You wanna know my opinion?

Death is too good for these fuckers.

The death penalty is too expensive, can’t be undone, isn’t given out fairly, AND it’s too good for most of those fuckers. 

I still can’t believe that a huge portion of the populace is afraid to have the government be in charge of some portion of healthcare but is totally sure that it’s okay for it to have the ability to put them to death.  Then again, I can believe it, since it’s reality.  It’s a stupid reality, but we’re living in it.

Some people don’t deserve to be sentenced to death, for a variety of reasons, ranging from being not actually guilty of the crime they’re convicted of to extenuating circumstances to the fact or possibility that they wouldn’t have been sentenced to death if they were a different color, gender, or other demographic datum.  Sometimes they’re sentenced to death anyway.  They’re good poster children for abolishing the death penalty.

Then there are people who are NOT poster children for abolishing the death penalty.  Maybe the crime was that heinous, or they’re that unrepentant, or they’re that dangerous (even locked up), or they’re that broken and can never be put right ever.  Attempting to evoke sympathy for them, or outrage over their execution, does the anti-DP cause no good, because it makes the anti-DP advocate look like a moral idiot.

John Muhammed is of the latter category.  Please don’t expect people to feel that his execution was any kind of miscarriage of justice.  It wasn’t.

CaseyL - I don’t think that is Jesse’s point.

The only fight you have against this particular death penalty case would be overall cost but since most murder cases still end up going through the same legal hoops it becomes mostly null.  Arguably I don’t care whether the government executes convicted criminals or holds them forever.  I’m more worried that we fail to get the system right the first time.  30k of rape kits never tested in a decade is about 29,999 too many. 

But excuse me for not caring one way or the other for wishing him to live till he died normally or were stopped dead by a chemical concoction that erodes his veins.  I just don’t care.  Sorry.

Actually, the only fight I have against this particular death penalty case is the same fight I have against all of them: we’re killing people who we a.) are already punishing, b.) are already deterring and c.) have little societal interest in gaining vengeance from.

I’m sorry you don’t care, but I think it’s a pretty big fucking deal that we spend millions of dollars a year on killing people (a non-trivial amount due either to political pressure or pure error) that we don’t need to spend for safety we already have as it relates to people we have no actual need to kill.

The point is that it doesn’t making any fucking difference whether he was executed or continues to rot in jail. It won’t bring anyone back to life or deter anyone from committing a similar crime. Even if it was reliable and fair, which it isn’t, capital punishment is simply a waste of money and effort.

Jesse, perhaps you would clearly state your point because I’m not sure I get it.

Kathy - it’s quite possible I missed Jesse’s point totally.  If the point was that Muhammed should have been executed *sooner* then yes I missed it by a mile.  But I’m not sure I agree with that, either.  There was no doubt whatsoever that Muhammed was guilty of the crimes for which he was convicted, but in general people sentenced to death *should* have a few years, quite a few years in fact, in which to try and undo their sentence, if not their conviction.

If Jesse’s point was that there was no particular need to put Muhammed to death, since he posed no threat and never would since he would never be released… well, I can’t disagree, but (as previously noted) I also sure can’t summon any sense of injustice over it.

Sorry, time lag in posting.

Attempting to evoke sympathy for them, or outrage over their execution, does the anti-DP cause no good, because it makes the anti-DP advocate look like a moral idiot.

Right, because in America, moral stands are for nerds.

So what is more cruel, life in prison without a possibility of parole or execution?  Either way, you die in a hell hole.

If Jesse’s point was that there was no particular need to put Muhammed to death, since he posed no threat and never would since he would never be released… well, I can’t disagree, but (as previously noted) I also sure can’t summon any sense of injustice over it.

I imagine this will bounce right off you, but the act of killing a person who poses no threat (and who will never pose a threat in the future, for that matter) has a very specific word attached to it, and it’s not “justice.”

I can’t disagree, but (as previously noted) I also sure can’t summon any sense of injustice over it.

Yeah, there are bad people who are unquestionably guilty and do terrible things and are therefore sentenced to death, but that still doesn’t make it right for the state to be killing people in cold blood who are not a threat to society.  That is not justice.  That is vengeance.

I am against the death penalty, and that means I should be against it for all inmates, or else that makes me a hypocrite and morally weak, not a moral idiot.  Killing people in cold blood who are no threat to you is wrong, no matter how bad that person is, and no matter how much time we’ve spent calmly determining that they are really, really, super bad.

CaseyL, the fact that you apparently haven’t thought about this and have no particular moral concern says more about you and the fatuousness of your position than anything I could say.

I would be totally for the death penalty if it could be given out to only guilty people. It can’t be, so I’m not in favor.

Jesse, you’re absolutely right:  I have never in my 53 years thought long and hard about the death penalty.  I’m just a fatuous ninny who gets a vicarious kick out of executions.  I certainly don’t have your very evolved and exquisite ethical sense.  I feel so schooled now.

Justice Harry A.  Blackmun:

From this day forward, I no longer will tinker with the machinery of death.  For more than 20 years I have endeavored—indeed, I have struggled, along with a majority of this Court—to develop procedural
and substantive rules that would lend more than the mere appearance of fairness to the death penalty endeavor… Rather than continue to coddle the Court’s delusion that the desired level of fairness has been
achieved and the need for regulation eviscerated, I feel morally and intellectually obligated simply to concede that the death penalty experiment has failed.  It is virtually self-evident to me now that no
combination of procedural rules or substantive regulations ever can save the death penalty from its inherent constitutional deficiencies.  The basic question—does the system accurately and consistently determine which defendants `deserve’ to die? —cannot be answered in the affirmative… The problem is that the inevitability of factual, legal, and moral error gives us a system that we know must wrongly kill some defendants, a system that fails to deliver the fair, consistent and reliable sentences of death required by the Constitution.

Yeah, there are bad people who are unquestionably guilty and do terrible things and are therefore sentenced to death, but that still doesn’t make it right for the state to be killing people in cold blood who are not a threat to society

I’m usually an anti-death penalty proponent, because the state has been so inept and unfair in application.  But in this case, whew. 

Personal experience, I’ve lived in an area that had its own sniper who killed a few over many weeks - not Muhammed.  That changed a lot for me - it was indeed an act of terrorism.

And in that same area, we’ve had quite a few prison escapes - with physical harm - so, no threat, ever?  Sorry, not good enough.

Pointing out how old you are makes your casual dismissal of executions seem more callous, not less.  If you were young, you might not have had time to know better.

I think what squicks me out the most is that the victims’ relatives get to watch him die.

Attempting to evoke sympathy for them, or outrage over their execution, does the anti-DP cause no good, because it makes the anti-DP advocate look like a moral idiot.

Part of being against the death penalty is that even when the convict deserves the death penalty, you are still against it. Jesse is only being consistent here and, in his own sarcastic way, pointing out that the punishment is more about retribution against someone we feel deserves it rather than something that serves the purpose of protecting the public.

No, it means I’ve had a lot of time to think it over.  I’m anti-DP, but I’m just not going to weep over John Muhammed.  I’d be bemused at the reaction to this really quite reasonable viewpoint, except that I remember the tendency of adolescents to romanticize and feel very deeply about everything - and the attendant youthful contempt for anyone who doesn’t feel the same way.  No biggie.

I believe that any criminal justice system has 3 purposes in a society:

1) Remove the criminal from society in order to protect society from the deeds of the criminal

2) Rehabilitate the criminal, be it granting education, counseling, or something that allows the criminal to become a contributing member of society, even if from behind bars for the rest of his life

3) Warehouse those who cannot be rehabilitated.

I am against the death penalty. In 2003, George Ryan commuted the sentences of all death row inmates in Illinois. He was troubled with the system that had freed more people than had been put to death.

Some of those who’s sentences were commuted were pretty bad, bad people. I can’t find it right now, but there was a couple who broke into the house of the man’s pregnant ex-girlfriend. They killed the woman and her 3 live children, who were hiding in closets. They cut open the stomach of the man’s ex-girlfriend, and took her late-term fetus, because the woman wanted her own child. These two are now serving life without parole. Even though these are 2 reprehensible humans, I don’t have a problem with this.

However, I do believe there are criminals who are so dangerous, warehousing them is a danger to those who are rehabilitating and to the surrounding community. Ted Bundy comes to mind.

I believe that if there is a chance that a criminal can spend time in prison, and come to terms with what they did (Dahmer comes to mind), it’s a value to the community to let these people live. I don’t believe that John Muhammed is one of those people.

Seriously, Jesse, there are cases where your false piety might sound genuine. In one of the few posts of yours that I can actually follow what you’re trying to say through your pointless and distracting snark, you sound like an ingenuine jerk.

The DP is an issue that does require serious discussion. Your “Wheeeeee!!! I win the ‘I care’ award!!!” attitude doesn’t really add anything.

My thought on the death penalty is largely this: There are people who deserve the death penalty, but that doesn’t mean it should be imposed on them. Much of Western society has eliminated the death penalty for some very good reasons, which we ignore at our peril. In addition to the race and class issues, there’s also issues of symbolism—was it really such a good idea to execute Timothy McVeigh, knowing that he might become a martyr to the anti-government Right?

Having said that, maybe there should be a movement to give the Federal government a monopoly on the death penalty, with an eye towards its eventual abolition. It wouldn’t eliminate the abuses completely, but it would certainly eliminate anomalies like Texas and Utah. I mean, I’m fine with life imprisonment, with confinement in a supermax for particularly heinous crimes. (I could see execution for diagnosed sociopathic murderers like Ted Bundy, but that’s mainly a factor of the special difficulties involved with dealing with someone with no conscience whatsoever.)

I’m definitely anti-death penalty. Sure, there are people I would like to see dead and who I think deserve to die, but my personal feelings aren’t a good basis for legal policy, yeah? And if I were the family member of a victim I would really REALLY want their attacker to die (I’d probably want to kill them myself) but my feelings *still* wouldn’t be a valid argument for the death penalty. So I chalk my feelings being ignored by the law up to being one of the little unfairnesses life heaps on you for trying to be a decent person, and consider a little bit of frustrated rage it worth it not to execute innocent people. Saving millions each year is just icing.

So I’m not keen on hearing about this guy’s execution. But mostly I’m just sick of seeing the headlines calling this guy a “mastermind”—the media reeeally needs to STFU about that; they are practically gagging for another guy like this to come along and make their lives more exciting. Like: “oh, he was a terrible terrible --brilliant, diabolically clever!-- evil man who we should shun --by talking about him non-stop!-- and forget about forever --more at 11!” Obnoxious, and also something I’ve heard is very much discouraged by law enforcement and experts on this sort of thing. If you didn’t want people going on shooting rampages you would generally make shooting rampages sound less dramatic and glamorous, yes?

Seriously, Jesse, there are cases where your false piety might sound genuine. In one of the few posts of yours that I can actually follow what you’re trying to say through your pointless and distracting snark, you sound like an ingenuine jerk.

I wouldn’t call sticking to your principles, even when it’s not very fun or emotionally satisfying, “false piety” personally. And it sounds just a weee bit silly to call someone objecting to killing a human being a “jerk” doncha think? At worst I would say something like “naive” but even that isn’t really true.

However, I do like your idea of Federal control somewhat, if it’s between that and state control. Total abolition would be best, I think, like you said, but at least getting some of the more execution-happy states to chill out would be nice. As for the Bundys of the world, abolishing the death penalty would free up significant funds that could be put towards better facilities for holding people like that. I don’t have such a high opinion of sociopaths that I believe they can escape anything and defeat a large number of well-trained guards. (Hell, letting out about a million drug addicts wouldn’t hurt, funding-wise, either. Give a couple Bundys a whole prison to themselves or something—the pot-smokers who got booted back into society wouldn’t mind, I’m sure. )

I believe that if there is a chance that a criminal can spend time in prison, and come to terms with what they did (Dahmer comes to mind), it’s a value to the community to let these people live. I don’t believe that John Muhammed is one of those people.

This remains exactly backwards, and informs your dismissal of Jesse’s post.

It is incumbent on death penalty proponents to prove not that someone doesn’t deserve to be allowed to live, but that anyone deserves to die in cold blood. Because that is what the death penalty is. No one, not even a callous (or in this case, PTSD-riddled via an American war) murderer, has to prove that they deserve the mercy of the state. The state has to prove that it has the standing to act as executioner and deliverer of vengeance.

I should have said, before ”and in this case, a PTSD-riddled etc. etc.” but I shouldn’t have even said that, since it’s a distraction. Muhammed was surely warped in some, possibly small, way by his experience in Iraq, but he’s still a murderer.

Remember when you were a kid and your little brother hit you and you were about to hit him back, and your mother said “Don’t you dare. You’re bigger and stronger than he is and you know better.” Did I think that was fair? Was I satisfied if Mom took away his He-Man toy for the rest of the day? No. I really wanted to hit him back. But that wasn’t a good reason for me to be allowed to do so. We were raised in a family where we weren’t allowed to hit each other, and that included no spanking of children by parents. We lost privileges instead. I’m quite glad that neither of my siblings nor I grew up to be people who want to solve anything with a fist fight. I’ll have to ask them how they feel about the death penalty. Our non-violent household was a reaction to the violent one my mom grew up in. I think my dad might even be pro-DP.

I am unequivocally against the death penalty. I am saying this as someone who lived in the DC area while Muhammed and Malvo were on their death rampage. A few years earlier, I had taught in a school across the intersection from the Home Depot where a woman was killed in the parking lot. I lived just four miles from there. During the weeks of the shootings, my students were not allowed to go outside for recess. I was not allowed to keep the blinds on the windows in the classroom open, as the higher-ups figured that it would be harder for a sniper to target an individual through a window with closed blinds. The last Saturday before they were caught, two friends and I made a trip that should have taken about three hours, but we were caught in a dragnet in Virginia and it took us six hours to get home as the police were checking every car, or at least every car that fit a certain description. (I was sleeping in the backseat by that time so I don’t know if we were checked.) We were afraid every freaking time we walked from our cars to the school building, every time we walked from our cars to a store, and especially every time we had to pump gas as several victims had been at gas stations. We couldn’t drive with windows down, because it was safer to have that glass as security - maybe it would deflect a bullet at some other angle and wouldn’t kill us. I lived through this as much as anyone can without being the family member or friend of a victim. I lived in fear and everyone around me did too. Anyone who says otherwise has a faulty memory. I’m still against the death penalty, even for Muhammed. I do prefer to think that every human has some redeemable qualities, and even while spending life in prison without parole someone can find meaning in their life. I have trouble finding sympathy in my heart for Muhammed considering how close to home his killings were, but I am still in favor of locking him up and throwing away the key, not killing him. As someone said upthread, it’s not for him that I’m against it, it’s for us. It’s to preserve our humanity by not making us killers.

