When murderers were hanged quickly (2014)

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-28688474

by areoform • 7 years ago

41 231 7 years ago

thrower1232• 7 years ago

Alas, even in smoking gun cases, it takes decades of wrangling to put the dogs down, imprisoning them in hellhole prisons at enormous expense, fattening the lawyers with endless rounds of appeals based on flimsy technicalities.

I wonder if many cases of officer-involved shootings aren't a side-effect of this, a short-circuiting of the justice system. For instance, I find it nothing short of miraculous that the Tsarnaev brother was taken alive, rather than winding up with a few bullets "resisting arrest."

zimpenfish• 7 years ago

I find it nothing short of miraculous that the Tsarnaev brother was taken alive

I mean, there is an obvious reason.

tyingq6• 7 years ago

Now I'm curious. They did shoot quite a lot of rounds[1] into the boat he was hiding in. I can't think of any reason other than luck.

[1]https://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/daily/intelligencer/2013/04/22/...

umanwizard5• 7 years ago

Can you elaborate, instead of making other people guess at what you think is obvious?

dsfyu404ed4• 7 years ago

I mean, there is an obvious reason.

That "obvious reason" is a level of marksmanship and organizational competency that makes cell phone video coming out of Syria look like a documentary about an elite fighting force.

The previous time they tried to shoot him all they did was pepper a house in an upscale neighborhood. Then there was the friendly fire thing. They also peppered the boat pretty good. It's not like they didn't try. They tried to shoot him several times and they failed.

And that's just the tip of the stupidity iceberg when it comes to the Boston bombing. The worst part is they basically proclaimed victory on something that was a textbook failure at every step and the people of MA are so devoid of critical thinking skills that they mostly bought it.

Edit: replaced "brainwashed" with "devoid of critical thinking skills" because the former gives the government too much credit.

WAHa_06x364• 7 years ago

How many innocent people do you figure it is reasonable to execute, say, per year?

peteretep4• 7 years ago

This needs qualifying with "vs subjecting to death row", where the average tenure is 15 years. I think I'd personally rather a speedy execution for a crime that I didn't do rather than 15 years on death row and then exoneration. In addition: 25% of death row prisoners die of natural causes (via Wikipedia).

I think if I supported the death penalty, I think I'd be comfortable finding out that 5% of executions were of innocent people. If I was religious, I'd be willing to accept a much higher number.

RHSeeger6• 7 years ago

This reads like what you really mean is "it's never ok to execute an innocent person".

How much money do you figure it is reasonable to spend to avoid the risk of killing one innocent person?

How many people is it reasonable to let be killed/raped/etc because guilty people were kept alive?

I don't think "it's never ok to sacrifice an innocent person" is the right answer.

nkrisc2• 7 years ago

How smoking does the smoking gun have to be to justify extra-judicial execution? Do they just have to look mostly guilty?

Do you at least get a chance to explain yourself?

stirfrykitty6• 7 years ago

Let's be honest here for a moment. Look at the monsters like drug dealers. Everyone knows for a fact they are doing it. I'm talking crime boss types, not some thug on a street corner. Guys like Pablo Escobar. Colombia could have gotten him far sooner. Nothing like a few tier-one operators with knowledge of his comings and goings and they could take care of it. This is not extra-judicial in my mind. The state can sanction the taking of life without a court hearing for absolutely evil people. People like Pablo Escobar, and there are many like him just south of the US. They pay off the police to look the other way. Ditto judges. They terrorise their local authorities. Sanctioning the removal of these thugs is warranted.

ddxxdd2• 7 years ago

"But David Cameron went into the 2010 election with a manifesto commitment to repeal the 1998 Human Rights Act. A lack of an overall majority prevented him from doing so. But Home Secretary Theresa May reiterated the promise to scrap the act at the party conference last year."

This gives me a flashback to when statisticians found that the number one issue that predicted whether or not a Brit voted for Brexit was their opinion on the death penalty: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-36803544

J-dawg2• 7 years ago

Assuming the predictive link goes the other way, does this mean that a referendum on the death penalty would be somewhat likely to go in favour of reinstating it?

