The European Union issued an unusual direct appeal to Texas Govenor Rick Perry to put a halt to the death penalty
The death penalty is banned in the 27-nation EU, which also fights for its global abolition.
“The irreversibility of the punishment means that miscarriages of justice  which are inevitable in all legal systems  cannot be redressed,” the EU said.
Robert Black, spokesman for Texas Governor Rick Perry, replied in time-honored, cowboy-gentleman manner.
“230 years ago, our forefathers fought a war to throw off the yoke of a European monarch and gain the freedom of self-determination. Texans long ago decided that the death penalty is a just and appropriate punishment for the most horrible crimes committed against our citizens. While we respect our friends in Europe, welcome their investment in our state and appreciate their interest in our laws, Texans are doing just fine governing Texas.â€Â
That’s it. That’s the complete press release.
Lord, that is a thing of beauty.
(h/t DRJ @ Patterico)
Comment by happyfeet on 8/26 @ 6:54 pm #
He could run again. I remember I really like his super-highway proposals - very cool. Any idea what happened to that?
Comment by happyfeet on 8/26 @ 6:56 pm #
a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Perry#Trans-Texas_Corridor”. It looks like some not very visionary people are in charge of the wiki on this, but that’s what I was talking about.
Comment by happyfeet on 8/26 @ 6:57 pm #
link
Comment by Pablo on 8/26 @ 6:58 pm #
Brevity is the soul of wit.
Comment by happyfeet on 8/26 @ 6:59 pm #
wiki p does a much better job covering it here. That’s too cool, plus, Ron Paul hates it.
Comment by Mark on 8/26 @ 6:59 pm #
Yes, Pablo, I imagine the much shorter first draft was two words only though!
Comment by Nathan on 8/26 @ 7:13 pm #
I hate the death penalty because it has resulted in proven, irrevocable injustice. Leave it to the European Union to make my side of the debate look pompous and arrogant.
Comment by Jeffersonian on 8/26 @ 7:13 pm #
And manliness. Don’t forget that. Unless you’re, like, King Henry giving a pep talk before Agincourt.
Comment by Rick Ballard on 8/26 @ 7:17 pm #
Two would do just fine but the Europeans expect a modicum of nuance. Nine would be more in keeping with their expectations (the inclusion of an equine transportation unit). Of course, the original plus the suggestion that a further epistle would be sent gives a total of five and would leave them with a sense of expectation.
One must try to never disappoint.
Comment by JD on 8/26 @ 7:19 pm #
happyfeet - entries like that are exactly why wiki will never become an actual resource.
Gov. Daniels here in Indiana is trying to implement a plan where some of the toll roads will be built, and operated by a private contractor. I really do not know why this gets people all up in arms, but it sure does.
Comment by JD on 8/26 @ 7:19 pm #
That press release should be framed and hung behind his desk.
Comment by Pablo on 8/26 @ 7:42 pm #
From what I’m told, it’s gay to talk about that. But I get you..silently…stoically.
Comment by JD on 8/26 @ 7:46 pm #
Pablo - Do not let the Leftists silence you, with their wild accusations of teh ghey. This is simply another instance where they proclaim to be on the side of the homosexuals, yet given the opportunity, they do not hesitate to smear someone by calling them teh ghey.
Comment by joated on 8/26 @ 7:48 pm #
Quite a nice, reasoned, and polite way of telling the EU to stuff it.
Comment by Darleen on 8/26 @ 7:56 pm #
Nathan
I’m willing to restrict the death penalty to cases in which the guilt of the perp is clear and indisputable.
Are you willing to agree to allow the dp in such circumstances?
Comment by happyfeet on 8/26 @ 8:02 pm #
I have no strong feelings about the death penalty. As long as it polls with over 50% support, I’m all for it. The important thing is, when asked if they feel a sentence is just, a majority of people say yes. I like for people to feel they are living in a just world, and it’s very good for that whole democracy thing too.
Comment by happyfeet on 8/26 @ 8:06 pm #
Plus, Ron Paul hates it.
Comment by Shawn on 8/26 @ 8:40 pm #
Which is why I thought only the last sentence was necessary.
Comment by Celtic Dragon on 8/26 @ 9:01 pm #
Danm I love my home state! Such a nice way of saying “Go to hell!”
As Ron White once put it “Other states are trying to do away with the death penalty. Mine is installing an express lane!”
Comment by Nathan on 8/26 @ 9:12 pm #
Sure! Show me a system that actually meets the standard of clear and indisputable and I’ll jump on your bandwagon. But you have to deal with the fact that some juries and prosecutors are racist or otherwise untrustworthy. To wit: Cory Maye.
Comment by Nathan on 8/26 @ 9:14 pm #
Geez…the last comment was from me to Darleen. Sorry!
Comment by lee on 8/26 @ 9:22 pm #
I love it when the EU lectures us on morality.
Makes me almost FEEL the holiness.
Comment by Bleepless on 8/26 @ 9:29 pm #
In the view of pinkos, the risk of an injustice is only the risk of undue harshness. Logically, however, the risk also lies in being not harsh enough. Just take a look at the recidivism rates.
