[hrothgar]

PassedOut, on 2011-September-22, 16:50, said:

You can't get around that simply by stating the the contrary.

Or, for that matter, quoting Heinlein

[Hanoi5]

gwnn, on 2011-September-22, 12:17, said:

Partly unrelated: I think all people found guilty of such crimes should have a choice between life sentence and capital punishment. It seems like cruel and unusual punishment to keep someone locked up who does not want to live like that. It is definitely cruel and unusual punishment to kill someone who does not want to die. I am particularly disturbed by scenes in which honest pleads for clemency by fellow human beings are rejected by civilised, elegant human beings.

Can you ask to be euthanized while in jail in countries where it is legal?

[gwnn]

Hanoi5, on 2011-September-22, 19:05, said:

Can you ask to be euthanized while in jail in countries where it is legal?

I don't know, but I was specifically talking about life sentences vs death sentences.

[gwnn]

blackshoe, on 2011-September-22, 15:25, said:

Gwnn: You are mistaken. Murder is by no means unusual. It happens every day.

I did not say "murder is unusual", I said "murder is unusual punishment". That said, you might argue that capital punishment has been around forever - so in a way, if you wish, I will grant you that neither life sentences nor death sentences are unusual. However, if this were really the criterion of the Eighth Amendment (something that I did not really want to go into, but why not), how do you explain that several forms of execution, e.g. hanging in most states, have already been dismissed as cruel and unusual? Certainly hanging as punishment has been around for much the same time period as ropes themselves?

[mike777]

I am afraid we executed an innocent man.

[blackshoe]

PassedOut, on 2011-September-22, 16:50, said:

Rights, individual and governmental, are what we the people define them to be, no more and no less. Over the course of history, rights have evolved along with human understanding and the advance of civilization.

We can certainly grant rights to the state that we do not grant to individuals, and we do so all the time. You can't get around that simply by stating the the contrary.

And you can't have it your way just by claiming that's the way it is. There's a difference between "right" and "power".

[PassedOut]

blackshoe, on 2011-September-23, 07:06, said:

And you can't have it your way just by claiming that's the way it is. There's a difference between "right" and "power".

I say that the state has all the rights that we the people have actually granted. That's reality. That's the basis for rights.

So far as I can see, you are virtually alone in asserting that the state can have no rights that individuals do not possess. And the argument you advance in support of that is simply, "Everyone is out of step but me."

Excuse me, but I can't agree without hearing the music.

[hrothgar]

hrothgar, on 2011-September-22, 15:45, said:

Would you extend your theory to.. say, taxes?

As far as I know, individuals don't have the right to tax one another and yet this is commonly accepted as a power granted to the government.

Bumping, since I don't recall seeing a response from Blackshoe...

[blackshoe]

gwnn, on 2011-September-22, 23:33, said:

I did not say "murder is unusual", I said "murder is unusual punishment". That said, you might argue that capital punishment has been around forever - so in a way, if you wish, I will grant you that neither life sentences nor death sentences are unusual. However, if this were really the criterion of the Eighth Amendment (something that I did not really want to go into, but why not), how do you explain that several forms of execution, e.g. hanging in most states, have already been dismissed as cruel and unusual? Certainly hanging as punishment has been around for much the same time period as ropes themselves?

Do you understand the difference between "murder", "killing" and "execution"? It sure doesn't seem like it. "How do I explain..."? I don't. I see no need to explain it. As for the Eighth Amendment, you brought it into the discussion when you invoked "cruel and unusual" - which, btw, is not one word, but two, with completely different meanings. A punishment can be one without being the other, and the prohibition is against it being both.

I don't want to get into the history of "cruel and unusual". Suffice it to say that the English were upset at such practices, and so the English Bill of Rights (1689) contained a provision, much like our Eighth Amendment, designed to prevent it. Over time, more and more specific practices have been judged, in the US, to violate the Eighth Amendment. But none of that is relevant. The question is not whether the death penalty is "cruel and unusual", but whether the State has any right at all to impose it. I say it does not. I also say that "what else are we going to do?" is not a justification for claiming the State does have that right. We can continue to allow the State to execute people, but we should acknowledge that it is not a matter of right, but one of power, that the State does so.

[Bbradley62]

1eyedjack, on 2011-September-20, 23:37, said:

This could be a dark day for the state of Georgia.

I wonder whether this will be a campaign issue when Nathan Deal (presumably) runs for re-election.

[hrothgar]

blackshoe, on 2011-September-23, 07:41, said:

We can continue to allow the State to execute people, but we should acknowledge that it is not a matter of right, but one of power, that the State does so.

Once again, please extend this same logic to taxes...

Or, more simply, please state whether you think that governments have the "right" to levy taxes

[gwnn]

blackshoe, on 2011-September-23, 07:41, said:

But none of that is relevant. The question is not whether the death penalty is "cruel and unusual", but whether the State has any right at all to impose it.

Our mini-exchange started when you said that taking the life of someone who does not want to die is not unusual (murderers do it all the time). I replied to your point (mainly by saying that I didn't say taking lives is unusual, just that it is a cruel and unusual form of punishment). Now you're saying that my initial post was not really to the point, which I fully conceded in it ("partly unrelated:"). I know that you're talking about the right of the State to impose it with some other people in this thread, good luck with those exchanges. If you think ours is pointless, you are quite possibly right.

