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 Breotan wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

 Breotan wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
What about making the Governor, as chief executive of the State, pull the trigger?

Is this really fair given that a person can be sentenced one year and a new Governor elected the next?

Governors have the option to suspend executions, if I am not mistaken. If not, then maybe the willingness to shoot someone should be a factor in your decision to run for office?

Are you advocating that justice be dispensed based on the political winds of the day? I don't think such a capricious system would stand the test at the Supreme Court.

Some Governors already decided to suspend death penalties, and it doesn't look like SCOTUS has had an opinion on that so far.

And maybe candidates for POTUS need to affirm willingness to kill some poor slob overseas, and when the time comes actually go do so. And congress critters the same since they fund wars and non-war drone killings. Lord knows we have enough bad guys in Iraq and Syria and Afghanistan right now we could get all of them their kills pretty easily. And when (if) the next federal prisoner is to be executed POTUS needs to pull the trigger.

Basically, to hold elected office at the federal level you have to be willing to personally kill another human.

Is that where we want to go?

Maybe it is a bit OT but since most of the thread has been, I would like to add something.

I want to argue that it does not matter if the death penalty was unconstitutional. A Death penalty must be unconstitutional. I would argue that as long as the US polity allows for the death penalty, it cannot claim to be a "full democracy".

I guess everybody acknowledges that the US consitution, with its bill of rights and Amendments is far from being a congruent, all-encompassing, structural homogenous body of text.
No reference was made to basic human rights (something the Declaration of Independence did) - but then almost everybody can run around with guns (while being or not being organized in militias). So while fundamental foundations of law are missing from your constitution, some rather very specific policies are included.
We all know why: It is a very historic (i.e. situational) document. Nation-building was something relatively new, things like the death penalty or slavery had a long tradition, and the main thrust of the papers were aimed at preventing a new British usurpation without democratic participation. (see also "Jefferson's missing article of the Declaration of independance")

So while the Declaration of Indepence reads "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness", and the Virginia Declaration of Rights writes "That all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.", you never managed to think that thought through, institutionally.

The argument is of course: Just because your constitution allows and disallows certain things - are these things right or wrong or justified or unjustified, beneficial or counterproductive to social peace?

For example, just because US citizens have the second amendment right, it does not say anything about whether this was beneficial for a modern society, necessary or effective. It just says that you can claim gun ownership based on a law that was written under the the fear that the British monarchy would usurp the American colonies again and not let you have a word in the governing of the land, and the belief that weapons would be the thing to stop that from happening.

This is not a relativist argument. The necessity and usefulness of written constitutions is unquestioned. But the argument is: The death penalty is reprehensible even if it was constitutional (and as a ipso ergo: the US constitution has some minor deficiencies).


We already have heard some good reasons why the death penalty is a bad idea from a moral and common sense perspective (innocent people killed, failures and corruption of legal system, costs of execution, lack of deterrence effect, retribution vs. justice).

I would like to add a genereal philosophical argument based on the Human Rights, as expressed in the Declaration of Independence or the Virginia Declaration of Rights (and consequently much more elaborately in such documents as the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights).

1) Universal human rights include the right to live.
2) These universal human rights are given to any human being and are unalienable and inherent.
That means they cannot be rightfully taken away from you, against your will or interest. They might be restricted by other (people's) human rights, but to terminate them indefinitely constitutes a human rights violation of the most severe degree.
3) A state or other state-like institution may never violate human rights if not to prevent other, more severe human rights violations. The basic purpose of the modern state is to ensure and protect the human rights of its citizens. (life, liberty and general well-being)

- Therefore a state may never sentence the death penalty, except when not doing so would violate the life of others (for the sake of argument: someone who cannot be held imprisoned threatening to kill other people could be rightfully sentenced to death, or in lack of possibility of trial be killed directly. See "war", "war on terrorists" etc).
A citizen CAN be tried. And he can be imprisoned.

