Death Penalty and Executions

[juliod]

Capital punishment frequently comes up as a topic of discussion in this forum. Typically, most people express dissatisfaction with the current system in the US. I'd like some comments on this proposal for reform.

There are usually two objections to the current system. Advocates of the death penalty think there are two many levels of appeal and that it takes too long and is too uncertain. Opponents complain that too many innocent people are convicted and that executions are often unnecessarily cruel.

My proposal is straightforward. It would be implements at the state level, where most executions take place. Basically it is composed to two provisions:

1) Prior to an execution, the Governor of the state must certify that the convict is in fact guilty and that execution is appropriate considering all the facts and compared to similar crimes. This duty would have to be done by the Governor personally and cannot be delegated.

2) The Governor of the state would personally carry out the execution. The Governor would have to personally operate the mechanism, the switch, button, or level than directly leads to death. The Governor must remain in full view of the prisoner until a pronouncement of death.

My goal is to increase the sense of personal responsability in capital cases. That is what I think is lacking, and what leads to all the problems with the death penalty. The governor is the Chief Executive, let them execute. That will be the motto of our movement.

Why are executions too cruel? It's because no one in actual authority is involved in them. They are carried out by anonymous prison officials who may be sadists in the first place. Even lethal injection, once thought to be a humane method, is now suspected of causing extreme pain and suffering in some, perhaps many, cases. If the Governor were doing the execution directly, they would want to be very sure that things were done right, if only for their own conscience.

Why are innocent people still being found on Death Row? It's because no one in actual authority actually cares. Judges, in my view, are a hopeless case. Politicians, OTOH, often need to make a posturing tough-on-crime stance. They would be less likely to ignore evidence of actual innocence if they had to personally and publicly state they they are convinced of the justice in this specific case. No more hiding behind a jury.

My plan would tie the chief executive more directly to the execution, both in decision and action. Since they would have no simple defense in case the convict were later shown to be innocent, the Governors would take these cases much more seriously and give them greater consideration (and not just whether it makes them look "tough").

Opponents of executions often seem frustrated that as the date of an impending execution comes up it is impossible to get anyone in authority to look at evidence of innocence. Governors won't meet with their representatives. Courts won't grant hearings. The problem is that often the evidence of innocence is quite convincing. If there were a high official who must tie his or her personal dignity, reputation, and honor to the guilt of the condemned, we would not have these issues.

I think if my proposal were implimented it would be very helpful in weeding out those miscarriages that plauge our capital system, and lead to a reduction in the need for multiple appeals and repeated rulings.

DanZ

[The Persnickety Platypus]

California is conservative? Since when?

Texas, Virginia, Oklahoma, Missouri, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Arizona are the top death penalty states, respectively. All (possibly excluding Arkansas) are staunchly conservative.

Interestingly, all of these states are also predominantly rural, and are generally of a low population density.

On the other end of the spectrum we have Michigan, Alaska, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Vermont, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, North Dakota, Hawaii, Iowa, and Maine. All are typically very blue.

Capital Punishment is a political idealogy, not an intended solution to crime rates.

Using capital punishment for crime adversion is foolhardy anyway, and completely negates the majority of all crime data. The VAST superiority of countries that abolish the death penalty witness considerable drops in crime. This is well documented, and I find it alarming that so many politicians are willing to completely overlook it in favor of soliciting to the public's simple-mindedness.

Violence in prison is a part of life. There are an estimated 26,000 serious assaults, 100 suicides, 100 murders and 250 other 'questionable' deaths that are not attributable to natural causes in US prisons every year. Further, there are an estimated 290,000 sexual assaults that occur behind bars between inmates. Some estimate that 25% of all inmates experience some form of forced sexual contact, often multiple cases, during their time in prison.

Suddenly you care about the livelihood of felons? I thought you were arguing for death?

