In the several decades I've known Bill, and maybe because of that, I have gone from being mostly opposed to the death penalty to being a real enthusiast for it. I came to the conclusion that to be truly pro-life, one has to be pro-death.
The penalty should be routinely applied whenever a person's illegal actions lead to anyone's death. That would include felony murder and drunk driving. Sure the killer didn't mean it, but that's no consolation to the victim.
Did anyone freeze to death because of the hack of that East Coast gas system last year? Strap 'em in if we can find them.
The Catholic Church is my country, my first loyalty, but its view on the death penalty is widely misunderstood and can't be changed by a Pope who talks too much. JPII argued--not ruled, he does not have that power--that it was permissible only to preserve the civic order. That would cover anybody who caused a death during the George Floyd riots, or wherever crime has become so endemic as to threaten the civil order.
It would also cover the police who murdered Floyd because that was even more destructive of the civic order. Instead we let the bad cops live and then start gumming law enforcement to death with stupid rules and petty punishments.
Richard -- Thanks very much for those thoughtful remarks, which cover a lot of ground. I would only add that those who can't draw a distinction between an unborn child who has done nothing blameworthy, and Timothy McVeigh, might want to re-think.
"It would also cover the police who murdered Floyd because that was even more destructive of the civic order. "
Floyd died of a fentanyl OD. He was complaining that he could not breathe before the police did ANYTHING to him (go watch the body cam video) - his lungs were filling with fluid.
And no, there was no "knee on the neck" - the *prosecution* didn't even make that claim, as the body cam footage showed clearly that's not what was done.
At least two of the Chauvin jurors admitted fear of the mob. Chauvin's trial was as fair as a black person's trial in the Jim Crow south.
I do not buy it. Inevitably there will be persons wrongfully convicted and executed. And there will always be errors, curruption, perjury, lab errors, etc. Be intellectually honest. Say what percentage of wrongfully executed persons is acceptable to you in your pursuit of capital punishment for those that are in fact truly guilty. Don't get me wrong. If our systems were infallible, I would be more than willing to throw the switch on murderers.
I'll be happy to state the number you ask for right after you state what you would accept as the number of innocent people who'll be killed by murderers who legally could have been executed but weren't, and then did it again.
What's your number?
As I said in the entry, there is some prospect that innocent people will get killed no matter which course we take. History tells us unambiguously that the number I ask you to specify (innocents killed later by unexecuted murderers) will be and has been far, far higher than the number you ask me to specify (factually innocent people we've executed in anything like the modern era).
And the problem here is not my intellectual honesty, sonny. The problem is societal cowardice sparked by the possibility of error. Error is ALWAYS possible; indeed, it's inevitable. And executing an innocent person would be a substantial moral cost, true. But it's not a prohibitive moral cost, anymore than the fact that our country killed thousands of civilians in WWII was a prohibitive moral cost to fighting it. It depends on what you get in return.
I wonder if you would hold to that view if you were an innocent on death row. Would you say, "Well, this is most unfortunate, but I accept my fate because it's all for the greater good."?
I wonder it you would hold your view if you were an inmate in a cell with a stone-cold killer who was given LWOP instead of the death penalty, and then decides he doesn't like your looks. As he (6'4" and 260 lbs.) strangles you, would you think in the last moment of your life, "Well, this is most unfortunate, but I accept my fate because capital punishment could make mistakes"?
"Inevitably there will be persons wrongfully convicted and executed."
There indeed have been. The author makes a claim that is simply not true on that point.
But he also addresses the point (without acknowledging it) here:
"Accordingly, the fact of fallibility does not, as abolitionists frequently argue, mean that the death penalty must end. It means that we must choose which fallibility is likely to kill the smaller number of innocent people -- prison errors or judicial ones. Not surprisingly, the factual record is unambiguous as to which kind of error is actually the most lethal to the innocent. "
This is the real point. "No innocents killed" is simply not one of the choices in human society. No one has ever achieved it in any significant population for any significant length of time.
So, which way results in the *fewest*. The current de facto system being imposed on America by lefty elites, where criminals are released with the mildest slap on the wrist, is definitely not it.
And even in "life in prison without parole" (which seldom is the actual outcome of such cases) gives more opportunity for murder, as the author points out.
But at the end of the day, the math is really, really simple. If you convict someone of murder and you execute them, the most possible innocent dead people is ONE. If you do not execute said murderer, and they *ever* murder someone again, well, you have another innocent dead person *AND* the murderer isn't even necessarily done yet.
No, that doesn't mean "Kill'em all and let God sort'em out". But it does mean "never execute anyone" is just as bad... and honestly, maybe worse.
