John Allen Muhammad; washington sniper to die tonight

[Azrael]

I wasn't presenting it as evidence, just correcting the statistical claim.

I've asked you to present evidence. If it's a deterrent you'll be able to show cases where the death penalty was introduced and murder rates went down. Or cases where it was abolished and murder rates went up. Or even cases where increasing the severity of a sentence acts as a deterrent in murder cases.

As far as I know, no such evidence exists. Which is why I'm asking you to produce it.

I already have, by citing the rise in the English murder rate since we abolished capital punishment. This is far from the whole picture, as crimes that could be murder are often reduced to manslaughter, very possibly to ensure a quicker conviction. Offences of wounding and assault have skyrocketed. It's only the superb efforts of our doctors and nurses that keep the homicide rate from spiralling out of control.

I'm unaware of any country that, having abolished capital punishment, has reintroduced it with vigour. New York state reintroduced it in 1995 after a 30-year absence, but, you've guessed it, never got around to executing anyone, and the penalty was struck down by the state courts in 2004. Since my support for capital punishment isn't contingent on deterrence (I'm no utilitarian) I suggest England reintroduce it as the mandatory penalty for murder* and give an example to the world.

(* The trial jury should be allowed to grant mercy on a unanimous vote on a case-by-case basis.)

 

[Maurice Picarda]

The death penalty costs considerably more than whole life imprisonment,

That's dubious. It's cheating to count the cost of appeals in a regime with bloated legal fees, like the US.

 

[ymu]

Q. The number of violent crimes has risen in Britain and continues to rise. Don't we need the death penalty to deter killers?

A. The rise in violent crime began before the abolition of the death penalty and can not, therefore, be attributed to it. Capital punishment does not act as an effective deterrent. Numerous studies have been commissioned by pro and anti campaigners; none has provided any evidence that the existence of the death penalty acts as an effective deterrent. In the United States, where some states have the death penalty and others do not, there is no significant difference in their murder rates.

http://www.swarb.co.uk/lawb/hmrDeathPenatlyFAQ.shtml

 

[Azrael]

The death penalty costs considerably more than whole life imprisonment, and runs a substantial risk of an irreversible miscarriage of justice. If you can't demonstrate that it keeps people safer, it has no justification.

The cost argument is wrong. It's not capital punishment that costs money: it's the endless appeals the US courts have imposed that cost money. England hanged men three clear Sundays after their conviction, with one appeal. I think Scotland was equally efficient.

Retribution is itself a justification. If our justice system abandons it, it becomes an amoral bureaucratic code, with no moral authority beside brute force legimitised by the figleaf of majoritarianism. Instead of punishing convicts for wrong choices, it ends up trying to "rehabilitate" them, as if they were ill, instead of wrong. At best, it warehouses them, with no ethical purpose whatsoever. I think the law should be a force for good, seeking to defend the children of the poor and to punish the wrongdoer.

If you don't, how about sparing murderers the a lifetime of pointless suffering that being caged until death results in. In what way is this shadow life kinder than a swift, humane execution?

 

[untethered]

Azrael,

You have argued many times on these boards that life imprisonment is a far worse fate for a convicted murderer than a speedy, lawful execution.

You also argue that execution is a "proportionate" response to murder.

Would you be in favour of imprisoning multiple-murderers for life? After all, you can only execute them once.

 

[ymu]

How many people have been released from death row more than 3 weeks after conviction?

How many people would you be happy to kill in order to achieve "retribution" for the guilty? And if you're so into the idea of retribution, why do you want to give them an easy way out anyway?

 

[Azrael]

http://www.swarb.co.uk/lawb/hmrDeathPenatlyFAQ.shtml

What date is the author counting from? Britain abolished a serious death penalty in 1957, leaving beside a dishonest Act that limited execution to a handful of murderers, mostly involving the killing of police officers. This law would have had a negligible deterrent effect, if any. Hardly anyone realises that this law would have saved Myra Hindley and Ian Brady from the gallows.

 

[Azrael]

Azrael,

You have argued many times on these boards that life imprisonment is a far worse fate for a convicted murderer than a speedy, lawful execution.

You also argue that execution is a "proportionate" response to murder.

Would you be in favour of imprisoning multiple-murderers for life? After all, you can only execute them once.

Imperfect world, I fear. Since we can't execute multiple murderers multiple times, we'd have to content ourselves with hanging them the once. A kinder fate than that inflicted on Harold Shipman, I'd have thought. I'm interested in justice, not causing suffering for its own sake.

How many people have been released from death row more than 3 weeks after conviction?

Well, there were a reasonable number of convictions quashed on appeal, in the hundreds, if I remember right. The three weeks could be extended if necessary, as it was in the case of William "Haw Haw" Joyce, absurdly executed for making wireless broadcasts for the enemy.

How many people would you be happy to kill in order to achieve "retribution" for the guilty? And if you're so into the idea of retribution, why do you want to give them an easy way out anyway?

