The Death Penalty in Louisiana • Hacker News Board

Re: The Death Penalty in Louisiana

#91

Post by jkyle » Wed, Jul 01, 2015, 6:02 PM UTC

kazinator wrote: post #68

eghad wrote: post #53

How is that we have a system where we have an assistant district attorney (now running for DA) who not only openly believes we need to kill more people, but thinks they deserve to suffer as much physical pain as "humanly possible"? I mean his own colleagues question his mental instability, and nothing happens. When no one is willing to actually disbar someone like this, where are the effective checks on power?

That is clearly wrong; they only deserve to suffer as much pain as they inflicted, not as much as possible. Ideally, offenders eligible for the death penalty should perish in exactly the same circumstances as what they inflicted. Someone who starved an infant to death should be starved; someone who strangled ought to be strangled and so on. (By and large it's good enough to have them permanently gone by any means. Th…

Would you consider the guaranteed percentage of innocently convicted being starved, strangled, or any number of unimaginable torturous horrors committed to them at great pain and distress acceptable collateral damage in a quest to exact sadistic justice?

Re: The Death Penalty in Louisiana

#92

Post by kazinator » Wed, Jul 01, 2015, 6:40 PM UTC

carlob wrote: post #84

kazinator wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Punishments for crimes are not merely deterrents; that is a secondary role. Punishments are ... punitive, of course! Suppose you break into someone's house and steal 50 bucks. You aren't just forced to return 50 bucks; you go to jail for a while. Even in civil suits, there are "punitive damages": remedies awarded to a plaintiff beyond actual damages. If you kill someone, then killing you is not even punitive really;…

IIRC in Turkey, they reintroduced death penalty for kidnapping and the number of people rescued from kidnapping declined dramatically: it is much simpler to do away with witnesses. You can say you don't believe in deterrents, but you surely cannot believe that it's good to have punishments that encourage to commit more crimes. For what is worth I agree with you that deterring from committing crime is not the primary…

> You can say you don't believe in deterrents, ...

But your example is precisely of a deterrent gone wrong.

They clearly tried to deter kidnapping by making it a capital offense, and it backfired.

It is also unjust: an extreme version of my fictitious example of giving petty shoplifters five year sentences.

Zeal to create a deterrent resulted in a horribly unjust law, which backfired on top of that.

> I think that the primary purpose should be reeducation and reintroduction in society

Reeducation is more suitable for exhibitionists, shoplifters, embezzlers, ...

The risk of re-offending is there, but nobody dies, and there is a chance for improvement.

When it comes to violent crime, the focus of the criminal justice system must be to protect people.

Re: The Death Penalty in Louisiana

#93

Post by tzs » Wed, Jul 01, 2015, 8:02 PM UTC

jkyle wrote: post #89

seivan wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you suggest in regards for money being spent on containing people who have zero chance on rehabilitation? Sweden can't afford cancer medication for certain people, but has no issues containing violent sadists. http://www.svd.se/effektiv-cancermedicin-anvands-inte http://www.sydsvenskan.se/skane/hon-fick-ny-cancermedicin-ut... Some people in the middle east tortured children, women and committed other atrociti…

> What do you suggest in regards for money being spent on containing people who have zero chance on rehabilitation? Life in prison without parole is cheaper than the death penalty. In fact, it's 10x more expensive to put someone to death than to imprison them for life. [1] [1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2014/05/01/cons...

> Life in prison without parole is cheaper than the death penalty

...at the moment.

I bet if you ran the numbers for the 1930's, for instance, when the average time from conviction to execution was 14.4 months (the range was 4.6 months to 46.1 months) [1], the death penalty would come out cheaper than life without parole.

The cost argument is a risky one for death penalty opponents, since the cost can be fixed either by getting rid of the death penalty or by making it more efficient.

[1] https://books.google.com/books?id=8cYom4BacjMC&lpg=PA164&ots...

Re: The Death Penalty in Louisiana

#94

Post by carlob » Wed, Jul 01, 2015, 9:07 PM UTC

kazinator wrote: post #92

carlob wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC in Turkey, they reintroduced death penalty for kidnapping and the number of people rescued from kidnapping declined dramatically: it is much simpler to do away with witnesses. You can say you don't believe in deterrents, but you surely cannot believe that it's good to have punishments that encourage to commit more crimes. For what is worth I agree with you that deterring from committing crime is not the primary…

> You can say you don't believe in deterrents, ... But your example is precisely of a deterrent gone wrong. They clearly tried to deter kidnapping by making it a capital offense, and it backfired. It is also unjust: an extreme version of my fictitious example of giving petty shoplifters five year sentences. Zeal to create a deterrent resulted in a horribly unjust law, which backfired on top of that. > I think that th…

In another comment you said that one homicide should be punished by death in the exact same form. This would have the exact same effect as the kidnapping example: if you killed one person why not kill 50?

Re: The Death Penalty in Louisiana

#95

Post by jkyle » Wed, Jul 01, 2015, 9:13 PM UTC

tzs wrote: post #93

jkyle wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What do you suggest in regards for money being spent on containing people who have zero chance on rehabilitation? Life in prison without parole is cheaper than the death penalty. In fact, it's 10x more expensive to put someone to death than to imprison them for life. [1] [1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2014/05/01/cons...