And a convict must always have a chance, however hypothetical it may be in practice, to be pardoned, to be released, or at least to be transferred to a lower security facility. He does not lose all of his other human rights such as freedom of expression & religion, freedom from want, or freedom from fear. He must also have regular reviews to re-assess the possibility of his reintegration into society, btw. This cannot be done if he was murdered.

Therefore, the death penalty, whether allowed by your constitution or not, is reprehensible and must be rejected by everyone who adheres to the idea of universal human rights and every system that calls upon universal human rights. You cannot have one without the other. Or you can, but then you should not be surprised to be named among other adorable state systems such as Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan, Saudi-Arabia or China.

Our Constitution defines treason, and allows Congress to set the penalty. The first congress assigned 'death' as the maximum penalty and it is well established in US code and plenty of case law precedence at this point for the death penalty. To claim the death penalty is 'unconstitutional' defies a couple centuries of legal precedence.

Lots of things have been legal predents for a long time. It doesn't make them right or immune to change.

Guy above me stated: "A Death penalty must be unconstitutional. "

That is wrong.

Has zero bearing on 'correct' or 'laws immune to change', but that change is not gonna be based on unconstitutionality of it.

 CptJake wrote:
Guy above me stated: "A Death penalty must be unconstitutional. "

That is wrong.

Has zero bearing on 'correct' or 'laws immune to change', but that change is not gonna be based on unconstitutionality of it.

Sorry, the point was not that it is unconstitutional right now (because I would follow you that it is not right now) but that it should be.
And that this argument follows from the universal human rights.

Hence not "DP is unconstitutional" but rather "the US constitution fails to encompass human rights (sufficiently)".

Also, if your constitution would fully integrate human rights, or had a pre-posed charta of human rights, then every law following from there must follow them. In your example, the constitution would define " All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" and then your law about treason would still read "congress can set the penalty". It would just mean that they would not be able to set a penalty contradicting human rights.

I do not think you're getting it.

'Inalienable human rights' can and have always been stripped when an individual violates laws/norms. The rights to 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' are stripped when we imprison someone (they lose liberty and the ability to pursue happiness).

Unless you are going to advocate never punishing anyone for anything, your line of thinking falters immediately.

The link discusses a 'bubble theory' justifying killing in war, but I think it applies when discussing when the gov't (state or fed) can 'violate' inalienable rights. Some folks pop the bubble, our justice system then decides which rights they have forfeited as a result.

http://cc.army.mil/pubs/armymagazine/docs/2010/CC_ARMY_10-02%20(FEB10)%20Morality-of-Killing.pdf

 treslibras wrote:
In your example, the constitution would define " All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" and then your law about treason would still read "congress can set the penalty". It would just mean that they would not be able to set a penalty contradicting human rights.

Your first quote is from the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution.

 CptJake wrote:
I do not think you're getting it.

'Inalienable human rights' can and have always been stripped when an individual violates laws/norms. The rights to 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' are stripped when we imprison someone (they lose liberty and the ability to pursue happiness).

Unless you are going to advocate never punishing anyone for anything, your line of thinking falters immediately.

The link discusses a 'bubble theory' justifying killing in war, but I think it applies when discussing when the gov't (state or fed) can 'violate' inalienable rights. Some folks pop the bubble, our justice system then decides which rights they have forfeited as a result.

http://cc.army.mil/pubs/armymagazine/docs/2010/CC_ARMY_10-02%20(FEB10)%20Morality-of-Killing.pdf

And I think YOU are not getting it. Rights are not "stripped" indefinitely. There is no forfeit of human rights. They are suspended. There is a difference. Can you understand that difference?
Again, that is the main reason why prisoners get a review of their sentence (if it is above a certain time period). But can you suspend life?

Again, here we are talking about the death penalty in a civilized state, on its own citizens, not about the exceptions to the rule, like terrorists in foreign countries without functioning democratic structures and legal system to have them extradicted to your jurisdiction.

If you are interested in the subject, you might want at least throw a cursory glance into these subjects.

 treslibras wrote:

 CptJake wrote:
I do not think you're getting it.