I'm not happy to kill anyone. Temperamentally, I'm an abolitionist, as they used to say. But I recognise that it's an imperfect world, and the death penalty is the best option. I could ask you how many you're willing to gaol until death, or until they're driven to suicide. (Is knowingly causing someone's life to become so unbearable they feel compelled to end it morally different from wrongful execution? If it is, it's by a whisker. Neither side has it clean.)

I've explained why my business isn't suffering above. John Allen Muhammad has suffered a just and thoroughly deserved fate for his crimes. It's his accomplice, to whom the system has apparently shown mercy, who will really suffer.

 

[dylans]

You cheered at murder and would support killing people in the street?

Add yourself to the list of nut jobs.

I didn't cheer at murder. I cheered at a successful strike by a guerrilla army in a war of national liberation. Yes, my only disappointment was that they missed the bitch.

My point about John Allen Muhannad is that if he wanted to sacrifice his life in an act of political violence which is what he claimed ( and which incidentally I don't believe was his intention) he would have had a much better chance of achieving this if he had focussed on targets that could be considered "legitimate," shooting bush for example or taking out supreme court judges.

Frankly, if that had been the case and we were here debating his execution following such an action, I, and i'm sure a lot of others would hold him in considerably more respect than we do now. If he had shot Bush I would raise my glass to him.

I don't agree with the methods of political violence carried out by the Red Brigades or the RAF in the 1970s, I consider them to be strategic blind alleys but morally I don't consider them to be merely criminal actions. I certainly don't hold the actions of guerrilla armies such as the IRA or ANC to be criminal acts.

I disagree with such actions strategically, but i treat them with far more respect than I do a guy who aimlessly attacks random civilians. My point is simply that John Allen Muhammad could have thrown his life away for a much better target.

 

[untethered]

My point about John Allen Muhannad is that if wanted to sacrifice his life in an act of political violence which is what he claimed ( and which incidentally I don't believe was his intention) he would have had a much better chance of achieving this if he had focussed on targets that could be considered "legitimate," shooting bush for example or taking out supreme court judges.

Presidents and judges. Everyone loves people who shoot presidents and judges.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Depends on the president and/or judge.

 

[dylans]

Depends on the president and/or judge.

Fucking right. George Bush????

 

[untethered]

F- right. George Bush????

What's your point? You don't like him? I gathered that.

A bullet for George Bush means Dick Cheney becomes president. I'm not entirely sure what you've achieved beyond futile notoriety.

 

[dylans]

What's your point? You don't like him? I gathered that.

A bullet for George Bush means Dick Cheney becomes president. I'm not entirely sure what you've achieved beyond futile notoriety.

Futile notoriety yes, I do not question that, but would the assassin be held in the same contempt as our John Allen Muhammad? I don't think so. Not by millions i'm sure. John Allen Muhammad was a sniper, this wasn't bomb in a bar. He had the opportunity to select his targets. Once his decision to throw away his life for an act of violence and rage was decided, he could have chosen targets that secured him a more honourable place in history, but he didn't. He had no class.

That he didn't care, of course serves as an example of his derangement

 

[FridgeMagnet]

What's your point? You don't like him? I gathered that.

A bullet for George Bush means Dick Cheney becomes president. I'm not entirely sure what you've achieved beyond futile notoriety.

Not any more it doesn't.

(Cheney would have completely failed as president incidentally - he would have been awful at it. That isn't his role and never has been; he would have had the entire country hating the government in double quick time.)

 

[cliche guevara]

Futile notoriety yes but would the assassin be held in the same contempt as our John Allen Muhammad? Not by millions i'm sure.

Bollocks - Had Bush been assassinated in office he'd of become a legendary figure, no more ridicule of his lack of public speaking ability, no sane american would've portrayed him in anything other than the highest regard. He may have been a shitty president, but he was still president.

 

[oryx]

I know it's popular to call execution "murder", but its a contradiction in terms. Murder is by definition unlawful killing. Executions are lawful. Ipso facto, they cannot be murder.

Execution is less cruel than caging a man until their dotage, where they die in a pen, having been reduced to shadows of men by a lifetime of confinement. I can think of few things so cruel and unusual, yet Amnesty International and the ranks of anti-execution people seem untroubled by this calculated deterioration.

Most importantly, execution is a proportionate punishment for the unique crime of intentionally annihilating another human being's existence for your own benefit. Gaol isn't qualitatively different to the punishment for assaults and thefts. Therefore it isn't just. When you can devise a proportionate alternative to execution, such as the mind wipe seen in sci-fi, get back to me on this point.

It boils down to the legal or non-legal definition of murder. In non-legal terms, the death penalty is state-sanctioned murder. It's knowingly taking someone's life.

Whether you see the death penalty as a 'proportionate' response is dependent on one's own moral code, or indeed the moral code of a state.

