[SOC] Death penalty

[soc@mailman.qth.net]

See below.

On Sat, 8 Feb 2003 18:29:07 -0000 soc@mailman.qth.net wrote:
> Perhaps we'd better keep any further correspondence off list.
> 
> (I kept my response to your previous post off list at your request
> but you have continued to make your replies public.)

I never suggested that responses be kept off list. Your reply
to me came via the reflector, and I replied to the same. This reply
to me came via the reflector and I am replying to the same. I don't
know what your email address is.
 
> Sadly, you're wrong. I've lost count of the number of people that
> state(s) have killed in error.

Interesting generality, but you have not provided a specific case, much
less many of them. And that is the nexus of my contention. You throw
out all these claims, without a shred of evidence. Again, typical
of the tactics used. I don't have the time to do your homework for
you, The book "Neither cruel nor unusual" would be a good place for
you to start. 
 
> I simply fail to understand why you dismiss without comment my
> observation that there seems to have been further evidence worthy
> of consideration by a court that a defendant might not have been
> guilty of the offence that has resulted in him being condemned to
> death. And killed.

Because courts bend over backwards to make sure that relevant exculpatory
evidence is considered. You presented no evidence, just an unsubstantiated
claim. Your claim that relevant evidence is cavalearly ignored is not
credible. If it were so, it would be automatic grounds for appeal, which
obviously did not happen.

And please, you addressed none of my points, so don't critique me for
doing that which you do in greater abundance.

Here is an article from that you might find interesting.

Capital punishment saves lives
Boston Globe | June 6, 2002 | Jeff Jacoby

Second of two parts DEATH PENALTY abolitionists don't usually mention it, but in promoting a moratorium on executions, they are urging us down a road we have taken before.

In the mid-1960s, as a number of legal challenges to capital punishment began working their way through the courts, executions in the United States came to a halt. From 56 in 1960, the number of killers put to death dropped to seven in 1965, to one in 1966, and to zero in 1967. There it stayed for the next 10 years, until the State of Utah executed Gary Gilmore in 1977. That was the only execution in 1977, and there were only two more during the next three years.

In sum, between 1965 and 1980, there was practically no death penalty in the United States, and for 10 of those 16 years - 1967-76 - there was literally no death penalty: a national moratorium.

What was the effect of making capital punishment unavailable for a decade and a half? Did a moratorium on executions save innocent lives - or cost them?

The data are brutal. Between 1965 and 1980, annual murders in the United States skyrocketed, rising from 9,960 to 23,040. The murder rate - homicides per 100,000 persons - doubled from 5.1 to 10.2.

Was it just a fluke that the steepest increase in murder in US history coincided with the years when the death penalty was not available to punish it? Perhaps. Or perhaps murder becomes more attractive when potential killers know that prison is the worst outcome they can face.

By contrast, common sense suggests that there are at least some people who will not commit murder if they think it might cost them their lives. Sure enough, as executions have become more numerous, murder has declined. ''From 1995 to 2000,'' notes Dudley Sharp of the victims rights group Justice For All, ''executions averaged 71 per year, a 21,000 percent increase over the 1966-1980 period. The murder rate dropped from a high of 10.2 (per 100,000) in 1980 to 5.7 in 1999 - a 44 percent reduction. The murder rate is now at its lowest level since 1966.''

What is true nationally has been observed locally as well. There were 12,652 homicides in New York during the 25 years from 1940 to 1965, when New York regularly executed murderers. By contrast, during the 25 years from 1966 to 1991 there were no executions at all - and murders quadrupled to 51,638.

To be sure, murder rates fell in almost every state in the 1990s. But they fell the most in states that use capital punishment. The most striking protection of innocent life has been in Texas, which executes more murderers than any other state. In 1991, the Texas murder rate was 15.3 per 100,000. By 1999, it had fallen to 6.1 - a drop of 60 percent. Within Texas, the most aggressive death penalty prosecutions are in Harris County (the Houston area). Since the resumption of executions in 1982, the annual number of Harris County murders has plummeted from 701 to 241 - a 72 percent decrease.

Obviously, murder and the rate at which it occurs are affected by more than just the presence or absence of the death penalty. But even after taking that caveat into account, it seems irrefutably clear that when murderers are executed, innocent lives are saved. And when executions are stopped, innocent lives are lost.

Death penalty abolitionists (and a few death penalty supporters) claim that a moratorium on executions is warranted because the criminal justice system is ''broken'' and the death penalty is unfairly applied. But if that's true when the punishment is death, how much more so is it true when the punishment isn't death! Death penalty prosecutions typically undergo years of appeals, often attracting intense scrutiny and media attention. So painstaking is the super-due process of capital murder cases that for all the recent hype about innocent prisoners on death row, there is not a single proven case in modern times of an innocent person being executed in the United States.

But the due process in non-death penalty cases is not nearly as scrupulous. Everyone knows that there are innocent people behind bars today. If the legal system's flaws justify a moratorium on capital punishment, a fortiori they justify a moratorium on imprisonment. Those who call for a moratorium on executions should be calling just as vehemently for a moratorium on prison terms. Why don't they?