'Inalienable human rights' can and have always been stripped when an individual violates laws/norms. The rights to 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' are stripped when we imprison someone (they lose liberty and the ability to pursue happiness).

Unless you are going to advocate never punishing anyone for anything, your line of thinking falters immediately.

The link discusses a 'bubble theory' justifying killing in war, but I think it applies when discussing when the gov't (state or fed) can 'violate' inalienable rights. Some folks pop the bubble, our justice system then decides which rights they have forfeited as a result.

http://cc.army.mil/pubs/armymagazine/docs/2010/CC_ARMY_10-02%20(FEB10)%20Morality-of-Killing.pdf

And I think YOU are not getting it. Rights are not "stripped" indefinitely. There is no forfeit of human rights. They are suspended. There is a difference. Can you understand that difference?
Again, that is the main reason why prisoners get a review of their sentence (if it is above a certain time period). But can you suspend life?

Again, here we are talking about the death penalty in a civilized state, on its own citizens, not about the exceptions to the rule, like terrorists in foreign countries without functioning democratic structures and legal system to have them extradicted to your jurisdiction.

If you are interested in the subject, you might want at least throw a cursory glance into these subjects.

Yeah, actually the rights can be and are stripped, often indefinitely. Convicts can't legally own a gun and often cannot vote, a guy sentenced to life has his right to 'liberty and pursuit of happiness stripped.

It isn't hard.

Yes, taking a life is non-reversable. I never argued otherwise. Your argument the gov't does not take an individual's 'inalienable rights' is demonstrably wrong. Again, sometimes an individual pops the bubble and the legal system does indeed end up stripping that individual's rights. It is frankly silly to argue it does not happen.

 CptJake wrote:
Guy above me stated: "A Death penalty must be unconstitutional. "

That is wrong.

It's currently ruled constitutional, but I guess it's a good thing that we have a system that can reexamine these things and fix them.

Has zero bearing on 'correct' or 'laws immune to change', but that change is not gonna be based on unconstitutionality of it.

Except that it probably will because they're is a pretty damn strong case that capital punishment is a violation of the Eighth Amendment's Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause. In fact, Justice Breyer wrote a 46-page dissent (it starts on page 51) in June after the court ruled 5-4 that Oklahoma's inhumane use of midazolam was constitutional in Glossip v. Gross in which he makes a solid case that it isn't sufficient to simply "patch up the death penalty's legal wounds" because the practice is "most likely" a violation of the Eighth Amendment.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
Glossip v. Gross

And I though the Dred Scott case came with a forbodding name XD

I seriously wonder if there's people at the SCOTUS office who just make jokes about the names of some of the cases that end up in the court. There's more than a few that seem almost Comic Bookish.

 CptJake wrote:

Yes, taking a life is non-reversable. I never argued otherwise. Your argument the gov't does not take an individual's 'inalienable rights' is demonstrably wrong.

So you believe that the state grants rights?

 CptJake wrote:

Again, sometimes an individual pops the bubble and the legal system does indeed end up stripping that individual's rights. It is frankly silly to argue it does not happen.

It is also very dangerous to accept it.

 CptJake wrote:


Yeah, actually the rights can be and are stripped, often indefinitely. Convicts can't legally own a gun and often cannot vote, a guy sentenced to life has his right to 'liberty and pursuit of happiness stripped.

It isn't hard.

Yes, taking a life is non-reversable. I never argued otherwise. Your argument the gov't does not take an individual's 'inalienable rights' is demonstrably wrong. Again, sometimes an individual pops the bubble and the legal system does indeed end up stripping that individual's rights. It is frankly silly to argue it does not happen.

I guess you DO not get the difference between suspension of certain expressions of human rights and the indefinite, terminal stripping of said rights, then.



