4 ms·

Death is an immutable punishment, that really should be all the logic needed to dissuade people from supporting the death penalty. Locking an innocent person up

by scrps 5y ago

Death is an immutable punishment, that really should be all the logic needed to dissuade people from supporting the death penalty. Locking an innocent person up for n number of years is a massive injustice but at least the person can be freed and compensated.

bryanrasmussen 5y ago
>at least the person can be freed and compensated. I don't think most innocent people who are freed get any compensation in the U.S.
- scrps 5y ago
  Do all states have compensation statutes? The federal government, the District of Columbia, and 36 states have compensation statutes of some form. The following 14 states do not: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Wyoming. https://innocenceproject.org/compensating-wrongly-convicted/ https://innocenceproject.org/compensating-wrongly-convicted/
  - reducesuffering 5y ago
    Anyone want to summarize the argument of these 14 states that isn't "Yes, we as a society locked up an innocent for 30 years, but now that they're free we don't owe them anything"..?
    - GavinMcG 5y ago
      Why would they need an argument? Politics isn't about who has the better argument. It's just that no one in those states has (so far) had the skill, energy, and resources to organize political change on the issue.
      - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
        the legal argument in the U.S for not giving compensation (as I recall) tends to be you should only be compensated if there was legal irregularities (cough, cough) that resulted in your incarceration - for example falsification of evidence, withholding evidence by the police, forced confessions etc. So if things were fair and followed correctly and you were by mistake locked up that's too bad, regrettable but not the state's fault and as such the state does not need to compensate you.
        beerandt 5y ago
        Or put another way: a legal conviction is still legally correct even if it ends up being factually wrong. Compensation would generally require the accused (the State, or it's agents in this case) to do something illegal, or at least legally incorrect, to be held legally responsible, and therefore financially responsible.
    - hedora 5y ago
      Most of those states are historically racist.
      - perl4ever 5y ago
        States that are not historically racist?
        bryanrasmussen 5y ago
        I don't know that there are states that are not historically racist, but we could assume there are states that are less historically racist than others - states without slavery and large pro-abolition movements might be better situated for historical morality, or states without sundown towns or counties.
        beerandt 5y ago
        Don't forget that most of the states against slavery, were also against those slaves being present in the country at all. It wasn't until war was pretty much inevitable that many, including Lincoln, started to realize that moving towards freedom/equality was the winning move, strategically, practically, and politically. Even after admitting equality was the answer, he still wrote plenty of extremely racist rants about he didn't mean that legal equality didn't mean that the races were ever capable of being equal, etc. The other blatant example that people misinterpret is the 3/5 compromise in the constitution. It often gets framed that the slave states valued slaves lives as less (3/5) than free persons, but remember that the northern states that were against slavery were also against counting slaves as constitutional persons at all: they wanted 0/5s.
        dragonwriter 5y ago
