Is the Death Penalty Constitutional?

[Nous]

Larry Nassar. Sentenced to 175 years for sexual assault of minors. He's already in his 50s. The federal sentence (60 years) is alone to ensure that he will die in prison, and his state sentence of 40-175 years is to be served consecutively.

So...
1) Nobody is claiming that Larry Nassar has been wrongfully convicted.
2) I bet sentencing him to a minimum of 100 years didn't cost as much as a capital punishment case.
3) The judge literally said "I just signed your death warrant"

This individual is essentially a dead man that the state of Michigan is going to provide (for several decades) with food, shelter, medicine, clothes, etc... the things law abiding citizens have to pay for with money they've earned through work. Line up a firing squad and put him out of our misery. There's literally no reason not to.

See the figures cited in the OP. It many times more expensive to carry out a death penalty sentence than to house a prisoner in prison.

 

[Nous]

Do you honestly believe that the "cruel and unusual" punishment was meant by the Framers to include waiting? Or the possibility of some pain during the execution of convicted criminals?
I don't.
I'm totally sure that this is one of those "The Constitution is a living document" arguments, where it's reinterpreted to match somebody's modern beliefs.

Just like the gun rights enthusiasts think that the 2nd amendment was intended to protect the right to own semiautomatic weapons.

I don't think that anybody really takes the Constitution seriously, when it interferes with what they already want to believe. It's like the Bible.

You think that the modern version of cruelty and unusualness is what was meant by the Authors.
I don't think so.

I, personally, don't entirely care what some white slave owners thought that "cruel and unusual " punishment meant, any more than I care about Mosaic Law. Ethics and morality are much more sophisticated (better) than when the various Scriptures were being invented.
Including the current USA scriptures, The Constitution. The Scriptures that are diametrically opposed to the Christian scriptures.

Do you think that the Authors would consider modern methods of Capital Punishment "Cruel and Unusual " punishment?

I just want to mention a couple of things in relation to your above comments. Perhaps I could head off a misunderstanding.

In the first place, as Justice Sotomayor noted in her Glossip dissent:

The relevant legal standard is the standard set forth in the Eighth Amendment. The Constitution there forbids the “inflict[ion]” of “cruel and unusual punishments.” Amdt. 8. The Court has recognized that a “claim that punishment is excessive is judged not by the standards that prevailed in 1685 when Lord Jeffreys presided over the ‘Bloody Assizes’ or when the Bill of Rights was adopted, but rather by those that currently prevail.” Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U. S. 304, 311 (2002) . Indeed, the Constitution prohibits various gruesome punishments that were common in Blackstone’s day. See 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 369–370 (1769) (listing mutilation and dismembering, among other punishments).​

In the second place, the language of the Constitution, and of all Constitutions, is non-specific and somewhat vague, and just sets out general principles. The reason for that is to accommodate an evolving society, new technology, and unanticipated situations and matters. The language is flexible in order for the Constitution to be a "living document" that can remain applicable in 10, 20, or even 100 years.

In other words, there is no true "originalist". For instance, the First Amendment guarantees the free exercise of religion. But we know that the Framers could not have been specifically including Baha'i as a "religion" because there was no such religion at the time. There have been hundreds of new developed religious movements or sects since the time the Constitution was ratified: List of new religious movements - Wikipedia And the Framers certainly were aware that new religions are formed on a regular basis. The specific examples of what qualifies as "religion" or "a religion" are not set in stone, and the Constitution itself does not define the term "religion" nor what an "exercise" of it is.

You might have even been miffed if the members of the Court, when deciding Obergefell, held that "due process" and the Fourteenth Amendment did not include any right of same-sex couples to have their marriages recognized by the state, or for women to be admitted to law school.

 

[columbus]

I just want to mention a couple of things in relation to your above comments. Perhaps I could head off a misunderstanding.

I do understand what you're saying, sort of. But two things:
A) I don't care. I oppose Capital punishment and I don't care what Sotomayor thinks that the Constitution means.

B) If some people interpret the Constitution one way and some another it'll be tough going to declare something as long standing and traditional as CP unconstitutional with real authority.

Tom

 

[Nous]

If some people interpret the Constitution one way and some another it'll be tough going to declare something as long standing and traditional as CP unconstitutional with real authority.

Courts defy tradition every day. Racially segregated schools had a longer tradition in the US than racially integrated schools have had so far. And I don't think the latter is going to revert back to the former.

 

[Poisonshady313]

See the figures cited in the OP. It many times more expensive to carry out a death penalty sentence than to house a prisoner in prison.

In this scenario, why should it cost any more to sign a piece of paper authorizing his execution? The trial is over. He confessed. Nobody is claiming that the confession was coerced. Nobody can say he has been denied due process. He is, in essence, a dead man. The judge made this clear. How much would it cost to line up a firing squad?

 

[Nous]

In this scenario, why should it cost any more to sign a piece of paper authorizing his execution?

The enormously higher costs of capital punishment cases compared to life without parole begin pre-trial with death-qualified prosecutors and defense attorneys. As soon as a prosecutor announces that the death penalty will be sought, there is a flurry of motions that have to be heard, responded to by the other side and ruled on by the judge. It takes much longer for a death penalty case to get to trial; trials are more than twice as long; appeals and non-mandatory reviews of the cases are much more numerous and involved, then there are many layers of mandatory review. Read the legion of just recent studies: Costs of the Death Penalty | Death Penalty Information Center

He confessed.

Confessions are often retracted or inadmissible.

Above you seemed to have the fluffy idea that there would be no problem with just taking Larry Nassar out behind the prison and just shoot him. But you haven't reviewed the trial or any of his appeals to date. You haven't determined that there wasn't a reversible error in the trial or the pre-trial process. Correct?