BTW, owning a gun is no human right. It might be an extension of your right to happiness or right to property but it would still need to be weighed against other people's rights - to freedom from harm, for example. Now, if you are saying that all convicts are forbidden from ever obtaining a gun - that would be a rights violation. Why should a fraudster not be allowed to go to the shooting range after he served his sentence?

An indefinite stripping of your voting rights would also be a serious human rights violation in my eyes, under most circumstances. Democratic participation is commonly held to be a basic right in (nudge, nudge) democracies, with high thresholds against its limitation. I am shocked to read that this is still the case in a lot of US states.

Made me question why the US was still so high in the EIU Democracy index. Then I read about its "methodology" and that was that...

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 CptJake wrote:
Guy above me stated: "A Death penalty must be unconstitutional. "

That is wrong.

It's currently ruled constitutional, but I guess it's a good thing that we have a system that can reexamine these things and fix them.

Has zero bearing on 'correct' or 'laws immune to change', but that change is not gonna be based on unconstitutionality of it.

Except that it probably will because they're is a pretty damn strong case that capital punishment is a violation of the Eighth Amendment's Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause. In fact, Justice Breyer wrote a 46-page dissent (it starts on page 51) in June after the court ruled 5-4 that Oklahoma's inhumane use of midazolam was constitutional in Glossip v. Gross in which he makes a solid case that it isn't sufficient to simply "patch up the death penalty's legal wounds" because the practice is "most likely" a violation of the Eighth Amendment.

In my early years, I was gung-ho about the death penalty.

Now? I'm comfortably against it 100%.

The state shouldn't be executing it's own people imo.

Me and Scooty agrees on something...

>.>
...
...
<.<

I hope this isn't one of the seals of armageddon!

 CptJake wrote:
I do not think you're getting it.

'Inalienable human rights' can and have always been stripped when an individual violates laws/norms. The rights to 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' are stripped when we imprison someone (they lose liberty and the ability to pursue happiness).

Unless you are going to advocate never punishing anyone for anything, your line of thinking falters immediately.

The link discusses a 'bubble theory' justifying killing in war, but I think it applies when discussing when the gov't (state or fed) can 'violate' inalienable rights. Some folks pop the bubble, our justice system then decides which rights they have forfeited as a result.

http://cc.army.mil/pubs/armymagazine/docs/2010/CC_ARMY_10-02%20(FEB10)%20Morality-of-Killing.pdf

I think you don't know what an inalienable human right is. Inalienable means people should never lose them. Nothing in human rights law prevents people from being punished, as long as that punishment is just and fair.

What constitutes an inalienable human right is disputed, but Japan and the US remain the only western democracies that continue to have the death penalty, and only 9 other countries you would call anything resembling a functioning democracy still have it.

 oldravenman3025 wrote:
That's beside the point. The point is that career criminals don't give a damn about going to the joint. Most of them are repeat offenders, who have spent a large portion of their lives in and out of the system. All they have to do is pull their time, and then go back to doing whatever it is that got them locked up to begin with when they get back on the street. In the meantime, they enjoy their free cable, cheap canteen, free gym, free legal, free medical, three hots and a cot, etc. etc. And this is on top of the wheeling and dealing they do on the inside. It's all one big joke to them.

Yeah. Luckily USA has harsh prisons, long sentences and a death penalty to deter those criminals!

I mean, imagine if a county would have shorter sentences, nicer prisons and no death penalty. Such a country would obviously devolve into a crime ridden hellhole, just like all those Scandinavian countries...

 Crimson wrote:

 oldravenman3025 wrote:
That's beside the point. The point is that career criminals don't give a damn about going to the joint. Most of them are repeat offenders, who have spent a large portion of their lives in and out of the system. All they have to do is pull their time, and then go back to doing whatever it is that got them locked up to begin with when they get back on the street. In the meantime, they enjoy their free cable, cheap canteen, free gym, free legal, free medical, three hots and a cot, etc. etc. And this is on top of the wheeling and dealing they do on the inside. It's all one big joke to them.

Yeah. Luckily USA has harsh prisons, long sentences and a death penalty to deter those criminals!