DonaldFisk• 7 years ago

There was an opinion poll in 2015 with a slim majority against reintroduction: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-32061822 , original report http://www.bsa.natcen.ac.uk/media-centre/archived-press-rele...

Shortly before the EU Referendum, support for remaining commanded a similarly small majority but then lost. Those supporting Leave ran a more effective campaign, including making use of data gathered online, targeted advertising via Facebook, and mostly emotional arguments. So I would be very concerned if a referendum were to be held on capital punishment.

MPs of all parties are overwhelmingly against reintroduction and there is no chance of it passing in a free vote in the House of Commons.

nvahalik• 7 years ago

The US constitution (amendment 6) ostensibly provides the right to a speedy trial. Amendment 8 forbids "cruel and unusual" punishment.

What I don't understand is how people can be against the death penalty but yet be totally OK with locking people up for the rest of their lives. I personally know someone who, if they live to be 75, will ultimately end up being in prison for over 5 decades. How is that not "cruel and unusual"?

tyingq6• 7 years ago

Some of them are also in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day the whole time.

wavefunction• 7 years ago

I am one of those people who is opposed to the death penalty but in favor of life in prison without parole. In my thinking this punishment is/should be reserved for the worst and most heinous crimes against other people, whether that is murder of or violence against another individual or perhaps also white collar crimes of sufficient scale. I see nothing wrong with depriving a criminal of their own life and freedom if they consciously did the same to others. They also don't have a potentially limited period for exculpatory evidence to arise like with the death penalty.

gambiting• 7 years ago

>What I don't understand is how people can be against the death penalty but yet be totally OK with locking people up for the rest of their lives.

So I'm one of those people. It's simple really - death penalty is permanent, while life imprisonment isn't. Yes it sucks that sometimes we might have to release someone who spent 30 years falsely imprisoned - but it's sure a hell lot better than finding out that there is no one to release because the person was executed a decade ago. And secondly, I just don't see any need to execute people, the risk vs reward is not worth it.

gzu• 7 years ago

Someone consciously chose to permanently end another’s life. There has to be decisions made.

luckylion2• 7 years ago

Yes it sucks that sometimes we might have to release someone who spent 30 years falsely imprisoned - but it's sure a hell lot better than finding out that there is no one to release because the person was executed a decade ago.

For society's conscience, certainly. For the prisoner, I'd say it depends. I suppose most will agree that a swift death would be preferable to 65 years of extreme torture with a "sorry, you're free to go" in the end. It comes down to whether long term imprisonment, especially solitary confinement, is close enough to torture. Some prisoners apparently prefer death, the suicide rate is much higher than that of the general population, and iirc, quite a few prisoners dropped their appeals and asked to be executed, likely because they prefer a horrible end to never ending horror.

umvi9• 7 years ago

It's simple really - death penalty is permanent, while life imprisonment isn't.

Death being permanent is a feature, not a bug. Is it possible that evil people can continue to negatively influence society from prison? Or even continue to commit heinous crimes in prison? I'd say this scenario happens much more often than killing an innocent.

For example, organized crime. If you don't kill organized crime leaders, they continue to spread their secret oaths among other prisoners and continue to manage affairs even outside of prison via comm links.

I agree that it's bad to kill innocents, but I think with the right policy and rigor, we could make the death penalty an efficient and painless process that has an extremely low false positive rate.

In my mind it's like "yeah, we save the extremely rare false positive at the expense of allowing all the non-false positives to continue to spread and propagate evil for decades"

__s• 7 years ago

What if the prisoner states they'd prefer the death penalty? ie execution becomes assisted suicide for life sentenced prisoners

lisper3• 7 years ago

death penalty is permanent, while life imprisonment isn't

I think the word you're looking for here is "irreversible", not "permanent." Life imprisonment is, by definition, permanent.

