Execution

[Poisonshady313]

Killing all sorts of criminals at different levels of severity would stop this, that doesn't make it right.

I'm not suggesting killing all sorts of criminals. Doesn't make that sentence of yours very useful.

Seeing as this is more of a problem in the states than anywhere else in the industrialized world, I have a feeling that we can do more prison reform than '**** it, just kill them' which, imo, is profoundly lazy.

That's probably true.

I'd rather focus on things like for-profit prisons which create system loops of incarceration and corruption in prison guards, lobbyists and judges, serious study of techniques used in places like Scandinavia to reform inmates, and a serious look at our mental health system in and out of the Criminal Justice System.

Sounds good to me.

I definitely do not see any reason to believe that capital punishment is an effective deterrent to crime,

The reason why capital punishment isn't an effective deterrent to crime is because it can hardly be said that the death penalty truly exists in this country. In 2016 there were more than 2500 people on death row. That year, there were 20 executions. Total. Across 5 states. A person on death row had a less than 1% chance of being put to death that year.

84% of death penalty states had 0 executions that year. One of those states, California, has the largest death row in the country. California hasn't executed anyone since 2006.

Since the mid 80s, the death row population has always been between 2500 and 3500 people. Since the moratorium on the death penalty was lifted in 1976, there has never been more than 98 executions in any single year. And that number trends downwards since 1999.

Over the course of 41 years, this country averaged 36 executions per year. (Total number 1463) I repeat: averaged. From 1997 to 2005 was the only period of time where the number of executions per year were equal to or greater than 59. 18 out of 41 years, including the last three years, saw less than 30 executions. 14 of those years saw less than 20.

If you take all the number of all executions since 1976 and compare it to the number of murders between 2000 and 2009 (approx 163,000), you get less than 1%

Compared to the number of murders since 1976, the death penalty doesn't exist.

rather the opposites as it seems to create more mass shootings followed by suicide. What have they got to lose?

That is simply ridiculous.

Between the virtual non-existence of the death penalty in general and these mass shootings followed by suicide in states that technically have the death penalty but not really (California, Colorado, Connecticut, and Nevada come to mind), you'll find it VERY hard to show that capital punishment "seems to create more mass shootings followed by suicide."

(Info on number of murders in US comes from this site: United States Crime Rates 1960 - 2016)
(Death row figures come from this site: America’s death row population is shrinking)

 

[SalixIncendium]

An air strike is not necessary to thwart an escape.
It is still murder.

Certainly it's not the only means to thwart an escape. I was merely suggesting an option. How would you thwart and escape?

 

[SalixIncendium]

No it does not. Punishing wrong-doers is dharma. Kill only if it is a matter of 'dharma'.

Whose dharma is it to carry this out? Whose dharma is it to assess the appropriate punishment?

 

[SalixIncendium]

It’s all in the link. That’s why I put the link. The verses and purports are there. That’s the equivalent of capital punishment. I cited ancient Norse custom and law for revenge killing.

I read the text in your link. It stated that such a criminal shall be killed, but it did not specify for the purpose of retaliation. I supposed I'm confused by how you're drawing a parallel between the text in the Bhagavad Gita and Norse custom and law.

 

[Jainarayan]

I supposed I'm confused by how you're drawing a parallel between the text in the Bhagavad Gita and Norse custom and law.

I’m not. I’m saying that both support, for different circumstances, what I believe. They are supplementary, if you will.

 

[SalixIncendium]

I’m not. I’m saying that both support, for different circumstances, what I believe. They are supplementary, if you will.

I see. Thank you for clarifying.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Whose dharma is it to carry this out? Whose dharma is it to assess the appropriate punishment?

Any one whom the authorities assign.The guilt was assessed by the king (He had his Raj Dharma and the responsibilities for the well-being of its people. The hereditary kings were careful bout justice, otherwise the infamy went own the generation. The largest portion of any Hindu 'dharma Shastra' (like Manu Smriti) is about Raj Dharma). Otherwise it could be ministers/Kazis, again many of the them, hereditary. Family reputation is a big thing in India.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

In this scenario, who has the moral authority to execute? You?

No, not any one single person, certainly. Hence the reason legal systems considered at all contemporary are not setup that way.

And it doesn't matter that you "disqualified" self-defense from being termed execution. I wasn't making that case. I was asking that people take a look at the actual differences between killing someone who is in the process of committing a murderous crime, but hasn't actually committed it yet, and someone we know is a known killer, possibly of multiples. The difference of being in the moment apparently has SO MUCH IMPACT on our judgment of the act of removing those people from the world. Why is that?

