Death Penalty

The problem isn't as clear cut as that since no justice system is infallible. By their convictions the Birmingham Six (All convicted of carrying out a terrorist bombing in a Jury Trial) should by your argument all have been executed. Which would arguably be fair retribution, except that they did not commit the crime in the first place and five were able to be released and pardoned after serving a significant portion of their sentences (One died whilst serving his sentence).

How much of a comfort would a posthumous pardon have been to their families? They were still deprived of their loved ones for a long time, but at least being eventually reunited with them was better than never.

Please let's not go down the road of discussing Firearms policy again, there is another thread elsewhere for that.

 

Right,i won't then. But i believe in making examples. The birminham 6(actually i never heard of them,pardon my ignorance) sentences are too light in my opinion.Heavier punishments need to make examples and deterrances and imho,will make that difference. By letting them go,you are telling the would-be terorists that "hey i could be pardoned if i get caught before the bombings" But the idea of heavy punishments is to stop that kind of thinking and change it to,"Oh i better not try anything funny,look what happen to those 6!"

Isn't it ultimately much better to kill 6 and prevent a hundred deaths?But my conscience do get in the way cos of my beliefs,but imho,they are effective and will do so.

Of course,in the first place,we need to find ACTUAL guilty parties. Because of the fallibility of our justice system,we therefore would need to really clamp down hard on those we know to be terrorists.

 

But i do believe the ends justify the means.
It is a system that have created a permanent peace for us in singapore. I hardly think it's oppresive Grieg,because if your law-abiding like most of us here,you wouldn't be afraid. WE certainly do not have secret police in Singapore.So by the meaning of oppressive,i don't really get you.My neighbours and i are as free to do what i want,unless you find hanging someone for a crime he did commit to be oppressive.Perhaps,but certainly only to the criminal and his family!

 

And if you eat chewing gum?

 

Just for the record,there is no law according to a friend's lawyer dad that says you can't consume chewing gum.It is the trading of them that is illegal.Means i can go in front of the customsofficer and chew all i want!(love to but never tried it)hahaha.

But i do agree the chewing gum ban was stupid.But it did stop alot of trains from running because the doors get sdtuck when inconsiderate singaporeans stick gum on them.

For the record,if your not smuggling chewing gums,your gum gets confiscated.If your a smuggler,be prepared to mortgage your house!(ok i'm exxagerating,just a fine.)

 

The Birmingham Six were six men convicted of planting a bomb which exploded in a Birmingham Pub killing people, no-one was apprehended before the bombs exploded. They were sentenced to life imprisonment as a result. They were only pardoned after a long campaign to have their case reviewed.

How would executing them have achieved anything?

The Republican Terrorists that they were supposed to be would not have be put off anything by executions or risking being killed, IRA activitists risk that regularly on their operations and a number of Republican prisoners also starved themselves to death on hungerstrike in jail.

The men who actually planted the bombs were willing to risk death, killing these six erroneously would equally mean that the actual bombers would think "We can do this and get away without even being caught."

 

Oh you mean they were innocent?I'm sorry but i guess i had dyslexic eye as well.haha.

Well then,the real IRA terrorist should be punished in a way that would make them feel it is a lost cause.But then again,these kinds stuff only works when people have something to live for.For the IRA,i think let's try something radical.....LOVE them

 

Kaiser, it seems that you advocate giving any criminal a punishment so terrible that no one will ever attempt to commit his crime again. However, there is no evidence that the death penalty actually forms a deterrent; in fact, I don't believe there is any proof that any punishment is a deterrent to would-be criminals. Right now, punishing criminals merely means that society will have its justice and that criminals will (temporarily or permanently) be removed from society.

This would all be true if every convicted criminal was guilty, and if all victims of crime are worthy of pity. However, the world is not made up of extremes and cannot be oversimplified like that, which is why we are having this debate in the first place.

And these are not faceless bureaucrats and professional politicians with ideas of knowing better than the people who elected them what is good for them?

Ultimately this is a completely different issue, that of whether a country should be ruled by whoever the majority chooses to be its leader, or by a group of professional statesmen who do not carry such a mandate.

 

roel wrote:

I don't see it as an oversimplification. If you claim that there have been innocents executed in the US, where is your evidence? Why is a crime victim unworthy of pity? Are you implying that crime victims somehow deserve their fate? I don't follow your reasoning.
If it's just oversimplification what do you say about the average life sentence being only 12-13 years imprisonment? Who is releasing the criminals? Someone most certainly is.

Supreme Court Justices are neither bureaucrats nor politicians. At least I cannot think of any examples that fit either description. Do you know something about them that we should know?