And yes, you can "reverse" life in prison by setting the prisoner free. But what you can't so easily reverse is the psychological damage done by the false imprisonment.

king_magic3• 7 years ago

Life imprisonment is cruel? For the absolute worst possible crimes? I don’t think so.

Life imprisonment is unusual? For the absolute worst possible crimes? Again, no, not really. It certainly must suck, but what is unusual about society wishing to protect itself from it’s worst offenders?

Life imprisonment has the huge benefit of being undoable if new evidence exonerates someone.

I am certainly opposed to “BS life imprisonment”, like US drug three strike laws leading to that outcome. But for murder, rape, etc? No, I personally am entirely on board with life imprisonment, provided the justice system can demonstrate the person is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

86carr3• 7 years ago

The definitions of cruel and unusual are independent of crime severity.

08-154• 7 years ago

Life imprisonment has the huge benefit of being undoable

That's a blatant lie. If an innocent man ends up in jail at the age of 20 and it "is undone" when he's 40, his life is destroyed anyway: No career, no savings, no family, no prospects for ever amounting to anything. How do you undo that?

Get off your moral high horse. Life imprisonment is more cruel than death.

jMyles8• 7 years ago

In terms of human history, life imprisonment is very unusual. It's new enough to still be regarded as in an experimental phase, and everything we know about this experiment suggests that prison (especially life) is failing to have any of the positive effects that it is supposed to have.

ex-aws-now-goog• 7 years ago

It depends on what "locking up" means. If we are talking about US-style prisons then letting (possibly innocent and for that matter even guilty) people languish there _is_ cruel and unusual punishment.

However, there are better "prisons" (see e.g. what Norway does) and it is possible to let (dangerous) people live lives that are dignified, fulfilling and productive (when they are able to work) under the constraints of captivity.

cjslep• 7 years ago

Its effect on people goes beyond those two amendments. In Roper vs. Simmons the Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty for crimes committed while a minor (under 18 years of age) is cruel and unusual punishment.

One consequence is for the brothers Tilmon and Kevin Golphin. Tilmon was 18 and Kevin was 17 when the crime occurred. At the time, both were convicted of the death penalty for the same event. However, due to the US Supreme Court ruling, Kevin later had his sentence changed to life in prison. Tilmon is still on death row.

Their situation presents a lot of moral questions about the death penalty, morality, fairness, and so on. Justice is never going to be fair, and it is always hard for a society to determine the correct balance.

craigsmansion• 7 years ago

yet be totally OK with locking people up for the rest of their lives

There are countries where prisons are not exploitative hellholes, and locking people up for life is not a form of punishment but an acknowledgement that society has failed them, so there is no point in making the prisoner's incarceration as unpleasant as possible.

If it's "cruel and unusual", it's your society that makes it cruel and unusual. It doesn't have to be that way.

stirfrykitty6• 7 years ago

Society has not failed some people. A person for whom all mental and physical faculties are intact, yet is simply evil (these people do exist), who goes on to rape, murder, engage in paedophila... these people have failed society and should be removed by dint of a rope.

There are cases where people have been overlooked, needed help, etc. But the evil among us should be purged. Locking up serial rapists, serial paedophiles, and serial murderers does nothing but waste taxpayer money. If someone who commits these crimes is found guilty beyond any shadow of a doubt, they should be removed from society.

Norway, for all its goodness, needed to execute that moron who murdered all those kids in cold blood. Yet, he enjoys an expansive room, cooked meals, TV, games, conversation... all like it's no big deal. I think that is an example of society failing to deal with a problem. There is no closure for all of those families who lost innocent children. They exist knowing he exists, and is enjoying life as he's able.

gnode2• 7 years ago

How is that not "cruel and unusual"

Cruel refers to punishment which is torturous. Prison, in theory, should not be torture, despite often being so. Many aspects of incarceration in the US which are effectively torturous are commonly excused as being necessary for security and safety (e.g. solitary confinement) or medical reasons (e.g. force feeding), or being acts of other prisoners not under the control of the state (e.g. bullying). By contrast, many other countries' prison systems treat these factors as being within their responsibility.

