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We've imprisoned innocent people until they died as well. And as a % of convictions, the latter number is far larger than the former. But I guess since there i

We've imprisoned innocent people until they died as well. And as a % of convictions, the latter number is far larger than the former. But I guess since there is a tiny probability that we might exonerate someone sitting in jail until they die, we get to ignore that fact (even though the number of falsely convicted people rotting away is probably higher).

tptacek 11y ago
I think you would find very few life sentence inmates willing to convert themselves to death row inmates for the chance at an Innocence Project exoneration.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  While there might not be as much effort on it, I wouldn't be surprised if the Innocence Project (or groups similar to it) focused more attention on life prisoners if the death penalty were abandoned. Certainly, outside groups have focused on particular questionable cases of people imprisoned on non-capital offenses and produced evidence leading to release before.
  - tptacek 11y ago
    That is indeed what the founder of the Innocence Project said when asked about this exact topic on the NPR IQ2 debate I linked to downthread. :)
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  I suspect the reason for that is the same flawed, non-probabilistic reasoning that most death penalty opponents are making - "if I'm alive there is always a chance..." For the record, as a person who does understand probability, I'd much rather be wrongly convicted of a capital crime than a life imprisonment one. I also don't believe for a moment that left wing anger at wrongful executions by electric chair will transfer to false execution by old age.
  - tptacek 11y ago
    To determine whether it's reasonable to call life imprisonment "false execution by old age", you could examine the relative life expectancies of people imprisoned for life versus the cohort of people most likely to receive life sentences. If a sentence extends someone's lifetime, and results in a cause of death universally shared by everyone, it's probably not reasonable to refer to it as a form of execution.

tptacek 11y ago

I think you would find very few life sentence inmates willing to convert themselves to death row inmates for the chance at an Innocence Project exoneration.

dragonwriter 11y ago
While there might not be as much effort on it, I wouldn't be surprised if the Innocence Project (or groups similar to it) focused more attention on life prisoners if the death penalty were abandoned. Certainly, outside groups have focused on particular questionable cases of people imprisoned on non-capital offenses and produced evidence leading to release before.
- tptacek 11y ago
  That is indeed what the founder of the Innocence Project said when asked about this exact topic on the NPR IQ2 debate I linked to downthread. :)
yummyfajitas 11y ago
I suspect the reason for that is the same flawed, non-probabilistic reasoning that most death penalty opponents are making - "if I'm alive there is always a chance..." For the record, as a person who does understand probability, I'd much rather be wrongly convicted of a capital crime than a life imprisonment one. I also don't believe for a moment that left wing anger at wrongful executions by electric chair will transfer to false execution by old age.
- tptacek 11y ago
  To determine whether it's reasonable to call life imprisonment "false execution by old age", you could examine the relative life expectancies of people imprisoned for life versus the cohort of people most likely to receive life sentences. If a sentence extends someone's lifetime, and results in a cause of death universally shared by everyone, it's probably not reasonable to refer to it as a form of execution.