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Yes, we should keep it

13 (24.5%)

No, we should ban it

40 (75.5%)

Total Members Voted: 52

[Powder Miner]

The death penalty is a topic fraught with moral traps, but I feel I should say this: If execution is more expensive, there's very little in the way of good reasons for such a controversial and morally dubious penalty to actually exist.

[BurnedToast]

I don't see any disproportionate amount of blacks on the death row in US. From your DRUSA report - 41,71 of all death row inmates were black. That corresponds pretty much exactly with 39% of all prison inmates being black - source, p.19. Which is pretty high, because they are only 13% of the population as whole. I know it isn't that simple as I point out, but you need to point the disproportion to me.

It's not a disproportionate amount of blacks being executed, per se. More blacks are in prison in total so you'd expect more to be on death row (and that's a debate for a different topic).

The problem is that since 1976, 77% of people executed have been executed for killing a white person. 15% were executed for killing a black person

Whites are ~33% of murder victims, blacks are ~50%.

It's just so disproportionate I can't think of any other explanation then institutionalized racism.

[misko27]

I don't see any disproportionate amount of blacks on the death row in US. From your DRUSA report - 41,71 of all death row inmates were black. That corresponds pretty much exactly with 39% of all prison inmates being black - source, p.19. Which is pretty high, because they are only 13% of the population as whole. I know it isn't that simple as I point out, but you need to point the disproportion to me.

It's not a disproportionate amount of blacks being executed, per se. More blacks are in prison in total so you'd expect more to be on death row (and that's a debate for a different topic).

The problem is that since 1976, 77% of people executed have been executed for killing a white person. 15% were executed for killing a black person

Whites are ~33% of murder victims, blacks are ~50%.

It's just so disproportionate I can't think of any other explanation then institutionalized racism.

I'd like to see the source on that. It's bad, but it's not quite as bad. Hell it's actually more equal then the regular prison system, which is fucked up because poverty,

Also for people talking about the infallibility of human being I would like you to know that that argument is so open-ended as to be against even the existence of a government, or really any sort of serious decision by mere mortal beings; it's also hypocritical given that every day, right now even, governments are making far less interesting and far more important decisions, which may - by an accident of means currently unknowable - kill far more people then the death penalty has in many years. 393,000 people will die to a smoking related illness this year, and even minor actions by the government now could shave thousands off that number. 1,264 have been executed since 1976, an average of roughly 33 people a year. This is only an emotional issue.

Other then defending the right of the government to execute as a ethical principle and correcting misinformation, I don't think I'll post much here. Too close to what I call people's "basic principles", that is the immutable principles which, consciously or unconsciously, rule the basic assumptions of a person's ethics, morality, ideology, and philosophy. Without something verging on reconditioning, you can't change these. But feel free to argue about it.

[BurnedToast]

I'd like to see the source on that. It's bad, but it's not quite as bad. Hell it's actually more equal then the regular prison system, which is fucked up because poverty

The link you posted is a pretty good cite -

Race of victim in death penalty cases:

white - 76%.

black - 15%

According to FBI statistics here, in 2011 50% of murder victims were black and 46% were white in 2011 (the rest was other minorities or unknown). Not exactly the numbers I previously posted (and different from your link), but no matter which numbers you use it's close enough that I feel my point still stands well enough that I'm not going to try and find my original cite.

It's pretty damning no matter how you look at it. I don't know what point you were trying to make, my point is that executions are being used in a racist manner which seems obvious given the above data.

Also for people talking about the infallibility of human being I would like you to know that that argument is so open-ended as to be against even the existence of a government, or really any sort of serious decision by mere mortal beings; it's also hypocritical given that every day, right now even, governments are making far less interesting and far more important decisions, which may - by an accident of means currently unknowable - kill far more people then the death penalty has in many years. 393,000 people will die to a smoking related illness this year, and even minor actions by the government now could shave thousands off that number. 1,264 have been executed since 1976, an average of roughly 33 people a year. This is only an emotional issue.

