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Just over a week ago, Singapore executed by hanging an intellectually disabled Malaysian man (of Indian descent), Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam. His crime? He was

Just over a week ago, Singapore executed by hanging an intellectually disabled Malaysian man (of Indian descent), Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam. His crime? He was caught trying to import heroin – I think it very likely the traffickers exploited his intellectual disability in order to talk him into becoming a drug mule. In this regard, Singapore is a rather extreme outlier among developed countries – few of which retain the death penalty, and those which do largely restrict it in practice to murder. William Gibson's famous phrase, "Disneyland with the Death Penalty", is as true as it ever was. So yeah, Lee Hsien Loong seems like a cool guy – wow, a Prime Minister who can write C++. But, remember Nagaenthran, and realise he's not actually cool at all, he's actually a rather terrible human being. Whatever the Prime Minister's formal role in decisions about executions, I don't think anyone doubts that he had the political influence (even if quietly, behind the scenes) to stop it going ahead, if he had wanted to.

javajosh 5y ago
I am also against the death penalty. But I am for consistency. It does not sound like a clear-cut case of injustice to me, and I am quite sensitive to injustice. Any compassion the state shows is a lie to cover for discretionary enforcement, which is a pernicious type of corruption. It truly sounds like a tragic case. If Mr. Dharmalingam was unable to understand the risks he was taking, then clearly he needed more guardianship, maybe from his family, or if that wasn't available, from the state. But state-sponsored guardianship of the intellectually disabled has it's own evil air, does it not? (Not knowing the details, if he was sent from Malaysia, then I hope the Malaysian authorities find and punish the ones who used him so cruelly.)
- AussieWog93 5y ago
  >(Not knowing the details, if he was sent from India, then I hope the Indian authorities find and punish the ones who used him so cruelly.) He was Malaysian. The cops probably know who sent him and let the guys go in exchange for a shiny watch.
- skissane 5y ago
  > Any compassion the state shows is a lie to cover for discretionary enforcement, which is a pernicious type of corruption You actually think there is no discretionary enforcement of the law in Singapore? Like every other jurisdiction on earth, Singapore has prosecutorial discretion. [0] A handful of jurisdictions, such as Germany, traditionally reject prosecutorial jurisdiction in theory, but that theory belies the fact that even in Germany it has always been inescapable in practice–no prosecutor on this earth has the resources to prosecute every known crime in their jurisdiction, they always have to pick and choose which cases to prosecute and how much effort and resources to put into each prosecution, and there is always going to be an element of subjective judgement in that decision, which will inevitably be coloured by the prosecutors' beliefs/culture/politics/attitudes/biases. And, is prosecutorial discretion in Singapore applied in a purely impartial and non-discriminatory way? Considering Singapore's lengthy and ongoing history of politically motivated prosecutions (see for example [1]), it is rather obvious that it isn't. Most jurisdictions accept that factors like intellectual disability need to be taken into account as mitigating circumstances, frequently leading to more lenient punishment, and sentencing which focuses more on protection and rehabilitation than less on retribution and deterrence, compared to an offender with normal (or above-normal) intellectual capacity. The idea that intellectually disabled people ought to be treated with particular leniency is one supported by the United Nations, and even by the US Supreme Court (which held, in the 2002 case of Atkins v. Virginia, that executing the intellectually disabled is unconstitutional)–so extending them that leniency is hardly a "lie to cover for discretionary enforcement", nor a "pernicious type of corruption" [0] https://singaporelegaladvice.com/law-articles/prosecutorial-discretion-singapore/ https://singaporelegaladvice.com/law-articles/prosecutorial-... [1] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/10/singapore-first-convictions-under-contempt-of-court-law-confirms-fears-over-muzzling-critics-2/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/10/singapore-fir...
AussieWog93 5y ago
On the flip side, Singapore has an order of magnitude less drug abuse that we see in most Western countries (not hyperbole, backed by statistics). My great uncle, at one point, was heroin addict who was trying to get his life together. After he came out of rehab, his old "friends" tracked him down to convince him to get back into the game. The first hit they gave him put his body into shock (he had been clean for weeks), and rather than call an ambulance they propped him up against a tree and left him to die. I do agree that the most recent case was a bit different as the guy was clearly exploited, but is 1-2 executions a year really worse than tens of thousands of lives being destroyed by drugs?
- skissane 5y ago
  I think there is another option that is better than either. Heroin is unfairly maligned as a drug – the majority of the harms of heroin addiction are due to its illegality, not due to the drug itself. Suppose the government sold pharmaceutical quality heroin to the general public. It could open premises where heroin was sold, for on-premises consumption only. The premises would have staff who were trained in safe administration of injections, resuscitation, administration of naltrexone, sharps management, etc. The government could operate these services on a non-profit basis, so the price of the heroin was the minimum required to pay for the drug itself, and the premises/staff/equipment/security/utilities/administration/etc. It could prohibit entry of minors, promote counselling and withdrawal services, etc. What would be the likely outcome? Well, the black market would shrink dramatically – most addicts and long-term users would migrate to the government-provided service, since it would be cheaper and safer. Faced with the sudden competition, black market operators would likely shift to other lines of business (other drugs, or non-drug illegal businesses such as people trafficking or extortion). The number of deaths from heroin overdose would dramatically fall, since most users would be using heroin at these supervised premises. Pharmaceutical quality heroin would enable precise control over dosage which would eliminate many accidental overdoses; any overdoses remaining would receive prompt medical attention. With prompt medical attention, the odds of surviving a heroin overdose are actually very good. And, unlike illegal operators, it seems unlikely that a government-run service would try to push the substance on the public (and if that ever did happen, the solution would be to remove and punish the staff responsible for that, not abolish the service entirely.) Long-term heroin addiction, if the substance is legally available at a low cost, pharmaceutical quality, and under medical supervision, is a relatively benign condition from a medical