To reconsider my feelings re. Death penalty.

[FoxgloveFairy]

Just read a story about a young guy in the US who broke into a house and, not finding anything to steal, decided to rape the female occupant. A 101 year old woman. Not a string-em-up advocate, but just looking at the arrogant grin on this young man's face in court, I feel right now I could be persuaded.

By that rationale, we should reduce the sentences for pedophiles, because the length of incarceration is the reason some pedophiles have murdered and disposing of the body, and you could argue the same for reducing practically all sentences.

Paedophiles certainly tend to have a dread of detection, but that is mainly down to factors such as the knowledge that it will destroy those they love, and that they will be vilified for the rest of their lives. If anything, being in the segregated wing of a prison may give them more protection than being free.

There is no empirical evidence that capital punishment results in rapists killing women.

Another somewhat large claim. We don't have that evidence because we haven't had a death penalty for rapists for a very long time, nor have other Western societies. We do however have evidence that the existence of capital punishment does lead to an increase in the use of violence to resist arrest and to witnesses being killed, and also puts prison officers in danger because a murderer facing death has very little to lose.

Prison officers are in danger because they spend a lot of time with violent offenders.

Icimoi - Sorry if I wasn't clear. What I meant to say was the fact that innocent people are convicted is not an excuse not to have capital punishment. We convict innocent people all the time, and we don't stop jailing people for crimes just because innocent people are convicted along with them. The only difference is finality, and that is a pragmatic balance between removing the vast numbers of killers there are in our society vs. the minuscule percentage of killers wrongly convicted.

And as I said, they are wrongly convicted because a jury judged them guilty based on their interpretation or understanding of 'the facts', not exactly an exact science, but a collection of people making a judgement call. Why is there no room for a graduated level of degrees of murder, with the highest levels of evidence being reserved for setting the bar on capital cases?

I'm not saying we send a homeless guy someone thought might have stabbed a guy in an alley to the chair, or a guy who stabs a burglar he discovers in his child's bedroom with his pants around his ankles. I'm saying we send the Bridgers and the Tobens of this world to the chair.

Regarding infallibility, a huge number of those most people would like to see hung have confessed to their crimes. But then. I guess that puts them into the mentally not all there category and you'll argue they may be innocent and just telling us what we want to hear.

In regard to capital punishment increasing the resistance of people when arrested, those figures are based collected in countries where everyone over the age of six has a gun. Hardly a comparison to the UK.

Sorry, I missed the bit where you explained why women should contribute towards their rapists' room and board.

We convict innocent people all the time, and we don't stop jailing people for crimes just because innocent people are convicted along with them. The only difference is finality, and that is a pragmatic balance between removing the vast numbers of killers there are in our society vs. the minuscule percentage of killers wrongly convicted.

The point of course with innocent people who are convicted under the current system is that they stand a chance of getting the conviction overturned and being freed and having their name cleared. The dead don't stand a chance of getting their capital punishment reversed. And sorry, I don't think there is any pragmatic balance whatsoever that justifies society in cold-bloodedly hanging the innocent.

Why is there no room for a graduated level of degrees of murder, with the highest levels of evidence being reserved for setting the bar on capital cases?

Because it would be ridiculous. Essentially you would be saying that it's OK to kill X who is convicted of killing one person because you have strong evidence against him, whereas it's not OK to kill Y who is convicted of killing two people, because the evidence against him was less strong.

In regard to capital punishment increasing the resistance of people when arrested, those figures are based collected in countries where everyone over the age of six has a gun. Hardly a comparison to the UK.

But that doesn't work with rape, where the rapist can very easily kill his victim simply by strangling or suffocating her

Of course he can. And, if he's an idiot then he won't realise that hundreds more times the procedure and the manpower are put into detecting a murder than are put into detecting a rape. If we're also hanging murderers, then those stupid genes won't be passed on to the next generation.

Oh right, So if the murderer already has children, perhaps we should hang them as well? And if murderers are unable to have children, that should operate in their favour?

