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The real reason to end the death penalty
251–260 of 546 posts
Re: The real reason to end the death penalty
#252I'm glad this is being shared widely, because I agree with it. That said, I have to snark a little about it, because I was in high school, in the 90s, when I came to the same realization about why the death penalty is wrong. So this seems pretty obvious to me. Our justice system is not reliable enough to have the death penalty.
>So this seems pretty obvious to me If you extend the logic to other sentences they become similarly problematic. In other words, clearly it's bad to execute an innocent person. But it's also bad to imprison them for life, or 30 years or 20 years or 10 years and so on. There's no clear reason to draw the line at execution but not at life imprisonment.
You can let someone go if you found out they were innocent. This is still bad that they serviced time in prison while innocent.
However it is currently impossible to unkill someone, which makes executing someone for a crime they didn't commit significantly worse, this seems a reasonable place to draw a line to me.
Re: The real reason to end the death penalty
#253Wrong accusation is definitely a problem, but ultimately I think people should be free to decide what kind of laws they want. The Machinery of Freedom describes a government-less system in which people voluntarily pay an insurance which defines what the law is and what happens when the law is broken. If people have different insurance companies, they can agree what law is going to prevail in which cases. If capital punishment were something desirable (which I don't think it is: the risk of being wrongfully accused outweighs the potential deterrent to other to kill me) some agencies could evolve to cater to this need.
That said, I think there is an economic argument to be made against capital punishment.
Killing someone is definitely a waste of human life and economic potential.
Wouldn't it be better to have the sentenced man work for the rest of his life in prison and create value? You could potentially have a deal in which the prison organise the work, keep a portion of the profits to keep operating and pays the victim / victim's family for the crime they were subjected to.
I think this is fantasy right now because the government is terribly inefficient in everything they do - but with a system of private prisons (another fantasy, given the current trend of increasing the government size, instead of reducing it), maybe someone would be able to turn a profit and make it work.
Re: The real reason to end the death penalty
#254Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Hold a monthly lottery of the population, ... The point you're making is that living in society each day is a ticket in lottery where we could be falsely accused of a crime, falsely convicted, and unjustly punished. That's horrific all around, a death penalty is a factor but not even the biggest. On the contrary, if we need a death penality to make someone like your audience care about that horror of punishing innoc…
I think my more concise post would be that "law and order" (unlike practically any other issue) is thought of by the majority as "something that happens to other people". It's not. They think it's fair. It's not. Example in the UK is that we used to have "Legal Aid" - if you were accused of something (and were of modest means) the government would pay a modest amount for a laywer to represent you. Wasn't a cheap syst…
> Nobody considers the flip side
Society would do well to learn the Original Position Fallacy:
Re: The real reason to end the death penalty
#255I absolutely abhor the death penalty. I do find this reliance on a single rationale to stop the death penalty problematic though: - For many people I suspect that there is a combination of level of proof and severity of crime that would lead them to say the risk of erroneous conviction can be ignored. - Someone will say let's focus on improving the justice system to deal with the errors. I'd rather the burden of just…
>what does the death penalty actually achieve, with a high burden of proof (beyond reasonable doubt) that as a policy it actually benefits society as a whole.
I think the death penalty does deter people from committing certain crimes. But many many people don't. (for the record, I also believe in abolishing the death penalty where I live where many innocent people fall victim to it).
The problem is this isn't something you can really prove with scientific evidence. You can't do a double blind trial in separate societies with and without the death penalty.
Not every social policy can be proven before it is enacted. Life just doesn't work that way. Evidence isn't always available for every possible option.
Re: The real reason to end the death penalty
#256On the subject of deterrence: If someone commits a premeditated crime carrying a guideline sentence of {20 years in State A, vs 30 years in State B} do we really think that they're more likely to commit the crime in State A? It's my intuition that for the most part, people committing crimes aren't thinking about potential repercussions, much less measuring them. I mean is someone thinking "Oh, only 10 years? I'll do…
A lifetime sentence is a lifetime where you can learn and grow and better yourself personally and where freedom is always a (faint) possibility. You can try to break out of prison for the rest of your life. You can make friends and enemies. You can make plans, create routines, read, better yourself, live life (however constrained).
The death sentence removes all of those, and that's why most people believe it is a good deterrence.
Re: The real reason to end the death penalty
#257I think no other justification is needed to end the death penalty than “it’s inhuman and barbaric”. Even discussing other factors arguments and considerations dilutes the core point that’s it’s straight up wrong unethical and inhuman to murder others in the name of the law. Paul Graham has a valid point, but if you say “it’s wrong cause it’s inaccurate”, implies it’s right if it’s accurate. And it’s not... the death…
It's inhuman and barbaric to sentence criminals to death penalty (usually very quick less painful), and yet, the usually much worse criminal acts (cold-blood torturing, mass murdering, beheadings, etc.) that they ACTUALLY conducted on other completely innocent human beings are just not inhuman and barbaric and unethical enough for you to the point that you think it is not even worth discussing and a no-brainer to for…
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Re: The real reason to end the death penalty
#258I have very strong beliefs about the death penalty. I believe it is the only just punishment for murder; that ALL murderers should be executed; that anything less than execution is a grave miscarriage of justice for a crime that is so horrible the mind cannot even wrap around it. I also think that pain should be part of the death penalty... that a murderer doesn’t deserve a quick and painless death but rather a healt…
Murder already has one of the lowest recidivism rates of crimes. Murderers typically don't murder again. And that's mostly because murder is a heat of the moment crime. Planned murders are fairly rare.
If you seriously wanted to use the death penalty to deter crime, you'd do better executing people for smaller offenses. If you got executed for drunk driving rather than a fine, there would be less drunk driving.
Not saying that's a good thing. But if you're looking to deter crime, executing murderers is not actually a good way to go about it.
Re: The real reason to end the death penalty
#259The problem with the death penalty is that it's a game that allows for no mistakes. Because the penalty is final, you can never apply that penalty to the wrong people.
You need to be 100% sure that you are about to execute the right person for the right reason every single time.
And there are very few cases where we can be that sure of something.
Re: The real reason to end the death penalty
#260I'm glad this is being shared widely, because I agree with it. That said, I have to snark a little about it, because I was in high school, in the 90s, when I came to the same realization about why the death penalty is wrong. So this seems pretty obvious to me. Our justice system is not reliable enough to have the death penalty.
Our roads and speed limits are not reliable enough to have cars. Pretty obvious we should abolish cars. Duh.
While made in jest and insincerely, your point is not entirely without merit. Technology has come a long way since the 1960’s, and will come further still in the future. Self-driving cars may never be a reality, but other forms of transport could be invented and constructed which were never previously feasible.