South Carolina can execute death row inmates by firing squad, lethal injection or the electric chair, the state's high court ruled Wednesday, opening the door to restart executions after more than a decade.
All five justices agreed with at least part of the ruling. But two of the justices said...
I say the death penalty is itself inhumane, focusing on the technical problem misses the point. Killing people you have a high degree of confidence committed murder means on a long enough time span, you’re virtually guaranteed to kill innocents. The process required to minimize these false positive killings makes the death penalty more expensive than life in prison, on average. As far as I can tell, there’s no upside to the death penalty, unless you’re firmly convinced that the criminal justice system needs to focus on retribution.
The only humane option I see is to let them live out their lives in a context where they won’t reoffend.
on a long enough time span, you’re virtually guaranteed to kill innocents
On a long enough time span, you’re also virtually guaranteed to lock innocents in prison for the rest of their natural lives. (My guess is that this happens more often than killing innocents because death-penalty cases attract much more attention.) Is killing people so much worse than putting them up in a cage and never letting them out that one is inhumane and the other isn’t?
I don’t disagree with your main point, the carceral system is itself fundamentally broken, and fixing one thing won’t suddenly make the system humane. The goal of a criminal justice system should be to reduce recidivism, to empower people through education to leave ready to have a more constructive and fulfilling life than when they arrived. We should respect the humanity of inmates, overturn wrongful convictions, eviscerate minimum sentencing guidelines, abolish stupid crimes that don’t even represent a threat to society like prostitution, and apply state and federal minimum wages to inmates, among so many other changes.
There’s so much inhumanity in the system, to your point. We can and should revisit convictions, and try to make amends if we got it wrong. And it should really never look anything like putting people in a cage for life.
But that’s kind of my point, the only humane method is not to kill people. Asking “but how do we do it” is like asking how to square a circle; there may be a couple of interesting things to learn along the way, but you won’t find any satisfying answers to the question.
While, for the most part, I agree with you, there are cases that are simply a textbook example of needing the death penalty. If somebody, in their right mind, decides to kill simply because they want to know what it’s like, they need to be removed from the herd.
Look at inmates who continue to present a danger not only to staff, but to other inmates. If, as far as medical science is able to, they are in their right mind, what do you do with them?
I get what you’re saying, it’s certainly a hard situation, and a rare one, but I think “truly nothing we can do” is an exceptionally rare situation.
But why is that person acting the way they are? People do things for reasons, even if they aren’t good ones. Maybe the only way they can safely interact with people is via video chat, and respecting the humanity of the others around them means that’s all they get. There are ways for them to get access to food, water, shelter, sunlight, even socialization, without physical access to others, and access to somebody to talk to who might be able to help them, even if the DSM doesn’t have a specific diagnosis that describes them.
I think any system that deals with people who have done what society has labelled crime should seek to minimize harm, and maximize opportunities to grow for those who wish to take them. I don’t think your “textbook” case for the death penalty achieves either of these aims.
I say the death penalty is itself inhumane, focusing on the technical problem misses the point. Killing people you have a high degree of confidence committed murder means on a long enough time span, you’re virtually guaranteed to kill innocents. The process required to minimize these false positive killings makes the death penalty more expensive than life in prison, on average. As far as I can tell, there’s no upside to the death penalty, unless you’re firmly convinced that the criminal justice system needs to focus on retribution.
The only humane option I see is to let them live out their lives in a context where they won’t reoffend.
On a long enough time span, you’re also virtually guaranteed to lock innocents in prison for the rest of their natural lives. (My guess is that this happens more often than killing innocents because death-penalty cases attract much more attention.) Is killing people so much worse than putting them up in a cage and never letting them out that one is inhumane and the other isn’t?
I don’t disagree with your main point, the carceral system is itself fundamentally broken, and fixing one thing won’t suddenly make the system humane. The goal of a criminal justice system should be to reduce recidivism, to empower people through education to leave ready to have a more constructive and fulfilling life than when they arrived. We should respect the humanity of inmates, overturn wrongful convictions, eviscerate minimum sentencing guidelines, abolish stupid crimes that don’t even represent a threat to society like prostitution, and apply state and federal minimum wages to inmates, among so many other changes.
There’s so much inhumanity in the system, to your point. We can and should revisit convictions, and try to make amends if we got it wrong. And it should really never look anything like putting people in a cage for life.
If they are innocent they still have the rest of their lives for that to be determined.
Once you kill an innocent, they don’t get the rest of their natural life for that to be determined.
Most of us agree, but the discussion is about methods vs. morality.
But that’s kind of my point, the only humane method is not to kill people. Asking “but how do we do it” is like asking how to square a circle; there may be a couple of interesting things to learn along the way, but you won’t find any satisfying answers to the question.
While, for the most part, I agree with you, there are cases that are simply a textbook example of needing the death penalty. If somebody, in their right mind, decides to kill simply because they want to know what it’s like, they need to be removed from the herd.
Look at inmates who continue to present a danger not only to staff, but to other inmates. If, as far as medical science is able to, they are in their right mind, what do you do with them?
I get what you’re saying, it’s certainly a hard situation, and a rare one, but I think “truly nothing we can do” is an exceptionally rare situation.
But why is that person acting the way they are? People do things for reasons, even if they aren’t good ones. Maybe the only way they can safely interact with people is via video chat, and respecting the humanity of the others around them means that’s all they get. There are ways for them to get access to food, water, shelter, sunlight, even socialization, without physical access to others, and access to somebody to talk to who might be able to help them, even if the DSM doesn’t have a specific diagnosis that describes them.
I think any system that deals with people who have done what society has labelled crime should seek to minimize harm, and maximize opportunities to grow for those who wish to take them. I don’t think your “textbook” case for the death penalty achieves either of these aims.