        > It often gets framed that the slave states valued slaves lives as less (3/5) than free persons, but remember that the northern states that were against slavery were also against counting slaves as constitutional persons at all: they wanted 0/5s. This actually gets the 3/5 compromise wrong worse than the view it (correctly) points to as being wrong. The 3/5 compromise isn’t about “constitutional personhood” of slaves at all. The southern states actually wanted 5/5 (which they ended up after the war, when they replaced chattel slavery with penal slavery) and the northern states wanted 0/5 — which is how 3/5 was a “compromise” — because the issue wasn’t about how much legal personhood slaves were granted (which was zero and not being negotiated), it was about how much voting power in the federal government the people allowed to vote in slave states got as a bonus for having them in bondage. The position of the northern states was “if you keep humans in a condition where they are legally something like livestock or industrial machines, you don’t get any more extra votes for having them than you would for livestock or industrial machines.”
    - tomatotomato37 5y ago
      Status quo and a governance which would rather work on "sexier" political issues. I'm sure if you polled the citizens of those respective states you'd fine overwhelming support for compensation, but that doesn't bring in the votes the same way [hot political issue] does
  - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
    Thanks, I had no idea things had progressed so far, I basing my opinions on out of date perceptions I see now. On the other hand 14 states not compensating is not good.
- Asdrubalini 5y ago
  Even if they don't get any compensation (and they should get one imho), being free is still better than being dead.
gjsman-1000 5y ago
I commented this above, but I think it's relevant here. It's odd that I hear people who say "Oh, in prison, they're safe from society." That's not true historically. Some of the most dangerous people in history were imprisoned, multiple times, and not killed for fear of public anger - only to get out of prison and wreak havoc. Hitler was found guilty of treason, but was given a more humane 5 years in prison instead of the death penalty that would have historically been applied to treasonous people. He wrote Mein Kampf, got out of prison, started World War II, and killed millions. Stalin was exiled to Siberia multiple times for his crimes including bank robbery, kidnappings, and extortion instead of being given death. He came back to Russia for the February Revolution, overthrew the Russian empire, started the Gulag system, and caused the deaths of millions. For all we know, the Unabomber is in prison right now, but what happens if he escaped? It is not historically impossible, or even implausible, that he couldn't repeat history like many revolutionaries who were arrested, got out, and took over. The point is more that there is zero guarantee historically that people in prison are completely safely isolated from society. And for that reason, let's say 90% of convictions to death (considering only 22 people died in 2019) were accurate and 2 were wrong. Considering how extremely dangerous historically and in reality the criminals being convicted to death are considered to be, it's a necessary evil to ensure justice and safety for the regular citizen. For that reason, will some innocent people be sentence to death? Unlikely considering how much crime is required, but it is possible. But just because that could potentially happen doesn't invalidate the death penalty. If we invalidated everything because it could affect _just one_ person, why not have the police be able to break down doors at will because just one kidnapped person might be found? Why not throw out encryption on our phones because just one child molester might be found?
beerandt 5y ago
>Locking an innocent person up for n number of years Until we invent time travel, incarceration for n number of years is also immutable. Almost any form of justice is going to be immutable in some way, but it's not a reason to abandon the justice system.

