capital punishment?

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LOL, aren't you the sharp one?

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I did to make a point. Don't tell me you missed it.

And so was I, the reason capital crimes cost 3 million dollars more than a non capital crime is because they receive a great deal of additional scrutiny and review and thus require a lot of time. Inmates can wait decades before execution. So, as I said in my last post, given the additional scrutiny and review capital crime cases receive, the error rate should be significantly less.

 

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Yeah, a survey. You got something better?

I think I said that, but I also said, that the capital crime error rate should be significantly less given the additional judicial review and scrutiny they receive. The cases you cited are decades old. Given the additional review they receive, it takes decades to execute a convicted criminal.

So you think all the additional review, the additional 3 million dollars per case spent on these cases makes them more likely to be wrong.....seriously? And where is your evidence for that one?

LOL, DNA is science Iceaura. DNA has nothing to do with Hogwarts or Harry Potter.

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Unfortunately for you Iceaura fact, reason and science do matter.

Where do you get the notion the Unabomber, McVeigh and the Freeway Sniper (which one) would not qualify for capital punishment? As for deterrence, people tend to avoid things which lead to pain, fear and death. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to think death will incent some individuals to not kill. But as has been endlessly discussed with you, deterrence isn't the only benefit afforded by the death penalty. As has been endlessly pointed out to you some murders have pled guilty, your Ted Kaczynski being a case in point. Others have made similar confessions in order to avoid he death penalty, and in some cases confessed to murders which were hitherto unknown by law enforcement. And those confessions have provided the families of victims the knowledge of what happened to their loved ones and the bodies of their loved ones. Things they would not have had were it not for the confession brought about by the murder's motivation to avoid the death penalty. The death penalty is a great bargaining tool and death definitely prevents a convicted murder from reoffending, from killing another inmate, a guard, or someone else.


Once again for your edification:

"What gets little notice, however, is a series of academic studies over the last half-dozen years that claim to settle a once hotly debated argument — whether the death penalty acts as a deterrent to murder. The analyses say yes. They count between three and 18 lives that would be saved by the execution of each convicted killer.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/death-penalty-deters-murders-studies-say/

 

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It has been tried. In the Soviet Union there was imposes death penalty for rape in the 1960s. The result was as expected by economic theory, the number of rapes decreased, the number of rapes in combination with murdering the rape victim increased.

So, if you think that it does not matter if some rape victims will be killed (ok, I will not make hypotheses why some people may think that way), then it makes sense to argue for death penalty for rape. Else, I would think, not.

 

I'm not arguing the death penalty for ALL rapes and neither am I asking for the death penalty for ALL murders.
The death penalty should be used in circumstances where guilt is positive, and the crime of the most violent heinous kind imaginable.

 

I suggest you check it out. All I've seen from you are beliefs based on egregiously erroneous unsupported beliefs (e.g. 20% conviction error rates).

 

This does not change anything. My argument is that there should be a large difference between penalties for murder and those for other felonies, because without a large enough difference it becomes rational for the criminal to kill his victim.

Killing the victim clearly increases the chance to get away: The victim or a witness cannot go immediately to the police and tell everything what it knows. There may be high rates of disclosure for murder, given that police will spend more on murder cases, but if the murderer succeeds to hide the corpse, there may be no murder case, thus, the real rate of success for the murderer is difficult to estimate. It is, anyway, quite plausible that many criminals will expect that killing the victim or witness will increase his chance to get away. To compensate this, you need a sufficiently large difference in the expected penalties. This argument is completely independent of the crime itself, except that it is different from murder.

If you argue that nonetheless some rapes should be punished by death, this would in the best case only reduce the number of additional cases of rape followed by murder. But this is not very probable. Last but not least, the rapist is usually not a lawyer, who can be sure that his personal case of rape will be classified as a minor one, which will not be punished by death. Criminals may be expected to know the range of possible penalties, but not much more. Given that the most horrible cases will be presented much more in the media, he will even tend to overestimate the penalty he has to expect. To motivate him not to kill the victim, one has to make him sure that in this case he will go out of the prison in some future.

 

So let a bunch of gang rapists do what they please, short of murder?
Are you aware of what has occurred with gang rapes on some ocassions?
We could not even discuss it here.

 

Of course, not. But punish them with a penalty less than that for murder.

Would this make the life of the victim worthless?

 

Chemical Castration, and de-knacker them?