Since when do progressives trust the government?  I don’t trust the government to tell me when I should give birth, I don’t trust it to tell me when I should die.  And yes, this is personal.  When we let the government kill one of us, what right do we have to say that we ourselves don’t deserve to be killed by the government?  Just because we don’t go around shooting people?  Since when is not doing a crime justification for not getting convicted? 

That said, I’m still mildly embroiled in the monster abortion thread.  So y’all have fun with this one.

The EU no longer permits the death penalty. Perhaps it’s not fair to equate support for capital punishment with opposition to universal health care.

Hey, all those guys that went on shooting rampages this week---one at Ft. Hood, one at a post in South Carolina, one in Oregon, and another one just yesterday---sure were deterred, weren’t they?

Oh.

JohnGor, I appreciate the insinuation that I’m such a terrible writer that you’ve continually read everything I’ve written over the course of several years just to stick that one rhetorical shiv in my back.  That’s special.

So, essentially, the argument developing against my point is that:

1.) You’re older than I am (I really did think the “you’re a baby” argument would have ended when I became old enough to rent a car, but hey);

2.) I’m an awful writer that you keep reading.

This certainly convinces me that you’re thoughtful, considered advocates of your position.

Jesse, you’ve completely forgotten about the deterrence factor. If there is one thing violent sociopaths are known for, it’s objectively and rationally weighing the consequences of their actions. Certainly the threat of being killed by the state several years in the future offers a tremendous deterrent over being thrown in prison for the rest of their natural lives.

I’m geek enough to quote Tolkien in response to CaseyL:

Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment.

The Death Penalty is a barbaric practice that proves that many Americans are more interested in cheap emotional highs than we are in real justice. The fact that the DC Sniper, though he committed his crimes in several states, was “shopped around” after his capture so that he could receive the death penalty<em> tells you everything you need to know about our “commitment to justice” in this country. He was executed before he even went on trial. I feel like I’m living on Cardassia.

All of those rednecks who look down on countries like Saudi Arabia where people can have their hands cut off or be stoned to death.... <em>that’s how the rest of the developed world looks at us.

d’oh. tag fail. In my defense, I have not yet had my caffeine this morning.

CaseyL:

No one is asking you to weep over John Muhammed, idiot.  THIS is the kind of case that separates the real opponents of the death penalty from the phonies.  Seriously, it does not matter how big a scumbag the person being put to death is...it is WRONG for the state to be involved in revenge killing.

Clearly you do NOT oppose revenge killing.  You just feel sad when some celebrity ready inmate tugs at your heartstrings. 

I for one never give a shit who the hell is getting killed by the state - the person can be a total fucker or perhaps an innocent victim of the crappy justice system for all I know.

I don’t think that State Sponsored Revenge Killing is ok. Period.

“Then there are people who are NOT poster children for abolishing the death penalty.  Maybe the crime was that heinous, or they’re that unrepentant, or they’re that dangerous (even locked up), or they’re that broken and can never be put right ever.  Attempting to evoke sympathy for them, or outrage over their execution, does the anti-DP cause no good, because it makes the anti-DP advocate look like a moral idiot.”

I’m proud to be a moral idiot in your eyes. I don’t want the state in any more of the killing business than is absolutely necessary. That’s as close to a coherent political philosophy as I have, or care to have.

Jesse is absolutely right to ridicule the idea that this was justice or that it wasn’t a completely pointless exercise. Straight up, there isn’t any justice for what Muhammad and Malvo did. You can kill them and maybe some of the families feel better, I don’t know, but their loved ones are still dead and gone. There can’t be any justice for that, unless there’s a magical afterlife like the religious posit.

One Jewish Dyke puts best, IMO.
“Remember when you were a kid and your little brother hit you and you were about to hit him back, and your mother said “Don’t you dare. You’re bigger and stronger than he is and you know better.” Did I think that was fair? Was I satisfied if Mom took away his He-Man toy for the rest of the day? No. I really wanted to hit him back. But that wasn’t a good reason for me to be allowed to do so....”

Attempting to evoke sympathy for them

I have no sympathy for this murderer/terrorist, and Jesse is not trying to evoke sympathy for him.  I still don’t think it was right to kill him.  I think you have missed the entire point.

Auguste wrote:

I imagine this will bounce right off you, but the act of killing a person who poses no threat (and who will never pose a threat in the future, for that matter) has a very specific word attached to it, and it’s not “justice.”

I’m opposed to capital punishment as well, but I don’t think most people would argee it isn’t just to execute a mass murderer.  I would abolish capital punishjment because we ought not to take life if it isn’t necessary to take life, and it is almost always unnecessary to execute someone you are holding in prison.  He is, by definition, helpless at that point.

But unjust?  Hardly.

Actually, I changed my mind. Jesse is, in fact, an idiot because he titled the post thus and didn’t include an adorable kitten photo.

Jesse @ 35 -

Actually, essentially, your point coalesces around:

1) Jesse’s right, because he says so

2) Anyone who doesn’t fawn over Jesse’s correctedness is a poopy-head

3) Jim Rome defense. You can’t judge my blog until you read it. If you don’t like it, you’re a hypocrite, because you read it.

Jesse, I come here to read Amanda & Pam. Seriously, your posts are jumbled, and I usually bail halfway through, because your main thrust is that any argument you disagree with is beneath refuting logically. You just make fun of it in a way that is ... hard to follow, and tragically, unfunny.

I do find it weird when people will take the time to read a board post, and then pretend the writer said the opposite of what they’re saying. My main argument is that there are criminals so dangerous, the only way to keep the community safe is to kill them.

I know you really do believe that every single criminal’s life is sacred, so why house poor, fragile child molesters with psychopaths who will sodomize and kill them? Other criminals and prison guards are part of the community that needs to be protected from dangerous murderers.

I would rather spend the money we invest in paying half a dozen prison guards it takes to isolate and sustain some of our most dangerous prisoners, and put that towards your health care.

It’s an imperfect system. We’re an imperfect people.

Penn wrote:

Jesse, you’ve completely forgotten about the deterrence factor. If there is one thing violent sociopaths are known for, it’s objectively and rationally weighing the consequences of their actions. Certainly the threat of being killed by the state several years in the future offers a tremendous deterrent over being thrown in prison for the rest of their natural lives.

If this is the case, we ought to see the lowest murder rates in Texas, Virginia and Florida, where capital punishment is actually carried out with the greatest frequency.  Do you think that’s the case?

The considerations that criminals take is not so much “what penalty will I face,” but “will I get caught.” The penalties involved even for crimes less serious than murder are far more severe than any potential benefit, at least, for anyone with any sense.

Auguste @28 -

It is incumbent on death penalty proponents to prove not that someone doesn’t deserve to be allowed to live, but that anyone deserves to die in cold blood.  ...  The state has to prove that it has the standing to act as executioner and deliverer of vengeance.

We as a community do have the right to make ourselves “safe” from the acts of criminals. I don’t propose handgun ownership, or vigilanteism, those make society more unsafe.

I don’t believe one can look at someone’s face and determine they deserve to die. However, I do believe that when you have a person who is committed to killing and raping and causing as much havoc as their body will allow them, there does come a point where their living endangers everyone else around them, prisoners and guards included.

Love you for this, Jesse.  The sooner you’re a member of the bar, the better.

I still can’t believe that a huge portion of the populace is afraid to have the government be in charge of some portion of healthcare but is totally sure that it’s okay for it to have the ability to put them to death.

Yes yes.  Every time I hear an American mocking “nanny states” I have to shake my head.  I want to say to those folks: YOUR government (in most states) has the right to take away your life.  Control does not get more oppressive than that.  Mind-boggling disconnect.

I’ve spent the last 4 years living with literary representations of execution (18th century) and I’m still not de-sensitized.  Shit, I just watched Katyn yesterday and was nigh overcome by the final scenes.

but my personal feelings aren’t a good basis for legal policy, yeah?

Yes, I think this is the most important point.  Of course I’m not sad that the sniper died, and he certainly deserved it, but that’s not the point.  Justice is not a synonym for revenge.  Two wrongs don’t make a right and all that.  Moral consistency is virtue, which is why we need to oppose the death penalty even for terrible people.  I live in the DC area, and I was never threatened by Muhammed while he was in prison.

Oh, and I come here to read Auguste, too.

Jeese is hilarious.  JohnGor0 you couldn’t be more wrong on that point.

I used to believe in the death penalty *specifically* for people like Muhammed, or for that matter the couple mentioned earlier in the thread. Mass murderers with no remorse, serial killers, hitmen, people who for any reason cold-bloodedly murder a large number of other people… because those are the people who cannot be rehabilitated.

However, the fact that the death penalty is applied to anyone who kills a policeman for any reason whatsoever, including defending his 18-month-old daughter from what he thought was a home invader or a crime of passion triggered by seeing his brother being brutally beaten by said policeman, gave me pause.

And then there were all the innocent people who had been sitting on death row for years before getting their sentence commuted.

And then there’s the whole *concept* of “we have good evidence now that so-and-so is innocent, but he ran out all his appeals already, so tough shit.”

And then there were the people who didn’t pull the trigger at all, but were involved in the felony, and if you are involved in a felony where one of your comrades kills someone, you too can be subject to the death penalty… even if all you were trying to do was rob a few hundred bucks from a convenience store, and you were just as horrified that your pal shot the guy as anyone else.

No, the death penalty has to go. It’s hard for me. I *want* to see John Muhammed, and people who murder children, and serial killers who single out and torture and kill women, put to death. I in fact want to torture them and see them suffer horribly before they die. But, y’know, I may want to beat the crap out of my son for refusing to do his homework… that doesn’t mean I should, or that it would be right if I did, or that the state should authorize me to do so just because I *want* to.

There are too many innocent people being put to death, and there are too many people who are *not* innocent but whose crime was of killing a person who is considered more valuable than they are. In all the discussions over whether or not Mumia Abu-Jamal actually killed the policeman he is accused of killing, I never once heard anyone point out the really obvious fact that the *prosecution’s* claim is that he killed the policeman for beating up his brother (right at the moment, not tracking down the guy who once beat his brother but shooting a guy who was beating his brother right then)… and if you can’t give a guy leniency, in the form of a life sentence instead of death, for PROTECTING HIS BROTHER, when can you? Men get life sentences with parole for killing their girlfriends all the time; I’d think that killing your girlfriend because she was cheating on you is a *lot* less understandable than murdering the total stranger who’s beating the crap out of your brother. I think Abu-Jamal did kill that policeman, because frankly, if I saw a cop beating up my brother and I had a gun on me, *I’d* shoot the cop… and I think he doesn’t deserve the death penalty *anyway*, even in a world where anyone does, because, hello, his brother.

If we had ever lived in a world where the death penalty could be dealt out fairly, and by fairly, I mean delivered *only* to guilty people who had murdered large numbers of people in full recognition that they were deliberately killing innocents who hadn’t harmed them and felt no remorse for it, I might have a different opinion. But the death penalty will always be disproportionately leveraged against people we consider less deserving of life, which is why black people who kill white people are *vastly* more likely to get death than any other group of killers, and why people who kill policemen are routinely put to death no matter how understandable their crime was (and even if under other circumstances it wouldn’t be a crime at all—in many states it would be considered admissible self-defense to shoot a home intruder to defend your baby), and that’s just wrong. Humans cannot be counted on to fairly administer a death penalty, therefore humans should not put anyone to death.

Killing people in cold blood who are no threat to you is wrong, no matter how bad that person is, and no matter how much time we’ve spent calmly determining that they are really, really, super bad.

Sorry, but this is disingenuous. Yes, killing someone who is not threat to you is wrong. Out on the street. Out in the world. Even in your living room.

But someone who is being kept in a cage against their will, who has demonstrated quite clearly that if they were NOT being kept in a cage, they are a fatal threat, not only to specific people (bad enough), but to random members of the public going about their lives, hardly qualifies as “no threat to you” by any rational standard.

That’s a lot like saying that it is wrong to keep someone tied up while you call the police, because while they are tied up, they aren’t a threat. Please.

I am opposed to the death penalty in actual practice. In far, far too many cases, things are not absolutely clear. I don’t think that “preponderance of the evidence” or “beyond a reasonable doubt” are enough in most cases for the death penalty.  I also believe that if we do have a death penalty, it should be administered as comfortably and painlessly and with as much dignity as possible. Something like an overdose of happy leading to unconsciousness followed by lethal injection. And none of the “witnessed by the victims or survivors” part, either.

But I am completely against the idea that putting someone in a box for the rest of their life without possibility of parole is somehow more humane. Some people do not belong loose in society. But nobody belongs trapped in a box just to make us feel somehow more humane or high-minded. And I vehemently dispute anyone who says that a humane (unlike what we have now) execution is always and only about revenge, while knowing someone is trapped in a cage isn’t.

At the very least, any inmate serving life without parole should have the option of petitioning the state to be executed.

Dana @ 46:

Agreed. But I think Penn was being sarcastic.

Lymis wrote:

But someone who is being kept in a cage against their will, who has demonstrated quite clearly that if they were NOT being kept in a cage, they are a fatal threat, not only to specific people (bad enough), but to random members of the public going about their lives, hardly qualifies as “no threat to you” by any rational standard.

Actually, yes, by a rational standard, such a person does qualify as no threat to you.

If we can execute someone against his will, he is, by definition, helpless.  He can become a threat only if he gets out of his cage.  Escapes are possible, but the probability of escape is rather low, a little bit too low on which to base the point of execution vis a vis capital punishment.

I think Jesse has a point, and he’s entitled to make it.  It’s a good point.  I’m not sure whether I agree, for reasons already set out above.

Normally, I would have just said “hmm....” and gone on with my morning, but the vitriol in this comment thread has really upset me.

I wouldn’t mind if they abolished the death penalty.  It’s not necessary at all, for reasons that have been made perfectly clear here already.  When I lived in IL and the government effectively froze it, I was pleased.  But at the same time, I’m not unhappy that the DC sniper was put to death.  And what I’m getting from a lot of the comments here is that not feeling bad makes me some kind of horrible, immoral person.

Look, it’s fine to think that the killing of a captive prisoner is cold-blooded murder.  You might be right.  But you have to realize that the institutional killing of someone who is 100% guilty of murder, combined with terror, torture, or rape (or some other heinous crime) is not going to be seen as being murder by everyone.  A lot of people are going to see it as justice.  Some people will see it as both.  And I think CaseyL has a point - if you use the DC sniper as an opportunity to publicly attack the death penalty (in a serious manner, not just some snark on a blog - this post is surely harmless), you’re probably going to damage the cause.

I think an analogy (though not a fair one, because it ignores the obvious issues of women’s autonomy) is how people view abortion vis a vis the fetus.  Some people feel that abortion is cold-blooded murder of a human being.  It’s fine to think that, even if I think the attitude is a little silly.  But when those people attack you and me for disagreeing with them - when they decide we’re horrible people and baby-killers because we don’t feel the same way - we think they’re being unreasonable.  Crazy, even.  Because we expect them to understand that even though they feel very, very strongly about it, there are also other viewpoints out there.  They should at least acknowledge that this is a grey area and cut those that don’t agree some slack (and choose arguments and methods that don’t alienate people who might even agree, but don’t feel as strongly).