Comment by Alice H on 8/26 @ 9:36 pm #
So when’s this guy running for President?
Comment by CraigC on 8/26 @ 9:38 pm #
I hate the death penalty because it has resulted in proven, irrevocable injustice.
Excuse me? When would that be, pal? Citations, please.
Comment by Spiny Norman on 8/26 @ 9:53 pm #
He’s probably referring to Tookie Williams. Or Roger Coleman.
::eye roll::
Comment by Drumwaster on 8/26 @ 9:54 pm #
Did you support or oppose the execution of Tookie Williams? Just wondering how “clear and indisputable” you need the evidence to be…
Comment by JD on 8/26 @ 10:00 pm #
I am going to venture a guess that “clear and indisputable” will defined in such a way so as to render the death penalty impossible. I could be wrong.
Comment by Spies, Brigands, and Pirates on 8/26 @ 10:34 pm #
I love it when the EU lectures us on morality.
Yeah, it’s funny, isn’t it?
Rejected slogans for the EU Tourism Commission:
“Beautiful Europe: No major genocides in over a decade!”
“Beautiful Europe: More than 15 years without a Communist slave state!”
“Beautiful Europe: Celebrating 30 years since our last fascist regime!”
“Beautiful Europe: Raping, looting, murdering, and enslaving on every continent of the globe for over 500 years!”
“Beautiful Europe: We’ve learned our lesson this time. Really!”
Comment by Darleen on 8/26 @ 10:51 pm #
#21 Nathan
Fixed it for you.
Do you have any doubts about Bundy or Dahlmer? or more recently –
What about Courey?
DP could be limited to cases where there is strong circumstantial evidence, not just direct evidence (witness testimony). Or confessions backed up by circumstantial evidence.
However, you must consider that to let dangerous murderers live when they should have gotten the dp is to condemn future innocents to die at their hands.
Comment by CraigC on 8/26 @ 11:13 pm #
Could you do me a favor and not refer to it as “dp?” LOL.
Comment by Sean M. on 8/27 @ 2:39 am #
Do you mean Jeffrey Dahmer, Darleen? If so, he wasn’t given the death penalty. He was sentenced to fifteen terms of life in prison. Another inmate killed him after a little more than two years into his sentence.
As for Black’s press release, it’s pretty sweet, but I think Gen. McAuliffe would find it a little wordy.
Comment by Sean M. on 8/27 @ 2:41 am #
Oh, and you’re a dirty bird, Craig.
And so am I.
Comment by Sean M. on 8/27 @ 2:45 am #
Hard (heh) evidence of my dirty birdiness can be found here.
Comment by The Thin Man on 8/27 @ 2:54 am #
If Rick Perry wants to bring his attitude, his spokesman (and his gun laws) over here to Europe, there are MANY of us who would positively welcome the move.
Comment by The Thin Man on 8/27 @ 3:00 am #
You think its’ bad being long-distance moralised at by these EU w*ankers, try being governed by them!
I hate these sanctimonious “pronouncements” that we get from our politicians; costing the speaker absolutely nothing, getting sage nods of approval from their lefty enablers and doing absolutely zilcho to address the TERRIBLE crime levels we have across the EU.
“Halp us, Rick Perry. We R stuck here in EU”
Comment by Nathan on 8/27 @ 3:01 am #
I agree that Courey, Dahlmer, Bundy, Coleman, Williams and many others of the child-raping mass-murdering variety should die for their crimes. I just don’t trust the current criminal justice system, featuring a joke of a jury selection process and unscrupulous prosecutors, to do the job right. Ask yourself, would you want Mike Nifong trying you for murder? Would you want the jury to consist of people the lawyers think are suggestible enough not to draw a peremptory challenge?
As I mentioned above, Cory Maye is on death row right now, although he is probably not guilty of anything except living in a bad neighborhood. Ryan Ferguson was recently convicted of a murder he didn’t commit in Missouri (check out the video of the eye witness’ interrogation if you think police and prosecutorial tactics in murder cases are trustworthy). Although he was sentenced to a mere 40 years, he could have gotten the death penalty. I think we all know dozens of death-row inmates have been exonerated by DNA evidence. They would have died were it not for the fact that the real murderer happened to leave DNA at the scene. There are a lot of crimes without any DNA evidence at all, so tough luck for other innocent people convicted under the same flawed process who weren’t lucky enough to be exonerated that way.
The solution to this isn’t to repeal the death penalty, it’s to fix the system. However, I think a moratorium on the death penalty until structural problems are addressed is warranted.
I also doubt that the death penalty has much if any deterrent effect. Can anyone tell me why they think it does?
Comment by alppuccino on 8/27 @ 4:35 am #
Aye to the death penalty - unless we’re talking about an illegal immigrant, because clearly we enabled that person to choose a life of crime by letting him in to wander around without prosecution. So off you go. Go on. Git. You’re free to go. Yeah, go.
Comment by Randy on 8/27 @ 4:35 am #
It’s the absolute best at special deterrence.