These are good points, but really not all that surprising, considering the vast extent of the federal/state prisons. I heard somewhere that at least 3% of Americans are incarcerated in the prison system. Whether not that is an accurate statistic, there are still many millions... an entire population. Take the amount of violence that occurs in prison and compare it to the number of crimes that happen outside the gates; the rates are probably not all that much different. Most states have around five homicides for every 100,000 people. Prisons have 100 for about 2 million. My math is rather poor, but I figure that is about .005% for prisons and .000005% for the rest of the nation. The prison ratio is approximately 6:100,000, compared to 5:100,000. The difference is mininscule.

On another note, which takes precedence? The life of an innocent, or the life of a felon? It is insufficient to judge based on this limited information, but if forced, the answer is easy.

Exodus 21:25
If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.

To add to what McColloch said, the Old Testament is technically irrelevant to any discussion of Christianity. Jesus taught that we have "died to the laws in Moses' teachings".

In a perfect world, sure. We don't live in a perfect world and aren't going to start any time soon. Until then, we must take those individuals who refuse to follow social mandates and punish them for their crimes.

It is this very attitude that prevents utopia. That and a lack of motivation.

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world."

Ghandi knows best. Peace, like any other goal, requires initiative. At the moment, no one seems to want to take the initiative.

Who says we can't achieve utopia? It's not like anyone has ever really tried.

[snappyanswer]

Who says we can't achieve utopia? It's not like anyone has ever really tried.

Only killing off the people that violate the rights of others to have a utopia is sensible. Murderers, rapists and/or any other crime against another person should carry the death penalty and therefore assuring utopia for peaceful people that care for others without commiting crimes against them.

Society could lock these people in a cell away from any humans and provide them nothing. They would essentially die from natural causes caused by their cause and effect.

[The Persnickety Platypus]

That philosophy doesent seem to have worked too well for states like Louisiana and Texas.


Killing= More killing. No exeptions.

[Dilettante]

Who says we can't achieve utopia? It's not like anyone has ever really tried.

Actually, the very concept says it. By definition, utopia is impossible to achieve. Perhaps we can achieve something resembling a utopia, but it would be something else. An achievable utopia is a contradiction in terms.

[dudleysharp]

I think if my proposal were implimented it would be very helpful in weeding out those miscarriages that plauge our capital system, and lead to a reduction in the need for multiple appeals and repeated rulings.

DanZ[/quote]

Some clarifications.

There might be 20 cases of actually innocent people sent to death row since the modern death penalty ysteme begaan in the US in 1973, that is 0.3% of those so sentneced. All of them have been release because of post conviction review.

I doubt that a criminal justice sanction can get much more accurate - but it is possible it it will be a little more accurate in the future, because of all of the additional safeguards that are already in place.

There is no reason for the appellate process for the death penalty to last more than 6-8 years, within the current system, with the exception that time limits should be strictly ewnforced for filing and replying to appeals. That can be implemented, if there is the will to do so.

The current avaerage time for appleas, prior to execution is near 10 years.

[dudleysharp]

[/quote]Surely any literal reading of Jesus words would prohibit capital punishment at least at the hands of Christian legislators, Christian judges or Christian prison workers. Wouldn't it?[/quote]

No. Please review. I think you have taken some material out of context.

1) 2004, Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, with guidance to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, stated succinctly, emphatically and unambiguously as follows: June, 2004 "Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia." http://www.catholic.org/featured/headline.php?ID=1125
Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick: More Concerned with 'Comfort' than Christ?, Catholic Online, 7/11/2004


2) Cardinal Avery Dulles, SJ, 10/7/2000, "At no point, however, does Jesus deny that the State has authority to exact capital punishment. In his debates with the Pharisees, Jesus cites with approval the apparently harsh commandment, He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him surely die (Mt 15:4; Mk 7:10, referring to Ex 21:17; cf. Lev 20:9). When Pilate calls attention to his authority to crucify him, Jesus points out that Pilate's power comes to him from above-that is to say, from God (Jn 19:1 l).Jesus commends the good thief on the cross next to him, who has admitted that he and his fellow thief are receiving the due reward of their deeds (Lk 23:41). "

"Paul repeatedly refers to the connection between sin and death. He writes to the Romans with an apparent reference to the death penalty, that the magistrate who holds authority does not bear the sword in vain; for he is the servant of God to execute his wrath on the wrongdoer (Rom 13:4). No passage in the New Testament disapproves of the death penalty."