Who chooses this " group of professional statesmen "? How do they remain in power if they don't stand for election?Are you advocating a return to heriditary kings and the fuedal system?

 

I'm implying that no justice system is perfect, and therefore that no justice system should be allowed to kill people on grounds of its verdict. This is suggested by the fact that there are examples (not necessarily in the US, I didn't specify a country) of innocents being sentenced to death. The point about the victims is just to defuse the picture you seem to be painting that all victims of murder are big-eyed little girls in skirts with a doll in one hand and mommy's hand in the other. Or is that the only type of murder you'd punish by death?

Am I advocating anything? Did that post imply anything about my opinion?

By the way, hereditary kings were not professional statesmen, they were hereditary kings no matter their political abilities - an obviously flawed system. Many such kings did manage to assemble around them a council of professional statesmen which is the type I am talking about here. These men are not necessarily elected but stay in power until removed or until death - however, where a feudal system is based on hereditary links of loyalty and service, these professionals are given positions by ability.

I am not advocating a return to this system but history shows a few remarkable events where these political professionals pulled of political and diplomatic feats that the average compromising democratically elected parliament would never be able to accomplish. Check out people like John de Witt, Thorbecke or Louvois.

 

roel wrote:

You aren't implying but concluding. What we are debating is the basis of a conclusion..be it for or against. The rationale for that conclusion.
The basis of your objections isn't stated and it isn't clear whether your objections are moral, religious or practical.
As far as the reason being that no justice system is perfect I have already addressed that question. We do not require that the risk be = zero before taking an action. I'm not troubled by the miniscule risk that innocents will be executed. It's a risk we are willing to accept.
I don't recall characterizing victims as anything except what they are; innocent victims. Big eyed little girls holding dollies may be what affects you emotionally but in my case my arguments are not based on emotions.

Again, you claim not to be endorsing this rule by unelected, appointed "professional statesmen" but then you proceed to do just that.
If you aren't advocating this system then how is it relevant to the discussion?

 

Just to be awkward - could it be that no innocents are executed in the US because of the lengthy system of appealds that are currently undertaken - the system that you wish stopped?

I freely admit to having no figures on how many potential deaths were averted by an appeal (after the first one) being successful.

 

No Roel,you don't understand until you've been in the system. Try standing before the gallows,it just gives you the creeps.

And yes Roel me mate, i am advocating such punishment strictly based on the situation. For crimes like terrorism and murders,this is what i am suggesting. If there are innocents,then it is just too bad but even though i can imagine being maligned,it is something one must be willing to take because with every thing comes a cost. IT may not totally deter criminals but i think just that fact will make them think twice and it will reduce crime rates.

For minor crimes like theft and robbery,flogging would be a very good idea.But that is out of point.

The reason why i agree with the death sentence is that though is it always better to see someone turn over a new leaf,we need to be able to be fair to the victim. The victim might have deserved his fate for all we know,but to take the law into one's own hands would be disregarding the law and there would be anarchy if it were "an eye for an eye" all over again. I dare say the reason why people have no qualms about killing is not because they get to be on parole or even be killed. The reason is because the world has gone off from proper teachings and compromised values...But i have gone out of point again,silly me

 

ricky wrote:

No. The overwhelming majority of appeals are not based on issues of guilt or innocence but upon trying to exclude evidence or exploit other technicalities to get the verdict overturned and a new trial ordered.
That may sound cynical to you but it's a fact. One reason for that being the case is that appeals courts, for the most part and in most jurisdictions, cannot overule a finding of fact by the jury. They instead rule on findings of law. Without going into it too deeply (and attempting to give everyone reading a free legal education) there is a difference between a finding of fact e.g. the accused's whereabouts at the time of the murder...and a finding of law e.g. Did the intentionally acused waive his constitutional right to remain silent when he provided the information to the police officers.
There needs to be an automatic appeals process so that another layer of the judiciary reviews a case before the sentence is carried out. The interminable appeals allowed today do not serve justice. Indeed many lawyers and organizations opposed to the dp abuse the appellate process in order to attempt to frustrate the justice system.

 

I am implying, followed for clarity by the conclusion I draw from it. This is not the same, and besides, it's a minor technicality as far as I'm concerned. What matters is that my point (no justice system is perfect) is an argument in favour of my conclusion (no justice system should be allowed to risk sentencing innocent people to death). You counter this point by making it clear that the risk in this matter is very small indeed, and this is probably true - though as I said, mistakes are still being made by justice systems all over the world. Then we take opposite standpoints on the risk/benefit analysis that follows: you say the risk is worth the benefit, I say the same benefit can be attained without running the same risk.

Who is "we"?