Comment by B Moe on 8/27 @ 4:46 am #
So far the state of Georgia has spent over $6 million dollars preparing for the capital trial of Brian Nichols, whose sole defense thus far is that he can’t get a fair trial because everyone knows he is guilty. God only knows how much longer this will drag out and what the final tally will be. Nichols was willing to plea to life from the start, but capital convictions are a huge campaign tool here, so the prosecutor is perfectly willing to spend tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to further his career. While I don’t oppose the concept of the death penalty outright, this kind of bloodlust does make me a bit uneasy.
Comment by Slartibartfast on 8/27 @ 5:06 am #
I think Nathan’s got a point. My point is sort of an add-on to his, rather than a stand-alone. With that in mind, it’s something like this: it’s more expensive to kill someone, on average (what with appeals, and all), than it is to just keep them in the slam for life.
Radley Balko hit on the Cory Maye thing pretty hard; it’s pretty clearly a miscarriage of justice. I wouldn’t have all that much of an issue with death penalty if we killed the guilty infallibly.
Comment by Parker on 8/27 @ 5:50 am #
If you have a police force armed with deadly weapons, you are saying that there will be times when agents of the state will be justified in killing people.
If that’s accepted in the context of police work, where such decisions may be made in split seconds under extreme stress, I think it must be accepted in the context of the judicial system, where such decisions can be made much more deliberately.
Or is the argument that it is okay to kill people in the heat of the moment, and not okay to kill them after lengthy deliberation?
Comment by Ric Locke on 8/27 @ 6:33 am #
I think most rational death penalty opponents would correctly object to “okay” as unnecessarily pejorative. Heat of the moment and innocent-bystander deaths fall into the same category as car wrecks and hurricanes — it’s not that they’re desirable or even acceptable, it’s that there’s no way to eliminate them; they have to be accepted as part of the cost of business, like it or no. Executions are acts of volition.
Disagreeing with that argument is a matter of determining what the costs and benefits are, and it’s perfectly possible to do that rationally and even cordially. The ones who interject hate&discontent are the ones who also have an irrational view of your first paragraph — e.g., folks who hyperventilate about warrantless wire taps as evidence of advanced development of the Police State but sincerely agree that we ought to take away all the guns; what kind of police force would be necessary to do that? They don’t believe in rational tradeoffs among methods, they believe in magic. It isn’t a left-right thing, either. Proponents of prohibition all fall into the same category, whether the subject is cocaine or hate speech.
Regards,
Ric
Comment by Spies, Brigands, and Pirates on 8/27 @ 6:36 am #
Parker — actually, the legal system does consider killing (even unlawful killing) in the heat of the moment to be less serious than doing so after deliberation.
Premeditation/malice aforethought/mens rea is the factor that makes it first degree murder in many jurisdictions, no?
Comment by Lost My Cookies on 8/27 @ 6:38 am #
I try to be against the death penalty. I don’t think it’s a real deterrent to violent crime and I gots some religion on top of that…but sometimes you run across a sonofabitch that just needs killin.
Comment by alppuccino on 8/27 @ 6:42 am #
Go ahead and spend your jillions to make sure the innocent are not punished. But bring back the pillory.
Comment by Cincinnatus on 8/27 @ 7:05 am #
They refer to the death penalty as irreversable. As opposed to what? Life in prison? The guy who has been exonerated by DNA evidence that he didn’t have in 1969 isn’t exactly thinking of his situation as reversable, now is he?
Comment by Professor Blather on 8/27 @ 7:29 am #
Let’s face it: if you want to find the last bastion of real Americans these days, Texas would be the place to start.
In this era of the bigotry of low expectations, an increasingly socialist nanny-state government, political correctness run amok, and the erosion of real (as opposed to liberal-imagined) freedoms to speak and worship and behave as Americans have always done …
… Texas is the land of the last holdouts. They’re fighting the Alamo again. Only this time, I wouldn’t want be the Mexicans.
God bless Texas. Maybe she’ll save the rest of us “Americans.”
Comment by Darleen on 8/27 @ 8:01 am #
Nathan
You make some good points, and I’m for doing whatever is possible to improve on the jury system. But for every DNA exoneration there are more DNA confirmations, for every Nifong, there is an OJ, for every Ferguson there are many Tookie Williams …
and then there’s the overburdened system itself … we have too few police, too few ddas and public defenders, too few courtrooms, too many people who don’t show up for jury duty … and we have too much crime that goes unpunished due to “Stop Snitchin” intimidation. It becomes almost a seige mentality.
And the bodies pile up, forgotten, and everyone in prison is “innocent” and some perps get celebrity status.
Three weeks ago one of our dda’s got a conviction in this case … and had to be escorted out of the court room by five of our armed Bureau of Investigation officers while bailiffs restrained his rabid family who were shouting at him and trying to get to him. For them, the 4 mo old baby he killed was just an “it”.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t eligible for the death penality, but he is exposed to 25 to life.
So the EU preens with self-importance and an elevated sense of its own cultural superiority … but the culture rots from within where they roll over when confronted with The Offended Other, and they don’t value individual human life when they leave the infirm and the elderly to die in unairconditioned hospitals.
No thank you. I’ll live in a society that not only says it values human life, but backs it up with a bottom line that says one who wantonly and cruelly deprives another of life cannot keep their own.
