This year we can end the death penalty in California • Hacker News Board

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

#231

Post by harryh » Wed, Nov 02, 2016, 1:03 AM UTC

kasey_junk wrote: post #229

harryh wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But given the existence of error rates there will always be wrongfully fined or imprisoned people. We won't ever get a chance to fix the vast majority of false convictions. So even though you're partially(1) right about reversibility it doesn't really matter given that this won't actually come up most of the time. There will still be wrongfully penalized people. 1. I would argue that you're only partially right becau…

There is a pretty strong line drawn at death. I was once asked to justify that line on the record as part of a jury selection process and I couldn't do it. That didn't make it untrue and it didn't convince me that the line doesn't exist. I'm pretty far down the scale of "logical justification". At least enough to make Jesuits blush, and I personally cannot justify my line that is right before "killing someone". I'm h…

Ya, I pretty much agree.

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

#232

Post by caf » Wed, Nov 02, 2016, 2:35 AM UTC

lr4444lr wrote: post #208

caf wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Kant said that then he was trivially wrong. For example, if you blind someone, how is that not just as irrestorable?

I believe he was a pretty "eye for an eye" guy: "This is the right of retaliation (jus [lex] talionis); and, properly understood, it is the only principle which in regulating a public court (as opposed to individuals’ private judgement), can definitely assign both the quality and the quantity of a just penalty." ( http://acad.depauw.edu/~jeremyanderson/old/120s05/120z_kant.... ) But you have to realize, this is not t…

This is a different question though - one of penalties rather than one of restoration.

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

#233

Post by unclenoriega » Wed, Nov 02, 2016, 3:47 AM UTC

breatheoften wrote: post #223

J-dawg wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US practice of locking people up for life is pretty shocking to many people in Europe. In the UK, the number of people who will never be released is somewhere around 50, in the USA it's something like 50,000. Maybe I'm a limp wristed liberal, but 'Three strikes' has always seemed utterly barbaric to me. Even its name being based on a sports metaphor seems totally inappropriate for something so serious.

Wow -- US population is roughly 5x the UK population, yet we have 1000x people serving life sentences ... I can't help but think of that quote that we should judge the state of a society by the state of their prisons ... I really wish we could do something to dramatically change the prison system in the US -- its insane how much horrible inertia guides its current trajectory ... Given how much more we know about huma…

I don't think the problem is a lack of ideas for a better prison system, it's that people don't care. Most people assume that they'll never be in prison and that the people who are deserve what they get—and that's if they think about it at all.

If a politician does come along and try to change the system, he's got to convince a lot of his colleagues that don't have a lot of reason to do anything, and he's got to worry someone else will come along and tell voters he's worried about making life good for criminals instead of better for good people.

There's just no incentive.

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

#234

Post by njharman » Wed, Nov 02, 2016, 3:50 AM UTC

zeveb wrote: post #212

njharman wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also was/am certain death penalty is obviously incorrect thing to do. But not cause society has not cause for sanctioned murder (it does). But rather there are no "take backs" with death penalty. We make too many mistakes. Our punishments should take that fact into account

There are no take-backs with imprisonment either: you can't restore lost decades any more than you can restore lost life. You can even, really, compensate for it: prison changes someone's psyche permanently. If we're worried about punishing innocents, we should address that problem, not proxies for it. If the justice system can't be trusted with execution, then it can't be trusted with imprisonment or even fines. The…

There is a quantitate difference between "sorry our bad, we'll let you out of prison" and "sorry our bad, you're still dead". Which one would you prefer?

It's wrong to believe we can (or even should) have a justice system that doesn't make mistakes. Human fallibility exists.

"some people who must be killed."

That's a moral opinion.

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

#235

Post by Karunamon » Wed, Nov 02, 2016, 6:56 AM UTC

bolocker wrote: post #226

Karunamon wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does this entire chain of comments have any purpose or goal other than the same old tired "shame the rich" meme that gets so much play? PG thinks the death penalty is bad, but PG isn't worried enough about other things you think are worse, therefore PG is wrong? (???) I honestly don't see where you're going with this other than cheap sniping.

He's like someone who is anti-abortion but doesn't worry at all about people after they exit the womb. They're lying when they say they actually care about life. In reality, they just care about how abortion makes them feel. He's anti-death penalty in the same way. The orders of magnitude more suffering in our prison system can't get a tweet but the nearly disused California death penalty urgently bothers him...

So no, it has no other purpose other than insulting.

