I find our current prison system to be more barbaric than even a messy execution.
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tortuous:
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Full of twists and turns: the route is remote and tortuous
1.1Excessively lengthy and complex: a tortuous argument
Is that what you meant?
Much of it could be considered so, and that still is no defense for executions, it just means there are also other things in dire need of repair.
Remember what you said this was practical, and moreover implied the practical point was as a form of alleviating victimâs suffering. But I donât see any indication a system of capital punishment has ever been useful at providing such therapy; I donât see any indication that any system of it has ever even met your criteria for it.
And again, most of the rest of the world has found they donât need any such thing, despite the wide variety of circumstances you see in different countries (legend on linked page):
How, then, does this add up to capital punishment being practical? You understand that term doesnât mean something might be theoretically useful if all the circumstances conspire just right, the way the Bush administration argued for torture based on scenarios from 24. It means what really happens, and in reality capital punishment has been consistently appalling.
Air pressure mate. You would feel intense pain because of the sudden raise on pressure and also you would get burnât because of the heat before you get hit by the block.
In order to fix that the floor would need to be some kind of cheese grater, it would be disgusting.
yeah, i thought of this, but iâm fairly sure it can be engineered around.
a sluiced floor is a reasonable solution. itâs going to be disgusting enough already, scraping the meat paste off the floor and the bottom of the killblock.
obligatory: âCome on Jimmy, letâs take a peek at the killing floor⌠Donât let the name throw you, Jimmy. Itâs not really a floor; itâs more of a steel grating that allows material to sluice through so it can be collected and exported.â
another possibility is to put the criminal in a sort of false bottom, covered by a sheet of disposable insulating material which the block can smash through. actually, with a false bottom, the acceleration column of the block can also be evacuated, which solves everything except the fact that youâre still crushing a person into paste.
okay, done thinking about this now.
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Itâs not inconsistent, itâs simply irrelevant.
Step 1) can never be reliably delivered. Therefore step 2) is off the menu. Therefore you are against capital punishment.
the practical point was as a form of alleviating victimâs suffering. But I donât see any indication a system of capital punishment has ever been useful at providing such therapy
It is the one absolute, 100% guaranteed way to ensure that the perp will never again harm another person. Prison canât guarantee that.
And again, itâs not like Iâm arguing that we need to start hanging jaywalkers. Iâm only talking about predatory violent offenders- People who rape and torture and destroy human lives because they like to. Everything we know about these people says that they canât be rehabilitated, they canât be cured, and throwing them into prison where they can just victimize some poor kid in on a shoplifting charge is not an adequate solution.
Everyone deserves a fair trial. The burden of proof must be met. Evidence must be verified. But AFTER THAT:
There are some criminals who should have counselling or treatment.
There are some who should be made to pay restitution.
There are some who should be locked up.
There are some who should perform community service.
And there are some who need to be permanently removed from the world.
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I reject your premise. There have been plenty of cases where guilt has been not just proven, but incontrovertably so.
If there is any doubt of guilt, then yes, I will grant you that anything irreversable should be out of the question. But it is a patently false assumption that there will always be doubt.
Sure, but the false positive execution rate of 4% is unacceptably high, end of story. Put them in solitary if necessary (and hopefully also reform solitary confinement, so that it isnât gratuitously cruel), but if for no other reason, the evidentiary standards are apparently not high enough to rule out erroneous executions. imho, a 4% false positive rate would be close to unacceptable for imprisonment, let alone execution.
here is one link; if you donât trust the âliberal mediaâ there are plenty of others: US death row study: 4% of defendants sentenced to die are innocent | Capital punishment | The Guardian
Executions in 2012:
China (2000+)
Iran (314+)
Iraq (129+)
Saudi Arabia (79+)
USA (43)
Yemen (28+)
Sudan (19+)
Afghanistan (14)
Gambia (9)
Japan (7)
North Korea (6+)
Somalia (6+)
Palestine (6)
Republic of China (6)
South Sudan (5+)
Belarus (3+)
Bangladesh (1)
India (1)
Pakistan (1)
UAE (1)
Such illustrious company.
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And I - along with reality - reject your premise. Every court case finishes with an âincontrovertibleâ result, by definition. Furthermore, the imposition of the death penalty is already supposed to require a higher burden of proof and certainty. Yet there is still a 4% failure rate.
In an alternate universe in which unicorns frolic in untainted fields of green and elves dispense impartial justice with wisdom and vulcan infalibility Iâd still be against the death penalty, but at least there you would have a chance of getting past your Step 1). Meanwhile, in this universe, Step 1) is an insurmountable stumbling block for you.
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Absolutely. No disagreement from me there. Fixing that problem should be among our highest priorities, and I positively endorse a higher burden of proof in order to bring execution to the table in the first place.
That option should not be open without 100% certainty of guilt- Which is admittedly rare, but still occurs in a significant enough number of cases to warrant allowing it.
insofar as certainty can be quantified in the first place, 100% certainty is, strictly speaking, impossible.
