Is the Death Penalty Constitutional?

[Shadow Wolf]

By strict definitions, it is probably not unconstitutional. However, in it's application, it may be. It is disproportionately applied to black people (especially if the victim is white), it is a lengthy and expensive process, you cannot bring someone wrongfully killed back to life, and studies do not support the idea it works as a deterrent.

 

[Nous]

I'm sure some still get wrongly convicted, but it is far less likely now.

That is undoubtedly of little comfort to those who are wrongly convicted and wrongly executed.

Here's one study Justice Breyer cited demonstrating the arbitrary application of the death penalty:

A recent study, for example, examined all death penalty sentences imposed between 1973 and 2007 in Connecticut, a State that abolished the death penalty in 2012. Donohue, An Empirical Evaluation of the Connecticut Death Penalty System Since 1973: Are There Unlawful Racial, Gender, and Geographic Disparities? 11 J. Empirical Legal Studies 637 (2014). The study reviewed treatment of all homicide defendants. It found 205 instances in which Connecticut law made the defendant eligible for a death sentence. Id., at 641–643. Courts imposed a death sentence in 12 of these 205 cases, of which 9 were sustained on appeal. Id., at 641. The study then measured the “egregiousness” of the murderer’s conduct in those 9 cases, developing a system of metrics designed to do so. Id., at 643–645. It then compared the egregiousness of the conduct of the 9 defendants sentenced to death with the egregiousness of the conduct of defendants in the remaining 196 cases (those in which the defendant, though found guilty of a death-eligible offense, was ultimately not sentenced to death). Application of the studies’ metrics made clear that only 1 of those 9 defendants was indeed the “worst of the worst” (or was, at least, within the 15% considered most “egregious”). The remaining eight were not. Their behavior was no worse than the behavior of at least 33 and as many as 170 other defendants (out of a total pool of 205) who had not been sentenced to death. Id., at 678–679.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/14-7955#writing-14-7955_DISSENT_6

As Breyer and several other justices have noted, the fact that it is so unlikely than a murderer will receive the death penalty is only a fact that indicates the penalty cannot be a deterrence.

BTW: the reason that it is today it is "far less likely" that someone will be wrongly convicted. given the death penalty and executed is because of the years and years of appeals and scrutiny of death penalty sentences. Your recommendation that executions happen within a year of sentence certainly guarantee that many innocent and wrongly convicted people will be executed.

For instance - medications. They all have problems - causing cancer, killing people, etc.

Even Aspirin kills people. We don't scream for Aspirin to be taken off the shelf.

I have no idea of what your point here is supposed to be. There is nothing analogous between the death penalty and someone voluntarily taking an aspirin and dying.

 

[Wirey]

Rarity doesn't mean cruel and unusual. I'm against the death penalty and I think that argument is specious.

 

[Nous]

Rarity doesn't mean cruel and unusual.

Rarity doesn't mean unusual? What dictionary are you reading?

Rare: 1. coming or occurring far apart in time; unusual; uncommon.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/rare?s=t

 

[freethinker44]

Rarity doesn't mean unusual? What dictionary are you reading?

Rare: 1. coming or occurring far apart in time; unusual; uncommon.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/rare?s=t

Unusual occurrence and unusual method and amount are not the same.

Context is a hell of a drug.
Same words + different context = different meaning

 

[Smart_Guy]

I think there should be other options. Not sure what, but I'm confused which to pic of the current two.

I believe that death penalty is indeed cruel, but I think the question should be something like if is it acceptable or not. I personally don't like the death penalty, but I believe it should be there as an option, and it has to be so strictly investigated and confirmed before application. Otherwise, I call for dropping it if there is the least doubt about it.

To be killed is generally most undesirable.
So the threat of being killed as punishment for killing is no mere irony.
The real questions are.....
1) Are the verdicts reliable enuf?
2) Does it have the intended effect of disincentivizing crime?

Regarding #1, I say no.
Regarding #2, I don't know.

What do you think of honest confessions for crimes that you believe deserve the death penalty? Do you consider that a verdict reliable enough?

 

[Revoltingest]

What do you think of honest confessions for crimes that you believe deserve the death penalty? Do you consider that a verdict reliable enough?

Then we have the problem of authorities coercing false confessions.
This happens.
I'm OK with executing the perps when we're reasonably certain.
But that's a hard standard to meet, & I don't know how to define the criteria for it.