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

#236

Post by aoeuasdf1 » Wed, Nov 02, 2016, 7:35 AM UTC

boterock wrote: post #198

I find interesting that you in the US are thinking in banning the death penalty. Here in Colombia death penalty was banned about a century ago, unfortunately, it has done more harm than good, because criminals (even very bad ones, the kid rapists and stuff) are not scared of prison, prisons are so crowded that sentences are short ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Garavito is a good example, I don't think a lifetim…

There's two parts that I'm still not sure about here - a question of moral weight W: 1 * innocent prisoner executed == W * innocent victim of crime

and two epistemic questions, how many innocents X are executed per guilty person, and how many victims Y are saved on average by the disincentive caused by executing one guilty prisoner?

Per guilty person executed, we save Y lives and we are penalized W * X. Is Y > W * X? If so it seems reasonable to keep the death penalty, all things being equal (ignoring the cost of litigation vs. prison time, etc)

Does anyone have sources for what the values of any of these numbers should be?

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

#237

Post by WillPostForFood » Wed, Nov 02, 2016, 8:01 AM UTC

magicalist wrote: post #203

WillPostForFood wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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 nobody was impeached. It was a normal judicial retention election.

You are correct, it was a retention election which typically is a rubber stamp approval.

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

#238

Post by WillPostForFood » Wed, Nov 02, 2016, 8:10 AM UTC

greglindahl wrote: post #165

WillPostForFood wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people didn't want contradictory things, they wanted the death penalty, and they wanted the courts to implement it. The court wasn't caught in the middle, it was just composed of judges with opinions out of alignment with the general population.

So you don't think that the people want the Constitution, or the court system?

People want the constitution in the way they want to interpret it, and they want judges who believe what they believe. There is no contradiction. It is naive to think of judges as some sort of objective arbiter, they are effectively political appointees sent to push an agenda.

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

#239

Post by zeveb » Wed, Nov 02, 2016, 3:58 PM UTC

njharman wrote: post #234

zeveb wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no take-backs with imprisonment either: you can't restore lost decades any more than you can restore lost life. You can even, really, compensate for it: prison changes someone's psyche permanently. If we're worried about punishing innocents, we should address that problem, not proxies for it. If the justice system can't be trusted with execution, then it can't be trusted with imprisonment or even fines. The…

There is a quantitate difference between "sorry our bad, we'll let you out of prison" and "sorry our bad, you're still dead". Which one would you prefer? It's wrong to believe we can (or even should) have a justice system that doesn't make mistakes. Human fallibility exists. "some people who must be killed." That's a moral opinion.

> There is a quantitate difference between "sorry our bad, we'll let you out of prison" and "sorry our bad, you're still dead". Which one would you prefer?

I think I'd prefer to be executed at the end of the month than be released after a decade in prison. I'm almost certain of it, to be honest.

That doesn't mean that some crimes shouldn't be punished with decades (or life) in prison: they should be. Even if we don't think of it as punishment, there are people who should not be released back into society. But if we have imprisonment, then we will imprison innocents.

As you note, our justice system will always be fallible. But, fallible as it is, we need it: the alternative is worse. We live in an imperfect world, and everything we do will have at least a few downsides along with the upsides.

> > some people who must be killed

> That's a moral opinion.

Of course it is. 'We shouldn't kill people' is also a moral opinion.

From today's NYT article on the Greek property-tax issue[1]:

> Greeks were stunned in 1987 when the police uncovered a gang that had killed at least eight rich elderly people after forging their wills. The plot’s leader was a lawyer and former mayor of an Athens suburb; accomplices included a notary public and a gravedigger.

I think it's pretty indisputable that people who forge folks' wills and then murder them deserve to be executed.

[1] http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/11/02/opinion/in-greece-prope...

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

#240

Post by ionised » Wed, Nov 02, 2016, 4:04 PM UTC

padmanabhan01 wrote: post #66

nf05papsjfVbc wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Are you seriosuly asking that question?

Justice is supposed to measured and balancing for society as a whole, meted out by an impartial judge and jury of peers.

Revenge is completely subjective and ruled by emotional responses by the aggrieved party. It's almost always going to be more destructive disproportionate than it needs to be.

The last people that should decide the fate of those who have harmed them are the victims. That just leads to pure chaos.

I could decide that if someone threatened my life that I would achieve justice by circumventing law enforcement and the justice system by murdering the person in question plus their whole family, whether they meant it or not. I could state reasons of personal/family honour and whatever other bullshit would justify those actions in my mind. That doesn't make it right, or just. It makes it a response borne of unchecked emotion.

You might say that is okay, but it would quickly lead to pure anarchy if we all followed that ideal. That's why we have a justice system in place that doesn't (or tries not to) focus on revenge.