We can only do our best. Will the government make bad choices at some point that end up costing people's lives? inevitably, yes. However, we should try to reduce that as much as possible and I don't see how it's hypocritical to say we should stop doing something that we are absolutely, 100% sure is killing innocent people just because we can't be perfect.

You say it's just an emotional issue, I'm not sure the innocent people who have been executed would agree with you.

Other then defending the right of the government to execute as a ethical principle and correcting misinformation, I don't think I'll post much here. Too close to what I call people's "basic principles", that is the immutable principles which, consciously or unconsciously, rule the basic assumptions of a person's ethics, morality, ideology, and philosophy. Without something verging on reconditioning, you can't change these. But feel free to argue about it.

People's opinions can be changed more then you might think. Few people are so truly stubborn and close-minded that they cannot and will not listen to any evidence at all and will stick to their opinion no matter what.

[Tack]

Oh god racism. Racism always finds a way.

[misko27]

I wasn't trying to make a point with that first thing. It's just statistics. I'm a big believer that the phrase "close enough" should come with an margin of error.

And if you want to believe this a pressing issue, fine by me. I will say, however, that you reminded me just now of a debate I went to recently. The topic was a question, "What will the most pressing issue in the 2014 elections be?". Everyone had their own argument; one said the NSA, another said Global Warning, and when I got up I looked at everyone and told them they were ridiculous. I said they had let their own opinions decide, rather then what reality said. They were going off about Global Warming or whatever their particular issue was, but the fact was the election would, more or less, turn on Obamacare. It didn't matter that it might not have been the most pressing issue, but it was the issue people cared most about. I begged them to remember that the real question was not, in fact, what they, personally was cared most about, or what they wished would be the most important, but what was actually going to be the biggest issue. You tell me those on death row care. I'm sure they do. But if I was a public policy maker, the 33 lives of murdered killed a year wouldn't rank as by biggest priority. Oh, and 4%? That calculates out to 1.3 innocents killed a year. On the grand scale of things, and the millions of innocent people left behind, it's safe to say this is emotional first. I'm sure it's big for the ones involved, but so is everything else.

Besides, evidence doesn't work. Many people, both here and in general, are under the erroneous impression that in a competition between the right and wrong answers, where both are equal, right always wins. This has been proved to be untrue, and in fact, evidence to the contrary actually hardens people's positions. They cherry-pick. They ignore. Disconfirmation bias refers to people's tendency to over-criticize evidence which contradicts them (if I came into here with a study saying the death penalty did good, I'm sure only people who don't care and people who support the death penalty would recognize it's value, the visa versa is also true.). People cannot be simply exposed to the light of knowledge and let things work themselves out. In the end, rhetoric and presentation matters more. But even then, I'm not talking about mere "opinions". I'm talking about the little fundamentals, the things that make you become a libertarian rather then a republican. Those cannot be changed without a herculean effort. They can be perverted, and you can make someone believe things that greatly contradict them, but they are a function of personality first, and few if any arguments have ever been so clever as to change a person's personality.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I'm against the death penalty. It's not an acceptable form of justice, it inevitably kills innocent people, it clearly violates the Eighth Amendment, the state shouldn't have the power to kill anyway, it has never been applied equitably, it's fairly hypocritical, etc. The flip-side twist ending is that I'm a very angry and somewhat bloodthirsty person, and emotionally desire the deaths of heinous criminals and unrepentant re-offenders quite often (I recall an exchange I had with Owlbread once where I agreed that executing the Boston bomber would be a breach of justice, but that I'd be happy about it if it did happen).

And that, I think, is where a lot of the problems with this issue come in: people mucking up the emotional and rational sides of this issue.

[Graknorke]

I wouldn't say that punishment is a good deterrent from crime. If I crime is serious enough to be a criminal offence there are far better reasons to not do it than the law. If there isn't then there's no reason for it to be law.

Punishment is absolutely a deterrent for crime. Do you have any evidence to the contrary?

I would say that fact that crime exists in the volume it does is quite telling.
If punishment did deter crime you'd think there wouldn't be as much crime as there is. And also that countries with the death penalty would have lower crime rates than those without.

