Ohio Screws up Another Execution

[newharper]

You appear to deal in absolutes but have not answered Fridge's point. What tolerance would you be happy with?

 

[Azrael]

You appear to deal in absolutes but have not answered Fridge's point. What tolerance would you be happy with?

Sorry, can't find the post you're referring to.

I clearly don't deal in absolutes, as I said mercy should be granted in some cases. It's not about what I'm happy with (capital punishment is never going to make me happy) but what I support. As I said, I think hanging should be the norm for murder. I'd like mercy to be decided by a unanimous vote from the jury. If the accused plead guilty a jury could be empanelled for that sole purpose.

I don't have a stat for reprieves in mind. When England and Wales had hanging about half of convicted murderers were hanged, a much greater proportion than any US state I'm aware of.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

What's so bad about being completely sure that you don't want your government to have the power to take a citizen's life?

Some people are so dangerous that keeping them in prison puts the lives of guards and other inmates in harms way. Just near me, a guard was seriously burned by an inmate and a prison psycholgist was murdered.

You could put the dangerous ones in a "supermax" prison like the one in Denver, but most people go batshit rather quickly with no human contact, not even with guards.

So what do you do with people who are still a danger to others, even in prison?

 

[Azrael]

You could put the dangerous ones in a "supermax" prison like the one in Denver, but most people go batshit rather quickly with no human contact, not even with guards.

Ah yes, the prisons where inmates are locked-down for 23 hours a day, then released into a concrete pen for the remaining hour. This makes my preferred prison system look fluffy. Imagine 60+ years in those conditions.

And yet I see no high-profile campaign from Amnesty International against life imprisonment. Far from it: states which replace the needle with jail until death, like New Jersey recently did, get applauded. Emotionalism, not reason, in my book.

So what do you do with people who are still a danger to others, even in prison?

If they've not committed murder, it would be wrong to execute them, so execution isn't an answer for many. But for those who are murderers, there's no reason that public safety shouldn't be a consideration.

In Britain released murderers kill again. Less than one death per year, but that's no comfort to the bereaved. For those who oppose execution on the grounds an innocent person might be hanged: presumably those victims are innocent as well. Likewise the victims of murderers who may have been deterred, if hanging is a deterrent. You could gaol every murderer until they die, but then you'll get suicides.

There's no clean answer. Realising this, and not being an execution-shed ghoul, is what made me change my mind on the issue.

 

[Bakunin]

In Britain released murderers kill again. Less than one death per year, but that's no comfort to the bereaved. For those who oppose execution on the grounds an innocent person might be hanged: presumably those victims are innocent as well. Likewise the victims of murderers who may have been deterred, if hanging is a deterrent. You could gaol every murderer until they die, but then you'll get suicides.

There's no clean answer. Realising this, and not being an execution-shed ghoul, is what made me change my mind on the issue.

Oh, so it's a numbers game now, is it?

Any murder is a tragedy for the friends and family of the victim, but do you include the families and friends of those wrongly executed as well. And, as for your remark about released murderers killing again at the rate of 'less than one a year' perhaps, seeing as we're playing the numbers game, you'd like to compare your 'less than one a year' with the likes of Timothy Evans, George Kelly, Derek Bentley, the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four, the Maguire Seven and so on, all of whom would have been ripe for having Mr Pierrepoint or his successors to take them on the nine o' clock walk.

Interestingly enough, your logic in this post reminds me strongly of a certain Syd Dernley's approach to the problem. Dernley was, coincidentally enough, an assistant hangman. He was also honest enough in his memoir (despite having lied through his teeth about why he was struck off the list of executioners) to admit that the pattern of executions during his service and afterwards was almost entirely arbitrary. Dernley, who would have been in a position to know, recalled how executions were carried out in relatively, relatively, less heinous murders (crimes of passion for example) while those guilty of more heinous murders, for some reason, had their sentences commuted. He was bold enough to admit that the authorities didn't want too many executions, but when there had been a rise in violent crime in a particular region, a region maybe hadn't had an execution in a long time, or when a police or prison officer was killed, the decision was made at a high level to let the next execution go on, regardless of whether or not more heinous killers had their death sentences commuted elsewhere.