I think the question here is, do anti-DP people want to actually end the death penalty, or do they just want to feel morally superior to those who don’t?  Because if it’s the former, I think we have to be very cognizant of the vast middle of the American spectrum of opinion: people who are uncomfortable with the death penalty but also see it as justice (and not murder) in many cases.

Jesse,
I think you failed to mention that since the sniper’s death all those people have actually come back to life. Pretty convincing reasons for the death...What that didn’t happen? What kind of fucked up shit is lethal injection then?

Seriously, in my mercifully ended teaching career I was teaching high schoolers about the death penalty. We went over mitigation and aggrievation, including drug use as a mitigating factor. Some student asked, “So if I get stoned before I kill someone, I could get off.” To which I pointed out that no, you’d get life in prison instead of death. Not exactly “getting off.”

Listen everyone:

I live in the DC area.  I am no safer today than I was yesterday.  If you support the death penalty, it’s because of revenge, not safety.  At least be honest about your motives.

I am vehemently opposed to the death penalty, and absolutely think we should do away with it, but I can’t bring myself shed a tear for John Allen Muhammad.  The system sucks, but I can’t find sympathy for him… I am more angered by the injustice of the system than I feel sad for him.

It is an injustice that we live in a nation that believes that killing criminals is a rational solution or deterrent to violent crime.

But there are a lot of other injustices that I find far more appalling in our unjust society.  If I have to choose between expending my resources on fighting systemic poverty, institutionalized discrimination, and corporate malfeasance or fighting a cruel practice of our criminal justice system, I’m signing up for the protest rallies for the other three first.

John Allen Muhammad was likely a victim of two of the three widespread injustices our nation still grapples with - systemic poverty and institutionalized discrimination.  He was also a perpatrator of a vile and disgusting series of crimes which brutally ended the lives of several innocent people, and corrupted the mind of his young co-conspirator.  I believe that if we can solve the other issues, then there will be fewer John Allen Muhammads in this world.  Still, the ills of a broken society do not give anyone a right to do the awful things that he had done.

True justice for Muhammad would have been a cold, dark prison cell for the rest of his natural life with absolutely no possibility of parole, ever, and decades of time to be forced to think about the awful crimes he committed and the lives he wantonly destroyed.

And in that same area, we’ve had quite a few prison escapes - with physical harm - so, no threat, ever?  Sorry, not good enough.

So charge him federally and ship him off to ADX Florence Supermax in Colorado.  If there ever was a prison constructed from which escape is virtually impossible, that one is it.

Two thoughts:

“So if I get stoned before I kill someone, I could get off.” To which I pointed out that no, you’d get life in prison instead of death. Not exactly “getting off.”

Comment #57: histro-geek on 11/11 at 11:18 AM

I wasn’t there of course, but the way in which this question was asked in class just chills me. Was this kid just curious, or thinking of something darker?

“True justice for Muhammad would have been a cold, dark prison cell for the rest of his natural life with absolutely no possibility of parole, ever, and decades of time to be forced to think about the awful crimes he committed and the lives he wantonly destroyed.”

Comment #59: DTG in STL on 11/11 at 11:30 AM

And with utter certainty, 5 or 10 years into the sentence, “Free Muhammad” posters will start popping up, protesting the unjustice of the treatment this poor soul is receiving. Certain people are perfectly capable of wearing “Pol Pot was just misunderstood” t-shirts.

Lymis—people don’t petition for the death penalty, they petition for release. They value freedom yes, but they value their lives as well. Someone who raped a child will petition for his release by suggesting that he be chemically or physically castrated (because you know, it wasn’t “him” that did it, it was his out-of-control sex drive), but you don’t get a lot of people petitioning to be strapped down and murdered, no matter how heinous their crime is. It’s suicidal, and the chemical process that causes a person to wish their own life be taken is too staccato to hold through an appeals process. You may declare that killing someone is more humane than “keeping them in a box the rest of their life” but that’s a pretty glib decision that you: who is not facing being strapped down and murdered, are making on behalf of people who, as miserable as they are in the box, would vastly prefer to continue living than to be strapped down and murdered. We can all make high-minded proclamations about when we would “rather be dead” but we tend to set the bar pretty low because we’re not facing the extinguishing of our own existence. We learn a different tune pretty quickly when it’s our own life that could be terminated.

I fully believe in prison reform, in the actual humane treatment of inmates and a real push to rehabilitate those that can be rehabilitated. You cannot effectively “punish” and “rehabilitate” at the same time. Our minds are too primitive for that--on both sides of the cell door. For people that are beyond rehabilitation, we can punish and then just incarcerate. I’m fine with that. AFAIC, far too many child molesters and rapists are released from prison because “their time’s up” when the parole board knows that they’ll just go out and rape again. But no part of me would feel safer if I knew that once they went out and did it again, they would be subject to being put to death under some three-strikes law. I would feel safer knowing that they were locked up and watched, and treated in a manner that met a minimum threshhold of humane treatment. But I’ll tell you what does make me feel unsafe: the knowledge that through some fuckup, frame-up, or simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time (maybe with the bonus of being the wrong skin color), I could be murdered by the state for a crime I didn’t commit. If I were thrown in prison for a crime I didn’t commit, I could still work and petition to have real justice. I would lose time, and there’s no getting time back, but I’d still have my time left on earth after my release. I wouldn’t have that if the state murdered me.

There are too many innocent people being put to death, and there are too many people who are *not* innocent but whose crime was of killing a person who is considered more valuable than they are. In all the discussions over whether or not Mumia Abu-Jamal actually killed the policeman he is accused of killing, I never once heard anyone point out the really obvious fact that the *prosecution’s* claim is that he killed the policeman for beating up his brother (right at the moment, not tracking down the guy who once beat his brother but shooting a guy who was beating his brother right then)… and if you can’t give a guy leniency, in the form of a life sentence instead of death, for PROTECTING HIS BROTHER, when can you? Men get life sentences with parole for killing their girlfriends all the time; I’d think that killing your girlfriend because she was cheating on you is a *lot* less understandable than murdering the total stranger who’s beating the crap out of your brother. I think Abu-Jamal did kill that policeman, because frankly, if I saw a cop beating up my brother and I had a gun on me, *I’d* shoot the cop… and I think he doesn’t deserve the death penalty *anyway*, even in a world where anyone does, because, hello, his brother.

Alara, you’re perfectly right. When I’ve had that argument with right wingers, it tends to come down to:

i, The guy who was shot was a policeman,
ii, Abu-Jamal was shady and, um, melanin-enhanced, and not a nice person.
iii, It pisses off liberals AND
iv, The guy who was shot was a POLICEMAN.

I’d love to know if the people screaming about government healthcare being rationing also support the death penalty because are they not both cases of the government getting to chose who lives or dies?

Lymis—people don’t petition for the death penalty, they petition for release. They value freedom yes, but they value their lives as well. Someone who raped a child will petition for his release by suggesting that he be chemically or physically castrated (because you know, it wasn’t “him” that did it, it was his out-of-control sex drive), but you don’t get a lot of people petitioning to be strapped down and murdered, no matter how heinous their crime is.

Somewhat of a sidetrack, but I was reading another diary about the Muhammad execution yesterday, and someone made an interesting proposal… we should abolish the death penalty, except for convicts who specifically ask for it.

Yeah, not too many of those at all, but there have been a small handful of convicted murderers who specifically told the court before sentencing that they would prefer getting the death penalty over life in prison.

So what of those people?  Let’s say we do abolish the death penalty, but leave it as an option for convicts who freely choose that as their punishment?  Basically, it becomes state-assisted suicide for the prisoner… should that be an option?

Not that I plan on doing anything which would land me in maximum security prison for life, but I’ve been inside one of those places, surrounded by murderers, rapists, and robbers (doing volunteer outreach work), and it’s a scary and miserable fucking place.  I honestly have to say that if I was ever convicted of something which would put me in one of those places for the rest of my life with no chance of getting out, I’d probably just kill myself.  I just can’t imagine living the rest of my life in such a horrible environment.

I have very mixed feelings about this execution. 

He was a Very Bad Man who did some Very Bad Things. 

OTOH, the punishment he received has been misapplied countless times, and has a truly ignoble history of abuse spanning centuries.

But there’s one thing I do know:  Dana is going to get kicked out of the Hard Ass Republicans Club if they find out he’s so soft on capital punishment…

Some student asked, “So if I get stoned before I kill someone, I could get off.” To which I pointed out that no, you’d get life in prison instead of death. Not exactly “getting off.”

This bugs me, too. I’ve heard people talking about someone “getting off” via the insanity plea. Do they truly believe that if a murderer successfully pleads insanity, they just get released back onto the street? The perpetrator gets locked in a high-security mental institution instead of a prison. Not a huge difference.

But some people seem to view getting anything but the maximum possible punishment as “getting off.” Sigh.

True justice for Muhammad would have been a cold, dark prison cell for the rest of his natural life with absolutely no possibility of parole, ever, and decades of time to be forced to think about the awful crimes he committed and the lives he wantonly destroyed.

And with utter certainty, 5 or 10 years into the sentence, “Free Muhammad” posters will start popping up, protesting the unjustice of the treatment this poor soul is receiving. Certain people are perfectly capable of wearing “Pol Pot was just misunderstood” t-shirts.

So?

“Free Mumia” t-shirts and posters are also pretty abundant, but I’m pretty damn sure that dude’s not getting out of prison, umm… ever.

Who cares if a few people in society want to be idiots and try to lionize despicable monsters.  Humans hav been doing that for eternity.  And executing these monsters doesn’t seem to deter people’s hero worship of them.  Abortion doctor murderer Paul Jennings Hill - who was executed 6 years ago - is still held up as a saint by the anti-choice whackjobs.  Hitler is pretty widely despised, except by the people who think of him as hero.

If the trade-off for ensuring that we never, ever, ever accidentally kill an innocent person is having to deal with wierdos who have fetishes for murderers, I’m ok with that.

By the way, as an addendum to my previous post…

And with utter certainty, 5 or 10 years into the sentence, “Free Muhammad” posters will start popping up

Muhammad was 6 years into his sentence at the time of his execution (he was sentenced in October 2003).  And I didn’t see a whole lot of “Free Muhammad” posters popping up.

I am vehemently opposed to the death penalty, and absolutely think we should do away with it, but I can’t bring myself shed a tear for John Allen Muhammad.

All right, I wasn’t going to comment, but too many people have used this wording for me to leave it be.

NOBODY IS ASKING YOU TO FUCKING CRY.

Jesse’s post wasn’t some Oh That Poor Psychopath weepfest, you know. Jeezy creezy, read for tone, already. Jesse’s post was in the cold, rational tone of someone who knows a great deal of treasure and humanity have just, once again, been thrown away for no good fucking reason.

He is looking at a system that nearly every single poster on this thread acknowledges is bogus, broken, discriminatory, and wrong, and saying, “shame it’s still operational, hope those people are proud of themselves.”

What little Glenn-Beckish thing is going on in your heads that you are afraid to critique the death penalty, lest you be seen as pro-murderer?

Ummm… I did critique the death penalty.  I said we should abolish it.  Don’t know how I could have been more clear about my position.

with utter certainty, 5 or 10 years into the sentence, “Free Muhammad” posters will start popping up

Just like all the “Free Charlie Manson” posters one sees every day in California, or the “Free Ted Bundy” posters that were so prominent in Florida a few years ago, or the “Free Richard Dahmer” posters that used to be so common in every restaurant.  Yeah, avoiding seeing posters like that is well worth killing someone.

I think the question here is, do anti-DP people want to actually end the death penalty, or do they just want to feel morally superior to those who don’t? 

I am pretty sure that one of the advantages of being a blogger rather than a politician or mass market syndicated columnist is that you don’t have to make displays of fealty to public pieties regarding how “serious” you are by talking about how much you respect the death penalty (tempered by your “very serious” moral resevations about it). DP proponents to not have a constitutional right to have their arguments taken seriously, and if Jesse wants to write a post criticizing such support for the DP, then good for him.

I honestly have to say that if I was ever convicted of something which would put me in one of those places for the rest of my life with no chance of getting out, I’d probably just kill myself.  I just can’t imagine living the rest of my life in such a horrible environment.

That’s entirely your decision, of course. If you can find a way to kill yourself and you have hit that level of despair that makes suicide seem viable, then okie dokie then.

But you’re sort of making my point for me: When it comes time to actually put the gun in your mouth, when it comes time to actually jump off the chair—that requires a certain degree of brain chemistry that simply doesn’t stick around that long. Yeah, you may want to kill yourself for a long time, but there are actual chemical processes that take place in the brain at the moment a person takes action to actually kill themselves. They are temporary processes, they are finite, they certainly do not last long enough to go through an appeals process. Unless the moment you tell your guard “I WANNA DIE!” he has permission to shoot you in the skull (and if I have to spend any time telling anyone on this thread how that could be a bad thing), then your brain will adapt and you’ll pull out of it. No, you may not ever be “happy” in the box, but as humans we tend to be a little less obnoxious in our own heads than we are talking about how we are in our own heads. Simple pleasures in life—no matter how simple (even something a simple as having a nice dream) tends to give us a renewed lease on life if we can make it through the crisis of “holy shit I want to die right now.” The will to survive takes over and we adapt. Of course no one would prefer to go to prison over sitting at their desk writing comments on a political blog… it’s fucking prison. It sucks for a reason. But if you were actually facing that choice, of living in the box or a cold grave, then you might be surprised at how much better the box looks after all. Especially if you’re given more than a minute to make up your mind because the appeal process for voluntary execution would take more than a few days, I’m sure.

Tyro @#72: You missed the point of what I wrote - I agree with you.  I specifically said that it wasn’t the blog post but the reaction to/by commenters I had a problem with.  My issue is with the spewing of vitriol at and belittlement of people who disagree on a “very serious moral issue”.

Because that type of attitude absolutely carries over to the political sphere, and makes people who are trying to do the right thing look like crazed, intolerant loons.  We should embrace people who don’t feel comfortable with the death penalty and maybe want to abolish/reduce it (or could be persuaded to feel that way), even if they don’t see it in the same light that others here do.  Even if they sometimes feel it’s justified.  The first step in “showing someone the light” is opening a dialogue with them.

I get a little upset because I see this type of behavior in the extremists on the other side of the political spectrum.  I don’t like it, and it bothers me even more when I see people on my side doing it.  We’re not teabaggers, or Operation Rescue.  We should know better.

