Here is why I stand in absolute opposition to the Death Penalty:

[Jackpine Radical]

(I wrote this a while back when Wisconsin was contemplating enacting a death penalty)

Four arguments are commonly made in opposition to the death penalty. Let me review them before moving on to the particular concerns I want to discuss. Here, then, are the traditional arguments:

First, we have no need for a death penalty to protect ourselves from murderers because Wisconsin law permits us to put them in prison for life without hope of ever being released.

Second, it is expensive to seek the death penalty. Studies in other states have shown that it costs more to sentence a murderer to death and then wade through the appeals process than it would have to simply imprison the criminal for life.

Third, there is always the possibility of executing an innocent person. Some people seem to think that the use of DNA evidence is an absolutely certain means of avoiding such errors, but that is simply not so. Any number of events, ranging from misbehavior on the part of police officers to errors at the crime lab, could bring about terrible miscarriages of justice.

And fourth, there is no evidence that the death penalty deters crime. Just consider for a moment—can you imagine criminals thinking to themselves, “I want to go on a killing spree, but they will put me to death if they catch me, so I won’t do it. However, I would go out and murder a bunch of people if all I had to face was life without parole.”

If you think the death penalty is somehow going to make you safer, how do you explain this?—Murder rates per 100,000 population range from a low of 1.2 in Maine to a high of 13.0 in Louisiana. Twelve states, including Wisconsin, have no death penalty. The average murder rate for these states is 2.90. The remaining 38 states have the death penalty. Their murder rate per hundred thousand residents is 5.3. The probability of this being a chance result is less than one in a hundred.

At 3.3 murders per 100,000, Wisconsin has a slightly higher murder rate than the average for states without the death penalty, but considerably lower than the average for states with the death penalty. Why, then, should we be in any hurry to legalize the death penalty and thereby join the group of states with the higher murder rates?

Another question—Might there be something about having a death penalty that causes states to have a higher murder rate? As a psychologist, I think there may be a connection. Let us make no bones about it. To approve the death penalty is to assert that it is permissible for a large number of people—the state—to gang up and put one of its members to death. When a state authorizes executions, it is in effect saying that killing is not only permissible, but is in fact desirable, in some circumstances, including circumstances that do not involve immediate self-defense. Children learn both behaviors and attitudes by the example of their elders. From what we know of child development, there is every reason to imagine that children who grow up in a society that approves the killing of human beings will have lower inhibitions against killing than do children whose society teaches an absolute intolerance of killing.

[ClassWarrior]

1. I was surprised to learn your second point back when...

...the resolution was being considered. The other three are fairly self-evident to me.

Well said, btw.

:hi:

NGU.

[Jackpine Radical]

9. Thanks.

This, of course, is one of the little pieces destined for inclusion in the "project" I mentioned at the convention.

[ClassWarrior]

18. I kinda figured.

:toast:

NGU.

[eppur_se_muova]

2. Documenary "Thin Blue Line" turned me against the death penalty.

I had been straddling the fence before. The film made it pretty clear that manipulation of evidence and testimony by local prosecutors and judges could put just about anyone on death row, guilty or not. Highly recommend the film, and the director's comments.

[fascisthunter]

3. Somebody Long Ago Convinced Me on a Point You Just Made...

while I too was contemplating whether the Death Penalty was worth it or not. WHen I was younger I was convinced that the threat of a "Death Penalty" did deter folks for killing one another. But then a friend said almost the same thing you did,

"And fourth, there is no evidence that the death penalty deters crime. Just consider for a moment—can you imagine criminals thinking to themselves, 'I want to go on a killing spree, but they will put me to death if they catch me, so I won’t do it. However, I would go out and murder a bunch of people if all I had to face was life without parole.'”

Exactly...

and I'll add one more thing.... those who are deranged and want to kill may be hoping they are put to death, how do we not know. Actually, we do know, there have been convicted killers who wanted the death penalty and were willing to sacrifice their own lives just to harm other: terrorists

good night to the death penalty because it's all about the sense of vengeance. After a person is placed in prison for life he then has no way of harming others in public. Let them suffer that way, stuck in prison. Think about it... it's got to be hell in there.

[Oregone]

4. But the death penalty is bad ass. Its like social shock and awe...

And that should make us all feel like we got some hair on our nuts.


Really, I sorta think that is the point at times.

[fascisthunter]

5. yup....

"I demand justice for that killing!".....


of course you do, but saying the guy should be put to death doesn't mean you give a shit about the victim either. I think people get too emotional wrapped into expressing anger at murder and forget why? Taking life for vengeance is unnecessary no matter how you spin it. It's expensive, imperfect (innocents do get put to death), and not that effective in thwarting homicide. It's a bad habit we as humans have to kill, just because we can, saying "death to punish" is pure theatre...