The death penalty isn't about deterrence as the statistics show that deterrence doesn't work. It isn't about the nature of specific murders, because relatively less heinous murderers were reprieved while thos whose crimes were, albeit murder, less heinous than others, were executed while those guilty of much more horrific murders were reprieved. It's about the State deciding that it has the right to kill certain of its citizens in it's own interests and as a means of showing its power.

 

[Meltingpot]

Yes there is. Hypoxic death using certain types of gas (helium, nitrogen etc...)

Under controlled conditions it's as close to a perfect way of killing a human as you can ask for.

I'm not sure I want to know the answer to this, but wouldn't this be the same as drowning (which is after all nothing more than a water-induced form of hypoxia) and hence equally unpleasant?

 

[Bakunin]

I'm not sure I want to know the answer to this, but wouldn't this be the same as drowning (which is after all nothing more than a water-induced form of hypoxia) and hence equally unpleasant?

Incidentally, Meltingpot, did you know that the last surviving, fully operational gallows is sited in Plymouth? It's in the Hangman's Cell of the Old Ropery at Devonport Dockyard. It was given to French officers during the Napoleonic Wars as a means of keeping discipline among their fellow prisoners, topped somewhere in the region of 150 prisoners and is tested and maintained to this very day.

 

[Meltingpot]

No I didn't, that is quite scary.

I do know there was a gibbet in the churchyard near Stoke Damerel Church next to my old school which, unbelievably, used the picture for one of its Christmas cards in the 1950s

 

[newharper]

So what do you do with people who are still a danger to others, even in prison?

Improve your technique.

"Smart" answer finished.

As an Atheist I have always been annoyed that the concept of redemption has been classed as a religious view instead of a human one.

Some convicted people undergo a genuine conversion to understanding that what they did was wrong. This needs to be taken into account. Though of course there are many who are as you say.

The way you deal with ' the mad, the sad and the bad' says everything about ones civilisation.

In my pompous opinion.

cheers.

 

[TomUS]

The death penalty isn't about deterrence as the statistics show that deterrence doesn't work.

Actually there are a large pile of studies showing deterrence does work:
http://www.cjlf.org/deathpenalty/DPDeterrence.htm

But other studies show different. We may never know. As someone said 'If the DP does deter & we don't use it, we've sacrificed the lives of innocents. If it doesn't deter & we use it, we've sacrificed the lives of murderers.' This isn't a close call for me. The death penalty is a moral necessity.

It's about the State deciding that it has the right to kill certain of its citizens in it's own interests and as a means of showing its power.

No, the state doesn't exist in isolation. At least in the US, the state executes because that's what the voters elected it to do.

 

[likesfish]

I could and would kill be rather a waste of expensive goverment training if I could'nt.
some people desrve getting a bullet in the back of the head. Not sure the state should be putting people down. if not all murders then how do you choose who gets to live and who dies.?
The US system is like many things the worse of all. yes a lot of very nasty people may get executed after years and years some in that time have proved themselves deserving of mercy 35 in the last 5 years have been proven innocent.

 

[Azrael]

Oh, so it's a numbers game now, is it?

Not really. I'm saying that neither side of the debate is clean of innocent blood. Perfection isn't an option, yet many anti-death penalty people act like it is by claiming that the risk of executing an innocent is an unanswerable argument against execution. This absolute standard isn't applied to any other area of policy. (Especially bizarre are antis who support "liberal intervention".)

Many of the miscarriages of justice you list wouldn't have happened if due process had been followed. They're more of an argument against turning a blind-eye to coerced confessions than hanging. And while it isn't a numbers game, what about innocent lives lost because of abolition? Are they less valuable than those of the wrongly-convicted? If not, which should take precedence? Myself, I think the system that's better in general should win.

You do raise a valid point about the arbitrariness of the old reprieve system, where the Home Secretary made secret decisions. That's why I suggested the power be transferred to the jury. Far from revelling in the power of life and death, most Home Secretaries seem to have hated the responsibility. (Check out Roy Jenkins' biographies of Asquith and Churchill, but just about any biography of a HS pre-abolition will do.) It's quite possible that MPs voted for abolition in part from a selfish desire to be spared the responsibility.