I am not a Christian anymore, but I do get some sick pleasure out of the idea that these so-called Christians who support the death penalty might one day have to stand in front of their declared savior and explain exactly which part of his teachings they thought justified murder in cold blood.

As many posters above (Auguste, bad Jim, One Jewish Dyke) pointed out there is no good argument FOR the death penalty.  And people who not only defend it using emotional arguments buried in rhetoric and claim it’s logic piss me off almost as much as supports who can’t even all it what it is; a Death Penalty.  Don’t hide the action behind 2 small letters.  It’s execution.  The ending of a life with forethought and arbitrary over sight.

And am I the only one who thought, “Of course he was executed, he’s brown.”

Incidentally, I get the same feeling when I think imagine anti-abortion and anti-birth-control activists getting to that particular stain in their Book of Life. “What part of ‘Love thy neighbor’ was confusing to you? Did I stutter?”

But if you were actually facing that choice, of living in the box or a cold grave, then you might be surprised at how much better the box looks after all. Especially if you’re given more than a minute to make up your mind because the appeal process for voluntary execution would take more than a few days, I’m sure.

I suppose.  Though I should point out, the choice isn’t between living in a cold box or a grave, because in the latter, the person wouldn’t actually be “living”.  They would be dead.  Which they are gonna be someday anyway, just as all of us are.  And I have no idea what happens to our consciousness after death except that it ceases to exist in the physical body, because I’ve never actually been, umm… dead.

It’s why I don’t consider myself an outright atheist, but rather an agnostic.  Because while I certainly don’t believe in the man-made fairytales that have been spawned by our various religions, I cannot say with certainty that I believe that death is the absolute end of our existence.  Maybe it is, or maybe it isn’t.  Since nobody has actually ever physically died for any significant length of time (meaning more than a few minutes) and come back to talk about it, I don’t think anybody knows for sure what happens to us, except for what happens to our physical bodies.

Death really doesn’t frighten me all that much.  The uncertainty of what happens afterwords is probably the only truly scary part of it for me.  Not that I want to die anytime soon, more that I don’t fully understand why we as a society are so, pardon the pun, deathly afraid of something that is an absolute inevitability for each and every last one of us.  Anyway, that’s a whole different discussion, and you may be right, that it’s easier to say from the comfort of my desk that I would kill myself rather than spend the rest of my life in a maximum prison.  I don’t know.

So perhaps rather than allowing for voluntary execution, we allow for voluntary state-assisted suicide.  But it must be a true suicide, in which the device can only be activated by the convict - he or she literally has to push the button to kill themselves.  And give that person the opportunity to have a change of heart up to the last second on the death table, with the understanding that if they do change their mind at any point, they will have forfeited any future right to a self-imposed death penalty and will from that point forward accept a punishment of life imprisonment.

I’m not sure this is exactly what Jesse meant in the original post, but I see enough similarities to throw it in here.  FWIW, I support the abolition of capital punishment, but am something of a moderate amongst my liberal elitist friends.  So, he said, let us experiment...with thought!

Person A believes that the death penalty is categorically immoral, in some cases more immoral than the crimes it seeks to punish, because the process of deliberative justice is a group decision decided coldly, when no one is in actual physical danger.  He may believe that rehabilitation is universally possible with a sane criminal justice system, he may believe that lifetime incarceration is the best solution, whatever.

Person B believes that the death penalty is valid, moral, and the only fitting justice for someone who has taken another’s life in cold blood, or killed someone under 16, or 14, or taken hostages for some reason.  (Actual “fitting justice” statutes vary from state to state.) He might believe that rehabilitation is impossible, or that the prison system is unwieldy and expensive, or that execution is a more just, and in some cases more dignified, option than life in a penal system that amounts to legalized slavery.  He might think the ritual of retribution can be a helpful and healing experience for those afflicted with the loss of a loved one.

What do these two people agree on?  Neither of them would EVER intentionally opt for a system in which convicted murderers sit in prison for five or ten years and THEN get executed.  The appeal of the death penalty to person B diminishes over time, and person A doesn’t want anyone getting executed, period.

Of course, that multi-year delay is due largely to the time it takes to apply (ineffectively, but still) the various legal protections afforded the accused, which is also why it’s more expensive to execute than to imprison.  (It’s also usually the period of time in which murderers are most likely to become famous and iconic, which can be a bit rough on the surviving victims.) So what we have is a system that meets the criteria offered by neither A nor B, and is more expensive than A or B want to pay, to boot.

So, since this is untenable, we can go all in for either A or B.  We can’t speed up the execution rate without openly throwing away the already tenuous access to the legal system enjoyed by prisoners, and we can’t throw away that access without junking constitutional law.  This is, in practice, the path supported by many conservative hardliners, and I guess it’s ok if you think of the police as being essentially a group of uniformed vigilantes.  Alternatively, we could accept that even if capital punishment is a fine and dandy idea in and of itself, it is fundamentally incompatible with our laws, and we’re left with a half-assed reality show of death that ultimately doesn’t benefit anyone very well.

So, IMHO, death penalty, as practiced in America?  Pretty fuckin’ stupid.

While I’m at it, I would like to throw my support behind John Malkovich’s suggestion to change the term to the “early death penalty.”

And am I the only one who thought, “Of course he was executed, he’s brown.”

While there’s absolutely no disputing that the death penalty disproportionately gets imposed on POC, I think in this particular case, regardless of who the perp was, they would probably have been executed.  Virginia is second only to Texas in it’s zealous application of this barabric practice, and it’s hard to imagine anyone doing what Muhammad did and getting off with anything less then the death penalty.

What I do think is true is that ardent supporters of the death penalty probably take an extra sense of twisted glee over Muhammad’s execution than they would have had he been Jimmy Whiteguy instead.  Muhammad wasn’t just a black man, he was a Muslim black man.  Two birds with one stone in the wingnut’s minds.

DTG @ 70 - The problem is that we’re not fawning over how pious and great the posters are who unequivocably say the DP should go, period.

It is a complicated issue. The DP doesn’t work for any of the arguments currently employed in its defense. Nobody here is a proponent. Many here recognize that there is level of criminal who, for whatever reason, should be elegible for the DP, be they so dangerous, heinous, injurious to the victims’ families, etc. If there was the slightest of reasons for the DP, Muhammed is it.

My original problem with Jesse’s post is the affected tone that anyone who favors death for Muhammad is worthy of mockery, because all of our arguments are shit. I don’t lie awake at nights for fear that criminals will break out of prison and rape me. To boil down all opposition to his portrayal of those who might not be vehemently enough against the DP for his taste to “You oppose the death penalty because I’m older than you, or something like that” is disingenuous, and not really worthy of somebody who professes to be as intelligent as he does.

And, I’m sorry to disagree, but Jesse is unfunny. If it wasn’t for Amanda and Pam, he would have to pay myLife People Search to advertise on his blog.

Ummm… I did critique the death penalty.  I said we should abolish it.  Don’t know how I could have been more clear about my position.

I don’t think you were misunderstood, I just think people are not understanding where Jesse is asking anyone to be upset for poor DC Sniper.

It’s like having to say “I understand that Saddam is not a nice guy” before suggesting that the Iraq war was going to be a horrible clusterfuck.

I didn’t know Saddam’s moral status was a subject of controversy.

We didn’t punish him, we released him from punishment.

JohnGor0:

I don’t always agree with Jesse, but unfunny?  Mayhaps if you would put a catcher’s mitt atop your head, then maybe....

Seebach @ 82:

Jesse’s saying alot, without saying anything he has to defend. He’s insinuating that anyone who isn’t on his side of the argument is killing out of an irrational fear of the boogeyman, and worthy of mockery.

So, no, I guess he doesn’t really have to present anything to back that up.

Magis @83 - should prison be “punishment”?

magis @ 84 - Okay, I’m being mean. I just assume that anything I read on the internets is aimed at me, and I must respond in kind.

Sorry, but I’m among those who can’t summon up much sympathy for John Mohamed’s execution. He was guilty across the board, and the evidence stacked against him was ironclad.

Yes, Mohamed was locked up and not going anywhere, but he took genuine pleasure in butchering innocent people, and terrorizing an entire region. Thus, if the DP isn’t appropriate for the likes of Mohamed then who the hell is it good for?

Ummm… I did critique the death penalty.  I said we should abolish it.  Don’t know how I could have been more clear about my position.

I don’t think you were misunderstood, I just think people are not understanding where Jesse is asking anyone to be upset for poor DC Sniper.

It’s like having to say “I understand that Saddam is not a nice guy” before suggesting that the Iraq war was going to be a horrible clusterfuck.

I didn’t know Saddam’s moral status was a subject of controversy.

That makes it make a little more sense for me, and I should have been more clear in my initial post.

I didn’t interpret Jesse’s post as a call for sympathy for Muhammad, I was just kind of defensively putting it out there that “yeah, I agree that the DP is wrong, in all cases, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t still think Muhammad was a really shitty human being.” Which, I realize, could be interpreted as a passive way of implying that I thought Jesse thinks Muhammad is a great guy.

I don’t think that, and apologize for my poor phrasing.  I have absolutely no issue with the tone or content of Jesse’s post.

I remember back in 2003 building up to the Iraq War debating conservatives and uninformed moderates about it (if BushCo was good at anything, it was getting the MSM to sell that war to the American public, since 70% of us were perfectly OK with it in the beginning).  And I remember feeling like I alway had to defensively preface my opposition to the war by saying, “Yes, Saddam Hussein is an evil, brutal, murderous dictator, BUT...” because if I didn’t put that qualifier out there, my argument would be twisted into passive support for Saddam Hussein.

In the case of the Iraq War, progressives can jointly hold the belief that the war was morally wrong AND Saddam Hussein was a monster.

Just the same here, progressives can jointly hold the position that the death penalty is morally wrong, AND John Allen Muhammad was a monster.

Jesse’s saying alot, without saying anything he has to defend. He’s insinuating that anyone who isn’t on his side of the argument is killing out of an irrational fear of the boogeyman, and worthy of mockery.

So your regime is to only kill those people who deserve it? Sounds cool. Revolutionary, even. I’m not quite sure if anyone has ever formulated it in quite that way before.

I, personally, was not aware that there were people irredeemably evil in the world. I thought most child rapists and cannibals could get better with a little tea and honey.

I swear to God, we are in a war over the soul of this country with maniacs like Michelle Bachmann and Glen Beck, and whiny-ass liberals are getting all offended that they are oh-so-serious in their beliefs and shouldn’t get made fun of. It’s not all about YOU.

Sorry, but I’m among those who can’t summon up much sympathy for John Mohamed’s execution.

So you’re among every single person on this blog, and every sane person in the country?  Good for you!  Let’s celebrate.  You’ve fallen into the conservative wingnut territory of a false dichotomy.  Believing that the death penalty is wrong does not mean you have sympathy for murderers.  Are you suggesting that some of us actually do feel sympathy for this terrorist?

Thus, if the DP isn’t appropriate for the likes of Mohamed then who the hell is it good for?

The death penalty should only be used when someone continues to be an immediate threat.  Some countries do this by reserving the death penalty for people who commit murder while serving a sentence for murder.  Otherwise, it should never be used.  It doesn’t matter how super-dooper bad the murderer is, because this shouldn’t be about revenge.

Sorry, but I’m among those who can’t summon up much sympathy for John Mohamed’s execution.

And again… who… is… asking… you… to… weep… for… Muhammad? Should I ask? Maybe if I ask nicely I can get some tears of sympathy.

I’ll sign you up for JohnGor’s “only really bad people get killed” death penalty. I’m sure that won’t be abused when Sarah Palin becomes president.

Emotionally, when killers like this guy are caught and we are certain he did the deeds, my preference would be to allow the victims’ loved ones to be allowed collectively to have at him with baseball bats. But that’s no way to make public policy.  PLus, like onejewish dyke at #30, I recall vividly crouching behind my car when pumping gas in those days and worrying about my kids safety. 

The best argument in my mind against the death penalty is the quote from Justice Blackmun at Comment 18 above. 

The best argument to Christians against the death penalty is the scripture:  “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.” Vengence is not the proper Christian motive for the death penalty, it is for God (according to Christianity--personally, I’m between agnostic and atheist).

Dave Fried, good luck around here advocating respect for others’s viewpoints.  I have taken many figurative lumps around my head and shoulders around here for the same.

Yes, Mohamed was locked up and not going anywhere, but he took genuine pleasure in butchering innocent people, and terrorizing an entire region. Thus, if the DP isn’t appropriate for the likes of Mohamed then who the hell is it good for?

Nobody.  Which is sort of the point.

In a way, you’ve just made the perfect case for the purity of the anti-death penalty position.  Because we will generally agree with the “if there was ever a case for the death penalty...” position in regards to Muhammad, and still truly be opposed to its application in all cases, even Muhammad’s.

I am opposed to it in ALL cases… that includes not only those who have been executed, like Muhammad, Tim McVeigh, and Paul Hill, but also those scheduled to be executed, including Mumia Abu-Jamal (I oppose him being executed, but still believe he was guilty of second-degree murder and that he should remain imprisoned) and even Scott Roeder.

So what do we do with the truly worst of the worst, the most brutal and callous murderers that most people think “deserve” the death penalty?  Lock them up in a Supermax prison with no chance of parole, ever.  They aren’t going to ever escape from a place like Florence ADX.

Look all I’m saying is you’re in favor of the government executing people, or you’re objectively pro-murder, pro-rape and pro-puppy strangulation.

I guess you fuzzy-headed liberals just can’t handle logical thinking like that.

So what do we do with the truly worst of the worst, the most brutal and callous murderers that most people think “deserve” the death penalty?

I guess we put it to public referendum. That way, we know for sure that everybody really thinks that he’s ril ril guilty, and ril ril bad, and ril ril evil, and that nobody has sympathy for them.

Thus, if the DP isn’t appropriate for the likes of Mohamed then who the hell is it good for?

Haven’t you been listening? It’s good for no one.

Catgirl @ 90:

You’ve fallen into the conservative wingnut territory of a false dichotomy.

The last thing I am is Foxian conservative, believe me.

However, I still believe the DP to be apt for the most heinous of crimes (outside Texas, that is, which seems to perceive jaywalking as a capitol crime), such as those committed by John Mohamed, Tim McVeigh, et al.

It frustrates me that people find it necessary to say the John Muhammed was an asshole who deserved to die. That is a moral question, albeit a very hypothetical question since very few people are ever asked to make it.
There are plenty of criminals who, in a some ideal world, would be killed for what they did. I don’t dispute that, although in an ideal world they wouldn’t have done it. The main issue is should our government (you know the one who came up with the Vietnam and Iraq Wars, Amtrak, three-strikes laws, Bush v. Gore, etc.) be in the business of killing people who are not at the moment dangerous? Should our judicial system which is infamous in its errors, both for and against prosecutions, be permitted to make a decision that can never be revoked? Should prosecutors looking to satisfy a mob be permitted to unilaterally choose who has committed an execution-worthy offense and who hasn’t?
Justice Blackmun and Governor Ryan weren’t opposed in theory to the death penalty but realized that there was no way it could be made just. Therefore they decided abolition was the only sane course.