A prison sentence for assault or theft will be lesser or even non-custodial, so that argument doesn't hold water. Going down for a few years for armed robbery or unprovoked assault means the perpetrator has a chance of coming out and resuming a normal life.

But if someone in for life has been on the end of a miscarriage of justice (as in the Birmingham Six/Winston Silcott cases etc.) they can come out as free men. I appreciate that miscarriages of justice are probably not the norm, but there is always that chance of someone serving a long-term sentence for murder being proved innocent or having the charge reduced, and if they've been executed it's too late.

 

[derf]

Yes. To me one of the marks of a civilised society is not having the death penalty.

There are some of us that don't see other people as tantamount to 'shit' - if you do you have a very simplistic and dangerous view of the world.

It has been said that the mark of a civilised society is the way it treats it's criminals. I would suggest that it is also the way it's criminals treat it.
I've listened to little bastards in court waiting rooms talking about what right the judge has to send them to prison as if they have the right to do as they wish to other people without any retribution.
Fuck the lot of them.
A society is all the more civilised when evil bastards like this are dead so no longer in it.

 

[cliche guevara]

A society is all the more civilised when evil bastards like this are dead so no longer in it.

Alternatively, a society is all the more civilised when it doesn't fail its citizens by letting them become evil bastards in the first place.

 

[oryx]

A society is all the more civilised when evil bastards like this are dead so no longer in it.

But they're no longer in society if they're imprisoned long-term.

AFAICS there is no-one on this thread suggesting there are not some pretty unpleasant and dangerous criminals out there, just that the best way to deal with them is not to kill them.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

I've generally been in favour of the death penalty, but lately, I've been giving it second thoughts.

Watched a movie last week called Crime of the Century. It's about the killing of the Lindberg baby, and the subsequent framing and execution of a German immigrant. The execution scene is harrowing, imo. It makes you think.

 

[ymu]

But if someone in for life has been on the end of a miscarriage of justice (as in the Birmingham Six/Winston Silcott cases etc.) they can come out as free men. I appreciate that miscarriages of justice are probably not the norm, but there is always that chance of someone serving a long-term sentence for murder being proved innocent or having the charge reduced, and if they've been executed it's too late.

It's not that uncommon.

in 2001 thirteen men were released from Illinois's death row after subsequent DNA testing cleared them of all likelihood of being involved in the crime. That's a truly appalling number when you consider that Illinois had only executed a total of twelve men since 1977.

http://www.privatehand.com/flash/dying-to-know.html

 

[weltweit]

I've generally been in favour of the death penalty, but lately, I've been giving it second thoughts.

Watched a movie last week called Crime of the Century. It's about the killing of the Lindberg baby, and the subsequent framing and execution of a German immigrant. The execution scene is harrowing, imo. It makes you think.

Yes, the potential to execute the wrong people is the issue that concerns me.

I am not as bothered about execution itself, after all, if you caught someone doing terrible things to your family and you had a gun, you would likely kill them on the spot. Justifiably, if only because they could carry on and do those things to you. I don't see an enormous difference between that and the state some time later doing the same thing.

We are all going to die, the murderer just loses the right to live a life of natural span.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

if you caught someone doing terrible things to your family and you had a gun, you would likely kill them on the spot.

Yes, I would do it in an insensate rage. But I'm not sure if I want the law of the land to be based on the same emotionality.

 

[untethered]

I am not as bothered about execution itself, after all, if you caught someone doing terrible things to your family and you had a gun, you would likely kill them on the spot. Justifiably, if only because they could carry on and do those things to you. I don't see an enormous difference between that and the state some time later doing the same thing.

You don't see the difference between killing someone in self-defence in the heat of the moment and executing a defenceless person in prison after a trial? How odd.

 

[weltweit]

How odd.

Indeed !!

 

[untethered]

This case from Illinois is particularly shocking. Two men were convicted of the brutal murder of a child despite another man already confessing to it. They were sentenced to death. Now what appears to be the correct person has been convicted, he's been sentenced to death. The various officials that were prosecuted for alleged corruption regarding the original trials were acquitted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanine_Nicarico_murder_case

It's the old "horrible case, lots of pressure to get a quick result" thing. Again.

 

[dylans]

Bollocks - Had Bush been assassinated in office he'd of become a legendary figure, no more ridicule of his lack of public speaking ability, no sane american would've portrayed him in anything other than the highest regard. He may have been a shitty president, but he was still president.

That's a rather US centred view of the world isnt it? What about the millions in the Arab world who would be partying in the streets.

 

[derf]

Alternatively, a society is all the more civilised when it doesn't fail its citizens by letting them become evil bastards in the first place.

But it's the way society is going that is allowing these people to think they can do as they wish.
Not allowed to smack a child.
Not allowed to punish a kid in school do expelling them is the only course left open.
Not allowed to beat the living crap out of some bastard who has just broken in your home.
These cunts think they can get away with anything and so behave that way.

Daft leftie ideas in society is the problem.

 

[dylans]

Not allowed to smack a child.

Child abuse.