"Turning to Christian tradition, we may note that the Fathers and Doctors of the Church are virtually unanimous in their support for capital punishment, even though some of them such as St. Ambrose exhort members of the clergy not to pronounce capital sentences or serve as executioners."

"The Roman Catechism, issued in 1566, three years after the end of the Council of Trent, taught that the power of life and death had been entrusted by God to civil authorities and that the use of this power, far from involving the crime of murder, is an act of paramount obedience to the fifth commandment. "

"Summarizing the verdict of Scripture and tradition, we can glean some settled points of doctrine. It is agreed that crime deserves punishment in this life and not only in the next. In addition, it is agreed that the State has authority to administer appropriate punishment to those judged guilty of crimes and that this punishment may, in serious cases, include the sentence of death."

"The Catholic magisterium does not, and never has, advocated unqualified abolition of the death penalty. I know of no official statement from popes or bishops, whether in the past or in the present, that denies the right of the State to execute offenders at least in certain extreme cases. The United States bishops, in their majority statement on capital punishment, conceded that Catholic teaching has accepted the principle that the state has the right to take the life of a person guilty of an extremely serious crime. Cardinal Bernardin, in his famous speech on the Consistent Ethic of Life here at Fordham in 1983, stated his concurrence with the classical position that the State has the right to inflict capital punishment.

"Pope John Paul II spoke for the whole Catholic tradition when he proclaimed, in Evangelium Vitae, that the direct and voluntary killing of an innocent human being is always gravely immoral (EV 57). But he wisely included in that statement the word innocent. He has never said that every criminal has a right to live nor has he denied that the State has the right in some cases to execute the guilty. "

("The Death Penalty: A Right to Life Issue?" at http://pewforum.org/deathpenalty/resour ... er/17.php3
NOTE: although Dulles makes palpable errors of fact and logic within the sections "The Purposes of Punishment" and "Harm Attributed to the Death Penalty", it is, otherwise, a solid historical treatment of the Church and the death penalty)


3) St. Augustine: "The same divine law which forbids the killing of a human being allows certain exceptions. Since the agent of authority is but a sword in the hand, and is not responsible for the killing, it is in no way contrary to the commandment "Thou shalt not kill", for the representative of the State's authority to put criminals to death, according to the Law or the rule of rational justice." The City of God, Book 1, Chapter 21


4) St. Thomas Aquinas finds all biblical interpretations against executions "frivolous", citing Exodus 22:18, "wrongdoers thou shalt not suffer to live". Unequivocally, he states," The civil rulers execute, justly and sinlessly, pestiferous men in order to protect the peace of the state." (Summa Contra Gentiles, III, 146


5) St. Thomas Aquinas: "The fact that the evil, as long as they live, can be corrected from their errors does not prohibit the fact that they may be justly executed, for the danger which threatens from their way of life is greater and more certain than the good which may be expected from their improvement. They also have at that critical point of death the opportunity to be converted to God through repentance. And if they are so stubborn that even at the point of death their heart does not draw back from evil, it is possible to make a highly probable judgement that they would never come away from evil to the right use of their powers." Summa Contra Gentiles, Book III, 146.


