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The crime was when he was deeply addicted and drugged out of his mind 22 years earlier. I don't find it shocking that he's had another life since. Killing him i
by namdnay 4y ago
The crime was when he was deeply addicted and drugged out of his mind 22 years earlier. I don't find it shocking that he's had another life since. Killing him in 2021 just seems so... pointless
- thinking4real 4y ago[flagged]
- 0xfeba 4y agoHe said killing, no imprisoning.
- dvt 4y ago[flagged]
- tshaddox 4y agoDo you think the pain would be less acute after the killer was killed 22 years later?
- ceejayoz 4y ago> there's this thing called justice In pursuit of justice, we sometimes tip over into revenge. Given the fact that we've sent innocent people to their executions, I'm uncomfortable labeling it justice.
- dejj 4y agoThere are 3 aspects to criminal justice: - special prevention - general prevention (=deterrence) - revenge
- LarryMullins 4y agoI understand it to be: - retribution (revenge) - deterrence - rehabilitation - incapacitation (they can't re-offend if they're in prison or dead) In these sort of discussions about justice online, the first is often cast as illegitimate, the second as impossible, the third as the gold standard, and the fourth is frequently ignored completely. Few people ever defend retribution, so I will here. Many people who are victims of crimes have a desire to see retribution done. If the government does not play at least some lip service to the desire for retribution, then more people will take it into their own hands. They'll seek vigilante justice. Vigilante justice is dangerous to society because it's often capricious and disproportionate. It is better for governments to sate the desire for retribution using official processes which can be checked with safeguards, such as trials.
- namdnay 4y ago> If the government does not play at least some lip service to the desire for retribution, then more people will take it into their own hands. They'll seek vigilante justice. If that were the case, we'd see significantly higher amounts of "vigilante justice" in countries that have abolished the death penalty, right? I think "vigilante justice" is more often than not "vigilante policing", when people believe criminals aren't being sufficiently investigated and arrested, not when people believe criminals aren't being sufficiently executed
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- LarryMullins 4y agoThe intensity of desire for retribution depends on the cultural context. In any case, you're conflating retribution with the death penalty, but these are not synonymous. Imprisonment is a form of retribution too, as are fines, caning, etc. Any punishment that is unpleasant has an element of retribution.
- pnf 4y ago+1 for retribution and social benefits mentioned. Should be obvious. People don't watch enough gangster movies. Or, hell, visit one of the regions of the globe with blood feuds. Not great.
- prmph 4y agoYou forgot one: rehabilitation, or correction
- pnf 4y agoRecidivism
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- heyflyguy 4y agoI don't agree or disagree with what you're saying, but isn't this the point of a "jury of your peers"? To exact a punishment befitting the crime?
- aaomidi 4y agoNote, jury doesn’t necessarily decide sentencing. Just guilt or lack thereof. If you mention you know about jury nullification you’re going to get dismissed as a juror.
- ceejayoz 4y agoThat's the idea. The actual practice of it has never been near perfect. https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/02/us/02jury.html https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/02/us/02jury.html > In North Carolina, at least 26 current death row defendants were sentenced by all-white juries. In South Carolina, a prosecutor said he struck a black potential juror because he “shucked and jived” when he walked. There are other selection biases at play; any of those peers who oppose the death penalty are struck from the jury as a matter of course.
- Nextgrid 4y agoThe implementation of the death penalty itself is vengeful and barbaric. Accidents in enclosed spaces lacking oxygen provide plenty of prior art for killing a human without panic nor suffering. I believe certain drugs such as morphine in high enough doses would also induce death with minimal pain. Yet the state-sponsored murderers still use barbaric methods. Even in states where the "gas chamber" is a thing, cyanide is used instead of inert gases such as nitrogen, despite the latter surely being cheaper, easier to procure and safer to handle for the murderers and the rest of prison staff.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- crooked-v 4y agoPresuming that the only option for "justice" must be a death for a death also misses the point.
- VerminOctopus1 4y agoCan’t be that weird considering that the vast majority of the first world doesn’t partake in the death penalty. Perhaps you are the one with a strange take on justice.
