Interestingly I believe there was some Pacific Island that had a machette problem. Every once in a while someone would go off and kill a bunch of villagers with a machette before they were captured and put to death. They found there were people who would do that knowing they would be killed but would do it for the the infamy.
They changed the punishment from death to solitary and didn’t talk about their crime. They found it was a much bigger deterrent to future copy cat type killings and cut down on machette violence quite bit.
I wish I could remember where it was or the study, it was one my wife told me about and google is letting me down on the searches I’ve tried.
I’m not certain that it is possible to prescribe a simple covers-all-cases rule, I’m thinking of something along the lines of “caught red-handed performing a premeditated egregious act, with no question of whether the person can comprehend the egregiousness of their actions”.
Planning to take a collection of rifles to a highrise hotel to see how much of a crowd can be killed, acting on that plan, and being caught in the act would likely qualify. Same thing with planning to bomb a large building, and being caught while executing the plan.
I’ll admit that it is likely impossible to achieve the level of certainty I’d want given the “no question of whether the person can comprehend the egregiousness of their actions” criterion.
It’s possible that this might rise to being a de facto ban on execution, and I’d be OK with that. I’d prefer life imprisonment for a particularly heinous crime over the chance the government might execute an innocent person, or someone who lacked the capacity to know what they were doing.
But I do think that it is theoretically possible that someone could be positively identified as having committed a particularly vile crime, and there be no chance of redemption or of being a contributing member of society (even in a limited capacity from behind bars). If that situation arises…it’s not humane to keep them alive, in prison, probably in some degree of isolation, for the rest of their days.
The rate of exonerations among death sentences in the United States is far higher than for any other category of criminal convictions. Death sentences represent less than one-tenth of 1% of prison sentences in the United States (7), but they accounted for about 12% of known exonerations of innocent defendants from 1989 through early 2012 (2), a disproportion of more than 130 to 1. A major reason for this extraordinary exoneration rate is that far more attention and resources are devoted to death penalty cases than to other criminal prosecutions, before and after conviction.
It’s an interesting and depressing study in general.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said Thursday night’s execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith by nitrogen hypoxia went according to plan for the never-used method.
Witnesses said Smith writhed and showed convulsive movements for about two minutes after the nitrogen gas was started. Marshall was asked if that contradicted claims the state’s lawyers made in court, such as when Solicitor General Edmund LaCour Jr., said, “Alabama has adopted the most painless and humane method of execution known to man.”
Witnesses said Smith writhed and thrashed for about two minutes. That was followed by five to seven minutes of heavy breathing. Witnesses said Smith stopped moving about 8:08 p.m.
Yeah, I’m not convinced that it’s painless and humane.
I’m deep in, at the edge of knowing the ramble of a medicated mind is coming, so if this is disjoint, take a puff puff and pass it on.
The government does not (should not) have the right to kill its people based on its own set of rules. The ease with which we can house a human in isolation from society for their life span is enough.
Society, and its agent the government, has a right to remove those individuals that cannot or will not follow the basic precepts of the society. Removal from society is enough. Temporarily if there is desire for rehabilitation, permanent for the rest. A weak or poor or evil society considers killing as the permanent solution.
The concept of humane killing is foolish. Have you killed? The visceral feel is not humane. To quote Will Munny “It’s a hell of a thing, killing a man. Take away all he’s got and all he’s ever gonna have.” There is no good in it. Yes, all the akshually crowd can talk of the need to kill in self defense, to protect the innocent, in a just war, etc. etc. etc. All well and good, but not what we are discussing. Killing a human because we have deemed this human is evil/broken/wrong. Who decides? Why do they decide? Is it humane for humanity to consume itself, to purge itself of itself, or do we need that panacea that morphine of stratification, they weren’t fully human, just flaws upon of godly better than thou selves.
If government is for the people by the people, why can the government kill but not me?
This. I think the death penalty is wrong. I think even if it were sometimes okay, it was very wrong in this case, where the jury who heard the trial ruled against it. And where we know the state had the resources to imprison the person.
One problem with this method that i haven’t seen discussed is that there’s a single person who flips the switch and causes the death of another person, a person who isn’t a threat to them. There is a unique executioner. So not only is one man killed, but another man has his soul diminished.
And agree with most all of your post. Except maybe if one can’t prevent killing as punishment, it should be done with as little additional suffering as possible. I think even in the case of necessity reducing the suffering is a good goal. This may be why people use the word “humane”. I can see why that flies in the face of humanity’s awareness of and aversion to the inevitabilty of death.
The methods available to prevent a person from doing further harm is the key to whether death has to be used to do it. I think that in most societies today it need not be used, and to do so is immoral.
Whether being an executioner diminishes one’s soul depends a fair amount on the individual’s conscience.
“If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well It were done quickly” is in one sense right, even if it didn’t end too well for that guy.
Totally agree. And I think many of the supporters of the death penalty may be the same folks who are preaching about the sanctity of life for fetuses. Some hypocrisy over the right to take a person’s life.
That’s obviously my personal judgement. But i think it’s bad for a human to kill another human. I think it’s a little bad even to kill an animal. And i think killing a human on purpose, when that person is not a threat to you, is what than other forms of killing
With a suspected edit…
I agree, but the question of whether the person is a threat can be determined as an immediate physical threat or a long term generalized threat to people you are responsible for. Different people will come to different conclusions on that.
I seem to recall reading thou shalt not kill somewhere? Legislators in death penalty states probably believe in the Book with those words in it but figured God meant to make an exception for this situation? Although the old concept of “an eye for an eye” was rejected in a later section of that same Book.
Honest question: what happens when it’s not so easy? When a prisoner rapes and/or kills other prisoners and/or guards and thus continues to be a threat to others even in his/her imprisonment?
There’s some question as to what exactly is meant by that and that perhaps “thou shalt not murder” is a better translation… implying that there are scenarios where killing is not murder and therefore is ok.
Certainly there are places in the Bible God himself commands people to kill, so it’s obviously a little more complicated than those 4 words suggest.