Would you agree that a death caused by the existence of the police force meets the same criteria?
(Again, i'm not really thinking this through, so i might be missing something).
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Against abortion for any reason? What about the death penalty?
- Thread starter Sententia
- Start date
Would you agree that a death caused by the existence of the police force meets the same criteria?
(Again, i'm not really thinking this through, so i might be missing something).
Tell you what: I'll meet you halfway. I'll do some digging and find a number of people who have been wrongfully sentenced to death, then you find the number of people who were murdered by "those who should have been executed" (which you're going to have to define a lot more precisely, BTW) over the same period, and we'll see which is higher.
Songbird
She rules her life like a bird in flight
The big difference is "they" choose to fly versus "we" execute. Who's doing the assuming is pretty important.
That's where my line is drawn. Life imprisonment of an innocent person is a more acceptable risk than execution of an innocent person.
Poisonshady313
Well-Known Member
That's irrelevant. We still allow pilots to carry passengers, knowing there's a risk that those aboard could die in a plane crash.
I'm not talking about the risk taken by the individual who may or may not die. I'm talking about the risk taken by those who would be responsible for a fatal error. If one wrongful execution is one too many, one fatal plane crash is one too many.
Why is the loss of life of an airline passenger (or even a plane full of airline passengers) less devastating than a wrongfully executed person?
Bad things happen to good people all the time. Can't be avoided completely, so the goal is to minimize it. Abolishing the death penalty puts more innocent lives at risk than the death penalty itself.
Kilgore Trout
Misanthropic Humanist
Saying it's irrelevant, doesn't make it irrelevant. Sorry.
Please provide a single piece of evidence which supports this statement.
Poisonshady313
Well-Known Member
Why? Appeals process can exonerate an innocent person from death row, and innocent people can die serving a life sentence.
Why is a the death of an innocent lifer (or even an innocent someone who dies while serving a short term) less devastating and more acceptable than a wrongful execution?
Songbird
She rules her life like a bird in flight
Who said it was? Innocent people can be exonerated from life sentences as well. Guilty people can die serving a life sentence. My line is still drawn at having a person deliberately executed.
Kilgore Trout
Misanthropic Humanist
So you're not agreeing with the "two wrongs make a right" argument? Pfft - women.
Songbird
She rules her life like a bird in flight
I'll make up for it by batting my eyelashes and twirling my hair.
Poisonshady313
Well-Known Member
You're right.
It being irrelevant is what makes it irrelevant.
The connection I'm making with my analogy is between two different systems which our society allows to exist despite both systems carrying the risk of killing innocent people.
A List of Murderers Released to Murder Again!
The list is short... which is to say, incomplete. This list accounts for at least 60 victims.
The DPIC, an anti death penalty organization, can't come up with more than 9 names of possibly innocent people who have been executed since 1976.
I haven't seen any evidence that at least 60 of the last 1270 executed people were innocent.
Have you?
Kilgore Trout
Misanthropic Humanist
You're not paying attention. How does this support the view that having the death penalty saves more lives than not having it? That list of people released has nothing to do with the death penalty. Apply logic.
Poisonshady313
Well-Known Member
People don't seem to hold the prison system in general to the same standard as "one innocent execution is one too many". In fact, in many cases their suggested alternative to the death penalty is LWOP.
If all the risks inherent with the death penalty still remain in a system that operates without the death penalty, all you do when you take away the death penalty is take away the benefits, which is the protection of those innocent people who might otherwise die at the hands of murderers that escape or are released.
We're not talking about things working out the way they should. We're talking about the risk of error.
The risk of error in a system without the death penalty is just as horrible and irreversible as is the risk of error with the death penalty.
Songbird
She rules her life like a bird in flight
I'm not sure "Pro-Death Penalty Webpage" is reliable.
Poisonshady313
Well-Known Member
Had these people been executed, they could not have been released to go on murdering people.
The number of victims of these released murderers being higher than the proposed number of wrongful executions as put forth by the DPIC shows that more innocent lives would have been saved than lost if the death penalty were used more consistently.
Kilgore Trout
Misanthropic Humanist
No, I'm asking for evidence, not speculation.
Do you have any evidence that having the death penalty results in more lives saved?
As for your speculation, if we put everybody to death who was in prison for murder, then you'd have to take into account all the innocent people who would be put to death who were wrongly convicted. Another speculation.
Again, I'm asking for evidence.
Songbird
She rules her life like a bird in flight
No, it's really not. As long as a person's alive there's a chance to reverse wrongful sentencing. Whether someone dies while wrongfully imprisoned is indeed horrible and irreversible, but the situations vary. Execution is still permanent done at the hands of another.
Poisonshady313
Well-Known Member
Facts are facts. I'm not relying on the webpage to interpret those facts. It just conveniently already has them written down.
Many of those listed weren't even sentenced to death. I'm saying that for what they were initially convicted for, they should have been. And for the ones that had been sentenced to death, they should have been put to death. Had death sentences been imposed and carried out in these cases, the whole page worth of victims would not have been victims.
And as long as that number is higher than the number of people wrongly executed, the risk of not having the death penalty is greater and more troubling than the risk of having the death penalty.
Kilgore Trout
Misanthropic Humanist
So you'd be okay with wrongly executing 99 people, if 100 lives were saved by executing 1 person?
Poisonshady313
Well-Known Member
And what I've been getting at is, while more innocent people will be exonerated from prison than death row, more innocent people will die in prison than on death row... because there are more innocent people in prison than there are on death row.
As long as a death row inmate is alive, there's a chance to reverse wrongful sentencing.
When you get rid of the death penalty, the risk of the state taking an innocent person's life doesn't decrease.
Permanence happens at the moment of death, regardless of whether it was by injection or by any other means. "But the situations vary" is meaningless once a wrongfully imprisoned person dies while wrongfully imprisoned.