viewpoint. Sure, it does have some negative psychological consequences – such as dulling of thought and motivation and emotions – and it would be best for the addicts to (if they can) gradually wean themselves off it to overcome those negative psychological consequences. But, to be honest, in that respect it is actually not hugely different from many psychotropic drugs (such as antipsychotics and antidepressants) prescribed long-term to a significant percentage of the population. It is far more benign than alcohol, which is a far harsher substance on the body, with potential consequences as cirrhosis of the liver. Most of the negative long-term health consequences of heroin are due to its illegality – for example, many heroin addicts end up with cirrhosis of the liver much like many alcoholics do, but via a very different mechanism. Alcohol directly causes liver disease, heroin is a very benign substance as far as the liver is concerned. [0] Rather, heroin addicts end up with viral hepatitis from sharing needles, and then the hepatitis causes the cirrhosis. If heroin were legalised (in the way I've described), sharing needles would be eliminated, and then heroin addicts would be no more likely to have liver disease than the general population. I can't see how one can justify the government killing people in cold blood in order to (allegedly) save lives, when there is something else the government could do which would likely save just as many (or even more) lives without killing anyone at all. Ultimately, since the majority of drugs deaths are caused, not by the inherent nature of the drug, but rather by the consequences of its (near-)total illegality, we should really blame for those deaths, not the drug traffickers, but rather governments and legislators, upon whose misguided policies drug traffickers rely for the existence of their businesses. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK548690/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK548690/
JimDabell 5y ago
> > Man, I can't help wishing that if we had to have a dictator why couldn't it be someone (mostly) reasonable like Lee Kwan Yew. > So yeah, Lee Hsien Loong seems like a cool guy – wow, a Prime Minister who can write C++. Javajosh was admiring Lee Kwan Yew, the founding father of Singapore. You are talking about Lee Hsien Loong, the current prime minister.
- skissane 5y ago
  I wasn't actually confusing them. Javajosh was admiring the father, I mentioned the admiration (expressed by some other comments on this post) some have for his eldest son. "Like father, like son" as they say, and the criticisms I have for the son are regarding matters in which I doubt his father would have done any differently (and indeed, did do very similarly when he was alive and in charge.) I concede that I could have worded my comment better to avoid creating the impression that I was though.
shadowsun7 5y ago
I'd actually urge you to look into the details of the case — Nagaenthran had two psychiatrists and a psychologist evaluate him on separate occasions, each of them certifying that he was of borderline intelligence, but not mentally ill (or 'mentally retarded', per DSM-5). The third examination established that Nagaenthran knew he was carrying drugs, that he was the member of a gang, that he was carrying out such an act because of 'a sense of loyalty and gratitude to his boss', that he had not been coerced into delivering the drugs, and that he was aware of the sentence for drug trafficking in Singapore. Nagaenthran's lawyer disagreed with these assessments, but, unable to find a psych willing to certify Nagaenthran's intellectual disability, got so desperate that he signed an affidavit declaring himself convinced that Nagaenthran was intellectually disabled. The court rejected this affidavit after establishing that Nagaenthran's lawyer had no medical expertise and after he admitted that he was essentially 'speculating on what the appellant's mental age was'. Then the AG's office got a fourth medical assessment in 2021, which was blocked from submission to the court by Nagaenthran's lawyer, arguing that the 'appellant was interested in 'medical confidentiality'. At that point the court sort of threw up its hands and went 'you claim he's intellectually disabled but now you want to block medical reports on that exact issue, due to privacy reasons?' Keep in mind that at this point, the case had been in Singapore's courts since 2010, and the various assessments and appeals had lasted more than a decade. Nagaenthran's family, with the help of activists, requested appeals from both Malaysian's prime minister and a direct appeal to Singapore's president, who had the power to stay the execution by issuing a pardon. Singapore's president said she looked into it and was satisfied that the case was sound. Finally, Nagaethran's family — again with the help of activists — filed a final appeal, arguing that the sentence was unconstitutional because Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon, who presided over Nagaenthran's previous failed appeals, was also the Attorney-General during his conviction. At this point the panel of three judges threw the application out on the grounds that it was a 'calculated attempt' to diminish the finality of the court process. "No court in the world would allow an applicant to prolong matters ad infinitum" by filing such applications, said the judges. They'd been pushing such applications over the course of a full decade by that point, switching arguments three times. Source: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/nagaenthran-dharmalingam-drug-trafficker-death-sentence-mother-appeal-court-chief-justice-2647996 https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/nagaenthran-dharma... And read the full judgment: https://elitigation.sg/gd/s/2022_SGCA_26 https://elitigation.sg/gd/s/2022_SGCA_26 I'm sympathetic to the goals of the activists — they want to push a test case to repeal the death penalty. The problem is that it doesn't seem to be a particularly good test case. Nagaenthran had successfully stayed his execution multiple times over the past decade, and he had pretty decent legal representation throughout. (Notwithstanding the affidavit — which probably harmed his case more than it helped). You may argue that Singapore is a 'rather extreme outlier among developed countries' — but its policies on drug enforcement is 100% consistent with just about every other country in its vicinity. In fact, had Nagaenthran been caught in his home country of Malaysia, he would be sentenced to death just the same, since Malaysia has pretty much the same laws on drug trafficking. The activists have been raising international awareness of the case, but Malaysia's government is pretty blase about the whole thing, since they have similar laws and a similar justice system, and Malaysian anti-narcotics officers have a long history of working with Singaporean anti-narcotics officers to stop the drug trade from trickling into their countries from the Golden Triangle to their north. Edit to add: I was actually prepared to get angry over this case, but then I read the full judgment and now I think ... "hmm, this is a more complicated case than I thought."
znpy 5y ago
USA have death penalty too, and a massive incarceration business. I have a gut feeling that if we started comparing both the usa and singapore, the latter would appear cumulatively better.