Accidents on the interstate kill hundreds if not thousands of innocent people. This has been true for decades; if we want interstate travel, it's inevitable. Sometimes the accident is the driver's fault, sometimes it's road design, sometimes it's mechanical failure, sometimes it's a sudden storm. Let's say a person in his teenage years had a brother who got killed in one of these accidents. Should that person complain about the known lethal quality of travel on interstate highways?
When my brother got killed at 16 (I was 14), I didn't. That's because I knew even then that systems that on the whole bring us a lot of good also, every now and again, bring us something horrible.
Or maybe you think that we should have stayed out of WWII because (as we knew in advance), fighting the Axis would mean we would mistakenly sometimes kill innocent civilians, including children. Is that what you think?
I don't know the comment policy here and I would not wish to violate it. Although I am tempted to do so in describing the human piece of filth that murdered Jessica Lunsford. I remember that case very vividly, and also having the feeling that if it were in my power, I would strap the killer to an electric chair and push the button myself. As it turns out though, her murderer, while sentenced to death, died in prison. He was elderly already at the time of the disgusting crime, and he had not spent an unusual period on death row before expiring.
The problem I see with the death penalty in the United States is that its implementation is so profoundly uneven. Consider the BTK killer. Given a life sentence of course, because he confessed to his crimes and offered law enforcement with help identifying the bodies of the many people he murdered. If I remember correctly, his crimes may have occurred during the period after SCOTUS deemed the death penalty un-Constitutional in Furman v. Georgia, but before it permitted reinstatement under revised guidelines.
But there are many such cases, of individuals that seem oh so very deserving of capital punishment, who often escape it. And cases of people who do receive it, who are comparably much less deserving. Off the top of my head, there was one such case just this week, of an execution that was actually botched and therefore called off in Alabama. The convict was a for-hire killer. Certainly his victim did not deserve to die. About that there is no question whatsoever. But there was otherwise nothing particularly unusual about his crime. It was a murder of an absolutely innocent woman, whose husband wished to kill her. For some reason that I do not know, the jury actually voted by 11 to 1, against the imposition of the death penalty. Perhaps there were mitigating circumstances of which I am not aware. Nonetheless, the judge overrode the recommendation. A cursory examination of sentences often reveals all kinds of mitigating factors in executions that are actually carried out. And sometimes, all too often, to reiterate my earlier point, a seeming lack of any mitigating factors whatsoever, in cases where the ultimate punishment is never pursued.
If we cannot figure out a way to administer the punishment evenly, and to the most heinous of murders only, perhaps we shouldn't be administering it.
Capital punishment in America is not cruel, but it is unusual. Even in the states which enforce the death penalty, let alone across the nation as a whole, it’s arguably arbitrary and capricious which few of the many equally deserving actually take that final walk. Against the backdrop of socioeconomic disparities and some cases of actual innocence, the system needs to be much surer and tighter and more consistent than it is now with the irrevocable at stake.
Yes it is. I find it unethical and egregiously immoral for a convicted, proven, murderer to be alive a minute longer than the victims he coldly snuffed out. The opposing side posits how "expensive" it is or how "innocent people" have wrongfully been convicted. Can I ask, what exactly does that have to do with the death penalty? The flaws in the justice system lie squarely on the people who work within it: prosecution, defense, judge, jury, appeals, forensics. None of those have any bearing on the efficacy of the punishment. It simply is. As to how it stops crime, it ends the life of a blood-craving criminal. I've never bought the deterrent argument, but it does deter the already dead criminal from committing their evil further. Why does the state have that power? Because in the end, the monster is still human, and you don't want his or her blood on the hands of one out for vengeance. There has to be a mediator, a third party to bear that burden. I find the arguments against the death penalty so unconvincing, one would have to prove it to be a sentient being out for blood for me to stand against it.
Can they be trusted with the power to declare war (say, WWII), which kills exponentially more people than the death penalty in this country ever has? If no, fine, then the Axis can rule the world and no one will stop it. If yes, your argument just bit the dust.
I hasten to add this: What I said applies to the system, not to the rest of us. If you catch someone committing a heinous crime, do your best to kill the bastard. In general I agree with the author concerning the morality of capital punishment. It's only the the wrongfully convicted that is concerning.
The dividing line between right and left on the issue of capital punishment is not always clear cut. Traditional Catholics, for example, tend to lean conservative. Their pro-life religious convictions not only cause them to oppose abortion but capital punishment as well. That is, I believe the official position of the church.
In the several decades I've known Bill, and maybe because of that, I have gone from being mostly opposed to the death penalty to being a real enthusiast for it. I came to the conclusion that to be truly pro-life, one has to be pro-death.
