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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

#121

Post by WillPostForFood »

greglindahl wrote: post #112
WillPostForFood wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If by community you mean a few government elite, and some judges, then yes. If you mean the population of the state, a large majority at the time supported the death penalty, which why it was reinstated by popular vote soon after.

The population of the state simultaneously wanted the death penalty and to follow the Constitution. One role that the population of the state gave to judges is to referee these conflicting desires.

Not only did Californians vote to reinstate the death penalty, they then voted to impeach the justices of the State Supreme Court, including the Chief Justice, who actively blocked its use after it became law again. So I don't think there is much argument that the courts were just implementing the will of the people.

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

#122

Post by [deleted] »

jernfrost wrote: post #114
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #28

Back in the day, there was a serial killer named Ted Bundy. He killed a number of women, was imprisoned, escaped (twice) and killed at least three more people. That kind of incident makes the problem much more complicated. The typical argument against the death penalty is that sometimes innocent people are executed. And it's true, and it's horrible. But if you don't execute them, then the alternative is that they sho…

If we cared about this, then why is revenge the core focus on American justice system and not rehabilitation? When people exit the prison system un-rehabilitated they will hurt more people. I think this is a more important question. Why is revenge given priority over avoiding new victims? Also if one actually cares about life, why are prisons such overcrowded hell holes that prisoners get shanked and killed on a regu…

[deleted]

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

#123

Post by lawpoop »

xiaoma wrote: post #104
jernfrost wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is bad, but you can compensate an wrongfully jailed person afterwards. But I think it is a fair point, which is why I am also against harsh prison conditions. I think prison should mainly be about rehabilitation and shielding society from the danger of the person. If prison mainly means losing freedom, you aren't necessarily ruined mentally when you get out.

> That is bad, but you can compensate an wrongfully jailed person afterwards. How do you compensate someone for being imprisoned (and likely raped) from the age of 28 to 45? In many cases, the death penalty is more humane.

If that is really true, why do inmates try to get out, instead of killing themselves? Why not just kill themselves after release, since having lived through that is so much worse than death?

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

#124

Post by mikeash »

murtnowski wrote: post #108
mikeash wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe it. Bringing up Charles Manson and using loaded language to describe his avoidance of it clearly makes an argument for the death penalty.

It is a fact that Charles Mason was relieved from execution. Just like it is a fact that because of the court rulings around 1972 he became eligible for parole. Charles Manson and other 106 inmates on death row in 1972 were all convicted killers who were relieved from the death penalty. Many victim's family members were upset by the courts decision.

Now I get to turn your technique back on you: I never said that wasn't factual.

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

#125

Post by maxerickson »

pm90 wrote: post #100
carapace wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, okay, when you are wrongly convicted and sentenced to life in prison you can request execution. For every other innocent person that's wrongly convicted let's not murder them against their will, eh? (Also, let's fix the jails and prisons !)

Its hard to fix the jails and prisons when widespread poverty still exists in society, for the simple reason that if the prisons offer a better lifestyle than living in the society, more people would choose to go to prison.

There are many changes that could be made to prison without making it a better option than living free but below the poverty line.

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

#126

Post by pmoriarty »

greglindahl wrote: post #59
MichaelBurge wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose one starting point would be to allow executions in the case where the defendant confesses under oath in a courtroom. Though it might be considered poor policy, since it would discourage people from accepting a plea bargain or confessing.

Not to mention all of the people who give false confessions. False confessions are a common cause of incorrect convictions. https://courses2.cit.cornell.edu/sociallaw/student_projects/...

Also on the theme of false confessions and how broken the US justice system is, I strongly recommend watching the "Paradise Lost" series of documentaries.[1][2]

[1] - https://dvd.netflix.com/Movie/Paradise-Lost-The-Child-Murder...

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_Lost:_The_Child_Murde...

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

#128

Post by lawpoop »

Taek wrote: post #85
jernfrost wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is bad, but you can compensate an wrongfully jailed person afterwards. But I think it is a fair point, which is why I am also against harsh prison conditions. I think prison should mainly be about rehabilitation and shielding society from the danger of the person. If prison mainly means losing freedom, you aren't necessarily ruined mentally when you get out.

That depends. If you spend long enough isolated from society you won't be able to function in it anymore. People coming out of jail after 10 years of imprisonment are used to the original iphone as the only smartphone. They don't know about Uber, Venmo, Bitcoin, Amazon and Google have both changed dramatically. Now you need an EZPass for most roads, healthcare laws are different, they missed the whole Snowden ordeal.…

Wow, this seems extremely naive. (Honestly I'm feeling like I got trolled.)

You don't know of anybody who has never been imprisoned who is managing to live their life without interacting with any of the things you've mentioned?

If not, I would recommend enlarging your circle of contact.

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

#129

Post by mturmon »

ikeboy wrote: post #113
mturmon wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cute, but fallacious. To unpack, you seem to be arguing that since 4% of people sentenced to death are innocent, then about 1 in 25 people are wrongly convicted, and PG is saying that ratio is unacceptable. I think your probabilistic reasoning is a bit off (by confusing P(I|DS) with P(DS|I)). But the actual issue is about the punishment, not the guilty/innocent determination. So in other words, PG doesn't seem to be…

Saying we shouldn't punish anyone with the death penalty, because 1 in 25 of them will be innocent, is making a claim about n guilty men. From my link: >Commandments for man can be found in the book of Exodus, by the same Author(s), where God rejects the tradeoff between convicting the guilty and convicting the innocent, and simply commands, "the innocent and righteous slay thou not." 32 One can take this to imply an…

> Saying we shouldn't punish anyone with the death penalty, because 1 in 25 of them will be innocent, is making a claim about n guilty men.

No. PG's piece leaves open the option for punishment by other means, even if they do turn out to be innocent.

For instance, to take the extreme case, nothing in PG's article says he would have a problem with punishing everyone accused of murder with one year imprisonment, with probability one.

I get that you want to tie PG's piece to the Volokh article, but PG's piece is about this particular form of punishment.

[edited to add: since we're going in circles, I'll stop now]

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

#130

Post by jacquesm »

ikeboy wrote: post #119
jacquesm wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it doesn't. They won't escape death, they'll be dead sooner or later anyway. It is just that society will not have lowered itself to their level in response and will have an opportunity to figure out which of those people was in fact innocent. It's all fun and games until you are that innocent person.

Don't be pedantic, you know I meant "escape the death penalty". Are you arguing for n=infinity?

Well, it all depends on how many people you intend to kill, it's all about the ratio npeopleinnocent/npeopleguilty after all.

The problem is that no matter how small the ratio gets in absolute terms there is only the possibility of killing an innocent person or not killing an innocent person. Even if you assume that everybody is guilty I'd still make the argument that people can genuinely change and that no matter what you do you will not be bringing anybody back that's already dead.

Think of still having the death penalty as a black mark on a civilization. As a nice example have a look at the Philippines and try to work out for yourself if you feel that even if society will be better afterwards it is worth it to kill this many people, many of them in serious trouble already.

The extreme example of that is a society that simply kills everybody that is convicted of a crime, after all, why not, it makes society better, right? Or does it?

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