6) Saints Thomas Aquinas and Augustine. In addition to the required punishment for murder and the deterrence standards, both Saints find that executing murderers is also an act of charity and mercy. Saint Augustine confirms that " . . . inflicting capital punishment . . . protects those who are undergoing capital punishment from the harm they may suffer . . . through increased sinning which might continue if their life went on." (On the Lord's Sermon, 1.20.63-64.) Saint Thomas Aquinas finds that " . . . the death inflicted by the judge profits the sinner, if he be converted, unto the expiation of his crime; and, if he be not converted, it profits so as to put an end to the sin, because the sinner is thus deprived of the power to sin anymore." (Summa Theologica, II-II, 25, 6 ad 2.)


7) Pope Pius XII: "When it is a question of the execution of a man condemned to death it is then reserved to the public power to deprive the condemned of the benefit of life, in expiation of his fault, when already, by his fault, he has dispossessed himself of the right to live." 9/14/52.

more upon request

[Greatest I Am]

THOUGH SHALLT NOT KILL

Seems like a straight forward statement.

If the goal is to prevent killing then we must be seen as placing our highest value on human life. To do otherwise send the message that life is not the most precious and when we as a nation deside otherwise we kick our own standard aside by taking a lfie.

Rehabilitation is supposed to be the cornerstone of our penal system.
It is terribly dificult to rehabilitate some one you have killed.
Further if we are to stop those who would kill in a criminal way, we must have as much information on their thinking in order to try and identify potential killers.

Respect for life can not come to a people who makes life cheap by taking it.

Regards
DL

[McCulloch]

THOU[strike]GH[/strike] SHALT NOT KILL

Taken in context of the people to whom this commandment was given, this means, "Do not murder." Killing in war and for justice were allowed and encouraged in the OT.

Seems like a straight forward statement.

To every problem there is a simple straight-forward solution. It is usually wrong.

If the goal is to prevent killing then we must be seen as placing our highest value on human life. To do otherwise send the message that life is not the most precious and when we as a nation decide otherwise we kick our own standard aside by taking a life.

Our countries' laws were not based on the ten commandments.

Rehabilitation is supposed to be the cornerstone of our penal system. It is terribly difficult to rehabilitate some one you have killed.

Rehabilitation is only one purpose of the penal system. Deterrent and protection of the public are two others. The death penalty does stop repeat offenders.

Respect for life can not come to a people who makes life cheap by taking it.

There's the rub. What is the psychological price paid by those who's job it is to carry out executions?

[dudleysharp]

Biblical scholars and theologians have properly read this text as thou shalt not murder for milennia.

This is not in dispute.
Biblical scholar Lloyd R. Bailey. The Bible clearly asserts, from beginning to end, without any reservation, that righteous judgement includes the execution of a murderer. In the case of murder, the biblical materials offer the clearest and most sustained justification for the death penalty. The purpose of capital punishment is justice - deterrence is irrelevant. A person who takes a human life, without proper sanction, forfeits any right to life - no alternative is allowed and the community must not be swayed by values to the contrary.

Listen carefully to the Bible as the Word of God rather than seek to improve upon it by means of human values. However meritorious mercy may be, however abundantly evident it may be in God's own dealings, murder was an offense for which mercy and pity were not allowed and for which monetary compensation was strictly forbidden. The sentence is set by God's torah and a judge cannot have discretion in this matter. Murder is something utterly on its own, nothing can be compared to it.

It should not be overlooked, in seeking to discover the 'mind of Jesus Christ' on the issue of murder and its punishments, that He goes beyond torah to the statement that even verbal abuse makes one deserving of 'the hell of fire'. Far from releasing believers from prior law, Jesus was a 'hard liner' who made things even tougher, stating that He has come not 'to abolish the law and the prophets . . . but to fulfill them.', offering even stronger interpretations than in the original (Matthew 5:17-22). Indeed, Jesus admonishes the Pharisees not to misuse torah for their own ends, but to honor God and torah. And of all the text in the Bible, which one does Jesus select to emphasize that crucial point? 'HE WHO SPEAKS EVIL OF FATHER OR MOTHER, LET HIM BE PUT TO DEATH' (Matthew 15:1-9).