And a rapist may well take the view that killing the witness reduces their chance of being caught and convicted. Just as it's not unknown for robbers to kill rather than take that chance.

OK, then. Let's kiss bad people and give them flowers.

Forgive me, I have not R all of TFT but I have two points:

1. Many people don't realise that executing people costs exponentially more than incarcerating them for life. Fair enough, it's a little counter-intuitive. But it's more complicated than just doing away with them and having done with it - the trials cost a lot more, keeping them on Death Row for years (while multiple appeals chug through the system) costs more, the execution costs (especially as the drugs are now getting harder to obtain).

See www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/issues/death-penalty/us-death-penalty-facts/death-penalty-cost for more information.

1. I'd be more comfortable with the death penalty if the single most reliable predictor of its likelihood was not the respective races of the killer and the victim. "In a 1990 report, the non-partisan U.S. General Accounting Office found "a pattern of evidence indicating racial disparities in the charging, sentencing, and imposition of the death penalty." The study concluded that a defendant was several times more likely to be sentenced to death if the murder victim was white. This has been confirmed by the findings of many other studies that, holding all other factors constant, the single most reliable predictor of whether someone will be sentenced to death is the race of the victim.

From initial charging decisions to plea bargaining to jury sentencing, African-Americans are treated more harshly when they are defendants, and their lives are accorded less value when they are victims. All-white or virtually all-white juries are still commonplace in many localities."

From http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/issues/death-penalty/us-death-penalty-facts/death-penalty-and-race

This indicates to me that the US's application of the death penalty is so obviously flawed that no civilised society should seek to administer it until we work out how to do it a bit bloody better than that.

Death Row is rubbish. All you need is Newgate prison and a sturdy rope. I'll cost it out for you, if you wish!

The point of course with innocent people who are convicted under the current system is that they stand a chance of getting the conviction overturned and being freed and having their name cleared. The dead don't stand a chance of getting their capital punishment reversed. And sorry, I don't think there is any pragmatic balance whatsoever that justifies society in cold-bloodedly hanging the innocent.

Hanged people have had their convictions overturned, so that is irrelevant. That leaves only the finality of the sentence, and yes, you cannot reverse a wrongful hanging, but you also cannot compensate a man wrongly jailed for 30 years. Destroying a man's life with false evidence is catastrophic no mater how you cut it.

And you say there is no pragmatic balance that justifies the cold blooded killing of the innocent, and yet that is exactly the county we live in today. There is nothing you or I can do about the fact that we live in a society that takes the pragmatic approach to which innocents can and cannot be killed so you can feel safe and happy in your community. It happens. Innocent people die to keep you safe and in the manner to which you have become accustomed.

My proposition is that if we kill innocents, I'd rather we had a system that killed a minuscule number of innocents to deal with murders, than kill larger numbers of women and children in order to ensure our currency remains strong.

Because it would be ridiculous. Essentially you would be saying that it's OK to kill X who is convicted of killing one person because you have strong evidence against him, whereas it's not OK to kill Y who is convicted of killing two people, because the evidence against him was less strong.

Precisely as the system already works in fact, where we say we'll convict X for manslaughter and give him 10 years because we only have evidence this strong, but we'll convict Y of committing the same crime of murder because we his amount of evidence. That is how the system is already operating.

All I'm saying is, in cases where Mr X says, "Yes I killed little Jessica after we made love, because I didn't want her to tell her mother" we hang the fucker, and in the case where Mr Y says, "It wasn't me, Guv. I've never seen those two boys in my life", we set the evidentiary bar really high if the crown are adamant they want to go for the death penalty.

But that doesn't work with rape, where the rapist can very easily kill his victim simply by strangling or suffocating her.

But there is no evidence that that has ever occurred as a result of harsher punishment. That is pure supposition. There isn't even evidence that increasing rape from 5 years to 15 years either increases or decreases the likelihood of rapists killing their victims. You have gone from the debate into the realms of wild speculation with that argument.

