New at Reason

David Weigel | April 28, 2006

Ronald Bailey puts the hysteria around lethal injection out of its misery.

Comments

|4.28.06 @ 1:50PM|#

I'm sorry, Ron, I usually agree with you, but I don't care how evil and toturous, etc, etc a killer is. We're not supposed to punish through cruel or unusual means...to me, a mark of a civilised society is one that has the will to treat even it's criminals humanely.

Of course, I'm not a huge fan of the death penalty, regardless, so maybe I'm not the best judge of Ron's article, but trying to tug at my heart strings by telling me how heinous the crimes were doesn't work for me.

|4.28.06 @ 1:52PM|#

Properly implemented, and assuming we want to do it at all, it is the best way yet devised.

|4.28.06 @ 1:55PM|#

I've always thought of "cruel and unusual" punishment as some form of repeated torture that is inflicted on the prisoner to make him repent his crimes. It has not occurred to me to consider the death penalty as a cruel and unusual punishment.

I my mind, C&U means you will have to live with the marks and pain and suffering left on you during and possibly after the time of your sentence in prison. But isn't dead, umm, dead?

There are quicker means of executing criminals sentenced to death - a bullet in the head, hanging, beheading. How much pain does each of those inflict? Surely the guillotine was terrifying psychologically, but what physical pain did you feel once the blade severed your head from your neck?

If I were to judge our prison system solely by what I observed in the HBO show OZ, I would say simple incarceration is C&U-P. How far will the definition be carried, until we no longer incarcerate criminals (esp. violent and/or murderous ones) at all?

|4.28.06 @ 1:57PM|#

PS, I'm not suggesting we use these methods. Just pondering how far and wide the definition of C&U-P has to be expanded, before it is decided that a punishment is "kind and usual."

MP|4.28.06 @ 1:59PM|#

Surely the guillotine was terrifying psychologically, but what physical pain did you feel once the blade severed your head from your neck?

I'd consider even seven seconds of headlessness cruel and unusual.

|4.28.06 @ 2:03PM|#

Mr. Bailey is right about the motivations of those suing about the nature of lethal injection. They can't get capital punishment outlawed so they will try to get all possible methods rendered illegal. This is a stupid dodge on their part. For what it's worth, I don't support the death penalty, but only because I don't think the procedure can ever be made perfect -- nothing humans do can ever be perfect -- and being wrong on killing someone is about as horrible as can be. (For one thing, killing the wrong person by definition means the real perp gets away with it.) This tactic, however, is a cowardly diversion to avoid the effort of convincing the rest of us to abolish capital punishment. They need to be called on it, and I'm glad Mr. Bailey did that.

|4.28.06 @ 2:05PM|#

It would certainly help if people understood that the phrase "cruel and unusual" means "disproportionate and non-standard" and instead of "mean and strange."

At the time of the constitution ratification, the phrase was widely used to prevent unprecedented sentences. The idea was that individuals convicted of similar crimes should get similar punishments. They wanted to keep the government from abusing the courts by giving person A a fine for jaywalking while giving person B forty years for the same offense.

The idea that the constitution forbids some punishments because somebody finds the punishment "cruel" in some cosmic sense is a mid-20th century invention. The entire constitutional debate has taken a distinctly Orwellian turn in the sense that we have redefined the meaning of the actual written phrase.

|4.28.06 @ 2:05PM|#

AmyLou, according to studies that I've heard were done during the French Reign of Terror, a victim of the guilliotine lives for a few minutes past the beheading. (A doctor asked those slated to die to continue blinking their eyes rhythmically for as long as they were conscious...)

It's likely that they suffer little or no physical pain - endorphines released with trauma would probably take care of that - but the emotional effect... well, one shudders to consider it.

Bullet in the brainpan >squish< is, I think, by far the quickest and most certain way to execute someone.

