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.
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.
That's a spicy take about Ted Cruz.
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.
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.