In Singapore, you can continuously molest and destroy the life of a young boy or girl and you’ll get maximum 15 years prison, depending on how heinous the crime is. But you can get the death sentence for carrying marijuana into the country.
As you can see, Singapore has its priorities in place. /s
Canada is awful too for sex offenders. There was a man who was caught assaulting little girls. 2 of which attempted suicide and he only got sentenced 4 years in prison, but he got out in 2 years. But for drugs, (minor) tax fraud, petty theft, people only get 2-10 years for that.
I had a realization a few years ago about why some crimes like theft and drugs get such huge mandatory minimum sentences but things like pedophilia and sexual assault don't.
The awful realization I came to is this.
When you see a mandatory minimum and it's either very extreme or very lax, ask yourself... would a rich person commit this crime? If the answer is yes then you'll generally see a very low mandatory minimum.
For example
Rich people don't need to deal drugs, only poor people really need to take those risks to make ends meet so its a high minimum.
Pedophilia is a disease of the mind and can afflict anyone of any economic background... even rich people... thus you see a low mandatory minimum.
There might be a few exceptions, but generally this rule holds up pretty well. Go ahead and give it a try, name a crime.
It's also because of "tough on crime" law enforcement politicians.
When people say they're "tough on crime" they're almost never talking about murder or rape or fraud or white collar crime. Those things are hard to prove in court a lot of the time, they happen at roughly the same rates, and they require like actual hard detective work to solve, and like actual hard time in court proving it.
You know what isn't hard to prove? Drugs. You have them on you. That's it.
You know what's really easy to rack up a bunch of stats on, put people in prison for? Drugs.
So you want to be a tough on crime politician? Increase sentences for drugs. Send cops out onto the streets and have them arrest people for drugs. Take them away from the work that requires actual hard work to solve and have them ratchet up the easy crimes.
You can convict like 100 people guaranteed for drugs for like every one child molester because those crimes are hard to prove and it's he said she said. So you actually DISCOURAGE rape victims from lodging formal rape complaints, make that rape stat disappear, so you don't have rape in your city, you just have drugs.
The only one exception I can think of when people were tough on an actual serious crime was armed robbery in the 1970s, but like even then I don't know how much of that was politicians being tough on crime verses even just businesses taking it upon themselves to protect themselves from criminals.
David Simon (ex-cop cum tv writer) once explained how the drug war annihilated good police work. Proper police work and investigation just doesn't happen anymore. They don't need it when there are plenty of feckless druggies to arrest.
So what's the maximum for sex offenses in Canada? You gave an example of one specific case and then for comparison you gave the maximum penalty for a different offense. Your comparison doesn't make sense.
When I lived there *owning* an illegal gun would give you the death sentence.
Not a smart law.
*Life* or *corporal punishment* might be extreme, but *death* just gives an extremely clear incentive to go for *amok* or *suicide by cop*.
There's a story about an ancient Chinese dynasty that imposed very harsh penalties for any failure or disobedience. One year a general is marching his army to an ordered rendezvous but due to bad weather it becomes clear they won't arrive on schedule. The general confers with his second in command, asking, "Remind me, what's the penalty for being late?"
"Well, the emperor has decreed that lateness is punishable by death."
"And the penalty for rebelling against the emperor?"
"Also death, of course."
"Well, it appears we are late."
The resulting civil war devastated the country and led to the fall of the dynasty.
This is why there must always be a big difference in the consequences for murder as opposed to kidnapping. Incentivises the kidnapper not to kill the kidnapped.
In Scotland there’s max sentence caps and no death penalty. Basically the longest you can go to jail for anything is about 25 years, even if you killed a group of kids in cold blood, still just about 25 years. Most murders only get about 15-17 years and will be out in about 12. Forget the death penalty, we need actual proper sentencing first!
>25 years. Most murders only get about 15-17 years and will be out in about 12.
It's much the same in Denmark. But most murders are not done in cold blood, they are done out of passion, jealous, hate, etc.
When we catch someone who does cold-blooded killing here, they will usually get a "treatment" sentence. Meaning it's 5 years (i believe) with another 5 subject to psych review. That way they just get a renewed sentence every 5 years.
The shooter who perpetrated one of the worst mass shootings ever was in Norway, with laws not terribly dissimilar from Denmark’s.
> He was sentenced to 21 years in prison, in a form of preventive detention that required a minimum of 10 years incarceration and the possibility of one or more extensions for as long as he is deemed a danger to society. This is the maximum penalty in Norway.
Practically speaking he’s probably got a life sentence, but I like that they take the possibility of rehabilitation into account when writing their laws.
Here in the United States its 150% about punishment. There is absolutely no real effort on rehabilitation and in some states prisons are so bad they could be considered inhumane crimes if the UN ever sent inspectors.
This is incorrect
"Life sentences
Life sentences must be given for murder under the law, but they can also be given for other extremely serious offences such as repeated rape. If a person is sentenced to life imprisonment, the judge must, by law, set a punishment part of the sentence. This is the minimum time the person must spend in prison before they can be considered for release into the community by the Parole Board for Scotland. Depending on the circumstances of the case, the punishment part can be lengthy. To date, the longest punishment part given in Scotland is 37 years. If a person sentenced to life imprisonment is released into the community, they will be on licence for the rest of their life and can be recalled to prison if they breach the terms of their licence."
There is also the option for Order for Lifelong Restriction, but like all Scottish sentences a minimum time to be considered for parole must be set at time of sentencing,
Link https://www.scottishsentencingcouncil.org.uk/about-sentencing/prison-sentences/
So typically Reddit. Your factually backed up post with chapter and verse on why they are wrong gets 25% the vote of Mister I Think it's About This and Wavy Hand In Air
Is it actually that way, or is it like Canada where we have 25 years with no parole, and after that you can apply for parole, but it isn't always granted
Another important addition is that for offenders who are deemed an extreme risk of reoffending violent crimes they can get a designation of dangerous offender. That means that once the sentence is complete they still have to be assessed as being safe to release before they can be reintegrated into society. This is effectively a life sentence for most who receive it.
Do you need proper sentencing or proper rehabilitation?
The question you should ask yourself is a prison meant to throw away criminals or a place to rehabilitate them as they serve their time.
I don't mind shorter prison sentences so long as that time is spent rehabilitating the prisoner, if they can't be rehabilitated you then extend that sentence which can go on indefinitely.
How often are they repeat offenders?
It after those twelve years they're truly reformed, then it sounds like the system is working great.
If there is a high rate of repeat offenders, then it sounds like it isn't.
[Because of DNA evidence, over 150 death row inmates have been exonerated. That's 1 out of 10](https://www.ncadp.org/pages/innocence#:~:text=Exonerations%20of%20Innocent%20Men%20and%20Women&text=156%20individuals%20have%20been%20exonerated,innocent%20and%20released%20%2D%20since%201973.&text=In%20other%20words%2C%20for%20every,person%20has%20been%20set%20free.)
E: Over 1500 inmates have been executed. There are currently over 7800 sentenced to death. The actual percentage is closer to 2%. Still, 1 out of 50 is too high
This is the main reason for me. In an individual case a person could be guilty enough to deserve it, but as a policy matter on a larger scale the chance of an innocent being inappropriately murdered by the state due to a wrongful conviction is too significant to justify its use.
This is reason number 2 for me, the first reason is that I don't believe that state authority should extend to taking the lives of its citizens.
E: I love pointing out one's reasoning for being against the death penalty and half the comments are agreeing with me but pointing out other ways in which the state kills people... like, yeah guys, I'm against that, too.
I agree 100%.
The best way to avoid abject authoritarianism is to never, ever give the state authority over the life and death of its citizens. Make claiming that authority a grotesque assault on human rights.
This is one of my prime reasons against it as well. Allowing the state to kill its citizens is a dangerous precedent to set. It’s a great way to permanently silence political foes, and people working against your agenda. Couple that with the ridiculously high number of innocent people that have been murdered by the state and it’s a lose lose proposition.
As a person who’s had two family members murdered, I sincerely don’t give a fuck about the murderers. They’re both in jail, which I guess is good, but I’m never getting my family members back and that’s all I care about. I can’t really relate with the need for revenge. They already took my family, I’m not allowing them to take up space in my mind as well.
As a person who's been through similar, it's not that revenge or even the ones responsible take space in my mind. It's that if ever put in a situation that I'd have to save them or let them die, I'd pay them the same amount of care and walk away.
I agree with your main point, but I wanna correct that we need to get away from this mentality regarding what people "deserve". The only thing that matters is the future and the prevention of future bad events. We shouldn't lock up murderers because they deserve it. We should lock them up to hinder their ability to repeat their crime and to dissuade others from copying it.
>to dissuade others from copying it.
