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The real reason to end the death penalty

paulgraham.com

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Re: The real reason to end the death penalty

#491

Post by rayiner »

sneak wrote: post #381
rayiner wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people plead out because they’re ridiculously guilty. I’m a crunchy hippie on criminal justice, but I’ve also seen these cases first hand working for an appellate judge. Prosecutors go after cases that are open and shut. You wouldn’t believe how much evidence there is in a typical case that doesn’t go to trial. They have the guy on CCTV with stolen goods in his car and cell phone records of fencing. Innocence Pr…

> Most people plead out because they’re ridiculously guilty. I know many innocent people who plead out to avoid jail because they're looking at $250k in legal bills and a ~90% trial conviction rate. Juries, being amateurs, are not very good at avoiding bias, as they are completely untrained. I'm not so sure that plea bargain rates are indicative of guilt either way.

How many people who plead do you think have enough money not to be eligible for a PD? And how do you know “many innocent people who plead out?”

Re: The real reason to end the death penalty

#492

Post by solipsism »

adriang133 wrote: post #435
jpmattia wrote: post #316

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…

And putting them in prison for multiple years, or even decades, is better ? Hardly. I think the point should be more: the justice system sucks and we should work very hard to make it better, instead of complaining about a particular consequence of it, that is ultimately irrelevant.

If there was ever a comment more deserving of a "why not both?" response, I'd be surprised.

Re: The real reason to end the death penalty

#493

Post by ncmncm »

sneak wrote: post #381
rayiner wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people plead out because they’re ridiculously guilty. I’m a crunchy hippie on criminal justice, but I’ve also seen these cases first hand working for an appellate judge. Prosecutors go after cases that are open and shut. You wouldn’t believe how much evidence there is in a typical case that doesn’t go to trial. They have the guy on CCTV with stolen goods in his car and cell phone records of fencing. Innocence Pr…

> Most people plead out because they’re ridiculously guilty. I know many innocent people who plead out to avoid jail because they're looking at $250k in legal bills and a ~90% trial conviction rate. Juries, being amateurs, are not very good at avoiding bias, as they are completely untrained. I'm not so sure that plea bargain rates are indicative of guilt either way.

I am completely sure they are not indicative of anything, in any way, shape or form. Besides legal expenses and risk of being convicted anyway, being in jail tends to result in being fired, defaulting on your home and car loans, and leaving your family destitute.

Re: The real reason to end the death penalty

#494

Post by nefitty »

hn8788 wrote: post #365
nefitty wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatever rationalizations people make, I think ultimately, a belief that some people are evil is what the death penalty hinges on. I don’t believe in free will, thus I don’t believe in moral culpability, this I don’t believe in evil. From that vantage point it seems extremely barbaric to me to put anyone to death. They had no say in the circumstances that led up to who they became. I have similar feeling when I think…

If you think there's no free will, then how is it barbaric to execute people? No free will means the supporters of the death penalty didn't have a say in the circumstance that led to them supporting it, so there is no moral culpability to thinking some people should be executed. It's no more "barbaric" than thinking it's okay to kill rats and other pests for the good of society.

The realization that free will is an illusion ideally allows compassion to develop in an individual. If a society shed its belief in free will, then it would act more compassionately, eg the opposite of barbaric.

Re: The real reason to end the death penalty

#495

Post by jcims »

sjg007 wrote: post #476
jcims wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Framing the death penalty debate around "innocent people get killed" will not change the partisan/class perceptions. I don't agree. All of these moral castigations about it being 'inhumane' or 'barbaric' don't strike me as rational or compelling in the least. I think the idea is humane in the context of those impacted by the crimes in question and I don't see how putting a person in a box for the remainder of their…

You could also go with it's racist. The death penalty is racist.

I don’t see how it is inherently racist but there’s certainly a case to be made that its likely to inherit biases from the judicial system.

Re: The real reason to end the death penalty

#496

Post by raldi »

dang wrote: post #305
teddyh wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that you got that backwards. What ‘raldi’ was trying to say that it’s good that you didn’t edit the title, but implied that it’s sad that it was merely because it was pg who wrote the post that the title was left unaltered.

I bow in apology to raldi.

And I to you.

Re: The real reason to end the death penalty

#497

Post by kazinator »

nefitty wrote: post #494
hn8788 wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think there's no free will, then how is it barbaric to execute people? No free will means the supporters of the death penalty didn't have a say in the circumstance that led to them supporting it, so there is no moral culpability to thinking some people should be executed. It's no more "barbaric" than thinking it's okay to kill rats and other pests for the good of society.

The realization that free will is an illusion ideally allows compassion to develop in an individual. If a society shed its belief in free will, then it would act more compassionately, eg the opposite of barbaric.

That's an interesting hypothesis you have there, but it seems rather self-evident to me that there are many philosophical pathways toward compassion, not necessarily involving specific theories of free will. Not all pathways are heavily intellectual.

Re: The real reason to end the death penalty

#498

Post by ncmncm »

gweinberg wrote: post #416
sneak wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conviction and plea bargain rates. Most (>90%) people who are charged (in the US) end up with either a guilty verdict or a guilty plea. IIRC even the ones that don't plead out are ~90% conviction rate, at least at the federal level. Doesn't jive at all with what we know of competence and bias levels observed in police and prosecutors in the US.

Yeah, and there are a lot of people who are most likely guilty who never even get charged. A prosecutor won't want to take up a case when he thinks the evidence is in the zone between "preponderance" and "beyond reasonable doubt".

If the prosecutor can get somebody to plead guilty before they are charged, then he doesn't even need to think about the value of the evidence--or, indeed, about whether the person actually did anything. A guilty plea is even better for his reputation than a conviction, because he can get lots of those done in a day.

Sure, somebody who looks prepared to lawyer up often won't be charged.

Re: The real reason to end the death penalty

#499

Post by ta-202104230832 »

As many here I wholeheartedly disagree with the argument made by the article. It might be one of many reasons but not the main one.

Another argumemt against the death sentence I haven't heard here:

I think the whole 'eye-for-an-eye'-principle of the justice system sets a negative example for the respective society and thus facilitates violence.

"It is okay to kill someone for a crime. Even the state does it. My reason is valid."

It lowers the bar for violence even further unnecessarily.

I did not fact check this. Its just a gut feeling.

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