Philips, take everything you said and reverse it. You quote articles and laws as if they are gospel.

It is precisely because they are ALL based on humans that they are flawed.

I can find data totally contradicting your data.

NO lWOP means nothing. You are not the law nor do you know the law.
I am telling you that it is possible to overturn LWOP.

'executions ARE a deterrent', You should have stopped there because again there IS data to back it up with.

The idea of ALL these ignorant people of the judiciary not stuffing up any more is exactly what we need. Drain the swamp.

No this is one of the most moronic things YOU have ever said. And yes I could do a better job. Don't you dare try to tell us that the cops 'can't know everything'. THEY DON"T KNOW ANYTHING!

There goes your moronosity again. Yep you read it right. Being just as stupid as the law you miss the point.

My point is that by speeding it is implied that you MIGHT do something wrong. If you do then throw the book at you and they will be justified in charging you accordingly.

On the other hand I speed and get to my destination without incident or a trail of death and destruction then, leave me alone and get on with some real crime, oh that's right their too stupid to do that.

I do not care about this law or that law, the bad guys don't so at least I will be on a level playing field.

When I break the law, I want to know I have done something, actually wrong, not the 'possibility' of 'maybe' doing something wrong.

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Dear Ashbo,

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You indicate that the first and foremost reason for your opposition to capital punishment is:

« Our criminal justice system is capable of miscarriages of justice… a death sentence provides no remedy for a miscarriage of justice »

Does this mean that in cases where there is no risk of miscarriage of justice, you are not opposed to the application of the death penalty ? Consider, for example the following:

• The assassination by Jack Ruby, in public, of Lee Harvey Oswald (accused of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy), filmed live by television cameras and projected around the world.

• The assassination of John Lennon of The Beetles, shot four times by Mark David Chapman who dropped his weapon and sat on the street, waiting to be arrested.

• The assassination of US Senator Robert F. Kennedy, shot four times at point-blank range by a Palestinian named Sirhan Sirhan,

• The assassination of Martin Luther King by an escaped convict, James Earl Ray, a white man who was opposed the African-American Civil Rights Movement.

• The assassination of Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth who shot the President in the head while the he was watching a theatrical performance.

• The assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, shot and killed by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu radical (with the help of his co-conspirator, Narayan Aptew), while having his nightly public walk on the grounds of the Birla Bhavan (Birla House) in New Delhi.

These are just some of the more famous cases of “premeditated murder that is carefully planned and executed” which I consider perfectly legitimate for society to deprive those found guilty of their lives.
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You affirm:

« Executions do not act as a deterrent »

As I indicated to AJ Philips on page 28 of this thread, the US National Research Council warns against affirmations of this nature. There is no conclusive evidence. Perhaps executions are a deterrent. Perhaps they are not.
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You also affirm:

« Executions only satisfy one aspect of sentencing - retribution. Vengeance, alone, should -

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(Continued …)

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(Continued …)

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... only be reserved for the most heinous crimes »

I grant you that the difference between retribution and vengeance is razor-thin but retribution is a punishment mandated by law and revenge is a personal punishment, one not legally authorized.

Courts of justice in modern democracies such as Australia are not concerned with vengeance. They seek to identify law breakers and their victims, evaluate prejudices and responsibilities and decide appropriate sanctions and reparations.

In criminal law, a sanction is the punishment for a criminal offense. The criminal sanction for a criminal defendant varies according to the crime and may include such measures as death, incarceration, probation, community service, and monetary fines.

As I indicated to you on page 26 of this thread, anybody who, for whatever reason, happens to be within the geographic jurisdiction of Australia, is automatically subject to Australian law.

The simple fact of being within that jurisdiction (even if only temporarily) implies that he accepts the terms and conditions of Australia’s democracy. He is deemed to voluntarily subscribe to the “social contract” of Australian society. Like all contracts, the social contract contains rights and obligations together with corresponding sanctions that apply if those rights and obligations are not respected – and the legal principle of “ignorance of the law is no excuse” applies.

So, if we were to authorise the judiciary not only to deprive those found guilty of crimes, of their freedom, but also those found guilty of “atrocious” crimes, of their lives, we would simply be applying the terms and conditions of the social contract which the criminals would be deemed to have fully understood and voluntarily accepted.

An independent court of law in a modern democratic country simply applies the terms and conditions of the social contract as defined by the sovereign people.
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You then declare :

« Life without parole is an available sentence that satisfies 1,2,and 4 above »

No, it does not, Ashbo. Depriving an innocent person of his freedom for the rest of his life provides no remedy for a miscarriage of justice.

