The single best reason why the death penalty should be abolished is because it does not have an 'undo' button. It's bad enough if people get jailed for a long time when they are innocent, it is much worse when they're murdered by the state for crimes they did not commit.
Back in the day, there was a serial killer named Ted Bundy. He killed a number of women, was imprisoned, escaped (twice) and killed at least three more people.
That kind of incident makes the problem much more complicated. The typical argument against the death penalty is that sometimes innocent people are executed. And it's true, and it's horrible. But if you don't execute them, then the alternative is that they should be in prison for the rest of their life. If they're innocent, that's still pretty horrible. The real objective is to keep innocent people from being convicted in the first place.
But like many other situations, the false positive rate and the false negative rate are inversely correlated. How many guilty people should we free to avoid sending one innocent person to prison? The obvious answer is "as many as we have to" - it's not acceptable to have innocent people in prison. But if we're talking about serial killers, that question becomes "How many innocent people do we want to see dead on the streets to avoid sending one innocent person to prison?"
Back to the death penalty. Sometimes guilty people escape, too, and sometimes they kill people after they escape. Executed people don't kill anyone ever again. So, how many innocent people are you willing to execute in order to prevent innocent people dying on the streets?
This stuff is very difficult. But given less-than-perfect prisons, I can see a case for keeping the death penalty for serial killers.
If we cared about this, then why is revenge the core focus on American justice system and not rehabilitation?
When people exit the prison system un-rehabilitated they will hurt more people.
I think this is a more important question. Why is revenge given priority over avoiding new victims?
Also if one actually cares about life, why are prisons such overcrowded hell holes that prisoners get shanked and killed on a regular basis?
This is my issue with this sort of reasoning as it easily becomes cherry picking of issues to support harsher justice system while ignoring all the related issues which speaks for a milder system.
4% of innocent put to death vs. Ted's 3?
Don't forget the pressure on prosecutors to arrest a serial killer, the chances of pinning it on someone (say a relative) is nonzero. But the chance of undoing a wrongful death penalty is exactly zero.
I find interesting that you in the US are thinking in banning the death penalty.
Here in Colombia death penalty was banned about a century ago, unfortunately, it has done more harm than good, because criminals (even very bad ones, the kid rapists and stuff) are not scared of prison, prisons are so crowded that sentences are short (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Garavito is a good example, I don't think a lifetime of prison would forgive all he did, he should be condemned for 1800 years) and this has led to crime rise.
There is a common belief that politicians banned death penalty long ago to be able to be corrupt without any risk, in the long run if they're not dying, they could steal a lot of money and then use half of it to get out of prison early.
I know US corruption is not as bad as Colombian corruption. Unfortunately we have to deal with our system, and the ban of death penalty has kept terrible people in our country for a long time. It may be unethical to kill someone, but in the end is the lesser evil, because it will never compare to the harm that this person does to the society. As a Colombian I feel that corruption and crime is going down now, and we are proud for it, but I also feel that if we took the 'evil' decision earlier, we would be much better now.
There's two parts that I'm still not sure about here - a question of moral weight W:
1 * innocent prisoner executed == W * innocent victim of crime
and two epistemic questions, how many innocents X are executed per guilty person, and how many victims Y are saved on average by the disincentive caused by executing one guilty prisoner?
Per guilty person executed, we save Y lives and we are penalized W * X. Is Y > W * X? If so it seems reasonable to keep the death penalty, all things being equal (ignoring the cost of litigation vs. prison time, etc)
Does anyone have sources for what the values of any of these numbers should be?
States should not allow two propositions that contradict each other to be put up for vote simultaneously. They are generally confusing and almost always favor the status quo at the expense of most citizens who don't have time to understand the nuances of each prop/issue/initiative/ammendment.
Important note on Prop 66, which PG unfortunately glossed over: it will override 62 if it passes with more yes votes than the other measure.
Therefore, if you're opposed to the death penalty and intend to vote yes on both measures--reasoning, for instance, that the reforms on 66 such as expedited appeals for death row inmates are an improvement regardless of whether 62 passes--you're undermining your own vote.
Generally, I imagine that anti-death-penalty voters will vote Yes on 66 and No on 62 and vice versa for pro-death-penalty voters. However, it's possible that a voter is simply motivated to clear death row by any means necessary because of all the extra costs it involves. Maintaining death row is expensive.