 

[Stevicus]

When a society fails to punish criminals in a way thought to be proportionate to the gravity of the crime, the danger arises that the public would take the law into its own hands, resulting in vigilante justice, lynch mobs, and private acts of retribution. The outcome is likely to be an anarchistic, insecure state of injustice."

- Dr. Louis Paul Pojman

That may be where we're headed anyway, since it's in the eye of the beholder whether a punishment is proportionate to the gravity of the crime. People can be just as likely to react negatively if they feel a punishment is too harsh or unfair (or if it later turns out the person is innocent). If there are inconsistencies, such as a disproportionate number of racial minorities or poor people who are executed, while rich people (who can afford better attorneys and bribe money) get lighter sentences (or get off scot-free), then it's hardly much of a system of "justice."

As long as the same rules and standards of evidence and guilt are applied to everyone equally and consistently across the board, then that might work.

Since society's interests are at stake, then the punishment should also be proportionate to the damage to society caused by the criminal act. For example, a corrupt politician or corporate executive might cause greater damage by their crimes than the typical lower class murderer. A number of years ago, the executives at Firestone were faced with the decision of having to recall a tire, but they determined that the expected lawsuits would cost the company less money than an actual recall. So, they decided to forego the recall, let people die from faulty tires blowing out, then pay out in wrongful death lawsuits. I can see where an execution might have been more of a deterrent for people in that position.

Or let's say a patient in a hospital who needs a medical procedure which is denied by an insurance company bureaucrat. If that patient dies when they could have been saved, then that insurance company employee who made the decision to deny the procedure should be considered a murderer and executed on that basis.

But until society is ready to dispense real justice in this country, then it's patently unfair and egregious to only go after poor people.

 

[BSM1]

I definitely do not see any reason to believe that capital punishment is an effective deterrent to crime, rather the opposites as it seems to create more mass shootings followed by suicide. What have they got to lose?

Neverminding that we have no idea how 'minimal' it is, and that the number of exonerated should not be taken as number of innocent, the risk of executing innocents 'for the greater good' is a non-starter for me. To me that kind of utilitarianism just leads to half-assing.

Capital punishment, like all judicial sentences, has never been a deterrent to crime; and it never was meant to be. If this were the case there would conceivably be no crime by now. Capital punishment is just that--punishment. Like the man said, "You do the crime, you do the time". The punishment should reflect the severity of the crime.

 

[Silverscale derg]

Measured by your own personal moral standards, when it is justifiable to take the life of another being by execution?

Does this standard vary from your religious or spiritual beliefs? If so, how?



*For the purpose of this thread, 'execution' is defined as taking the life of another being in a premeditated fashion against his/her will when there is no immediate danger to the executioner and s/he is not acting is self-defense.


*Edit: Adjusted the definition of 'execution' to exclude those who want to end their own lives voluntarily.

Taking the life of another being just for the hell of it is immoral, yet if such an act feeds you then I don't mind. I know you intend "being" to be human or whatever but i'm including other animals. Hunting for example, some hunt wolves, coyotes, bob cats, and other predators yet for "population control" they're killed along with phrases like "saved a fawn" which will be killed later in the year. If the life is taken by a human then the human wasn't in danger considering they were sitting and calling for them to come.

 

[Poisonshady313]

If there are inconsistencies, such as a disproportionate number of racial minorities or poor people who are executed, while rich people (who can afford better attorneys and bribe money) get lighter sentences (or get off scot-free), then it's hardly much of a system of "justice."

I don't have stats regarding their economic situation, but 80% of people executed in 2016 were white.

Since society's interests are at stake, then the punishment should also be proportionate to the damage to society caused by the criminal act. For example, a corrupt politician or corporate executive might cause greater damage by their crimes than the typical lower class murderer. A number of years ago, the executives at Firestone were faced with the decision of having to recall a tire, but they determined that the expected lawsuits would cost the company less money than an actual recall. So, they decided to forego the recall, let people die from faulty tires blowing out, then pay out in wrongful death lawsuits. I can see where an execution might have been more of a deterrent for people in that position.

I agree. I believe my first statement in this thread stated that I'm a "punishment should fit the crime" kinda guy.

Or let's say a patient in a hospital who needs a medical procedure which is denied by an insurance company bureaucrat. If that patient dies when they could have been saved, then that insurance company employee who made the decision to deny the procedure should be considered a murderer and executed on that basis.

If it can be proven that the insurance company employee knew that denying that procedure would certainly cause the death of the patient, and then denied it with premeditation and malice aforethought, then fine. The damage caused is only half the story. Murder in the first degree requires intent.

But until society is ready to dispense real justice in this country, then it's patently unfair and egregious to only go after poor people.

I submit that to only go after poor people is patently unfair and egregious regardless of whether or not society is ready to dispense real justice.