Unusual refers to the punishment being arbitrary or not appropriate for the crime. This doesn't set a standard for what punishment is reasonable, but only requires punishments be consistent (for similar crimes). Additionally, if the punishment could not have been expected, then it can't be considered useful for the purpose of deterrence.

Crucially, the requirement that punishment not be cruel and unusual does not require the punishment to be reciprocal to the crime.

fmajid• 7 years ago

Apparently the Supreme Court is interpreting the prohibition as only applying to punishment that is both cruel and unusual. Cruel alone or unusual alone is A-OK.

jMyles8• 7 years ago

To which case are you referring here?

happytoexplain2• 7 years ago

I think the same people who are against the death penalty are probably largely the same people who want much more humane prisons.

ocdtrekkie2• 7 years ago

I've definitely thought about both this and the cost and problems with keeping people on death row alive for decades. I think the answer is easy: Remove the death penalty but enable euthanasia options for those sentenced to life.

1. It removes the cruelty of life imprisonment. If we take away someone's freedom permanently and they will never have the option to regain their freedom, they can "take the easy way out". Those who are innocent and believe they will eventually be freed can stay the course, but those who know their life is over can choose to exit early.

2. It removes the added bureaucracy and delay to execution and death penalty cases. By removing the government's ability to kill someone, we no longer need additional hearings for death penalty cases or need to hold out a very long time for possible appeals many years later. It just becomes someone's choice.

Now, there's other considerations, I think there'd still need to be a minimum time for euthanasia after being sentenced, you'd want maybe a periodic opt in period for people to elect for euthanasia, maybe every five years or so, and you'd want to have someone evaluate that the prisoner wasn't making a rash choice due to recent news from the outside or the like.

But this allows death as an "escape" for a life of misery in jail and also removes bureaucratic overhead to the government electing to kill someone.

TremendousJudge• 7 years ago

That's insane. You're basically putting somebody in a cruel and miserable existence with the expectation that they commit suicide, for the sole purpose of keeping your hands clean. I find it worse than outright killing them.

ljf• 7 years ago

I am against the death penalty AND against needlessly long 'punishment' terms.

I think the Danish model is the best - but that looks out for the person and the future, rather than pure punishment; https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/d3dabz/adopting-denmarks-...

arethuza3• 7 years ago

One thing that I learned recently that I wish I hadn't is that it's not entirely clear when someone actually dies from hanging - even the long drop execution style used in the UK - apparently it can take up to 15 minutes before hearts actually stop beating - which is why bodies were left hanging for an hour before being taken down.

MrMember• 7 years ago

Hanging can be pretty gruesome. In an "ideal" hanging the condemned is dropped from a height that snaps their neck and kills them fairly quickly. Drop too far and they can be decapitated, drop too short and they strangle to death. It is certainly not a humane way to die.

tyingq6• 7 years ago

Decapitation is certainly gruesome, but I don't know if it's humane or not. Is death instant?

jillesvangurp• 7 years ago

This seems a divisive topic. I have few moral objections against executing people that are impractical to release back into society because of stuff they did. But there are too many practical ones to ever be sure and the price of getting it wrong is obviously too high. You can't un-execute someone.

The way it is practiced in the US is both inefficient, incompetent, often unjust (racism, poor legal representation, biased judges/juries, evidence tampering, unreliable witnesses, dna evidence, etc), often controversial, needlessly cruel, and obviously not working in terms of its supposed preventive function. It's a mess.

That's the reason why an increasing number of states are opting not to. It's just too controversial of a topic and the political price of getting it wrong is too high. It's a PR nightmare and it's one of those things that is only getting harder because of all the recent problems failing to get it right. At this point all executions are highly political and typically only pursued in states where this is relatively uncontroversial. All opponents have to do is point all of the above out. Which of course they do.

