For or against capital punishment?

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

Aye. The problem is not about whether there are people who deserve to be punished with death. The problem is about who do we trust to decide? This is not hypothetical - the power has been abused often enough.

Indeed. Which is why I would limit capital punishment to serial killers.

Yes, but then we're opening a door. Dylan Roof isn't technically a serial killer, nor was Tim McVeigh. So do we start opening up the definition of "serial killer", or does a serial killer who kills 5 people get the death penalty, while someone like Nidal Hasan who went on a hateful rampage and killed 13 people isn't?

And again, do we really want the government deciding who they kill?

[wayfriend]

Truly, having a "bar" for the death penalty just means that situations are "adjusted" to be above or below the bar as one's bias dictates. The number of people on death row who were exonerated before execution, and the reasons why they were exonerated, provide some deeply disturbing and compelling stories about the use of the death penalty.

For this reason, I say we are probably all better off not having a death penalty. Not because no one deserves it, but because no one can be trusted with it.

[SerScot]

Truly, having a "bar" for the death penalty just means that situations are "adjusted" to be above or below the bar as one's bias dictates. The number of people on death row who were exonerated before execution, and the reasons why they were exonerated, provide some deeply disturbing and compelling stories about the use of the death penalty.

For this reason, I say we are probably all better off not having a death penalty. Not because no one deserves it, but because no one can be trusted with it.

Have any serial killers ever been exonerated?

[Skyweir]

Maybe the simplest most civil way to avoid mismanagement is not to have a death penalty.

But in doing that ~ what viable alternatives are there:

? mass institutionalisation?
- And the knock-on costs of a process like that.

? prisoner reform and reintegration programs ?
- and the issues

? Preventive Detention where a person is detained to prevent him from committing a crime. Norway has a maximum sentence of 21 years but, it can hold offenders beyond that time in preventive detention.

Such detention is imposed in those cases where it is suspected that the offender could pose a particularly high risk to the public following release but again its incarceration and all the associated costs that attracts plus there is a higher risk to inmates of psychological disorders, HIV infection transmission, tuberculosis, hepatitis B and C, sexually transmitted diseases, skin diseases, malnutrition, diarrhoea and injuries including self-mutilation are the main causes of morbidity and mortality in prison.

And when/if released those health risks become public health risks also.

We don’t have capital punishment anymore but these are just a few of the impacts of that position.

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

Truly, having a "bar" for the death penalty just means that situations are "adjusted" to be above or below the bar as one's bias dictates. The number of people on death row who were exonerated before execution, and the reasons why they were exonerated, provide some deeply disturbing and compelling stories about the use of the death penalty.

For this reason, I say we are probably all better off not having a death penalty. Not because no one deserves it, but because no one can be trusted with it.

I lean towards this position more and more.

And I think - as usual - that this smaller issue is part and parcel with the larger issues of our militarized police, the legal deference to law enforcement and government (from qualified immunity to asset forfeiture), a politicized legal system that equates success with how many people are imprisoned and for how long, the for-profit prison system, the inability of people who have been released from prison to find work, and the fact that there's no mental health system, meaning that the legal/prison system is used to deal with people who should be institutionalized, not imprisoned.

Which, of course, opens up the discussion to Big Pharma, who was instrumental in turning mental healthcare from treatment-based care into "moar pills".

[wayfriend]

Have any serial killers ever been exonerated?

That's a specious question. If the bar is far lower than "serial killer", then anyone wrongly put on death row doesn't have to be one. We're not speaking of random occurrences here. If you want to put someone on death row that shouldn't be, you aim for getting under the bar, and no farther.

But there was Sherwood Brown, wrongly accused of a triple murder.

? mass institutionalisation?

Prison corporations are one of the most corrupt businesses you can find. I sincerely believe that it costs far more than it needs to.

[Skyweir]

? mass institutionalisation?

Prison corporations are one of the most corrupt businesses you can find. I sincerely believe that it costs far more than it needs to.

Yes it’s a difficult subject ~ here we haven’t privatised the penal system ~ I wonder how many of these issues have arisen because of outsourcing.

Here jails are state-based correctional services facilities which operate under correctional services departments … all controls and management of the jails are subject to strict govt oversight.

This model has pluses and negatives ~ but management teams are held to a clear and established regulatory benchmarks and principles of openness, transparency and accountability.

[SerScot]

Have any serial killers ever been exonerated?

That's a specious question. If the bar is far lower than "serial killer", then anyone wrongly put on death row doesn't have to be one. We're not speaking of random occurrences here. If you want to put someone on death row that shouldn't be, you aim for getting under the bar, and no farther.

But there was Sherwood Brown, wrongly accused of a triple murder.