In many cases yes, most definitely.

 

Anything would be be better than a voluntary survey of the cooperative members of such an obviously biased and unrepresentative group. Flipping a coin would be better. Your survey is a joke.

And yes, I did - and posted it for you. The Illinois DNA results from the innocence project. The DNA evidence you keep talking about as if it solves all your problems with State malfeasance, the physical evidence, remember?

You pretending you can restrict your State to only killing people that DNA evidence has actually and honestly proved are guilty is Hogwarts all the way.
But you weren't paying attention to what you were saying, as this shows:

From your criterion of DNA evidence.

I think the emotional furor and political pressures and obvious State agendas surrounding typical capital cases is what has made them so likely to go wrong - in all States, throughout history, btw.

So coerced confessions to crimes otherwise unsolved are in your view an unquestioned benefit of the State power to kill. Interesting.

You have seen three contrasting examples of that threat in action: Unabomber, where the promise to not carry that threat out led to his capture and the saving of many lives; the "wilding" New York scandal, where the absence of that threat and its coerced confessions etc was a key factor in the exoneration of five innocent young men and the solving of a major crime; the Oklahoma City bombing, where the presence of that threat allowed the main actor in the crime to escape coercion as well as remorse and deny us information permanently.

And you believe that very dubious claim, take the word of that very biased and rigged presentation of the issue, despite the analyses, evidence, better studies, and visible problems with it I (and others) linked for you and pointed out to you, because you want to.

You want to believe in the benefits of the death penalty so badly you are not only willing to take as "fact" the most dubious of statistically shaky study conclusions without even considering their deficiencies, but bent on ignoring all the actual arguments against the death penalty in favor of that single dubiously claimed benefit.

You do realize that the deterrence effect of killing people, if any, works just as well regardless of the guilt or innocence of the person killed - right? That deterrence is claimed to work better (by the same people who claim it works) if the killing is public and ritualized and as inhumane as the State can get away with? You realize what you are arguing for?

It's even common (to the point of being normal) for governments to kill people that everyone knows are innocent - as a deterrence. It's common for governments to torture people they are permitted to kill, in the safety of knowing that the witness is not going to testify against them. And so forth. These are among the risks you favor taking.

Why? Why do people want to find justification for capital punishment?

 

LOL, the answer is no. You have nothing to support your beliefs and claims. Unfortunately for you Iceaura, fact and reason do matter. There is nothing wrong with surveys and if you knew anything about math and science you would know that. What do you think so much is invested in the political polling conducted weekly and reported weekly by news agencies? Because polling (i.e. surveys) is valid. You do realize the government has an entire agency devoted to polling. It's called the Census Bureau. The government surveys the nation monthly on a number of issues. So just because reality isn't consistent with your ideological beliefs it doesn't follow that reality is somehow not real. Yeah, unfortunately for you Iceaura, facts do matter.

Ah, no. You are making stuff up again. I never said DNA solves all problems. I did say that with the advent and use of DNA testing it has significantly improved the ability of police and courts to determine guilt beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Who is pretending? Are you telling me overwhelming evidence doesn't exist for anything or any crime? Is that your position? Are you telling me the evidence against Bundy, Kaczynski, et al isn't overwhelming?

As has been repeatedly expressed to you, DNA is science. It has nothing o do with Hogwarts or the magical thinking you so love. It's hard science. It's one of the many facts you like to ignore. The fact is DNA science has made it much easier to determine guilt. It's really difficult for criminals to explain away how their DNA is where it isn't suppose to be.

Oh, and how is that so? You were asked a very specific question. I'll repeat it once again for your edification, "Where do you get the notion the Unabomber, McVeigh and the Freeway Sniper (which one) would not qualify for capital punishment?".

Well here, as with almost all of your assertions, you have no evidence to back up your assertions. Where is your evidence that capital cases are "so likely to go wrong"? We have already established you don't have any such evidence. But, hey, you were never one to let little things like lack of evidence get in the way of your ideological beliefs. As you should well know, coerced confessions are illegal under the 5th and 14th Amendments and grounds for prosecutorial misconduct and for dismissal of the case.

Well if you had read my last post you would know your assertion. your "examples" here are untrue. I suggest you go back and read my last post or do some research on your own.

Well there is nothing dubious or biased about science and scientific research. Your problem here is you are on the wrong end of fact and reason. Your beliefs are not supported by scientific research.