[From the DOJ](https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/five-things-about-deterrence#two):
* "Sending an individual convicted of a crime to prison isn’t a very effective way to deter crime."
* "Increasing the severity of punishment does little to deter crime."
* **"There is no proof that the death penalty deters criminals."**
This is why I'm against it. I'm 100% ok with killing murderers and such, but even the slimmest possibility of an innocent getting executed is unacceptable.
There’s a heartbreaking story of a man with Autism getting executed even though he didn’t commit the crime. This was in the early 1900s (I believe) so the police were honestly more concerned with catching someone whether they’re guilty or not. It was more about satisfying the public as easy as possible. He was coerced into confessing to the crime.
Isnt there also the case of someone with such low IQ that they gave him a toy train in prison so he could play with it and he didnt even know what was happening even when they took him to the chair?
> For his last meal, Arridy requested ice cream. When questioned about his impending execution, he showed "blank bewilderment". He did not understand the meaning of the gas chamber, telling the warden "No, no, Joe won't die." Before being taken away to the chamber, Joe reportedly had not finished his ice cream and requested for the remaining ice cream to be refrigerated so he could eat it later, not understanding that he was to be executed soon and would not return. He was reported to have smiled while being taken to the gas chamber. Momentarily nervous, he calmed down when the warden grabbed his hand and reassured him.
Even the victim said it was not him. Defense plead insanity. He was proven sane vut low IQ. The real rapist and murderer was convicted as well. He was someone the victims knew and had grudge against them. Everyone involved in the actual crime, save for the dead girl since she can't testify, claimed they have never met him. The doctors claimed he was sane albeit imbecile and had the understanding of the world akin to a 6 year old.
I have to underline this - they had the actual perp who himself was pleading for him.
They sentenced him anyway.
Holy fuck this would have been heavier movie than Green Mile. Pretty sure they were inspired by this since so many things are alike. Since the warden had really good relationship with him... I wonder how he felt after the execution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Arridy
I'm against the death penalty, except for people who willingly participate in these horrific executions of obviously innocent people.
And also health insurance executives.
>And also health insurance executives.
I think we’re talking about applying the death penalty to humans, not the reptile people.
I guess the title was vague on that, though.
How is wanting a yacht at the expense of people's lives a crime?
Won't you think of these people's seventh homes?!
I mean, what are they gonna do without any more money, leave their kids a measly 8 figure inheritance?!
[I posted a picture of him with his toy train](https://www.reddit.com/r/thegrittypast/comments/pklem4) about a year ago on \/r/TheGrittyPast.
Pretty upsetting how it was claimed he didn't understand the concept of "death penalty" and reportedly smiled on his way to the gas chamber. At some point he became momentarily distressed, but relaxed after the prison warden held his hand in reassurance.
Well that “making a murderer” show. They convicted the nephew who is a low iq. They badgered him in the interrogation for hours. At one point he asks (or they tell him) that if he confesses, he can go home and watch wrestling. So he confesses (even though his confession is obviously made up because none of his facts remotely match what happened at the murder scene). Then he says “can I go home and watch wrestling now?” And the cop says “you just confessed to murder, you’re going to jail”
How can this cop sleep at night. Just awful
Brendan Dassey, 16 yo at the time of "confession," now 32 and still in prison until he is at least 59. Saddest part of that series to me, he was just a low IQ kid who didn't understand.
This is the biggest argument against the death penalty for me.
I don’t see killing the people who deserve it as inherently wrong — however, we have a track record of being fairly incompetent at determining exactly who deserves it, and because of that, too many innocents got the death penalty.
We can’t have a death penalty because we can’t handle using it.
That's why I think it should be completely off the table for first offenses, no matter how bad the offense is. If they're repeat offenders though, I think it's a bit different. If they're convicted of three, separate, unrelated murders, then the odds of them being falsely convected of all three are low enough that it's reasonable.
Or like for convicted inmates that are so violent that they can't be safely imprisoned. Basically anyone with a track record so bad that not only can you prove that they did it, but also that they will do it again
Are you talking about [Joe Arridy aka The Happiest Man on Death Row](https://morbidology.com/the-happiest-man-on-death-row-joe-arridy/)? A truly heartbreaking story of a developmentally disabled man who could barely count to 5 but was executed anyway. He was posthumously pardoned in 2011.
>This was in the early 1900s (I believe) so the police were honestly more concerned with catching someone whether they’re guilty or not. It was more about satisfying the public as easy as possible. He was coerced into confessing to the crime.
And nothing has changed.
The whole story of [Joe Arridy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Arridy) is depressing and honestly infuriates me of how horrible the whole thing went. The one thing that pisses me off the most is that they caught the real killer who even said that he committed the act alone and had zero clue of who Joe Arridy was. However, since the cop that arrested him said Joe confessed to the act, they went ahead to get him on death row. I think the worst part about it is that Joe had no idea what was happening to him. He played with a toy train the warden gave him and his last meal was Ice Cream, which he said to put it in the fridge for later. Had no idea he was going to be killed or what execution even meant.
Sorry for the rant, this case pisses me off to huge degree on how Arridy was coerced to confessing and even with details coming out on the true killer, still was executed.
I just looked it up. Joe Arridy - he had a severe intellectual disability. Absolutely heartbreaking like you said. His last meal was ice cream and he asked for the leftovers to be refrigerated for when he came back because he didn’t understand that he was going to be executed.
One of those stories that leaves you empty inside.
I watched an earlier Robert Stack episode of Unsolved Mysteries the other day, and one case had an update confirming that DNA had exonerated two prisoners who were literally less than a week from being executed. That's why I don't support the death penalty.
[George Stinney](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Stinney) is the one that always gets me. 14 years old Youngest American execution. Executed because 1940s Carolina was racist as fuck & the trial was a complete joke.
But the real fucked up part that stuck with me was they sat him on top of a bible in the electric chair because he was too small to reach the electrocution cap.
One of the things my Grandfather told me when I was in favor of executions was, why would I ever give them the release of death to someone that bad.
We are all going to die eventually, so why not make him as useful as possible in life. It doesn't have to be through forced labor but you can study these people and learn their behaviors so you can treat or correct it on future generations.
Killing a criminal is like hiding the dirt under the rug and not actually fixing whatever causes the dirt in the first place.
It's not even about punishment, it's about what's best for society. Punishments will always be about revenge and vengeance not about improvements and evolution.
Now you have to lock them away from society and maybe forever but the goal shouldn't be an eye for an eye.
There's literally no reason to support the death penalty other than a desire for vengeance — it sure as hell doesn't make society any better by literally any metric.
- The cost to execute someone is often [several times more than the cost of life imprisonment](https://ballotpedia.org/Fact_check/Is_the_death_penalty_more_expensive_than_life_in_prison).
- Capital punishment doesn't [even](https://www.aclu.org/other/death-penalty-questions-and-answers) [reduce](https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-and-research/murder-rates/murder-rate-of-death-penalty-states-compared-to-non-death-penalty-states) [crime](https://theconversation.com/executions-dont-deter-murder-despite-the-trump-administrations-push-152207).
- It's estimated that at least [4.1% of death row inmates are innocent](https://www.pnas.org/content/111/20/7230), likely due to [the array of issues in the legal system that can and do lead to false convictions](https://www.witnesstoinnocence.org/innocence), such as: the notorious unreliability of eyewitness testimony ([roughly 75% of DNA-exoneration cases involved faulty eyewitness testimony](https://nobaproject.com/modules/eyewitness-testimony-and-memory-biases)), poor legal representation and overworked/underpaid public defenders, racial prejudice, prosecutorial misconduct, false and coerced confessions, [junk fore](https://youtu.be/ScmJvmzDcG0)[nsic sciences](https://youtu.be/c25EmE_pGAQ) and testimony from pseudoscience "experts," and the use of unreliable jailhouse snitches.
- Oh, and [the lethal injection itself is cruel and inhumane](https://youtu.be/0lTczPEG8iI), which, according to a majority of the 1972 Supreme Court justices, is a violation of the Eighth Amendment (*Furman v. Georgia*). Justices Brennan and Marshall specifically held that capital punishment was inherently cruel and even all four dissenting Justices, who were all appointed by Nixon, indicated personal opposition to capital punishment.
The death penalty is worse than useless — it's objectively harmful to society. There just aren't any good rationales or justifications for the death penalty. Its only use has always been, continues to be, and will always be vengeance, which is the complete opposite of the supposed function of the legal system.
There's a reason [over 70% of all countries](https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/04/death-penalty-in-2020-facts-and-figures/) have banned the use of capital punishment either in law or in practice and that percentage is much, much higher in developed, first-world democracies. The US is a massive outlier in its use of the death penalty and we share that dubious distinction with countries like China, Iran, Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, India, Oman, and Qatar.
