Grex Storage Conference

Item 8: Is the Death Penalty really a solution?

     Is the Death penalty really a deterrant against violent crimes?
If so, how could itimplemented so it does become one? I recall hearing
on one of the national newscasts that after appeals, it takes on the
average of 10 to 15 yrs to actually carry out the sentence. 

    Should the appeals be passed by in cases of absolute guilt such as
in the case of Leslie Williams? How far should the state go to prove or
disprove a person's innocence or guilt. I am reminded of that person that
was executed in Virginia, even though there was evidence to have a new trial.

The death penalty is not a deterrant; it is, however, a solution.

   It is a solution that has failed--the costs of killing someone, when
all the costs involed with appeals is taken into consideration, is often
more than it would have cost to keep the person in prison.  In the case
of a mistake, it can't be erased.  At least a 20 year vetran of a
prison can be relased.
   Lastly, does yet another murder solve anything, except removing
one individual?

 The Discovery channel is going to have a 3-hour long special documentary about
capital punishment this weekend.  I *think* it will be starting on Sunday at
8PM.

   It sounds interesting.

 It doesn't just deal with it in the U.S. but worldwide. Should be a Fine
Business program.

Actually, statistics have shown that it does act as a deterrant to violent
or actually, capital offense crimes.  But, is it the solution that we're
looking for, or want to have implemented?  Personally, I'm basically
conservative on several issues, but my major choke point on Capital
Punishment isn't so much that a mistake could be made; after all, if it
was done right, there'd be no fifth amendment in capital cases, just a
shot of sodium or something, and there you go, no appeals, no nothing...
<g>  Seriously...  I have problems with the state reserving such a major
right to itself, especially while denying that right to it's citizens.
'We can kill, and if you do it, we'll kill you.'  I don't know if it's
'morally' right to kill..excuse me, execute somebody.  I know what religious
arguments could be made, but I don't think that executing somebody actually
solves any problems, or really alleviates any suffering by the family of
the victim.  Now, if the family knew that the perpetrator was working
at hard labor for 12 hours a day, with NO CHANCE of ever getting out, I
don't know if that'd make them feel any better either.  *shrug*  We
need to do any overhaul of our criminal justice systemm, and actually make
the punishments harsh, make so that people would think, a little, before
doing a crime.  Scrap the whole corrections model, which has shown that
it doesn't work, and go back to a nice penal model.  and spend all that
corrections program monies on education, or housing, or job education
programs, and try and remove the reasons for the crime in the first place.

I think the death penalty is corrosive to the moral tone of a government.

re #6:  What statistics?

        The "statistics" in the field are so tentative, conclusory and/or
        contradictory, it is impossible to make a statistical case one way
        or the other.

   I absolutely agree with you Erik, about trying to remove the root
causes first, so as to lesson the impact of crime on society.  As for
statistics on captial punishment causing people to think, I'd like to
read them before making up my mind.  Every time in the past however, when
I've seen something like that, I've come to the conclusion that the
authors of the article were trying to make the case and bend the facts
some.  If most crimes are acts of passion (ie, not premeditated), I don't
see how someone would think about the ramafications of their acts.  I'd
like to think that, but I don't.
   If there is a justification for society taking on the death penalty,
it would be that society, as a group of people is less partial to
any one person, have better judgement than single individuals in such
matters.
   I still think it is barbaric however.

The death penalty doesn't apply to crimes of passion, nor (under current
interpretation) to felony murder.  It applies to murder in the first degree
(so-called "capital murder.")

Actually, there is evidence that massive, broad-scale use of the death
penalty can be a short-term deterrent.  China has seen significant short-
term reductions in certain crimes thanks to its summary, mass, public
executions.  However, even in China the crime comes back.  (A further
argument, I suppose, for treating the causes rather than the symptoms.)

   If a murder is commited over some situation (like over a woman, for
example), the murderer can't get the death penalty?

That depends on the situation.  There have been plenty of first degree
murders over spouses and lovers.