While I do understand some libertarians' qualms about the state committing murdder in the name of justice, I still think that the benefits of (1) getting killers out of circulation permanently, and (2) providing some level of deterrance, outweigh the morally messy question of authorizing the state to do one more thing that a private individal may not do.

|4.28.06 @ 2:05PM|#

Ron Bailey-I usually enjoy your columns, even when I don't agree with your conclusions. This one was an exception. The emotional argument and appeal to eye-for-an-eye thinking doesn't suit you or the usual level of discourse in this magazine.

You also failed to address the most substantial argument against the death penalty-the fact that innocent people are occasionally murdered by the state. I'd expect that from a Fox News host, but not from a columnist who's thoughts are usually logical and well-laid out.
Just so we're clear on where I'm coming from: I suspect that in some cases, death is an appropriate punishment. But I'm not willing to trust the state with that power.

|4.28.06 @ 2:06PM|#

I suspect all the sturm und drang over lethal injection is fiction cooked up by the anti-death penalty activists. I've been on a table with a sodium pentothal drip, and once the green-onion taste and the head rush faded they could have chopped me into pieces with a rusty chainsaw and I wouldn't have felt a thing. I was so unconscious.

Having said that, I don't think the state should be putting people to death anyway. Not that gov-vermin care what I think about it.

|4.28.06 @ 2:08PM|#

I guess it's no surprise that a guy who advocated keeping US labor protections inapplicable to the Marianas (on Jack Abramoff's dime, let's note) would also dig capital punishment. See below. It must all be part of his Enlightenment values. Voltaire and all the other philosophes would no doubt be very proud.

"Ms. Magazine visited the Northern Mariana Islands recently to determine the legacy of Jack Abramoff's work on behalf of sweatshop owners there. What did they find? Forced abortions, unemployment, and a thriving sex trade -- comprised mostly of unemployed garment workers.

Abramoff went to bat for the Islands' power brokers, so they could keep their sweatshops operating free of U.S. worker protection laws. With Rep. Tom DeLay's (R-TX) help, he kept our laws off their island, which allowed these conditions to develop, the magazine concludes."

|4.28.06 @ 2:13PM|#

- - It would certainly help if people understood that the phrase "cruel and unusual" means "disproportionate and non-standard" and instead of "mean and strange." - -

Shannon, I understant the meaning: disproportionate and non-standard. A "punishment fits the crime" thing. Perhaps the language should be changed to that, then. As you say, many do not understand what the phrase really means, and I think it is easy to forget the origins of the law and its meaning and let the definition slip into something less exact (mean and strange).

Given the new phrase "disproportionate and non-standard" then, can the DP be considered to be a standard punishment (in the 37 states that have it), given that it punishes in proportion to the crime (life for life/lives)?

|4.28.06 @ 2:14PM|#

How could a libertarian be pro-death penalty? Is that not the panultimate hypocrisy?

JMJ

|4.28.06 @ 2:15PM|#

Executions are carried out by Dept. of Corrections staff, with little or no medical supervision or training. Apparently, AMA ethics prevent physicians from actively participating in the executions.

Given that, and the possibility of putting the innocent to death, is why I oppose the DP.

Agree that most anti-DP people are motivated by sympathy for the perps, and will grasp at whatever straw they can to support their arguments.

|4.28.06 @ 2:15PM|#

Mr. Sinatra (good role model for you!):
RTFA regarding Bailey's trip to the Marianas. He did not sugarcoat the social problems, but did consider the alternative lives the workers might live back home in the glorious people's republic of China. And what does that, after all, have to do with this? You're just a troll. Adress the argument for once instead of punching out people in bars.

|4.28.06 @ 2:19PM|#

...and another thing. Even if the executed people do "deserve" a painful death, this rather undermines any anti-torture arguments.

Taking the moral high road sometimes means that bad people get off easy.

|4.28.06 @ 2:19PM|#

WTF are you babbling about, Sinatra?

CodeMonkeySteve|4.28.06 @ 2:22PM|#

I think all this talk of "Cruel and Unusal" is a herring.