In that case, voting Yes on both makes sense. Either death row will get cleared out by getting rid of the death penalty or it will get cleared out by killing them faster. Either way, it's a cost savings. I find that logic to be cold and impersonal, but I imagine there are plenty of people who think that way.
I find it annoying as a California voter that both of these made it onto the ballot at the same time. It seems to make more sense to me to FIRST vote on whether or not the death penalty should be repealed before voting on whether or not to expedite the process.
The death penalty never made sense to me. We teach our kids its wrong to kill by killing? I'd rather the person spend their life in jail to think about what they have done.
I'm against the death penalty, but I don't think that argument holds up very well. We say it's wrong to kidnap people and hold them against their will, but we put people in prison as punishment. We say it's wrong to steal, but we use fines as punishment. Pretty much by definition, any effective punishment has to be something that's wrong to do to people in general.
I oppose the death penalty but by this logic we shouldn't have prison at all because it's wrong to kidnap and hold someone in 6'x10' room against their will.
Note that this would only end it for crimes that fall under the state's jurisdiction. For things like transporting people across state lines to kill them or using a weapon of mass destruction in a manner detrimental to interstate commerce, the death penalty could still apply on a federal level.
There is one good reason to keep the status quo (death penalty without any actual deaths) which is that anyone given a death sentence gets their case extensively reviewed and appealed by excellent lawyers working pro bono. The people who get life get no help at all.
I have read of prisioners being upset when given a life sentence as they know that no one will help them appeal their conviction. If you are innocent you want to be given a death sentence since you will have so many more people helping you get your conviction overturned.
>
In the real world, about 4% of people sentenced to death are innocent. So this is not about whether it's ok to kill killers. This is about whether it's ok to kill innocent people.
California already removed the death penalty in 1972 then later reinstated it. This resulted in killers like Charles Mason being relieved from execution and denying many victim's family member from obtaining a measure of justice they wanted.
Since being reinstated only 13 people have been executed. And none in the past 10 years.
I think one of the best takes on this issue was a quote from a death penalty critic in the documentary film "Deadline". He said, "We all agree that we should have a system that kills John Wayne Gacy but there is no way to create a system that kills only John Wayne Gacy."
Meaning that, there are certain cases where we are 100% certain of a persons guilt and can mostly agree that that person should die but how do we ensure a death penalty is used exlusively in those cases?
> This resulted in killers like Charles Mason being relieved from execution and denying many victim's family member from obtaining a measure of justice they wanted.
That qualifies more as 'revenge' than as 'justice'.
This resulted in killers like Charles Mason being relieved from execution and denying many victim's family member from obtaining a measure of justice they wanted.
And thus the state protects the convicted from the vengeful desires of the victim's family members and doles out the justice the community has deemed appropriate. Just because the victims pay the state to "string 'em up!" instead of doing it themselves doesn't mean it's not mob justice.
> This resulted in killers like Charles Mason being relieved from execution and denying many victim's family member from obtaining a measure of justice they wanted.
I weigh that measure of justice as less meaningful than the potential execution of innocents.
That's hardly comparable. In 1972 the supreme court decided that the death penalty laws _of the time_ were unconstitutional. The death penalty was almost immediately restored by public vote, with some modifications (switching from hanging to lethal injection, changing the appeals process, etc.)
The will of the people is the ultimate mandate in a democracy. In 1972 this mandate was for the death penalty. We'll see next week whether the mandate has changed.
Why can't people speak in honest terms? What you mean isn't justice, but revenge. Killing a killer will not undo the damage they have done. It will not bring a life back.
If people require revenge for emotionally healing then that is because society has promoted this as justice.
I've never heard of victims desiring death for killers in my home country, but we are not so big on revenge and don't.
The American justice system frequently paints a trial as some sort of game, where the victims family score more points in the competition for every year extra the perpetrator gets in prison.
What about helping victims in meaningful ways instead? They might need mental health care, time of from work, economic support etc. America tend to do little in this regard.
It reminds me of the conservative desire to ban abortion, but unwillingness to actually help a family in a difficult situation giving birth to a child. Instead of making it easier to have a child so people themselves will chose to keep it, instead they want to intimidate parents to keep it threatening with prison and fines.
It is a fundamentally negative and cynical perspective on humanity. I guess that is what you get when people follow a faith which teaches that people are only good because the fear eternal punishment in hell.
