Here is a death penalty candidate

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I'm getting it from this comment.

It is possible to create a self-sustaining prison that is no cost to the tax payers. It could be 1000 people that are not prisoners or that are. There are cities with a population of 1000 that pull their weight. There is no reason why we can't do this inside a circular wall. There is absolutely no reason why this can't happen with prisoners. Your stuck on stupid. I don't mean you personally, but the American way of doing it being stupid. You have to think outside the box to see it as self-sustainable.

You've brought up a great idea with probation. I agree strongly with that. But, for the harsher crimes, where parole is not an option, we need self-sustaining prisons. And it's practical and possible. We have to remove the predatory contractors (and employers) from the scenario and remove the backwards philosophy on how to run them.

They actually could be democratically run by the prisoners themselves, lowering the cost for guards. If you don't get up for work, you have to deal with who you voted in. If you don't work, you loose basic incentives. Work would be the only survival mechanism.

Again, most Americans will be stuck on stupid on this democratically run idea, because that the only box they know.

Probation idea is practical, it makes sense...

 

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The topic is not criminal justice? What other topic have I introduced?
:bugeye:

Why are you arguing this? You want to add the death penalty for certain crimes other than murder. Therefore you don't care whether the condemned committed murder or not, you're still going to execute them. It's one thing not to see the legal and ethical fallacy in that, and entirely another to argue that this is not your platform.

That's what I thought when I read the OP, but where I've confronted the issues, you simply cave in. To avoid motor-mouthing, all we have to do is stick to determining the truth or fiction of an issue.

So far you have not answered the #1 challenge to your idea: in a just and ethical society the severity of he punishment must be proportional to the severity of the crime. This is precisely why there is no death penalty for lesser crimes at present.

You ever see (or read) Twelve Angry Men? You remind me of the last juror, the one that was crazy for the death penalty.

Here you are just evading the issue. My statement is this: when you increase the punishment to extremely harsh levels, you give the criminal defendant an incentive to murder witnesses. He has nothing lo lose. If he's facing 10 years for fraud, and he finds out somebody knows too much, he is curently deterred from killing them, by the death penalty for murder. When you apply the death penalty across the board for lesser crimes, you eliminate the deterrent effect by creating a huge mass of desperate criminals.

No, if they don't want to be punished they will invent stealthier ways to avoid detection, and they will invent a tougher response, like killing witnesses. And if and when the police close in on them, they will take hostages, spray bullets into crowds and engage the cops in bloody shootouts. Under your plan, something as minor as fraud escalates into battles to the death.

It's a huge deal and your failure to recognize this puts you way, way out on the fringe.

Try to grasp the severity of your clash against the 8th Amendment: "there shall be no cruel and unusual punishments". How would you have that rewritten: "Cruel and unusual punishments are hereby permitted"? You need 2/3 of the House and Senate--plus 75% of all state legislatures--to go along with that language. It's ridiculous.

All of the state constitutions will have to be amended, too, including any of the 25% that didn't ratify. And any state that balks will create an unending legal battle over states rights, unless you're planning on eliminating statehood, too.

All the treaties--like the Geneva convention--concerning rules of war and human rights will have to be amended. Those are reciprocal agreements, so the rest of the world will have to amend their treaties with us, like:"No prisoner of war, except Americans, shall be subjected to cruel and unusual punishments, including: execution, torture, rape, starvation, severe pain,..." or however they are currently worded. And you think Congress won't think about this before they jump in an amend all of our world treaties?

In other words, your idea about how things work is just plain naive. Thus, your remark "big deal".
:shrug:

You haven't told us how many millions of people are going to death row under your plan, so we don't even know what to do with the prisons. Again your naive view of the world opens can after can of worms.

We will be engaged in more wars than ever before, because we won't have allies. A lot of them will sever relations with us as soon as we legalize cruelty.

My statement to the other comments about cutting the cost of prisons was to grant parole and probation when eligible. Under your system we have no idea how to treat all the other crimes because you are overturning the foundations of the Constitution with regard to fundamental fairness. Every other crime will now be subject to cruel punishment. If you think there's no cost issue think again. You are basically putting the whole country behind razor wire.

Good point. He only killed dozens. You're going to be killing millions.

You mean because I shot holes in your sadistic scheme?
I'm not the first and I won't be the last.

 

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An innocent person in prison can be released and compensated for his wrongful imprisonment. A dead person cannot be returned to the living and cannot be compensated in any way, ever. Yes, the time spent in prison is gone forever, but some level of redress is possible.

You keep asserting that"by my logic" all prisoners must go free, but that just does not follow from my position. Reverse that logic...you seem to believe that it is okay to keep guilty people in prison, yet I cannot conclude that you would say "all prisoners should be executed". Why not? Surely if the two punishments are equivalent, then there is no strict need to ever imprison anyone, as it is equivalent to simply execute them, no matter what their crime.