Death's too good for them. Send them to a gulag in Alaska, take away their right to refuse life-saving treatment, and keep them alive for as long as possible while they make large rocks into small rocks for 12 hours a day, 6 days a week.

The innocent have the rest of their lives to prove it, the guilty have the reist of their lives to regret, and society is protected. What's the problem?

|4.28.06 @ 2:25PM|#

but trying to tug at my heart strings by telling me how heinous the crimes were doesn't work for me.

Ditto... in reverse. Tugging at my hearstrings by telling me how 'cruel and unusual' lethal injection is, doesn't work for me.

|4.28.06 @ 2:27PM|#

Mr. Bailey and I have long disagreed about capital punishment. That aside, however, it is sometimes enlightening to see how the framers' actually viewed crime and punishment.

To that end, may I recommend a glance at Thomas Jefferson's, A Bill for Proportioning Crimes and Punishments":

http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendVIIIs10.html

R C Dean|4.28.06 @ 2:29PM|#

How could a libertarian be pro-death penalty?

A belief in a night watchman state which punishes only a limited range of mala in se crimes is consistent with allowing those punishments to be severe to the point of death.

Is that not the panultimate hypocrisy?

That's almost a good question. (I'm not really interested in the penultimate hypocrisy, just the ultimate one. You might want to look it up, Jersey.)

What is the ultimate hypocrisy, public policy wise? I'm tempted to flag gun control, which in the name of protecting the helpless, strips them of the means to protect themselves. Other nominees?

|4.28.06 @ 2:30PM|#

Codemonkeysteve,

We can have them build all the bridges to the barely populated islands. That might even knock 10-15 million dollars off the project.

Seriously, I'm for the death penalty, though barely. I really think this is an issue best left to the majority to decide. I do agree with Bailey, however, in that IF we're going to do it, and IF the person is like the assholes he described, then I don't find a little suffering on their part as either cruel or unusual. Death involves pain, and spending your life in jail would be just as sucky if not more so.

|4.28.06 @ 2:31PM|#

How could a libertarian be pro-death penalty? Is that not the panultimate hypocrisy?

We can't help it. It's the liberal deep within us. Down deep, we still have an implicit trust in wisdom the state.

MP|4.28.06 @ 2:33PM|#

How could a libertarian be pro-death penalty? Is that not the panultimate hypocrisy?

Hey Jersey McJerkboy,

Stop asking the same question over and over again. If you really want to contribute, then contribute.

A liberatarian who is pro-dealth penalty is like a hen who's pro-fox: The stupidest thing on the face of the earth.

JMJ

Comment by: Jersey McJones at April 12, 2006 07:43 AM

|4.28.06 @ 2:37PM|#

Ha Ha!

Jersey just got pwned.

|4.28.06 @ 2:37PM|#

Paul - I wasn't implying that I am swayed by saying the murderer suffers, I was just commenting on Ron's tact here.

Again, I am against the death penalty, mostly because of the possibility of killing an innocent (for that crime anyway) person.

'Course, murder is a very touchy subject...if someone murdered someone I cared about, I'd have a hard time not taking matters into my own hands, so I guess you could call me a hypocrite, but I'm just saying I didn't really care for Ron's article, I guess.

|4.28.06 @ 2:42PM|#

AmyLou,

Given the new phrase "disproportionate and non-standard" then, can the DP be considered to be a standard punishment (in the 37 states that have it), given that it punishes in proportion to the crime (life for life/lives)?

The goal of the phrase is to maintain equality before the law. There is no evidence that either the writers or the ratifiers of the constitution ever conceived of the 8th amendment as disallowing any specific form of punishment. As long as similar crimes with similar circumstances receive similar punishment the constitutional requirements are satisfied.