- flatline 4y ago> There is no justice in this world. No single punishment can correct an injustice, because what is past cannot be changed, and those to whom injustice was done remain with their loss. But even if justice were attained in some other world, for what was lost in this one, if in some other world those who had been injured had returned to them what they had lost here, that is not a return of their life’s fulfillment; it is only consolation. What is lost at a certain moment can never again be compensated, because what is lost was needed at the moment it disappeared. Goce Smilevski
- namdnay 4y ago> Think if your daughter/son/mom/dad got slaughtered, do you think the pain would be less acute even two decades later? Yeah it would definitely be less acute, still there every day, but less acute. Like most trauma. Would killing the murderer in 2021 make me feel any better? To that question the answer is without a doubt "no".
- aaomidi 4y agoAnd honestly if your answer to this is yes, you’re in need of deep help.
- dionidium 4y agoThis is silly. It’s fine to disagree, but millions (billions?) of healthy, morally ordinary people support the death penalty. They might of course be wrong, in some sense, but they don’t “need help,” for crying out loud.
- aaomidi 4y agoYes. They do. If you support the death penalty then you’re probably in need of therapy to figure out some deep traumas.
- dsfyu404ed 4y agoYou ever heard the proverb "revenge is a dish best served cold"? I'm sure you'll get a few cheap virtue points for your rhetoric but the reality of the society we live in seems to contradict your opinion. And for the record (which is really just a fancy way of saying "if I don't say this some jerk will come along and imply otherwise) I am against the death penalty because I think the risk of executing an innocent person is too great.
- dvt 4y ago> Yeah it would definitely be less acute, still there every day, but less acute. Like most trauma. I hope you realize you are co-opting someone's pain for your own political or ethical brownie points. A lot of people are completely happy watching their child's murderer/rapist be punished via the death penalty. You're just trivializing an incredibly complex moral conundrum.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago> We can debate capital punishment, of course, but calling it pointless frankly misses the point. They're in the process of debating capital punishment. They didn't miss the point.
- makeitdouble 4y agoCapital punishment itself is a whole can of worm to discuss on a forum. But wouldn't killing inmate exactly be pointless for someone aruging for abolishing capital punishment ? That seems to be the core of the philosophy to me.
- fzeroracer 4y agoNow think of your father getting sent to jail and executed for a crime he didn't commit. You're saying that's a worthwhile risk in the pursuit of justice?
- gpderetta 4y agoAnd there is reason why we don't let justice be dispensed by the victim.
- ceejayoz 4y ago> As always, getting hardcore downvoted by HN programmers thinking they know ethics without reading a shred of the literature, so I'll stop responding. How on earth did you graduate philosophy thinking there's a settled, correct answer on this subject?
- pnf 4y agoDon't even try to reason with HN downvoters. They're not interested in your reasons.
- itsmemattchung 4y agoFrom Wikipedia: Jones experienced 'brutal conditions' during his childhood, suffering neglect by his parents, sexual assault by his siblings, and extreme poverty.[7][4][8] His mother threatened him with a gun, and when he was seven years old his older siblings forced him to have sex with his stepsister.[8] He shot himself twice, once in the hand to placate gang members and later in the chest in a suicide attempt. He became addicted to drugs by his early teens
- mjburgess 4y agoYes, contrast this with the bloodlust of The People. We are no so far aware from crucifixions, torture and the brutal death sentences in the circuses. What this awful species, ad populum, calls justice is little more than a boderline erotic enjoyment of the torture of those "who deserve it".
- skedaddle 4y agoHey don't blame the species!
- s1artibartfast 4y agoThe problem is that people struggle with non-binary thinking. It is not only possible, but probable that this person who has suffered so much is also broken and an anti-social person.
- dionidium 4y agoThere’s something very odd to me about the modern progressive position that, more or less, if you can explain a crime, then you can in some sense excuse it. That description of his childhood works for me in sociological terms — let’s avoid stuff that we know to create monsters — but not on individual ones (i.e. the monster, having been created, is indeed a monster).
- fphhotchips 4y agoThe question is, do you blame the monster for being a monster? Or do you blame the people that made them one? There are valid points both ways. IMO I think the idea is that if you can explain the crime then maybe the monster was created by society and thus can be redeemed by society. If you can't explain the crime, maybe the monster is just a monster.
- dokem 4y ago[flagged]
- timeon 4y ago> And you would let him. I would not. But I does not mean that I kill people - whether it is murder or capital punishment.
- HardlyCurious 4y agoIs it less pointless to keep him in jail for the rest of his life?
- pnf 4y agoTo be fair. The decades of stays that separate his crime from his punishment were his choice.