Parkland, Nikolas Cruz, and the Death Penalty

[sayak83]

You can agree with everything you just said while still not believing the death penalty as a state-sanctioned punishment for breaking certain laws is ethical. To say "person x doesn't deserve to live" or "the world would be better if a person who did x no longer lived in it" does not necessarily conflict with the statement "I believe the state should not have the right to put people to death" or "the death penalty as a criminal punishment is not justified".

Let provide a real historical example from India.
Around 1995, the Indian police arrested a terrorist leader for executing several terrorist attacks. He went to trial, and instead of death penalty, he got life in prison. Then, a few years later, the terror group whose leader he was hijacked an India plane and landed it in Afghanistan where, with the help of the Taliban govt., forced the Indian govt. to release the terrorist leader in exchange for the 200 passengers on the plane. Then this terrorist leader took refuge in Pakistan and planned and executed the Mumbai terrorist attack that killed 400 people.

In my view, some people are too dangerous to be given life sentences and a country should consider whether it has the ability to contain such people from doing future mayhem before deciding such things.

Indian Airlines Flight 814 - Wikipedia

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Let provide a real historical example from India.
Around 1995, the Indian police arrested a terrorist leader for executing several terrorist attacks. He went to trial, and instead of death penalty, he got life in prison. Then, a few years later, the terror group whose leader he was hijacked an India plane and landed it in Afghanistan where, with the help of the Taliban govt., forced the Indian govt. to release the terrorist leader in exchange for the 200 passengers on the plane. Then this terrorist leader took refuge in Pakistan and planned and executed the Mumbai terrorist attack that killed 400 people.

In my view, some people are too dangerous to be given life sentences and a country should consider whether it has the ability to contain such people from doing future mayhem before deciding such things.

Indian Airlines Flight 814 - Wikipedia

It's all well and good to look back in retrospect and say "well, clearly if that person had been executed in the first place, they would not have carried out the terrible things they did", but that's not the point. The point is can the State make a justified determination about which people deserve to live or die, and ensure that a person is definitively guilty before coming to a conclusion. There's no point wringing our hands over what individual instances of the death penalty may have been justified if we're only doing so with the benefit of hindsight, and we cannot base state policy on the assumption that a person retained indefinitely is at all likely to escape any more than we can base state policy on the idea that killing an individual may lead their followers to commit even more terrorist acts. You might as well argue that it would have been better if these people, when they went for an eye appointment in their teens, for the optometrist to put a bullet in their head rather than fit them for glasses.

You also have the issue that death penalties can still take years to carry out, so to argue that that this situation would have been improved by the death penalty makes no sense. These terrorists were broken out of prison five years into their sentence; the average death penalty convict spends over a decade on death row. So, in this case, the application of the death penalty made zero difference. Either way, they could have carried out the attack.

 

[sayak83]

It's all well and good to look back in retrospect and say "well, clearly if that person had been executed in the first place, they would not have carried out the terrible things they did", but that's not the point. The point is can the State make a justified determination about which people deserve to live or die, and ensure that a person is definitively guilty before coming to a conclusion. There's no point wringing our hands over what individual instances of the death penalty may have been justified if we're only doing so with the benefit of hindsight, and we cannot base state policy on the assumption that a person retained indefinitely is at all likely to escape any more than we can base state policy on the idea that killing an individual may lead their followers to commit even more terrorist acts. You might as well argue that it would have been better if these people, when they went for an eye appointment in their teens, for the optometrist to put a bullet in their head rather than fit them for glasses.

You also have the issue that death penalties can still take years to carry out, so to argue that that this situation would have been improved by the death penalty makes no sense. These terrorists were broken out of prison five years into their sentence; the average death penalty convict spends over a decade on death row. So, in this case, the application of the death penalty made zero difference. Either way, they could have carried out the attack.

