Micro life
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1. Will it dissuade others from committing murder?
[/ QUOTE ]Capital punishment is obviously not a serious deterrent. I don't think one needs to scare up the stats to show this.
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2. Is there more than a micro chance that the life sentence will allow an eventual release or escape?
[/ QUOTE ]That's almost the same as the argument posed by mikechops above, i.e. "Is there a chance the murder will kill again whilst in prison?" We cannot be punishing someone else for our failings. A prison system is supposed to protect guards and other inmates from murderous inmates. It is also supposed to prevent escapes.
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3. Does it cost more to keep him alive?
[/ QUOTE ]Keeping a person alive essentially means feeding him, sheltering him and guarding him -- in a prison context. On the other hand, there's a cost tagged to the procedure of executing someone by the state, since there is a prescribed procedure. (We could, of course, choose again the cheapest procedure of execution, were we to strictly adher to the "cost logic" of David. Just whack him on the head repeatedly with a baseball bat or sumethin'.) The PV of the expenses for keeping him alive down the road would indicate that it pays to commit a crime in a relatively advanced age.
But why should cost be a factor only in murder cases, David?
If you'd answer "because a murder is involved", you'd slip into the high falootin' pit of arguing about the nature of the crime itself.
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4. Is there more than a micro chance that the defendent is innocent?
[/ QUOTE ]Even the DNA tests do not come with probability 1.
Mickey Brausch
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