Troy Davis

[blackshoe]

Rights, individual and governmental, are what we the people define them to be, no more and no less. Over the course of history, rights have evolved along with human understanding and the advance of civilization.

 

We can certainly grant rights to the state that we do not grant to individuals, and we do so all the time. You can't get around that simply by stating the the contrary.

 

And you can't have it your way just by claiming that's the way it is. There's a difference between "right" and "power".

[PassedOut]

And you can't have it your way just by claiming that's the way it is. There's a difference between "right" and "power".

I say that the state has all the rights that we the people have actually granted. That's reality. That's the basis for rights.

 

So far as I can see, you are virtually alone in asserting that the state can have no rights that individuals do not possess. And the argument you advance in support of that is simply, "Everyone is out of step but me."

 

Excuse me, but I can't agree without hearing the music.

[hrothgar]

Would you extend your theory to.. say, taxes?

 

As far as I know, individuals don't have the right to tax one another and yet this is commonly accepted as a power granted to the government.

 

Bumping, since I don't recall seeing a response from Blackshoe...

[blackshoe]

I did not say "murder is unusual", I said "murder is unusual punishment". That said, you might argue that capital punishment has been around forever - so in a way, if you wish, I will grant you that neither life sentences nor death sentences are unusual. However, if this were really the criterion of the Eighth Amendment (something that I did not really want to go into, but why not), how do you explain that several forms of execution, e.g. hanging in most states, have already been dismissed as cruel and unusual? Certainly hanging as punishment has been around for much the same time period as ropes themselves?

 

Do you understand the difference between "murder", "killing" and "execution"? It sure doesn't seem like it. "How do I explain..."? I don't. I see no need to explain it. As for the Eighth Amendment, you brought it into the discussion when you invoked "cruel and unusual" - which, btw, is not one word, but two, with completely different meanings. A punishment can be one without being the other, and the prohibition is against it being both.

 

I don't want to get into the history of "cruel and unusual". Suffice it to say that the English were upset at such practices, and so the English Bill of Rights (1689) contained a provision, much like our Eighth Amendment, designed to prevent it. Over time, more and more specific practices have been judged, in the US, to violate the Eighth Amendment. But none of that is relevant. The question is not whether the death penalty is "cruel and unusual", but whether the State has any right at all to impose it. I say it does not. I also say that "what else are we going to do?" is not a justification for claiming the State does have that right. We can continue to allow the State to execute people, but we should acknowledge that it is not a matter of right, but one of power, that the State does so.

[Bbradley62]

This could be a dark day for the state of Georgia.

I wonder whether this will be a campaign issue when Nathan Deal (presumably) runs for re-election.

[hrothgar]

We can continue to allow the State to execute people, but we should acknowledge that it is not a matter of right, but one of power, that the State does so.

 

Once again, please extend this same logic to taxes...

 

Or, more simply, please state whether you think that governments have the "right" to levy taxes

[gwnn]

But none of that is relevant. The question is not whether the death penalty is "cruel and unusual", but whether the State has any right at all to impose it.

Our mini-exchange started when you said that taking the life of someone who does not want to die is not unusual (murderers do it all the time). I replied to your point (mainly by saying that I didn't say taking lives is unusual, just that it is a cruel and unusual form of punishment). Now you're saying that my initial post was not really to the point, which I fully conceded in it ("partly unrelated:"). I know that you're talking about the right of the State to impose it with some other people in this thread, good luck with those exchanges. If you think ours is pointless, you are quite possibly right.

 

Again, execution by hanging was not unusual at all in the 19th century yet most American states now consider it "cruel and unusual", i.e., as you yourself have eloquently put it, they consider it cruel, and they consider it unusual. So how can this be?

 

Also, my apologies for mixing up murder & killing, I do it all the time unfortunately.

[barmar]

In my opinion, capital punishment is morally wrong. The State cannot have the power to do things that individuals have no right to do. But what's the alternative? Put 'em in jail? Who pays? What if they escape? Does the State have any more right to put people in jail than to execute them?

I think sentencing people to death may be more costly to the state than life sentences. First of all, they often spend decades on death row (Troy Davis was sentenced about 30 years ago), so you're not saving much on the incarceration costs. Second, there are likely to be more appeals - I think some states have a mandatory appeal for all death sentence convictions.

 

Even if I'm wrong that it's more costly, the savings are probably not huge. And because they spend so many years on death row, it doesn't help much with prison overcowding.

