Replies - anomie and trinity

Anomie, the findings were (1) the S&V review found a huge saving of innocent life in those 6 states with deterrence. (2) 21 other death penalty states had no deterrence finding because they rarely executed. Had they executed more, those states would also save many innocent lives.

Anomie, the study DID investigate if executions deter crimes of passion. The answer was clear: potential passion murders are deterred by capital punishment. page 8.

Trinity argues: Many killers want to die - it’s the easy way out. A life sentence in solitary confinement is worse.

Roughly 99% of convicted capital murderers seek a life sentence, not a death sentence. Murderers prefer life over a death sentence.

From 1973-2002, there had been 820 executions, 97 of which were "volunteers".

Of the 7255 sentenced to death from 1973-2002:

volunteered for execution 1.3%
did not volunteer for execution 98.7%

Trinity writes: Please get your facts right duddles.

My facts are accurate and you have no contrary evidence.

You are the only one who acts both disrespectful and childish, on this board.

Trinity quotes: If Larry Griffin were being tried today for the murder of Quintin Moss, he would almost certainly be acquitted. The evidence is overwhelming that he did not kill Mr. Moss. But Mr. Griffin is not being tried today. He has already been executed for the murder. NY Times Bob Herbert dated 14th July 2005-07-15

Nononsense. Hebert's analysis is based solely upon a one sided report. The report has already been publicly disputed by some involved in the case. The report wants us to believe that some folks memories of events are better today than they were 25 years ago.

Trinity writes: There is no doubt about DS’ passion for his subject, but it borders on obsession. I would posit that it brings DS down to the same level as the murderers he wants put to death.

I would suggest that equating my expertise as being the moral equivalent of being a capital murderer reflects an absence of any moral standards.

I would suggest that an obsession with inflicting the death penalty upon all whether guilty or not indicates the moral level and discrimination of a Ross River Mosquito.

This is Australia we do not have the death penalty. We do not want the death penalty.

This thread really has gone off topic - I admit my part in this, therefore, I will begin by encouraging our American neighbour - Dudley Sharp to take his views back to Texas where they no doubt will receive a more postive response than here - where we are still (by the merest thread) more enlightened than the lynch mob mentality of the extreme right wing faction of the USA.

Please, DS, why won't you answer my question? What happens if someone innocent is executed? How do you put that right? Doesn't the state have, in a sense, a higher duty of care than individuals have, to ensure its actions are right and just? Otherwise, what is the point of the state? And I suspect you are making something of a meal of an essentially jurisprudential argument in the S + V piece. It is common practice in academic jurisprudence to argue a case one believes to be fundamentally unsound - which is fairly plainly what Sunstein, at least ( I base this on personal acquaintance, and familiarity with his work) is doing. I believe I mentioned nuance, and your missing it, in an earlier post relating to Bedau. Same goes for S + V.

Anomie wonders:
Please, DS, why won't you answer my question? What happens if someone innocent is executed? How do you put that right? Doesn't the state have, in a sense, a higher duty of care than individuals have, to ensure its actions are right and just? Otherwise, what is the point of the state?

Anomie, I didn't, previously, answer because it is a ridiculous question that 100% of people already know the answer to.

You cannot make it right.

Which then goes to your question about the state's duty.

And this goes to why governments should have the death penalty.

For example, in the US, there is no proof that an innocent has been executed, at least since 1900.

The proof is, however, overwhelming and uncontested that murderers harm and murder, again,in prison, after escape and after improper release. Executed murderers never harm, again.

So, the state knows that, even without deterrence, that the enhanced incapacitation effect of the death penalty saves innocent lives, or by sparing murderers lives, we choose that more innocents should be murdered.

And, at the very least, that the death penalty deters is a much more probable reality than executions having no deterrent effect.

We all know that the potential for negative consequences always deters some folks. There are no exceptions.

So Austarlia decides not to execute, spares murderers and sacrifices more innocents to murder.

Bad state choice.

And Tim Goodwin's article, the subject of this thread, wonders what more can be done to convicnce Australia's neighbors not to impose the death penalty. More properly, Australians should wonder why they have also not chosen to spare more innocent lives by imposing capital punishment.

Anomie, many state and private endeavors kill innocent peorple, It happens all the time, many times, every day. In the US, of all the state and private endeavors that do put innocents at risk, I can think of only one, the US death penalty, that has no proof of an innocent executed.

Can you think of another?

Trinity, I strongly object to your assumption that the opinion expressed in favour of capital punishment equates to the "lynch mob mentality of the extreme right wing faction of the USA". As I have said previously, I have more faith in the legal system due process of law, than some contributors. The rule of law breaks down when people cease to have respect for it. I believe there are situations that require a person to die for their actions if only to protect many other lives from their "evil intent". In the same way, you feel a murderer should live, I feel the victim should have been allowed to live!. I see nothing "extreme right wing" about such a view. Currently this extremity is reserved for shooting innocent men, women and children in the name of "freeing up democracy"!
And I am about as left as they come from the conservative side of politics. I think America is too quick to condemn if one can go by their TV Dramas, but then I don't believe everything I see on TV either. Courts have "all the facts", we don't. Choice!

Unfortunately courts do not have all the facts. Justice is a byproduct of the legal system not the main objective alas. Why does one barrister eg a silk get paid a lot more than a junior one. Because he is more successful in legal argument and negotiating the sewer of the legal system than a less experienced one. If you committed a crime or wanted to procecute someone, whom would you choose and why. especially if your life was the stakes. Why do big companies employ the "best" barristers and solicitors? There is more chance they will win. What are your chances with a well-intentioned legal aid attorney age 28 compared with a silk age 58 who has been in five thousand similar cases? Which surgeon do you choose too when you guts are on the floor.
I have spent many hundreds of hours in the box and know that it is all like a big expensive bull fight with the emphasis on bull. The winner takes all and whether or not justice is served is really of little interest to the whole affair. It is like a school debate. Even if you win round one, there is always a court of appeal or the supreme court whose judiciary may be influence by political as well as legal persuasions. After all judges are not appointed by the Tooth Fairy. It has not changed much since the days of Cicero.Sorry to burst your idealistic bubble.