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Thank you. I am glad someone finally pointed this out.
So on the one hand, youâre pointing out that prison always leaves a theoretical possibility of them harming someone else; on the other, youâre willing to neglect that thereâs always a theoretical possibility of executing an innocent. And yet itâs plain that people the world over have the former possibility much better in hand than the latter.
Anyway, I donât like arguing from purely theoretical possibilities, because they are a great way to try and put horrible things on the table. Again, I point to how ticking-time-bomb fantasies were used to excuse torture in reality. The scenarios were carefully calibrated so that was the best option, and yet in practice those necessities came up rarely if ever, and torture was used exactly the way its opponents said.
A philosopher could justify just about anything if you let them have a sufficiently constrained hypothetical. If you were given a single chance to kill Hitler as an innocent baby, would it be right to let millions of other innocent people die instead? What does this say about people who say you should never kill babies? The answer is nothing, because that never comes up.
I grant your situation isnât quite as outlandish as that; I just like comics.
But look: youâre proposing that if we could completely remove the possibility that someone is innocent, if they will never find rehabilitation, if we are somehow much less capable in keeping others secure from them, and if their victims can only find solace in their blood, then maybe the right thing to do would be to execute themâŚby that point, I think this is a purely academic exercise.
Because in the real world, dangerous offenders are often kept securely in prison; innocent people are sometimes convicted of even capital offenses; as this article shows, the US canât even manage to meet its own standards in killing people; and most countries manage as well or better without any comparable institution, which makes me seriously doubt its value as victim therapy. It makes the hypothetical seem rather thin.
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Every court case finishes with an âincontrovertibleâ result, by definition.
I believe you need a quick refresher on âthe appeals processâ.
There are plenty of cases where the guilt is established not just beyond a reasonable doubt, but beyond any doubt at all.
Take Jeffery Dahmer: Found with four heads in his refrigerator and seven more in the closet, a stack of polaroids showing the bodies being dismembered by himself in his own home, a full confession, and dozens of boxes of corroborating evidence relating to at least 16 murders.
Weâre not talking about a grainy security video and a partial fingerprint. Explain to me exactly where one might find some indication that he was in fact innocent, or that the prosecution may have been mistaken in their presumption of guilt.
So on the one hand, youâre pointing out that prison always leaves a theoretical possibility of them harming someone else; on the other, youâre willing to neglect that thereâs always a theoretical possibility of executing an innocent.
I had a roommate who was a CO. I can assure you that the possibility of them harming another inmate is hardly theoretical. I would actually go so far as to say that without keeping them in solitary, it is the most likely scenario.
And Iâm not willing to neglect the possibility of executing an innocent- Iâve been very adamant about there needing to be a higher burden of proof.
If it happens despite that, then there should absolutely be an investigation to find out how, and any culpable parties should be dealt with accordingly.
And there was a simple answer to that which people didnât want to hear: If youâre Jack Bauer, and itâs the only way, then you break the law. You do whatever you need to do, and then you take responsibility for that decision- And if it turns out that you were indeed correct, and that it was indeed the only way, and that it did indeed save lives, then Iâm sure a jury will take that into account during your trial. If you were wrong- well, theyâll take that into account too.
You gave a good answer to the Bauer scenario; I can give the same one here. You watch the inmate, and if it turns out killing them is the only way to stop them from harming someone else, you do it then and trust the jury will understand you did it as a matter of defense.
I assume thatâs what would happen in countries without the death penalty. Only you donât hear about it much, which suggests the high level of harm between inmates is just another result of how barbaric the American justice system is. I would say fixing that is better than allowing barbaric executions to correct for it.
That wouldnât be much solace to their family or the executioners who killed an innocent (though of course even killing the guilty can leave scars) â even the family of victims in whose name it was done. How should those weight against the possibility that executing someone truly guilty might be the best way to help the latter move on? Again, looking at how capital punishment works in practice, Iâm not too persuaded thatâs the more serious risk.
Again, youâre the one who said that capital punishment might be opposed on moral grounds, but not practical ones. And yet youâre still arguing based on hypotheticals: if asking a higher burden of proof prevented killing innocents, if culpable parties were deal with, when both plainly arenât the case. So how does any of that concern what is practical?
Did you notice the company America keeps on this issue, and doesnât it suggest anything to you about what the actual value of this institution is?
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Iâm against the death penalty. I think that decisions like that belong to a pay grade above the state. Although, when one reads the accounts of the crimes that these people are convicted of I find it hard to hold that position.
For instance, the person whose execution was delayed due to the farce in Oklahoma was convicted of raping and killing an 11 month old.
Okay, I get it. Americans generally accept and like executions and murder when directed at bad people. But why the insistence on using such
torturous methods?
Too squeamish for the guillotine?
Never mind that there are apparently quite painless methods involving nitrogen.