Bagelsan @ 96:

Haven’t you been listening? It’s good for no one.

Was the DP good for people like Heinrich Himmler? Yes, he committed suicide in prison, but Himmler knew he was guilty and headed for the gallows.

BrianX@#25, the execution of Timothy McVeigh offended me, because it gave him an opportunity to soil the majestic words of “Invictus”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invictus

Justice Blackmun and Governor Ryan weren’t opposed in theory to the death penalty but realized that there was no way it could be made just. Therefore they decided abolition was the only sane course.

Nah, we just need to pass a law that says the death penalty is illegal, except in cases where the person is really evil.

We can also make all wars illegal, except for the just ones. We’ll keep abortion legal, except for the sluts. Free speech will also be okay, unless you’re hurting someone.

I’m sure that will clear everything up.

Semiotic nitpick:

Uh, he was a sniper, not a butcher.

The mentality of the sniper is completely different from the butcher, because there is a partition to the act itself, there is literally distance. He knew he was killing people, yes, but he was doing so in one of the most detached ways that a person can do it short of voting Republican. A butcher likes the visceral kill--they like the gross anatomy and all it entails. A sniper does not. A sniper likes the feeling of power and anonymity, of being able to kill without getting blood on his hands.

/semiotic nitpick

However, I still believe the DP to be apt for the most heinous of crimes (outside Texas, that is, which seems to perceive jaywalking as a capitol crime), such as those committed by John Mohamed, Tim McVeigh, et al.

But why do you believe it’s an “apt” punishment?  Is it meant as a personal or general deterrent?  Well, it’s rarely necessary as a personal deterrent as long as the murderer is in prison.  And, it’s simply not effective as a general deterrent.

The only reason to support it is out of revenge, which I don’t think is a good enough reason to kill anyone.  Or, maybe you want to do it to prove that you truly don’t have sympathy for these guys, because you can’t seem to understand that it’s possible to be unsympathetic to murderers, and even hate them, but still believe it’s wrong for someone to kill them.

Bin Laden, Hitler, Himmler, Pol Pot—honestly, I don’t see executing any of those guys bringing back even one of their victims. It would only satisfy the most base desire for revenge. It wouldn’t “serve justice” anymore than locking them away would.

There was a dude who cut off the hands and feet of a young girl so she wouldn’t fight back while he raped her repeatedly before he killed her and dumped the body. I completely see red when I think about what he did. I wouldn’t wish him to be put to death though. And not in a “death’s too good for him” sort of way. If he did it to my daughter, I might call for him to be put to death, but that wouldn’t make me right. It would make be angry and grief-stricken and understandably filled with the desire for revenge, but it would not make me right.

Catgirl @ 103:

But why do you believe it’s an “apt” punishment?  Is it meant as a personal or general deterrent?  Well, it’s rarely necessary as a personal deterrent as long as the murderer is in prison.  And, it’s simply not effective as a general deterrent.

I agree that the DP is ineffective as a deterrent.

The only reason to support it is out of revenge

I don’t see it as revenge, but as the highest form of punishment reserved for those who have committed (once again) the most vicious of crimes. IMO, some people (like McVeigh or Mohammed) are truly mad dogs who via their actions have surrendered their own lives.

I am grateful that the murdering members of the white supremacist group “The Order” are growing old in prison, seeing the world move on and forget them, seeing that all of their crimes were for nothing and that their RaHoWa will never come about.  I am glad that they lived to see Barack Obama elected President.  I hope the same fate befalls Scott Roeder.

I am MUCH more vindictive than any DP advocate.

I can see this discussion is descending into the familiar territory of “I’m trying to save Earth, and if you don’t agree with every single word I write on this message string, you are the enemy!!” Gee, that sounds familiar. Where have I heard that before ... ?

Through all the sarcasm and purposefully misinterpretted arguments it all comes down to - nobody here is pro-DP. However, not agreeing that your take-it-or-leave-it position is 100% correct puts us firmly in the kill-em-all-let-god-sort-em-out camp, because nuance no longer exists.

We are being obstinate in not admitting that you are completely right and have the most awesomely humane arguent evah because we’re afraid prisoners can break out of jail and beat us up, or something like that, I suppose, or whatever. (I will call this a typical Jesse-ism, that trails off into incoherence.)

We can be against the DP, yet understand that since it is in effect, the execution of John Muhammad isn’t something we need to collectively feel ashamed over. I don’t owe Jesse an apology for Muhammad’s execution. Yes, it stings, sometimes, to find yourself on the same side as jerks who feel it’s your duty to want all criminals tortured in the most humiliating fashion possible. But as adults, we can make that distinction.

One doesn’t equal the other.

Please take note that I’m not challenging you to let John Lee Malvo babysit your kids, or insinuating that you want to open the prison gates, and hand everyone a flower as they skip out hand in hand. I have the ability to understand that you can be against the DP, and not want to snuggle with everybody who’s ever tortured an entire family to death because they won’t tell them where the drugs are.

It sucks when people don’t praise you for your genius, and instead choose to defend their stance that you’ve openly mocked. Please bear with us.

There was a dude who cut off the hands and feet of a young girl so she wouldn’t fight back while he raped her repeatedly before he killed her and dumped the body. I completely see red when I think about what he did.

I would also like to state, unequivocally, that I think cutting the hands and feet off of a person, raping them, and murdering them is a bad thing to do. In my mind, I do not have sympathy for rape, murder, and mutilation. I think it is not good, and not cool.

Just so that nobody gets the wrong idea, or anything, I would like to point out that I think each of the three things is bad in itself. It’s not just this particular combination is what makes me NOT AT ALL SYMPATHETIC. It is that each thing is bad, so in total, it is super bad.

I do not think rape is a good thing. I am against rape. I disagree with it. I am not sympathetic with rapists.

I fundamentally disagree with murder. I do not think murder is good. If my friend was a murderer, I would not be their friend any more. Because I think murder is not good, and it is bad.

I also disagree with mutilating people. And it is not only hands and feet, either. Cutting people up is not good, and it is not natural. Doing it against their will is especially not good. Even sometimes if it is their will, you maybe should check with a doctor first to make sure they are not crazy for wanting it. So mutilation is not my favorite thing, and you could fairly say I think it is not good.

Also, there are other crimes that I also think are bad that this person may or may not have done. I think stealing is also wrong. I am also not a fan of assault, or battery. I would not be sympathetic with someone who beat up someone else. That is NOT COOL.

...humanity is doomed.

The reality (as stated far more eloquently than me by folks above) is that the death penalty is:
- unfair
- not a deterrent
- prohibitively expensive
- morally questionable.

It is also driven by emotion and an intense desire for revenge against wrongdoers. While I completely understand the emotional response to heinous crimes, these emotions should NOT dictate legislation any more than religious beliefs should dictate womens’ reproductive rights...We need cooler, more logical heads to prevail all the way around.

I’ll skip the observation of the obvious incongruousness of being FOR the death penalty but AGAINST abortion...Well, except that...

I don’t see it as revenge, but as the highest form of punishment reserved for those who have committed (once again) the most vicious of crimes.

So basically, revenge under the nicer term of “punishment”.  If not deterrent or revenge, then what other reason is their for punishment?

Oh, and since everyone’s still kicking these issues around, I’d like to go on record as saying that I really didn’t approve of John Muhammad’s behavior.  Specifically that he shot a bunch of people.  I don’t think I’d enjoy being shot, and I’d prefer other people not get shot as well.  And while certain situations exist in which there seems to be no viable alternative to shooting people, those situations make me sad, and I wish they wouldn’t happen.

While we’re at it, I’m a little puzzled at the need for anti-DP proponents (DP abolitionists?) to point out that they don’t have sympathy for the condemned.  While I enthusiastically agree that lack of support for capital punishment does not equate to sympathy, I do feel sympathy for murderers.  I also feel sympathy for the loved ones of the murdered, and if there’s a way to quantify sympathy, they’d probably get more.  (The murdered, on the other hand, seem beyond the range of my sympathy.) Because, well, getting executed sucks, even if you deserve it.  And if I were to kill a bunch of people and be executed for it, it’d suck for me too.  Even if I agreed that I deserved it, it’d suck.  And since luck is at least a portion of the difference between me and a murderer, it seems like some sympathy is warranted.  There but for the grace of Yevon go I.

Enough with this “sympathy for sinners is objectively pro-sin” crap.

Some of you liberals here obviously wrongly feel that this blog is supposed to be a “safe space” for you an your sympathetic, understanding view of why we should use the DP and are getting offended that Jesse mocked the use of the death penalty and thinks that your ideas are silly. You have to learn to deal with it and deal with the fact that your “very serious” feelings on this issue are not going to be validated.

I don’t owe Jesse an apology for Muhammad’s execution.

Why do you feel he is demanding an apology from you? If I disagree with someone, I move on. I don’t think every argument is about making fun of me and how mean you are for not agreeing with me and making fun of my position.

Jesse’s tone was “whoop-de-do- that was a waste,” not “JohnGor better feel guilty and I’m going to hound him until he does.”

If you don’t feel guilty, big whoop. If you do feel guilty, big whoop. I don’t give a flying fuck, and I don’t think anybody does.

And it doesn’t bring closure to the victims’ families as proponents so desperately hope...Unless you are a killer who enjoys the horror of watching someone die, probably won’t fare well at an execution, regardless of your involvement in the crime...It can compound an already devastating situation.

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/node/613

Apologies for the old link but I was having a tough time finding a current one and didn’t want to make the above assertion with no “evidence.”

(you know the one who came up with the Vietnam and Iraq Wars, Amtrak, three-strikes laws, Bush v. Gore, etc.)

Umm… Amtrak?

Talk about “which one of these is not like the others”…

Catgirl @ 110:

If not deterrent or revenge, then what other reason is their for punishment?

It’s a form for punishment that fits the severity of the crime committed.

CHV at #116 - So, an eye for an eye? That’s the kind of thing we condemn other countries for doing…

Actually, Seebach, you do seem to give a flying fuck. A HUGE flying fuck from the tone and recurrance of your posts.

Tyro @ 112 - Then maybe the comments section should be shut down, except for those who want to type, “Yet another great, relevant post, dude. You are even righter than you were in your previous blog post. Nobel prize ... for starters.”

Haven’t you been listening? It’s good for no one.

Was the DP good for people like Heinrich Himmler? Yes, he committed suicide in prison, but Himmler knew he was guilty and headed for the gallows.

It wouldn’t even have been good for Adolph Hitler, had we caught him alive.

Should we ever catch the bearded asshole hiding in a cave in Pakistan (assuming he’s still alive) who was most responsible for 9/11, it wouldn’t even be good for him.

Why should the government murder someone when they are perfectly capable of incarcerating them for the rest of their life?

If the goal is deterrent, fail.
If the goal is protecting society from them, fail.

The only honest reason people support the DP is because of a desire for vengeance.  And if you really want the person to suffer to satiate the desire for vengeance, is forcing the murderer to spend the rest of their life isolated in an 8x10 concrete cell for 23 hours per day not sufficient suffering?

Actually, Seebach, you do seem to give a flying fuck. A HUGE flying fuck from the tone and recurrance of your posts.

Nah, I’m just at work and bored out of my mind. The only thing that bugs me is how much you just hate having to read posts by Jesse, and how it totally inconveniences you and ruins your life. I’m so sorry that this had to happen to you.

I oppose the death penalty for practical reasons, particularly the high risk of innocent people being put to death, but I fail to see the real difference between throwing someone in a cage for his/her natural life and just executing that person.  Why is the latter more barbaric than the former?  In my mind, life imprisonment is more barbaric.

JohnGor0, you seem to be taking this a bit personally is all… As thoesseNesse personally offended you for failing to show the proper respect to death penalty advocates in order to prove his “seriousness.”

I think what squicks me out the most is that the victims’ relatives get to watch him die.

Comment #21: Rebecca on 11/11 at 01:46 AM

I know right?  I don’t like the DP. It’s too easy to kill innocent people, it’s not a deterrent, it’s weighted heavily against POC, it makes the person carrying it out guilty of murder and the appeals process is expensive.  I think Tookie Smiths death was a much bigger tradgedy then the Beltway Sniper. I don’t feel that strongly about it to be honest.

Well, Seebach, when I’m bored at work, and it’s the only blog that’s updated by my lunch time, and the only thing to read, I get irritated.

I accept your apology, and do hope you have a better day than I am.

It’s a form for punishment that fits the severity of the crime committed.

Umm, did you even read my question?  I’ll repeat it for your conveince.  What reason is there for punishment, if not for revenge or a deterrent?

My main argument is that there are criminals so dangerous, the only way to keep the community safe is to kill them.

Did someone else already call bullshit?  ‘Cause I might have missed it.  Just in case: Bullshit.

I should next point out that I know the difference between a supervillain in an X-Men or Spiderman movie from a real-life murderer/rapist/whatever.  There is no question that we have people in our society who prove themselves so irretrievably monstrous that they must be permanently segregated from society.  (Some of them get elected to public office.) But there would be plenty of resources to house and isolate them if we weren’t wasting billions of dollars and mucho court resources prosecuting and locking up non-violent drug offenders.  And we’d have fewer violent drug-related offenders if we removed the legal prohibitions on the sale and consumption of recreational drugs.  I’m not trying to derail this thread any further, just trying to point out that dealing with incorrigible murderers is not a simple choice of killing them/having them remain a danger to society.  In the meantime, I hope I never get railroaded into a false capital conviction; I’m not arrogant or privileged enough to imagine that could never happen to me.

Oh, I completely agree with you, Tyro. You’re spot on.

I’m against the DP. For all the reasons listed. I think the “death is too good for them” arguments are dumb. Criminals threaten society, thus they must be taken out of society and either taught how to interact, or failing that, warehoused. It is a recurring reaction by families of the victims that execution is anti-climactic, and does nothing for the healing process, except that it’s a relief when it’s over.

Except that I think there’s a level of criminal that’s too dangerous to everyone, fellow inmates included, that we either pay a million dollars a day to keep them isolated in a deprivation cell, or execute them. I don’t really care. I hated George Ryan until he passed the suspension of the DP in Illinois. I then had a great deal of respect for him, and still do, criminal activity aside. It gets levied unfairly, and there’s no way to do it correctly. But we have it. I think federalizing it sounds like the best stop-gap fix to slow down Texas and Utah.

Arguing has become the sport du jour online, and yes, it does become personal. Everything I accuse anyone of here applies to me. You can read each of my posts, and I’m probably just working out issues here.

Go in peace.

