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Four years after a man was executed, someone else’s DNA found on murder weapon

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Re: Four years after a man was executed, someone else’s DNA found on murder weapon

#181

Post by sershe »

threatofrain wrote: post #175
sershe wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would there need to be appearance of re-education? The society doesn't owe anyone a re-education. It's not really about punishment either... If someone doesn't respect others' life and property, why would theirs be respected at all? There's no more revenge here than in drowning a tick that bit you instead of releasing it back into the wild. In abstract, I'd apply it to many more crimes with an unambiguous victim…

Maybe not vengeance, but there is passionate cruelty in drowning an ant if you had a vision of the world where the ant was no longer dangerous. What's wrong with indefinite imprisonment over death? Now you can figure out if you accidentally killed people, at least; you don't need abuse to accidentally put people to death. And on the matter of death penalty, does one lead with an attitude of "Why should we help unless…

I'd argue it's a minor component. Especially with something like a tick, that will go on to bite someone else.

I am morally indifferent between life imprisonment and death, but life imprisonment costs more and can fail. On the other hand, the original comment framed death penalty as "hypocrisy" of "justice being about re-education"; I am saying justice doesn't have to be primarily about re-education, no supporter of death penalty argues that; there's no hypocrisy. I think the removal is the most important component. Punishment and re-education should be prioritized depending on the crime, but in any case both are just nice, optional perks.

Re: Four years after a man was executed, someone else’s DNA found on murder weapon

#182

Post by chrisandchris »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #141
causality0 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just the seller, workers at the manufacturing plant, and any person who walked in the shop and asked to hold it.

Right. There was an incident in Europe, I believe, where law enforcement thought they'd identified an individual responsible for a massive international crime spree. What they'd actually identified was the factory worker who packaged the DNA collection swabs.

You believe right but forgot 1 thing: these DNA collection swabs were supposed to be DNA-free (or at least sold as that) but some problem while manufacturing put DNA on them. It‘s known as „Heilbronner Phantom“ (phantom of heilbronn).

Source: https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heilbronner_Phantom

Re: Four years after a man was executed, someone else’s DNA found on murder weapon

#184

Post by threatofrain »

sershe wrote: post #181
threatofrain wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe not vengeance, but there is passionate cruelty in drowning an ant if you had a vision of the world where the ant was no longer dangerous. What's wrong with indefinite imprisonment over death? Now you can figure out if you accidentally killed people, at least; you don't need abuse to accidentally put people to death. And on the matter of death penalty, does one lead with an attitude of "Why should we help unless…

I'd argue it's a minor component. Especially with something like a tick, that will go on to bite someone else. I am morally indifferent between life imprisonment and death, but life imprisonment costs more and can fail. On the other hand, the original comment framed death penalty as "hypocrisy" of "justice being about re-education"; I am saying justice doesn't have to be primarily about re-education, no supporter of…

> Punishment and re-education should be prioritized depending on the crime, but in any case both are just nice, optional perks.

Again there is this framing about what is deserved and what is owed.

This is in contrast to the framing of what is best for society — if your prevailing theory is that some people are safe and some people are dangerous (as opposed to some people are criminals and some people are owed), then those individuals who still have a good future story ought be candidates for rehabilitation. From this perspective, it is not a matter of what is a "perk" and what is owed, but rather what the state has to gain.

Re: Four years after a man was executed, someone else’s DNA found on murder weapon

#185

Post by beerandt »

rhino369 wrote: post #170
aqsalose wrote: post #35

Concerning DNA testing in general. Recently there was a case where the Finnish police arrested a person as a suspect for a robbery of a convenience store on basis of DNA evidence: the robber had dropped a plastic glove, presumably to hide fingerprints, on the floor of the store. Officers isolated DNA from the glove, searched archives, found a match with a person who had had some minor offense years prior, and brought…

You need to apply Bayes Theorem to DNA evidence, but courts typically don't.

I'm not sure either prosecutors or defense attorneys would, in general, like the idea of basically forcing a jury to hear about percentages that they can't somewhat control via expert witness narrative.

Or the idea of introducing most jurors to advanced statistics for the first time.

I mean, even a lot of reasonably intelligent, college educated professionals that have taken a statistics class get lots of things very very wrong, very often.

Re: Four years after a man was executed, someone else’s DNA found on murder weapon

#186

Post by beerandt »

aaron-santos wrote: post #176
beerandt wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Judicially sanctioned revenge killing as a civil remedy is an interesting thought exercise, though. ...if your argument is that the victim and not the State is entitled to justice.

I'll leave it as a thought experiment in the same way that we ask, "How many people would eat meat if they had to do the killing?"

Probably more than you're thinking, especially if the meat had just been convicted of killing a family member.

Re: Four years after a man was executed, someone else’s DNA found on murder weapon

#187

Post by perl4ever »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #89
f38zf5vdt wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't make a human being feel psychological pain since the perception is individual. Once in a prison where their medical, food, and financial needs are 100% assumed by the state, they might find their lives better. If they believed the world was so unjust that they went out and committed horrible crimes in the name of self-satisfaction or their personal beliefs on how to make the world just, they might just sit…

This too. And what's odd is that I hear people who say "Oh, in prison, they're safe from society." That's not true historically. Some of the most dangerous people in history were imprisoned, multiple times, and not killed for fear of public anger - only to get out of prison and wreak havoc. Hitler was found guilty of treason, but was given a more humane 5 years in prison instead of the death penalty that would have h…

>For all we know, the Unabomber is in prison right now

For all we know? What is your information that he's not?

Re: Four years after a man was executed, someone else’s DNA found on murder weapon

#188

Post by perl4ever »

hedora wrote: post #107
reducesuffering wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone want to summarize the argument of these 14 states that isn't "Yes, we as a society locked up an innocent for 30 years, but now that they're free we don't owe them anything"..?

Most of those states are historically racist.

States that are not historically racist?

Re: Four years after a man was executed, someone else’s DNA found on murder weapon

#189

Post by coldtea »

nabla9 wrote: post #180
coldtea wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because their 'performance' is to perform their part best they can. Well, this "best" should be judged and rewarded or punished too.

You are just making normative statements. That's not way to have intelligent discussion.

Kinda, but I didn't ask for a discussion atm, I stated my opinion of what should be, and re-stated parts of it to make clear what that is.

In order to express a desire for a specific change, you need to have normative ideas. At least a conception of how things should be (or shouldn't). So it comes down to, do you agree that judges should not just handle out death sentences, for starters, without any negative consequence on them if they get them wrong?

But note that if my request was normative (it was), the response: "Because their 'performance' is to perform their part best they can" is even less than a normative statement: it's a tautology.

Re: Four years after a man was executed, someone else’s DNA found on murder weapon

#190

Post by bryanrasmussen »

perl4ever wrote: post #188
hedora wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of those states are historically racist.

States that are not historically racist?

I don't know that there are states that are not historically racist, but we could assume there are states that are less historically racist than others - states without slavery and large pro-abolition movements might be better situated for historical morality, or states without sundown towns or counties.
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