 

[Wirey]

Rarity doesn't mean unusual? What dictionary are you reading?

Rare: 1. coming or occurring far apart in time; unusual; uncommon.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/rare?s=t

Lottery wins are rare. They are hardly cruel.

 

[Revoltingest]

Lottery wins are rare. They are hardly cruel.

They are to me.
I don't play, so I seethe with agonizing envy at the winners!

Hey.....this was my 77777th post!

 

[Smart_Guy]

Then we have the problem of authorities coercing false confessions.
This happens.
I'm OK with executing the perps when we're reasonably certain.
But that's a hard standard to meet, & I don't know how to define the criteria for it.

Why would anyone give a false confession to get a death penalty?

 

[Revoltingest]

Why would anyone give a false confession to get a death penalty?

Some possibilities.....
- Being tricked by cops or the prosecution.
- To avoid being beaten up by cops.
- Error.
- To protect someone else.
I'll bet that other reasons have cropped up.

 

[Smart_Guy]

Some possibilities.....
- Being tricked by cops or the prosecution.
- To avoid being beaten up by cops.
- Error.
- To protect someone else.
I'll bet that other reasons have cropped up.

Oh, you mean like in the movies?

Come one now

 

[McBell]

Why would anyone give a false confession to get a death penalty?

Suicide by cop
Protecting someone else
Fifteen minutes of fame

 

[Revoltingest]

Oh, you mean like in the movies?
Come one now

I was thinking of real life & additional possibilities.
False confessions happen.

 

[Smart_Guy]

Suicide by cop
Protecting someone else
Fifteen minutes of fame

Let's imagine it happens that way. Then it would be their own wish to die like that. They want it, they get it.

I was thinking of real life & additional possibilities.
False confessions happen.

Hmm... never heard of one before for a death penalty; our topic. But yeah, I guess it would happen. You heard of at least one from a reliable source, right?

 

[Neo Deist]

Yes it works, if implemented properly.

Vlad Tepes (look him up) put a golden chalice on the town's well. If anyone took it, they would be executed via impalement. Their bodies would be left to rot as well as feed carrion birds. The chalice stayed there for years during his reign.

There is nothing to fear about being put to permanent sleep via lethal injection. Bring back some barbaric methods and you'll see it have an affect on crime.

 

[Nous]

Unusual occurrence and unusual method and amount are not the same.

What distinction are you making? Is cutting off person’s hands for theft an “unusual occurrence” or an “unusual method” of punishment?

 

[Nous]

Lottery wins are rare. They are hardly cruel.

Did you see an argument in Breyer’s dissent that suggested “rare” means “cruel”? If so, please quote it.

 

[Nous]

I think there should be other options. Not sure what, but I'm confused which to pic of the current two.

I believe that death penalty is indeed cruel, but I think the question should be something like if is it acceptable or not. I personally don't like the death penalty, but I believe it should be there as an option, and it has to be so strictly investigated and confirmed before application. Otherwise, I call for dropping it if there is the least doubt about it.

The Eighth Amendment forbids punishments that are "cruel and unusual". By acknowledging that the death penalty is cruel, you are half-way there.

If you have any recommendations for more "strictly" investigating a death sentence, I'm sure authorities would like to know them. As of 15 years ago, each death sentence and execution in Florida entailed an expenditure of $23 million over and above the cost of housing, feeding and providing basic medical care for the inmate for the rest of his life (which I think is generally about $35,000 per year?); apparently this extra cost is mostly due to appeals and scrutiny of the case by courts. Even then, after ~12 years some 4% of actually innocent people are sentenced to death and executed, and some 60% receive trials in which there was judicial error. It seems to me these enormous amounts of money are better spent providing services and infrastructure for the vast numbers of law-abiding people rather than trying to extract an eye for an eye purely as retribution.

What do you think of honest confessions for crimes that you believe deserve the death penalty? Do you consider that a verdict reliable enough?

Not at all. People make false confessions to crimes all the time.

 

[Nous]

Hmm... never heard of one before for a death penalty; our topic. But yeah, I guess it would happen. You heard of at least one from a reliable source, right?

The Innocence Project has secured the exoneration of at least one (and maybe 2) people who falsely confessed to a murder.