OK, then. Let's kiss bad people and give them flowers.

Is there no conceivable compromise in your world, DoraGora, between capital punishment and kissing bad people and giving them flowers?

Death Row is rubbish. All you need is Newgate prison and a sturdy rope. I'll cost it out for you, if you wish!

So in your costings there is no option for the innocent to appeal against a wrongful conviction?

Oh right, So if the murderer already has children, perhaps we should hang them as well?

Now you're just being impertinent.

... and still avoiding the question I asked.

puntasticusername - Personally, I'm arguing specifically about UK law. I think US law if fucked up, and I don't think you can really compare the two.

We're talking about a penal system on a island a fifth of the size of Texas, with no death penalty, and trying to compare it to the leading nation on racism and the most heavily armed populous on the planet.

elephantspoo, I very deliberately did not suggest that the convictions of the hanged cannot be overturned. The point, however, is that they cannot be overturned by them. And whilst you cannot give back to someone who has been wrongfully imprisoned the years they spent in custody, they will be able to live the rest of their lives in freedom, and you can at least partially compensate them and their families financially. If you were wrongfully convicted of murder, which would you prefer, death or imprisonment?

What I said was that there is no pragmatic balance between cold-bloodedly hanging the innocent, not killing the innocent. Again, that was entirely deliberate.

It isn't a choice between hanging innocent people and killing larger numbers of women and children to maintain the currency - that is an utterly illogical comparison. We can perfectly logically decide that we want neither. I must say, with every post you make you justify Dawndonna's points about complete logic failures.

It remains an absurdity to say we will hang someone who admits to an offence but not someone who does not. And the difference between a conviction for manslaughter and murder emphatically does not rest on the strength of the evidence. The legal requirements are different.

It is you who are going into speculation in relation to the issue of capital punishment for rape. You complain that there is no evidence that the rapist will be more tempted to kill his victim if he is looking at capital punishment, but that is by its nature impossible because we have not had capital punishment for rape for a very long time. Simply comparing lengths of sentence is ridiculous. A rapist who is looking at capital punishment if he is caught has nothing to lose if he kills his victim - he will inevitably get the same sentence. That is not the case under our current system.

elephantspoo, your post at 23.21.35 is bizarre. I wasn't replying to your post. Self-evidently, I was responding to the post immediately preceding mine.

And what question do you say I am avoiding?

Icimoi - I did know you were responding to Dora, and it was just impertinent.

How can it possibly be justifiable or moral to expect a victim to contribute through taxation to the living expenses of her rapist. She is afforded no right to object to contributing towards his defence against her, and should she object on moral grounds, she is liable to prosecution, and ultimately incarceration. I cannot see equity or justice in allowing a rapist to benefit from the labours of his victims, for the rest of his life if he should so choose. Yet it is wrong to expect prisoners to pay their own way, and to get them to do labour to fund their own incarceration?

Regarding your other point. I did not argue that we cannot choose to live in a country where there was no killing of innocents. I pointed out that we do not, and that at no point in history, and in no country in the world, have humans ever lived in a country that did not sanction the killing of innocents in one way or another.

I don't argue that it is not a noble ideology and a just cause to champion such a utopia. What is said was, as we do, and if we must, let us choose which group of individuals those innocents fall into, in order to minimise their number and remove the largest numbers of killers in our society.

I would rather no one got killed ever, for any reason at all. But that is neither realistic nor helpful. I can object to war, crime, reckless driving, alcohol and poor health and safety, from here to eternity, but at the end of the day people are going to get killed and there is nothing I can do about it. Some of those are going to be innocent, and with all the will in the world, there is nothing. I can do to prevent them from dying either. But if we as a society get to express a preference, to vote, or to debate policy, I'd rather we stopped keeping the likes of Ian Huntley, Mark Bridger and Peter Toben at the tax payers expense just in case they didn't do it, and pumped a little fluid into their veins. I realise there is a chance that they are innocent, and I understand why you say we must all pay to keep them safe, educate and rehabilitate them. I just don't agree, and for those crimes, with that category of killer, I think a large portion of the population would want them dead. That may also be why the issue has never been put to the public vote.

elephantspoo, my earlier post was not in the least impertinent: it was simply pointing out the logical conclusion of DoraGora's suggestion that we should hang murderers in order to stop them passing on their genes.