 

So I don't think you can try to use these "practical" excuses for the death penalty. Either it's an appropriate form of punishment or it isn't.

[barmar]

I don't want to get into the history of "cruel and unusual". Suffice it to say that the English were upset at such practices, and so the English Bill of Rights (1689) contained a provision, much like our Eighth Amendment, designed to prevent it. Over time, more and more specific practices have been judged, in the US, to violate the Eighth Amendment. But none of that is relevant. The question is not whether the death penalty is "cruel and unusual", but whether the State has any right at all to impose it. I say it does not. I also say that "what else are we going to do?" is not a justification for claiming the State does have that right. We can continue to allow the State to execute people, but we should acknowledge that it is not a matter of right, but one of power, that the State does so.

I think implicit in the way the 8th Amendment is worded is that the state has the right to impose any punishment that isn't judged to be "cruel and unusual".

 

The Supreme Court has ruled that the death penalty in general is not C&U. However, it may be C&U in certain cases, such as juveiniles and mentally impaired people. And the method matters: hanging is not allowed because it's slow and painful, while lethal injections are swift, painless, and relatively dignified. In other words, if we're going to put someone to death, we're going to at least try to do it in the most humane way (analogous to euthanizing a pet).

[blackshoe]

I think sentencing people to death may be more costly to the state than life sentences. First of all, they often spend decades on death row (Troy Davis was sentenced about 30 years ago), so you're not saving much on the incarceration costs. Second, there are likely to be more appeals - I think some states have a mandatory appeal for all death sentence convictions.

 

Even if I'm wrong that it's more costly, the savings are probably not huge. And because they spend so many years on death row, it doesn't help much with prison overcowding.

 

So I don't think you can try to use these "practical" excuses for the death penalty. Either it's an appropriate form of punishment or it isn't.

 

Then we seem to be in agreement.

[Bbradley62]

I think sentencing people to death may be more costly to the state than life sentences. First of all, they often spend decades on death row (Troy Davis was sentenced about 30 years ago), so you're not saving much on the incarceration costs. Second, there are likely to be more appeals - I think some states have a mandatory appeal for all death sentence convictions.

 

Even if I'm wrong that it's more costly, the savings are probably not huge. And because they spend so many years on death row, it doesn't help much with prison overcowding.

 

So I don't think you can try to use these "practical" excuses for the death penalty. Either it's an appropriate form of punishment or it isn't.

I agree with your concluding sentence, but not with how you got there.

 

Troy Davis was 42 years old when he was executed. (No, he was not senteced at age 12.) If his sentence had been commuted to life in prison, he'd likely have been incarcerated into the 2040s.

Edited September 24, 2011 by Bbradley62

[blackshoe]

Mark McPhail was killed on August 19, 1989. Troy Davis was convicted and sentenced to death in August of 1991. He was 20 at the time of the killing. Born 1968, life expectancy say 70, so he'd have been incarcerated until 2038, a total of about 48 years, give or take a year.

 

According to wikipedia, the average cost per year of incarceration of state prisoners was $23,876 in 2005. I suspect death row inmates cost more. But 48*23876=$1,146,048.

[Bbradley62]

If the discussion is about the cost difference between imposing a death sentence vs a life sentence, then those 20 years of imprisonment are not part of the difference, because Davis was going to spend those years in jail under either sentence.

 

My primary point was to disagree with:

First of all, they often spend decades on death row (Troy Davis was sentenced about 30 years ago), so you're not saving much on the incarceration costs... And because they spend so many years on death row, it doesn't help much with prison overcowding.

In this case, we're talking about an additional 30 years of incarceration costs and "occupying a bed".

[blackshoe]

There's a difference between the people on death row and the much larger number of people "occupying a bed" because somebody left a joint in their car. And yes, I recognize that the "somebody" could be the convict himself.

[barmar]

Sorry, I misremembered the time frame in the news reports, it was 2 decades, not 3 (I think something else was in the news this week that involved 3 decades, but now I can't remember what it was).

[Gerben42]

I think sentencing people to death may be more costly to the state than life sentences. First of all, they often spend decades on death row (Troy Davis was sentenced about 30 years ago), so you're not saving much on the incarceration costs. Second, there are likely to be more appeals - I think some states have a mandatory appeal for all death sentence convictions.

 

My personal position is that death penalty is something that should not be dismissed as morally unacceptable in principle. For persons who can never again function in society, it may even be the best for everyone. But for the death penalty to be applied there should be hard evidence (adamantium type hard), and then it should be gotten over with quickly and not after 25 years on death row.