Comment by Farmer Joe on 8/27 @ 8:03 am #
I would have preferred something even more terse, like “The people of Texas thank our European friends for their input. We’ll give it all the consideration it deserves.”
Comment by Drumwaster on 8/27 @ 8:13 am #
Because executed murderers have NEVER gone on to reoffend? Nor have any escaped, killed other prisoners or guards (reasoning that since they are already in jail for life, they have nothing left to lose), etc.
I think that if someone were contemplating a crime spree in summer, they would think twice if they knew that they might not be around to celebrate Christmas. As it is, death row inmates usually serve twenty years or more waiting for their appeals to run out before they have to worry about ordering their last meal.
Meanwhile, their victims are dead and gone while they get cable TV and three squares a day at taxpayer expense. If they are minority, they will get lots and lots of Limousine Liberals talking endlessly about how they have “changed”, and foreigners making them honorary citizens, and endless Useful Idiots who seem to think that rehabilitating someone who has been convicted of the very worst crimes imaginable is even possible, much less desirable.
If the death penalty doesn’t deter, does guaranteeing them a lifetime of never being punished for their crimes on the inside do anything to deter? If deterrence is your goal and the lack of deterrence is sufficient reason to not let it happen, then why not let them all go free? If the DP doesn’t deter, then you would have to agree that spending a few months or years behind bars is not going to deter, either.
Sometimes it isn’t about deterrence. Sometimes it is about punishment of the guilty, and a spanking followed by no dessert just doesn’t cut it.
I think that we should execute the murderers in exactly the same way as their victims died. Arsonists get burned to death, poisoners get the same poison, rapists get… well, YOU know.
Comment by Rick Ballard on 8/27 @ 8:15 am #
“I also doubt that the death penalty has much if any deterrent effect. Can anyone tell me why they think it does?”
Because it does?
Comment by trax on 8/27 @ 8:31 am #
“direct appeal” response: NUTS!
Comment by Pablo on 8/27 @ 8:44 am #
Actually, he’s not. The death sentence has been overturned, so the system worked in that regard. And Ryan Ferguson, as you note, was not sentenced to death. The Troy Davis case is quite disturbing though, and he just came way too close to execution, and still faces it, though he has been granted a new appeal. Which again, if he avoids death, the system will have worked. Still, he came too close for comfort and that needs to be addressed. There should be a standard somewhat more stringent than beyond reasonable doubt before death is meted out.
But John Couey? Richard Allen Davis? Joseph Smith? Let’s kill them dead and do some addition by subtraction.
Comment by CraigC on 8/27 @ 9:20 am #
Nathan, your response to my question is the same one your side gives every time. I was hoping you’d be a little more original. You can’t point to a proven instance of an innocent person being executed because there isn’t one. All of the cases you pointed out simply prove that the system works.
Comment by Swen Swenson on 8/27 @ 9:26 am #
Nathan:
And Slartibartfast:
Guys, people have been trying to “fix the system” at least since Hammurabi’s Code. Then there was the Magna Carta, and let’s not forget the US Constitution. None of them perfect, none of them infallible.
I doubt we’ll ever have a system where the guilty are infallibly caught and convicted and given the punishment that perfectly fits the crime, nor a system where no injustice ever befalls the innocent. Nor am I sure I’d like to live in such a world. By all means let’s fix the system, but let’s not demand that the result be perfect, nor demand that the world stop on its axis until perfection is achieved.
Sean M.:
Indeed. And is Dahmer any less dead? Is his current situation reversible because he was given life in prison instead of the death penalty? Should we then not sentence anyone to prison for fear that we could be sentencing an innocent to be raped or killed, or merely to languish in prison, innocence unrequited? And what of probation? Isn’t that terribly unjust and demeaning to an innocent man?
I feel an infinite regress coming on..
Comment by Ardsgaine on 8/27 @ 9:49 am #
Swen:
I think that’s coming down a little too hard on the word “reversible”. Surely, you can recognize that death is a good bit more final than life in prison. You can’t give a man back the years he spent in prison, but you can turn him lose. That, at least, is something.
I don’t think that infallibility is a reasonable test of a justice system, nor a requirement for the death penalty. As long as the system is run by men, it cannot be infallible. If there are specific reforms that can be made to improve the chances of justice being carried out, though, then I am in favor of them; and I would be in favor of a moratorium on the death penalty until the reforms were in place. However, I don’t think that it would be productive of justice to inact the moratorium with a vague hope that unspecified reforms might be inacted in the indefinite future.
Comment by Slartibartfast on 8/27 @ 9:57 am #
But at least he’s thinking of his situation, rather than pushing up daisies.
Look, I’m not completely against the death penalty, but I believe it’s still true that it’s much more costly to kill someone than to just keep them in the slam.
Couey? Yeah, kill him. If I weren’t so merciful, I’d want to kill him a few times, or kill him veeeerrryyy ssssllllooowwwlllllyyy.
Or we could just say: fuck that noise, and have trials by combat. It all depends on your criteria for satisfaction, doesn’t it?
