I've come to the realization that there's an angle to capital punishment that never comes up. For most of Western history incarceration simply did not exist. Punishment was corporal or capital* (heh, literally "body or head"). I suppose exile was a third option, but it was usually commutation of capital punishment. For minor offences such as fighting or petty theft you were beaten or put in the stocks or faced something something similar. For crimes against the lives (or property, if of sufficient value) of people you were executed. Armed robbery or assault with a weapon, for instance, has been a capital offence in most times and places.
Now a common argument against capital punishment is that it is not a deterrent to anybody. Of course its not! We only use it for the most heinous of crimes; in many places 1st degree murder is far more likely to yield a life sentence unless your particular case was especially vile. But here's the thing, outside crimes of passion, most murderers have a long list of priors, many of which would have had you in a noose prior to the 19th century. If armed robbery was a capitol offence, a whole lot of folks wouldn't live long enough to commit homicide.
What if the proper use of capital punishment actually requires us to apply it more broadly? "What about accidentally convicting innocent people?" you ask. Well, there is a reason Blackstone's ratio is 1) a ratio and 2) set at one in ten rather than one in a million.
The argument against capital punishment is because you can never trust the government to do the right thing. If you distrust the government and always expect the government to be manipulated by other people and/or are incompetent (and I've seen your posts here and I know you hold that view), then you cannot trust them to be competent in always convicting the right person for capital punishment.
Blackstone's ratio was an arbitrary number. He probably used 10 because it does a better job hitting home how incompetent and malicious the government is.
For me, I am only for corporal punishment if it's VERY VERY VERY obvious. Like this post, or like a serial killer who has so much evidence stacking up against them that it's obvious, or a pedophile who has a long trail of victims that can attest to their traumas and who haven't been coached to say things a certain way.
I agree that it shouldn't be completely removed, but the standards for it should be extremely high, like a standard higher than "beyond a reasonable doubt" that is used for criminal court cases. I wouldn't know what to call it, but I do think that option should be there.
For the moment your first paragraph is pretty much my actual position. But I'm exploring alternative views apart form the classically liberal position. I'm doing it under the corporal/capital dichotomy, and treating incarceration as a modern novelty. I think that the the behavior of leftwing prosecutors is costing innocent people their lives. I think this born from either a place of pathological altruism or an actual desire to abandon law. Both are bad.
It's so weird that people used to get together in mobs and lynch a guy for absolutely no reason.
The government's job is to mete out impartial justice to pre-empt people from taking it into their own hands. When the government fails at justice, what do you do?
The argument against capital punishment is because you can never trust the government to do the right thing.
This is a compelling argument. We all know it's true and can't ignore it, despite how much we also know that capital punishment is a valid outcome for murderers.
That’s a bad compromise. Those are also pretty extreme, permanent things that one wouldn’t wish on an innocent person, and unlike the death penalty, they don’t even prevent the murderer from murdering again, which is the real utility of the penalty in the first place.
What if the proper use of capital punishment actually requires us to apply it more broadly?
It does. Case in point: my state has a law on the books that allows you to charge horse thieves with one felony count per horse stolen and to apply for capital punishment over a certain threshold. My local sheriff got pissed off at dumbass dindus stealing cars, and directed his officers to charge car thieves under the statute.
Jayquan's eyes boggled when he was suddenly facing several hundred first-degree felonies for boosting a muscle car. A decade on, and there's almost zero car theft here.
The main thing a death penalty does is establish that there is an ultimate price.
Having an ultimate punishment affects society on a deep instinctual level. Communities know there is a beast and if they don't get their act together they'll wake it. Having a death penalty is peace through strength.
Lesser people and children naturally push the limits just to find out where the limits are; they can't just know through reason like normal civilized adults. That's why the real problem we're facing is the lack of corporal but really lack of any punishment in schools and by parents.
A stitch in time is an elementary school teacher bitch slapping the worst troublemaker in the class or dragging them out by their hair. Kids shouldn't be afraid of their teachers, but they should fear their wrath.
God needs to be more liberal (heh) with his lightning bolts every now and then. Just go full Zeus and zap every single sinner in Chicago every ten minutes or something. Not even fatal bolts, we can make it a tourist attraction to have strippers just outside the city limit, you cross a line, look at them, then get a 60-volt zap to one eye, six times per hour, like clockwork.
It would reduce crime rates to near zero across the entire world. It'd be great.
It has little eo do with caring and everything to do with not having the mental capacity to understand that actions have consequences.