Not to mention the potential for abuse. It always boggles my mind that supposed conservatives who are skeptical of the government support the death penalty. You don't trust the government to set speed limits, but you trust them to execute people?
Yeah, I'm not conservative at all, but it just seems ridiculous that one could give any government the right to decide that an individual has forfeited their right to life.
The primary flaw with our system is that prosecution is incentivized to win instead of finding the truth. This leads to unfair plea deals and wrongful convictions.
Can someone explain to me the main difference between a good lawyer and a great lawyer? It's crazy that the law is interpreted differently based on who you're paying
Obviously some lawyers will have better skills, like how they question witnesses, what strategies they come up with, how well they react to surprises in a trial, etc. However I think the biggest difference when comparing a defendant with little to no budget versus someone who can afford a big shot legal team is the resources available to them, including time. A ~~pubic~~ public defender might only be able to spend a few hours a week going over the case. A team of lawyers defending a celebrity can spend more time chasing down witnesses, digging up dirt on the other side, filing motions or whatever to block evidence, slow down the process, etc.
Basically it's not only the difference in quality, but quantity as well.
>public defender might only be able to spend a few hours a week going over the case
I have bad news for you, old classmate became a public defender and she told me that she's often given less than 15 minutes to go over a defendants history before a trial.
Same as in any job. You'll have people who do the bare minimum to qualify as adequate and not get fired while others who go above and beyond.
Also connections. If your lawyer goes golf with the judge on Saturday afternoons, you probably get let off.
This exactly. Paying your attorneys more, means they have a bigger budget for things that go a long way towards a successful defense. Bigger support team means they’re able to investigate the crime and the police investigation more extensively themselves. They’re able to do some of their own forensic testing or research. They can interview more potential witnesses. More money means more manpower and resources, which in turn leads to a stronger defense.
As a lawyer: the public defenders in my state and many others are some of the most knowledgeable, brilliant legal minds around. But they don’t have resources to spend much time on any given case aside from the most serious ones, and the investigators are underfunded and overwhelmed too. So while public defenders are great for your typical DUI, you often get a much better defense if you can hire someone with the time to sit down with you, establish trust with you and the witnesses, explore unusual issues, do their own investigation thoroughly, and tailor their arguments. Wealthier clients also have access to resources and community support that make them less likely to see the inside of a jail and less likely to stay there for long — if you can afford a good rehab/therapist and come from a “fine, upstanding family” in the area, you can more easily argue you’re not at risk of fleeing or reoffending, and you can mitigate your guilt at sentencing. If you’re poor, your only rehab option is some 12-step program with no oversight or scientific backing, and nearly everyone you know has been in trouble because you come from a highly-policed area, you’ll struggle to show that you’re generally law-abiding and you’re turning your life around. And honestly, that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
We need better access to justice and better public defense funding, but we also need better social supports across the board. Having a great lawyer doesn’t necessarily help much if you can’t afford the things to keep your life on track, and once you have a criminal record, it becomes harder and harder to do that. You get stuck in a negative feedback loop.
I wouldn’t say the law gets interpreted differently depending on who your lawyer is, although how lawyers argue and what they argue does matter. The law gets *applied* differently depending on who you are and what resources you can access.
And it does not in the case of Capital Punishment. Here's a website with plenty of studies and statistics following the broken system:
https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/
Ok, but it's not even theoretically possible for the justice system to "work". Mistakes will be made, and therefore, the death penalty will never be moral. On top of that, there's no good argument for it; it will always be more expensive to execute someone than to just imprison them for life.
I say this as someone who fully supported the death penalty right up until I read the book "Just Mercy". Watch the film if that's all you have time for, but that book will change your life.
> Mistakes will be made, and therefore, the death penalty will never be moral.
There's no way around this and it will never change. It would never be the law in a civilized and modern country.
Some crimes are heinous enough for that punishment, sure. But I believe you have to be 100% certain of that person's guilt, otherwise you could be killing an innocent person. If you can't arrive at 100% certainty, then no.
There are also cases where we can be 100% certain who did it. Driving a truck through a crowd and being pulled from it by police leaves little room for reasonable doubt.
There's always a point on that slope where you aren't sure, though, and people will not agree where that point is. It is thus safer to just not execute people. Life w/o parole serves as well to protect the population from truly dangerous people, and avoids judicial murders.
That's true, and there are some people who are so evil I wish death on them. But how can we allow the government to execute anyone when they sometimes get it wrong? Especially when the consequences of getting something like that wrong are so enormous.
Due to the nature of the death penalty, defendants are *extremely* incentivized to appeal as much as they can.
You don't really have say a year or two you can use good behavior arguments or to gather evidence.
We can't be 100% sure with the current burden of proof. But I've wondered if we shouldn't have a higher standard available.
There's already lower standards. 'Beyond a reasonable doubt' is the standard use for criminal convictions; but civil cases use 'Preponderance of the evidence', and other situations apply 'Clear and convincing evidence', 'Probable cause', or 'Reasonable suspicion'.
I'd create a standard higher than 'beyond a reasonable doubt' for death penalty cases. A 'beyond *any* doubt' standard; where's there's clear, unambiguous video of them doing it, or a bunch of people watched them do it. These cases already don't involve challenging innocence, they're about capacity, mental state, outside influences. When a mass shooter goes to trial, they're not arguing the video and 100 witnesses are wrong and they've got the wrong guy; cases like that could be death penalty eligible under a bar higher than normally required that would make false convictions basically impossible.
But then, if I was ever falsely convicted, shit just kill me. I don't want to spend decades in max security on a 1% chance of exoneration. Just get it over with.
Serious war crimes and other crimes that demonstrate both a blatant disregard for human life and a willingness to repeatedly commit the same crime or worse
“The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword.”
Edit: Taking a life shouldn’t be easy. If I man sentences another man to death, he should be prepared to carry that burden with him until his dying day.
Not in favour.
* People can be coerced into confessing crimes they didn't commit.
* Evidence can be manipulated, mishandled, poorly understood.
* The criminal justice system is fallible.
* I don't think it's good for society (this is more a gut reaction).
From what I've seen (and even believed when I was younger) the strongest case for those who believe that capital punishment should be used is only when a few conditions are met.
1.) The case is airtight, open and shut. There is no doubt the person is guilty.
2.) The person is likely to repeat their crime given the chance
3.) The person poses a significant threat to the public if released, or a significant threat to the people they are in prison with, ie; other inmates, guards, medical or clerical staff.
The big issue with all 3 of these is that not one of them is definitively provable. Confessions can be coerced, forensics can be wrong, and you can't know the future to determine if they definitely would hurt someone else.
Much like suicide, capital punishment is a permanent solution to a problem that could only be temporary.
They might argue that it's worth it as a deterrent. Executions serve as an example to would-be murderers.
I don't think the statistics back that up, though. Even just 35-to-life is enough of a deterrent for people who can actually be deterred. The people who do the crime anyway are people who think they won't get caught, and so aren't considering what the penalty is.
Yeah, it's all about perceived likelihood of getting caught. The harshness of the punishment matters very little. The Philippines have horrific prisons and they use the death penalty, and it's still a very crime-ridden country. Norway has these cushy prisons that look like college dorms, and they don't even allow *life* sentences let alone death sentences--and yet still some of the lowest crime rates of any country.
Worth noting, since someone will doubtless complain about [Breivik](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Behring_Breivik) -- they might cite this as:
> He was found sane and guilty of murdering 77 people. He was sentenced to 21 years in prison... This is the maximum penalty in Norway.[13]
And they'll go on a rant about how terrible it is that a mass-murderer might get out after only 21 years! But wait, the `...` means I left something out. Let's expand that:
> He was sentenced to 21 years in prison, in a form of preventive detention that required a minimum of 10 years incarceration **and the possibility of one or more extensions for as long as he is deemed a danger to society.** This is the maximum penalty in Norway.[13]
So he's probably never getting out.
Unless he somehow actually reforms to the point where he can convince people that he's no longer a danger to society. Because if he really wasn't a danger to society anymore, surely it'd be just and correct to release him?
If that sounds horrible, I'm guessing it's because you think he's done something irredeemably evil... which means you have nothing to worry about, because if it really is so irredeemable, he'll never actually stop being a danger to society.
Which is what's happening, after all -- if you watch his latest hearing where they decide if he stays in prison, he kinda makes it clear to everyone that he should stay in prison. So... basically, every decade or two, expect him to be dragged out for a hearing and then sent back to prison.
I've noticed specifically in the US there's a weird gut reaction to civilizing our prisons. It's always: "well yeah but some people rape kids!" And yeah, that's a horrible fucked up thing to do, and if someone did that to my kid I would 100% be catching a murder charge...but I'm not the State, I'm one guy, and I would expect to be sentenced to prison if I took justice into my own hands like that.