The penalty should be routinely applied whenever a person's illegal actions lead to anyone's death. That would include felony murder and drunk driving. Sure the killer didn't mean it, but that's no consolation to the victim.
Did anyone freeze to death because of the hack of that East Coast gas system last year? Strap 'em in if we can find them.
The Catholic Church is my country, my first loyalty, but its view on the death penalty is widely misunderstood and can't be changed by a Pope who talks too much. JPII argued--not ruled, he does not have that power--that it was permissible only to preserve the civic order. That would cover anybody who caused a death during the George Floyd riots, or wherever crime has become so endemic as to threaten the civil order.
It would also cover the police who murdered Floyd because that was even more destructive of the civic order. Instead we let the bad cops live and then start gumming law enforcement to death with stupid rules and petty punishments.
Richard -- Thanks very much for those thoughtful remarks, which cover a lot of ground. I would only add that those who can't draw a distinction between an unborn child who has done nothing blameworthy, and Timothy McVeigh, might want to re-think.
Richard Vigilante it appears to me you have lost your way. You appear to as blood thirsty as any serial killer. Seek counseling.
"It would also cover the police who murdered Floyd because that was even more destructive of the civic order. "
Floyd died of a fentanyl OD. He was complaining that he could not breathe before the police did ANYTHING to him (go watch the body cam video) - his lungs were filling with fluid.
And no, there was no "knee on the neck" - the *prosecution* didn't even make that claim, as the body cam footage showed clearly that's not what was done.
At least two of the Chauvin jurors admitted fear of the mob. Chauvin's trial was as fair as a black person's trial in the Jim Crow south.
I do not buy it. Inevitably there will be persons wrongfully convicted and executed. And there will always be errors, curruption, perjury, lab errors, etc. Be intellectually honest. Say what percentage of wrongfully executed persons is acceptable to you in your pursuit of capital punishment for those that are in fact truly guilty. Don't get me wrong. If our systems were infallible, I would be more than willing to throw the switch on murderers.
I'll be happy to state the number you ask for right after you state what you would accept as the number of innocent people who'll be killed by murderers who legally could have been executed but weren't, and then did it again.
What's your number?
As I said in the entry, there is some prospect that innocent people will get killed no matter which course we take. History tells us unambiguously that the number I ask you to specify (innocents killed later by unexecuted murderers) will be and has been far, far higher than the number you ask me to specify (factually innocent people we've executed in anything like the modern era).
And the problem here is not my intellectual honesty, sonny. The problem is societal cowardice sparked by the possibility of error. Error is ALWAYS possible; indeed, it's inevitable. And executing an innocent person would be a substantial moral cost, true. But it's not a prohibitive moral cost, anymore than the fact that our country killed thousands of civilians in WWII was a prohibitive moral cost to fighting it. It depends on what you get in return.
I wonder if you would hold to that view if you were an innocent on death row. Would you say, "Well, this is most unfortunate, but I accept my fate because it's all for the greater good."?
I wonder it you would hold your view if you were an inmate in a cell with a stone-cold killer who was given LWOP instead of the death penalty, and then decides he doesn't like your looks. As he (6'4" and 260 lbs.) strangles you, would you think in the last moment of your life, "Well, this is most unfortunate, but I accept my fate because capital punishment could make mistakes"?
Dare I say, your issue is with the forensics team, the jury, the defense, prosecution, and the appeals process, not the punishment.
Correct.
"Inevitably there will be persons wrongfully convicted and executed."
There indeed have been. The author makes a claim that is simply not true on that point.
But he also addresses the point (without acknowledging it) here:
"Accordingly, the fact of fallibility does not, as abolitionists frequently argue, mean that the death penalty must end. It means that we must choose which fallibility is likely to kill the smaller number of innocent people -- prison errors or judicial ones. Not surprisingly, the factual record is unambiguous as to which kind of error is actually the most lethal to the innocent. "
This is the real point. "No innocents killed" is simply not one of the choices in human society. No one has ever achieved it in any significant population for any significant length of time.
So, which way results in the *fewest*. The current de facto system being imposed on America by lefty elites, where criminals are released with the mildest slap on the wrist, is definitely not it.
And even in "life in prison without parole" (which seldom is the actual outcome of such cases) gives more opportunity for murder, as the author points out.
But at the end of the day, the math is really, really simple. If you convict someone of murder and you execute them, the most possible innocent dead people is ONE. If you do not execute said murderer, and they *ever* murder someone again, well, you have another innocent dead person *AND* the murderer isn't even necessarily done yet.
