Lets talk about how fucked up and shitty the Death Penalty is - The Something Awful Forums

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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Lets talk about how fucked up and shitty the Death Penalty is

T8R: Aug 9, 2005; Yes, I would like some tea!

For the people who support the death penalty.

The death penalty is now legal in your society. You are wrongfully convicted of murder. You are now on death row.

Do you still support the death penalty?

# ¿ Feb 28, 2017 03:13

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 03:15

T8R: Aug 9, 2005; Yes, I would like some tea!

hakimashou posted:

What about if you were rightfully convicted of murder?

The death penalty is now legal in society. You are rightfully convicted of murder. You are on death row.

Do you still support the death penalty?

# ¿ Feb 28, 2017 04:10

T8R: Aug 9, 2005; Yes, I would like some tea!

hakimashou posted:

Yes

Excellent, now answer the first question.

# ¿ Feb 28, 2017 04:19

T8R: Aug 9, 2005; Yes, I would like some tea!

hakimashou posted:

If I was wrongfully convicted of murder I would probably oppose the justice system's implementation of the death penalty, which I pretty much already do.

But, I wouldn't believe it was morally wrong to execute people guilty of murder.

Two different issues in my opinion.

It is morally wrong to have a society that executes innocent people for the crimes of others. You cannot have a perfect society that convicts people with absolute certainty. It is then always morally wrong to execute people guilty of murder, as you cannot assert with absolute certainty that they are guilty. As such, you cannot treat the issues separately.

# ¿ Feb 28, 2017 04:46

T8R: Aug 9, 2005; Yes, I would like some tea!

hakimashou posted:

You can't be absolutely certain in every case that perpetrator is guilty, but you can in some cases.

In those cases surely the guilty should be executed.

We must accept that the justice system will always be imperfect. As such there is no physical way to apply a law that will with 100% accuracy convict only guilty persons. Absolute certainty must be attained with every judgement for executions, which by the nature of reality will not always be correct. Therefore innocents will be convicted and executed for the crimes of others. The death penalty remains morally incorrect.

Certainly the needs of society requires a system that can lawfully judge criminals for crimes. Judgements which due to the nature of our reality will always be flawed. Society must weigh the moral ramifications of innocent people being convicted versus the needs of a safe and lawful society. This is why we have the appeals system, which allows innocent people who are wrongfully convicted to attempt to prove their innocence. Innocent people who have been executed cannot appeal, this is also morally wrong. Finally, society does not need to execute criminals, the need for justice can be achieved with other sentences. Sentences which do not violate morality in such a perverse way.

# ¿ Feb 28, 2017 06:28

T8R: Aug 9, 2005; Yes, I would like some tea!

hakimashou posted:

However, I don't believe it is morally wrong to execute people who are guilty of murder.

Do you recognize the impossibility of having a society that can execute people morally?

# ¿ Mar 1, 2017 01:05

T8R: Aug 9, 2005; Yes, I would like some tea!

hakimashou posted:

No not at all.

It might be difficult, but there's no reason to believe it's impossible if we put our minds to it.

You must have completely missed half the things I've posted then.

Furthermore, point to one legal system in all of history that even comes close to having the judicial perfection close enough to not execute innocent people. There are none.

T8R fucked around with this message at 01:35 on Mar 1, 2017

# ¿ Mar 1, 2017 01:33

T8R: Aug 9, 2005; Yes, I would like some tea!

hakimashou posted:

I don't agree with them.

Well then, maybe you should share your disagreements?

# ¿ Mar 1, 2017 01:36

T8R: Aug 9, 2005; Yes, I would like some tea!

hakimashou posted:

There are plenty of easy to imagine cases where evidence would clearly and unequivocally demonstrate guilt.

It might be difficult to devise a justice system where the death penalty was only imposed in these cases, but there's no reason to believe it would be impossible.

There are also plenty of easy to imagine and quite a few real cases where supposedly clear and unequivocal guilt has been later proven incorrect. People can be framed, law enforcement can plant evidence, judges and juries can make mistakes, appeals can be denied wrongfully. These things are impossible to eliminate in society.

The fallibility of society is what makes it impossible to separate the morality of executions with the risk of innocent death.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2017 02:03

T8R: Aug 9, 2005; Yes, I would like some tea!

hakimashou posted:

Consider:

Closed circuit television recordings show John enter George's office building. They show him get into an elevator and go up to the floor where George's office is. Recordings which show his face show him walk into George's office and confront him, then shoot him to death. George is seen to say "John! No! Please don't kill me! I have a family!"

Recordings show John leave and get into his car, traffic cameras show his car drive to an alley, and surveillance footage shows him put a bundle into a dumpster. The bundle is later found to contain clothing with George's blood on it, and the gun used to shoot George, which records indicate John purchased a couple days before.

John's wife tells investigators that she had an affair with George and that John swore he would hunt George down and kill him in retribution.

When confronted with the evidence, John doesn't deny his crime.

Are we sure enough that John is guilty of murder that we can punish him for his crime?

It wasn't John, it was an impostor who looked like him. John's wife is lying. The blood was planted on the bundle. The impostor purchased or stole the gun. John was coerced by the police; alternatively John is being blackmailed into lying about his guilt. Perhaps someone has threatened to kill his friends or family. There is no DNA evidence belonging to John in your statement.

It doesn't even need to be this case specifically. Another case with these similar specifications could be flawed as well. Just because one case may be "a perfect storm" does not mean others will be.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2017 02:10

T8R: Aug 9, 2005; Yes, I would like some tea!

hakimashou posted:

Maybe aliens were controlling his mind?