 

I could live with a state who would impose a death penalty on people like Dutroux or Breivik. In both cases the question of guilt is not even the tiniest bit in doubt, and when the court then decides that these people will never be able to function in society again, then death penalty may be the right sentence.

 

That being said, I fear that the American system includes the possibility of a death penalty for an innocent man, and in that case I'd rather get rid of the death penalty, risking that I will have to spend many resources looking after madmen after their sentence is over, before I kill a possibly innocent man.

[BunnyGo]

But for the death penalty to be applied there should be hard evidence (adamantium type hard).

 

I'll say that the Talmud (the oldest text I know of which has debates of the legal procedure of capital cases) said that the required "adamantium hard" evidence was two eye witnesses who had warned the perpetrator the the crime he was about to commit was punishable by death. They also had to actually see the murder committed, not just "strong evidence" (the example given was a person is seen chasing another into a room and comes out with their knife bloody isn't good enough evidence).

 

The "bloody court" was the one that executed two people in 70 years.

[blackshoe]

Why does a judge get to decide that somebody "will never be able to function in society again"? What are the criteria? How "adamantium hard" are they?

 

"My personal position is that death penalty is something that should not be dismissed as morally unacceptable in principle." Why not?

[Winstonm]

The following is from a useful website called deathpenaltyinfo.org. This is the best reason I know for life sentence without the possibility of parole:

 

It is sobering to recall that when the Supreme Court overturned all the existing death sentences in 1972 on constitutional grounds, a number of innocent lives were spared. Five of those who were on death row at the time went on to prove their innocence.

[hrothgar]

 

Would you extend your theory to.. say, taxes?

 

As far as I know, individuals don't have the right to tax one another and yet this is commonly accepted as a power granted to the government.

 

Bumping, since I don't recall seeing a response from Blackshoe...

[blackshoe]

The following is from a useful website called deathpenaltyinfo.org. This is the best reason I know for life sentence without the possibility of parole:

 

This, of course, presupposes that "death" and "life without parole" are the only possible sentences.

 

No, I don't have an alternative to suggest. I'm only saying that we shouldn't necessarily get stuck in that particular box, if an alternative can be found.

[Cascade]

Indefensible Punishment

[Gerben42]

Since you asked:

 

Why does a judge get to decide that somebody "will never be able to function in society again"? What are the criteria? How "adamantium hard" are they?

 

Of course this needs a psychiatric evaluation. In my previous post I mentioned two cases. One of a serial child molester and murderer, who has been at it for years. The other recent case of the Norwegian who knowingly went to an island with the plan to kill as many people as possible. Luckily such cases are rare, so like the "death court" there would be few such cases. But for them, one should take the death penalty into consideration. How to get the case hard enough is a complicated matter, but if it were simple, I guess cases like Troy Davis wouldn't happen (I like to repeat that I am very much against what happened there).

 

"My personal position is that death penalty is something that should not be dismissed as morally unacceptable in principle." Why not?

 

I think the question is the wrong way around. Dismissing something in principle as morally unacceptable is only possible in a certain framework of axioms.

 

It is easy to say "I'm against the death penalty" or many other things, based on the axioms of society. But my point is, it's not that simple. There might be cases where the death penalty may be the ethical thing to do. The hard part is to recognize them and make rulings based on that.

 

A nice ethical dilemma is:

 

If you would be able to travel back in time to 1920 and kill Hitler before he rises to power and so doing avoid the Holocaust, would you? If you are strictly against killing, you would say no without having a choice.

 

Quoting myself:

 

I could live with a state who would impose a death penalty on people like Dutroux or Breivik.

 

Having said that, on the other hand I realize that you have to draw the line somewhere, and my line is of course harder to define than the "no death penalty" line. Just because it's hard doesn't mean one shouldn't try to define it. What is essential though, is that there is NO possibility of killing an innocent man.

[cherdano]

A nice ethical dilemma is:

 

If you would be able to travel back in time to 1920 and kill Hitler before he rises to power and so doing avoid the Holocaust, would you? If you are strictly against killing, you would say no without having a choice.

What does this have to do with the death penalty? If I were able to travel back in time to 1920 and put Hitler in jail for life, then of course I would do that.

[blackshoe]

What is essential though, is that there is NO possibility of killing an innocent man.

 

Good luck with that. You're asking for the impossible.