Should the Death Penalty Be Allowed to Die?
Illinois has officially banned the death penalty (although it hasn't had an execution since 1999). The Soros crowd are cheering this as evidence of a national trend. I've mostly thought about the death penalty in order to refute arguments that the death penalty is unconstitutional. That, I think, is just untenable -- but if you disagree, please jump in.
But if you agree that the death penalty is permissible under the Constitution, is it good policy? I've always thought that retributive justice is rooted in natural law and in some cases, death is the appropriate measure of retribution. But the fact that we humans can make mistakes -- and that death-penalty mistakes are irrevocable gives me pause. Am I being too fainthearted, or do others share this practical concern about the death penalty?
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Comments:
Jun '10
Re: Should the Death Penalty Be Allowed to Die?
Adam - Do you hold this position based on 10th Amendment grounds? Just curious.
Oct '10
Re: Should the Death Penalty Be Allowed to Die?
KC Mulville
An individual doesn't have the right to exact retribution by killing, and so that's not something an individual can defer to society. · Mar 11 at 11:07pm
The individual most certainly does have the right to kill the murderer of his son. Society's concern is that the individual doesn't kill the murderer and the murderer's son or that if the individual does kill the murderer, that the murderer's son doesn't then kill the individual.
Society is the third party that must ensure justice is carried out. By doing so, society removes the blindness of anger and replaces it with the steel of certainty. Justice is indeed cold and hard; it must be so if it is to keep anarchy at bay.
Dec '10
Re: Should the Death Penalty Be Allowed to Die?
KC Mulville
Jerry Broaddus If that control stops, he may very well be a threat.
If some later court or parole board decides to release him, the state no longer controls him well enough to prevent mischief. · Mar 11 at 7:42pm
I can't bring myself to argue that we should execute someone because we (society, government) might possibly become morally lax later on.
· Mar 11 at 8:13pm
You keep using the word "moral". It doesn't matter what causes the failure. It could be an earthquake.
The only certain way I know for a current authority to make sure that a known actor will not be able to act in the future is execution.
I do have concerns that things be done in humane ways, but isn't there a moral issue with having failed to do what's required of us and passing the buck when a bad actor is able to commit another crime?
There are moral concerns on any side of this issue. Yours is absolutely not the only moral position.
Edited on March 12, 2011 at 2:33pmMay '10
Re: Should the Death Penalty Be Allowed to Die?
SMatthewStolte
Adam, this is surely not an unimportant fact, but can you explain how it pertains to the death penalty, specifically, and not just to all penalties across the board? · Mar 11 at 8:12pm
I find it especially important pertaining to the death penalty because once you carry out the sentence, there's no recourse. At least if a person is found innocent later he can be let free.
Jun '10
Re: Should the Death Penalty Be Allowed to Die?
The death penalty is a perfectly acceptable punishment, and is preferred to warehousing these awful human beings. The left has made carrying out executions so difficult that many states have just given up, but that's the left's fault, and the fault of the Warren and Burger Courts. The left argues that it is greater punishment to give people life in prison than to kill them; if that were the case, the cowards on death row would be begging for death. They aren't They also argue that it is more expensive to carry through an execution because of all the appeals. The cost of the appeals process is because of the left. They, often through government funded lawyers, fight for the sake of the guilty to our last dollar. If that stopped, executions would be cheap. Given them a mandatory appeal to the highest court and one habeas petition, then flip the switch. Everyday that a death row inmate is in jail is another day he could be put out on the street by a dysfunctional 9th circuit judge to kill again.
Precede every public execution with a dramatic re-enactment of the crime. Applause to follow.
Feb '11
Re: Should the Death Penalty Be Allowed to Die?
I think KC Mulville's philosophical point on where the authority to inflict capital punishment comes from has been very well handled by Brian Watt.
But KC Mulville also raises a moral point about self preservation being the only justification for killing another human being. I think societies have a right to protect themselves as well. Murderers are a threat to the society in more than one way. There's the obvious way -- a murderer may murder someone else and that will do the society harm. A person who has murdered before will almost certainly have a much lowered inhibition to murder again. But there's another way in which the society needs to protect itself and that is from a series of retributional killings as happened in ancient times which does great harm to the society.
Finally, on the point that capital punishment is final. Is that necessarily a bad thing? It precludes judges from releasing murderers back into society because the jails are too harsh, overcrowded, . . . take your pick as to whatever lame excuse they want to use.
Jun '10
Re: Should the Death Penalty Be Allowed to Die?