The hypocrisy around trying to humanize what is basically state sanctioned murder has resulted in weird practices around multiple executioners pushing a button to avoid knowing for sure whether or not you killed the person, weird rituals around selecting the means to kill where the result is neither humane, particularly efficient, or cheap. The whole thing is a weird guilt trip gone wrong. Ironically this has made it more controversial, not less.

From what I understand, killing people swiftly and painlessly is not technically hard. Any vet or butcher knows how to put down an animal humanely. This is done routinely every day. E.g. a bit of N2, N2O, CO, or similar is all you need for what is pretty guaranteed fatal and painless. Hypoxia followed by unconsciousness in seconds and death in minutes, typically. The main objection against this particular method seems to be that it is too humane (make up your mind already). The key point of that is that the death penalty is primarily about revenge and not about prevention. Stating this further de legitimizes the death penalty and is in itself controversial. State sanctioned torture is even more controversial than the state sanctioned executions.

At least the Brits were efficient and competent about hanging people. It's the systemic incompetence around the death penalty that is killing it in the US. Either way, I'd suggest fixing that level of incompetence and getting that off the table at least. I'd say the Brits were wise to get away from that.

blfr2• 7 years ago

You can't un-execute someone.

You can't give a person two decades of their life back either.

Sure, it's better to only take away two decades from someone than all of their remaining years but not as much as people like to believe. Especially when you consider that earlier years have a much higher utility than later years. And later years have again higher utility if you could freely spend your earlier years creating a life you would enjoy, in particular have kids to watch them grow up.

throwaway57529• 7 years ago

I would challenge you to find a person that was exonerated after an incorrect death sentence that wished they were executed instead of eventually released.

throwaway57529• 7 years ago

"It's the systemic incompetence around the death penalty that is killing it in the US"

Part of it is the incredible disparity between the equitable application and quality of defense based on class and race. Seems like you have to fix the criminal justice system before you make an ultimate and irreversible punishment more efficient.

zeveb• 7 years ago

You can't un-execute someone.

You also can't un-imprison someone. Sure, you can release him, but he'll never get those years back; his relationships will never be the same again; the trauma of imprisonment will never leave him.

I think the thing which needs to be done is to fix the judicial system: if we can't rely on it to correctly impose death, then we can't rely on it to correctly impose imprisonment. Maybe we need to incentivise prosecutors differently; maybe we need to conduct investigations differently; maybe we need to adjust the jury system.

Some people are against capital punishment in any case even if it is 100% painless and the judicial process is completely correct. I don't really have anything to say to them: it's obvious to me that there are certain crimes which absolutely merit that punishment and that to refrain from killing the guilty in that case is a profound injustice.

throwaway57529• 7 years ago

"Some people are against capital punishment in any case even if it is 100% painless and the judicial process is completely correct. I don't really have anything to say to them: it's obvious to me that there are certain crimes which absolutely merit that punishment and that to refrain from killing the guilty in that case is a profound injustice"

Well, a good thing is to not immediately cut off any possibility of reaching a common ground.

I think you describe the issue perfectly. Given an imperfect criminal justice system, how to you administer punishments?

Maybe the DA, the police involved, the judge, and every member of the jury should all be summarily executed in the case of wrongful conviction involving the death penalty? I can see some crimes that merit the death penalty, and if everyone involved had to risk their own life to apply it I would be more comfortable that it was not applied lightly because of racial/socioeconomic issues, police misconduct, or the political ambitions of a district attorney.

sysbin19• 7 years ago

refrain from killing the guilty in that case is a profound injustice.

That's only the case if you believe in free will ideology. The injustice is "society" villainizing a person who had no control over their fate if you understand free will is an illusion because of determinism and how the brain functions.

stirfrykitty6• 7 years ago

I'm wholly in favor for the death penalty. I've heard all of the arguments. Some people just need to be dealt with with finality.

