Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (126287)	3/15/2004 5:01:40 PM
From: redfish	Respond to of 281500

How about this one: "It is acceptable for nations to use the death penalty, so long as the accused enjoys due process of law" Under that standard, the death penalty is okay in the U.S., not okay in China.

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (126287)	3/15/2004 5:10:43 PM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

I have not made a comparison from which you can characterize my position. Yet you presume to do so anyway. That is why you are so amusing. I will now characterize my position: I believe the death penalty should be used sparingly for premeditated murder of a particularly heinous nature. I think there are times in our history when we have executed too easily, and there may be states where they still do so. I have not examined the situation in other states, to speak with precision on the practice elsewhere. I do think that the death penalty is inappropriate for most offenses, and that it should be the result of a fair trial, with the right of appeal. I express concern when it is suggested that someplace is violating the terms I have laid out, but I have made no close study of it, and rarely refer to it as a criticism of another country. So my position is #4, that is acceptable for all nations to use the death penalty, as long as it is used sparingly, for particularly heinous acts, and with fairness and discretion in trial, sentencing, and appeal.

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (126287)	3/15/2004 5:38:25 PM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi Jacob Snyder; Re the death penalty in China. The US peak in executions was about 200 per year back in 1940. There's a great graph of this here: deathpenaltyinfo.org The data has some interesting peaks and valleys. Look for the post war drops after the Civil War, WW1, and WW2. Our population back in 1940 was around 130 million, so those 200 amount to about 1.5 per million per year. Since the population of China now amounts to around 1300 million, if they were at our 1940 peak usage, they would be executing about 2000 people per year. This is about where the country has been, at least recently: China sentenced at least 3,152 people to death and executed more than 1,876 during 1997, Amnesty International said today as it released its annual death penalty log. ( People's Republic of China: the death penalty in 1997 AI Index: ASA 17/28/98; Death Penalty log: January to December 1997 AI Index ASA 17/32/98 ). web.amnesty.org The alternative punishment to the death penalty, life in prison, is quite expensive. Poorer societies have a tendency to use death instead of long prison terms, and to use corporal punishment instead of short jail terms. This should not be seen as evidence of their brutality, but instead a trade off due to their lack of wealth. Of course the US could afford to put death penalty recipients into jail for life. And the expense of litigating (and administering) the death penalty is well known to be high. It is interesting to note that the legal costs (mostly due to appeals) of execution in the US has been high for a very long time, at least back to the 19th century, when those costs are compared to the legal costs of arranging for life in prison. -- Carl P.S. I tend to discount the lurid stories of prisoners being harvested for organs. This is incompatible with (a) the fact that China is converting over to administering the death penalty by lethal injection, and (2) the fact that death penalties tend to be administered immediately after the appeals process is completed.