All interpretations, contrary to the biblical support of capital punishment, are false. Interpreters ought to listen to the Bible's own agenda, rather than to squeeze from it implications for their own agenda. As the ancient rabbis taught, "Do not seek to be more righteous than your Creator.' (Ecclesiastes Rabbah 7.33.). Dr. Lloyd R. Bailey, Capital Punishment: What the Bible Says, Abingdon Press, 1987: An approved synopsis.

This book is mandatory reading for those who wish to undertake a thorough and accurate look at this often misused and misunderstood area of concern and debate.
One example, of many:

[palmera]

I'm going to try and take this in a different direction.

Capital Punishment cannot be separated from the society in which it is enacted because it is a reflection of that society. Thus, when looking at capital punishment in the U.S. you have to get beyond holding authority figures (like the governor) accountable for pulling the trigger, and beyond religious or other moral grounds dealing with the death penalty on a purely philosophical basis. The question of what situations justify killing another human being are useful for appealing to human emotion because they elicit a gut reaction often lending itself towards retribution; however they do not sufficiently get at the root of the problem.

The practice of capital punishment today reflects the racism and classism inherent in our justice system and other structures of American society. The death penalty systematically favors executing the poor and the blacks of America for a number of reasons. One reason, as statistics show, is that police more thoroughly investigate violent homicides involving blacks than whites, and are more likely to arrest blacks than whites on scant evidence. Further, because most criminals on death row are poor, they're almost always underrepresented by an unqualified court appointed attorney whose resources are next to nil compared to that of the state's (as prosecutor.) Their attorneys, aside from being unqualified and overburdened by many hundreds of cases, do not have the resources to call in experts in opposition of the prosecution's claims. Thus, the appeals process is basically a meaningless gesture since 95% of death penalty cases feature defendants without the means to properly fund their defense. Often some citizens are simply denied an appeal because they lack the funds to make a case.

We have two systems of justice in America: one for the rich, elite, and powerful; and one for everybody else; and perhaps even a third reserved for the poorest of "the rest." Rather than judged by a group of their peers, racially bigoted juries have been the norm rather than the exception. This is, in part, also due to the wanting quality of court appointed legal defense in this nation. Prosecutors, better funded and better qualified have a vested interest in seeking the death penalty and have been found to suppress evidence to see the task carried out.


The fact of many people being either found innocent and released from death roll, or found innocent after being executed notwithstanding, I wonder how many innocents have to die before people will realize that the system is flawed and actually hurts society.

There is strong statistical evidence that capital punishment is not an effective deterrent of violent crimes and homicides. The states with the highest rate of execution are also the states with the highest rates of crime, violent crime, and homicides. People seem to forget that murderer's aren't planning on being caught after the act. Why would the DP deter a person who doesn't believe they will be caught???

In fact there is a strong correlation between lowered homicide rates and abolishment of the death penalty within the U.S. California, in the ten years it abolished the death penalty saw a marked decrease in homicide rates whereas Texas has sees overall crime rise significantly higher than that of the U.S. as a whole over the past few years in which it's executions have been rolling right along. What we've seen for so long, is that in places where you have the death penalty, you have more homiceds. This can also be seen on the international scale. The U.S. does not fare well against it's counterpart industrialized nations.

Even though you can't separate the reality of capital punishment in its societal context, let's look at one glaring contradiction in the logic of the pro-death penalty argument. Many who are for executions state that they are so because of the sanctity of life. The argument goes something like this: life is sacred, and since some criminals completely disregard this, their lives should be forfeited. Even without the inacuracy for the system and the racism and classism of the system, this argument is ridiculous. Life is so precious that its sanctity must be respected by killing????? So two deaths are better than one? Again, how many innocents have to die before this revolting system pays off?

Anyway, this has been a long and confusing rant I'm sure. A lot of the points are simply mentioned for later discussion.