Given both the long history and wide use of the death penalty for murder there is no basis for saying that it was either disproportionate or non-standard. I suppose at some point an argument could be made that a punishment long and widely used could become non-standard through progressive disuse. That is what happened to other corporal punishments like flogging in the 1800s. Jurisdiction after jurisdiction simply stopped using corporal punishment until it became so rare as to be non-standard. Anyone thereafter sentenced to corporal punishment could reasonably claimed that they received differing treatment under the law than others who committed the same offense.

|4.28.06 @ 2:44PM|#

Silliness.

JMJ

|4.28.06 @ 2:49PM|#

thank you, Shannon. that explanation is very elucidating (you don't happen to be able to explain Calculus in the same manner, do you? I am in need of a tutor).

new question, then: is the DP becoming non-standard? I don't hear many instances of it being used any longer. Perhaps that should be the issue upon which the debate surrounding the DP is based.

|4.28.06 @ 2:49PM|#

Eric Mattingly has it right. Death involves pain, as would any time spent in prison. The Constitution doesn't guarantee that convicts won't experience any pain, even (maybe particularly) when that pain is administered in connection with being put to death. Just like the Constitution doesn't guarantee that convicts for life won't experience moments (long periods/decades) of pain, for whatever reason.

I don't have a real problem with the death penalty. However, I also like the idea of keeping the bastards alive if we can first break most of their bones and then allow them to heal "wrong," so that they have to spend the rest of their lives as wretched, freakish creatures trying to scurry wherever they need to go.

|4.28.06 @ 2:51PM|#

"What is the ultimate hypocrisy, public policy wise?"

Killing people to liberate them? To save them from a bad man? To save them from themselves? To save them from hell? To save them from a substance?

There are so many, it's hard to choose one as penultimate. But I guess if I had to, I'd go with killing someone (innocent) because otherwise a given political system will fail. What kind of monstrous system requires the death of an innocent as a pre-condition to its survival?

Baylen|4.28.06 @ 2:51PM|#

Preface: I'm opposed to the death penalty.

Ron Bailey, I'm sure you're familiar with the case of Cory Maye, who is unjustly on death row for killing a cop. If Maye is executed, would that change how you view the death penalty? If not, why? If I can't feel safe shooting a person(s) who unlawfully breaks into my home -- whether that person(s) is a cop or robber or a little bith of both -- how can I feel safe at all?

I don't want to live to be a 185-year old in a society where I can't safely kill someone who is using force to break into my home. Do you?

|4.28.06 @ 3:00PM|#

Mediageek:

Like clockwork. Jersey gets pwned in nearly every thread where any of the other commenters are at or above a 8th grade education.

"How could a libertarian be pro-death penalty? Is that not the panultimate hypocrisy?"

Jersey, why should being "libertarian" necessarily preclude being anti-death penalty? Libertarianism favors smaller, limited government----not no government (go see the folks at Catallarchy for that). If you believe in a state which doles out justice, a "night-watchman" state which protects its citizens from infringments of their rights, then letting the government punish criminals for their crimes is not hypocritical. And once you accept that the state is authorized to punish criminals convicted by a jury of their peers, then discussions over the death penalty are simply discussions of differentiation in degrees, not discussions of principled differentiations.

Which is why simply being 'libertarian' is not enough to inform my personal decision on the death penalty.

But, then, I've come to expect that kind of ignorant, blithe statement from you.

R C Dean|4.28.06 @ 3:03PM|#

What kind of monstrous system requires the death of an innocent as a pre-condition to its survival?

Communism?

Certainly not capitalism or (liberal) democracy.

|4.28.06 @ 3:03PM|#

AmyLou,

new question, then: is the DP becoming non-standard? I don't hear many instances of it being used any longer. Perhaps that should be the issue upon which the debate surrounding the DP is based.

The use of the death penalty has been declining since the medieval ages when it was used to punish almost any repeat criminal. Well into the late 1800s it was still used as a punishment for horse thieves in Western states. Now it can only be considered the standard punishment the most serious murders.