Under the assumption that people believe executions offer <real> relief, I think that killing people convicted of murder for the hope of delivering speculative folksy medical / psychological intervention for proximally injured parties values life as absurdly trivial.
At the very least, any rational person should see that compared to armchair speculation of medical interventions, organ extraction offers real value! And not to mention, think of all those who die or suffer because of the pace of medical research. With these worthy prisoners, we can change that! This mindset that values convicts' lives as so trivial is troubling and wasteful.
TLDR: Who cares if a family didn't get the speculative relief they wanted from somebody's execution? That's a perspective that treats life as absurdly trivial, and I doubt the medical community believes this as a serious intervention to clinically significant distress.
Your argument seems to contradict itself. The death penalty is necessary for justice, but at the same time we should be OK with having it because it hasn't been used in a decade?
I agree, and smart of pg to stick to the most defensible reason not to have the death penalty. Even in a world where we know the killer is a killer though, it's unethical to do it.
Relevant article from The Marshall Project (in my opinion a very respectable source), "Three States to Watch if You Care About the Death Penalty" referring to Nebraska, Oklahoma and California ballot measures:
> So why is the discussion to eliminate the death penalty instead of ensuring more oversight or limitations?
The Supreme Court has gradually been mandating more and more oversight and limitations on death penalty cases since 1976. It doesn't seem to have made a major dent in the false conviction rate or the arbitrariness of when capital punishment is used, especially with regards to race. And while I don't think cost should even be relevant to the discussion, it's worth noting that these limitations and oversight requirements- which still aren't good enough- are the main reason why it costs 10 times more to execute someone than to put them in prison for life. Combined with the death penalty's demonstrated lack of deterrent effect - simpler and better to just get rid of it.
This kind of post isn't going to change anybody's mind, and isn't intended to (Paul Graham is a fine persuasive writer, and good persuasive writing tends not to include appeals like "a child could answer that one for you").
No, this is just an update, for Graham's California readers, most of whom can safely be assumed to agree with him, that they should take special care to vote this year.
I'm glad California has a chance to end the death penalty this year. You'll catch up to Illinois soon enough, Silicon Valley!
But this isn't the kind of post that finds a good home here on HN. This is the kind thing you want to post (repeatedly) to Twitter. Here, it's just more flame war stimulus.
I flagged this post --- and, because it's a PG post, did so vocally this time. You should too!
What is the acceptable rate of mistakes for the judiciary system? Death is an irreversible punishment, so I can understand that it seems incompatible with a wrong judge decision, but the alternative, that is for instance perpetual incarceration, is only reversible on a very theoretical basis (if an innocent is in prison, his case will be reviewed only if he's very lucky).
So arguably, any sentencing is unfair when it's wrong. Death only makes it more obvious. Then, what's the acceptable error rate in a judiciary system? The author mentions 4% being unacceptable. What about 0.1%? 0.0001%?
Crime can not be left unpunished, can it? And yet I doubt it is possible to always be absolutely sure of either guilt or innocence.
After all, doesn't the Law talk about "reasonable doubt"? Doesn't that also mean by contraposition that below a certain threshold, it becomes unreasonable to consider unlikely circumstances or extraordinary events that would prove a defendant non-guilty?
Execution is cathartic but hardly effective. Clearly it does not deter murderers as they believe they will either get away with it or they simply don't care as long as they satisfy their need to kill.
The wrong people can be executed and unlike a prison sentence, there's no going back.
Appeals can last for decades and waste enormous amounts of time and money.
I think research shows, that what people care about is the likeliness of getting caught. The length of the sentence doesn't really have that deterring effect. If it did then the US with each extremely long sentences should not be having magnitudes higher homocide rate than European countries with rather mild sentences.
I always think of Star Trek and how some advanced civilization or a future version of ourselves will perceive the barbarism of our current society. I would not be surprised if the earth gets paved over for an intergalactic superhighway because frankly, we are not worth saving. Humans, have very little humanity. We have a LONG way to go. This is a small start.
The death penalty makes no logical sense. It only appeals to primitive emotions.
Why have a penalty which 1) Can never be reversed if you kill an innocent 2) Cost a lot more than life in prison.
Now why it might be argued that a killer has no right to life, what about those close to the killer? Killers might have a wife, husband, brother, sister, friends, mother and a a father. By killing the killer you inflict hardship on these people. To what purpose? In prison this person can't hurt anybody else, so why unnecessarily reduce the life quality of somebody else.