Comment by N. O'Brain on 8/27 @ 10:22 am #
Sometimes the gene pool needs a little chlorine
[/bumper sticker]
Comment by mojo on 8/27 @ 10:44 am #
Please, let’s NOT get started on the “manly men” meme again. I just got the drapes clean.
Comment by dicentra on 8/27 @ 11:02 am #
If you commit a capital crime what are your chances of:
getting caught?
going to trial (no plea bargain)?
being convicted of a capital crime (people actually rat you out)?
being sentenced to death?
getting to the end of your appeals process during your lifetime?
actually getting the needle?
Furthermore, lifers often kill while in the clink, and the worst you can do to them is put them in solitary, where they’re safer than you or I.
In other words, without capital punishment, the only people whose lives are guaranteed by the state are our worst murderers: free health care, three square a day, cable TV, exercise equipment, no need to work or do nuthin’ but sit around all day.
If it weren’t for the fact that the other prisoners are so dangerous, I’d almost like me some time in the slammer.
Comment by Pablo on 8/27 @ 11:08 am #
I can see a Mark Lunsford/John Couey cage match. The Pay Per View would be huge.
Pingback by Eat the Rich on 8/27 @ 11:27 am #
[...] a footnote to Darleen’s earlier post on the delightful collision between EU presumptuousness and Texas cowboyism, this clip from the [...]
Comment by alppuccino on 8/27 @ 11:33 am #
“If it weren’t for the fact that the other prisoners are so dangerous, I’d almost like me some time in the slammer.”
There’s always role-playing.
I’M KIDDING!!
Comment by Gabriel Fry on 8/27 @ 11:48 am #
Just to inject (ha!) another tangent into this, are we regarding prison as an intentional punishment for the criminal, or is the prisoner’s discomfort just a side-effect of the society’s determination that he must be removed from circulation for the greater good? Because I tend to fall in the latter camp, and for us the death penalty only makes sense if it’s less burdensome, financially or otherwise, to the state. Which, things being as they are, it’s not.
Comment by BJTexs on 8/27 @ 11:59 am #
Gabriel:
I tend to waffle like a Belgian when it comes to the death penalty. I see both sides of this issue and I’m struggling to take a stand. One thing I’ve never been confortable with is the concept of cost when it comes to death penalty cases. I think that it’s a craven moral relativism to weigh serious moral and legal issues like life and death using using a TI fininacila calculator.
It dovetails with my contempt for others doing a moral calculous comparing 9/11 deaths with US combat deaths. It cheapens the debate in a most caustic and inhumane way.
Comment by BJTexs on 8/27 @ 12:01 pm #
fininacila calculator?????
It’s like I turned Italian for just a moment…
Comment by ThomasD on 8/27 @ 12:15 pm #
Now why is that?
Although in honesty, I agree entirely. Mistakes will be made, and that is unfortunate but they also are the price to be paid for living in any complex environment.
Ric Locke mentions the spectre of volition and it is valid point, but not always applicable. Humans design all sorts of complex mechanisms - the justice system, interstate highways, food and drug safety programs, etc. intended to provide specific benefets. Yet all of these systems come at some cost.
Yes, sometimes accidents happen, but sometimes the accidents are not merely chance events but instead are symptoms of fatal flaws inherent within the particular design. In these cases the deaths (or whatever adverse event you wish to consider) are as inevitable as a governor’s death warrant. They will happen with a remarkable degree of certainty and in time become quite predictable, although not individually so.
This is a fair bit of science that says the probability of these sorts of incidents rises as systems get more complex and actually tends to increase even when you attempt to render the system more safe, as this just intoduces greater complexity.
Normal Accidents by Charles Perrow being one of the first to look at this phenomenon. His analyis was mainly concerned with physical systems, but the principles are as applicable to any other complex human designed system.
How can greater complexity in a justice system increase the likelihood of death? Easy, as long as you look past the interests of the accused and consider the potential for future victims (Dahmer could just as easily killed as have been killed in prison.)
The EU bans the death penalty. Strangely enough this has the net effect of reducing the risk of death for known violent offenders but increasing it for everyone else.
Comment by Drumwaster on 8/27 @ 12:17 pm #
I think the main reason that death penalty cases are so expensive is because of the almost endless legal appeals.
I can’t believe that a simple 180-day appeals process followed by a shot in the arm (15 grams of Sodium thiopental, 100mg of Pancuronium bromide, and 100 mEq of Potassium Chloride, in sequence) would be THAT expensive compared to 30+ years of 24/7/365 medical care, guards, room and board, entertainment, free education, etc., that a life-without-parole prisoner would receive, plus the added bonus of never having to worry about being punished for another crime, whether its simple assault all the way up to the murder of a corrections officer. (Hey, what are they going to do, hope he is reincarnated so they put him back in prison?)
Comment by Fat Man on 8/27 @ 12:22 pm #
I’ve got it. Texas will just tell them they are being progressive by adopting Sha’ria. Just like Europe will in a few years. (h/t Van @ Keshertalk)
Comment by Drumwaster on 8/27 @ 12:25 pm #
But when those layers of added complexity all have a default of “overturn/remand/commute”, and all it takes is the condemned winning ONE of those many appeals to avoid that ultimate penalty, each layer of inspection/review adds to the independent probabilities of getting it right. The State has to get it right every single time.