It is hard to tell because the "natural" evolution of the DP was altered by judicial activism in 60-70's. There has been virtually no legislative actions on the death penalty in the last 40 years and not much before that. All the changes have been done through the courts and most of those changes were restrictions based on flawed understanding of the constitution so I don't think you can argue that the death penalty is currently non-standard because its use has been artificially restricted.

It is an unanswerable question whether the death penalty would have declined more or less absent the judicial activism. In many cases, support for the death penalty appears to be a counter-reaction to the perception of elitist control of the judiciary. If such an abrogation of power had never occurred perhaps there would now be far less support for the death penalty.

|4.28.06 @ 3:12PM|#

Baylen,

The "there's no going back from the death penalty" argument is the most persuasive that I've heard.

The Maye case illustrates a major problem(s) with our justice system, no doubt --- not the least of which is the scary fact that one could be prosecuted and punished (regardless of how) for defending their home and property and loved ones --- but it only informs the DP debate very cursorily.

If we could get the science to a point where guilt could be proven 100%, and there was no chance that an innocent man was being put to death...and the justice system was fixed so as to not allow cases like Cory Maye's to take place, then would you still be against the death penalty?

In other words, are you against the idea of the death penalty in general, or just the idea of the death penalty in our system as it exists now? I always have trouble discerning one argument from another. Many people make arguments against the death penalty on a principled, ephemeral level, then switch course and point to problems with the current justice system as evidence that it's no good. That always seems odd---it's as if they would support the death penalty if only we could get these particular problems ironed out.

Captain Holly|4.28.06 @ 3:12PM|#

AmyLou, according to studies that I've heard were done during the French Reign of Terror, a victim of the guilliotine lives for a few minutes past the beheading. (A doctor asked those slated to die to continue blinking their eyes rhythmically for as long as they were conscious...)

(Captain Holly tries in vain to suppress hearty guffaws long enough to type)

Uh, I would seriously doubt the veracity of these studies, considering that doctors back then hadn't the faintest idea of how the nervous system worked.

Involuntary movement of the eyes and eyelids would be perfectly normal, even expected, after a beheading. The shock of completely severing the spinal cord would send a flood of nerve impulses throughout the system, causing all sorts of muscles to continue to operate until they ran out of energy.

When the head is severed the blood pressure in the brain instantly drops to zero, causing the person to immediately become unconscious.

Now, the heart might continue to beat, and the lungs and diaphragm continue to work for several minutes after beheading, but since the body is no longer connected to the brain there would be no awareness or sensation coming from it.

But if the supply of blood and oxygen to the brain is immediately and completely cut off (as occurs during beheading, as opposed to merely restricted, which occurs during hanging), the brain will shut down right away.

In short, there is simply no way anyone would remain conscious for more than an instant after being beheaded. And since no one's been successfully guillotined and survived to contradict this, I stand on my assertion.

Ron Bailey-esque Obligatory Disclosure: Although I've never been beheaded, I suffer from atrial fibrillation which sometimes causes my blood pressure to drop drastically if I stand up too quickly. On a couple of occasions when I went from lying down to standing up quickly I was out cold so fast that I didn't even remember standing up.

|4.28.06 @ 3:19PM|#

"Communism?"

Certainly true of the Leninist and especially Stalinist and Maoist states.

"...liberal democracy." Depends on how you define that term, but several here, and especially insta-sellout, have certainly made the case that what they consider a liberal democracy requires the death of babies when bad men are near them else such states would commit suicide...

|4.28.06 @ 3:24PM|#

Whether one favors the death penalty or not will depend on a variety of factors, not the least being what sorts of things one believes the government ought to be permitted to do.

Be that as it may, it should be noted that there is no logical or moral contradiction in holding (1) that certain persons deserve to die as a result of their acts, but (2) the state should still not be given the power to kill them.

Epistemological concerns are important but not dispositive. That is, while it is certainly important that if the state is going to execute anyone it ensure that it executes the right person, it is nonetheless no hard task to find someone about whom only a madman or a philosopher would continue to harbor doubts.

