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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bald Eagle who wrote (15824)	6/6/2001 3:18:28 PM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

In the television drama Homicide: Life on the Streets, they from time to time mention that they "stand up for the dead", and that is exactly right. One cannot be allowed to get away with murder, if it is within the power of the authorities to bring one before the bar of justice, or justice means nothing. For that reason, murder has no statute of limitations. If murder is the greatest wrong one can commit against another person, it must be taken seriously, or nothing else can be taken seriously, and we can hold no one accountable. Responsibility becomes outmoded, and society deteriorates, as no one can be counted on..........

To: Bald Eagle who wrote (15824)	6/6/2001 3:20:44 PM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 82486

sun.soci.niu.edu These are cases where the condemned were able to get their sentences reversed before death. In a supposedly enlightened legal environment, after Miranda, where false confessions are harder to get and more justice is theoretically available. If you think that back in the 40s and 50s and 60s and 70s no other cases of people wrongly convicted and put to death, I think you're deluded. A dead person has no incentive to prove his innocence. So there is no impetus to find wrongoing in those cases. But there is no doubt at all in my mind that innocent people have been put to death. And if you fairly and honestly researched the issue, I am confident you would come to the same conclusion. Maybe you wouldn't care. Maybe you think it's okay to execute a few innocent people as a price to pay for getting rid of a lot of scum. But don't claim that everybody ever executed in this country as guilty.

To: Bald Eagle who wrote (15824)	6/6/2001 3:26:31 PM
From: Neocon	Respond to of 82486

We do not stop driving cars although we know with a certainty that some people will die. The possibility of convicting an innocent person, by itself, is immaterial to the administration of justice. There is no affirmative obligation to rehabilitate. In fact, the argument is that execution is a just response to certain crimes, and therefore, an effort at rehabilitation would be an act of mercy. The question is, then, why bother when the crime has been particularly heinous? The justification for execution is the demand of justice. If we hold people accountable for their actions, punishment is an appropriate response,and we try to contrive a proportionate schedule. If a life sentence is appropriate to an "ordinary" murder, then the capital penalty is all that is left to differentiate heinous offenses. It may be that drawing- and- quartering would be appropriate for some offenses, but we have decided to be humane in executions.

To: Bald Eagle who wrote (15824)	6/6/2001 3:33:36 PM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 82486

Life imprisonment is irreversible, too, unless you assume an early discovery of error. Are you going to give that person back the years taken from him? Well, it all hinges on the question of appropriateness of penalty, since we sentence on the assumption of a very high degree of probability that the person is, in fact, guilty. When an offense is particularly heinous, for example, when someone bombs a federal building during business hours, with a day care center inside, then IMO it is appropriate to impose death as a penalty......

To: Bald Eagle who wrote (15824)	6/6/2001 3:46:42 PM
From: Neocon	Respond to of 82486

The empirical evidence about systems of justice is complicated and brings into play numerous variables, and neither of us is sufficiently expert to seriously review it. We cannot control for factors like ethnic homogeneity, relative lack of immigration, family solidarity, and habits of social deference left over from (disintegrating) class systems. We also have a difficult time because there was a lengthy hiatus in executions in the States, and they are still unusual except in a handful of states, so whatever social message that may be intended may be diluted. Also, it is not necessary for there to be an effect on murderers for there to be a salutory effect on potential criminals more generally, but that would be difficult if not impossible to measure. We have gang wars and occasional outbreaks of senseless violence, as in school shootings. They have soccer hooliganism and serious fascist parties, and, in some countries, such as the UK and the former Yugoslavia, chronic political violence (Northern Ireland and the various ethnic wars in the Balkans). Historically, it is not long since Germany, Japan, and Italy were in the thrall of fascist leaders who brought untold misery to the world, and countries like France were full of collaborators, helping to haul Jews to Auschwitz. If some of these countries are more peaceful now, maybe it is because of the previous bloodletting. I do not, in any case, feel confident in any "empirical" assertions either of us might make about such things, when they are, in fact, highly speculative.

To: Bald Eagle who wrote (15824)	6/6/2001 3:49:09 PM
From: Bill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

In hostage situations, police routinely use the death penalty threat in negotiations with perpetrators. Are you saying that I need to show you proof that police do this?

To: Bald Eagle who wrote (15824)	6/6/2001 3:53:02 PM
From: Neocon	Respond to of 82486

There are two proportionalities here: one, a sense of responding with due seriousness to the crime; the other, a sense of maintaining some sort of adequate differentiation among crimes. Otherwise, the main point of punishment is lost, and we become arbitrary, either hanging people for stealing (which is unjustly harsh), or giving them 15 years for premeditated murder (which is unjustly lenient). I argue that simple murder should be met with life imprisonment (otherwise we are not maintaining the first proportionality) and that taking away the chance of parole is an inadequate differentiation between simple murder and truly horrific crimes. As it stands, our calibration is crude, and we cannot do much to reflect levels of heinousness, but at least we can maintain a crude distinction between simple murder and "murder most foul". The only defense against sheer arbitrariness that I can see is such reasoning. Now, I did not argue execution is therefore the right conclusion. I argued that we begin with the premise that it is fitting, and then work from there. If it can be shown that there are sufficient reasons, either moral or practical, to not exercise our right to execute, then we should curtail the practice. Absent such a showing, we should continue to execute. That, to me, is the conservative position, because we need no practical justification to execute.........