I mean, imagine if a county would have shorter sentences, nicer prisons and no death penalty. Such a country would obviously devolve into a crime ridden hellhole, just like all those Scandinavian countries...

You mean those very same Scandinavian countries that share a 2000 mile long border with Mexico? Oh, wait...

 Breotan wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

 oldravenman3025 wrote:
That's beside the point. The point is that career criminals don't give a damn about going to the joint. Most of them are repeat offenders, who have spent a large portion of their lives in and out of the system. All they have to do is pull their time, and then go back to doing whatever it is that got them locked up to begin with when they get back on the street. In the meantime, they enjoy their free cable, cheap canteen, free gym, free legal, free medical, three hots and a cot, etc. etc. And this is on top of the wheeling and dealing they do on the inside. It's all one big joke to them.

Yeah. Luckily USA has harsh prisons, long sentences and a death penalty to deter those criminals!

I mean, imagine if a county would have shorter sentences, nicer prisons and no death penalty. Such a country would obviously devolve into a crime ridden hellhole, just like all those Scandinavian countries...

You mean those very same Scandinavian countries that share a 2000 mile long border with Mexico? Oh, wait...

What exactly does sharing a border with Mexico have to do with the deplorable condition of a majority of prisons in this country and the unconstitutional act of killing our own citizens?

 whembly wrote:
In my early years, I was gung-ho about the death penalty.

Now? I'm comfortably against it 100%.

The state shouldn't be executing it's own people imo.

Me and Scooty agrees on something...

>.>
...
...
<.<

I hope this isn't one of the seals of armageddon!

I was pro-capital punishment for most of my life. It's only been in the last handful of years that I've reversed course on it and I'm glad I have.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
What exactly does sharing a border with Mexico have to do with the deplorable condition of a majority of prisons in this country and the unconstitutional act of killing our own citizens?

That's fine if you dislike the death penalty but it is Constitutional.

Regarding the "Scandinavian countries", they simply don't face the same situation that the US faces with regards to our prison population. Mexico is a pipeline for drugs, trafficking, and other problems. Criminals (gangs, cartels, etc.) flow from all over Central America and cross that border. Once here they work to expand gangs, drug use, prostitution, warfare with other gangs, etc. That swamps our criminal justice system and by extension, or prison population. We have to segregate convicts into different prisons or else they'd be killed by rivals & opportunists. In some states, it's difficult to maintain a decent staff of corrections officers. I would really like to see how those Scandinavian countries would handle an insurgence of MS13 style militant gangs in their prisons.

Like the massive border with the Russia, with it's own notorious organized criminal enterprise?

 feeder wrote:
Like the massive border with the Russia, with it's own notorious organized criminal enterprise?

But if you bring that up, the he can't blame our crime on the Mexicans!

That whole thing was like a wannabe Rush Limbaugh rant. Well done!

I am in the same boat as Whembly and Scooty Puff as well. I was pro death penalty until about 4 or 5 years ago and I just started realizing that I was against it. Now I am very confident in my position opposing the death penalty.

 Breotan wrote:

Regarding the "Scandinavian countries", they simply don't face the same situation that the US faces with regards to our prison population. Mexico is a pipeline for drugs, trafficking, and other problems. Criminals (gangs, cartels, etc.) flow from all over Central America and cross that border. Once here they work to expand gangs, drug use, prostitution, warfare with other gangs, etc. That swamps our criminal justice system and by extension, or prison population. We have to segregate convicts into different prisons or else they'd be killed by rivals & opportunists. In some states, it's difficult to maintain a decent staff of corrections officers. I would really like to see how those Scandinavian countries would handle an insurgence of MS13 style militant gangs in their prisons.

What a load of balderdash. USA's high prison population has three main reasons: 1) gakky social security and other systems to prevent poverty; poverty breeds crime. 2) Privatized prisons. There are a lot of greedy people who make a lot of money out of this gakky situation, and use their wealth and influence to lobby for harsh penalties. 3) 'Though on crime' politicians who push for retribution rather than rehabilitation. They don't actually want to reduce crime, they just want to appear tough.