LOL, well here is the thing, you haven't been able to prove any of your assertions including your assertion that the studies I cited are somehow "statistically shaky" and you haven't been able to offer ANY scientific research in support of your beliefs...NONE, NADA.

I think you are doing a lot of projection here. I am not wedded to any position here but fact and reason. If you can demonstrate some error in my fact and reason or provide some scientific evidence to back up your beliefs, I would be happy to change my position. But as repeatedly pointed out, you haven't done that. All you have, is pretty much all ever have, little if any fact and reason melded to a passionate ideological belief.

And you think that makes sense? Two, as previously pointed out, deterrence is just one benefit of capital punishment. There are others and they have been discussed. I suggest you go back and read them.

Earth to Iceaura.....

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It's a matter of what works and what doesn't work, and it's more than deterrence as has been endlessly explained to you and repeatedly ignored by you. It really is that simple. It's a matter of science and reason.

Well, unfortunately for you Iceaura, facts do matter. And you have NO evidence to support your beliefs.

 

People, me anyway, are not trying to find justification for capital punishment.
The brutality, the viciousness and heinous nature of some crimes illuminate that justification for all to see.

 

No, they don't. They present instead a puzzle - in what way does the heinousness of some crimes justify the State killing people who are captured and caged - no threat to commit them.

It makes sense that a witness or victim or rescuer would kill even the would-be perpetrator of a vicious crime - their interests are open and straightforward, the threat real. But the State? That's a whole new can of worms and corrupt agendas.

Yes, it does. It is also your claim - you are claiming a deterrent effect for US capital punishment, for example, established without differentiating between the guilty and the innocent.

It is even common for the more totalitarian governments to kill people on obviously fictional grounds, as a deterrent to defiance. If you don't prevent them, most governments will do things like that. We have seen suggestions of this in recent US anti-terrorist torture programs - for example the obviously false confessions of Khalid Sheik Muhammed after being waterboarded into unconsciousness more than fifty times, were published and publicized by the CIA. That the CIA was unaware of the several inconsistencies and conflicts with physical reality therein seems all but impossible, which implies the obvious.

So you didn't read my links, follow my arguments, or pay any attention to my observations. Yet you have opinions about them.

They are completely and factually accurate. You have posted nothing contradicting them, nor could you.

So you should at least attempt to address the issues they illustrate, in particular the costs and effects of having the State kill people the State has determined should be killed, and the benefits gained by not permitting the State to kill any of its citizens on purpose.

But it isn't, as the Illinois situation and the Texas situation and so forth demonstrate. So where did you go wrong in your reasoning?

Perhaps this will help you get your head around this apparently deeply confusing topic: http://articles.latimes.com/2000/jul/15/news/mn-53250

My guess is you are making assumptions about the good will and honesty and sound agenda and diligence and willingness to incur large expenses on behalf of the perp and so forth, of the agents of the State involved. In the US a simple head count of the racial makeup of death row should disabuse you of such naivety, if a moment's reflection on the human nature of government functionaries and their behavior under public scrutiny and pressure does not immediately accomplish that long overdue reformation.

 

In the ways previously expressed to you. What you don’t understand English? Denial isn’t a river in Egypt.

Well, isn’t it surprising? You like our right wing neighbors fear the state. Here s the thing, evidence matters.

Denial isn’t a river in Egypt. We have been through this many times now. What is being argued is the death penalty in cases where guilt is overwhelming and guilt is certain and only for particularly heinous crimes.

Then there is the issue of deterrence and the previously referenced studies which have found the death penalty is a deterrent and as previously and repeatedly mentioned deterrence isn’t the only value provided by capital punishment. You like to ignore all the other benefits. You haven't even mentioned them. Gee, I wonder why.

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Additionally, you have gone back to misrepresenting my posts by attributing your prior posts to me. That is dishonest. I didn’t right the lion’s share of the material you attributed to me. You did.

Well, we are not talking about totalitarian governments here. The US isn’t a totalitarian government. We are not talking about torture. Torture is illegal in the US. Can you point to even one death penalty case in which torture was used to induce a confession and that confession was the basis for the death penalty? No you can’t, because it hasn’t happened. When was the last time the CIA was involved in a death penalty case? The CIA is an intelligence gathering agency, not a law enforcement agency.
Your argument here is just more disconnected thinking and chaff.