> Life in prison without parole is cheaper than the death penalty ...at the moment. I bet if you ran the numbers for the 1930's, for instance, when the average time from conviction to execution was 14.4 months (the range was 4.6 months to 46.1 months) [1], the death penalty would come out cheaper than life without parole. The cost argument is a risky one for death penalty opponents, since the cost can be fixed either…

> The cost argument is a risky one for death penalty opponents, since the cost can be fixed either by getting rid of the death penalty or by making it more efficient.

Not really. Because the precursor to the cost argument is that there is a trade off between between swift and being sure. The quicker you execute, the less certain you can be of guilt.

People are constantly being set free after being on death row for years.

The only way reconcile that with any concept of justice is to put more resources into gaining higher certainty. And even if you assume 100% certainty could, somehow, be gained...you then run into the cost wall.

Fact is, being pro death penalty is being pro arbitrary execution of innocent people....and spending a lot of extra money to do it.

Re: The Death Penalty in Louisiana

#96

Post by kawakiole » Wed, Jul 01, 2015, 9:46 PM UTC

maxlybbert wrote: post #71

DanBC wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The death penalty is more expensive than life in prison. If the US didn't imprison so many people they'd easily be able to afford to house the actually violent criminals.

That's only true because the cost of appeals is included in the cost of having somebody on death row. For the record, I'm very happy that people on death row get so many appeals. I'm very happy that some of those appeals are automatic (all states I'm familiar with automatically appeal any death penalty sentence to the state supreme court). But given that the average death row inmate lives 20 years or so in custody, a…

How on earth is the cost of a legal appeal not directly related to jail?

Re: The Death Penalty in Louisiana

#97

Post by just_had_tea » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 8:38 AM UTC

at-fates-hands wrote: post #51

Justsignedup wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The death penalty is a problem: - it never really acts as a deterrent - often the person on death row is basically in solitary confinement. So even if they are released, they are released crazy - the penalty is quite final. there is no appealing afterwards - it is mostly about revenge - ripe with abuse

You forgot the part about executing innocent people. Currently the rate is roughly for every 10 guilty people who are executed, 1 innocent person is executed. I don't care how you cut that statistic, it's too much.

Wow, that's really sad. Do you have a link for that statistic? How is it determined?

Re: The Death Penalty in Louisiana

#98

Post by kazinator » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 1:09 PM UTC

jkyle wrote: post #91

kazinator wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is clearly wrong; they only deserve to suffer as much pain as they inflicted, not as much as possible. Ideally, offenders eligible for the death penalty should perish in exactly the same circumstances as what they inflicted. Someone who starved an infant to death should be starved; someone who strangled ought to be strangled and so on. (By and large it's good enough to have them permanently gone by any means. Th…

Would you consider the guaranteed percentage of innocently convicted being starved, strangled, or any number of unimaginable torturous horrors committed to them at great pain and distress acceptable collateral damage in a quest to exact sadistic justice?

I only described what I think is just, not arguing that it should actually be implemented. There are numerous problems with actually implementing the concept, not the least of which is that it is being barbaric, and requires psychopathic executioners that only differ from the convict in that what they are doing is legal in its context.

Re: The Death Penalty in Louisiana

#99

Post by kazinator » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 1:33 PM UTC

carlob wrote: post #94

kazinator wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can say you don't believe in deterrents, ... But your example is precisely of a deterrent gone wrong. They clearly tried to deter kidnapping by making it a capital offense, and it backfired. It is also unjust: an extreme version of my fictitious example of giving petty shoplifters five year sentences. Zeal to create a deterrent resulted in a horribly unjust law, which backfired on top of that. > I think that th…

In another comment you said that one homicide should be punished by death in the exact same form. This would have the exact same effect as the kidnapping example: if you killed one person why not kill 50?

I wrote no such thing in that other comment. I said that such a punishment is just and concluded the comment with a remark that though just, it is not necessary to implement. The intent was to argue that even a barbaric form of capital punishment is just, never mind "regular" capital punishment.

> if you killed one person why not kill 50?

The simple fact that you can only be executed once already encourages multiple murders. However, you have a very valid point here in that some killers would be otherwise satisfied in perpetrating a single murder that involves torture might, out of fear of a tortuous execution, opt for "quantity over quality" and kill more people in a quick and clean manner.

Re: The Death Penalty in Louisiana

#100

Post by at-fates-hands » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 1:59 PM UTC

just_had_tea wrote: post #97

at-fates-hands wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You forgot the part about executing innocent people. Currently the rate is roughly for every 10 guilty people who are executed, 1 innocent person is executed. I don't care how you cut that statistic, it's too much.

Wow, that's really sad. Do you have a link for that statistic? How is it determined?

It's from the statistics of people on death row being exonerated for their crimes:

http://deathpenaltycurriculum.org/student/c/about/arguments/...

Since 1973, at least 121 people have been released from death row after evidence of their innocence emerged. During the same period of time, over 982 people have been executed. Thus, for every eight people executed, we have found one person on death row who never should have been convicted.