[Oregone]

6. Things were easier when the Furies would come and handle this all for us...

But some dumb ass made law to stop the endless cycle of death and keep the furies at bay. Man's biggest mistake, aside from packaging beer in puny 12 oz cans.

[scarletwoman]

7. Happy to be your 5th rec. I very simply object to granting the State the power to kill its citizens.

While I agree with and applaud all the various arguments against the death penalty, this is the bottom line for me. I refuse to grant the State permission to kill people.

sw

[Jackpine Radical]

8. I'll buy that.

[scarletwoman]

12. I give it to you free of charge!

:D

[Jackpine Radical]

14. Wow, thanks.

I was wondering how I was going to afford it.

[scarletwoman]

15. I may not be easy, but I AM cheap.

:P

[Jackpine Radical]

17. LOL

:rofl:

[Swamp Rat]

10. k&r

[spanone]

11. state sponsored murder is still murder

[Jackpine Radical]

13. Murder is one person killing another.

Death penalty is a bunch of people ganging up & killing one person.
No, wait, maybe that's a gangland killing, uh, I'm confused.

In other words, I agree.

[Peace Patriot]

16. The death penalty fosters a fascist, police state mentality that leads to abuse

throughout the justice system--including horrible, overcrowded prisons, prison rape and beatings, gang warfare, official sadism, high convictions rate for the poor, low for the wealthy, vast numbers of people imprisoned for long periods for non-violent crimes, a culture of "them vs. us" (cops vs. citizen "perps"), criminalization of behaviors that should be matters of private choice (smoking/growing marijuana, for instance--or, really, any use of drugs), massive spying on the citizenry, entrapment (luring people into crimes), boondoggle police state spending, privatization of prisons and other police state facilities (lack of accountability--PROFITEERING from crime--leading to lobbying for MORE such contracts and expenditures), and, finally, the all-out fascist state that the Bushites have created--shredding of our Constitution, end of habeas corpus, torturing prisoners, slaughtering a million innocent people to get their oil, massive secrecy, massive theft of our federal coffers, and on and on. It is no accident that George Bush started his political career by gleefully executing hundreds of prisoners in Texas. That is the fascist mind-set that leads to all this other abuse.

Add this to the other arguments. Probably the primary one is that we are not God, and cannot know for sure--ever--if someone is truly guilty. We can only guess on the basis of the evidence presented in court. What if that evidence is wrong? Make a guess that is "beyond a reasonable doubt." But what IS a "reasonable doubt"? We cannot know for sure. Someone might have been framed. And if you executive them, there is no going back. There is no hope of redress.

That is the main one. We are not God. And putting 12 of us together does not make up for our not being God. We cannot know for sure. It's bad enough imprisoning someone for life, wrongfully--but at the least, there is some chance that the wrong can be righted. With the death penalty, there is no chance.

There is another powerful--but at the same time nebulous--argument, and that has to do with hope and the human spirit. If you believe that people can change, then you must leave open the possibility that they will change--that they can redeem themselves, no matter how bad they've been. Do we have the right to cut off that possibility--that a murderer, even a heinous murderer, might be able to redeem himself?

Are we knuckledraggers who just act from low revenge motives, or, rather, even if some of us are, do we want our government to behave that way, in all of our names? Or do we want to aim higher--toward redemption, restitution, humane values and the common good? Do we have hope--or do we wallow in violence and evil?

It is an evil, hopeless, fascist act to strap someone to a chair or table, and inject them with lethal drugs, and watch them die. It is also cowardly--a coward's revenge--like torture. You are killing a HELPLESS person, and that is wrong, no matter what you think that person did. You are in the grip of evil when you perform that cold, callous act. You might kill someone in a passion--say, if you thought they'd killed a family member or friend. That is wrong, too, but it is more understandable. It is bad--a crime--but not evil. State killing is evil. It is the ice-bound lizard in the 9th circle of hell--cold, calculated, premeditated torture and murder, committed with your tax dollars. And that kind of evil comes right back into the world, magnified a thousand-fold, in my opinion. From the 150 or so prisoners that Bush sent to their deaths in Texas--to the million slaughtered in Iraq. The one thing leads straight to the other. Capital punishment, torture, a police state and unjust war are all connected in the hopelessness of fascism.

[Riktor]

19. Let's leave God out of this...

... lest we descend to the level of the most ardent of Death Penalty supporters: the fundamentalist Christians.

Ain't life ironic?

Anyway, my two cents on the matter is this:

1) Eyewitness testimony is inherently flawed. It is hindered by habits of the mind and suggestive questioning by police and lawyers. A number of studies have shown memory is malleable, and does not encode properly while under stress. The level of importance our judicial systems places on these flawed testimonies suggests a number of possibly innocent people have been sent to their deaths. A system which allows even one innocent to be punished is not just.