I oppose the death penalty for practical reasons, particularly the high risk of innocent people being put to death, but I fail to see the real difference between throwing someone in a cage for his/her natural life and just executing that person.  Why is the latter more barbaric than the former?  In my mind, life imprisonment is more barbaric.

You answered your own question… the death penalty is more barbaric in large part because of its irreversibility.

If you send an innocent person to prison for life, there is alway at least the possibility that future evidence will be able to exonerate the person and that they will be released.  It is true that the state has already harmed the person by wrongfully imprisoning them, but at least some sort of restitution can be made when that happens, and there have been actual cases where this precise thing has happened.  You can never give someone back years lost, but you can give them a shitload of money and resources to give them back at least some of what was taken away from them.

That doesn’t undo the wrong that initially happened with the wrongful conviction, but it certainly lessens its impact.

When you execute an innocent person, and later realize that you killed the wrong guy, you can never give the wrongfully executed person any sort of restitution.

Sam Holloway @ 127 - I agree with you, even though you’re calling BS on me. Nothing happens in a vaccuum. The DP is part of a greater problem that is our faulty criminal justice system. Drug runners who might be relatively harmless are warehoused with the guys who methodically cut things off of children to make their parents give them something.

No, I don’t believe that there are super-villians who will hypnotize jail guards, and rip gates open with their laser beam eyesight. But does a mob boss who was responsible for 100’s of murders, and still calls the shots from prison really low-risk? Prison rapists? People who require 6 guards to serve them breakfast because of the danger? I realize there’s ways to store these people in such a way that they can’t hijack a school bus anymore, but (and I’m dropping the words heinous, vile, torturous, etc.) I believe there’s a level of criminal who can’t be stored anymore. The legend of Ted Bundy is the best example of this. ("I will break out of prison and kill while I live.")

Recreational drugs need to be de-criminalized. Prison crime needs to be prosecuted as it occurs. None of it is about retribution, punishment, humiliation, but keeping the outside safe from those on the inside. And, to an extent, keeping those inside safe from those inside.

Governor Goodhair is terror stricken about the fact that he may be found out for being a murderous asshole because he let an innocent man die. He’s trying to keep things moving as slow as possible for the commission investigating him so that he might be re-elected (fat chance) before his true disgusting-ness comes to light with regard to the Willingham execution…

http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2009/11/barbs-fly-over-rick-perrys-res.html

This is PRECISELY why the federal government should not leave this up to the states. Texas kills too many people it KNOWS are innocent…

JohnGor, I’m truly sorry that you a.) don’t like being argued with and b.) can’t keep up with complex sentence structure.

When you present your argument as a gross mischaracterization of what I said followed by an “and I don’t really care anyway”, I’m not sure what response you expect.  Should I go out and make an argument for you?  I don’t want to be agreed with, I just want you to not act like a petulant moron arguing against a strawman.

And if any of this seems to have trailed off into incoherence, I gladly welcome you to pull your head out of your ass.

Except that I think there’s a level of criminal that’s too dangerous to everyone, fellow inmates included, that we either pay a million dollars a day to keep them isolated in a deprivation cell, or execute them.

Be serious.

There is no criminal so dangerous and physically imposing that it would cost anything like “a million dollars a day” to keep them isolated from other prisoners.

Some of the most dangerous people in America are housed in Supermax in Colorado, they don’t get to interact with each other, and they spend 23 hours a day isolated in their cells.  It doesn’t cost “a million dollars a day” to house each of those prisoners.

And there is virtually no chance that anyone of them would ever succeed in escaping that place.  It’s a fucking impenetrable fortress.

The fundamental debate I brought up in the post is that there is a point at which a punishment simply serves no utility other than post-hoc rationalized vengeance.  What seems to be coming out in the comments is that the reasoning behind death penalty support is...post-hoc rationalized vengeance.

The argument deserves to be treated as it’s presented - as something which fails most any serious moral or utilitarian analysis, and it’s bracketed by the continual recitation of the “I don’t really give a shit, go sob for your murderer” mantra which is both erroneous and irrelevant.  Make a better argument, get treated with more respect.

Jesse, since I’m here arguing with about 3 different people, it’s a mischaracterization to say that I don’t like to be argued with.

Oh, I can keep up with sentence structure. Sometimes the funny you hear in your head doesn’t translate to the written word very well. I apologize for not thinking you’re more compelling than Poe and Dylan combined, but I oftentimes have to go back and reread something you wrote in the style I make fun of 2-3 times to figure out what you’re referring to.

Yes, it has become en vogue (affected usage of foreign terms) to mock an opposing viewpoint instead of merely refuting it. If you’re referring to the idiots who sing nananana hey hey goodbye outside the prison on the night of an execution, say so. Your generalizations give one the impression that you’re mocking anyone who isn’t of your conviction. I call your mockery “false piety”. I’m not sure how else I’m mischaracterizing you.

The word “strawman” gets used alot, nowadays. Was it in a movie, or something?

I think what squicks me out the most is that the victims’ relatives get to watch him die.

Comment #21: Rebecca on 11/11 at 01:46 AM

I know right?  I don’t like the DP. It’s too easy to kill innocent people, it’s not a deterrent, it’s weighted heavily against POC, it makes the person carrying it out guilty of murder and the appeals process is expensive.  I think Tookie Smiths death was a much bigger tradgedy then the Beltway Sniper. I don’t feel that strongly about it to be honest.

Er...I may be misreading you here. Tone doesn’t always come across so well over the internet. Are you trying to say that my priorities are messed up because I’m viscerally squicked by the idea that the state lets spectators into executions? I, like you, think the DP is wrong. I just also think that having spectators makes it into a one-sided bloodsport and a form of revenge.

JohnGor0 has a point. Maybe instead of calling stupid arguments a strawman, we should go that extra length to acknowledge the stupid and instead call it a wickerman.

Disclaimer: I’m generally against the death penalty, for reasons that have already been flogged endlessly in this thread…

<Devil’s Advocate>

What’s wrong with vengeance?

Seriously.  Suppose for a moment that if we really looked deeply at the practice, and were all honest with ourselves, we would have to admit that the only - the ONLY - reason we execute people is our disgust and anger at what they’ve done.  Not deterrence, not protection of society.  Not even protection of other prisoners.  Just pure, unadulterated vengeance.

I’m going to totally stick my neck out here and say that, in some cases, I’m perfectly fine with that.  I’m not a Christian.  I don’t believe that vengeance is the Lord’s.  I don’t believe in an afterlife or any kind of divine punishment for our crimes and sins in this life.

So what’s so bad about kicking the tar out of someone who has, through his depraved actions, demonstrated that he has no respect for the lives or persons of his fellow human beings?  There is a part of me that says that by treating others in the most inhumane way, this person has given up any right to humane treatment.  If it provides catharsis for society or closure for families of the victims, why not kill the guy?

If there wasn’t something powerful about seeing a really, really bad guy (or gal) get his comeuppance, it wouldn’t be the ending to every damn action movie.  Admit it - you *like* watching those movies.  Just as there’s something deep and ingrained in us that gets angry at injustice and unfairness, there’s something equally deep that wants vengeance; wants to see the evil “put right”.  What harm is done by indulging those feelings if the indignation is righteous?

</Devil’s Advocate>

Now that I’ve said that, the reason I’m *against* the death penalty in almost all cases (except maybe war crimes) is that in practice, we can’t trust our government to only apply it to people who are guilty of heinous crimes beyond a shadow of a doubt.  What actually happens is that race, class, and gender enter into the picture, along with the worst kind of politics, and all of a sudden we’re executing anyone who offends our sensibilities, regardless of actual guilt.

But if you asked me, “should Slobodan Milošević have been put to death?” I’d say “hell, yes” without a moment’s hesitation.

I apologize for not thinking you’re more compelling than Poe and Dylan combined, but I oftentimes have to go back and reread something you wrote in the style I make fun of 2-3 times to figure out what you’re referring to.

You no can read well.

Simple enough for you?

JohnGor0, it seems a bit disingenuous to criticize the tone of other posters when you seem to be going out of your way to drive home the point that you think Jesse is a bad writer.

For what its worth, Pandagon was a pretty big part of the liberal blogosphere before Amanda joined the team.  Jesse made it big, and his co-bloggers starting with Ezra and moving on to Amanda and Pam helped make it bigger.

(And I’ll add in the caveat that humor is, of course, personal - and as such I’m perfectly willing to accept that some people find what I write unfunny.  I just have a hard time believing that someone who openly admits - and then shows - that he can’t understand others’ arguments is a good faith critic of prose.)

Catgirl @ 126:

Umm, did you even read my question?

Yes, I’m just apparently not giving you the answer you want to hear which is that the DP is a black & white issue.

It’s not.

CHV, what answer did you give?  What reason is there for punishment besides revenge and deterrence?  You explained how a system of punishment should work, but not the reason for actually having punishment.

There is no criminal so dangerous and physically imposing that it would cost anything like “a million dollars a day” to keep them isolated from other prisoners.

What about. . .Magneto?

Jesse @ 141 - Sounds like someone needs a hug. Don’t worry, I’m sure a blogging Peabody is in your future.

I’m sure I just can’t understand your lofty humor because I’m really into straw men, or something like that, or whatever, I suppose.

I think that this man’s actions and death should have highlighted the HUGE need for more mental health services for returning veterans.
Of course, that never happened.
The status quo remains unchanged.
*sigh*

(John, I’m nodding along with you.  And frankly, when I started reading Pandagon, it was just Amanda and Pam and a few others.  But apparently since Jesse started it, all the success is his, or something.  I only read this one because I’m vehemently opposed to the death penalty and haven’t read any screeds against it lately.)

Yes, Rachel, that’s exactly what’s being said here.  Nobody else on this site is a good writer, or talented, or even a human being, because I exist. 

WHY DON’T YOU LOVE ME, PLEBIANS?

But apparently since Jesse started it, all the success is his, or something.

Er, no, but apparently since Jesse started it, he does actually get to blog here or something.

De gustibus non disputandum est, but “waaaah i don’t think he’s funny” is not a valid political argument.

Catgirl @ 143:

What reason is there for punishment besides revenge and deterrence?

That the degree of punishment should fit the crime in terms of legal severity. Revenge or deterrence are not at issue.

What’s at issue is that if you turn the DC area into your own personal shooting gallery, or blow up a Federal building, shoot up a Holocaust museum, et al., that no punishment other than the DP qualifies as an equal remedy.

RE: Comment #138: Dave Fried

---------------------------------------------------------

The problem with accepting vengeance as justification for the death penalty is simple… whose vengeance is it?  Society’s?  And who gets to decide what the representative sentiment of society is?

For example, I have heard some extremely left-leaning folks make the argument that Dick Cheney deserves to be hung for committing war crimes.  Hell, I’ve sometimes felt this way myself.  But we certainly would never get a society-wide agreement on that controversial position.

At the heart of it, we would get into really, really sticky territory when it comes to deciding whether or not the desire for a vengeance execution is truly justified.

Take Saddam Hussein… there were quite a few Shia Iraqis who were elated by Hussein’s execution, having had relatives and friends gassed and tortured by him in the 1980s.  But others didn’t necessarily feel the same way, for a variety of reasons.  Who was right?

I’m opposed to the death penalty, but if my sister were brutally raped and murdered and the perpetrator had the gall to laugh about it in court, I can’t honestly say that in that moment I would not want to pull the lever myself.

Vengeance is emotional, vengeance is arbitrary, and vengeance is too easily influenced by our own prejudices.

I pointed out above that there are surely some in the pro-death penalty crowd who will take more pleasure out of the execution of John Allen Muhammad than they would out of a white perpetrator who committed the exact same crime.  They may not oppose the white perp getting executed, but they won’t experience the same level of twisted vengeful glee over it, either.

Vengeance is a horrible reason for justifying the death penalty, because it is rare that we will be able to reach a true consensus on who deserves to die and to what degree they deseve it.

For instance, while I oppose the death penalty in all instances, I think I would be less emotionally affected by someone like Scott Roeder being executed than I would be by a mentally deficient drug addicted abuse survivor black man who killed a cop while resisting arrest.  And that isn’t meant to suggest that I think that the black male murderer should be exonerated for his crimes, but that I feel a greater sense of sympathy towards him than I would towards Roeder.

And because of that discrepancy in my emotional reaction, I would not be qualified to be the judge of who deserves to be killed out of vengeance, nor would anyone.  Because honestly, in the immediate aftermath of the Tiller assassination when Roeder was caught, my first gut feeling was, “I hope they fry that fucker”.  But I know that my gut feeling in that moment certainly wasn’t shared by everybody.

Anyway… vengeance is an absolutely awful justification for the death penalty, because we’ll never reach a true consensus on whether or not the desire for vengeance is justified, and we’ll never be able to apply an even standard, as different murders have varying levels of emotional impact on us as a society.

That the degree of punishment should fit the crime in terms of legal severity.

The reason she is confused is that THIS IS NOT A REASON. It’s a metric for deciding the nature of one specific punishment.

What is your reason for needing this proportionate response to a crime?

or more clearly: what do you hope your punishment will accomplish?

What’s at issue is that if you turn the DC area into your own personal shooting gallery, or blow up a Federal building, shoot up a Holocaust museum, et al., that no punishment other than the DP qualifies as an equal remedy

So… vengeance.  I mean, let’s call it what it is.  “Equal remedy” = Eye for an eye.

I think that’s lousy justification, but I get it.  But please, don’t try to argue that it isn’t about vengeance.  Because it is.

That the degree of punishment should fit the crime in terms of legal severity.

Why should it?  Also, why should punishment exist at all?  The reason why we should have punishment is completely relevant, because that’s how we judge if a certain punishment is actually effective at achieving our goal.

that no punishment other than the DP qualifies as an equal remedy.

A remedy to what?  Is the death penalty supposed to remedy the problem of murder and terrorism?  We’ve already established that it doesn’t do this.

Just so we can be clear on what exactly “vengeance” is, Merriam-Webster would like to chime in:

Main Entry: ven·geance
Pronunciation: \ˈven-jən(t)s\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from venger to avenge, from Latin vindicare to lay claim to, avenge — more at vindicate
Date: 14th century
: punishment inflicted in retaliation for an injury or offense : retribution

Not at all on topic, but I have to admit I’m gobsmacked at the vitriol aimed at Jesse re: his writing and sense of humor. I’m not shocked because I think “omg Jesse is the bestest writer evah!” but because the majority of the time I can’t tell Amanda and Jesse’s posts apart until I get to the byline, their writing styles and sense of humor strike me as incredibly similar. I imagine that’s part of why Amanda was invited to join Pandagon. It just seems odd that someone would profess to love Amanda’s writing but hate Jesse’s.

On topic, I think the death penalty is archaic and that it’s an embarrassment that our country, a purported global leader, engages in such an outdated and absurd practice. It’s the criminal justice equivalent to treating headaches with trepanation.

well, what @149 -

but “waaaah i don’t think he’s funny” is not a valid political argument.