I doubt you believe that, and the reason you don't is very likely that you understand that imprisonment is a lesser punishment than execution. For the very same reason one can eschew the use of execution, but condone imprisonment as a compromise.

Does that mean we imprison the innocent? Yes. Is that inconsistent with my reticence over executing the innocent? No, it is not.

This is, imo, a silly argument. Of course costs matter, but they are not the only thing that matters. It is a balancing test. You compare the safety of society against the costs and find the reasonable balance. Why can't you grasp that?

To simplify, let's assume there are two levels of safety and three levels of cost:

1 - society is very safe
2 - society is unsafe

and

A - the cost of the criminal justice system is low
B - the cost of the criminal justice system is middling and
C - the cost of the criminal justice system is high cost

Let's consider 3 scenarios now:

(i) We let all criminals walk free for fear of ever punishing an innocent person. That society would be very unsafe, but the prisons would cost nothing, so let's call that (2, A).

(ii) We imprison those convicted (including the innocent), but we never execute them. That society is at (1, B).

(iii) We imprison and execute those convicted, but the cost of execution is high. That society is at (1, C).

You can make a theoretically plausible case that society (i) is better than (ii) or (iii), But you CANNOT plausibly claim that most people would rather be in society (iii) rather than (ii), because (1, B) is simply better than (1, C). Same benefits, lower cost. Cost matters.

On the other hand, it's perfectly obvious why someone in society (ii) might not want to go to society (i). Costs are lower (which is good), but so is safety (which is bad).

Hopefully you get the distinction now.

From my perspective? It can be. If both society (ii) and society (iii) were at point (1, B), then it would be perfectly reasonable for people to prefer (iii) over (ii) (or to be indifferent between them).

The real problem, in my particular view, is that lowering the costs of execution tends to increase the number of innocents one would expect to be executed, and that is a bad thing. In fact, if it is east for the innocent to be executed that society is "unsafe", so in most countries where the cost of execution is low, you are really looking at a society at point (2, B) or (2, A), and I would not myself want to trade safety for cost savings.

Yes, and if society were made no safer by imprisonment, you might have a point. But prisons do keep society safe, so really you make no valid point here that I can see.

As for the puppy, if the puppy is duly convicted of a crime, then it's hard to feel bad for the puppy. In point of fact, the puppy i lucky, because most dogs that break the law simply get euthanized.

Your arguments are terrible...largely because you seemingly can't comprehend the arguments of others. If you cannot understand the arguments of your opponents, why bother debating at all?

 

To quote the Dalai Lama, “Death is a part of all our lives. Whether we like it or not, it is bound to happen. Instead of avoiding thinking about it, it is better to understand its meaning. We all have the same body, the same human flesh, and therefore we will all die.” We are just a flash of light in what we call "being." Death is merely the next step.

 

Just in the news: Guy sues for 14 million after spending 31 years in prison and he was innocent.

http://www.canada.com/news/Romeo Ph...awsuit wrongful conviction/6559826/story.html

Of course, the logical solution to this problem (following the anti-DP arguments) is that we should close all the prisons and let everyone go free, because we can not guarantee that innocents won't be jailed for long period of time.

Oh yes, it happened in Canada, where there is no Death penalty....

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James, there have been enough cases uncovered of innocent people wrongly sentenced to prison that imprisoning people is a really bad idea.

Did I get it right?

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Is that a rationale for executing people, or for not caring about murder?

 

From the current News of the Weird, if anyone wondered what happens to people in long time solitary confinement. Also it shows that possibly innocents can be tortured for decades and nobody gives a shit:

"Herman Wallace, 70, and Albert Woodfox, 65, have been held in solitary confinement (only one hour a day outside) since 1972 in the Louisiana State Prison at Angola, after being convicted (via flimsy evidence and a convenient prison snitch) of killing a guard. A third convict for the murder, Robert King, who was in solitary for 29 years but then released, explained to BBC News in an April dispatch what it's like to live inside 54 square feet for 23 hours a day, for over 14,000 straight days. The lawyer working to free Wallace and Woodfox said the soul-deadened men were "potted plants." [BBC News, 4-4-2012]

Now give me death any day then solitary confinement for 4 decades, that's for sure.....

 

Obviously the former. Death isn't such a big deal, not to mention natural and several times it is more desired even by the persecuted person. Just read my post above and tell me if you would want to be alone for a few decades among 4 walls????

 

I'm against forced solitary confinement as well.

 

Except for the people who do.

Why do you rely so extensively on these strawman attacks?

 

Well, I can hit the bull between the horns. As I've pointed out before and you guys just seem to keep ignoring.

They don't need solitary. They don't need death. They need just separation with a wall, a steady job, a compensation garnishment, and some incentive pay left over in their wages so they have a reason to live, a reason to keep compensating.