Because they know how ridiculous it would sound. If there are problems with the system, the system should be fixed, but refusing to punish criminals would succeed only in making society far less safe than it is today.

The same would be true of a moratorium on executions. If due process in capital murder cases can be made even more watertight, by all means let us do so. But not by keeping the worst of our murderers alive until perfection is achieved. We've been down the moratorium road before. We know how that experiment turns out. The results are written in wrenching detail on gravestones across the land.

Jeff Jacoby's e-mail address is jacoby@globe.com.

This story ran on page A21 of the Boston Globe on 6/6/2002.


cheers, Paul
 
> Paul.
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <paule@sfu.ca>
> To: <soc@mailman.qth.net>
> Sent: Thursday, February 06, 2003 9:37 AM
> Subject: Re: [SOC] Death penalty
> 
> 
> > Given what I know of the legal system, your portrayal is
> > a caricature, and misleading. Sadly typical.
> >
> > cheers, Paul
> >
> >
> > On Wed, 5 Feb 2003 19:57:25 -0000 soc@mailman.qth.net wrote:
> > > Hi Paul,
> > >
> > > Well, we're just going to have to agree to differ on this one. I doubt
> > > either of us will persuade eachother to their viewpoint.
> > >
> > > The thrust of the first part of my post, however stands whatever the
> > > penalty might be.
> > >
> > > The defence was denied that opportunity to even explore the possibility
> > > that DNA testing (a technique not available at the original trial)
> might > > throw a new light on matters and tend to confirm the man's story.
> > >
> > > This strikes me as manifestly unjust and unfair.
> > >
> > > Paul
> > >
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > From: <paule@sfu.ca>
> > > To: <soc@mailman.qth.net>
> > > Sent: Wednesday, February 05, 2003 5:45 AM
> > > Subject: Re: [SOC] Death penalty
> > >
> > >
> > > > I waited a number of hours before replying to this.
> > > >
> > > > While respect the fact that you mean well, I have to take
> > > > serious exception to your comments.
> > > >
> > > > I have worked in Canadian Gaols for the last 26 years, and
> > > > one of the obscenities of our "legal" system (and I mean that
> > > > in distinction from a "Justice" system) is the absence of
> > > > capitol punishment. Anyone who believes that a person is not
> > > > capable of doing something, for which the just, compassionate,
> > > > even loving response, is an execution suffers from a distorted,
> > > > low view of man. The absence of capitol punishment is inhuman
> > > > because it dehumanizes the murderer, by denying his significance
> > > > and the significance of his victims.
> > > >
> > > > While your raising the issue of possible error reminds us that
> > > > care should be taken before an execution is imposed, that is what
> > > > the appeal process is for.
> > > >
> > > > And, before you quote that oft used, cliche "better one hundred
> > > > guilty men go free..." The result of that misused, and distorted
> > > > principle has been that we knowingly victimize thousands, in order
> > > > keep from unintentionally victimizing one. There is an old notion,
> > > > sadly forgotten, of justice that says that those who acquit the
> guilty > > > are just as dispicable as those who knowingly convict the
> innocent. > > >
> > > > As one who has to live with those you don't want to execute, I would
> > > > ask, are you willing to live with them for the rest of their lives?
> > > > If not why not... I hope you are not like many who argue as you do
> > > > whose core motivation is cowardice because they don't really want to
> > > > be responsible for seeing justice done, but want to have some dumb
> > > > schmuck like me do their dirty work for them, and makes me live with
> > > > the consequences of their ivory tower moralizing. Yes, I chose my
> > > profession
> > > > and I take pride in doing what I can to make society somewhat safer,
> > > > to the extent that I can, but I really resent those who squeamishness
> > > > causes them to support public policy that makes my work/life more
> > > > dangerous. As a result of thinking such as yours, Canada is now one
> > > > of the best places in the world to flee, if you are guilty of a
> > > > capitol offense, and having to deal with some of the principals in
> > > > recent cases, such as USA vs Rafae, I DESPISE, the consequences of
> > > > such thinking. And that is a polite way for me to express my feelings
> > > > on the subject.
> > > >
> > > > As to the development of "modern" society, you would do well to read
> > > > Jacques Barzun's "From Dawn to Decadence" a study of the development
> > > > of western thought over that last 500 years.
> > > >
> > > > Also, before you quote some of the popular studies in support of your
> > > > position, please make sure you have done your homework first, all the
> > > > ones I know of that support your position have been shown to be the
> > > > result of really shoddy, if not deliberate misleading scholarship.
> > > > They are wonderful examples of how to lie with statistics.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > cheers, Paul - VA7NT ex VE7CQK - email: paule@sfu.ca
> > > > "Those who hear not the music. . . think the dancers mad."
> > > > _______________________________________________
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> > >
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> >
> >
> > cheers, Paul - VA7NT ex VE7CQK - email: paule@sfu.ca
> > "Those who hear not the music. . . think the dancers mad."
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cheers, Paul - VA7NT ex VE7CQK - email: paule@sfu.ca
"Those who hear not the music. . . think the dancers mad."