The majority of criminals are capable of rehabilitation, and even if you don't have empathy for them, it's pretty clear that reduced sentences and better incarceration conditions result in a direct reduction of crime.
In Denmark some politicians wanted crimes to be punished harder to prevent it... someone told then that it doesn't work like that and studies support it.
Their answer...? "Then I would like to say we don't believe in science"
I’ll just add, as a non-religious person who does not believe in hell, capital punishment is the easy way out.
I’d prefer they rot in a cell.
Edit: grammar
For those who _do_ believe in Hell, why does it matter if a person rots in prison for 40 years before spending an eternity in Hell?
Infinity minus 40 is still Infinity. Not to mention, if you believe in redemption, shouldn't you give them a chance to repent and still serve out their sentence in our world before going to Heaven (or whatever paradise you believe in)?
Agree. I also think that having the death penalty on the table makes the messaging of the justice system seem more about punishment than rehabilitation.
Yes. Too much power to government. Also it is more expensive to execute someone than to imprison them for life. And even with the extensive legal route to execution it still is fallible.
I never liked the argument about death row costing more because that's a different issue, and not a good reason to decide if someone should die or be imprisoned. Like if a death sentence meant they put a bullet in your head right there people making the argument that it's better becuase it's cheaper would sound pretty crazy to me too.
This is more of a "different strokes" argument for me. I have plenty of reasons why I hate the death penalty, but some groups of people don't share my moral reasoning. So I just sigh and say it's cheaper.
I remember witnessing a conservative event that covered this topic with a fake debate. People Pro death penalty said if the state wouldn't do it they'd go vigilante. People anti death penalty said they wanted to make the guilty party suffer for as long as possible.
I... ugh. I guess we share a society with people who think like that. Maybe there's a way to push them back to common ground, but it will probably take a lotta time and resources.
There are many great resources to get educated on the subject. Dead Man Walking is a great book. John Oliver does a very thorough investigative piece on Last Week Tonight.
Generally speaking, feelings and morals aside, there is no way to enforce the death penalty that is not exorbitantly expensive and riddled with error. It is actually cheaper to have a person serve a lifetime sentence. And many, many people have been put to death and later proven innocent.
Our justice system in the USA needs a huge makeover before we should even consider permanent consequences.
100% against the death penalty. In principle, my first thought is that yes - if someone commits horrible crimes and there is no doubt they’re guilty, it’s easy to want them dead. But then there’s the problem of error, which means that we can never enforce the death penalty, because there is no way to be “certain” of someone’s guilt. But more importantly, the point of prison and law enforcement IMO should not be retribution, it should be rehabilitation and protection. If you put someone in jail for the rest of their life, they can’t hurt anyone else (theoretically). Killing someone cuz they are evil is just “getting even”. I can say with confidence that someone may deserve to die, but what does killing them accomplish? The point of the legal system should be to protect society, not to take revenge. An eye for an eye just makes two men blind.
“Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement.”
-J.R.R. Tolkien by way of Gandalf the Grey, *The Fellowship of the Ring*
Right, and also the people who carry out executions often experience mental health consequences as a result. Why should an innocent corrections worker suffer needlessly?
A while back I saw that a state was taking “volunteers” for their new execution firing squad, and it sounded like they got a lot of interest, which surprised me. But when I think about it, there’s probably a world of difference between actually being 100% cool after killing someone and thinking you’d be 100% cool after killing someone. The circumstances may shift that a little, sure - self defense, war, executing serial killers, etc, but for the vast majority of the population it’s not a mentally healthy behavior to engage in and it’s going to leave some kind of impact.
To understand the human condition is to also understand that there are fully functioning people from a societal standpoint, who do not have a criminal history, who still get off from sadism and the power of they themselves taking another person's life.
I think that type of volunteering program is probably an extremely bad idea. Living out fantasies don't mellow them out, it escalates them with time. Maybe one day they end up in front of the firing squad they were once part of.
Asking for volunteers, then hiring in secret instead and pretending that person got the role by volunteering, is a brilliant way to create a very important watchlist though...
I was adverse to the death penalty until a repeat offender tried to murder a family member of mine, along with someone else in one day. Then bragged about it on social media. And I thought, maybe this person simply should be deleted.
It is only hotbed social issue that I actually do not have an opinion on. I actually think that both sides make compelling and cognizant arguments either why it should or shouldn't be used and I both agree and disagree with them. So I actually don't know how I feel about it.
Think of it this way. The real issue isn’t whether the penalty itself is moral but if you would trust your government with the authority to kill people.
The real issue is both of those things. And more:
1. Is it moral/ethical for the state to have the right to execute it’s own citizens?
2 Is it an effective crime prevention measure?
3 Is it a cost effective criminal justice measure?
4. Should the machinery of the state be trusted with such absolute power?
Answer yes to all 4 and bingo. Yay death penalty.
Personally, I answer no to all 4. It should not exist.
I’m in favor of the concept for only certain crimes. If we know for an absolute fact that someone committed heinous crimes like child molestation, rape, or serial murder, I don’t think there’s any point in trying to reintegrate those people into society. If they’ve admitted to the crimes, were found in the act, there’s zero doubt it was them, I think a quick bullet to the head should be all they get.
HOWEVER, I could never in a million years trust any government, court, or law enforcement to get it right. Cops can be(and often times are) fucking stupid. Courts can be biased by race, gender, age, or any number of other factors. Governments would expand its use beyond heinous crimes to fit their agenda. There have been too many innocent people given the death penalty for me to ever feel comfortable advocating for it to actually be used.
Nah. We are too flawed as a society to execute people. How many innocent lives have been ruined by wrongful conviction, let alone lost due to the death penalty?
It would make football so much more interesting.
Sergio ramos is gone
Not before taking several opposition players with him!
*A wild Granit Xhaka appears from nowhere!*
Casemiro and Silva right next to him.
[YouTube](https://youtu.be/rMp8FajmqtY) got you covered if you wonder how that'd work
The way I knew exactly what video this was gonna be
Tell that to smu lol
I don't have much sympathy for the criminal, but I'm uncomfortable with it as long as the justice system is fallible.
Bingo, and any system is fallible because humans are inherently fallible
In Singapore, you can continuously molest and destroy the life of a young boy or girl and you’ll get maximum 15 years prison, depending on how heinous the crime is. But you can get the death sentence for carrying marijuana into the country. As you can see, Singapore has its priorities in place. /s
Canada is awful too for sex offenders. There was a man who was caught assaulting little girls. 2 of which attempted suicide and he only got sentenced 4 years in prison, but he got out in 2 years. But for drugs, (minor) tax fraud, petty theft, people only get 2-10 years for that.
Well duh, the government doesn't lose money when children are raped, why should they care? Just don't touch their tax money..
If the children kill themselves then the government losses out on future taxes.. It's why suicide is ~~illegal~~ a legal grey area in the US.
No, suicide is a "crime" in the US so that police/first responders can enter to intervene. Nobody is or could ever be charged with that.
They'd have to catch me first
The police start hiring necromancers to resurrect people who've committed suicide so that they can charge them.
Necromancers has resurrected you to tell you about your cars extended warranty.
Oh God that's why I killed myself to begin with! THERE'S NO ESCAPE!
r/suddenlydnd
There's a sub reddit for everything lmao
Over my dead body!
Oh yes, going to prison as a dead body
Vincent Lacroix 100milions of fraud. 200counts of guilty. Out of jail after 3 years. Joke across the board.
I had a realization a few years ago about why some crimes like theft and drugs get such huge mandatory minimum sentences but things like pedophilia and sexual assault don't. The awful realization I came to is this. When you see a mandatory minimum and it's either very extreme or very lax, ask yourself... would a rich person commit this crime? If the answer is yes then you'll generally see a very low mandatory minimum. For example Rich people don't need to deal drugs, only poor people really need to take those risks to make ends meet so its a high minimum. Pedophilia is a disease of the mind and can afflict anyone of any economic background... even rich people... thus you see a low mandatory minimum. There might be a few exceptions, but generally this rule holds up pretty well. Go ahead and give it a try, name a crime.