I’m speaking about where I would hypothetically set the bar. So, in my earnest view as we discuss hypotheticals… my question isn’t “specious�. As to Mr. Brown… killing three people at the same time… is not what I think of as a “serial killer�. Mr. Brown, in my hypothetical scheme wouldn’t be subject to capital punishment.

I see “serial killers� as people who kill others over time again and again… i.e. “Pee Wee Gaskins�, “Ted Bundy�, or “Jeffery Dahlmer�… those types.

[Skyweir]

You absolutely can distinguish serial killers from mass murderers.

But I’m not sure how that affects the point you’re trying to make SerScot.

https://www.crimemuseum.org/crime-libra ... murderers/

Limiting capital punishment to serial killers who kill multiple differs people at different times compared to mass murderers who kill multiple different people at the same time.

An alternative to the death penalty is solitary confinement.

This is used in countries where there is no capital punishment, as a viable legal alternative.

[wayfriend]

I’m speaking about where I would hypothetically set the bar

And I am saying that if you set the bar at "serial killer", then a lot more people will suddenly be tried for being "serial killers". Because that's what happens in a corrupt system where capital punishment is meted out for "appearing tough on crime" and where the wrongly accused are in a social class that some literally don't consider human enough to be of concern.

[SoulBiter]

The use of Capital punishment has decreased over the years and was never really alot considering the number on death row. 45 people in 2009 down to about 11 people in 2021.

[wayfriend]

Amnesty International recorded 579 executions in 18 countries in 2021, an increase of 20% from the 483 recorded in 2020.

But in the US public support for the death penalty is down. I think it would be wrong to suggest that the system has become less corrupt - it is only less popular.

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

Amnesty International recorded 579 executions in 18 countries in 2021, an increase of 20% from the 483 recorded in 2020.

But in the US public support for the death penalty is down. I think it would be wrong to suggest that the system has become less corrupt - it is only less popular.

I'd argue that's the power of the various anti-death penalty groups like The Innocence Project. Thanks to their work, the public has changed its position on the death penalty.

[SoulBiter]

Amnesty International recorded 579 executions in 18 countries in 2021, an increase of 20% from the 483 recorded in 2020.

But in the US public support for the death penalty is down. I think it would be wrong to suggest that the system has become less corrupt - it is only less popular.

I'd argue that's the power of the various anti-death penalty groups like The Innocence Project. Thanks to their work, the public has changed its position on the death penalty.

I would suggest that it has always been that way. That various independent groups that see a change is needed works over years to change public perceptions. As people have learned how "justice" has been served over the years it becomes apparent that there are many cases where the system just got it wrong. Sometimes that was intentional.

I would also suggest that there has never been a time in human history when government in one form or another (whether that is local or Federal) where there has not been some form of corruption. It seems to be a human condition.

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

But in the US public support for the death penalty is down. I think it would be wrong to suggest that the system has become less corrupt - it is only less popular.

I'd argue that's the power of the various anti-death penalty groups like The Innocence Project. Thanks to their work, the public has changed its position on the death penalty.

I would suggest that it has always been that way. That various independent groups that see a change is needed works over years to change public perceptions. As people have learned how "justice" has been served over the years it becomes apparent that there are many cases where the system just got it wrong. Sometimes that was intentional.

I would also suggest that there has never been a time in human history when government in one form or another (whether that is local or Federal) where there has not been some form of corruption. It seems to be a human condition.

I believe we're saying the same thing and in agreement.

[Skyweir]

I’m speaking about where I would hypothetically set the bar

And I am saying that if you set the bar at "serial killer", then a lot more people will suddenly be tried for being "serial killers". Because that's what happens in a corrupt system where capital punishment is meted out for "appearing tough on crime" and where the wrongly accused are in a social class that some literally don't consider human enough to be of concern.

I know your frame of reference is the AMERICAN justice system .. and I am gobsmacked that 1. that your justice system is that corrupt that it could target a demographic based on social class - 2. How does that even work? 3. What are the elements that are vulnerable to corrupt decision making?

I mean what you are talking about is bottom to top level propensity for corruption ... that's not easy to coordinate from Law Enforcement decisions, to the Courts, to the juries deliberating on verdicts .. to the magistrate making the ruling and sentencing decision.

[SoulBiter]

Its not as bad as that Sky. Its a large country and they get it right almost always. However the ones they get right are almost never on the news, but any they get wrong are plastered across the media.

[Skyweir]

Its not as bad as that Sky. Its a large country and they get it right almost always. However the ones they get right are almost never on the news, but any they get wrong are plastered across the media.

Ahh right

[Fist and Faith]

That's as it should be. If we see many many good, and only one bad, some might develop the attitude that it's good enough, and nobody should complain, because there's no such thing as a perfect system.

[wayfriend]

"It is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer."

If this is true, then our focus should, indeed, be on the one innocent person suffering.

Also, no one is held accountable by highlighting when they do their basic job adequately.