Capital Punishment For Murderers

[mikechops]

I actually think victim's families feelings are a good reason for capital punishment. I'm assuming the default is to wish to see it carried out and if they disagree, I'm sure most governors would be grant clemency.

Economic considerations either way seem to me to be awful arguments.

[Mickey Brausch]

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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

[sandman-54]

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Economic considerations either way seem to me to be awful arguments.

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I hope this is because you know the difference in cost to be very small. On the other hand, if you're implying that any difference in cost cannot possibly add up to enough to rightfully change one's decision, then which other consideration do you have in mind that is of ultimate importance, or is it all of them?

[Copernicus]

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In states where the death penalty has been rinstituted after years of being banned, the murder rate has not dropped even slightly. Not just when the dp was brought back but even after the executions started.

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What states were those?

[mikechops]

I'd say cost shouldn't be a factor because we can afford it. If we had 10% of the population locked away for life or on appeal for 15 years, I'd likely change my mind.

The other arguments don't seem very compelling to me either. I don't believe you can prove either way whether the death penalty is a deterent - there are too many other factors influencing crime rates to sort a signal from the noise. Practically speaking if someone is sent to prison for life, they don't escape. If they are convicted of murder and various appeals fail, I'd be 99.999999999999% certain they are guilty.

If someone close to you is murdered, wanting revenge is a perfectly natural, healthy response. Obviously we don't want people going around trying to avenge family memebers, so in a civilized society, we have the state do it. Locking someone up forever doesn't seem quite as satisfying as executing them - like the state has done a half-assed job of the vengence. So I guess that's why I'm in favor of capital punishment. It might seem a bad reason to some, but it feels right to me.

[Ryanb9]

Is he sorry?

[blackize]

Would public executions be a deterrent?

[Deorum]

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5) Yes, most families feel better.


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This is a misconception that most people seem to have, so I just wanted to point out that it is not actually true in most cases. Forget for the moment whether or not this should be criteria for or against the death penalty. I am not saying that the families of victims do not seek revenge. Most of them will say they want revenge, closure, etc, and a lot of them think the death penalty is suitable for that. In the Oklahoma City Bombing, for instance, most of the families of the victims said they wanted Timothy McVeigh put to death. They said it was the only suitable consequence. However, once he was put to death, almost none of the families of the victims, even those who were there to witness the execution, said they felt avenged. They didn't say he got what he deserved. Many of them even expressed disappointment that the execution didn't give them the feeling of closure and vengence they wanted. And after a while, when those families were interviewed again, most of them said they didn't feel any better at all. Some even said they felt worse and that it didn't accomplish anything, it only caused another death.

[Tiltaniac]

The goal should be to maximize social utility. This is dependent upon the culture of society.

For right now:

Kill convicted murderers that cannot contribute more to society than cost of keeping them alive. Take into account all costs and benefits of keeping the convict alive and the probalities of those events. Adjust all future values with a projected discount rate.

examples of costs of keeping a convict alive:
- value of murderer performing a harmful act
- controlling and maintaining the convict

examples of benefits of keeping the convict alive:
- labor
- value of not killing someone innocent
- value of reforming the convict and creating a productive unit to society

For those that have a benefit greater than cost, put them to do work until the utility of their work falls below the threshold, then kill them. Killing should be done in the most efficient manner as possible.

wiki link to capital punishment

[Shandrax]

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1. Will it dissuade others from committing murder?

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It may dissuade some, but the overall number of murder despite the capital punishment speaks for itsself. There are probably more cases in the US than in all of Europe together. Also you cannot dissuade mental cases.

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2. Is there more than a micro chance that the life sentence will allow an eventual release or escape?

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Release can be stopped by law, escape can be stopped by "technology". In the latter case, it could always be better, so the micro chance for escape exists. On the other side, it doesn't matter. Capital punishment is mainly punishment for the past and not for the future, otherwise you shouldn't execute all those criminals who converted to priests or became philosophers and wrote poems while waiting for it.

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3. Does it cost more to keep him alive?

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Sorry, but this does not matter at all. Justice cannot have a price. Whatever it costs, it's the price the community has to pay. Last but not least, everyone is willing to pay it anyways, because nobody want's to be killed himself if there is a slight chance that he was innocent. The cost of lifelong sentence is our insurance against mistakes.

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4. Is there more than a micro chance that the defendent is innocent?

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In many cases there is. Most cases don't happen in front of national TV and even then we couldn't be sure.


My own opinion is that there is no way to kill a human without pain or a huge mess. Since painful or dirty work is barbaric, our ideal representative with rolemodel function - the state - cannot do it. We may very well sentence someone to death, but the execution has to wait until the perfect method has been found. This may take a few 100 years...