Comment by tanstaafl on 8/27 @ 12:44 pm #
“The EU” would love to interject its ideas into the running of America just as that extension of “The UN” the International Criminal Court would love to have US laws subject to its review.
Well, why shouldn’t The EU and other “international” (ahem) institutions feel the urge to meddle in this country’s internal affairs ? Enlighten us as they have become enlightened ? After all, the US Supreme Court, under its “liberal” judges, has looked to precedent in Europe in making some of its more recent rulings.
One recent SC ruling (pre Roberts & Alito) states that if you commit the murder at 17 years, 364 days, you cannot be subject to the death penalty. No consideration of aggravating or mitigating circumstances surrounding said murder. However, you are subject to the DP if you do the deed one day later.
Making little or no sense.
And how ’bout that eminent domain (Kelo) ruling ? Hey, private property as community property sounds like something a good EU socialist would endorse.
Comment by ThomasD on 8/27 @ 1:39 pm #
Absolutely, and if the State fails to perform it’s job to perfection it is conceivable a very dangerous individual could be let loose on society (society including either/or both the free population and the lesser criminals within the penal system.) With the possible result that someone else is going to die unnecessarily.
Part of the problem with these discussions is that we (and especially the leftists who oppose the death penalty) fetishize the criminal justice system to the point where it becomes religion, effectively rendering the perfect the enemy of the good.
I do not relish the though of being unjustly accused, tried, convicted, and killed for a crime I did not commit. Nor do I relish the thought of driving a carload of my nearest and dearest into a void where a bridge used to stand. Both possibilities exist in a society that perceives benefits from killing criminals and spanning roadways over rivers respectively.
I am entirely infavor of any approaches that can minimize the probability of either unintended outcome. But I do support eliminating either approach to improving our society.
Comment by ThomasD on 8/27 @ 1:41 pm #
Er, should read I do not support eliminating either approach..
Comment by SweepTheLeg on 8/27 @ 2:02 pm #
I feel that the sentence should be less of a punishment and more of an example to others. Or a deterrent, if you will. I submit that we do away with the death penalty all together and replace it with chain-gang style hard labor that is very visible to the public. It would accomplish two things; it would serve as a punishment and as a deterrent. I can’t think of a worse punishment then forced hard labor so for those who believe that a person should pay their debt to society, here you go. And for those like me who believe that God puts some people on this earth just to act as an example to others, it acts as an effective deterrent. I can’t imagine driving by a chain-gang and not reflecting a bit on the path of ones life and making any necessary adjustments as to avoid that particular fate. Although I have had many disagree with me on this I have yet to meet someone who could persuade me to believe otherwise.
Comment by Rob B. on 8/27 @ 2:56 pm #
I love that countries like England, where you are supposed to only defend yourself enough to run away and are not allowed to step in if you witness an assault, are going to lecture my home state on legal matters of personal justice. A county that won’t let their citizens, or should i say “sujects,” defend themselves is going to lecture Texas on injustice. Well guys, I’d wager that it’s a slightly “irrerevsible injustice” when a victim gets beat to death and everyone is forced legally so just standby and watch.
Besides, we’re a freaking “right to carry” state. Do you really think we’re squemish about killing criminals when we give citizens the right to carry guns?
Comment by klrfz1 on 8/27 @ 4:31 pm #
This guy has a lot to say about whether or not capital punishment has any deterrent effect. He footnotes a number of studies. If you want to look it all up, there is enough information to keep you busy for a while. Go on, you know you want to.
Of course, the ideal solution would be for the government to simply prevent all murders. Any of you libertarians up for that?
Comment by McGehee on 8/27 @ 6:46 pm #
More convicted murderers escape from chain gangs than from the cemetery.
Comment by Nathan on 8/27 @ 10:24 pm #
#55 CraigC wrote: “Nathan, your response to my question is the same one your side gives every time. I was hoping you’d be a little more original. You can’t point to a proven instance of an innocent person being executed because there isn’t one. All of the cases you pointed out simply prove that the system works.”
Do you really think we’ve never put an innocent man to death? If not, why does it matter whether I can point out one in particular. There may not be proof for any individual case, but there is aggregate proof that the system by which we invoke the death penalty is flawed. Let me make up some numbers to illustrate my point, Al Gore style: if we convicted 1000 men of capital murder before the development of DNA analysis, 500 of those murders turned out later to have DNA evidence at the crime scene, and the DNA evidence exonerated 50 convicts, it stands to reason that if we got 50 cases wrong out of that 500, we probably got about 50 wrong out of the other 500 too. However, since there’s no DNA in the other 500 cases, the 50 innocent men in that group will be put to death. The removal of people from death row because of newly analyzed DNA evidence does not prove that the system is working, but that, at least some of the time, it doesn’t work.
Comment by Nathan on 8/27 @ 10:29 pm #
#51 drumwaster:
How do you conclude that life-sentence inmates a) have nothing to lose and b) a life sentence is no deterrent? Surely striping someone of everything they have to live for is a deterrent!