You are being dishonest again Iceaura. You have a habit of claiming material in your links which isn’t there. Unfortunately, this is your typical obfuscation. You have a long history of claiming your URLs have information which they clearly do not have.
I suggest you pull the specific text from your URL which you think provides the evidence you claim exists. We both know it doesn’t exist.

This issue you asserted costs exists, but you have yet to provide any evidence much less quantified and supported your cost claims. You might as well say the Sun is blue. You would have the equivalent evidence. So where is the evidence? Where is the quantification?

We have already discussed the additional legal costs to prosecute and execute a prisoner. Contrary to your assertions, death penalty cases do receive a lot of extra scrutiny and review and that carries a 3 million dollar price tag on average. Death penalty cases should receive the highest level of review given the gravity and finality of the punishment, and they do.

And has McFarland, the guy your article been executed? No he hasn’t…one of “dem” facts again. McFarland was tried and found guilty 23 years ago and he is still appealing his case. Additionally, under the standard being advocated here, he would not qualify for the death penalty. The evidence in his case is not overwhelming because it is based largely on the testimony members of his family nor was it horrific. It was an armed robbery which resulted in a murder. And one more point, the sleeping lawyer was hired by McFarland and McFarland was represented by other lawyers during that trial. So your “example” isn’t one which supports your argument. Let me remind you one more time what is being advocated here, the death penalty where proof of guilt is overwhelming, and examples have been given, and the crimes have been particularly horrific.

Earth to Iceaura…this has nothing to do with race although you seem to want to turn everything into a discussion of race. As we have discussed many times before the best predictor of crime is economic prosperity or the lack there of and more blacks are poor. Therefore more blacks end up in prison. Just because there are disproportionate numbers of blacks in prison it isn’t proof of some vast prosecutorial conspiracy to imprison blacks or wide spread judicial racism. In order to make that kind of assertion you need evidence, the kind of evidence you lack and abhor.

As I have written many times before, the US justice system like every other system of justice has problems. The main one being the quality of legal assistance provided to the poor and folks of limited means. But that doesn’t apply to this discussion, because as evidenced by the lengthy time it takes to execute a convicted murder, the legal reviews are extensive and very time consuming. That’s why your man Ferguson has yet to be executed some 23 years later.

 

Here once again are a few of the links I have provided for you, correcting your various and sundry errors and misinformation postings, and providing you with dozens of links to actual studies for you to refer to when you refer to studies (including the one you did refer to via biased article reference, which you can find complete along with several others debunking it in the first link below):
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/discussion-recent-deterrence-studies
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1745-9125.2009.00168.x/abstract ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Park_jogger_case
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/crimes-punishable-death-penalty
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/those-executed-who-did-not-directly-kill-victim
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_McVeigh

You didn't reference studies, but a biased and poorly written CNN article about a few studies. I linked you to a source for the actual studies your CNN article referenced, and also the many more and better done studies and arguments that show their conclusions to be invalid. You have addressed none of that, but continued to refer to your article as if its assertions were "facts".

Four or five times now, considered specifically and argued against. With illustrative examples.

The only reason the guy whose lawyer fell asleep in court was not killed by the State twenty years ago is because his lawyer actually fell asleep in the courtroom, several times, in front of a conscientious judge. If all that lawyer had done was fail to prepare his case, fail to visit the crime scene, fail to attend to jury selection, and so forth, the guy would have been executed.

Heaven forbid your pleasant dreams

of a world in which the DAs with political ambitions and the racially bigoted sheriffs and the officials under public pressure to do something and the taxpayers confronted with the actual price of competent public defenders and the government agencies cornered by embarrassing potential revelations and the secret agents fighting the dirty wars and so forth, all carefully discern and voluntarily follow the scrupulous intentions underlying your handwaving references to standards of proof and horrificness and whatever else your desire to have the State kill bad people has conjured into existence,

be interrupted,

but out here in a world that includes the CIA of Iran/Contra cocaine smuggling and Gitmo torture cells and KSM's confession to capital crimes, the Presidential candidates of John Bush and Hilary Clinton, the judicial systems of Florida, Illinois, Ohio, and Texas, and so forth, you are going to need one of those magic wands with a real Phoenix feather in it to make these dreams come true.

Because right now you haven't got a single example of such a paragon of a judicial system to point at, anywhere on this planet.

And the costs of State killings are not going to wait for you, before accruing.