Deterrence hasn't been proved one way or the other. It isn't a deal breaker unless you're a utilitarian, but it should be a consideration. We can't know one way or the other until hanging is restored.

 

[newharper]

Actually there are a large pile of studies showing deterrence does work:
http://www.cjlf.org/deathpenalty/DPDeterrence.htm

But other studies show different. We may never know. As someone said 'If the DP does deter & we don't use it, we've sacrificed the lives of innocents. If it doesn't deter & we use it, we've sacrificed the lives of murderers.' This isn't a close call for me. The death penalty is a moral necessity.

No, the state doesn't exist in isolation. At least in the US, the state executes because that's what the voters elected it to do.

The state does not exist in isolation, but it does inform on a level of civilisation and one can be judged by the company one keeps.

Showing latest available data.
Rank Countries Amount
# 1 Bahamas, The: 6.62712 executions per 1 million
# 2 Singapore: 6.32625 executions per 1 million
# 3 Sierra Leone: 4.09068 executions per 1 million
# 4 Belarus: 3.20388 executions per 1 million
# 5 Rwanda: 2.84327 executions per 1 million
# 6 Kuwait: 2.56849 executions per 1 million
# 7 Oman: 1.99867 executions per 1 million
# 8 Congo, Democratic Republic of the: 1.64571 executions per 1 million
# 9 Jordan: 1.5625 executions per 1 million
# 10 Taiwan: 1.39775 executions per 1 million
# 11 Saudi Arabia: 1.09774 executions per 1 million
# 12 Iran: 0.970331 executions per 1 million
# 13 Yemen: 0.820186 executions per 1 million
# 14 China: 0.816802 executions per 1 million
# 15 Kyrgyzstan: 0.777303 executions per 1 million
# 16 Egypt: 0.619307 executions per 1 million
# 17 Lebanon: 0.522739 executions per 1 million
# 18 Cuba: 0.440645 executions per 1 million
# 19 Afghanistan: 0.334124 executions per 1 million
# 20 United States: 0.229936 executions per 1 million
# 21 Vietnam: 0.215476 executions per 1 million
# 22 Zimbabwe: 0.16446 executions per 1 million

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_exe_percap-crime-executions-per-capita

Not company I'd choose to keep.

Given the cultural difference, it's hard to explain the revulsion most Europeans feel towards the death penalty. (Though here in the UK it's probably still 60% in favour.)

Given the inbuilt racism in the US Judicial process, it's not something that I'd be happy with.

 

[Gingerman]

Theres been far too many miscarraiges of justice for it to be bought back in this country tbh

 

[Azrael]

Not company I'd choose to keep.

And how many of those countries, beside the USA, insist on two jury hearings to authorise the death penalty? It's not just about having capital punishment, but the safeguards that are employed before it's delivered.

 

[TomUS]

The state does not exist in isolation, but it does inform on a level of civilisation and one can be judged by the company one keeps.



http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_exe_percap-crime-executions-per-capita

Not company I'd choose to keep.

Given the cultural difference, it's hard to explain the revulsion most Europeans feel towards the death penalty. (Though here in the UK it's probably still 60% in favour.)

Given the inbuilt racism in the US Judicial process, it's not something that I'd be happy with.

I'm far more concerned about saving innocent lives than "the company I keep."

And I think there's plenty of racism in Europe also. And the idea that there is racial discrimination in the DP in the US according to the race of the defendant has been debunked. That's why "anti" groups have focused on the race of the victim to claim racial discrimination. But IMO these arguments are very weak. All that being said, racial discrimination, whether true or not, is irrelevant in the DP debate. All that is relevant is 'does defendant x deserve to die for their crime.'

 

[Azrael]

I'm far more concerned about saving innocent lives than "the company I keep."

The guilt by association argument is as weak as the "would you be willing to pull the lever/switch?" one, employing innuendo to snipe at capital punishment from the sidelines, instead of confronting it head-on. Most Western countries had the death penalty 40-50 years ago, and would, I hope, trump the motley collection of pariahs and theocracies that are tossed onto the table.

They don't have capital punishment because it's only fit for pariahs, but because cultural liberalism tends to have limited impact in such states. It's coincidental. Safeguards, oversight and the specific crimes which attract the death penalty are far more important. When the USA shoots "corrupt" businessmen in public after secret jury-free trials, perhaps with a lemon in the mouth to muffle screaming, then I'll take the comparisons seriously.

