Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Death Penalty in Louisiana

newyorker.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 102 posts

Re: The Death Penalty in Louisiana

#71

Post by maxlybbert »

DanBC wrote: post #37
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…

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, and that the average life sentence prisoner lives two or three times that long, and assuming that the people on death row don't get incredibly expensive food, it seems that the only reasons for a difference would be increased security costs (are life sentence inmates less likely to try to break out?) or costs not directly related to jail, such as legal appeals.

We could save a lot of money by simply denying appeals to inmates on death row, but I don't think that would be an improvement. If anything, the difference in cost between death row and life imprisonment suggests that life sentences aren't getting the same scrutiny that death sentences get, and we probably have more innocent people serving life sentences than awaiting execution.

Re: The Death Penalty in Louisiana

#72

Post by VLM »

DanBC wrote: post #32
tokenadult wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet in the US there is this "crisis" of not being abel to source the injections needed. Many medical doctors (persons with legal authority to prescribe drugs) and pharmacists (persons with legal authority to dispense drugs) object to capital punishment, and thus will not supply prisons with drugs that have the sole purpose of killing someone.

The other problem with sourcing is the manufacturers refusing to sell medications for use in execution. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/19/death-penalty-b...

Something to think about, is if most of the civilized world sees what the executioners are doing as inherently immoral or unethical, the government has nothing to lose by violating medication licenses and laws, its not like the rest of the world is going to see a tiny little delta in immorality or lack of ethics as being much worse. So simply civil forfeiture a pharmacy safe or a chemical plant warehouse, after all the .gov sees civil forfeiture as a universal good...

Re: The Death Penalty in Louisiana

#73

Post by kazinator »

sageabilly wrote: post #13

"Cox does not believe that the death penalty works as a deterrent, but he says that it is justified as revenge." That is so, so fucked up. An attorney, someone whose job it is to impartially argue the law, equally to everyone, saying "Yeah you know, we kill people FOR REVENGE ." Not even, you know, hey if we have the death penalty it'll maybe make people think twice about committing a serious crime, but straight up s…

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; it's like taking 50 bucks from someone who stole 50 bucks. The revenge is less than punitive. It's not true revenge. True revenge has a punitive aspect: it goes beyond the original offense. Killing is only revenge if the method is more fearsome and painful.

If a killer tortures someone to death, but is given a quick and merciful death, that falls short of revenge.

Anyway, deterrent value must never be the focus; that is a pseudo-intellectual liberal angle which detracts from the morality of the situation, which is about justice.

If a punishment's ability to deter is considered important, that leads to injustice. For instance, big punishments are handed down for small crimes to "make an example" which discourages others. E.g. six month prison terms aren't deterring petty pickpockets in some area, so we crank it up to five years.

Re: The Death Penalty in Louisiana

#74

Post by carlob »

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…

are you trolling?

Re: The Death Penalty in Louisiana

#75

Post by jfaat »

davedx wrote: post #55
yummyfajitas wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We also have one of the highest crime rates among developed countries. Consider, for example, intentional homicides: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention... Louisiana has the highest murder rate in the US (double the national average): http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/murder-rates-nationally-and-... Any analysis of # of people in jail which ignores the underlying crime rates is deeply flawed.

For the intentional homicides data you linked, the US is at #111, right in the middle. Try again?

Look at the countries above the US. Very few could be considered developed countries.

Re: The Death Penalty in Louisiana

#76

Post by kazinator »

carlob wrote: post #74
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…

are you trolling?

You mean, am I misrepresenting my real life beliefs for the purpose of online entertainment? Certainly not.

Moreover, this isn't a throwaway account; you can deduce my identity without much effort.

People who disagree with your views on crime and punishment, or anything else, aren't necessarily trolls.

Re: The Death Penalty in Louisiana

#77

Post by Jtsummers »

gadders wrote: post #63
tP5n wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not a slope. Gay marriage and the death penalty are two very different things and I can't believe I'm typing this out. There also numerous reasons to be against the death penalty but not abortions, but something tells me I'd rather not have this discussion here and now [1]. [1] for what it's worth, an example not related but relevant: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9770221

Of course the death penalty and gay marriage are not the same. As I obviously need to spell it out to you: - Some people's belief systems are against Gay Marriage - Some people's belief systems are against the Death Penalty Which set of personal beliefs is valid? Who decides which one should be allowed?

Private entities (individuals, companies, clubs, etc.) can refuse to participate in things they find objectionable (gay marriage, straight marriage, death penalty, life, whatever). There may be legal repercussions if, for instance, what they're refusing to do is to pay taxes, a legal obligation.

But gay marriage is now legal in all states, so representatives of the states are obligated to perform those services. The clergy aren't representatives of those states and so they can refuse, without legal consequence, to perform services they object to.

The death penalty is legal in most states, so some one within that state is obligated to execute people, though they could potentially refuse (at the likely cost of their job, perhaps more). But a pharmacist, as a private party, is not obligated to sell the tools of execution to the state. It's their own choice.

Re: The Death Penalty in Louisiana

#78

Post by kazinator »

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.

> You forgot the part about executing innocent people.

Parent covers this essentially in this point:

"the penalty is quite final. there is no appealing afterwards"

The reason we have an appeal process is because an initial sentence can be wrong or inappropriate.

Re: The Death Penalty in Louisiana

#79

Post by blfr »

chucksmash wrote: post #70
blfr wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not very different if you believe that personal ethical beliefs can be used as a justification to not provide a service.

If you supply drugs to be used in an execution, you are part of a chain of actions that ends with the intentional taking of a life. If you bake a cake for a gay couple, you are part of a chain of actions that sort of, kind of, indirectly might offend your sensibilities. Those two outcomes are vastly dissimilar - equating them because they are both "doing things you object to as a matter of conscience" is too reductio…

If you supply drugs (or facilities) to be used in an abortion, you are part of a chain of actions that ends with the intentional taking of a life. Same with assisted suicide.

But even the magnitude cutoff is arbitrary. At which point is the result "bad enough" that ethical reservations start to apply?

Re: The Death Penalty in Louisiana

#80

Post by kazinator »

Shivetya wrote: post #17

The death penalty isn't the problem and never has. There are far too many people who have no place in society and there is zero benefit to society to continue their existence. That being said, abuse by the legal system of those who cannot afford to defend themselves properly has gone on for far too long and its not just a Southern thing. From the bail bond market to the plea bargain junket of Federal Courts, justice…

> There are far too many people who have no place in society and there is zero benefit to society to continue their existence.

This is not connected to crime and punishment in any way; merely not benefiting society in any way isn't a crime, let alone a capital one.

Post reply on HN