One mistake you'll want to try to avoid is confusing sentencing with execution. If your gripe is that too few rich people are held accountable for heinous crimes, I agree with you. But that's not the executioner's fault. That's a problem with law enforcement and/or the courts.

In any given year, can you show evidence that the number of executed individuals were disproportionately poor compared to death row inmates who were not put to death?
Can you show evidence that poor people move from conviction to execution faster than executed middle class people?

 

[Jainarayan]

Capital punishment, like all judicial sentences, has never been a deterrent to crime; and it never was meant to be.

I never did understand the argument that capital punishment is not a deterrent... as you said, of course it's not. It's punishment.

On the other hand, it does deter the person from ever committing another crime. Or buying a lemon ice at the corner Dairy Queen, for that matter.

Wait, wut?

 

[Vouthon]

I am completely opposed to the taking of human life. No execution is justified or necessary, for any crime or none.

 

[Jainarayan]

I am completely opposed to the taking of human life. No execution is justified or necessary, for any crime or none.

Not even Jesus's?

 

[Vouthon]

Not even Jesus's?

Jesus was completely innocent of the charges brought against Him. He is the ultimate symbol representing in His person all victims of executions, whether guilty of crimes or not.

I follow Rene Girard in understanding His sacrifice on the cross as being redemptive in the sense that Jesus freely entered into the cycle of violence with the intention of halting it. He was perfectly aware of what the process involved and embraced the role of scapegoat, not to appease the wrath of a vengeful God but the rather the fury of sinful, selfish humans. He substituted himself in the place of all other scapegoats who have endured, and still endure, the unjust violence of society.

In the resurrection, God intervened to vindicate the scapegoat, unmasking and disarming the patterns of societal and personal violence. Christians, as followers of Jesus the willing and vindicated scapegoat, are called to side with all scapegoats and bring a definitive conclusion to the cycle of violence and exclusion, even if it entails ultimately being crucified ourselves.

His death was "necessary" only to the extent that He willing offered himself up to a kangaroo court, corrupt elites, spurious charges and the fury of the baying mob to expose the sinful foundations of the institutionalized cycle of violence. The violence of the mob, of human beings, turned Jesus into a scapegoat. He gave up his life to liberate people from that mentality, the mentality that results in unjust human deaths like His own.

Christianity exonerates victims of collective violence through a supreme, innocent Victim: the Lord Jesus. The climax of scapegoating violence thereby collapses in on itself through itself. As Girard puts it: “God Himself reuses the scapegoat mechanism, at his own expense [in the person of Jesus], in order to subvert it.” An ancient symbol for Jesus – that of a mother pelican wounding herself, striking at her breast with the beak to feed her young with her blood to prevent starvation - captures this belief very well. The Christian sacrifice, or atoning death, is the inversion of all sacrifice, one which tips the scales back against the scapegoating community by mirroring its violence back at itself in the supreme innocence and goodness of Christ the Saviour.

 

[BSM1]

I am completely opposed to the taking of human life. No execution is justified or necessary, for any crime or none.

So how do you feel about the life the criminal took to be in this position in the first place?

 

[Vouthon]

So how do you feel about the life the criminal took to be in this position in the first place?

That innocent victim's life will not be brought back by taking the life of the perpetrator.

Imprisonment is necessary to ensure that the offender will not take other innocent lives but execution is senseless additional bloodletting born of vengeance. It is not justice.

In some societies without secure enough means of incarceration, capital punishment might have been necessary to protect the community from a violent offender. Today, with our very secure prisons, it is utterly unjustified which is why to become a member state of the EU a country must have abolished the death penalty.

Only inhumane societies execute their own citizens as a form of punitive vindictiveness.

 

[djhwoodwerks]

Secondly, wouldn't a life sentence with no possibility of parole would be a long term death sentence anyway?

IMO, that isn't a death sentence ordered by anyone but God. We are all on a long term death sentence. It matters not where he will live out that sentence, it will end the same, unless he is killed in prison, which will probably be the case, so actually by sentencing him to prison as a child rapist and murderer, he is sentenced to death.

Execution sanctioned and administrated by law is justice.

So if the "law" sanctions killing, it's ok?

I believe that it's a mistake to approach criminality in terms of justifiable vengeance,

Agreed!

For example, put them in a high security jail

Are you willing to keep them alive with a place to live, and pay for their food and clothing and fund this high security jail to keep these people in?

 

[djhwoodwerks]

Imprisonment is necessary to ensure that the offender will not take other innocent lives but execution is senseless additional bloodletting born of vengeance.

You do understand that you are paying to keep these people alive and well, right? If someone kills a member of your family, are you going to say, 'put him in prison for life, and I'll pay the bill'?