I see it being argued that the victims families deserve this, but I think that has been learnt and conditioned in society. E.g. in my own country Norway, I hardly ever read about victims and relatives who desire a death penalty or any particularly harsh or painful punishment. I think the desire for revenge is something which is simply promoted by conservative christian groups.
"In prison this person can't hurt anybody else" - totally false. The homicide rate in prison is about double that of the rest of the country. In California it is 15 per 100,000 - terribly high.
"Cost a lot more than life in prison" - death penalty opponents have driven up the cost, so if cost was a real reason you oppose the death penalty, then we could keep it and focus on reducing cost.
"By killing the killer you inflict hardship on these people"- in your opinion. I think it would be a bigger hardship to have to have a living murderer as part of the family.
"I think the desire for revenge" - Why is incarceration not revenge? Justice flows from the notion that punishment is proportional to the crime. Taking a life should mean losing your life Whether is is lifetime imprisonment or the death penalty, you can call it revenge or punishment or justice.
Why can't we just get that 4% bad convictions down to 0% for the death penalty? There are many cases where no one disputes the guilt of the perpetrator, like mass shooters or murderers that film themselves in the act. Death penalties could have an even higher standard.
I've noticed a strange pattern where wealthy elites like Paul Graham are obviously very disturbed by things like the death penalty, animal rights, and tragedies they see overseas but can hardly be bothered to care about the great suffering poor people face generally.
The only issues that they care about are ones that directly affect their own conscience and mental well-being.
"The death penalty is bad because it makes me feel bad"
Whereas people who don't live such privileged lives can see so many worse problems in everyday life, like being hungry, suffering from bad/no medical care, to being victimized by street crime.
[+] [-] jacquesm|9 years ago|reply
Other important work done:
http://www.innocenceproject.org/
edit: sad to see this thread flagged off the homepage.
[+] [-] AnimalMuppet|9 years ago|reply
That kind of incident makes the problem much more complicated. The typical argument against the death penalty is that sometimes innocent people are executed. And it's true, and it's horrible. But if you don't execute them, then the alternative is that they should be in prison for the rest of their life. If they're innocent, that's still pretty horrible. The real objective is to keep innocent people from being convicted in the first place.
But like many other situations, the false positive rate and the false negative rate are inversely correlated. How many guilty people should we free to avoid sending one innocent person to prison? The obvious answer is "as many as we have to" - it's not acceptable to have innocent people in prison. But if we're talking about serial killers, that question becomes "How many innocent people do we want to see dead on the streets to avoid sending one innocent person to prison?"
Back to the death penalty. Sometimes guilty people escape, too, and sometimes they kill people after they escape. Executed people don't kill anyone ever again. So, how many innocent people are you willing to execute in order to prevent innocent people dying on the streets?
This stuff is very difficult. But given less-than-perfect prisons, I can see a case for keeping the death penalty for serial killers.
[+] [-] jernfrost|9 years ago|reply
When people exit the prison system un-rehabilitated they will hurt more people.
I think this is a more important question. Why is revenge given priority over avoiding new victims?
Also if one actually cares about life, why are prisons such overcrowded hell holes that prisoners get shanked and killed on a regular basis?
This is my issue with this sort of reasoning as it easily becomes cherry picking of issues to support harsher justice system while ignoring all the related issues which speaks for a milder system.
[+] [-] abfan1127|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] boterock|9 years ago|reply
Here in Colombia death penalty was banned about a century ago, unfortunately, it has done more harm than good, because criminals (even very bad ones, the kid rapists and stuff) are not scared of prison, prisons are so crowded that sentences are short (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Garavito is a good example, I don't think a lifetime of prison would forgive all he did, he should be condemned for 1800 years) and this has led to crime rise.
There is a common belief that politicians banned death penalty long ago to be able to be corrupt without any risk, in the long run if they're not dying, they could steal a lot of money and then use half of it to get out of prison early.
I know US corruption is not as bad as Colombian corruption. Unfortunately we have to deal with our system, and the ban of death penalty has kept terrible people in our country for a long time. It may be unethical to kill someone, but in the end is the lesser evil, because it will never compare to the harm that this person does to the society. As a Colombian I feel that corruption and crime is going down now, and we are proud for it, but I also feel that if we took the 'evil' decision earlier, we would be much better now.