For that matter, the mere infliction of pain obviously doesn't per se rise to torture or cruel and inhuman treatment. At the very least it must be asked (1) whether there was intent to inflict pain and (2) whether there are known alternatives to the otherwise intended objective (e.g., executing a condemned prisoner or, for that matter, performing a surgical operation on a patient for a legitimate medical reason).

|4.28.06 @ 3:25PM|#

Like clockwork. Jersey gets pwned in nearly every thread where any of the other commenters are at or above a 8th grade education.

I wonder if Jersey McTroll will be able to respond to any of our responses with reason, logic, and an absence of name calling.

|4.28.06 @ 3:27PM|#

Jersey, I've refrained for two months from addressing your idiocy. I can't keep it in any longer.
Jersey, you're an idiot.
Whatever passes for "thinking" in that shriveled head of yours comes out as attempts-at-pithiness one-liners, and a flagrant inability to understand and apply abstractions.
Your assertion that it's "hypocrisy" to be libertarian and believe in the death penalty is just another in a long line of ham-handed thought turds you leave all over this board.
Libertarianism is a set of principles on the stringent limitations the government should operate under. Libertarians can and do disagree about the precise nature of those strictures. And one of those debates is about the nature and scope of the government's duty to punish the enemies of liberty.
I myself do NOT believe in the death penalty, but it's rank petulance (and idiocy) to automatically question someone's libertarian cred based solely on the issue of capital punishment.
Fuck, dude. Get a clue.

Baylen|4.28.06 @ 3:29PM|#

Evan,

That's all theoretical, naturally, but I think I'd still be opposed to a death penalty that's administered by the state. Admittedly, though, my best argument against it would be gone.

My problems with the death penalty boil down to 1) my belief that the state has no right to take a life and b) the state has probably taken innocent lives or will someday do so.

A possible solution: If death penalty cases were infallible every time -- that's 100% certainty of guilt 100% of the time -- then I might favor allowing a victim's family to execute the accused in a controlled, private setting, using lethal injection or the like if they so chose.

|4.28.06 @ 3:38PM|#

If we could be 100% sure of identity (and of course, that's Star Trek type sci-fi, but it's a useful premise for discussion), you'd still have a fairly good debate over who deserves the death penalty.

A fair case can be made that in a restitution based system, only those for whom it can be determined the they will continue to be dangerous would it be appropriate. I guess as long as we have the science to be 100% sure of identity, we can postulate that we would also have the ability to be 100% sure of mental state of a person, and in that case, I'm okay with the death penalty.

Seeing as how neither of those two conditions are likely to be met in my lifetime, scientifically or legally, I'm fairly comfortable with being anti-death penalty. Maybe I'd go for it if everyone involved with the sentence, from cops, to prosecutors, to judge, to jury, were liable to execution themselves if the deceased is later found to be innocent. After all, they would then be guilty of murder themselves. At least then, there is some balance in the process.

|4.28.06 @ 3:38PM|#

Baylen:
What about war? Surely you don't mean that the state has no right to defend its citizens -- i.e., killing foreigners -- on occasions that warrant it?
Maybe you mean, "the state has no right to take the life of its citizenry premeditatively." That I'd buy.

Baylen|4.28.06 @ 3:52PM|#

Jamie Kelly,

Yes, you're right. I love when other people state my position better than I do.

|4.28.06 @ 3:57PM|#

Evan,

Your proposed hypothetical of a %100 accurate justice system is, in principle, impossible. Consequently any arguments brought forth from that hypothetical are not valid. I can thereby oppose in principle the death penalty because we may execute an innocent.

|4.28.06 @ 3:59PM|#

"then I might favor allowing a victim's family to execute the accused in a controlled, private setting, using lethal injection or the like if they so chose."