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Only if they’re reliable, ALTRAV.

<<… You quote articles and laws as if they are gospel.>>

Not everything on the internet is rubbish. The articles/sites I link to are usually peer-reviewed and/or scholarly, with references to the primary sources of data. You are the only one here who has cited a webpage as though it were gospel - even telling me that I should not question its claims.

<<It is precisely because they are ALL based on humans that they are flawed.>>

This is where raw data comes in handy. It helps to reduce the flaws in human subjectivity.

<<I can find data totally contradicting your data.>>

For some of it you could, yes. Most data, however, is heavily weighted against the use of the death penalty.

<<NO lWOP means nothing.>>

Yes, it does mean something. Most important of all, it means that it can be stopped when necessary, unlike the death penalty.

<<You are not the law nor do you know the law.>>

No, I’m not the law, but I do have a law degree. So, I think it’s safe to say that I know a damn sight more about it than you do.

<<'executions ARE a deterrent', You should have stopped there because again there IS data to back it up with.>>

I have never denied that executions are a deterrent.

<<The idea of ALL these ignorant people of the judiciary not stuffing up any more is exactly what we need. Drain the swamp.>>

And how do you propose to do that? Your last suggestion was a flop.

<<… yes I could do a better job [than police].>>

That’s funny. And how would you do a better job?

<<Don't you dare try to tell us that the cops 'can't know everything'.>>

(And if I do?)

Well, it is true. Do you have evidence against this?

<<THEY DON"T KNOW ANYTHING!>>

Clearly they know some things. But I guess your capitals make you right.

<<My point is that by speeding it is implied that you MIGHT do something wrong.>>

No, you have already done something wrong. Endangering lives is wrong.

Dear Banjo Paterson,

Like science, the law does not deal in absolute certainties (‘beyond reasonable doubt’ is as far as it goes). So, to speak of a particular punishment being meted out only in cases where there is no risk of a miscarriage of justice (e.g. Jack Ruby) is a legal nonsense.

From a strictly legal point of view, there is no distinction between a Jack Ruby and the criminal who was convicted, with no eye-witnesses or cameras, for a murder he committed in the desert 20 years ago. Either an accused’s guilt is beyond reasonable doubt, or it is not. In sentencing, for example, a judge does not consider the strength of the evidence. To ask that they start doing this in cases warranting the death penalty sets a worrying precedence.

<<Depriving an innocent person of his freedom for the rest of his life provides no remedy for a miscarriage of justice.>>

True, but sentencing an innocent person to life without parole does provide the opportunity to cease the punishment and award a remedy.

The risk of executing innocents will always remain a thorn in the side of those who support capital punishment. To date, The Innocence Project has helped to free 505 innocent people on death row since it first started in 1992. That’s a shocking figure.

http://www.innocenceproject.org

It’s all good and well to talk about support for the death penalty only in certain cases. Heck, I’d probably warm to it, too, if it were possible to apply the strict conditions that the most thinking and rational supporters of the death penalty speak of, and without the inevitable creep. But it’s all for nothing for so long as that’s not possible. We're just speaking in hypotheticals.

To Banjo.
You are quite right in picking up the sloppy choice of words in my argument, for which I thank you.

After considering your response, perhaps the following re-wording is better:

1. The taking of an innocent life is a terrible crime and a just punishment must be the consequence.
It is self evident that our criminal justice system is capable of miscarriages of justice.
Carrying out a death sentence provides no opportunity for a useful remedy for a miscarriage of justice (To be "useful", in the sense that I use it, requires the victim of the miscarriage to be alive).
2. Executing a person who is subsequently found to be innocent, can undermine confidence in the judicial system, and the rule of law more generally. This is a circumstance to be avoided.
3. Executions do not act as a deterrent.
4. Executions only satisfy one aspect of sentencing - retribution. Retribution alone should only be reserved for the most heinous crimes.
5. Life without parole is an available sentence that satisfies 1,2,and 4 above.

I will accept your argument for the time being that there is no compelling evidence, one way or the other, as to the death penalty, and its observance, acting as a deterrent - I will make my own inquiries as to the matter.

In reply to your examples showing irrefutable proof of quilt - as an argument it can be refuted by AJ Phillips response. Deciding upon irrefutable guilt requires a judgement as such, and, as we agree, human judgement can be fallible (even if the likelihood of fallibility is vanishingly small).