Consider that the deficiencies in evidence you bring up are satisfied. An even more "perfect storm" than the one I described.

At what point do we reach the wall where reasonable doubt, or even plausible doubt, crosses over into "there is no such thing as proof or truth?"

A society with an incorruptible justice system, that doesn't even make accidental mistakes, in a society without lies, where people are unable to game the system? If you wish to go that far, then surely such a perfect utopia wouldn't have murder either. A perfectly run society like that wouldn't even need the death penalty "just in case". This society isn't real, and never will be; it is pure imagination. It contradicts the nature of society itself. The steps you need to take in order for your supposed morality to be true will inevitably self annihilate. Morality cannot exist in a vacuum, it must be tested against reality. Your morality cannot exist, because it will never be true in reality. Killing murders will never be moral, because we will never eliminate the risk towards innocents.

quote:

You can't have a justice system where "nobody can really know anything" is a compelling defense in the face of extremely good evidence. It would be wrong to punish anyone for anything, since no guilt could ever be established under any circumstances. It's absurd.

It also undermines any utilitarian penal system. If we can never under any circumstances be made to believe a perpetrator actually committed a crime, but instead see all crimes as fundamentally unsolvable mysteries, we can't incarcerate him to protect others or to deter crime.

Agreed, but irrelevant in the context of the death penalty. Society can mete out punishment without executing criminals just fine. It must be proved that societies somehow need to execute criminals. Then that need must be proved to be greater than the risk of executing innocents. How could anyone argue it is moral to execute criminals, with a certain percentage of them innocent, when it could instead imprison them indeterminately. To advocate such a thing starts to sound a lot like the actual crime of first degree murder itself. You know someone will die who has done nothing wrong, you know that you could make a superior moral choice, and yet you would proceed anyway? This is pre-meditation with intent to kill.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2017 06:09

T8R: Aug 9, 2005; Yes, I would like some tea!

hakimashou posted:

It's just incoherent insanity to go down that road. The same twisted sophistry can be applied to any kind of decision. Suddenly we are all first degree murderers, and no one is.

The notion that because some people believe there is no truth and nothing can ever be proven, no crime can ever be solved and no punishment is ever justifiable is absurd. It means perspective has been lost.

It might, if that kind of insanity were ever relevant, be relevant to the question of whether we ought to have the death penalty imposed in our country, but it it has nothing to do with whether or not executing a guilty murderer is moral or immoral.

Of course society must accept the limits of truth and evidence in order to form a fair and equitable justice system. I was arguing against capital punishment specifically. The requirements for capital punishment to be acceptable are logically impossible and morally unsound.

hakimashou posted:

"Executing someone who is innocent is immoral" is something most people can agree on.

I believe if someone is guilty of murder, it is not immoral for him to be punished with execution.

"It's immoral to execute innocent people" is not an objection.

The objection is "All executions carry a risk of executing innocent people, executing someone who is innocent is immoral, therefore all executions are immoral."

" I can imagine a perfect universe with a perfect court system that only executes guilty people" isn't an acceptable moral argument; and it certainly isn't a logical one. If you're fine with believing in morality that can only function in our imaginations, I'm not sure what to say.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2017 02:07

T8R: Aug 9, 2005; Yes, I would like some tea!

falcon2424 posted:

Like twodot, I think there are good arguments against the death penalty.

But I find this one, in particular, to be pretty unconvincing.

Yes, it's immoral to execute innocent people. But it's also immoral to imprison them.

It is a choice of the lesser of two evils. Do we risk immoral death, or immoral imprisonment? The latter is the vastly more preferable outcome. It leaves the maximum amount of time possible for exoneration. It also does not require putting someone to death.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2017 08:49

T8R: Aug 9, 2005; Yes, I would like some tea!

hakimashou posted:

I don't know if that's my logic unless you just read that one post.

My (Kant's) actual logic goes something like:

A person who chooses commit murder also chooses to die at the hands of an executioner.

A ridiculous blanket statement regarding the motivations behind the intent of all murderers. Murderers rarely walk into the police station and demand execution.

quote:

The justification for doing it is that we have an obligation to treat the killer as an equal, a human being, with human dignity, and the right to make choices about his own life and have them be respected.

One of the most difficult Kantian positions is that we owe punishment to the perpetrator and act wrongly, by him, if we don't impose it.

I think you'll find most murderers would choose to never get caught. They would also choose to not be executed. What kind of human dignity is being imposed by executing people against their will?

# ¿ Mar 4, 2017 10:51

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 03:15

T8R: Aug 9, 2005; Yes, I would like some tea!

hakimashou posted:

You missed it.

The choice to commit murder is also the choice to be executed, they are inseparable and one and the same. The act of committing murder is the act of choosing to be executed.

The very easy solution to the problem is "don't what to get executed? don't commit murder."

Plenty of people commit murder and get away with it. Plenty of people believe they can get away with it, and get caught. Plenty of people are found guilty and not executed.
There, I separated them into three separate parts for you. The choice to commit murder is clearly not the choice to also be executed, there are many different possible outcomes.

And yes, the logical solution is to not commit murder at all, but not everybody looks at the world that way.

T8R fucked around with this message at 00:53 on Mar 5, 2017

# ¿ Mar 5, 2017 00:51

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Lets talk about how fucked up and shitty the Death Penalty is

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