Having said this, I'm for the death penalty for the following crimes, if they are proven beyond a shadow of a doubt (video evidence, bodily fluid DNA match, plethora of independent witnesses):

- Forcible rape (either sex) - Paedophilia - Aggravated armed robbery (which is terrorism) - Premeditated aggravated assault leading to injury (which is terrorism) - Kidnapping at gun/knifepoint - Intentional illicit drug sales to a minor child - Sex slave trafficking (adults and minors)

* Please note that "terrorism" doesn't have to be political. Many states have laws against "terroristic threats" and "terrorism" (personal); sadly they are not often used.

I know almost everyone here will disagree, but let's be honest here. Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Thailand and many other countries have these laws, and while I disagree with them on many points, they deal harshly and swiftly with the dregs of society.

My British uncle has personally witnessed several hangings in England before the death penalty was rescinded. As a senior police officer at the time, he made it a point to witness the hangings of those people whom he brought to justice who received the death penalty. Closure. Let's be honest: If I took months of my life to bring a child rapist/paedophile/killer to justice, I'd want to watch, too. People like that deserve it.

I disagree with lethal injection, firing squad, and gas chamber. They are too expensive and require too much oversight (chemists, European reluctance to sell drugs, doctors, etc.). Hanging is quick and cheap. The Singaporeans do it best.

The state has a right to execute heinous crimes. I think the Saudis have it right when the cut off hands for theft. Note, though, that theft of food, items to help one's family is not given that punishment. Car theft, bank theft, ID theft all warrant something like this in my mind. The West has, in my mind, grown soft. A serious crimes serial thief will continue to steal. A rapist will continue to rape. Paedophiles have the highest repeat rate. Why should I, a law-abiding tax payer have to pay for three hots and a cot for those who deserve the death penalty.

For those crimes warranting the death penalty, and for which there is ZERO doubt, the sentence should be carried out within 24 hours. No family visitation, no last words, nothing. If you are a terrorist, rapist, murderer, sex trafficker, drug dealer, or paedophile, you should receive zero consideration once convicted.

Considering the seriousness of ending someone's life, these cases would need to be 100% airtight. Video evidence, plethora or independent witnesses, DNA evidence beyond a shadow of a doubt. If these things are in place, and they are verified by say three agencies: police, FBI, independent lab, then go ahead.

saagarjha4• 7 years ago

let's be honest here. Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Thailand and many other countries have these laws, and while I disagree with them on many points, they deal harshly and swiftly with the dregs of society.

How do you know they're dealing with the "dregs of society", and not "here's someone we accidentally caught and killed"?

I think the Saudis have it right when the cut off hands for theft.

Why should I, a law-abiding tax payer have to pay for three hots and a cot for those who deserve the death penalty.

Because many do not agree with your views on who deserves the death penalty: note there are many criminals who have done things on your list and not become repeat offenders.

stirfrykitty6• 7 years ago

That's a very liberal view inconsistent with justice. If you rape, murder, engage in paedophilia, sex trafficking, etc., just once, that's once too many times. You've broken the social compact to the point where you need to pay dearly.

I don't feel sorry for the evil in our society. These people cost us dearly by dint of housing them, feeding them, providing medical care, entertainment. All the while, their dead victims, their raped and permanently-violated victims get no justice other than knowing that the evil person is behind bars. That's not justice. That's sweeping it under the rug and calling it good. It's intellectually dishonest to say the death penalty should not be used for heinous crimes. It breaks the social compact with the victims and society at large.

tasty_freeze• 7 years ago

What about the issue of the unequal application of the death penalty. Even if there was a zero false positive rate (which it clearly isn't), poor people get executed and the well off don't.

claudiawerner2• 7 years ago

- Forcible rape (either sex) - Paedophilia

While I see what you're saying, "pedophilia" isn't a crime.

they deal harshly and swiftly with the dregs of society.

The goal shouln't be dealing with the "dregs of society", it should be dealing with people who have committed crimes, whether they are dregs or not.

The West has, in my mind, grown soft.

Perhaps because people prefer a "soft" system. I don't see why softness is bad in itself.

and for which there is ZERO doubt

This is surprisingly rarely the case; in various countries with huge oversight and process, innocents have been killed.