Voluntary manslaughter requires (a) a lack of premeditation and (b) an
inflamed mind.  First degree murder is the willful, premeditated killing
of a human being with malice aforethought.  (Nice, common law buzzwords,
eh?)  I guess, in lay terms, we execute for murders in cold blood, not
those in hot blood.

 So Aaron, is Florida justified in seeking the Death Penalty in the
murder of that German tourist?

   I really think (and please don't attack me on this) that the DP should
be more in the public mindset. Right now, it hardly merits a mention on
the news, unless it is a controvesial case. I think that as a part of a
sentence for a first offense the offender should spend some time with
lifers. Or better yet, as a witness to an execution. Hopefully that shock
will set the offender back on the straight and narrow.

  When I was 16, my father drove me to Jackson Prison, and we visited
one of his friends who was an official. I got a good scare and I *never*
want to be within smelling distance of that place. This might just work.

I had a friend that liked the idea of televising, and otherwise making 
to mass media, executions.  However, in the 19th century, when they were
still public affairs, they attracted huge crowds.  I have read of a couple
of cases where executions had to be delayed/rescheduled because of the crowd.
I don't think it'd be much of a detterant, (look at what we watch in pro
sports...).  And it might actually promote some kind of celebrity status,
or seeking of same, in convicts.   Like the guy who dememnded to be executed 
by firing squad.  (Gilmore?  Can't remember the name now...)

 yup. that's him Gary Gilmore, subject of a book by Norman Mailer
called "the executioner's song".

re #13:  *Which* German tourist?

re #14:  The old example of pickpockets working the crowd as other
         pickpockets were hanged comes to mind....

 the ones that were hunted like dogs by the airport, or are you just being
dim aaron?

No, Jim, you are the dim one.  Perhaps you should keep up with current
events, so it wouldn't be so obvious.

People hunt dogs?

Hey -- if airports can hunt tourists, the rest of us should be able to
hunt dogs.

  I meant that the German tourist was the one that was hunted by
some unsavory types in the area of the airport.

 and this drift really isn't addressing anything.

 It clearly addressed Aaron's question, you silly goose!

You see, Jim, there have been at least four German tourists killed in
Florida in recent memory.  Given the nature of the crimes and the
political climate, the larger question should really be, why wouldn't
they seek the death penalty?

 Did anyone catch "Witness to the Execution" about 2 weeks ago?

 and did anyone happen to read that Harry Blackmun has now come out
as being against the death penalty?

/

Wow.  There's a news flash.  :*

I gather that the state of PA has the death penalty, but officials won't
let it be enforced.  So it hasn't been, but there are several people 
waiting on "death row" for very long periods of time.

(I like #6's take on the death penalty. I think that if I were against it,
it would be for the reasons that Eric stated.)

  The death penaltyis a primative form of revenge at best.  The state has no
  right 
to take away a person's life.
I don't care if the person has commited countless murders,
the state has no right to take a person's life.
It might be acceptable if it were shown to drastically reduce
the ammount of crime, however the high crime rate remains
just as high, death penalty or no death penalty.
We need to focus more energy on education and prevention
rather than just punishment.

The state has every right to take away a person's life.  The state will
do whatever it damn well pleases as long as people let it, and the state
wants to grab power.  
  As someone mentioned earlier, when we put a mass murderer or serial
killer to death, at the very least we no longer have to deal with that
person ever killing anyone again.

 Hueborg, what did you have for din-din last night?

  I recently read "Cell 2455:Death Row" by Caryl Chessman, and I recall
that he really got a pretty raw deal. I'll try to cite some of the reasons:

1. The state of California never did prove that he was the "Red Light Bandit
"
2. The stenographer at his first trial recorded the proceedings in a
private code and died before they could be translated. A satisfactory
copy never was obtained, and a new trial was continually denied, even by
the Supreme Court.

3. He never admitted to killing anyone, nor did he admit to raping anyone.

 I think that the DP in this case was unwarrented, and to a greater extent
unjustified, because the state ignored his (chessman's) right to demand
a new trial. I would hope that the state is less sloppy today, and that
this never happens again. Now that I have read the facts surrounding the
case, I believe that Chessman should have served his sentence and should
have been released in 2009, as scheduled. Of course, he would have been
more than 80 yrs old, as well. 
  Chessman was a petty thief, and to that he admits it freely, but I highly
doubt his convictions for sexual misconduc

 ny serious comments?