Again, execution by hanging was not unusual at all in the 19th century yet most American states now consider it "cruel and unusual", i.e., as you yourself have eloquently put it, they consider it cruel, and they consider it unusual. So how can this be?

Also, my apologies for mixing up murder & killing, I do it all the time unfortunately.

[barmar]

blackshoe, on 2011-September-21, 19:10, said:

In my opinion, capital punishment is morally wrong. The State cannot have the power to do things that individuals have no right to do. But what's the alternative? Put 'em in jail? Who pays? What if they escape? Does the State have any more right to put people in jail than to execute them?

I think sentencing people to death may be more costly to the state than life sentences. First of all, they often spend decades on death row (Troy Davis was sentenced about 30 years ago), so you're not saving much on the incarceration costs. Second, there are likely to be more appeals - I think some states have a mandatory appeal for all death sentence convictions.

Even if I'm wrong that it's more costly, the savings are probably not huge. And because they spend so many years on death row, it doesn't help much with prison overcowding.

So I don't think you can try to use these "practical" excuses for the death penalty. Either it's an appropriate form of punishment or it isn't.

[barmar]

blackshoe, on 2011-September-23, 07:41, said:

I don't want to get into the history of "cruel and unusual". Suffice it to say that the English were upset at such practices, and so the English Bill of Rights (1689) contained a provision, much like our Eighth Amendment, designed to prevent it. Over time, more and more specific practices have been judged, in the US, to violate the Eighth Amendment. But none of that is relevant. The question is not whether the death penalty is "cruel and unusual", but whether the State has any right at all to impose it. I say it does not. I also say that "what else are we going to do?" is not a justification for claiming the State does have that right. We can continue to allow the State to execute people, but we should acknowledge that it is not a matter of right, but one of power, that the State does so.

I think implicit in the way the 8th Amendment is worded is that the state has the right to impose any punishment that isn't judged to be "cruel and unusual".

The Supreme Court has ruled that the death penalty in general is not C&U. However, it may be C&U in certain cases, such as juveiniles and mentally impaired people. And the method matters: hanging is not allowed because it's slow and painful, while lethal injections are swift, painless, and relatively dignified. In other words, if we're going to put someone to death, we're going to at least try to do it in the most humane way (analogous to euthanizing a pet).

[blackshoe]

barmar, on 2011-September-23, 14:49, said:

I think sentencing people to death may be more costly to the state than life sentences. First of all, they often spend decades on death row (Troy Davis was sentenced about 30 years ago), so you're not saving much on the incarceration costs. Second, there are likely to be more appeals - I think some states have a mandatory appeal for all death sentence convictions.

Even if I'm wrong that it's more costly, the savings are probably not huge. And because they spend so many years on death row, it doesn't help much with prison overcowding.

So I don't think you can try to use these "practical" excuses for the death penalty. Either it's an appropriate form of punishment or it isn't.

Then we seem to be in agreement.

[Bbradley62]

barmar, on 2011-September-23, 14:49, said:

I think sentencing people to death may be more costly to the state than life sentences. First of all, they often spend decades on death row (Troy Davis was sentenced about 30 years ago), so you're not saving much on the incarceration costs. Second, there are likely to be more appeals - I think some states have a mandatory appeal for all death sentence convictions.

Even if I'm wrong that it's more costly, the savings are probably not huge. And because they spend so many years on death row, it doesn't help much with prison overcowding.

So I don't think you can try to use these "practical" excuses for the death penalty. Either it's an appropriate form of punishment or it isn't.

I agree with your concluding sentence, but not with how you got there.

Troy Davis was 42 years old when he was executed. (No, he was not senteced at age 12.) If his sentence had been commuted to life in prison, he'd likely have been incarcerated into the 2040s.

This post has been edited by Bbradley62: 2011-September-23, 19:24

[blackshoe]

Mark McPhail was killed on August 19, 1989. Troy Davis was convicted and sentenced to death in August of 1991. He was 20 at the time of the killing. Born 1968, life expectancy say 70, so he'd have been incarcerated until 2038, a total of about 48 years, give or take a year.

According to wikipedia, the average cost per year of incarceration of state prisoners was $23,876 in 2005. I suspect death row inmates cost more. But 48*23876=$1,146,048.

[Bbradley62]

If the discussion is about the cost difference between imposing a death sentence vs a life sentence, then those 20 years of imprisonment are not part of the difference, because Davis was going to spend those years in jail under either sentence.

My primary point was to disagree with:

Barmar said:

First of all, they often spend decades on death row (Troy Davis was sentenced about 30 years ago), so you're not saving much on the incarceration costs... And because they spend so many years on death row, it doesn't help much with prison overcowding.

In this case, we're talking about an additional 30 years of incarceration costs and "occupying a bed".

[blackshoe]

There's a difference between the people on death row and the much larger number of people "occupying a bed" because somebody left a joint in their car. And yes, I recognize that the "somebody" could be the convict himself.

[barmar]

Sorry, I misremembered the time frame in the news reports, it was 2 decades, not 3 (I think something else was in the news this week that involved 3 decades, but now I can't remember what it was).