I am simply pointing out that there exists peoples (leader of terrorist organisations, large drug cartels that run in Latin America or Africa, leaders of countries who have committed large scale massacres and crimes against humanity) who are literally above the power of law in that they are too powerful for most states to be successfully tried and safely incarcerated for their multifarious crimes. The idea only way to stop them is to kill them, just as is done in wars. That is the reality.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

I am simply pointing out that there exists peoples (leader of terrorist organisations, large drug cartels that run in Latin America or Africa, leaders of countries who have committed large scale massacres and crimes against humanity) who are literally above the power of law in that they are too powerful for most states to be successfully tried and safely incarcerated for their multifarious crimes. The idea only way to stop them is to kill them, just as is done in wars. That is the reality.

I understand that, I just don't think that pointing to a single example aids that argument. While it may be justified, once a person is apprehended and brought to justice at the hand of the state, at that point I feel the state no longer should have the right to determine whether or not an individual has a right to life. I am willing to stick by that, and I don't think counter examples of people broken out of prison are a significant opposition to that. Either way, whether the terrorists were in prison or on death row, the result would have been the same.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

What are mitigating circumstances for serial murderers or serial rapists or serial child abusers? Drug addicted parents? Rough upbringing? Brain damage? Again -- what if the serial murderer, rapist, or child abuser gets out of prison, perhaps escapes? It's ok for him to kill again and maybe put him back in jail? Not every state in the U.S. has the death penalty, by the way.

Your rambling post is effectively incoherent.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

The poll is complicated. I am not in support of death penalty unless the person is an existential threat to the state (eg. A Hitler or Pol Pot). But this being US..I wonder if a Latino or African American man did the same thing would the jury still give the same judgement? Justice is not justice if there is no uniformity for given crime.

The poll is not at all complicated.

Yes, the legal system in the U.S. shows substantial evidence of systemic racism. But. while this racism may well warrant extreme caution in supporting a death penalty which one might expect to be disproportionately applied, the poll is addressing a case where systemic racism is not a contributing factor. As such, it is if anything less complicated.

Having said all this, thank you for raising an important consideration.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

@sayak83
@ImmortalFlame

There is little chance that ISIS or Putin will get Nikolas Cruz out of jail so that he might lead a terrorist band in Liechtenstein, so perhaps you might move your interaction to a different thread. Thanks.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

In my opinion, death is easy. Life in prison is not. I think life in prison is the better punishment.

I would agree with that if death soon followed the verdict, and would prefer it for myself to life in prison. But death sentences begin with ten to twenty years of solitary confinement, and as I understand it, that is probably a worse punishment than being in the prison general population for most people, and worse that the actual execution in the estimation of some facing both. According to the UN, 15+ days of solitary confinement is considered torture.

From The research is clear: Solitary confinement causes long-lasting harm | Prison Policy Initiative

"The effects of solitary confinement on mental health can be lethal. Even though people in solitary confinement comprise only 6% to 8% of the total prison population, they account for approximately half of those who die by suicide. [snip] Even if someone doesn’t enter solitary with a mental health condition, it’s possible for them to develop a specific psychiatric syndrome due to the effects of isolation. Dr. Stuart Grassian, who first identified the syndrome, notes that it is characterized by a progressive inability to tolerate ordinary things, such as the sound of plumbing; hallucinations and illusions; severe panic attacks; difficulties with thinking, concentration, and memory; obsessive, sometimes harmful, thoughts that won’t go away; paranoia; problems with impulse control; and delirium."

Here's bit more for those interested at The Yale Law Journal - Forum: Worse than Death . It considers the ethics of solitary, which some consider a worse torture than execution, and refers to prisoners like Timothy McVeigh, who got the death sentence and waived their appeals, preferring a quick execution to years of solitary.

 

[Glaurung]

You are a Catholic, right?

While I have not renounced Catholicism, what I actually believe has become opaque even to myself. The current death penalty teaching is emblematic of one of my main gripes with modern Catholicism. It is not credible to claim immunity from moral error while insisting on blatant reversals of previous moral teaching.

I think it is God who will condemn sinners. It's not up to us mortals decide about the life and death of a person, no matter of how evil they are.

Look up Giovanni Battista Bugatti. The Papal States had no qualms in sending its condemned to a premature trip to the next world. No Catholic power did.