Interesting idea Baylen, but then if an individual could have the right to kill under certain proscribed circumstances, why shouldn't the state, being an aggregate of individuals, have the same right?

|4.28.06 @ 4:07PM|#

Todd:
I'd argue that the state isn't merely an aggregate of individuals, but an institution of force made up of agents who carry out specifically designated powers. That makes the state different than, say, a corporation or a cooperative. And such as is the nature of force, individuals have to be very careful which powers -- especially when it comes to matters of life and death -- they're willing to grant that institution.

Baylen|4.28.06 @ 4:12PM|#

Todd,

I'm hiring Jamie as my spokesman (spokesperson?).

|4.28.06 @ 4:19PM|#

I understand your position however I think you discredit yourself at the very end.

If you really studied this issue you would know that this is NOT the way animals are put down and that veterinarians use an entirely different method.

They state that this mixture as well as the fact that differing amounts are used to make the cocktail (not just state to state but even execution to execution) which is not administered by a medical professional can cause excruciating pain through the entire duration of the procedure.

As for your suggestion that medical personnel be involved this has already been discussed and the medical community is appalled as it would violate their oath to do no harm.

I agree that the crimes for which these men have been sentenced were of course painful to the victims. But I don't see how causing pain to the potential perpetrators years later does any good. It is called the death penalty, not the pain and suffering penalty. Then let the state cause death in a manner as free as possible from pain and suffering.

For full disclosure I should say that I am torn on the "death" penalty aside from this issue for 4 simple reasons:

1) I do not think that someone should be put to death 20 years after they committed a crime as they are no longer the same person. I do not still punish my sister for something she did when I was 10 or the dog for peeing on the carpet the day before. If the bank robber had been shot and killed in the bank after shooting a police officers I would not have a problem with his death sentence.

2) The question of actual guilt will always be a problem, you can free a man wrongfully convicted even after 60 years of incarceration. You can NEVER free of man from death (not even a painless one).

3) The disproportionate number of minorities sentenced to death compared to white people who committed almost identical crimes is STAGGERING. How can we support a system when it is obviously so flawed?

4) The blatant hypocrisy of the government murdering a person because that person broke our law not to murder.

I also feel very strongly that the state needs a bargaining chip when making deals and that some people/crimes do deserve the ultimate price (i.e. slicing up little children after raping them for a few hours or anyone who tortures an animal. Obviously I have emotions like everyone else.

If we are going to keep putting people to death lets at least make sure it is just that "death" just in case we did screw up somewhere along the way and any of the assumptions (1-4) have merit.

|4.28.06 @ 4:42PM|#

-"man"
I have male genitalia, anyway. But I cry at movies. I don't know. It's beer:30.

Baylen|4.28.06 @ 5:05PM|#

Didn't want to be presumptuous. I'm male, yet reports have speculated that I may have cried during both "Love, Actually" and "Amelie". (I had something in my eye.) My first name is pretty nondescript, while my middle name happens to be "Jamie".

|4.28.06 @ 5:14PM|#

complexisomorphism,

"Your proposed hypothetical of a %100 accurate justice system is, in principle, impossible."

Actually, it's not impossible in principle unless 1) it were logically self-inconsistent, 2) a tautology, or 3) unfalsifiable. None of those are the case. It is, however, very likely to be impossible in practice. Evan was asking whether or not DP would be acceptable in a perfect situation. If so, an opponent would be making one kind of argument. If not, then another.

|4.28.06 @ 5:36PM|#

Let's bring back the guillotine! With knitting ladies all around it, natch..

...

|4.28.06 @ 7:21PM|#

The question of actual guilt will always be a problem

I keep telling these jackles it wasn't me, it was one of my many doubles! Thanks for the moral support,

Saddam

|4.28.06 @ 11:21PM|#

it does seem relevant that Bailey's final point is false; veterinarians have changed the drug cocktail used to put animals down, away from the one currently used on humans, because of precisely these concerns that the animal might suffer agonizing pain masked by the immobilizing effect. if it's too bad for dogs, maybe it's too bad for humansm, even if they are souless bastards.

