Two Death Penalty Questiosns

[David Sklansky]

Both of these questions are directed only to those who believe that the death penalty is sometimes warranted.

1. First assume that the death penalty is not a deterrent to other criminals. Many say that. I don't know if it is true. But if assuming that would make you opposed to the death penalty you are not eligible for this question. However there are other reasons, aside from deterrence, that some argue makes the death penalty an appropriate punishment in some cases. If you are one of those people I ask you:

What error rate would you tolerate? How many innocent people out of a thousand would have to be executed before you would change your stance and oppose the death penalty? Say those are your only two choices, accept the error rate or eliminate the punishment.

2. This question is for those who say deterrence is by far the most important reason for the death penalty. If so, a relatively high error rate could be tolerated if it could be shown that even more lives are saved because the death penalty scares off future murderers. Thus if 1000 executions save 25 people from getting murdered, it would seem worth it if eleven of those executions were of innocent men (though usually dirtbags). My question is do you think there is a one to one correspondance? If not, saving a hundred people from future murder is worth falsely executing how many people?

For those who are in favor of the death penalty for both deterrence and other reasons, I have no question for you. But if you want to pretend to be eligible for these questions, go ahead and answer them.

[chrisnice]

1. i would favor the death penalty in some cases if the error rate was zero or as humanly close as possible. if u could somehow show the error rate was less than one in 10 million i would be fine with it. short of that certainty i say eliminate.

edit- i take back 1 in 10 million. if the error rate was less than the chance of a convicted 1st degree murderer escaping and killing again i could accept it.

[Piers]

1) The important consideration is the perceived error rate, not the actual one. If it were generally accepted that only one in ten million cases were errors most people would be happy, even if the actual error rate were several percent.

2) Tried to pretend, could not manage it. Personally I think justice is a civilised form of social revenge. It feels real good to see a load of terrorists get the death penalty, doesn’t matter if they are innocent as long as I don’t find out. Guess I am just warped.

[John Cole]

Re: Question two. A study done at Harvard found that the use of cell phones while driving increases productivity by 42 billion dollars a year; however, using cell phones while driving also results in the loss of 42 billion dollars a year as the result of death, injury, and property damage. Therefore, using cell phones while driving should not be a concern since it's not "worth it" to change the behavior.

[The once and future king]

[ QUOTE ]
Re: Question two. A study done at Harvard found that the use of cell phones while driving increases productivity by 42 billion dollars a year; however, using cell phones while driving also results in the loss of 42 billion dollars a year as the result of death, injury, and property damage. Therefore, using cell phones while driving should not be a concern since it's not "worth it" to change the behavior.

[/ QUOTE ]

Surely this a great arguement for legislating for hands free sets to be compulsory in cars. You get all the benefits and non of the downs.

[John Cole]

Well, I'm really trying to understand what "worth it" means. However, the death penalty may be an effective deterrent for cell phone use.

[goofball]

Maybe you could come up with some questions for those of us who think the death penalty is not appropriate under any circumstances.

[sirio11]

1- Zero

Currently, such rate doesn't exist. I would like to have a system that warranties that every man executed is guilty 100%, no doubts. If any doubt at all, then the man is not executed. And by this, I mean certainty in the scientific sense, not certainty by interpretation of a specific group of jurors. Guiltness almost proved in a mathematical sense.

[toor]

1. Assuming the alernative to the Death Penalty was Life in prison with no chance of parole. I would be happy with 1 in 1,000 (maybe 1 in 10,000). People who are sentenced to Death receive more appeals and legal services then any other criminal (and deservedly so), they have the best chance of proving themselves innocent. Even after they have exhausted their appeals the average deathrow inmate is given about 10 years before they are executed. From an innocent mans point of view would you rather have life in prison with 5% Chance of being released. Or a 10% chance to be released but failing that death in 10 years. I would probably choose the latter as life without parole doesnt seem like that much different from death to me. So IMO, it is in the interests of a falsely convicted individual to get the death penalty as opposed to life in prison.

[AndysDaddy]

This is an interesting line of thought that hadn't occured to me before. One that I can see some merit in.

However, I would still choose a life sentence over death in ten years, as I would still be hoping that a correction could be made. Just this week there was a story of a man wrongly convicted 18 years ago being freed on new DNA evidence.

Add in the apparent biases in race, gender, economic levels, and who knows what else by juries, judges and prosecutors and there is no way I can justify the death penalty in my mind.
--
Scott