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jacquesm 10y ago
Except that historically it wasn't exactly a perfect record and faking evidence is still quite possible. Killing someone as punishment is simply not fault-proof and the whole idea behind a justice system worthy of the name is that it tries very hard to protect the innocent even if that means some of the guilty will go free or will escape punishment. 'Perfect' evidence rarely is, and even confessions are not always true.
- justabee 10y ago
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  - jacquesm 10y ago
    You actually believe that present cases have 'perfect evidence'? Preventable deaths are a step or two removed from state inflicted and sanctioned murder.
    - justabee 10y ago
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      - jacquesm 10y ago
        > We shouldn't be coddling those who commit violent acts against others. How is spending a lifetime in prison coddling? > The derrent of death alone would save far many more people. That isn't true, criminals as a rule have a hard time tying consequences to their actions, have a high incidence of mental issues. If deterrence would work at all it would be nice but it rarely does. http://nij.gov/five-things/pages/deterrence.aspx http://nij.gov/five-things/pages/deterrence.aspx
        justabee 10y ago
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        jacquesm 10y ago
        You are tying all kinds of societal failures to the death penalty, killing people will not solve any of that, it will in fact only make it worse. But you're welcome to your own opinion, but 'you reap what you sow' applies to societies just as it does to farmers. Violence projected and practiced by the state will not help in moving society to a more peaceful quadrant.
__jal 10y ago
> take these cretins out of the gene pool Keeping them locked up for 25 to life does no one any good. It does if they're found innocent after conviction, as has happened at least 347 times so far[1]. It should also be noteworthy to the true law and order types that false convictions mean the real perpetrator is still going unpunished. If you kill everyone who does something you dislike, the pressure applied by those bleeding hearts at the Innocence Project will go away, which means now not only have you killed someone innocent, but you've pointed blame away from the guilty and basically assured they'll get away with it. I must confess my failure to understand how this outcome is supportive of law and order. And with regards to the comment about surveillance and DNA testing, you might benefit from a bit of reading about the history of forensics. It is a history of foolproof methods being rather less than foolproof. Of if you really can't dismiss the idea that we've achieved the pinnacle of physical evidence analysis, at least do some reading on what is actually involved. Remember that with, e.g., DNA testing for legal purposes, you're not looking at just the test: you're looking at the whole "stack", from our understanding of biology to the lab performance to the chain of custody to jurors' understanding of science. Not going to point to anything specific; there are a ton of explainers out there about this waiting for the interested. I'll end with a simple question: do you believe that Blackstone's famous ratio is false? "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer[.]" [1] http://www.innocenceproject.org http://www.innocenceproject.org
scarmig 10y ago
Let's consider four collections of people: A) Guilty people who don't deserve to be put to death. B) Guilty people who deserve to be put to death. C) Innocent people who don't deserve to be put to death. D) Innocent people who deserve to be put to death. D is empty, so let's just consider A, B, and C. I agree there are people in B. At the same time, it seems very hard to design a death penalty system that selects any of B without selecting any of A or C. I'd be very curious to hear what system you propose that is able to limit false positives more for A and C than death penalty abolition would. Unless you're able to, I, and a whole lot of other people, are more willing to support Charles Manson spending the rest of his life in a cell than murdering someone--or dozens or hundreds of people--to satisfy mob rage at the existence of Charles Manson type people.
mLuby 10y ago
Taking violent offenders "out of the gene pool" need not involve killing the offender (or their descendants). Keeping a violent offender removed from society for the duration of their life DOES all of us a lot of good.

Except that historically it wasn't exactly a perfect record and faking evidence is still quite possible. Killing someone as punishment is simply not fault-proof and the whole idea behind a justice system worthy of the name is that it tries very hard to protect the innocent even if that means some of the guilty will go free or will escape punishment. 'Perfect' evidence rarely is, and even confessions are not always true.

justabee 10y ago
.
- jacquesm 10y ago
  You actually believe that present cases have 'perfect evidence'? Preventable deaths are a step or two removed from state inflicted and sanctioned murder.
  - justabee 10y ago
    .
    - jacquesm 10y ago
      > We shouldn't be coddling those who commit violent acts against others. How is spending a lifetime in prison coddling? > The derrent of death alone would save far many more people. That isn't true, criminals as a rule have a hard time tying consequences to their actions, have a high incidence of mental issues. If deterrence would work at all it would be nice but it rarely does. http://nij.gov/five-things/pages/deterrence.aspx http://nij.gov/five-things/pages/deterrence.aspx
      - justabee 10y ago
        .
        jacquesm 10y ago
        You are tying all kinds of societal failures to the death penalty, killing people will not solve any of that, it will in fact only make it worse. But you're welcome to your own opinion, but 'you reap what you sow' applies to societies just as it does to farmers. Violence projected and practiced by the state will not help in moving society to a more peaceful quadrant.

__jal 10y ago

> take these cretins out of the gene pool Keeping them locked up for 25 to life does no one any good. It does if they're found innocent after conviction, as has happened at least 347 times so far[1]. It should also be noteworthy to the true law and order types that false convictions mean the real perpetrator is still going unpunished. If you kill everyone who does something you dislike, the pressure applied by those bleeding hearts at the Innocence Project will go away, which means now not only have you killed someone innocent, but you've pointed blame away from the guilty and basically assured they'll get away with it. I must confess my failure to understand how this outcome is supportive of law and order. And with regards to the comment about surveillance and DNA testing, you might benefit from a bit of reading about the history of forensics. It is a history of foolproof methods being rather less than foolproof. Of if you really can't dismiss the idea that we've achieved the pinnacle of physical evidence analysis, at least do some reading on what is actually involved. Remember that with, e.g., DNA testing for legal purposes, you're not looking at just the test: you're looking at the whole "stack", from our understanding of biology to the lab performance to the chain of custody to jurors' understanding of science. Not going to point to anything specific; there are a ton of explainers out there about this waiting for the interested. I'll end with a simple question: do you believe that Blackstone's famous ratio is false? "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer[.]" [1] http://www.innocenceproject.org http://www.innocenceproject.org

scarmig 10y ago

Let's consider four collections of people: A) Guilty people who don't deserve to be put to death. B) Guilty people who deserve to be put to death. C) Innocent people who don't deserve to be put to death. D) Innocent people who deserve to be put to death. D is empty, so let's just consider A, B, and C. I agree there are people in B. At the same time, it seems very hard to design a death penalty system that selects any of B without selecting any of A or C. I'd be very curious to hear what system you propose that is able to limit false positives more for A and C than death penalty abolition would. Unless you're able to, I, and a whole lot of other people, are more willing to support Charles Manson spending the rest of his life in a cell than murdering someone--or dozens or hundreds of people--to satisfy mob rage at the existence of Charles Manson type people.

mLuby 10y ago

Taking violent offenders "out of the gene pool" need not involve killing the offender (or their descendants). Keeping a violent offender removed from society for the duration of their life DOES all of us a lot of good.