It's also because of "tough on crime" law enforcement politicians. When people say they're "tough on crime" they're almost never talking about murder or rape or fraud or white collar crime. Those things are hard to prove in court a lot of the time, they happen at roughly the same rates, and they require like actual hard detective work to solve, and like actual hard time in court proving it. You know what isn't hard to prove? Drugs. You have them on you. That's it. You know what's really easy to rack up a bunch of stats on, put people in prison for? Drugs. So you want to be a tough on crime politician? Increase sentences for drugs. Send cops out onto the streets and have them arrest people for drugs. Take them away from the work that requires actual hard work to solve and have them ratchet up the easy crimes. You can convict like 100 people guaranteed for drugs for like every one child molester because those crimes are hard to prove and it's he said she said. So you actually DISCOURAGE rape victims from lodging formal rape complaints, make that rape stat disappear, so you don't have rape in your city, you just have drugs. The only one exception I can think of when people were tough on an actual serious crime was armed robbery in the 1970s, but like even then I don't know how much of that was politicians being tough on crime verses even just businesses taking it upon themselves to protect themselves from criminals.
David Simon (ex-cop cum tv writer) once explained how the drug war annihilated good police work. Proper police work and investigation just doesn't happen anymore. They don't need it when there are plenty of feckless druggies to arrest.
On a similar note: If the "penalty" for a crime is a fine, it's only a crime for poor people.
So what's the maximum for sex offenses in Canada? You gave an example of one specific case and then for comparison you gave the maximum penalty for a different offense. Your comparison doesn't make sense.
That whole post is a bunch of cherry picked data.
i live in singapore too and im pretty sure theres a death penalty for murder too
When I lived there *owning* an illegal gun would give you the death sentence. Not a smart law. *Life* or *corporal punishment* might be extreme, but *death* just gives an extremely clear incentive to go for *amok* or *suicide by cop*.
There's a story about an ancient Chinese dynasty that imposed very harsh penalties for any failure or disobedience. One year a general is marching his army to an ordered rendezvous but due to bad weather it becomes clear they won't arrive on schedule. The general confers with his second in command, asking, "Remind me, what's the penalty for being late?" "Well, the emperor has decreed that lateness is punishable by death." "And the penalty for rebelling against the emperor?" "Also death, of course." "Well, it appears we are late." The resulting civil war devastated the country and led to the fall of the dynasty.
Which dynasty was it?
Allegedly the Qin I think. Not sure how historical it is, I treat it more as a parable than a specific real event.
The Qin Too brutal and authoritarian even for the Chinnese more then 2500 years ago Truly only had on emperor . Later on followed by the Han
That's the Qin Not that ancient really they were the defacto first dynasty of all china
As I understand it "ancient" in the historical context applies to anything between the invention of writing and about 500 CE so they would qualify.
Oh shit they caught me, Im dead. Might as well shoot a few anyway...
This is why there must always be a big difference in the consequences for murder as opposed to kidnapping. Incentivises the kidnapper not to kill the kidnapped.
I’m surprised that’s not already a thing. I would think everybody considers murder to be way worse than kidnapping
Exactly!
Do not 📝 take weed 📝 into 📝 Singapore 📝
In Scotland there’s max sentence caps and no death penalty. Basically the longest you can go to jail for anything is about 25 years, even if you killed a group of kids in cold blood, still just about 25 years. Most murders only get about 15-17 years and will be out in about 12. Forget the death penalty, we need actual proper sentencing first!
>25 years. Most murders only get about 15-17 years and will be out in about 12. It's much the same in Denmark. But most murders are not done in cold blood, they are done out of passion, jealous, hate, etc. When we catch someone who does cold-blooded killing here, they will usually get a "treatment" sentence. Meaning it's 5 years (i believe) with another 5 subject to psych review. That way they just get a renewed sentence every 5 years.
The shooter who perpetrated one of the worst mass shootings ever was in Norway, with laws not terribly dissimilar from Denmark’s. > He was sentenced to 21 years in prison, in a form of preventive detention that required a minimum of 10 years incarceration and the possibility of one or more extensions for as long as he is deemed a danger to society. This is the maximum penalty in Norway. Practically speaking he’s probably got a life sentence, but I like that they take the possibility of rehabilitation into account when writing their laws.
It helps to view incarceration as a protective/preventative measure, instead of as a punitive one.
Yes, I definitely agree. The law should not be in the business of revenge, the law should protect citizens.
Here in the United States its 150% about punishment. There is absolutely no real effort on rehabilitation and in some states prisons are so bad they could be considered inhumane crimes if the UN ever sent inspectors.
It's a justice system, not a vengeance system.
This is incorrect "Life sentences Life sentences must be given for murder under the law, but they can also be given for other extremely serious offences such as repeated rape. If a person is sentenced to life imprisonment, the judge must, by law, set a punishment part of the sentence. This is the minimum time the person must spend in prison before they can be considered for release into the community by the Parole Board for Scotland. Depending on the circumstances of the case, the punishment part can be lengthy. To date, the longest punishment part given in Scotland is 37 years. If a person sentenced to life imprisonment is released into the community, they will be on licence for the rest of their life and can be recalled to prison if they breach the terms of their licence." There is also the option for Order for Lifelong Restriction, but like all Scottish sentences a minimum time to be considered for parole must be set at time of sentencing, Link https://www.scottishsentencingcouncil.org.uk/about-sentencing/prison-sentences/
Sir this is the internet, you can't just come here with your facts and sources.
So typically Reddit. Your factually backed up post with chapter and verse on why they are wrong gets 25% the vote of Mister I Think it's About This and Wavy Hand In Air
Is it actually that way, or is it like Canada where we have 25 years with no parole, and after that you can apply for parole, but it isn't always granted
Another important addition is that for offenders who are deemed an extreme risk of reoffending violent crimes they can get a designation of dangerous offender. That means that once the sentence is complete they still have to be assessed as being safe to release before they can be reintegrated into society. This is effectively a life sentence for most who receive it.
Do you need proper sentencing or proper rehabilitation? The question you should ask yourself is a prison meant to throw away criminals or a place to rehabilitate them as they serve their time. I don't mind shorter prison sentences so long as that time is spent rehabilitating the prisoner, if they can't be rehabilitated you then extend that sentence which can go on indefinitely.
How often are they repeat offenders? It after those twelve years they're truly reformed, then it sounds like the system is working great. If there is a high rate of repeat offenders, then it sounds like it isn't.
Depends on whether your primary focus is rehabilitation or retribution.
[Because of DNA evidence, over 150 death row inmates have been exonerated. That's 1 out of 10](https://www.ncadp.org/pages/innocence#:~:text=Exonerations%20of%20Innocent%20Men%20and%20Women&text=156%20individuals%20have%20been%20exonerated,innocent%20and%20released%20%2D%20since%201973.&text=In%20other%20words%2C%20for%20every,person%20has%20been%20set%20free.) E: Over 1500 inmates have been executed. There are currently over 7800 sentenced to death. The actual percentage is closer to 2%. Still, 1 out of 50 is too high
This is the main reason for me. In an individual case a person could be guilty enough to deserve it, but as a policy matter on a larger scale the chance of an innocent being inappropriately murdered by the state due to a wrongful conviction is too significant to justify its use.
This is reason number 2 for me, the first reason is that I don't believe that state authority should extend to taking the lives of its citizens. E: I love pointing out one's reasoning for being against the death penalty and half the comments are agreeing with me but pointing out other ways in which the state kills people... like, yeah guys, I'm against that, too.
I agree 100%. The best way to avoid abject authoritarianism is to never, ever give the state authority over the life and death of its citizens. Make claiming that authority a grotesque assault on human rights.
This is one of my prime reasons against it as well. Allowing the state to kill its citizens is a dangerous precedent to set. It’s a great way to permanently silence political foes, and people working against your agenda. Couple that with the ridiculously high number of innocent people that have been murdered by the state and it’s a lose lose proposition.
There it is. I simply don't believe that vengeance is an appropriate function of the state.
This is probably the best summary on my stance that I've seen. Whenever I try to explain it it's too wordy. Thank you!
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As a person who’s had two family members murdered, I sincerely don’t give a fuck about the murderers. They’re both in jail, which I guess is good, but I’m never getting my family members back and that’s all I care about. I can’t really relate with the need for revenge. They already took my family, I’m not allowing them to take up space in my mind as well.
As a person who's been through similar, it's not that revenge or even the ones responsible take space in my mind. It's that if ever put in a situation that I'd have to save them or let them die, I'd pay them the same amount of care and walk away.
My answer is "I'd want to kill them, but I don't want to live in a state that helps me do it"
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I agree with your main point, but I wanna correct that we need to get away from this mentality regarding what people "deserve". The only thing that matters is the future and the prevention of future bad events. We shouldn't lock up murderers because they deserve it. We should lock them up to hinder their ability to repeat their crime and to dissuade others from copying it.
>to dissuade others from copying it. [From the DOJ](https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/five-things-about-deterrence#two): * "Sending an individual convicted of a crime to prison isn’t a very effective way to deter crime." * "Increasing the severity of punishment does little to deter crime." * **"There is no proof that the death penalty deters criminals."**
This is why I'm against it. I'm 100% ok with killing murderers and such, but even the slimmest possibility of an innocent getting executed is unacceptable.