"Is Capital Punishment Pro-Life?"
by Tom Neven
First Things Magazine
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2011/03/11/is-capital-punishment-pro-life/
Re: Should the Death Penalty Be Allowed to Die?
I'm conflicted from personal experience. I was always pro death penalty.
Then I had a friend who was murdered. He was 19 and won a fist fight. The loser, no doubt embarrassed by his loss, waited for my friend around a corner and jabbed a broken wine bottle into his neck (I use that story to teach my kids to walk away from every fight).
I wanted my friend's killer deader than dead. I know hate is wrong, but I'm human and I hated him with the heat of a million suns. I wanted him dead. I wanted to do it.
Then one day I found out the killer had been murdered himself.
Suddenly I realized nothing changed for me. My friend was still dead. I still missed him. The death of his killer didn't help me at all.
But I'm still human. I know that should another person I love be killed, my immediate reaction will be to kill the killer.
On a more political note, I'd get rid of the death penalty right now in exchange for ending abortion. Everyone lives. A true pro-life position.
Nov '10
Re: Should the Death Penalty Be Allowed to Die?
Probably the last to comment on this one so it will likely not get read by many.
The only moral reason for the death penalty is just retribution for a capital crime. Deterrence is a canard.
The problem exists due to lack of proper evidence.
I was summonsed for jury duty once and during the voir dire the prosecutor kept asking the folks in the pool the following question: "Could you convict someone upon the evidence of one person who trusted or believed?" This smelled to me. When it came to my turn to be questioned I asked what did this mean. The elaboration was just as I thought so I said I could not on moral grounds. I quoted the verse from Deuteronomy that says "At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, shall he that is to die be put to death: he shall not be put to death at the mouth of one witness." I was excused.
Feb '11
Re: Should the Death Penalty Be Allowed to Die?
Tommy, I'm sorry about your loss.
I am curious, though. Do you think you would have felt differently if the murderer had not just been murdered in an unrelated event but had been dealt with according to an accepted justice system? Obviously, it is an impossible hypothetical (who knows how you would have felt), but I wonder what your thoughts are.
Dec '10
Re: Should the Death Penalty Be Allowed to Die?
Tommy De Seno:
On a more political note, I'd get rid of the death penalty right now in exchange for ending abortion. Everyone lives. A true pro-life position. · Mar 12 at 8:00am
I don't think it's proper to conflate the rights of convicted murderers with the rights of unborn children, who've never even been accused of murder.
If unborn children are human beings, they should not be killed at a private person's whim -- even if that person is the mother in whom they are living.
If convicted murderers merit capital punishment, letting them avoid it in return for the lives of innocent people seems akin to negotiating with terrorists. Two Israeli soldiers were abducted by Hezbollah in 2006; Israel went to war to obtain their release; in the end, the two soldiers were returned in exchange for a terrorist who had murdered a father and his children... only, as it happened, the Israelis learned after they put the terrorist into the hands of the Red Cross for the exchange, their two soldiers had died during the abduction.
Buying good with evil seems a bad bargain.
Dec '10
Re: Should the Death Penalty Be Allowed to Die?
Adam Stone
I find it especially important pertaining to the death penalty because once you carry out the sentence, there's no recourse. At least if a person is found innocent later he can be let free. · Mar 12 at 5:40am
There are plenty of instances where the guilt of the convicted murderer is not in any question whatsoever.
But when a man who's been imprisoned wrongly for decades -- whether on Death Row, in maximum security, or in the general population -- is exonerated, what recourse is there? Since humans perceive time flowing in one direction, how do you give that man back the years of freedom you took from him?
I note that Death Row inmates have their cases and convictions scrutinized to a far higher level than inmates sentenced to life without parole, simply because of the belief that it's somehow worse to execute a man by lethal injection than by confinement in a cage for decades.
Oct '10
Re: Should the Death Penalty Be Allowed to Die?
Lex Talionis – an eye for an eye – the ancient base of law from which retributive justice is derived, consists of the simple concept of proportional justice. When one man harms another, the harmed man has a claim upon the other equal to the harm done.
Another more modern school of thought, utilitarian justice consists of the concept that justice be modified – read distorted – to bring some larger good to the community as a whole.
Kant, in “The Metaphysical Elements of Justice” had this to say about utilitarian justice: “Judicial punishment can never be used merely as a means to promote some other good for the criminal himself or for civil society, but instead it must in all cases be imposed on him only on the ground that he has committed a crime.”
I’ve borrowed heavily from a restatement of a wikipedia entry.
Jan '11
Re: Should the Death Penalty Be Allowed to Die?