I agree with you. Please point out the next time somebody uses the old “waaah i don’t think he’s funny” argument as a reason why Jesse’s wrong about something political. I didn’t see that here.

Until Jesse starts up a joke blog that better writers come along and make palatable, we’re forced to put those comments here. Sorry to have offended your sensibilities.

And BTW, who said he can’t blog here? I think Jesse would call that a strawman, or something like that, or whatever, I suppose.

Gosh because I was obviously talking to you, and not to Rachel, who I actually quoted directly.

But I can only find 1? maybe 2? posts of yours on this thread that don’t bash Jesse’s writing/humor. Why bring it up if you don’t feel it’s germane to his position on the issue?

Oh, wait, it’s just because you’re all het up that Amanda had the gall to take a fucking trip, so you’re gonna go dickhead on Jesse so you can work out your “issues.”

Until Jesse starts up a joke blog that better writers come along and make palatable, we’re forced to put those comments here.

Nobody’s forcing you to do shit about shit. Whiny. So whiny!

Main Entry: vit·ri·ol
Pronunciation: \ˈvi-trē-əl\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French vitriole, from Medieval Latin vitriolum, alteration of Late Latin vitreolum, neuter of vitreolus glassy, from Latin vitreus vitreous
Date: 14th century
1 a : a sulfate of any of various metals (as copper, iron, or zinc); especially : a glassy hydrate of such a sulfate b : oil of vitriol
2 : something felt to resemble vitriol especially in caustic quality; especially : virulence of feeling or of speech

Aw, the dictionary has no definition for “whiny ass.”

For someone who thinks

The DP is an issue that does require serious discussion. Your “Wheeeeee!!! I win the ‘I care’ award!!!” attitude doesn’t really add anything.

you sure seem to think that the “Wheeeeeee! I harp on form over substance!” award adds a bunch.

JohnGor0, I suggest you stop now, stop making this thread about you.

Okay? Please? Just let it go.

Thanks.

Catgirl @155:

A remedy to what?  Is the death penalty supposed to remedy the problem of murder and terrorism?

You are reading the word “remedy” too literally. I’m using it in its legal context as to mean (in general) a penalty or punishment for a specific crime or violation.

Well, what? @#159 - Wow, Well, what?, where ... Whiny? ... why?

Death penalty for bloggers who go on vacation and leave Jesse in charge. Jesse should do this all on Facebook, so we can send him an iHeart, and water his crops in FarmVille, or something like that, or whatever, I supppose.

CHV: we’re talking about the reason for such penalties or punishments to exist at all. What is accomplished by, in legal context, remedying crimes and violations? It isn’t done “just because.”

Is it done to deter others? Protect society? Restore losses incurred by a victim? Or simply to state “such is wrong, and we do not approve, to x degree.”

The last is indeed a motive of, basically, vengeance. Vengeance wearing a very sober and logical robe, but still vengeance.

@teac--denied.

CHV,

You still have not answered why punishment should exist at all.  It’s important to decide why we punish people, so that we can determine if certain punishment systems meet our goal(s).

Not at all on topic, but I have to admit I’m gobsmacked at the vitriol aimed at Jesse re: his writing and sense of humor. I’m not shocked because I think “omg Jesse is the bestest writer evah!” but because the majority of the time I can’t tell Amanda and Jesse’s posts apart until I get to the byline, their writing styles and sense of humor strike me as incredibly similar. I imagine that’s part of why Amanda was invited to join Pandagon. It just seems odd that someone would profess to love Amanda’s writing but hate Jesse’s.

Seconded.

Catgirl @ 167:

You still have not answered why punishment should exist at all.

I think it has something to do with laws being moot if there is no penalty for violating them.

why should punishment exist at all?

Indeed. Why should any of our actions have negative consequences? At most there should be restitution. If I sucked all of your money from your bank account, then all I would need do—if you proved it was me who did it—would be to replace the money. If I hit you, you could hit me back, I suppose. If I raped you, you could rape me in turn. (Or your brother could rape my sister.) If I killed you—too bad for you. I don’t see you getting your own back at all. Unless we went the feud route.

one of the most powerful displays imaginable of our prison system’s ability to keep him from shooting anyone else, we finally got that fucker.

Illinois’s prison system did a similar good job punishing Richard Speck. Speck stabbed eight student nurses to death over the course of an evening. At that time, the death penalty was unconstitutional. So, Speck was sentenced to life imprisonment. The world’s Filipina student nurses were safe, because the prison contained none of them. And Speck was punished. Free medical care, three meals a day, hobbies, vocational programs, exercise, people to make friends with, etc. In fact, Speck had so much fun with his friends, that he got breast implants to make him a more desirable friend—they “broke the ice” with new acquaintances. His friends, grateful for his oral skills, supplied him with booze and cocaine. But the high life was too much for Speck; he died in prison at age 50.

Indeed. Why should any of our actions have negative consequences?

Is this a deliberate misreading or just really missing the point by a mile?

Speck had so much fun with his friends, that he got breast implants to make him a more desirable friend—they “broke the ice” with new acquaintances.

I never heard that before.  Who paid for them?

Hector: We would like to see the answer to your snarky question discussed in depth. We DO want to know “why.” And the reason? If we don’t know what the fuck we’re trying to accomplish, how can we ever know if we’re doing a good job?

You assume IL did a bad job of punishing Speck, because he was not miserable in prison. Ergo, your “why” is “to make the bastard suffer.” That is the purpose of punishment in your book. Fair ‘nuff.

The purpose of punishment can also be other things, depending on who you ask. By a metric that says “punishment is to protect society from someone who would do harm,” IL did an okay job with Speck. As you said, he didn’t kill any more nursing students.

@CHV: I give up. Why you won’t just answer the damned question, I can’t even fathom.

Is this a deliberate misreading or just really missing the point by a mile?

Nope. Why have punishment? Why have jails, prisons, the whole deal? Based on what? Nothing but the desire to take revenge. We could save a fortune in tax money by dismantling our prison system.

(John, I’m nodding along with you.  And frankly, when I started reading Pandagon, it was just Amanda and Pam and a few others.  But apparently since Jesse started it, all the success is his, or something.  I only read this one because I’m vehemently opposed to the death penalty and haven’t read any screeds against it lately.)

Wow, way to hilariously misinterpret what I said!  John said that if it weren’t for Amanda and Pam, Jesse’s blog would have, like, 7 hits a month or something.  I said that Jesse’s blog was successful before Amanda and Pam et al joined the team, so clearly somebody, somewhere, thinks Jesse is worth reading.

Nothing but the desire to take revenge.

Well, okay then. Out of curiosity: do you think people are lying when they say they want punishment for the sake of other reasons (such as deterrence), or do you simply think punishment never actually accomplishes anything beyond retribution?

one of the most powerful displays imaginable of our prison system’s ability to keep him from shooting anyone else, we finally got that fucker.

Illinois’s prison system did a similar good job punishing Richard Speck. Speck stabbed eight student nurses to death over the course of an evening. At that time, the death penalty was unconstitutional. So, Speck was sentenced to life imprisonment. The world’s Filipina student nurses were safe, because the prison contained none of them. And Speck was punished. Free medical care, three meals a day, hobbies, vocational programs, exercise, people to make friends with, etc. In fact, Speck had so much fun with his friends, that he got breast implants to make him a more desirable friend—they “broke the ice” with new acquaintances. His friends, grateful for his oral skills, supplied him with booze and cocaine. But the high life was too much for Speck; he died in prison at age 50.

So it’s either “fry them” or “they all have it so good with their cable TV and their sex and their drugs”?

How about a massive overhaul of our criminal justice system to decriminalize drugs and reserve our prisons for truly violent people.  The most violent offenders - people like Speck - spend 23 hours a day in total isolation.  They get no regular human interaction except one supervised hour per day.

If you can depopulate our prisons - which is desperately needed - you won’t have problems like those that you outlined with Richard Speck.

I fail to see your argument as a compelling reason why we SHOULD have the death penalty.  I see it more as an indictment of our overpopulated prison system which makes it much harder for guards to keep a more watchful eye on prisoner behavior.

What @ 173:

I give up. Why you won’t just answer the damned question, I can’t even fathom.

I have answered the question.

Once again, I’m just not telling you what you and Catgirl want to hear, and that’s apparently that “revenge” is the motive for the DP, when I don’t believe it is. After all, when you go hunting people for kicks in DC as if it were whitetail season, somehow penalties like life in prison without parole fall woefully short of the punishment fitting the crime.

If you can’t shelve your lily-white idealism for three seconds to comprehend that I don’t know what else to tell you.

Mr Ess wrote:

But there’s one thing I do know:  Dana is going to get kicked out of the Hard Ass Republicans Club if they find out he’s so soft on capital punishment…

It seems to me that if you’re going to be pro-life, you should be pro-life!  I am constantly amazed that there are so many people who are pro-life when the topic is abortion, but in favor of capital punishment.  I am also surprised at the number of people who hold the exactly opposite position.

There’s really no need for capital punishment: society is no safer because a man is executed than we would be if he was incarcerated for the rest of his life.  The deterrent effects claimed have never been demonstrated, and states which do the fewest executions generally have lower murder rates than states which actually execute people; Michigan would be an obvious exception.

More, the costs of capital punishment greatly exceed the costs of life without parole; the additional appeals to which the condemned are entitled far outweigh the costs of housing and feeding the prisoner.

More, when a killer is sentenced to life without parole, we read about him once, amd then he’s gone, flushed down the memory hole.  When someone is sentenced to death, he has numerous appeals, and comes continually into the public eye; how many of us would have heard of John Allen Muhammad this time if he had been sentenced to life?

Both morally and practically, I just see no good reason to support capital punishment.

After all, when you go hunting people for kicks in DC as if it were whitetail season, somehow penalties like life in prison without parole fall woefully short of the punishment fitting the crime.

According to who?

And who died and made that person God?

Denise @ 175 - I came over when Amanda came back. Atrios posted a link on his front page saying something like, “Amanda’s back, and she’s as good as ever.” Out of curiosity, I started reading. I disagree with her a bunch, but find her a very interesting read.

denise @140 - I’m criticizing Jesse’s tone, and his decision to attack my remark about him being often hard to follow rather than the 6 paragraphs that basically outline my feelings and stance on the DP. Jesse’s main rhetorical tactic seems to be - just make fun, act like an opposing viewpoint is so ridiculous, it is beneath recognition, so much so, that he’ll just make fun of something unrelated, I guess because I’m older than him, or something like that, or whatever, I suppose.

I am picking on and repeating this particular technique of his, because that is the type of structure that I find hard to follow. Just a criticism. Not beseeching him to stop blogging, not expecting him to change his style, just countering Jesse choosing that to take issue with, rather than the actual arguments supporting my viewpoint that I laid out.

I am ecstatically happy for Jesse that he had blogging success before Pam and Amanda showed up. Clearly, it’s allowed him to kick back and explore writing like a 12 year old, while others do the heavy lifting on his site. This will all make a great E! Bloggywood Story.

DTG @ 177:

If you can depopulate our prisons - which is desperately needed - you won’t have problems like those that you outlined with Richard Speck.

While I agree that prison populations could be dramatically reduced by judges not stuffing them full of drug users (versus drug traffickers), it takes a lot of manpower and resources to babysit one person (as in one guard per “x” inmates) in lockup 23 hours a day.

do you think people are lying when they say they want punishment for the sake of other reasons (such as deterrence)

If criminals were the sort to be deterred by seeing the punishment dealt out to others, they would not be criminals in the first place. Can they learn from their own experience? If prison is tolerable, the prospect of returning is no deterrent. Rehabilitation is unlikely to work—“convicted felon” are not the keywords employers search for on Monster.com. What’s left? Imprisonment merely keeps criminals from committing more crimes while they’re in prison.

I am constantly amazed that there are so many people who are pro-life when the topic is abortion, but in favor of capital punishment.

Because fetuses are unable to get the safety off a Bushmaster rifle.

Fetuses are innocent by definition. Abortion is like drowning kitties and puppies. Capital punishment is like putting a baby-chomping Presa Canario to sleep.

DTG @ 180:

And who died and made that person God?

Listen to what you’re saying…

Wasn’t John Mohamed “playing God” when he decided to pick people off who were gassing up their cars, or walking out from a Home Depot? Wasn’t McVeigh “playing God” when he decided to strike a blow for his twisted ideals by killing 168 people in OKC?

Both men were monsters who through their actions gave up their right to live in a society built on law and order, not that such laws are foolproof.

I think that this man’s actions and death should have highlighted the HUGE need for more mental health services for returning veterans.
Of course, that never happened.
The status quo remains unchanged.

This.

As if there aren’t already enough reasons to oppose the death penalty, it also serves as a way for us to pretend we’ve ended a chapter that is not at all ended. “Oh thank goodness we’re done with THAT.” And we brush our hands together and move on.

It’s an insidious, toxic and dangerous illusion to allow ourselves, as a society.

DTG @ 180:

And who died and made that person God?

Listen to what you’re saying…

Wasn’t John Mohamed “playing God” when he decided to pick people off who were gassing up their cars, or walking out from a Home Depot? Wasn’t McVeigh “playing God” when he decided to strike a blow for his twisted ideals by killing 168 people in OKC?

Both men were monsters who through their actions gave up their right to live in a society built on law and order, not that such laws are foolproof.

Actually, listen to what you’re saying.

On the one hand, you seem to argue that it was wrong for Muhammad and McVeigh to “play God” when they committed their heinous crimes.

But then you go on to say that it’s OK for the state to “play God” in response, because well… Muhammad and McVeigh did it first?

Is that not the very epitome of justifying revenge?

“But mom, I only punched him because he punched me first!”

Like I said before, I get the feelings involved there, but let’s call it what it is.

Revenge.  Vengeance.  Vindication.  Eye for eye.  Old Testament justice.

DTG @ 187 - Just curious. What, exactly, is wrong with revenge?

While I agree that prison populations could be dramatically reduced by judges not stuffing them full of drug users (versus drug traffickers), it takes a lot of manpower and resources to babysit one person (as in one guard per “x” inmates) in lockup 23 hours a day.

No it doesn’t.  We’re talking about a cell with a thin little window about 8 inches wide, four walls of concrete, and a solid steel door with a little window, no bars.

How many people does it take to keep an eye on that?

As has been pointed out by several others, every bit of data available has shown that the cost of lifetime incarceration is less expensive than the cost of seeing a death penalty out to its end result (due to our constitutionally mandated appeals process).  Unless you do away with appeals process, there’s no way to substantially decrease the cost of execution.

Do you advocate hauling them out of the courtroom after sentencing and having public hangings in the town square, like in the good old days?

DTG @ 187 - Just curious. What, exactly, is wrong with revenge?

Revenge as it specifically relates to the death penalty?

It’s an emotionally driven impulse with absolutely irreversible consequences.