Comment by Nathan on 8/27 @ 11:35 pm #
Support for the death penalty on these forums seems to spring from three sources. I’ll take them in what I see as the order of increasing difficulty for death penalty opponents. Please forgive and correct me if I misstate any of these arguments.
1) Texas is generally governed better than Europe.
True, but irrelevant to the issue. Eliminating the death penalty doesn’t mean adopting euthanasia, socialism, or a snooty attitude toward countries with fewer wine and cheese shops per capita.
2) Prison is too nice. We should have chain gangs instead of cable TV.
Yep. I’m all for chain gangs. We should also insist on fewer rapes and less gang activity in prison. Prison should be terrible in an edifying way, if that makes any sense at all, especially for the sake of those who will eventually be released and everyone they’ll interact with on the outside.
3) People who commit gruesome murders should die for retributive purposes, regardless of any deterrent effect the death penalty may have.
Some of them certainly do. The real question is, are we willing to sacrifice innocent life for the sake of vengeance? Why not leave that to the Lord for the time being in order to protect the innocent? I submit that we should not let even one innocent man die just for the sake of retribution.
4) The death penalty is a deterrent to capital crime. Yes, we’ll (deplorably) execute a few innocent people, but it’s worth it because we’ll save even more lives.
I think this is the strongest argument. However, clear evidence of the deterrent effect is required. Thanks to # 52 Rick Bellard and #77 klrfz1 for their links in this regard. If it is true that the death penalty is a more effective deterrent to murder than chain gangs, I’ll have to reassess my view. However, even if this is the case, I still think there are some basic reforms we can enact to ensure that fewer innocents are put to death. To wit:
1) Instruct juries to apply a higher standard of proof to death-penalty cases. Something like “beyond any doubt.”
2) Allow appeals courts to reconsider death sentences on the merits of the case as well as on procedural matters. That is, if an appeals court has a serious doubt about the guilt of the convict, it should be able to overturn a death sentence. (I actually think appeals courts should be able to review the merits in most criminal cases, but that’s a different discussion.)
3) Let juries ask questions and review the evidence. If a jury isn’t sure how to resolve a case, they should be able to ask for any evidence that wasn’t presented by either the defense or the prosecution (e.g. tapes of police interviews with witnesses, as in the Ferguson case). They should also be able to submit written questions to both the defense and prosecution during their deliberations.
4) Fix the jury selection process. Stop letting lawyers eliminate jurors they don’t like without a good reason. At the risk of sounding like a dreaded europhile, I think we should adopt something more like the British system, where jurors can be removed by attorneys only if they have some connection with the defendant or the victim.
With these reforms in place, I would probably be much less suspicious of the death penalty.
Comment by klrtz1 on 8/28 @ 2:02 am #
“Prison should be terrible in an edifying way, if that makes any sense at all, especially for the sake of those who will eventually be released and everyone they’ll interact with on the outside.”
Makes sense to me. You’re talking deterrence. People in jail are no different than you or I. Except I believe in God and you want to stay out of prison because it’s terrible. That used to be my primary motivation too. Except that didn’t keep me from petty theft or drunk driving. Now I want to do what’s right. The power of faith, in action.
You left out an important reason for capital punishment. People have a right to govern themselves. Part of that has to be deciding what is justice. For most people, putting some murderers to death is justice. More power to you if you can convince enough voters that there should never be the slightest chance that an innocent man could be executed. Most people know that innocent men die every day though. The government is not morally much different than the aggregate decision that kills 50,000 innocent Americans in traffic accidents every year. We are all each morally responsible for our own decisions. By opposing capital punishment you avoid moral responsibility for some deaths. By driving (or being driven) you accept moral responsibility for other deaths.
Maybe there’s not enough nuance there. Would someone more erudite like to dress it up with some quotes from Thomas Aquinas or Ben
FranklinAffleck?Comment by Rusty on 8/28 @ 4:32 am #
Nathan. Sometimes its a case of state assisted suicide. If you poll death row, everyone there will tell you they’re innocent. Or to quote the warden of Stateville Penitentiary,” Thank god we have the death penalty. If we didn’t, I couldn’t control these people.”
Comment by CraigC on 8/28 @ 8:19 am #
#79:
#55 CraigC wrote: “Nathan, your response to my question is the same one your side gives every time. I was hoping you’d be a little more original. You can’t point to a proven instance of an innocent person being executed because there isn’t one. All of the cases you pointed out simply prove that the system works.â€Â
Do you really think we’ve never put an innocent man to death? If not, why does it matter whether I can point out one in particular. There may not be proof for any individual case, but there is aggregate proof that the system by which we invoke the death penalty is flawed. Let me make up some numbers to illustrate my point, Al Gore style: if we convicted 1000 men of capital murder before the development of DNA analysis, 500 of those murders turned out later to have DNA evidence at the crime scene, and the DNA evidence exonerated 50 convicts, it stands to reason that if we got 50 cases wrong out of that 500, we probably got about 50 wrong out of the other 500 too. However, since there’s no DNA in the other 500 cases, the 50 innocent men in that group will be put to death. The removal of people from death row because of newly analyzed DNA evidence does not prove that the system is working, but that, at least some of the time, it doesn’t work.