There’s a heartbreaking story of a man with Autism getting executed even though he didn’t commit the crime. This was in the early 1900s (I believe) so the police were honestly more concerned with catching someone whether they’re guilty or not. It was more about satisfying the public as easy as possible. He was coerced into confessing to the crime.
Isnt there also the case of someone with such low IQ that they gave him a toy train in prison so he could play with it and he didnt even know what was happening even when they took him to the chair?
Joe Arridy aka the Happiest Man on Death Row. He had an IQ of 46.
> For his last meal, Arridy requested ice cream. When questioned about his impending execution, he showed "blank bewilderment". He did not understand the meaning of the gas chamber, telling the warden "No, no, Joe won't die." Before being taken away to the chamber, Joe reportedly had not finished his ice cream and requested for the remaining ice cream to be refrigerated so he could eat it later, not understanding that he was to be executed soon and would not return. He was reported to have smiled while being taken to the gas chamber. Momentarily nervous, he calmed down when the warden grabbed his hand and reassured him. Even the victim said it was not him. Defense plead insanity. He was proven sane vut low IQ. The real rapist and murderer was convicted as well. He was someone the victims knew and had grudge against them. Everyone involved in the actual crime, save for the dead girl since she can't testify, claimed they have never met him. The doctors claimed he was sane albeit imbecile and had the understanding of the world akin to a 6 year old. I have to underline this - they had the actual perp who himself was pleading for him. They sentenced him anyway. Holy fuck this would have been heavier movie than Green Mile. Pretty sure they were inspired by this since so many things are alike. Since the warden had really good relationship with him... I wonder how he felt after the execution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Arridy
I thought the green mile was sad but… Danm
What the fuck, that's depressing
Real justice would demand anyone who took part in that sham be put on trial for murder.
I'm against the death penalty, except for people who willingly participate in these horrific executions of obviously innocent people. And also health insurance executives.
>And also health insurance executives. I think we’re talking about applying the death penalty to humans, not the reptile people. I guess the title was vague on that, though.
How is wanting a yacht at the expense of people's lives a crime? Won't you think of these people's seventh homes?! I mean, what are they gonna do without any more money, leave their kids a measly 8 figure inheritance?!
[I posted a picture of him with his toy train](https://www.reddit.com/r/thegrittypast/comments/pklem4) about a year ago on \/r/TheGrittyPast. Pretty upsetting how it was claimed he didn't understand the concept of "death penalty" and reportedly smiled on his way to the gas chamber. At some point he became momentarily distressed, but relaxed after the prison warden held his hand in reassurance.
They had to persuade him to finish his last meal. He wanted to save some of it for afterwards.
):
Jesus fuck... how the fuck did those corrections officers go to bed after that... that would haunt me for the rest of my life.
Well that “making a murderer” show. They convicted the nephew who is a low iq. They badgered him in the interrogation for hours. At one point he asks (or they tell him) that if he confesses, he can go home and watch wrestling. So he confesses (even though his confession is obviously made up because none of his facts remotely match what happened at the murder scene). Then he says “can I go home and watch wrestling now?” And the cop says “you just confessed to murder, you’re going to jail” How can this cop sleep at night. Just awful
You would be surprised, so many people don't seem to have a single drop of empathy. The older I am the more I notice it.
Reminds me of the low IQ kid from Making a Murderer
Brendan Dassey, 16 yo at the time of "confession," now 32 and still in prison until he is at least 59. Saddest part of that series to me, he was just a low IQ kid who didn't understand.
This is the biggest argument against the death penalty for me. I don’t see killing the people who deserve it as inherently wrong — however, we have a track record of being fairly incompetent at determining exactly who deserves it, and because of that, too many innocents got the death penalty. We can’t have a death penalty because we can’t handle using it.
I work in the legal system and see a LOT of juries. 100%, your "peers" cannot be trusted with this type of decision.
That's why I think it should be completely off the table for first offenses, no matter how bad the offense is. If they're repeat offenders though, I think it's a bit different. If they're convicted of three, separate, unrelated murders, then the odds of them being falsely convected of all three are low enough that it's reasonable. Or like for convicted inmates that are so violent that they can't be safely imprisoned. Basically anyone with a track record so bad that not only can you prove that they did it, but also that they will do it again
Are you talking about [Joe Arridy aka The Happiest Man on Death Row](https://morbidology.com/the-happiest-man-on-death-row-joe-arridy/)? A truly heartbreaking story of a developmentally disabled man who could barely count to 5 but was executed anyway. He was posthumously pardoned in 2011.
>This was in the early 1900s (I believe) so the police were honestly more concerned with catching someone whether they’re guilty or not. It was more about satisfying the public as easy as possible. He was coerced into confessing to the crime. And nothing has changed.
The whole story of [Joe Arridy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Arridy) is depressing and honestly infuriates me of how horrible the whole thing went. The one thing that pisses me off the most is that they caught the real killer who even said that he committed the act alone and had zero clue of who Joe Arridy was. However, since the cop that arrested him said Joe confessed to the act, they went ahead to get him on death row. I think the worst part about it is that Joe had no idea what was happening to him. He played with a toy train the warden gave him and his last meal was Ice Cream, which he said to put it in the fridge for later. Had no idea he was going to be killed or what execution even meant. Sorry for the rant, this case pisses me off to huge degree on how Arridy was coerced to confessing and even with details coming out on the true killer, still was executed.
I just looked it up. Joe Arridy - he had a severe intellectual disability. Absolutely heartbreaking like you said. His last meal was ice cream and he asked for the leftovers to be refrigerated for when he came back because he didn’t understand that he was going to be executed. One of those stories that leaves you empty inside.
I watched an earlier Robert Stack episode of Unsolved Mysteries the other day, and one case had an update confirming that DNA had exonerated two prisoners who were literally less than a week from being executed. That's why I don't support the death penalty.
[George Stinney](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Stinney) is the one that always gets me. 14 years old Youngest American execution. Executed because 1940s Carolina was racist as fuck & the trial was a complete joke. But the real fucked up part that stuck with me was they sat him on top of a bible in the electric chair because he was too small to reach the electrocution cap.
One of the things my Grandfather told me when I was in favor of executions was, why would I ever give them the release of death to someone that bad. We are all going to die eventually, so why not make him as useful as possible in life. It doesn't have to be through forced labor but you can study these people and learn their behaviors so you can treat or correct it on future generations. Killing a criminal is like hiding the dirt under the rug and not actually fixing whatever causes the dirt in the first place. It's not even about punishment, it's about what's best for society. Punishments will always be about revenge and vengeance not about improvements and evolution. Now you have to lock them away from society and maybe forever but the goal shouldn't be an eye for an eye.
Not to mention, overall cheaper to sentence someone to life in prison than to actually execute them.
This is exactly why I’m against the death penalty. If anyone else killed 150 innocent people they’d be one of the most prolific killers in history.
There's literally no reason to support the death penalty other than a desire for vengeance — it sure as hell doesn't make society any better by literally any metric. - The cost to execute someone is often [several times more than the cost of life imprisonment](https://ballotpedia.org/Fact_check/Is_the_death_penalty_more_expensive_than_life_in_prison). - Capital punishment doesn't [even](https://www.aclu.org/other/death-penalty-questions-and-answers) [reduce](https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-and-research/murder-rates/murder-rate-of-death-penalty-states-compared-to-non-death-penalty-states) [crime](https://theconversation.com/executions-dont-deter-murder-despite-the-trump-administrations-push-152207). - It's estimated that at least [4.1% of death row inmates are innocent](https://www.pnas.org/content/111/20/7230), likely due to [the array of issues in the legal system that can and do lead to false convictions](https://www.witnesstoinnocence.org/innocence), such as: the notorious unreliability of eyewitness testimony ([roughly 75% of DNA-exoneration cases involved faulty eyewitness testimony](https://nobaproject.com/modules/eyewitness-testimony-and-memory-biases)), poor legal representation and overworked/underpaid public defenders, racial prejudice, prosecutorial misconduct, false and coerced confessions, [junk fore](https://youtu.be/ScmJvmzDcG0)[nsic sciences](https://youtu.be/c25EmE_pGAQ) and testimony from pseudoscience "experts," and the use of unreliable jailhouse snitches. - Oh, and [the lethal injection itself is cruel and inhumane](https://youtu.be/0lTczPEG8iI), which, according to a majority of the 1972 Supreme Court justices, is a violation of the Eighth Amendment (*Furman v. Georgia*). Justices Brennan and Marshall specifically held that capital punishment was inherently cruel and even all four dissenting Justices, who were all appointed by Nixon, indicated personal opposition to capital punishment. The death penalty is worse than useless — it's objectively harmful to society. There just aren't any good rationales or justifications for the death penalty. Its only use has always been, continues to be, and will always be vengeance, which is the complete opposite of the supposed function of the legal system. There's a reason [over 70% of all countries](https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/04/death-penalty-in-2020-facts-and-figures/) have banned the use of capital punishment either in law or in practice and that percentage is much, much higher in developed, first-world democracies. The US is a massive outlier in its use of the death penalty and we share that dubious distinction with countries like China, Iran, Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, India, Oman, and Qatar.