by scrps 5y ago

bryanrasmussen 5y ago

>at least the person can be freed and compensated. I don't think most innocent people who are freed get any compensation in the U.S.

scrps 5y ago
Do all states have compensation statutes? The federal government, the District of Columbia, and 36 states have compensation statutes of some form. The following 14 states do not: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Wyoming. https://innocenceproject.org/compensating-wrongly-convicted/ https://innocenceproject.org/compensating-wrongly-convicted/
- reducesuffering 5y ago
  Anyone want to summarize the argument of these 14 states that isn't "Yes, we as a society locked up an innocent for 30 years, but now that they're free we don't owe them anything"..?
  - GavinMcG 5y ago
    Why would they need an argument? Politics isn't about who has the better argument. It's just that no one in those states has (so far) had the skill, energy, and resources to organize political change on the issue.
    - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
      the legal argument in the U.S for not giving compensation (as I recall) tends to be you should only be compensated if there was legal irregularities (cough, cough) that resulted in your incarceration - for example falsification of evidence, withholding evidence by the police, forced confessions etc. So if things were fair and followed correctly and you were by mistake locked up that's too bad, regrettable but not the state's fault and as such the state does not need to compensate you.
      - beerandt 5y ago
        Or put another way: a legal conviction is still legally correct even if it ends up being factually wrong. Compensation would generally require the accused (the State, or it's agents in this case) to do something illegal, or at least legally incorrect, to be held legally responsible, and therefore financially responsible.
  - hedora 5y ago
    Most of those states are historically racist.
    - perl4ever 5y ago
      States that are not historically racist?
      - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
        I don't know that there are states that are not historically racist, but we could assume there are states that are less historically racist than others - states without slavery and large pro-abolition movements might be better situated for historical morality, or states without sundown towns or counties.
        beerandt 5y ago
        Don't forget that most of the states against slavery, were also against those slaves being present in the country at all. It wasn't until war was pretty much inevitable that many, including Lincoln, started to realize that moving towards freedom/equality was the winning move, strategically, practically, and politically. Even after admitting equality was the answer, he still wrote plenty of extremely racist rants about he didn't mean that legal equality didn't mean that the races were ever capable of being equal, etc. The other blatant example that people misinterpret is the 3/5 compromise in the constitution. It often gets framed that the slave states valued slaves lives as less (3/5) than free persons, but remember that the northern states that were against slavery were also against counting slaves as constitutional persons at all: they wanted 0/5s.
        dragonwriter 5y ago
        > It often gets framed that the slave states valued slaves lives as less (3/5) than free persons, but remember that the northern states that were against slavery were also against counting slaves as constitutional persons at all: they wanted 0/5s. This actually gets the 3/5 compromise wrong worse than the view it (correctly) points to as being wrong. The 3/5 compromise isn’t about “constitutional personhood” of slaves at all. The southern states actually wanted 5/5 (which they ended up after the war, when they replaced chattel slavery with penal slavery) and the northern states wanted 0/5 — which is how 3/5 was a “compromise” — because the issue wasn’t about how much legal personhood slaves were granted (which was zero and not being negotiated), it was about how much voting power in the federal government the people allowed to vote in slave states got as a bonus for having them in bondage. The position of the northern states was “if you keep humans in a condition where they are legally something like livestock or industrial machines, you don’t get any more extra votes for having them than you would for livestock or industrial machines.”
  - tomatotomato37 5y ago
    Status quo and a governance which would rather work on "sexier" political issues. I'm sure if you polled the citizens of those respective states you'd fine overwhelming support for compensation, but that doesn't bring in the votes the same way [hot political issue] does
- bryanrasmussen 5y ago
  Thanks, I had no idea things had progressed so far, I basing my opinions on out of date perceptions I see now. On the other hand 14 states not compensating is not good.
Asdrubalini 5y ago
Even if they don't get any compensation (and they should get one imho), being free is still better than being dead.

gjsman-1000 5y ago

I commented this above, but I think it's relevant here. It's odd that I hear people who say "Oh, in prison, they're safe from society." That's not true historically. Some of the most dangerous people in history were imprisoned, multiple times, and not killed for fear of public anger - only to get out of prison and wreak havoc. Hitler was found guilty of treason, but was given a more humane 5 years in prison instead of the death penalty that would have historically been applied to treasonous people. He wrote Mein Kampf, got out of prison, started World War II, and killed millions. Stalin was exiled to Siberia multiple times for his crimes including bank robbery, kidnappings, and extortion instead of being given death. He came back to Russia for the February Revolution, overthrew the Russian empire, started the Gulag system, and caused the deaths of millions. For all we know, the Unabomber is in prison right now, but what happens if he escaped? It is not historically impossible, or even implausible, that he couldn't repeat history like many revolutionaries who were arrested, got out, and took over. The point is more that there is zero guarantee historically that people in prison are completely safely isolated from society. And for that reason, let's say 90% of convictions to death (considering only 22 people died in 2019) were accurate and 2 were wrong. Considering how extremely dangerous historically and in reality the criminals being convicted to death are considered to be, it's a necessary evil to ensure justice and safety for the regular citizen. For that reason, will some innocent people be sentence to death? Unlikely considering how much crime is required, but it is possible. But just because that could potentially happen doesn't invalidate the death penalty. If we invalidated everything because it could affect _just one_ person, why not have the police be able to break down doors at will because just one kidnapped person might be found? Why not throw out encryption on our phones because just one child molester might be found?

beerandt 5y ago

>Locking an innocent person up for n number of years Until we invent time travel, incarceration for n number of years is also immutable. Almost any form of justice is going to be immutable in some way, but it's not a reason to abandon the justice system.