They literally get angry, upset and confused when faced with the punishment for the crime they committed, they do not have the ability to connect the criminal act they committed as the reason for the punishment.
To be overly verbose compared to the other replier's pithy joke:
Capital punishment works as a two-way deterrent. The "fear of execution" element isn't for those who would do the crime anyways, it's to encourage greater care and caution amongst the "lesser" criminals, in example a mugger would avoid hitting someone in the head if they knew the difference between brain damage and no-brain-damage mugging was a week in a slammer or death.
As for the ones who would do the crime anyways, it still lowers crime rate in the area, because almost all criminals are multiple-offenders. Most murderers are also batterers, assaulters, thieves, money launderers, or extortionists. And the greatest indicator for if someone will murder, is if they have in the past: If you are willing to kill one, you're usually willing to kill two. Permanently stopping a violent maniac can reduce the overall crime count in a neighborhood by dozens, if not hundreds, over the course of their otherwise-lifespan.
There's an anecdote that's frequently mentioned on the Lotus Eaters, gangs of thieves would check each other before committing burglaries for weapons to make sure no-one was carrying.
I distrust the government to do the killing and determining of guilt.
How about this. The Why Gary Why solution. If a suspect is found guilty of a capital crime, the state cannot kill them. But the victims will not be charged for any retaliatory justice they take (within reason of course) It's fine to walk up and shoot them in the head in 5th avenue and as long as they don't hurt anyone else that's legal, but going full law abiding citizen on them is too far and a crime.
But that doesn’t solve the real thing you said you distrust, does it? The government is presumably still determining guilt through trial, it’s just that they’ve outsourced carrying out the sentence.
Is it? Since the task passing of the death sentence is in the exact same process, it doesn’t change the odds of an incorrect conviction at all. All it does is add uncertainty as to whether that sentence will be carried out, which is a big problem if you get family members like Mollie Tibbetts’ dad. Or in the case of any criminal capable of hiding from or protecting himself from the family members.
I've come to the realization that there's an angle to capital punishment that never comes up. For most of Western history incarceration simply did not exist. Punishment was corporal or capital* (heh, literally "body or head"). I suppose exile was a third option, but it was usually commutation of capital punishment. For minor offences such as fighting or petty theft you were beaten or put in the stocks or faced something something similar. For crimes against the lives (or property, if of sufficient value) of people you were executed. Armed robbery or assault with a weapon, for instance, has been a capital offence in most times and places.
Now a common argument against capital punishment is that it is not a deterrent to anybody. Of course its not! We only use it for the most heinous of crimes; in many places 1st degree murder is far more likely to yield a life sentence unless your particular case was especially vile. But here's the thing, outside crimes of passion, most murderers have a long list of priors, many of which would have had you in a noose prior to the 19th century. If armed robbery was a capitol offence, a whole lot of folks wouldn't live long enough to commit homicide.
What if the proper use of capital punishment actually requires us to apply it more broadly? "What about accidentally convicting innocent people?" you ask. Well, there is a reason Blackstone's ratio is 1) a ratio and 2) set at one in ten rather than one in a million.
The argument against capital punishment is because you can never trust the government to do the right thing. If you distrust the government and always expect the government to be manipulated by other people and/or are incompetent (and I've seen your posts here and I know you hold that view), then you cannot trust them to be competent in always convicting the right person for capital punishment.
Blackstone's ratio was an arbitrary number. He probably used 10 because it does a better job hitting home how incompetent and malicious the government is.
For me, I am only for corporal punishment if it's VERY VERY VERY obvious. Like this post, or like a serial killer who has so much evidence stacking up against them that it's obvious, or a pedophile who has a long trail of victims that can attest to their traumas and who haven't been coached to say things a certain way.
I agree that it shouldn't be completely removed, but the standards for it should be extremely high, like a standard higher than "beyond a reasonable doubt" that is used for criminal court cases. I wouldn't know what to call it, but I do think that option should be there.
For the moment your first paragraph is pretty much my actual position. But I'm exploring alternative views apart form the classically liberal position. I'm doing it under the corporal/capital dichotomy, and treating incarceration as a modern novelty. I think that the the behavior of leftwing prosecutors is costing innocent people their lives. I think this born from either a place of pathological altruism or an actual desire to abandon law. Both are bad.
It's so weird that people used to get together in mobs and lynch a guy for absolutely no reason.
The government's job is to mete out impartial justice to pre-empt people from taking it into their own hands. When the government fails at justice, what do you do?