2) The death penalty is not a deterrent. Re-entry rates for repeat offenders did not drop a single fraction of a percent after Reagan reinstated the death penalty. Some crime is not rational, and therefore the threat of repercussions is virtually useless.

3) The death penalty is inherently hypocritical. Our code of law prohibits the taking of human life, thus the death penalty has no place in our justice system.

[Peace Patriot]

23. You don't understand my reference to God (i.e., we are not God, so we can never

know for sure if someone is guilty). People who believe in God sometimes come to believe that they ARE God--or have a direct line to God, or speak for God. This psychological projection phenomenon is responsible for most of the abuse of religion--for wars and Crusades, for witchburnings and inquisitions, for repression of alternative religious views, for pogroms, for repression of women, for putting cages around the human spirit, for propaganda and lies. Someone--be he Pope, preacher man, mullah jihadist, or whatever--mistakes himself for God.

Capital punishment mistakes the state for God. It posits the notion that the state--whether by means of juries or judges, or, currently, by fiat of the President--can know FOR SURE if someone is guilty of a crime meriting death. But neither jury nor judge--nor the President, nor any human authority--can know this FOR SURE. It is a RELIGIOUS DELUSION that we CAN know it for sure. Although our system of justice has improved since the witchburning era (heading back to those days, under the Bush Junta--but up to this point it was on a progressive path), it is still fallible, because it is human-run, involving fallible human judgements. There is simply no way to know FOR SURE--no matter how fair our justice system becomes. Thus, capital punishment is wrong, illegal and a violation of our Constitution and of all human rights values, because it cuts off any avenue of redress for a wrongly convicted person. They are dead. No more redress.

That is why I mentioned God--because people who believe in capital punishment are mistaking THEMSELVES--or the state, acting for them--for God. EVEN IF they are atheists, they are doing this. They are attributing the powers of an all-knowing, all-seeing God to THEMSELVES.

[dave123williams]

20. I don't know. Sometimes, they've got it comin'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Dyral_Briley

Read up on that one - those guys definitely needed to go down.

[Jackpine Radical]

22. As far as I'm concerned, whether "they got it comin'" is beside the point.

I would argue that society does more harm to itself by "givin' 'em what they got comin'" than it's worth. I have no problem with sentences of life without parole. In fact, as an examining psychologist in some pretty brutal murder cases, I had no problem with letting those sentences unfold.

[mnmoderatedem]

21. Rolando Cruz - Janine Nicarico murder case in Illinois

It's the best argument against capital punishment that I've ever seen...

[pleah]

24. K&R

[progressoid]

25. I've pointed this out to others in the past and it doesn't matter.

Many supporters of the DP do so out of anger, revenge, etc. It's an emotional response. Logic and sensibility doesn't enter into the equation for them.

[Beausoleil]

26. All good, valid points

As to your statement about child development, I made a similar point yesterday:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3522844#3523002

Aother issue about the death penalty is inequitable application. When was the last time you heard of a millionaire murderer getting the death penalty, much less having it carried out? Or of anyone who has the wherewithal to pay for adequate legal representation being executed.
"Gee, we're sorry your lawyer slept through your trial. What do you want for your last meal?"

[Life Long Dem]

27. I would allow the option

Space, money, DNA testing, all change. Taking the death penalty off the table doesn't allow for this change.

How many states have the option of the death penalty but never used it?

[lonestarnot]

28. K & R all seven points!

:applause:

[kwenu]

29. I think the death penalty is absolutely appropriate in limited circumstances.

When:

1. The murder victims are children or elderly, or,

2. There are multiple murder victims, or,

3. The murder is particularly vicious,

AND

4. The evidence of guilt is DIRECT and not circumstantial,

AND

5. There is little to no evidence that mitigates the reasons why the murder was committed, I believe it is appropriate to consider the death penalty.

Now mind you, I am from Texas where ultimate justice is culturally more accepted. I will also immediately tell you that in the circumstances I have laid out, the reason for the death penalty is pure retribution against a criminal who has committed a crime for which they have forfeited the right to live, NOT because of messages being sent to future criminals or because of the expense or savings of cost. Frankly if someone was caught murdering a child I would have no problem with the added expense of executing the murderer and certainly would support his/her right to fully appeal. In limited circumstances the death penalty should be an option along with life in prison that may be considered.

I note your argument about states with the death penalty having a higher murder rate. I doubt that seriously and you'll have to bring some evidence in order to make that credible and show an actual correlation. I respect your opinion and think the death penalty should be uncommonly used if ever but I am not prepared to say throw it out entirely.