If you want to bring Catholicism into this then you must at least acknowledge the fact that historical Church teaching not only tolerated but endorsed the death penalty.

 

[pearl]

As a Catholic I do not believe in the death penalty. I think life in prison without the possibility of parole is by far crueler sentence. And I think once the victim's families witnessed his electrocution, they would not find any closure or peace they're looking for. Not even the death penalty would in any way make things even.

 

[Glaurung]

You can agree with everything you just said while still not believing the death penalty as a state-sanctioned punishment for breaking certain laws is ethical.

I reject the notion that the death penalty for the most heinous of crimes (where guilt is without doubt) is unethical.

To say "person x doesn't deserve to live" or "the world would be better if a person who did x no longer lived in it" does not necessarily conflict with the statement "I believe the state should not have the right to put people to death" or "the death penalty as a criminal punishment is not justified".

This is where we disagree. I accept the right of a state to put the irredeemable to death. I must stress that my support the death penalty is limited to premediated crimes which have caused multiple deaths. Mass shooters, seral killers, terrorists and war criminals. The irredeemable.

 

[Estro Felino]

If you want to bring Catholicism into this then you must at least acknowledge the fact that historical Church teaching not only tolerated but endorsed the death penalty. It was considered heresy to deny the moral legitimacy of the death penalty.

But back then the Vatican was a criminal entity...
Vatican is not Catholicism.

 

[pearl]

If you want to bring Catholicism into this then you must at least acknowledge the fact that historical Church teaching not only tolerated but endorsed the death penalty.

Yes, it did. I think it was John Paul II who introduced his objection to the death penalty. And many Catholics disagreed with him, including Justice Anton Scalia, who believed the death penalty was appropriate and denounced the new Catechism of John Paul II.

 

[Heyo]

I reject the notion that the death penalty for the most heinous of crimes (where guilt is without doubt) is unethical.

Some people might disagree:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

I still say the victims family and friends should decide his fate one way or the other. Not a jury panel composed of strangers.

Great way to start a vendetta.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

I think so,nobody complained much when an operation was sent to Pakistan to kill Osama bin Laden,he was a premeditated murderer too.

He was not yet contained, and therefore in a position to inflict more wanton death and destruction. A prisoner strapped to a table is not a threat to anyone any longer.

 

[an anarchist]

Personally, I think Mr Cruz should be tied to one of those medieval torture racks and then he should be pulled apart.

 

[England my lionheart]

He was not yet contained, and therefore in a position to inflict more wanton death and destruction. A prisoner strapped to a table is not a threat to anyone any longer.

Ok maybe “no longer a threat” but in a country where you can get an assault rifle or a myriad of other weapons legally it would send a message that if you misuse them there are dire consequences,ie death and in this case there is no doubt.

Or because he isn’t a threat any longer he can rot in prison,he has a long way to go because he’s young,he’ll get special treatment and segregated from other criminals because he killed children,he’ll live a miserable life,is that better than instant death?.

 

[fantome profane]

Ok maybe “no longer a threat” but in a country where you can get an assault rifle or a myriad of other weapons legally it would send a message that if you misuse them there are dire consequences,ie death and in this case there is no doubt.

I understand why you would think that. You are thinking like a rational person.

But the people who commit mass murder are not thinking like rational people. Obviously. And the reality, contrary to what a rational person would guess, the death penalty does not deter crimes like this. Often the people who commit these kind of mass shootings want to die, they fantasize about a "glorious death". Going out in a "blaze of glory". Either being shot by a cop, or being getting the death penalty.

Life in prison would be more of a deterrent than the death penalty.

I think they should do more to publicize what prison life is like. Show people living without any choice about what to eat, what to wear, when to sleep, when to wake up etc, day in and day out. That might be more of a deterrent.

 

[England my lionheart]

As a Catholic I do not believe in the death penalty. I think life in prison without the possibility of parole is by far crueler sentence. And I think once the victim's families witnessed his electrocution, they would not find any closure or peace they're looking for. Not even the death penalty would in any way make things even.

So if it’s crueler to give a life sentence without parole it must be kinder to put the murderer out of their misery?.