Why should I, a law-abiding tax payer have to pay for three hots and a cot for those who deserve the death penalty.

Because justice shouldn't be predicated on how costly or cheap it is to carry out. I have trouble understanding why you think it should be. Is justice subservient to the money it costs to carry out? Do you think it should be? And this argument only makes sense if we agree that they "deserve" the death penalty in the first place, which I don't agree with. Because someone deserving the death penalty hasn't been argued for (at least not by you), it's possible for me to agree with you (i.e those who deserve death should get it) while thinking that nobody deserves death.

The state has a right to execute heinous crimes.

Oh really? The anarchist movement, for example, would disagree with this assertion.

A rapist will continue to rape.

Is this backed up by empirical data? If it's true, why is death preferable punishment to lifetime imprisonment or chemical castration?

Paedophiles have the highest repeat rate.

This is only true among a subclass of offenders; since your usage of the term is ambiguous, I'm assuming it also includes people who possess child pornography, but their rates of reoffence are low, and there is no established likelihood of possessors going on to abuse children. (Though possession should still be a crime, of course).

shaki-dora• 7 years ago

Crime, especially violent crime, is lower today in all those "soft" western countries than ever before, so we can't be doing everything wrong. Among them, the murder rate is about five times as much in the only country still using the death penalty (the US) than, for example, western Europe (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...)

I'd want to watch, too.

So I really don't understand why you seem to be indulging in such fascist revenge fantasies? It's not healthy.

I also don't get why such people are always obsessed with rape and paedophilia? The latter isn't even crime, btw.

Aggravated armed robbery (which is terrorism)

Now you're just redefining things. Terror has a definition: to cause terror (fear). Robbery has a different intention (getting something valuable).

ID theft all warrant something like this in my mind.

Sure. Also breaking the speed limit and taking the express checkout lane with more than 10 items.

mythrwy• 7 years ago

I understand this opinion but here is something to consider.

If you are going to execute people for "premeditated aggravated assault leading to injury" (would a high school fight after a football game qualify?),

What keeps people from ramping the crime up into flat out murder? What is the additional negative incentive?

knodi123• 7 years ago

threat of a double execution.

ionised3• 7 years ago

> let's be honest here. Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Thailand and many other countries have these laws, and while I disagree with them on many points, they deal harshly and swiftly with the dregs of society.

And what paradises those places are!

js2• 7 years ago

The trial of 24-year-old Evans and Allen, who was 21, began on 23 June at Manchester Assizes. On 7 July the men were found guilty and sentenced under the 1957 Homicide Act to suffer death "in the manner prescribed by law". Their appeal was heard just two weeks later - and dismissed the next day. A final appeal for clemency was rejected by the Home Secretary on 11 August. Less than five weeks elapsed between conviction and execution.

Versus:

Tony Medina was convicted in 1996, aged 21, for a drive-by shooting that killed two children at a new-year party. Since then, for 23 years, he has been awaiting execution. [In solitary confinement.]

https://www.economist.com/united-states/2019/06/06/what-its-...

sysbin19• 7 years ago

Both cases are handled by a punishment modal that assumes humans have free will. I wish we lived in a society that handled these cases with a rehabilitation modal and understanding free will is an illusion by determinism & how the brain functions.

amazingman3• 7 years ago

Agreed. Even without going down the philosophical rabbit hole, it should be clear in 2019 that retributive justice is unseemly.

sysbin19• 7 years ago

I would say barbaric for what's possible without an antiquated incorrect belief.

orbifold• 7 years ago

I guess you’ve never interacted with a large fraction of people that are typically committing violent crimes. A lot of them are these brutish unhinged characters, with low IQ. They are mentally defective, you can either lock them away for the rest or their life (more humane) or kill them (generally frowned upon). There is no way to rehabilitate them.

sysbin19• 7 years ago

My perspective is people committing crimes are similar to persons suffering an illness. We as a society should be approaching both situations the same because that's how we obtain cures and not with the mindset of the current justice system. The justice system is slowing progress similar to if we approached illnesses with the mindset of the justice system.

amazingman3• 7 years ago

It would rehabilitate us to treat them as malfunctioning humans who are worthy of compassion, even as we keep them away from public society. As a culture we really need to grow out of thinking about criminal justice in terms of punishment.

atheowaway4z• 7 years ago

You jumped from the morality of execution to casually wanting to overhaul the sense of identity of almost every person and group.