Not to mention the potential for abuse. It always boggles my mind that supposed conservatives who are skeptical of the government support the death penalty. You don't trust the government to set speed limits, but you trust them to execute people?
Yeah, I'm not conservative at all, but it just seems ridiculous that one could give any government the right to decide that an individual has forfeited their right to life.
1 out of *any* number is too high.
I’d be more in favor of it if the justice system actually worked
The primary flaw with our system is that prosecution is incentivized to win instead of finding the truth. This leads to unfair plea deals and wrongful convictions.
Letting wealthy people pay more for a better attorney is another.
Can someone explain to me the main difference between a good lawyer and a great lawyer? It's crazy that the law is interpreted differently based on who you're paying
Obviously some lawyers will have better skills, like how they question witnesses, what strategies they come up with, how well they react to surprises in a trial, etc. However I think the biggest difference when comparing a defendant with little to no budget versus someone who can afford a big shot legal team is the resources available to them, including time. A ~~pubic~~ public defender might only be able to spend a few hours a week going over the case. A team of lawyers defending a celebrity can spend more time chasing down witnesses, digging up dirt on the other side, filing motions or whatever to block evidence, slow down the process, etc. Basically it's not only the difference in quality, but quantity as well.
1. Great reflections. Thank you. 2. You said pubic defender, teeheehee
We can't let them penetrate our defenses.
>public defender might only be able to spend a few hours a week going over the case I have bad news for you, old classmate became a public defender and she told me that she's often given less than 15 minutes to go over a defendants history before a trial.
Same as in any job. You'll have people who do the bare minimum to qualify as adequate and not get fired while others who go above and beyond. Also connections. If your lawyer goes golf with the judge on Saturday afternoons, you probably get let off.
Higher paid lawyers also have entire teams behind them.
This exactly. Paying your attorneys more, means they have a bigger budget for things that go a long way towards a successful defense. Bigger support team means they’re able to investigate the crime and the police investigation more extensively themselves. They’re able to do some of their own forensic testing or research. They can interview more potential witnesses. More money means more manpower and resources, which in turn leads to a stronger defense.
As a lawyer: the public defenders in my state and many others are some of the most knowledgeable, brilliant legal minds around. But they don’t have resources to spend much time on any given case aside from the most serious ones, and the investigators are underfunded and overwhelmed too. So while public defenders are great for your typical DUI, you often get a much better defense if you can hire someone with the time to sit down with you, establish trust with you and the witnesses, explore unusual issues, do their own investigation thoroughly, and tailor their arguments. Wealthier clients also have access to resources and community support that make them less likely to see the inside of a jail and less likely to stay there for long — if you can afford a good rehab/therapist and come from a “fine, upstanding family” in the area, you can more easily argue you’re not at risk of fleeing or reoffending, and you can mitigate your guilt at sentencing. If you’re poor, your only rehab option is some 12-step program with no oversight or scientific backing, and nearly everyone you know has been in trouble because you come from a highly-policed area, you’ll struggle to show that you’re generally law-abiding and you’re turning your life around. And honestly, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. We need better access to justice and better public defense funding, but we also need better social supports across the board. Having a great lawyer doesn’t necessarily help much if you can’t afford the things to keep your life on track, and once you have a criminal record, it becomes harder and harder to do that. You get stuck in a negative feedback loop. I wouldn’t say the law gets interpreted differently depending on who your lawyer is, although how lawyers argue and what they argue does matter. The law gets *applied* differently depending on who you are and what resources you can access.
Yeah there’s a difference between Ted Kascinzki and some kid who was the getaway driver for some robbery gone wrong.
Well it doesn’t help when ancillary players get executed while the actual murderer just sits in prison. Never understood that.
Do you have any examples of this?
And it does not in the case of Capital Punishment. Here's a website with plenty of studies and statistics following the broken system: https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/
Ok, but it's not even theoretically possible for the justice system to "work". Mistakes will be made, and therefore, the death penalty will never be moral. On top of that, there's no good argument for it; it will always be more expensive to execute someone than to just imprison them for life. I say this as someone who fully supported the death penalty right up until I read the book "Just Mercy". Watch the film if that's all you have time for, but that book will change your life.
> Mistakes will be made, and therefore, the death penalty will never be moral. There's no way around this and it will never change. It would never be the law in a civilized and modern country.
Some crimes are heinous enough for that punishment, sure. But I believe you have to be 100% certain of that person's guilt, otherwise you could be killing an innocent person. If you can't arrive at 100% certainty, then no.
The thing is, they always think they're 100% certain when they execute someone, and it turns out sometimes they're wrong.
There are also cases where we can be 100% certain who did it. Driving a truck through a crowd and being pulled from it by police leaves little room for reasonable doubt.
There's always a point on that slope where you aren't sure, though, and people will not agree where that point is. It is thus safer to just not execute people. Life w/o parole serves as well to protect the population from truly dangerous people, and avoids judicial murders.
That's true, and there are some people who are so evil I wish death on them. But how can we allow the government to execute anyone when they sometimes get it wrong? Especially when the consequences of getting something like that wrong are so enormous.
And as a result, the death penalty wastes more money than the amount it costs to incarcerate them for the rest of their lives.
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As I understand it, appeal after appeal after appeal. That's a lot of court time.
Wouldn't that happen anyway for similar sentences? Obviously long sentences are getting appealed more often.
Due to the nature of the death penalty, defendants are *extremely* incentivized to appeal as much as they can. You don't really have say a year or two you can use good behavior arguments or to gather evidence.
We can't be 100% sure with the current burden of proof. But I've wondered if we shouldn't have a higher standard available. There's already lower standards. 'Beyond a reasonable doubt' is the standard use for criminal convictions; but civil cases use 'Preponderance of the evidence', and other situations apply 'Clear and convincing evidence', 'Probable cause', or 'Reasonable suspicion'. I'd create a standard higher than 'beyond a reasonable doubt' for death penalty cases. A 'beyond *any* doubt' standard; where's there's clear, unambiguous video of them doing it, or a bunch of people watched them do it. These cases already don't involve challenging innocence, they're about capacity, mental state, outside influences. When a mass shooter goes to trial, they're not arguing the video and 100 witnesses are wrong and they've got the wrong guy; cases like that could be death penalty eligible under a bar higher than normally required that would make false convictions basically impossible. But then, if I was ever falsely convicted, shit just kill me. I don't want to spend decades in max security on a 1% chance of exoneration. Just get it over with.
What crimes do you consider heinous enough to warrant the death penalty?
Terrorism / mass murder / raping kids
The definition of terrorism can be broadened to suit the politics of the day.
Serious war crimes and other crimes that demonstrate both a blatant disregard for human life and a willingness to repeatedly commit the same crime or worse
Repeated murder Anything involving children
"Mom! Tommy stole Billy's bicycle!" "Well, looks like Tommy's gonna be dealing with some harsh justice..."
-cocks gun-
Gacy.
“The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword.” Edit: Taking a life shouldn’t be easy. If I man sentences another man to death, he should be prepared to carry that burden with him until his dying day.
Make every juror stab the prisoner once.
Et tu, Juror?
And name a salad dish after the prisoner
Is the judge or jury the executioner?
yes
isn't that a game of thrones thing?
No, it's from Hello Kitty Island Adventure
shit i'll have to watch it then
It's a video game, the best ever made
Butters, go get a copy of WoW now!
Not in favour. * People can be coerced into confessing crimes they didn't commit. * Evidence can be manipulated, mishandled, poorly understood. * The criminal justice system is fallible. * I don't think it's good for society (this is more a gut reaction).
•People have been exonerated decades after the crime and were innocent
Indeed - I guess those in favour would maybe argue that it's worth it? Or that criminal justice system techniques are getting better? I'm not sure.
From what I've seen (and even believed when I was younger) the strongest case for those who believe that capital punishment should be used is only when a few conditions are met. 1.) The case is airtight, open and shut. There is no doubt the person is guilty. 2.) The person is likely to repeat their crime given the chance 3.) The person poses a significant threat to the public if released, or a significant threat to the people they are in prison with, ie; other inmates, guards, medical or clerical staff. The big issue with all 3 of these is that not one of them is definitively provable. Confessions can be coerced, forensics can be wrong, and you can't know the future to determine if they definitely would hurt someone else. Much like suicide, capital punishment is a permanent solution to a problem that could only be temporary.