 No, none in #31...

Rights are defined by the society which grants them.  The right of the state
to kill is a long established one.  War is the exercise of this right, and the
crime commited is simply being a loyal member of a different society.
Whether the death penalty is effective, whether it is morally justifiable,
these are the true issues.  The death penalty has proven very effective only
in speeding the collapse (through revolution) of society.  Moral justification
for the death penalty can only be established if it can be guaranteed that no
person innocent of a capital crime will ever be executed.  There exists no way
to determine with absolute certainty and fairness the guilt or innocence of
every suspect to come to trial.  Thus the death penalty cannot be morally
justified.
        Exile or ostracism is a much more useful and just tool for the 
punishment of crimes against society, and as such should replace the death
penalty as capital punishment.  If only we had a place to which to exile our
criminals.  Botany Bay, wherefore art thou, in thy modern incarnation?

Prison, why do you ask?

Ah, but not so!   In true exile, the exiled is left to fend for self and to
make what they can of the world in which they are left.  In prison, we are 
supporting them.

Regarding exile, those Alaskan youths who were allows tribal
justice to prevail are now reported to have had some sort
of "revelation" living out in the "wilds." Just a few seconds
on NPR. 

re #31:  I believe #3.  The rest....

THe death penalty is not a solution. Whether it is a detereent or not is moot.
The idea of government-dispensed death is not one I care to think deeply about.
Just as wars do not successfully eliminate opposition, and are often the wrong
way to come to  international goals; capital punishmentdoes not and will never
elimiate even capital crimes. THe prevailing international trend, esp among
governments, and also that of the American and other powermongering Western
citizens, is to "solve" their problems in the most easy (see also cheap)
possible way, regardless of the actual or long-term results. Capital punishment
fulfills many surface problems with crime and the public face. It encourages
people to treat other humans as subhumans, or trash. It gives people a
scapegoat for the crime which plagues them. It lulls people to believe that the
problem has gone away, even if symolically. [DTHe answer may not be simple, or
easy, or even cheap, but answers rarely are. It is the challenge of real
civilisation to find and implement the hard solutions to its problems; not to
be content with the primitve remnants of its barbaric roots.

  So, someone guilty of committing a crime is a "scapegoat," and convicted
murderers shouldn't be treated as "subhumans, or trash?"

    We aren't content with the primitive remnants of our barbaric roots,
that's why we need severe penalties, including death.
 

  Your rhetoric was very flowerful, but it proposed nothing.

Yeah!  Heil Hoolie!

re #39
#1: No human is subhuman. By definition.

#2: If we are not content with the primitive remnants of our barbaric roots,
the only way to elimiate retained barbarism is to deal with them in civilised
mers and not with another barbaric remnant. #3: If you had read it properly, I
sai d it is the requirement of a civilization to discover the civilized
solutions. Not one person, but the entire society. RaNR

  You moron!  If the "entire society" discovered "civilized solutions"
to problems, we wouldn't have any acts requiring any form of punishment.

is it not, then, the responsibility of each of us to behave and act with the
utmost civility so that we might lead ous society by example into such a
state?

 It certainly would be, if it really were possible to "lead" others into
being civil, but there will always be plenty of people  who have decided
that it is much easier to get what they want by breaking laws, rather than
to take the time & effort to slowly obtain what they want by using legal,
civil methods, especially with weak & varying penalties.

  I agree that decent people behave with the utmost civilty, etc. with other
"decent" people, but you're simply a sucker or fool if you act that way with
the "non-decent" people, who for the most part will take advantage of you.


    Look at all the con-artists that prey on the little old ladies as an
example.

Do not confuse civility with naivete.  Being courteous does not preclude 
being either cautious or even suspicious.

• Read the next item
• Go to the menu of items for the Storage conference
• Go to the list of conferences
• Go to the opening screen