javajosh 5y ago

I am also against the death penalty. But I am for consistency. It does not sound like a clear-cut case of injustice to me, and I am quite sensitive to injustice. Any compassion the state shows is a lie to cover for discretionary enforcement, which is a pernicious type of corruption. It truly sounds like a tragic case. If Mr. Dharmalingam was unable to understand the risks he was taking, then clearly he needed more guardianship, maybe from his family, or if that wasn't available, from the state. But state-sponsored guardianship of the intellectually disabled has it's own evil air, does it not? (Not knowing the details, if he was sent from Malaysia, then I hope the Malaysian authorities find and punish the ones who used him so cruelly.)

AussieWog93 5y ago
>(Not knowing the details, if he was sent from India, then I hope the Indian authorities find and punish the ones who used him so cruelly.) He was Malaysian. The cops probably know who sent him and let the guys go in exchange for a shiny watch.
skissane 5y ago
> Any compassion the state shows is a lie to cover for discretionary enforcement, which is a pernicious type of corruption You actually think there is no discretionary enforcement of the law in Singapore? Like every other jurisdiction on earth, Singapore has prosecutorial discretion. [0] A handful of jurisdictions, such as Germany, traditionally reject prosecutorial jurisdiction in theory, but that theory belies the fact that even in Germany it has always been inescapable in practice–no prosecutor on this earth has the resources to prosecute every known crime in their jurisdiction, they always have to pick and choose which cases to prosecute and how much effort and resources to put into each prosecution, and there is always going to be an element of subjective judgement in that decision, which will inevitably be coloured by the prosecutors' beliefs/culture/politics/attitudes/biases. And, is prosecutorial discretion in Singapore applied in a purely impartial and non-discriminatory way? Considering Singapore's lengthy and ongoing history of politically motivated prosecutions (see for example [1]), it is rather obvious that it isn't. Most jurisdictions accept that factors like intellectual disability need to be taken into account as mitigating circumstances, frequently leading to more lenient punishment, and sentencing which focuses more on protection and rehabilitation than less on retribution and deterrence, compared to an offender with normal (or above-normal) intellectual capacity. The idea that intellectually disabled people ought to be treated with particular leniency is one supported by the United Nations, and even by the US Supreme Court (which held, in the 2002 case of Atkins v. Virginia, that executing the intellectually disabled is unconstitutional)–so extending them that leniency is hardly a "lie to cover for discretionary enforcement", nor a "pernicious type of corruption" [0] https://singaporelegaladvice.com/law-articles/prosecutorial-discretion-singapore/ https://singaporelegaladvice.com/law-articles/prosecutorial-... [1] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/10/singapore-first-convictions-under-contempt-of-court-law-confirms-fears-over-muzzling-critics-2/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/10/singapore-fir...

