Actually this argument is not really against the DP. It's against prejudicial, biased application of the DP. Different issue.
Absolutely right. This argument is a narrow one: it opposes a rigged-lottery application of the death penalty.
In other words, it opposes the way the dp is imposed, in fact though not in law.
IOW again, it addresses only this issue:
If the dp is demonstrably (but not necessarily consciously and not by law) prejudicially imposed, so that the system by which it is imposed functions in fact as a rigged lottery, can it ethically be imposed by a decent society?
It's a narrow question. There are other questions.
But IMO, until this flaw is solved, and the system by which we kill is no longer rigged by race, race of victim (white lives are much more 'valuable' than black ones, so be sure to kill a black, if you are a murderer!), by sex, by class, by celebrity status, it is a system unfit for us to use in issuing death-tickets.
If the system weren't rigged; if there were evidence that the dp statistically deterred crime; if I weren't convinced that the expense of the system absorbed funds that could be used actually to deter crime instead of to promote the political careers of demogogues; if we stop discovering, now that we have DNA, wrongful yet legal convictions ... I might reconsider the whole issue.
So answer the question. |