Brian Watt
those states that grant themselves the right to use the death penalty for capital crimes did not derive the right to punish by death from the consent of the citizens. But they have, haven't they?
That's why we have to make the distinction here between the constitutionality of the death penalty versus the morality of it. Plainly, the power to legally commit executions comes from the fact that the people consented to it.
But consent only confers constitutionality. It doesn't make it moral.
Slavery, for example, was legal and constitutional. It was also immoral. The one didn't cancel the other.
While we're on that point (at least I am!), I say this is a powerful distinction between liberals and conservatives. Right now, the standard liberal tactic is to frame every issue as a matter of human rights. If something is immoral, they argue, it immediately cancels its constitutionality. Then, all they need is for five lawyers to consider it immoral, and suddenly the constitution is re-interpreted instead of amended.
We need to preserve the distinction between constitutionality and morality.
Jan '11
Re: Should the Death Penalty Be Allowed to Die?
Jerry Broaddus
The only certain way I know for a current authority to make sure that a known actor will not be able to act in the future is execution.
Society doesn't incarcerate people for the crimes they might commit in the future, only for the crimes that they've actually committed.
I deny that human beings can, or even should, predict what crimes will occur in the future.
Jan '11
Re: Should the Death Penalty Be Allowed to Die?
Jerry Broaddus
There are moral concerns on any side of this issue. Yours is absolutely not the only moral position.
In fairness, Jerry, I don't argue that I'm right and that everyone is obviously wrong. Instead, I advocate what I believe is the best moral position among the possibilities. Now don't get me wrong, I try to advocate my position as firmly as possible. But please don't misinterpret that.
For example, one issue here is retribution. I don't deny that retribution is important; I merely argue that it doesn't justify killing. Society can lock up the murderer for the rest of his life. It has a right to respond.
My argument begins with the premise that the only justification for killing is self-defense. If that's so, what does it commit us to? It means that we can't kill unless we're actually under threat. We can accommodate various scenarios of threat (war, police, etc.), but it also means that killing can't be justified on the grounds of retribution.
Edited on March 12, 2011 at 7:37pmDec '10
Re: Should the Death Penalty Be Allowed to Die?
KC Mulville
Society doesn't incarcerate people for the crimes they might commit in the future, only for the crimes that they've actually committed.
I deny that human beings can, or even should, predict what crimes will occur in the future. · Mar 12 at 10:16am
Really? Society keeps dangerous sex offenders locked up even after they've served their full sentences for the crimes they've committed. In fact, society routinely locks up people for mental health observation on the basis that they present a clear and present danger of harm to themselves or others.
You really want to let people exhibiting dangerous behavior to roam the streets until they kill someone?
Dec '10
Re: Should the Death Penalty Be Allowed to Die?
KC Mulville
My argument begins with the premise that the only justification for killing is self-defense. If that's so, what does it commit us to? It means that we can't kill unless we're actually under threat. We can accommodate various scenarios of threat (war, police, etc.), but it also means that killing can't be justified on the grounds of retribution. · Mar 12 at 10:36am
Edited on Mar 12 at 10:37 am
Where does your premise come from?
It's not compatible with most of human history. Societies from time immemorial have recognized the validity of killing as a punishment for crimes committed.
That you hold your premise to be true doesn't make it universally true or an axiom of morality.
Jan '11
Re: Should the Death Penalty Be Allowed to Die?
The historicity of something doesn't justify it. Slavery has had a long history, but that didn't justify it. Instead, we need to examine its merit, not its heritage.
So, to the merit. Let's stay simple. I say that the only justification for killing is self-defense. It's based on the premise that one should never kill another human being, but if a situation arises in which one of them is threatening to kill, then someone's going to die anyway. It's no longer an issue of whether someone dies, only who. And at that point, you have as much right to live as the other guy. (More, if you include your innocence into the equation.) That's why self-defense is justified.
Other than that, what would justify killing?
Stuart Creque
That you hold your premise to be true doesn't make it universally true or an axiom of morality.
Who claimed that? I never did.
Jan '11
Re: Should the Death Penalty Be Allowed to Die?
No. But I don't want to execute them, either.
Do we have a right to execute Charlie Sheen? Right now? He's shown evidence of irrational behavior, substance abuse, violence, and he owns firearms. He's lost his children, his job, his reputation, and his grip. The guy has more stressors than an episode of Criminal Minds.
Not in the abstract. The real-life here and now. Do we have a right to execute Charlie Sheen? He has every quality you mentioned. And if not him, then who else qualifies?