 

[newharper]

I'm far more concerned about saving innocent lives than "the company I keep."

And I think there's plenty of racism in Europe also. And the idea that there is racial discrimination in the DP in the US according to the race of the defendant has been debunked. That's why "anti" groups have focused on the race of the victim to claim racial discrimination. But IMO these arguments are very weak. All that being said, racial discrimination, whether true or not, is irrelevant in the DP debate. All that is relevant is 'does defendant x deserve to die for their crime.'

Racism is rife in Europe.

This is not.

While blacks and whites are murdered in roughly equal numbers in the USA, the killers of white people are 6 times as likely to be put to death, according to a statistical analysis released last week by the anti-death penalty human rights organization Amnesty International USA. It found that of 845 people executed since the U.S. resumed capital punishment in 1977, 80% were put to death for killing whites, while only 13% were executed for killing blacks.

The findings point to but one chilling conclusion: The criminal justice system places a higher value on the lives of whites than on the lives of blacks and other minorities. That means minorities who are victims of violent crimes are also victimized by a legal system that fails to provide hem the "equal protection of the laws" they are guaranteed under the 4th Amendment to the Constitution.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=1G1GGLQ_ENUK249&=&q=Racism+US+judicial+system&btnG=Google+Search&meta=lr%3D&aq=f&oq=

Research is what you pay for; and best checked against those paying the bill.

I'll offer you this.

Discussion of Recent Deterrence Studies

The Criminal Justice Legal Foundation has collected many recent deterrence studies, including ones by Hashem Dezhbakhsh, Paul H. Rubin, Joanna M. Shepherd, H. Naci Mocan & R. Kaj Gittings and others claiming a deterrent effect to the death penalty. These studies may be found HERE. The following are academic critques of this new research:

Death and Deterrence Redux: Science, Law and Causal Reasoning on Capital Punishment: In an article in the Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law, Dr. Jeffrey Fagan of Columbia University describes numerous serious errors in recent deterrence studies, including improper statistical analyses and missing data and variables that are necessary to give a full picture of the criminal justice system. Fagan writes, “There is no reliable, scientifically sound evidence that [shows that executions] can exert a deterrent effect…. These flaws and omissions in a body of scientific evidence render it unreliable as a basis for law or policy that generate life-and-death decisions. To accept it uncritically invites errors that have the most severe human costs.” Since the landmark Supreme Court decision in Furman v. Georgia in 1972, dozens of studies have been performed to determine whether future murderers are deterred by the death penalty. In the past five years, Fagan writes, a “new wave” of studies has emerged, claiming that each execution prevents 3-32 murders, depending on the study. Some of these studies tie pardons, commutations, exonerations, and even irrational murders of passion to increases in murder rates. While many of these studies have appeared in academic journals, they have been given an uncritical and favorable reception in leading newspapers. Fagan takes issue with this lack of serious and adequate peer review by fellow researchers. He analyzed this research and found that "this work fails the tests of rigorous replication and robustness analysis that are the hallmarks of good science."(4 Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law 255 (2006))

The Death Penalty: No Evidence for Deterrence: In an article entitled The Death Penalty: No Evidence for Deterrence, John Donnohue and Justin Wolfers examined recent statistical studies that claimed to show a deterrent effect from the death penalty. The authors conclude that the estimates claiming that the death penalty saves numerous lives "are simply not credible." In fact, the authors state that using the same data and proper methodology could lead to the exact opposite conclusion: that is, that the death penalty actually increases the number of murders. The authors state: "We show that with the most minor tweaking of the [research] instruments, one can get estimates ranging from 429 lives saved per execution to 86 lives lost. These numbers are outside the bounds of credibility." (The Economists' Voice, April 2006).

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-about-deterrence-and-death-penalty

Not unbiased I'll give you; can you give me some peer reviewed evidence that the DP works?

 

[Azrael]

Not unbiased I'll give you; can you give me some peer reviewed evidence that the DP works?

You could say that! I certainly don't agree that the research leads to "but one chilling conclusion". You'd have to go into the types of crime in detail. For example, "Murder One" typically involves the killing of police officers. If most officers killed were white, it would help to explain the disparity.