AussieWog93 5y ago

On the flip side, Singapore has an order of magnitude less drug abuse that we see in most Western countries (not hyperbole, backed by statistics). My great uncle, at one point, was heroin addict who was trying to get his life together. After he came out of rehab, his old "friends" tracked him down to convince him to get back into the game. The first hit they gave him put his body into shock (he had been clean for weeks), and rather than call an ambulance they propped him up against a tree and left him to die. I do agree that the most recent case was a bit different as the guy was clearly exploited, but is 1-2 executions a year really worse than tens of thousands of lives being destroyed by drugs?

skissane 5y ago
I think there is another option that is better than either. Heroin is unfairly maligned as a drug – the majority of the harms of heroin addiction are due to its illegality, not due to the drug itself. Suppose the government sold pharmaceutical quality heroin to the general public. It could open premises where heroin was sold, for on-premises consumption only. The premises would have staff who were trained in safe administration of injections, resuscitation, administration of naltrexone, sharps management, etc. The government could operate these services on a non-profit basis, so the price of the heroin was the minimum required to pay for the drug itself, and the premises/staff/equipment/security/utilities/administration/etc. It could prohibit entry of minors, promote counselling and withdrawal services, etc. What would be the likely outcome? Well, the black market would shrink dramatically – most addicts and long-term users would migrate to the government-provided service, since it would be cheaper and safer. Faced with the sudden competition, black market operators would likely shift to other lines of business (other drugs, or non-drug illegal businesses such as people trafficking or extortion). The number of deaths from heroin overdose would dramatically fall, since most users would be using heroin at these supervised premises. Pharmaceutical quality heroin would enable precise control over dosage which would eliminate many accidental overdoses; any overdoses remaining would receive prompt medical attention. With prompt medical attention, the odds of surviving a heroin overdose are actually very good. And, unlike illegal operators, it seems unlikely that a government-run service would try to push the substance on the public (and if that ever did happen, the solution would be to remove and punish the staff responsible for that, not abolish the service entirely.) Long-term heroin addiction, if the substance is legally available at a low cost, pharmaceutical quality, and under medical supervision, is a relatively benign condition from a medical viewpoint. Sure, it does have some negative psychological consequences – such as dulling of thought and motivation and emotions – and it would be best for the addicts to (if they can) gradually wean themselves off it to overcome those negative psychological consequences. But, to be honest, in that respect it is actually not hugely different from many psychotropic drugs (such as antipsychotics and antidepressants) prescribed long-term to a significant percentage of the population. It is far more benign than alcohol, which is a far harsher substance on the body, with potential consequences as cirrhosis of the liver. Most of the negative long-term health consequences of heroin are due to its illegality – for example, many heroin addicts end up with cirrhosis of the liver much like many alcoholics do, but via a very different mechanism. Alcohol directly causes liver disease, heroin is a very benign substance as far as the liver is concerned. [0] Rather, heroin addicts end up with viral hepatitis from sharing needles, and then the hepatitis causes the cirrhosis. If heroin were legalised (in the way I've described), sharing needles would be eliminated, and then heroin addicts would be no more likely to have liver disease than the general population. I can't see how one can justify the government killing people in cold blood in order to (allegedly) save lives, when there is something else the government could do which would likely save just as many (or even more) lives without killing anyone at all. Ultimately, since the majority of drugs deaths are caused, not by the inherent nature of the drug, but rather by the consequences of its (near-)total illegality, we should really blame for those deaths, not the drug traffickers, but rather governments and legislators, upon whose misguided policies drug traffickers rely for the existence of their businesses. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK548690/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK548690/