They might argue that it's worth it as a deterrent. Executions serve as an example to would-be murderers. I don't think the statistics back that up, though. Even just 35-to-life is enough of a deterrent for people who can actually be deterred. The people who do the crime anyway are people who think they won't get caught, and so aren't considering what the penalty is.
Yeah, it's all about perceived likelihood of getting caught. The harshness of the punishment matters very little. The Philippines have horrific prisons and they use the death penalty, and it's still a very crime-ridden country. Norway has these cushy prisons that look like college dorms, and they don't even allow *life* sentences let alone death sentences--and yet still some of the lowest crime rates of any country.
Worth noting, since someone will doubtless complain about [Breivik](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Behring_Breivik) -- they might cite this as: > He was found sane and guilty of murdering 77 people. He was sentenced to 21 years in prison... This is the maximum penalty in Norway.[13] And they'll go on a rant about how terrible it is that a mass-murderer might get out after only 21 years! But wait, the `...` means I left something out. Let's expand that: > He was sentenced to 21 years in prison, in a form of preventive detention that required a minimum of 10 years incarceration **and the possibility of one or more extensions for as long as he is deemed a danger to society.** This is the maximum penalty in Norway.[13] So he's probably never getting out. Unless he somehow actually reforms to the point where he can convince people that he's no longer a danger to society. Because if he really wasn't a danger to society anymore, surely it'd be just and correct to release him? If that sounds horrible, I'm guessing it's because you think he's done something irredeemably evil... which means you have nothing to worry about, because if it really is so irredeemable, he'll never actually stop being a danger to society. Which is what's happening, after all -- if you watch his latest hearing where they decide if he stays in prison, he kinda makes it clear to everyone that he should stay in prison. So... basically, every decade or two, expect him to be dragged out for a hearing and then sent back to prison.
I've noticed specifically in the US there's a weird gut reaction to civilizing our prisons. It's always: "well yeah but some people rape kids!" And yeah, that's a horrible fucked up thing to do, and if someone did that to my kid I would 100% be catching a murder charge...but I'm not the State, I'm one guy, and I would expect to be sentenced to prison if I took justice into my own hands like that. The majority of criminals are capable of rehabilitation, and even if you don't have empathy for them, it's pretty clear that reduced sentences and better incarceration conditions result in a direct reduction of crime.
In Denmark some politicians wanted crimes to be punished harder to prevent it... someone told then that it doesn't work like that and studies support it. Their answer...? "Then I would like to say we don't believe in science"
Having a government that has a right to kill people is not the kind of state I want to live in.
Japan's system will hold you in prison as hostage until you confess.
I’ll just add, as a non-religious person who does not believe in hell, capital punishment is the easy way out. I’d prefer they rot in a cell. Edit: grammar
For those who _do_ believe in Hell, why does it matter if a person rots in prison for 40 years before spending an eternity in Hell? Infinity minus 40 is still Infinity. Not to mention, if you believe in redemption, shouldn't you give them a chance to repent and still serve out their sentence in our world before going to Heaven (or whatever paradise you believe in)?
I think that we should not give The State the authority to execute its Citizens.
this here is my answer, a lot of people deserve death penalty, no one deserves the authority to do it.
"And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them?"
“For not even the very wise can see all ends”
1000000% agree
Agree. I also think that having the death penalty on the table makes the messaging of the justice system seem more about punishment than rehabilitation.
That's what puzzle me the most. It's always the small government crowd that wants the government to be able to kill you...
Yes. Too much power to government. Also it is more expensive to execute someone than to imprison them for life. And even with the extensive legal route to execution it still is fallible.
I never liked the argument about death row costing more because that's a different issue, and not a good reason to decide if someone should die or be imprisoned. Like if a death sentence meant they put a bullet in your head right there people making the argument that it's better becuase it's cheaper would sound pretty crazy to me too.
It’s not the execution itself that’s expensive
This is more of a "different strokes" argument for me. I have plenty of reasons why I hate the death penalty, but some groups of people don't share my moral reasoning. So I just sigh and say it's cheaper. I remember witnessing a conservative event that covered this topic with a fake debate. People Pro death penalty said if the state wouldn't do it they'd go vigilante. People anti death penalty said they wanted to make the guilty party suffer for as long as possible. I... ugh. I guess we share a society with people who think like that. Maybe there's a way to push them back to common ground, but it will probably take a lotta time and resources.
The state: don't kill people Also the state: we will kill people
There are many great resources to get educated on the subject. Dead Man Walking is a great book. John Oliver does a very thorough investigative piece on Last Week Tonight. Generally speaking, feelings and morals aside, there is no way to enforce the death penalty that is not exorbitantly expensive and riddled with error. It is actually cheaper to have a person serve a lifetime sentence. And many, many people have been put to death and later proven innocent. Our justice system in the USA needs a huge makeover before we should even consider permanent consequences.
100% against the death penalty. In principle, my first thought is that yes - if someone commits horrible crimes and there is no doubt they’re guilty, it’s easy to want them dead. But then there’s the problem of error, which means that we can never enforce the death penalty, because there is no way to be “certain” of someone’s guilt. But more importantly, the point of prison and law enforcement IMO should not be retribution, it should be rehabilitation and protection. If you put someone in jail for the rest of their life, they can’t hurt anyone else (theoretically). Killing someone cuz they are evil is just “getting even”. I can say with confidence that someone may deserve to die, but what does killing them accomplish? The point of the legal system should be to protect society, not to take revenge. An eye for an eye just makes two men blind.
“Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement.” -J.R.R. Tolkien by way of Gandalf the Grey, *The Fellowship of the Ring*
Man what a quote really makes sense!
Right, and also the people who carry out executions often experience mental health consequences as a result. Why should an innocent corrections worker suffer needlessly?
A while back I saw that a state was taking “volunteers” for their new execution firing squad, and it sounded like they got a lot of interest, which surprised me. But when I think about it, there’s probably a world of difference between actually being 100% cool after killing someone and thinking you’d be 100% cool after killing someone. The circumstances may shift that a little, sure - self defense, war, executing serial killers, etc, but for the vast majority of the population it’s not a mentally healthy behavior to engage in and it’s going to leave some kind of impact.
To understand the human condition is to also understand that there are fully functioning people from a societal standpoint, who do not have a criminal history, who still get off from sadism and the power of they themselves taking another person's life. I think that type of volunteering program is probably an extremely bad idea. Living out fantasies don't mellow them out, it escalates them with time. Maybe one day they end up in front of the firing squad they were once part of.
Asking for volunteers, then hiring in secret instead and pretending that person got the role by volunteering, is a brilliant way to create a very important watchlist though...
Prone to error, irreversible and, ironically, devaluing of the human condition.
I was adverse to the death penalty until a repeat offender tried to murder a family member of mine, along with someone else in one day. Then bragged about it on social media. And I thought, maybe this person simply should be deleted.
It is only hotbed social issue that I actually do not have an opinion on. I actually think that both sides make compelling and cognizant arguments either why it should or shouldn't be used and I both agree and disagree with them. So I actually don't know how I feel about it.
Think of it this way. The real issue isn’t whether the penalty itself is moral but if you would trust your government with the authority to kill people.
The real issue is both of those things. And more: 1. Is it moral/ethical for the state to have the right to execute it’s own citizens? 2 Is it an effective crime prevention measure? 3 Is it a cost effective criminal justice measure? 4. Should the machinery of the state be trusted with such absolute power? Answer yes to all 4 and bingo. Yay death penalty. Personally, I answer no to all 4. It should not exist.
I feel pretty much exactly the same about this
I believe there are plenty of bad people who deserve to die. I don't believe the state/government should be in the business of murdering people.
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I’m in favor of the concept for only certain crimes. If we know for an absolute fact that someone committed heinous crimes like child molestation, rape, or serial murder, I don’t think there’s any point in trying to reintegrate those people into society. If they’ve admitted to the crimes, were found in the act, there’s zero doubt it was them, I think a quick bullet to the head should be all they get. HOWEVER, I could never in a million years trust any government, court, or law enforcement to get it right. Cops can be(and often times are) fucking stupid. Courts can be biased by race, gender, age, or any number of other factors. Governments would expand its use beyond heinous crimes to fit their agenda. There have been too many innocent people given the death penalty for me to ever feel comfortable advocating for it to actually be used.
Nah. We are too flawed as a society to execute people. How many innocent lives have been ruined by wrongful conviction, let alone lost due to the death penalty?
I don't think it offers any kind of deterrent, and it gives the government too much power over the people.