Not that it’s not interesting. Just a little out of scope IMO.

sysbin19• 7 years ago

I think if not discussed it will always be out of scope.

antidesitter3• 7 years ago

You assume rehabilitation is always possible or cost-effective. From a utilitarian viewpoint, it might be best to simply rid society of some people forever. I’m not arguing for or against that view, but it’s a possibility. The issue of “free will versus determinism” doesn’t settle the question of capital punishment like you think it does.

sysbin19• 7 years ago

As a philosopher I tend to approach all things as objects and similar to humans with their properties that happen to be unique because of the life events not being equivalent in order or even with outcomes because of mixed order. Dehumanization happens when we treat objects as broken and not fixable or worth fixing. I think we should try to be above nature.

jandrese2• 7 years ago

Some societies have made a rehabilitation model work.

https://www.mic.com/articles/109138/sweden-has-done-for-its-...

In the end from a cost perspective it's a lot cheaper to have a productive member of society living on their own than it is to lock someone up for life. You have to weigh the recidivism rate vs. the cost of the program, but there isn't any country in the world with a more expensive criminal justice system than the US. We can definitely do better.

umvi9• 7 years ago

and understanding free will is an illusion

This argument always strikes me as bogus. Is it possible to tell the difference between "real" free will and "illusory" free will? If so, how? If not, than why does it matter?

sysbin19• 7 years ago

Free will being an illusion is denoting free will isn't real and in the sense that you don't have any control of your life outcomes or actions you take. Research with how the brain functions shows we're unaware of making a decision few seconds before we think of making one. Similar there are cases where brain tumors have made persons act/desire in ways unwanted by society and the tumor removed the act/desire went away and only reoccurred when the tumor developed again. Understanding determinism with how cause & effect is fundamental in nature. Even being a programmer should help the mind resolve the difficult philosophy for someone who has thought all their life they had free will.

rubberpoliceman2• 7 years ago

Even if free will is an illusion (and I'm not sure how to assign meaning to this statement), how does that change anything? If a murderer had no choice but to murder, then the prosecutor had no choice but to prosecute, the jury had to find guilty, and the executioner had to execute.

sysbin19• 7 years ago

Why does software update? We want to have it become better and the summation of your comment is imposing a nihilistic view that nothing needs to change if it's all fated to happen. That's contrary to how humans strive for increasing the quality of life and making the system better even if it's fated to happen. I'm trying to express my view as a needed piece in the destiny of humankind like any other person.

cryptonector4• 7 years ago

Whether we have free will or not makes no real difference as long as we can't prove whether we have it or not. Besides, even defining the term "free will" is difficult. One thing we do know is that we do not have rules and do not enforce them, then we'll get more of the behavior that we have found undesirable enough to have rules against it -- whether this is due to our having free will or not is immaterial to whether or not we should have rules.

sysbin19• 7 years ago

See my comments to other replies. The simplest description of the justice system upon society is constructing deterrents for actions decided as bad. The argument that people need to believe in free will to be good people hasn't been proven fundamentally true. The deterrents made by the justice system don't work for everyone and it's not fair when people have events or the genetics making the deterrents not work for them like others. I'm not voicing for no rules. I'm suggesting a better system needs to be designed.

RickJWagner• 7 years ago

"On the stroke of 8am they would enter the condemned cell, strap the prisoner's arms behind his back and lead him to the gallows. The whole procedure often took less than 10 seconds from the hangmen entering the cell to the prisoner dropping to his death,"

10 seconds? Seems pretty improbable. 10 minutes maybe.

When murderers were hanged quickly (2014)

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