I don’t think all revenge is necessarily bad or wrong, but as it relates specifically to the DP, yes… because it isn’t purely logical, and it’s consequences are final.

It’s like Alas, a Blog in here.

Random response to the random reference to Speck’s breast development....He didn’t get implants, he took female hormones to get the effect. Prison videotape that was rather tough to watch surfaced after he died...He was preyed upon from the moment he entered prison and found a way to survive. I’m making no excuses for him, but to imply he was “livin it up” is a little macabre…

If you want to effectively argue against the death penalty, don’t bring up how slow the process is.  The obvious counter-argument is “Speed it up!”

DTG @ 190:

Do you advocate hauling them out of the courtroom after sentencing and having public hangings in the town square, like in the good old days?

No, I don’t.

Yet those who--via their extreme conduct--surrender their right to live in a nation of laws do not deserve to live in such a place even if it’s locked behind concrete walls.

In other words, if certain people behave like mad dogs (e.g. mass murderers, serial rapists, etc.), they should be treated as such.

CHV @ 194 - I wholeheartedly agree. Laws are in place that say if you drive around for 6 weeks and shoot people in the greater DC area, you will probably face the death penalty. There is little ambiguity about that.

It’s not like they come from a culture where that’s a rite of passage. It’s not like they were misled. They are most probably insane, and their backgrounds most probably offer heavily contributing factors.

If the law changes, then they don’t get put to death, simple as that.

Jesse, get your law license, and change the law.

What about… Magneto?

Magneto is a freedom fighter! FREE MAGNETO!

...sorry, just had to geek out a bit… carry on…

Yet those who--via their extreme conduct--surrender their right to live in a nation of laws do not deserve to live in such a place even if it’s locked behind concrete walls.

According to who?  Specifically, according to whose moral (not simply legal) authority?

DTG @197 - according to the law. I don’t see what’s so confusing about that. It’s pretty consistent throughout all 30,000 years of human history that when somebody starts acting in a way that’s abhorent to established law, they are expelled from society, or put to death.

I know that you who are against the DP are a much more highly evolved life form than the rest of us, but please bear with me for a sentence or two.

I know we’re all supposed to recoil from the word “vengeance”, or the notion of being “medieval”, but if some motherfucker dresses up as Santa Claus and shoots and burns 17 members of his ex-wife’s family, (including his kids and ex-wife), he has clearly stated that he doesn’t want to live by the rules that we have established for society. Never mind black and white. Never mind rich and poor. I’m not trying to “win you over” or anything. That person has taken himself out of human society. He has made that choice.

If you all want to push away from the keyboards and change the laws, then, fine, the law will be life imprisonment, where they are faced with the much more humane life of sodomy and six guards beating the shit out of them when they don’t want to “cooperate”.

teac, tell everyone to “give it up” already. It’s not about Pandagon message boarders.

DTG @197 - according to the law. I don’t see what’s so confusing about that. It’s pretty consistent throughout all 30,000 years of human history that when somebody starts acting in a way that’s abhorent to established law, they are expelled from society, or put to death.

Yeah, historically lots of societies have allowed people to be treated as less than human under certain circumstances, and generally we modern types consider that a *bad* thing instead of a justification to keep doing the same. I’m not a big fan of the whole “slippery slope” argument, but I think that dehumanizing groups of people is one of the few times when that argument is genuinely relevant. It’s just *not* a good path to let society go down.

<i>In other words, if certain people behave like mad dogs (e.g. mass murderers, serial rapists, etc.), they should be treated as such.<?i>

THERE we go - dehumanising language.  They’re mad dogs, cockroaches, lice - kill them all.

It’s not about them, CHV - it’s about you and me.  I don’t want to live in a society which gets to choose some human beings to be “animals”, and thus subject to slaughter.  I’d rather live in a society which officially recognised every human being as a human being and then proceeded from there.

DTG @197 - according to the law. I don’t see what’s so confusing about that. It’s pretty consistent throughout all 30,000 years of human history that when somebody starts acting in a way that’s abhorent to established law, they are expelled from society, or put to death.

Right.

Well, according to the law, for all 30,000 years of human history, there has always been some cultures, and at one time most cultures, that found it perfectly acceptable to classify a less empowered group of people - be it ethnic minorities, women, or children - as slaves.

You avoided my question:

Specifically, according to whose moral (not simply legal) authority?

You answered by saying, “accoring to the law”.  I am quite aware that our legal system allows for the death penalty, which is why I included the phrase “not simply legal” in parentheses in my question.  I am asking what moral, not legal, authority gives any government the right to utilize retributive planned killing as a form of sanctioned punishment.

Why is it morally acceptable?

Because we are capable of making laws that say so?

Legal ≠ Moral.  At least not universally so.

According to the law, Americans were also able to enslave black people at one time.  It was perfectly legal to have yourself a whole bunch of black people that were LEGALLY considered your property, and did not have basic human rights according to our laws at the time.  You could do more or less whatever you wanted to them… and it was all considered legal.  I think you would be pretty hard pressed to make the case that we ever had the moral authority to practice such an abnomination, despite the fact that “according to the law”, that very abomination was perfectly acceptable for most of the first century of this nation’s existence.

So again, what moral authority gives us the right to utilize the death penalty as a from of punishment?

I think it has something to do with laws being moot if there is no penalty for violating them.

Ok, now you’re getting somewhere.  We have punishment so that laws aren’t moot.  Now, what do you mean by “moot”?  Based on this, we have to decide which punishments will make our laws less “moot”.  Depending on what you specifically want to accomplish, does the death penalty achieve the goal of preventing laws from being moot?  Wiktionary defines moot as “having no practical impact or relevance”.  Does that mean you think the death penalty is better than life imprisonment at making the law against murder have more impact (by being more effective)?  Or is that you think the death penalty makes the law against murder have more relevance (in a symbolic way)?

CHV: it isn’t that you didn’t say “what we wanted to hear”, it’s that you were answering a different question. You were addressing legal definitions when we are talking about the basic social philosophy that CREATES those legal definitions.

I don’t CARE why you think punishment exists. I want you to have to articulate it to yourself. An understanding of your own framework of “justice” is needed in order to evaluate the process of justice in the world.

There might be nothing wrong with vengeance morally, but running a society based on vengeance goes pretty strongly against those moldy old things like fairness and equality...you know, those lame old progressive values.

“There’s really no need for capital punishment: society is no safer because a man is executed than we would be if he was incarcerated for the rest of his life.  The deterrent effects claimed have never been demonstrated, and states which do the fewest executions generally have lower murder rates than states which actually execute people; Michigan would be an obvious exception.”

Michigan has actually never had the death penalty, since becoming a state in 1836.

Michigan has actually never had the death penalty, since becoming a state in 1836.

...hence the exception. Detroit strikes me as almost a special case, at this point. Those problems go deeper than any conceivable punishment structure.

Anyone else thinking a mass re-watching of Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange might be a good use of time?

A brief history note:

Michigan has actually never had the death penalty, since becoming a state in 1836.

Legally, Michigan had the death penalty until the state legislature abolished it in 1846, nine years after Michigan became a state.  There were no executions, however, between 1837-46, and the only execution to take place in Michigan after statehood was under federal jurisdiction.  Anti-death penalty sentiment ran pretty high in Michigan when it turned out that a citizen of Michigan who was living in Ontario was convicted and executed by the local government for a rape and murder that he did not commit (another man confessed to the crime seven years later on his deathbed).

DTG @ #201 -

I am asking what moral, not legal, authority gives any government the right to utilize retributive planned killing as a form of sanctioned punishment.

Why is it morally acceptable?

The moral authority that we just made up when we made up morals. The same moral authority that allows us to kill a plant or animal to eat it. The same moral authority that allowed us to either outhunt, kill, or breed neanderthals into oblivion. Or America’s Native peoples. Or whomever.

If there is a specific, philosophical answer you’re looking for, you’ll have to help me out.

Yes, on a philosophical level, the ability to perform executions can lead to a holocaust, just as health care can, in some weird way, lead to death panels.

If you’re trying to get me to say that we did have the moral authority to enslave others - so everyone here can have outrage practice, don’t be so sneaky about it.

There is no God. All we’ve ever done is make a bunch of rules with punishments to sustain order in our societies, and then pretended those laws were handed down from a “moral authority”. Either education, or peer pressure have caused us to stop sacrificing virgins to the sun, or enslaving others, or, yes, even executing criminals.

Power is the authority. The only reason anyone ever even began ceding power in a democratic fashion is because King John needed money to fight his wars in Normandy.

Romans @ 200:

I don’t want to live in a society which gets to choose some human beings to be “animals”, and thus subject to slaughter.  I’d rather live in a society which officially recognised every human being as a human being and then proceeded from there.

I never said that those like John Mohamed or Tim McVeigh should not receive a fair trial. That is their legal right under the constitution.

Nor did I ever say “Kill ‘em all” regarding those found guilty of capital crimes, as I believe (once again) that the DP should be reserved for the most egregious crimes.

What @ 203:

There might be nothing wrong with vengeance morally, but running a society based on vengeance goes pretty strongly against those moldy old things like fairness and equality...you know, those lame old progressive values.

Fairness and equality are constitutional values, not liberal or conservative ones. And I’m all for them, as I am the rule of law.

Catgirl @ 202:

Does that mean you think the death penalty is better than life imprisonment at making the law against murder have more impact (by being more effective)?  Or is that you think the death penalty makes the law against murder have more relevance (in a symbolic way)?

I am saying again the DP should be applied to extreme crimes whereby a sentence of life in prison is too inadequate a penalty.

There is no rosy, coffee house philosophy behind it. It’s cause and effect.

If you go out and shoot up a bus for kicks (cause), killing 19 people in the process, and are found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt with all appeals exhausted (and no sign of mental incapacity), you should be made to surrender your own life (effect) as a legal result.

It’s that simple.

I am saying again the DP should be applied to extreme crimes whereby a sentence of life in prison is too inadequate a penalty.

And I am saying that there is no fair, equitable way to do that in this here world that actually exists, because:

a) reasonable people can disagree on what crimes/circumstances are “too extreme” for life imprisonment.

b) most people aren’t even reasonable, and are in fact prone to considering a crime worthy of death at least in part based on the race/class/gender of the criminal. (or the victim.)

Therefore, the death penalty as you have proposed it runs counter to the ideals of fairness and equality that you claim to support. It is used, in the real world (the only world we have) unfairly and inequitably.

(It is also used incompetently, as many have noted.)

I like that wanting to know what the goals and aims of a system are counts as “rosy coffee house philosophy.”

Blindly thrashing about with no clear aim, and adopting potentially contradictory courses of action, is MUCH more practical.

There is no rosy, coffee house philosophy behind it. It’s cause and effect.

But there *isn’t* cause and effect behind it, because having the death penalty doen’t lower the rate of violent crimes at all, or prevent people from going on killing sprees or shooting up buses or what have you. And there’s not even cause and effect in the punishment itself, because not everyone who takes a life loses theirs, and vice versa. It’s not a logical consequence that you will die if you commit murder (like it’s a logical consequence that you will die if you jump out of a plane with no parachute, etc.) it’s a punitive consequence, which unlike the laws of nature is *absolutely* up for debate by humans. Because *we* impose those consequences (or not) so we decide if it’s right.

Okay, let’s say we have the death penalty.

What do you think executing does to the executioner?

Aside from killing being wrong because of what it does to the killed, it is wrong because of what it does to the killer.

Get someone whose had to kill in the line of duty or in self-defense really drunk and see what they have to say about it.  (Actually don’t, because that’s cruel and kind of immoral, but you take my point.)

I’m not shocked because I think “omg Jesse is the bestest writer evah!” but because the majority of the time I can’t tell Amanda and Jesse’s posts apart until I get to the byline, their writing styles and sense of humor strike me as incredibly similar. I imagine that’s part of why Amanda was invited to join Pandagon. It just seems odd that someone would profess to love Amanda’s writing but hate Jesse’s.

Joking, jessilikewhoa, I hope.  ‘Cause otherwise, excuse me?  I don’t think so.

Joking, jessilikewhoa, I hope.  ‘Cause otherwise, excuse me?  I don’t think so.

Think what you please, but they both trade heavily in snark and sarcasm and often write on the same issues. I’m not dismissing either of their talent as I enjoy both as writers, I’m just being honest. You’ll note what I posted was seconded by another reader, so I’m not some slack-jawed jackass just spitting in the wind either.

But pardon, I’ll get out of the way while people continues to hate on Jesse for no discernable reason.

I agree with jessilikewhoa, and I followed Amanda over from mouse words.  Yeah, sometimes I will be reading a post, and will come across a phrase or idea and it’ll click for me that it is one or the other, but there are plenty of posts I’ve read where I haven’t noticed whether Amanda or Jesse was writing.  In fact, recently, I think some troll ad-hommed one on a post written by the other, and was called out for being foolish in the comments thread.  I’ve only thought Pam was Amanda like once or twice, and Auguste is clearly Auguste.

jessilikewhoa @ #214 -

But pardon, I’ll get out of the way while people continues to hate on Jesse for no discernable reason.

I’m pretty sure this is what Jesse would call a strawman argument.

I laid out my issues pretty distinctly. I find him hard to follow when he gets all snarky, and this particular snarky post just completely trashes anyone who thinks that John Muhammad should have died under current law.

Maybe it’s you. I would think that’s a “discernable” reason, but I suppose that’s because, as Jesse suggests, I have my head up my ass, or something like that, or whatever, I guess. No hate there.

Yeah JohnGor0, because I was totally talking to you at that point, and not to the poster who had directly addressed me and taken umbrage with my previously stated personal opinion.

Oh wait, I wasn’t, unless you and Helen are the same person, in which case pleased to meet both your personalities.

Jesse I don’t get your point, not sure you actually have one.  It’s true that Muhammad was not deterred by the death penalty from killing those he killed; we don’t know that it didn’t save other lives.  We also don’t know that others who contemplated murders - mass murder or individual killings - aren’t deterred by the idea of the death chamber.  Muhammad hasn’t given much of an explanation of his alleged anti-White crank fanaticism; at least McVeigh gave some interviews.

As someone who walked within Muhammad’s terror path I am quite glad he is dead, and am sorry that my own state of Maryland did not deliver the death penalty to him.  But those who oppose the death penalty for deliberately planned mass killings in Commonwealth v. Muhammad may have a field day with the upcoming trial of U.S. v. K.S. Muhammad in New York.

I do not consider as cruel any punishment to these deliberate mass murderers, including by incineration or stoning.  Don’t want to die painfully, do something else with your fucking life than elect to go down as a serial murderer of strangers.

Jessie tends to swear more (the horror!) and write shorter posts. I thought the point of his post was pretty clear, that killing a murderer won’t bring your loved ones back to life. But then I don’t make a point of being deliberately obtuse.