Um, in a word, no. Did I say that? Did I say that I think we’ve never executed an innocent man? What I said was that there are no documented instances. I don’t doubt that it has happened, but in the context of a system with as many checks and balances weighted in favor of the defendant as ours has, the number must statistically approach zero. That’s not a reason to scrap the death penalty. Eggs, omelets, etc.
As for the rest of your answer, talk about convoluted. Jeez. First of all, coming up with a thought experiment does not constitute “aggregate proof.” And it does not stand to reason that “…if we got 50 cases wrong out of that 500, we probably got about 50 wrong out of the other 500 too.”
When you say “The removal of people from death row because of newly analyzed DNA evidence does not prove that the system is working, but that, at least some of the time, it doesn’t work,” what system are you talking about? My point wasn’t that the trial courts are infallible, it was that appeals and the practically limitless administrative avenues open to defendants work to keep innocent people from being executed.
Comment by CraigC on 8/28 @ 8:26 am #
And “Why does it matter if I can point to one in particular” is a particularly obtuse question. It matters because that’s your argument.
Comment by Gabriel Fry on 8/28 @ 8:45 am #
Yes, the financial calculus thing is creepy. But law sometimes has to be creepy. If you assume that the government has the right to execute its citizens (and for better or worse it currently does) then the moral question is settled by law, and only questions of practicality remain. Such as, what’s the cost/benefit of this action? And after that, there’s the procedural questions, such as who’s going to kill the guy, and how, and what do we do with the body, and who gets to clean the apparatus, and do we use lysol or febreze to freshen the room up afterwards (whichever one gives the pentitentiary system a better bulk rate, I guess). If sorting through that stuff seems a little unsavory, then I guess you’re not a hardcore death-penalty supporter. You’ll get no condemnation from me for it.
Comment by Nathan on 8/28 @ 12:24 pm #
Craig,
What enlightenment about the death penalty can possibly come of parsing the distinction between proving something and simply knowing that it is true? I’m more than glad to grant that I should have said the death penalty has resulted in ‘known, irrevocable injustice’ rather than ‘proven irrevocable injustice.’ This is a distinction without a difference.
As for my convoluted thought experiment, it does establish that, in the absence of an unlikely statistical anomaly, innocent people have been put to death.
Before DNA processing was developed, cases involving DNA and cases not involving it were tried in the same way according to the same rules. Since the cases were tried in the same way according to the same rules, we can reasonably infer that they reached a correct verdict the same proportion of the time. Thanks to technological developments, we now know that a certain proportion of cases involving DNA reached a false guilty verdict, so approximately the same proportion of cases not involving DNA also reached a false guilty verdict. Since there are plenty of crime scenes that do not yield DNA, an important question is: were as many convictions overturned from the pool of convicts who did not have access to DNA from the crime scene as from the pool of convicts who did have it? If the answer to that question is no, and if the proportion of convicts from each pool who were actually innocent is indeed the same, then it does, in fact, stand to reason that innocent people have been executed.
I’m sorry if I’m expressing this ineloquently, but I’m honestly fairly sure that the reasoning is sound. You may not want to call it proof, but statistical reasoning can reveal truth. In this case, it reveals a truth that you acknowledge, but keep arguing about anyway.
Comment by Nathan on 8/28 @ 12:54 pm #
This thread is probably about to die, but I have one more suggestion to make the system more trustworthy: bar prosecutors from running for higher office for a few years after their tenure. That way, they won’t be tempted to let their political aspirations affect their job performance.
Comment by Drumwaster on 8/28 @ 1:42 pm #
Because there is no further punishment to which they can be sentenced without the death penalty.
This also applies to those who are on the run, about to be captured, and decides that since they can’t be punished more harshly than LWP, they’ll just start shooting people at random to avoid that capture, or perhaps to increase their notoriety on the inside.
As McGehee says, fewer murderers have escaped from the cemetery than from even the maximum security prisons.
What are you suggesting? Castration? I could go for that, I suppose. But you cannot cut off the food, medical care, or free time in the library or exercise yard. Thanks to lots of people who have never been a victim of crime, prisons are no longer any form of punishment, but rather “centers for rehabilitation”, even stipulating that someone whose crime is so heinous as to deserve the utmost punishment society can impose even CAN be rehabilitated.
Cable TV, exercise rooms, taxpayer-funded sex change operations, etc….
All of that, and people still claim that executions are more expensive (as though we should be afraid to spend money on enforcing our laws).
Comment by Mark A. Flacy on 8/28 @ 3:22 pm #
Well, it’s pretty simple actually.If you’re on death row, no food or water for you. Just some Vaseline to keep your lips from cracking. That’s a euphoric way to go, or so I seem to remember reading once upon a time.
Comment by Nathan on 8/28 @ 3:54 pm #
Drumwaster,
I didn’t word my earlier comment very well. I just don’t know how you can say the inmates both a) have nothing to live for, and b) are pampered. If they’re getting cable tv, free time, exercise rooms and cosmetic surgery, they do have something to live for. If they don’t have anything to live for, it’s hard to believe their lives in prison are so idyllic. It seems like you can have one of those two arguments, but not both (at least not in the same prison).
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