JimDabell 5y ago

> > Man, I can't help wishing that if we had to have a dictator why couldn't it be someone (mostly) reasonable like Lee Kwan Yew. > So yeah, Lee Hsien Loong seems like a cool guy – wow, a Prime Minister who can write C++. Javajosh was admiring Lee Kwan Yew, the founding father of Singapore. You are talking about Lee Hsien Loong, the current prime minister.

skissane 5y ago
I wasn't actually confusing them. Javajosh was admiring the father, I mentioned the admiration (expressed by some other comments on this post) some have for his eldest son. "Like father, like son" as they say, and the criticisms I have for the son are regarding matters in which I doubt his father would have done any differently (and indeed, did do very similarly when he was alive and in charge.) I concede that I could have worded my comment better to avoid creating the impression that I was though.

shadowsun7 5y ago

I'd actually urge you to look into the details of the case — Nagaenthran had two psychiatrists and a psychologist evaluate him on separate occasions, each of them certifying that he was of borderline intelligence, but not mentally ill (or 'mentally retarded', per DSM-5). The third examination established that Nagaenthran knew he was carrying drugs, that he was the member of a gang, that he was carrying out such an act because of 'a sense of loyalty and gratitude to his boss', that he had not been coerced into delivering the drugs, and that he was aware of the sentence for drug trafficking in Singapore. Nagaenthran's lawyer disagreed with these assessments, but, unable to find a psych willing to certify Nagaenthran's intellectual disability, got so desperate that he signed an affidavit declaring himself convinced that Nagaenthran was intellectually disabled. The court rejected this affidavit after establishing that Nagaenthran's lawyer had no medical expertise and after he admitted that he was essentially 'speculating on what the appellant's mental age was'. Then the AG's office got a fourth medical assessment in 2021, which was blocked from submission to the court by Nagaenthran's lawyer, arguing that the 'appellant was interested in 'medical confidentiality'. At that point the court sort of threw up its hands and went 'you claim he's intellectually disabled but now you want to block medical reports on that exact issue, due to privacy reasons?' Keep in mind that at this point, the case had been in Singapore's courts since 2010, and the various assessments and appeals had lasted more than a decade. Nagaenthran's family, with the help of activists, requested appeals from both Malaysian's prime minister and a direct appeal to Singapore's president, who had the power to stay the execution by issuing a pardon. Singapore's president said she looked into it and was satisfied that the case was sound. Finally, Nagaethran's family — again with the help of activists — filed a final appeal, arguing that the sentence was unconstitutional because Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon, who presided over Nagaenthran's previous failed appeals, was also the Attorney-General during his conviction. At this point the panel of three judges threw the application out on the grounds that it was a 'calculated attempt' to diminish the finality of the court process. "No court in the world would allow an applicant to prolong matters ad infinitum" by filing such applications, said the judges. They'd been pushing such applications over the course of a full decade by that point, switching arguments three times. Source: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/nagaenthran-dharmalingam-drug-trafficker-death-sentence-mother-appeal-court-chief-justice-2647996 https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/nagaenthran-dharma... And read the full judgment: https://elitigation.sg/gd/s/2022_SGCA_26 https://elitigation.sg/gd/s/2022_SGCA_26 I'm sympathetic to the goals of the activists — they want to push a test case to repeal the death penalty. The problem is that it doesn't seem to be a particularly good test case. Nagaenthran had successfully stayed his execution multiple times over the past decade, and he had pretty decent legal representation throughout. (Notwithstanding the affidavit — which probably harmed his case more than it helped). You may argue that Singapore is a 'rather extreme outlier among developed countries' — but its policies on drug enforcement is 100% consistent with just about every other country in its vicinity. In fact, had Nagaenthran been caught in his home country of Malaysia, he would be sentenced to death just the same, since Malaysia has pretty much the same laws on drug trafficking. The activists have been raising international awareness of the case, but Malaysia's government is pretty blase about the whole thing, since they have similar laws and a similar justice system, and Malaysian anti-narcotics officers have a long history of working with Singaporean anti-narcotics officers to stop the drug trade from trickling into their countries from the Golden Triangle to their north. Edit to add: I was actually prepared to get angry over this case, but then I read the full judgment and now I think ... "hmm, this is a more complicated case than I thought."

znpy 5y ago

USA have death penalty too, and a massive incarceration business. I have a gut feeling that if we started comparing both the usa and singapore, the latter would appear cumulatively better.