Nice of them to put out a description.
This is a compelling argument. We all know it's true and can't ignore it, despite how much we also know that capital punishment is a valid outcome for murderers.
That's a spicy take about Ted Cruz.
Let's compromise then - castration and hysterectomies as part of sentencing for lesser crimes.
That’s a bad compromise. Those are also pretty extreme, permanent things that one wouldn’t wish on an innocent person, and unlike the death penalty, they don’t even prevent the murderer from murdering again, which is the real utility of the penalty in the first place.
It does. Case in point: my state has a law on the books that allows you to charge horse thieves with one felony count per horse stolen and to apply for capital punishment over a certain threshold. My local sheriff got pissed off at dumbass dindus stealing cars, and directed his officers to charge car thieves under the statute.
Jayquan's eyes boggled when he was suddenly facing several hundred first-degree felonies for boosting a muscle car. A decade on, and there's almost zero car theft here.
Did they get that by saying "one horsepower = the equivalent of one horse?" Either way, that sounds amazing.
Yes.
slaps car
And you can fit hundreds of felonies under the hood
The main thing a death penalty does is establish that there is an ultimate price.
Having an ultimate punishment affects society on a deep instinctual level. Communities know there is a beast and if they don't get their act together they'll wake it. Having a death penalty is peace through strength.
Lesser people and children naturally push the limits just to find out where the limits are; they can't just know through reason like normal civilized adults. That's why the real problem we're facing is the lack of corporal but really lack of any punishment in schools and by parents.
A stitch in time is an elementary school teacher bitch slapping the worst troublemaker in the class or dragging them out by their hair. Kids shouldn't be afraid of their teachers, but they should fear their wrath.
this is pretty much it.
i'm not afraid of God. i think He is my friend and wants the best for me. but, i fear His wrath.
today, people who do not know God know no wrath to fear either.
God needs to be more liberal (heh) with his lightning bolts every now and then. Just go full Zeus and zap every single sinner in Chicago every ten minutes or something. Not even fatal bolts, we can make it a tourist attraction to have strippers just outside the city limit, you cross a line, look at them, then get a 60-volt zap to one eye, six times per hour, like clockwork.
It would reduce crime rates to near zero across the entire world. It'd be great.
Fear of execution won't stop jig gang bangers. They don't seem to care
The point isn't to stop them from fear. It's to stop them via execution.
Hehe
It has little eo do with caring and everything to do with not having the mental capacity to understand that actions have consequences.
They literally get angry, upset and confused when faced with the punishment for the crime they committed, they do not have the ability to connect the criminal act they committed as the reason for the punishment.
To be overly verbose compared to the other replier's pithy joke:
Capital punishment works as a two-way deterrent. The "fear of execution" element isn't for those who would do the crime anyways, it's to encourage greater care and caution amongst the "lesser" criminals, in example a mugger would avoid hitting someone in the head if they knew the difference between brain damage and no-brain-damage mugging was a week in a slammer or death.
As for the ones who would do the crime anyways, it still lowers crime rate in the area, because almost all criminals are multiple-offenders. Most murderers are also batterers, assaulters, thieves, money launderers, or extortionists. And the greatest indicator for if someone will murder, is if they have in the past: If you are willing to kill one, you're usually willing to kill two. Permanently stopping a violent maniac can reduce the overall crime count in a neighborhood by dozens, if not hundreds, over the course of their otherwise-lifespan.
There's an anecdote that's frequently mentioned on the Lotus Eaters, gangs of thieves would check each other before committing burglaries for weapons to make sure no-one was carrying.
I distrust the government to do the killing and determining of guilt.
How about this. The Why Gary Why solution. If a suspect is found guilty of a capital crime, the state cannot kill them. But the victims will not be charged for any retaliatory justice they take (within reason of course) It's fine to walk up and shoot them in the head in 5th avenue and as long as they don't hurt anyone else that's legal, but going full law abiding citizen on them is too far and a crime.
But that doesn’t solve the real thing you said you distrust, does it? The government is presumably still determining guilt through trial, it’s just that they’ve outsourced carrying out the sentence.
No but it's an improvement.
Is it? Since the task passing of the death sentence is in the exact same process, it doesn’t change the odds of an incorrect conviction at all. All it does is add uncertainty as to whether that sentence will be carried out, which is a big problem if you get family members like Mollie Tibbetts’ dad. Or in the case of any criminal capable of hiding from or protecting himself from the family members.