[+] [-] aoeuasdf1|9 years ago|reply
and two epistemic questions, how many innocents X are executed per guilty person, and how many victims Y are saved on average by the disincentive caused by executing one guilty prisoner?
Per guilty person executed, we save Y lives and we are penalized W * X. Is Y > W * X? If so it seems reasonable to keep the death penalty, all things being equal (ignoring the cost of litigation vs. prison time, etc)
Does anyone have sources for what the values of any of these numbers should be?
[+] [-] silencio|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] noobermin|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danhak|9 years ago|reply
Therefore, if you're opposed to the death penalty and intend to vote yes on both measures--reasoning, for instance, that the reforms on 66 such as expedited appeals for death row inmates are an improvement regardless of whether 62 passes--you're undermining your own vote.
[+] [-] sdml|9 years ago|reply
That's not entirely true. In the event that both propositions pass, whichever proposition received more yes votes will supersede the other https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_66,_Death_Pen...
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Maultasche|9 years ago|reply
In that case, voting Yes on both makes sense. Either death row will get cleared out by getting rid of the death penalty or it will get cleared out by killing them faster. Either way, it's a cost savings. I find that logic to be cold and impersonal, but I imagine there are plenty of people who think that way.
[+] [-] BlackjackCF|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jf|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amha|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] justinzollars|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikeash|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DubiousPusher|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] afarrell|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danieltillett|9 years ago|reply
I have read of prisioners being upset when given a life sentence as they know that no one will help them appeal their conviction. If you are innocent you want to be given a death sentence since you will have so many more people helping you get your conviction overturned.
[+] [-] nothrabannosir|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ikeboy|9 years ago|reply
>A child could answer that one for you.
http://www2.law.ucla.edu/volokh/guilty.htm
N>25 [0]
[0] Graham, 2016
[+] [-] murtnowski|9 years ago|reply
Since being reinstated only 13 people have been executed. And none in the past 10 years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Californ...
[+] [-] DubiousPusher|9 years ago|reply
Meaning that, there are certain cases where we are 100% certain of a persons guilt and can mostly agree that that person should die but how do we ensure a death penalty is used exlusively in those cases?
[+] [-] nf05papsjfVbc|9 years ago|reply
That qualifies more as 'revenge' than as 'justice'.
[+] [-] webkike|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikestew|9 years ago|reply
And thus the state protects the convicted from the vengeful desires of the victim's family members and doles out the justice the community has deemed appropriate. Just because the victims pay the state to "string 'em up!" instead of doing it themselves doesn't mean it's not mob justice.
[+] [-] presidentender|9 years ago|reply
I weigh that measure of justice as less meaningful than the potential execution of innocents.
[+] [-] kobeya|9 years ago|reply
The will of the people is the ultimate mandate in a democracy. In 1972 this mandate was for the death penalty. We'll see next week whether the mandate has changed.
[+] [-] kjbflsudfb|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jernfrost|9 years ago|reply
If people require revenge for emotionally healing then that is because society has promoted this as justice.
I've never heard of victims desiring death for killers in my home country, but we are not so big on revenge and don't.
The American justice system frequently paints a trial as some sort of game, where the victims family score more points in the competition for every year extra the perpetrator gets in prison.
What about helping victims in meaningful ways instead? They might need mental health care, time of from work, economic support etc. America tend to do little in this regard.
It reminds me of the conservative desire to ban abortion, but unwillingness to actually help a family in a difficult situation giving birth to a child. Instead of making it easier to have a child so people themselves will chose to keep it, instead they want to intimidate parents to keep it threatening with prison and fines.
It is a fundamentally negative and cynical perspective on humanity. I guess that is what you get when people follow a faith which teaches that people are only good because the fear eternal punishment in hell.
[+] [-] threatofrain|9 years ago|reply
At the very least, any rational person should see that compared to armchair speculation of medical interventions, organ extraction offers real value! And not to mention, think of all those who die or suffer because of the pace of medical research. With these worthy prisoners, we can change that! This mindset that values convicts' lives as so trivial is troubling and wasteful.
TLDR: Who cares if a family didn't get the speculative relief they wanted from somebody's execution? That's a perspective that treats life as absurdly trivial, and I doubt the medical community believes this as a serious intervention to clinically significant distress.
[+] [-] mikeash|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AdamN|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cypherpunks01|9 years ago|reply
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2016/10/19/three-states-t...
