

justabee wrote: post #32

.

> take these cretins out of the gene pool Keeping them locked up for 25 to life does no one any good.

It does if they're found innocent after conviction, as has happened at least 347 times so far[1].

It should also be noteworthy to the true law and order types that false convictions mean the real perpetrator is still going unpunished. If you kill everyone who does something you dislike, the pressure applied by those bleeding hearts at the Innocence Project will go away, which means now not only have you killed someone innocent, but you've pointed blame away from the guilty and basically assured they'll get away with it. I must confess my failure to understand how this outcome is supportive of law and order.

And with regards to the comment about surveillance and DNA testing, you might benefit from a bit of reading about the history of forensics. It is a history of foolproof methods being rather less than foolproof. Of if you really can't dismiss the idea that we've achieved the pinnacle of physical evidence analysis, at least do some reading on what is actually involved. Remember that with, e.g., DNA testing for legal purposes, you're not looking at just the test: you're looking at the whole "stack", from our understanding of biology to the lab performance to the chain of custody to jurors' understanding of science. Not going to point to anything specific; there are a ton of explainers out there about this waiting for the interested.

I'll end with a simple question: do you believe that Blackstone's famous ratio is false?

"It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer[.]"

[1] http://www.innocenceproject.org

Re: This year we can end the death penalty in California

#70

Post by raverbashing »

" This is about whether it's ok to kill innocent people."

So why is the discussion to eliminate the death penalty instead of ensuring more oversight or limitations?

Something like:

- Not applicable when only one murder committed

- Bigger burden of proof for the DP to be applicable (not only relying on witnesses, for example)

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