This metaphore is not what affects me emotionally, it is an exaggeration of your statement that the innocent victims are ignored by those who release murderers from prison. In rhetorical terms I am turning your appeal on pathos into a point about your ethos; it seems that you are letting yourself be affected by the plaints of the victims, not me.

But the people in this thread who are arguing against the death penalty, including myself, do set one condition on not using the dp which is that lifelong imprisonment really means lifelong imprisonment. It seems to me that this is clearly fuelled by ratio: to make prison sentences less of a joke compared to the gravity of the dp so that it is in fact a viable alternative.

I listed these two options because they appear as the extremes of the points you made earlier about governments and their jurisdiction. One extreme here is a democractically elected leader who can do nothing he has not recieved popular mandate for, the other is a group of professional statesmen who carry no mandate and act on their own to serve the interests they think are preferrable. I was pointing out that a debate about this would be a completely different matter from the one at hand, and that it should be kept separate - that it was in fact not relevant to the discussion... Unfortunately that wasn't noticed.

Again? No, this is the first time I presented anything like background information on this kind of statesmen, because you asked me who they were. That is all.

 

roel wrote:

We, in this case, refers to the people of the US who have decided that the death penalty is appropriate punisment for certain crimes.

My statement was an ironic comment on those who use emotional arguments to oppose the dp
...it's morally wrong...the state has no right...it's murder... etc.
and yet those same people don't seem terribly concerned about the murdered victims.
(Just as the irony has been noted of the fact that the same people who mourn the loss of a convicted murderers life are usually the same people (Leftists, political liberals, fuzzy thinking do gooders..etc)who have zero compassion or concern for the truly innocent unborn victims of abortion on demand as a form of retroactive birth control for the convience of the lazy and undisciplined...but that is for another thread )

If that were truly a viable alternative I would support it (given the conditions I listed earlier). IMO it is not a viable alternative until a life sentence is mandated that is not subject to pardon or parole and is not subject to further appeal. In other words when life means life.

It isn't going to happen in the US. The endless appeals and anti-dp movement are a source of considerable income (and sometimes fame) for thousands of lawyers (though that isn't the only reason).

I'm leaving aside the other issues related to forms of government as they are just a distraction from the topic of the thread IMO.

 

On the other hand it's usually the people who most strongly advocate the death penalty who are also most violently against abortion, saying it is the illegitimate taking of life... :-?

I do not understand the logic of this. If a life sentece were irrevocable there truly is no difference from the death penalty. It does not have the benefit that if new evidence proves the convicted innocent, he can be released; the life term that you propose is as irreversible as the death penalty itself. The very point of those who argue against the dp seems to be that if the convicted turns out to be innocent the punishment cannot be reversed, and therefore it is wrong; as long as a sentence can be revoked in case of innocence that sentence carries true justice.

Thanks, that was what I intended all along.

 

roel wrote:

No irony there. There is a legitimate distinction between the taking of innocent life (abortion) and punishing the guilty (dp) that is consistent.
The irony springs from the inconsistency of bemoaning taking the life of the guilty while advocating taking innocent life and all the while using morality as the basis for your opinion. Get it?

Grieg wrote:
If that were truly a viable alternative I would support it (given the conditions I listed earlier). IMO it is not a viable alternative until a life sentence is mandated that is not subject to pardon or parole and is not subject to further appeal. In other words when life means life.

A life sentence that doesn't mean life isn't a life sentence but just a misnomer. Besides, like most laymen you are mistaken in thinking that endless appeals (until you find a fuzzy thinking judge that agrees with you) are really about innocence and guilt. Remember my earlier remarks about findings of fact versus findings of law?

Yet, you brought it up

roel wrote:

 

I agree that life sentences should mean life, but I disagree that it should be irrevocable. If it is, why would it be any different from murdering an innocent person? Only because the sentence of lifelong imprisonment allows for the justice system to come back at its decision is it any better than the death penalty. Obviously this does not mean I advocate endless appeals and re-trials until some error is found or some judge can be overridden - what I do support is an appeal that leads to new evidence being found that overthrows the previous verdict. As long as there are cases in which such evidence can be found, we should not close the cases by simply killing the murderers.

I'm surprised that you seem full of compassion for the victims of crime but never for those who have been unjustly punished with death or lifelong imprisonment (such as the Birmingham Six). Are we allowed to "generalize" them out of the way in order to prove that criminals are guilty and unworthy of any more trouble than their deaths?

 

roel wrote:

I see no evidence of my being "full of compassion" as you phrase it.
It's a philosophical issue. Society should, through the judicial process, attempt to mete out justice. Otherwise people lose confidence in their leaders and it undermines all of society. Respect for the rule of law is not merely about compassion for the victims of crime.