Perhaps racial bigotry is at the bottom of it. If so, it's not an argument against capital punishment itself, just the way America administers it. Don't expect Amnesty to be campaigning for the executions of more white felons any time soon.

Amnesty International's anti-death penalty campaign is so emotive and scattergun I'm inclined to treat what they say with suspicion. Like all anti-execution campaigners, they struggle to offer a convincing and proportionate alternative. Personally I don't think turning a blind eye to the cruelty of imprisoning a person until they die is compatible with the moral high-ground.

 

[derf]

I really don't give a shit what colour the bloke is. Nor do I know or care what colour the girl was.
What does matter is that he chose to rape and murder a kid. It not like it's a crime of poverty where he was forced to steal to eat, it's the crime of a total bastard.
The last thing I don't care about is if he suffers a bit while waiting to die.

I'll bet he didn't give a toss about the little girl and if she suffered. I know this is against general 'urban' thinking but stuff him.

 

[Azrael]

I don't care about the man's skin colour if the penalty is applied fairly. If it's not, then he's being executed not for what he's done but who he is, which is a gross miscarriage of justice. It doesn't help the case for capital punishment if it's tainted by racial bigotry. As well as being wrong in itself, of course.

What Amnesty have to explain is how on earth unfair application of the death penalty is an argument against the penalty itself. They're two separate issues. Amnesty might as well argue that disproportionate sentencing is a reason to abolish prisons.

 

[newharper]

You could say that! I certainly don't agree that the research leads to "but one chilling conclusion". You'd have to go into the types of crime in detail. For example, "Murder One" typically involves the killing of police officers. If most officers killed were white, it would help to explain the disparity.

So that's a no, then.

Personally I don't think turning a blind eye to the cruelty of imprisoning a person until they die is compatible with the moral high-ground.

Noone except you (and the yanks) is.

If someone has done their time and shows remorse, then redemption enters the equation. This surely has to play a part in the judicial process.

 

[Orang Utan]

why does it take so long to execute people in the US? are there political reasons for this? or is it just beaurocracy?

 

[Azrael]

So that's a no, then.

I've no idea if the stats are accurate without going into them in excruitating detail. My point is simply that they're one thing being dressed up as another. They do nothing to invalidate the death penalty itself.

Noone except you (and the yanks) is.

If someone has done their time and shows remorse, then redmption enters the equation. This surely has to play a part in the judicial process.

This Amnesty blog is the sort of thing I'm talking about. The first bit reads:-

"Encouraging news today as the Guardian reports that the American state of New Jersey has abolished the death penalty. This is a significant step in US history as New Jersey becomes the first state in 40 years to renounce the sentence following a vote approved by the state senate; this will now be replaced with a life without parole ruling."

The life without parole bit is mentioned as an afterthought, and subject to no criticism. It's this attitude that makes me think many (not all) anti-death penalty people are against it for emotive reasons, and haven't thought in detail about the alternatives. I know for sure that I was, and didn't.

 

[Azrael]

why does it take so long to execute people in the US? are there political reasons for this? or is it just beaurocracy?

US constitution, a federal structure (many different layers of appeals, state and national), and never-say-die lawyers are all factors.

While over at Amnesty UK, I clicked on their campaigns section. The death penalty is listed (although Britain doesn't have it, and isn't likely to any time soon). Where's the section demanding trial by jury? If we're allowed to demand people adopt one set of values, why not another? Why this focus on execution? Is it really about protecting people, or the idea of justice it represents?

 

[FridgeMagnet]

racial discrimination, whether true or not, is irrelevant in the DP debate. All that is relevant is 'does defendant x deserve to die for their crime.'

This is a frankly horrifying statement.

 

[newharper]

This is a frankly horrifying statement.

I really didn't want to go there , but i guess we must..

 

[newharper]

Azrael, I,ll be back to you, but we need to talk to Tom.

You think you have the right to make that call. Why? How?

 

[Orang Utan]

i'm struggling with this too. how can anyone feel that another human being deserves to die?

 

[FridgeMagnet]

"Okay, maybe they were picked for racist reasons, but they deserved to die so that's okay."