No, that doesn't mean "Kill'em all and let God sort'em out". But it does mean "never execute anyone" is just as bad... and honestly, maybe worse.
OK, but don't complain if you're the one.
Accidents on the interstate kill hundreds if not thousands of innocent people. This has been true for decades; if we want interstate travel, it's inevitable. Sometimes the accident is the driver's fault, sometimes it's road design, sometimes it's mechanical failure, sometimes it's a sudden storm. Let's say a person in his teenage years had a brother who got killed in one of these accidents. Should that person complain about the known lethal quality of travel on interstate highways?
When my brother got killed at 16 (I was 14), I didn't. That's because I knew even then that systems that on the whole bring us a lot of good also, every now and again, bring us something horrible.
Or maybe you think that we should have stayed out of WWII because (as we knew in advance), fighting the Axis would mean we would mistakenly sometimes kill innocent civilians, including children. Is that what you think?
I don't know the comment policy here and I would not wish to violate it. Although I am tempted to do so in describing the human piece of filth that murdered Jessica Lunsford. I remember that case very vividly, and also having the feeling that if it were in my power, I would strap the killer to an electric chair and push the button myself. As it turns out though, her murderer, while sentenced to death, died in prison. He was elderly already at the time of the disgusting crime, and he had not spent an unusual period on death row before expiring.
The problem I see with the death penalty in the United States is that its implementation is so profoundly uneven. Consider the BTK killer. Given a life sentence of course, because he confessed to his crimes and offered law enforcement with help identifying the bodies of the many people he murdered. If I remember correctly, his crimes may have occurred during the period after SCOTUS deemed the death penalty un-Constitutional in Furman v. Georgia, but before it permitted reinstatement under revised guidelines.
But there are many such cases, of individuals that seem oh so very deserving of capital punishment, who often escape it. And cases of people who do receive it, who are comparably much less deserving. Off the top of my head, there was one such case just this week, of an execution that was actually botched and therefore called off in Alabama. The convict was a for-hire killer. Certainly his victim did not deserve to die. About that there is no question whatsoever. But there was otherwise nothing particularly unusual about his crime. It was a murder of an absolutely innocent woman, whose husband wished to kill her. For some reason that I do not know, the jury actually voted by 11 to 1, against the imposition of the death penalty. Perhaps there were mitigating circumstances of which I am not aware. Nonetheless, the judge overrode the recommendation. A cursory examination of sentences often reveals all kinds of mitigating factors in executions that are actually carried out. And sometimes, all too often, to reiterate my earlier point, a seeming lack of any mitigating factors whatsoever, in cases where the ultimate punishment is never pursued.
If we cannot figure out a way to administer the punishment evenly, and to the most heinous of murders only, perhaps we shouldn't be administering it.
Capital punishment in America is not cruel, but it is unusual. Even in the states which enforce the death penalty, let alone across the nation as a whole, it’s arguably arbitrary and capricious which few of the many equally deserving actually take that final walk. Against the backdrop of socioeconomic disparities and some cases of actual innocence, the system needs to be much surer and tighter and more consistent than it is now with the irrevocable at stake.
Yes it is. I find it unethical and egregiously immoral for a convicted, proven, murderer to be alive a minute longer than the victims he coldly snuffed out. The opposing side posits how "expensive" it is or how "innocent people" have wrongfully been convicted. Can I ask, what exactly does that have to do with the death penalty? The flaws in the justice system lie squarely on the people who work within it: prosecution, defense, judge, jury, appeals, forensics. None of those have any bearing on the efficacy of the punishment. It simply is. As to how it stops crime, it ends the life of a blood-craving criminal. I've never bought the deterrent argument, but it does deter the already dead criminal from committing their evil further. Why does the state have that power? Because in the end, the monster is still human, and you don't want his or her blood on the hands of one out for vengeance. There has to be a mediator, a third party to bear that burden. I find the arguments against the death penalty so unconvincing, one would have to prove it to be a sentient being out for blood for me to stand against it.
Those in power in the government CANNOT be trusted with this power.
Can they be trusted with the power to declare war (say, WWII), which kills exponentially more people than the death penalty in this country ever has? If no, fine, then the Axis can rule the world and no one will stop it. If yes, your argument just bit the dust.
I hasten to add this: What I said applies to the system, not to the rest of us. If you catch someone committing a heinous crime, do your best to kill the bastard. In general I agree with the author concerning the morality of capital punishment. It's only the the wrongfully convicted that is concerning.
The dividing line between right and left on the issue of capital punishment is not always clear cut. Traditional Catholics, for example, tend to lean conservative. Their pro-life religious convictions not only cause them to oppose abortion but capital punishment as well. That is, I believe the official position of the church.