[Leafsnail]

The fact that the death penalty is not a good deterrant doesn't prove that all other forms of punishment are not too.  And crime rates in countries with poorly enforced laws do tend to be pretty high

[Flying Dice]

That's pretty much the root of the issue: the death penalty is more expensive than other forms of punishment and actively encourages prisoners to try to escape. It's not a more effective deterrent than "lesser" sentences because of the nature of the legal system; it's quite common for criminal cases to be resolved via plea-bargaining. Any criminal capable of the sort of foresight necessary for the death sentence to be an effective deterrent will also be capable of reasoning that even if they are caught, they stand a reasonable chance of getting a lesser sentence. The ones who are crazy enough or sufficiently motivated (read: serial killers, domestic terrorists, &c.) aren't going to care much about how they might be punished, for one reason or another.

Leaving aside the functional concerns of the death penalty as a deterrent, the greater issue is that it allows for the possibility of the unlawful execution of innocent people. You can release and try to reimburse someone who was imprisoned for a decade for a crime they didn't commit if they're later proved to be innocent; you can't take back an execution. That, and as mentioned by others here, it's incredibly dangerous to give a state the power to execute its own citizens.

Regarding the 8th Amendment: The only way you can interpret that as not outlawing the death penalty is if you buy into the rigid, hypocritical textualism promoted by people like Scalia. In plain english, "I don't think that the Founding Fathers defined "cruel and unusual" as including the death penalty because the death penalty was used when the Constitution was written, and that definition is not allowed to change even if the values of our society do unless Congress amends the Constitution to say that it has."

[kaenneth]

In the US, a convicted murderer once released has about a 1.7% chance of murdering again.

If 4% of people on death row are innocent, that means the death penalty is more than twice as likely to kill an innocent than a known murderer is.

[Flying Dice]

To be fair, that's partially because of how many murders aren't cold, premeditated killings.

Oh, and speaking of murder? In Texas a man can get Murder 1st reduced to Murder 2nd if he can prove that the person he killed was his wife or her lover, and that he did so in a fit of passion. The reverse does not hold true.

[misko27]

I wouldn't say that punishment is a good deterrent from crime. If I crime is serious enough to be a criminal offence there are far better reasons to not do it than the law. If there isn't then there's no reason for it to be law.

Punishment is absolutely a deterrent for crime. Do you have any evidence to the contrary?

I would say that fact that crime exists in the volume it does is quite telling.
If punishment did deter crime you'd think there wouldn't be as much crime as there is.

This is, strange. I am quite sure you are saying the reasons people choose not to commit a crime is not punishment, but the very fact of being illegal.

I would like to enlighten you to the state of New York City crosswalks: In theory, crossing the street at a red light is illegal, and you can receive a fine. In practice, no one is ever fined beyond a hilariously select few, so punishment is irrelevant. The result is the only people who do not cross the streets at red lights are children (who are being watched by parents), the elderly, and tourists. Bear in mind that everyone I know is entirely aware that it is illegal. They just don't freaking care.

[kaijyuu]

Deterrents only work if people don't think they can get away with it. Shoddy enforcement removes the entire reason for a law existing. Just look at speed limits.

Murder actually is one thing that most people do not think they can get away with, at least in the US. Yes, some people believe they can get away with it, and some people do. The important thing is most people don't think they can.



On another note, the severity of punishment only adds to the effectiveness of a deterrent up to a point. 15 years in prison or death is roughly the same; no one's going to do it unless they feel it's worth any consequence, in a fit of passion and not thinking about consequences, or feel they can get away with it. There's a point where either nothing is worth the consequences or it's worth any consequence.

Last I heard 1 year in prison is the cutoff for more punishment not actually adding more deterrent, though I dunno if that's accurate.

[WealthyRadish]

Yeah, often you'll see laws go unenforced that have extremely severe punishments, but don't act as a deterrent. Desertion in WWII is a good example, when the US only executed one unfortunate guy to try and set an example... I've also seen it with copyright law, when you hear about someone getting $200,000 in fines or something for pirating music.