You guys are so all fucking ass-backwards and can't move forward. You are stuck on stupid. It's obvious you can't reason worth a shit. That's why your prison ideas cost the tax payers money when they never should. It's so obvious with such retarded attitudes America has 16 Trillion dollar debt and no Republican or Democrat has turned anything around since the 70's. Your part of a collective intellectual democracy that according to our dollar and debt is equivalent to: Loser.

When you start understanding the term industrious and practical over your so-called compassionate life imprisonment or draconian death penalty, you get past the intellectual disability you are stuck on.

 

I dunno, I guess I need a logical fallacy too, to catch up with you people.

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But there is a logic in the approach: When the guy gets the DP, there is a relative limited time to prove his innocence, so people are more willing to look.
When the same guy gets life in prison, he is not in danger of expiring, so nobody is in a big hurry to save him. So decades can pass easily when something gets done.

Bottomline is, if you are truly innocent, you are better off being on deathrow, because chances are someone is looking into your case....

 

You now have three rationales for executing innocent people (paraphrasing):
(1) Mistakes happen. Deal with it.
(2) Death is not a big deal.
(3) Those tortured (as in solitary) would be better off dead.

How is your rationale any different than that of the murderer in the OP? What you are producing for us is the profile of a psychopath - the kind of thoughts that go through a murder's head just before the violent ideas creep in and take over. By your own reasoning, any of the above 3 rationales are justification to go out a commit random murder without consequences. But if those murders are justifiable we don't even need to punish anybody. That's your logic.

Therefore your proposal is no different that a proposal to commit the crime that started this discussion.

Finally, if you are really concerned about how many innocent (or even partly guilty) people are tortured in prison, then why are you not speaking on their behalf, by advocating for fair, just and humane sentencing standards, legal help for people who can't afford it, probation and parole for people who are eligible, and safe and humane prisons for people who are not?

As an example, I recall a news story about a young woman who was pulled over by a cop for suspicion of some crime. I don't recall that they ever determined if she had even done anything wrong. In any case, the cop took her in and booked her, but just before the last step, he halted the process, went to her holding cell and asked her if she would be willing to go back to scene of the crime and explain what happened. She agreed. He had her released to his custody, put her in his patrol car, took her to an abandoned parking lot, raped her, and let her go. She sued and was awarded $500,000. In the same newsprint where I read this story was another story of a man who had been convicted of some crime and sentenced to prison. The prison guards ended up killing this man, as they sometimes do. The family sued. The court found that he was wrongfully killed, he hadn't been trying to escape and he wasn't threatening prison security. They were awarded $50,000.

Two points here. First, you notice that rape is worth $500,000 but homicide is only 1/10th of that. This resembles your logic--that things don't have to be proportional. Second, notice how this man's punishment turned into a death sentence. So besides your death penalty for innocent people and those guilty of lesser offenses, you will still have the bodies rolling into the morgue as a result of prison abuse. Just thought you might want to factor that in.

Really this whole thread boils down to whether you (or anyone else) believes that we must obey the 8th Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments, and the other provisions for fair trials and adequate representation by a competent attorney.

That, and whether human life has any value. Because if not, who needs law at all? Every man for himself, and may the best man win. I mean, why not? It sounds a whole lot simpler.

 

Step back for a minute and tell me who needs to be behind a wall. What is the difference between a person on probation, serving out his sentence while working and supporting his family, vs a person behind a prison wall, leaving his family in crisis, vs your wall? What I'm asking is: why any wall at all?

 

Actually prison is a big business in the USA, private prisons are making lots of money on our draconian and racist law enforcement practices.

 

And that's another strawman.

The impression I'm getting is that you are too insecure to attempt arguing your position on its actual merits, and so you constantly invent pretenses to condescend. The result is cagey and ineffectual.

That sounds completely inane on its face.

But, it should be amenable to scientific verification. Can you show the the likelihood of a false conviction being overturned goes up significantly for inmates on death row, versus those who recieve lesser sentences?

 

I like your probation idea, but probation is good for people who are not a high risk to society. I think people we are considering here are be considered for the death penalty which takes them out of that category. Perhaps after some time behind the wall and rehab, probation would be rational step to take.

Many people want punishment, when separation is all we need between the dangerous types. Why else should it matter what happen on the other side of the wall if we are safe from them? That's the purpose of such a wall, to keep us safe. Right now we just don't think in a way that make it self-sustaining, which is completely practical, would give their lives more meaning, give the best opportunity at compensating society, and give them the best environment for preparation for release.

Like I said before, a small city of a 1000 people in American can be self-supporting and so can (and easier) 1000 people behind a wall. We have to think outside this stupid box we are in to do it though.

 

No they are not. These capitalist predatory fucks are eating up any compensation victims or society could be getting from these wages. These jobs don't even cover the cost of the abjectly priced institutional practices we use for prisons.

In the end, society pays more and victims are placed in the back seat and predatory capitalists in the front.

There is a solution to this and we just are not implementing it because I'm assuming people with half a brain have trouble even with the notion of it.