 Crimson wrote:

What a load of balderdash. USA's high prison population has three main reasons: 1) gakky social security and other systems to prevent poverty; poverty breeds crime. 2) Privatized prisons. There are a lot of greedy people who make a lot of money out of this gakky situation, and use their wealth and influence to lobby for harsh penalties. 3) 'Though on crime' politicians who push for retribution rather than rehabilitation. They don't actually want to reduce crime, they just want to appear tough.

Don't forget the War on Drugs and all the nonsense wrapped up in that.

 Crimson wrote:

 Breotan wrote:

Regarding the "Scandinavian countries", they simply don't face the same situation that the US faces with regards to our prison population. Mexico is a pipeline for drugs, trafficking, and other problems. Criminals (gangs, cartels, etc.) flow from all over Central America and cross that border. Once here they work to expand gangs, drug use, prostitution, warfare with other gangs, etc. That swamps our criminal justice system and by extension, or prison population. We have to segregate convicts into different prisons or else they'd be killed by rivals & opportunists. In some states, it's difficult to maintain a decent staff of corrections officers. I would really like to see how those Scandinavian countries would handle an insurgence of MS13 style militant gangs in their prisons.

What a load of balderdash. USA's high prison population has three main reasons:

One reason, actually. People commit crimes. If a man is is prison for murder, in almost every case it's because he killed someone.

 Breotan wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

 Breotan wrote:

Regarding the "Scandinavian countries", they simply don't face the same situation that the US faces with regards to our prison population. Mexico is a pipeline for drugs, trafficking, and other problems. Criminals (gangs, cartels, etc.) flow from all over Central America and cross that border. Once here they work to expand gangs, drug use, prostitution, warfare with other gangs, etc. That swamps our criminal justice system and by extension, or prison population. We have to segregate convicts into different prisons or else they'd be killed by rivals & opportunists. In some states, it's difficult to maintain a decent staff of corrections officers. I would really like to see how those Scandinavian countries would handle an insurgence of MS13 style militant gangs in their prisons.

What a load of balderdash. USA's high prison population has three main reasons:

One reason, actually. People commit crimes. If a man is is prison for murder, in almost every case it's because he killed someone.

The question then will have to be why the US has the biggest prison population in the world. Are you just more awful persons than everyone else or just maybe something else is wrong. You've got 22 per cent of the world's prison population, but less than 1/20 of the global population.

You didn't even refute what Crimson said; three contributing causes to crime we're presented and you just pretended that crime itself is an independent variable.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
You didn't even refute what Crimson said; three contributing causes to crime we're presented and you just pretended that crime itself is an independent variable.

Don't expect him to, because all he has is Rush Limbaugh-esque talking points: we have crime and a high prison population in the United States because Hispanic people are bad.

Of course, if he actually knew what he was talking about he'd know that non-Hispanic United States citizens make up and overwhelming majority of the prison population.

 Breotan wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

 Breotan wrote:

Regarding the "Scandinavian countries", they simply don't face the same situation that the US faces with regards to our prison population. Mexico is a pipeline for drugs, trafficking, and other problems. Criminals (gangs, cartels, etc.) flow from all over Central America and cross that border. Once here they work to expand gangs, drug use, prostitution, warfare with other gangs, etc. That swamps our criminal justice system and by extension, or prison population. We have to segregate convicts into different prisons or else they'd be killed by rivals & opportunists. In some states, it's difficult to maintain a decent staff of corrections officers. I would really like to see how those Scandinavian countries would handle an insurgence of MS13 style militant gangs in their prisons.

What a load of balderdash. USA's high prison population has three main reasons:

One reason, actually. People commit crimes. If a man is is prison for murder, in almost every case it's because he killed someone.

Right, it isn't because of mandatory minimums or putting people in prison for non-violent crimes. Definitely not because of our amazing for profit prison system.