Thomas Paine's Goiter|4.28.06 @ 11:28PM|#

From MP's link:

10 Sept 1977 Last execution by guillotine in France.




ERM, huh?

Thomas Paine's Goiter|4.28.06 @ 11:36PM|#

Is that not the panultimate hypocrisy?

Maybe if you wouldn't make up words, we could respond.

nicotine|4.29.06 @ 12:37AM|#

gawnrkudtr

|4.29.06 @ 3:49PM|#

CodeMonkeySteve has it right.

And it's always interesting to hear libertarians defend the incredibly error-prone government's prerogative to kill people, when the public would be just as safe if these people were kept behind bars.

|4.29.06 @ 5:45PM|#

You are right, thoreau. We know how the goverment screws again and again.

But when it comes to decide who deserves to die, the government is all wise.

Shouldn't a goverment that is wise enough to decide on the life and death of one of its citizens not decide how to educate children, for example?

|4.29.06 @ 6:07PM|#

Since the alleged murderers were acting as private citizens and not as agents of the state, what's the problem? How can we support the murder of private citizens by the state? If the victims relatives hunted them down and killed them, it would be another matter, but the state?

|4.29.06 @ 9:04PM|#

And it's always interesting to hear libertarians defend the incredibly error-prone government's prerogative to kill people

You're falling into the same trap as JMJ, thoreau. Though they prefer to rely on the machinations of the free market for most problems, libertarians do not necessarily think that a government is inevitably error-prone. Indeed, they would entrust it with a monopoly on initiation of force. The problems arise when govt gets so big that there can be no real oversight, which is where $10000 toilet seats and bridges to nowhere come from.

And in any case, in addition to passing muster with all three branches of govt, death sentences are meted out by juries, not the government.

|4.29.06 @ 9:17PM|#

You also failed to address the most substantial argument against the death penalty-the fact that innocent people are occasionally murdered by the state. I'd expect that from a Fox News host, but not from a columnist who's thoughts are usually logical and well-laid out. [bold mine]

Assuming "occasionally" means, like, greater than zero times, you have evidence for that, right?

2) The question of actual guilt will always be a problem, you can free a man wrongfully convicted even after 60 years of incarceration. You can NEVER free of man from death (not even a painless one).

So it's OK if a guy gets convicted when he's 20, and released from prison when he's found to have been innocent at age 80 (and maybe given a monetary compensation)? It might be better than death, but by how much?

|4.30.06 @ 12:19AM|#

Is that not the panultimate hypocrisy?

Maybe if you wouldn't make up words, we could respond.

Personally, I think it's an enormitous dichotony!

|4.30.06 @ 7:58AM|#

crimethink:

It is not that libertarians do not think the government error-prone in the initiation of force. It is a pragmatic acceptance of the lesser evil, since the alternative to it, initiation of force by sundry individuals is OK was already tried in the Middle Ages...

|4.30.06 @ 11:52AM|#

pan=prefix meaning general or all encompassing
ultimate= fundamental

panultimate=generally fundamental
or is it
fundamentally all encompassing?

Neologism for sure, but is it wrong?
It makes more sense in the sentence than "penultimate"

|4.30.06 @ 4:17PM|#

How could a libertarian be pro-death penalty?

Very easily. I can't see a better place in the political spectrum for someone who believes that the purpose of the legal system is to punish people according to the harm they do to others (which is basically the argument of the article).

You want to take drugs? That doesn't harm anyone else, so there's no punishment. You murder someone? You get the death penalty. Everything else fits somewhere in between. It may be simplistic, but it also leaves very little room for excessive regulation.

|5.1.06 @ 4:14PM|#

This is in Florida, the same state which keeps Richard Paey in prison for using painkillers.

If they're so callous as to send a SWAT team to arrest a man in a wheelchair (while letting Rush Limbaugh undergo treatment), what makes you think they care about a convicted murderer?