401–410 of 546 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
try to tell the family of people in the 4% that the system is working as designed.
It’s not ideal. But if we don’t have a working criminal justice system, victims will take the law into their own hands and their error rate will most likely be much worse.
I seriously think the ability to end one's life "if sentenced to life in prison" is the ethical, humane, and moral thing to allow for everyone. We're starting to allow euthanasia for intolerable suffering from medical conditions. Well, I assert that people being isolated from society for a severe crime because of their "ill mindset" is identical to severe illnesses and where they may suffer intolerable psychological…
"We've eliminated the death penalty because we are so enlightened. But now that we've sentenced you to life in prison, every morning with breakfast, we offer a side of poison just in case you would like to exercise your right to check out of this hell hole.
No pressure. Just being helpful."
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> Someone held securely in prison I already mentioned the cult-of-personality example above and you breezed over it. Gang leaders are fully capable of executing kills from jail. They have influence that extends beyond the 4 walls they're contained to. Some of them have access to a vast array of money and dangerous people who they can delegate to. They can also actively influence or harm other prisoners in jail. Treat…
If prisoners are able to lead criminal organizations whillst inside, that's very obviously a rather trivial-to-fix bug in the design of the jail, not a reason to murder someone for vengeance. We have more than adequate technology to keep such hopeless cases from harming themselves or others.
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> In other words I absolutely believe there are just executions I think that is the GP,s point: the real problem is to convince you otherwise.
Why? If he (or she) believes or can be convinced that the death penalty should be abolished, why do you care if they also believe that some of the executions that already happened were just?
2) because you want to convince people of important moral principles. I don't want you to not beat your wife because you'll get caught, but because it's inherently wrong.
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> You're reducing a human being to a single binary classification - evil or not evil That is correct. > You're also saying that you're prepared to ignore the wider impact that the act of executing that individual has on society. That must specifically not be allowed to cloud our judgment. "Society" is word which refers to collection of people, the vast majority of whom have no connection to the case.
"If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? During the life of any heart this line keeps changing place; sometimes it is squeezed one way by exuberant evil and sometime…
Suppose I'm evil because I park in handicapped stalls.
That doesn't mean I'm not in a moral position to send someone to hell who kidnaps and kills children.
To amplify Paul's point: The legal standard in all criminal trials is "Beyond a reasonable doubt": > The standard that must be met by the prosecution's evidence in a criminal prosecution: that no other logical explanation can be derived from the facts except that the defendant committed the crime, thereby overcoming the presumption that a person is innocent until proven guilty. And yet, DNA testing has exonerated man…
I've been listening to the podcast Court Junkie (not to be confused with "Crime Junkie"; long story...), and this was my main takeaway as well.
The podcast is great because it is almost entirely audio excerpts from actual murder trials, with some extra narration to tie it together. It made me realize my understanding of trial-by-jury was formulated almost entirely by television and other storytelling, and not be reality.
What amazed me the most is how the winner seems to be biased toward whichever side can present the most compelling story. Not the most realistic story or most likely story, just the most interesting one.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If prisoners are able to lead criminal organizations whillst inside, that's very obviously a rather trivial-to-fix bug in the design of the jail, not a reason to murder someone for vengeance. We have more than adequate technology to keep such hopeless cases from harming themselves or others.
It's not trivial to fix without introducing mechanisms that are worse than death, such as isolated confinement and other forms of torture.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
try to tell the family of people in the 4% that the system is working as designed.
It’s not ideal. But if we don’t have a working criminal justice system, victims will take the law into their own hands and their error rate will most likely be much worse.
Zero points for using a distraction from the argument at hand which is whether the death penalty is justified.
I think death penalty should be abolished for all crimes except mass murder. There was a killer in Norway that murdered something close to 70 people 8 or 9 years ago. Thanks to maximum sentences in Norway being 18 years or so, the guy will be walking free in another 9 years time. I'm sorry, but some people just want to watch the world burn and those people should be put down.
But can you come up with some standard of evidence that would be 100% accurate in all cases? Real life tends to get complicated very quickly, and there have been people that have been executed on seemingly clear-cut evidence, only to be exonerated later (Timothy Evans comes to mind). When the cost of failure is so high, it's a safer move to just avoid the risk altogether.
"Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends." - Fellowship of the ring (Tolkien)
(Said shortly before Gandalf and the gang slaughtered a gazillion orcs, goblins, ‘wild-men’, and the like... still, though... it was a good line.)