Once again, I have previously answered the question about rapists' keep being funded (however minimally) by their victims. I have also asked you why you believe that prisoners don't work, but you haven't answered.

You continue to ignore the point as to cold-blooded hanging of innocents. Continually pointing to circumstances where innocent people are killed in other circumstances takes your argument not one step further. It simply is not a case of choosing which category those innocents fall into: it is not acceptable for the state to take deliberate action add to the number of killed innocents. I don't say we should keep the likes of Tobin alive in case they are innocent, but because condemning people for murder whilst murdering them is wholly unacceptable in any civilised society.

But, part of the current problem is that lots of silly buggers are opening the gates and letting them back out onto the street, whereupon a proportion of the murderers proceed to hacking up some other innocent bystander.

who are these swathes of killers being released and killing again? You mention one, who didn't kill again. are there other non-examples?

again, however, this problem is much more easily solved with life in prison. Since there is no "real life" in prison, we are both on the same side. we should fix that.

One equitable solution would be to allow the welfare of prisoners to be paid for by those should charitable and kind enough to do so, and allow them also to offer said education and listening ear. I am sure there are a whole swage of the population who wouldn't mind paying for the care and attention these pour fellows need, and I am sure those who currently provide a listening ear don't need to be paid for their generosity of spirit.

You obviously do not know how public funds are obtained and disbursed. that's not going to work.

You see, for some it is wrong to force a rapist to work and contribute to society, but not wrong to force an rape victim to contribute to her rapist's food and lodgings. And as long as society believes the rapist has more rights than the raped, then you will continue to see a degradation in society.

no one thinks that rape victims should have less rights than their rapist, and nothing about what you have described says that.

How about all rape and murder victims get a 0.000000231% tax reduction for the care of their attacker. Very workable . But then, what about robbery victims? The criticism against the slavery you propose is two fold; it is wrong and impractical. You have tried to address the first, unsuccessfully, by labelling it punishment, but you have not addressed the second.

There is no empirical evidence that capital punishment results in rapists killing women. That is just a knee jerk reaction by the pro-life lobby. Propaganda at best.

you really couldn't do that study ANYWHERE could you, since in very few places does rape get the death penalty. However, criminals, like everyone else, respond to incentives (this happens very clearly in the drug dealing world, and is illustrated by what happens in jurisdictions with flat sentences for all drug crimes). if you don't believe it you are essentially asserting that criminals aren't motivated by some obvious incentives. do you believe that?

but you also cannot compensate a man wrongly jailed for 30 years.

no, you cannot. But you can do a better job of it then bringing the wrongfully convicted back to life.

Andrew Dawson
George Johnson
Ernest Wright,
David Cook
Desmond Lee
Nicola Edgington
Douglas Gary Vinter

There are more...

there are more? how many?

all of the subsequent murders would have been prevented by life in prison.

under your idea, those 7 people (along with a handful of other repeat murderers) would have been executed, along with the two innocent people mentioned above. that's a pretty bad ratio. are you comfortable with that?

Nobody ever said that it was limited to double murderers vs innocents. But, those who want to keep murderers alive should pay for it themselves. I don't want to finance Nicola Edgington and Douglas Gary Vinter.

But, those who want to keep murderers alive should pay for it themselves.

but you are happy to pay their much higher capital crime and appeals legal defence? makes a lot of sense.

Interesting that you refer to Nicola Edgington, DoraGora: she was a diagnosed schizophrenic, probably with personality disorder, who would not have been hanged even when we did have the death penalty.

And I suspect that, immediately after his conviction, you would have said that you didn't want to pay to keep Stefan Kiszko alive.