[+] [-] raverbashing|9 years ago|reply
So why is the discussion to eliminate the death penalty instead of ensuring more oversight or limitations?
Something like:
- Not applicable when only one murder committed
- Bigger burden of proof for the DP to be applicable (not only relying on witnesses, for example)
[+] [-] Analemma_|9 years ago|reply
The Supreme Court has gradually been mandating more and more oversight and limitations on death penalty cases since 1976. It doesn't seem to have made a major dent in the false conviction rate or the arbitrariness of when capital punishment is used, especially with regards to race. And while I don't think cost should even be relevant to the discussion, it's worth noting that these limitations and oversight requirements- which still aren't good enough- are the main reason why it costs 10 times more to execute someone than to put them in prison for life. Combined with the death penalty's demonstrated lack of deterrent effect - simpler and better to just get rid of it.
[+] [-] tptacek|9 years ago|reply
No, this is just an update, for Graham's California readers, most of whom can safely be assumed to agree with him, that they should take special care to vote this year.
I'm glad California has a chance to end the death penalty this year. You'll catch up to Illinois soon enough, Silicon Valley!
But this isn't the kind of post that finds a good home here on HN. This is the kind thing you want to post (repeatedly) to Twitter. Here, it's just more flame war stimulus.
I flagged this post --- and, because it's a PG post, did so vocally this time. You should too!
[+] [-] grondilu|9 years ago|reply
So arguably, any sentencing is unfair when it's wrong. Death only makes it more obvious. Then, what's the acceptable error rate in a judiciary system? The author mentions 4% being unacceptable. What about 0.1%? 0.0001%?
Crime can not be left unpunished, can it? And yet I doubt it is possible to always be absolutely sure of either guilt or innocence.
After all, doesn't the Law talk about "reasonable doubt"? Doesn't that also mean by contraposition that below a certain threshold, it becomes unreasonable to consider unlikely circumstances or extraordinary events that would prove a defendant non-guilty?
[+] [-] rm_-rf_slash|9 years ago|reply
The wrong people can be executed and unlike a prison sentence, there's no going back.
Appeals can last for decades and waste enormous amounts of time and money.
End the death penalty. It's just not worth it.
[+] [-] jernfrost|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Koshkin|9 years ago|reply
Of course it is effective. If only because it reliably and permanently removes the dangerous person from the society.
[+] [-] Unbeliever69|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jernfrost|9 years ago|reply
Why have a penalty which 1) Can never be reversed if you kill an innocent 2) Cost a lot more than life in prison.
Now why it might be argued that a killer has no right to life, what about those close to the killer? Killers might have a wife, husband, brother, sister, friends, mother and a a father. By killing the killer you inflict hardship on these people. To what purpose? In prison this person can't hurt anybody else, so why unnecessarily reduce the life quality of somebody else.
I see it being argued that the victims families deserve this, but I think that has been learnt and conditioned in society. E.g. in my own country Norway, I hardly ever read about victims and relatives who desire a death penalty or any particularly harsh or painful punishment. I think the desire for revenge is something which is simply promoted by conservative christian groups.
[+] [-] WillPostForFood|9 years ago|reply
"Cost a lot more than life in prison" - death penalty opponents have driven up the cost, so if cost was a real reason you oppose the death penalty, then we could keep it and focus on reducing cost.
"By killing the killer you inflict hardship on these people"- in your opinion. I think it would be a bigger hardship to have to have a living murderer as part of the family.
"I think the desire for revenge" - Why is incarceration not revenge? Justice flows from the notion that punishment is proportional to the crime. Taking a life should mean losing your life Whether is is lifetime imprisonment or the death penalty, you can call it revenge or punishment or justice.
[+] [-] a13n|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bolocker|9 years ago|reply
I've noticed a strange pattern where wealthy elites like Paul Graham are obviously very disturbed by things like the death penalty, animal rights, and tragedies they see overseas but can hardly be bothered to care about the great suffering poor people face generally.
The only issues that they care about are ones that directly affect their own conscience and mental well-being.
"The death penalty is bad because it makes me feel bad"
Whereas people who don't live such privileged lives can see so many worse problems in everyday life, like being hungry, suffering from bad/no medical care, to being victimized by street crime.
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Karunamon|9 years ago|reply
Is it not a prerequisite that a wrong begin to effect your conscience before you want to do something about it?
[+] [-] fauigerzigerk|9 years ago|reply