The death penalty: valid yet targeted

The Los Angeles Times ^ | October 26, 2011 | David B. Rivkin Jr. and Andrew Grossman

[american_steve]

No serious constitutional argument can be made against the death penalty. The endless campaigns to ban it cost taxpayers millions to defend. By David B. Rivkin Jr. and Andrew Grossman On the September night that the state of Georgia put Troy Davis to death, a crowd of several hundred gathered at the Supreme Court in Washington to protest America's continued practice of capital punishment. But they were in the wrong place. The protesters should have assembled 600 miles southeast, in Atlanta.

[umgud]

Every legal argument against the death penalty begins with the 8th or 5th Amendment. The 8th bars "cruel and unusual punishments,"

The constitution prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. It doesn't guarantee a painless execution.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

[lentulusgracchus]

Whiners would complain that, unlike, say, smoking statistics which they adore, your interpretation of your stats is a case of post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, and go right on arguing that -- at the broadest level -- punishment NEVER has any deterrent effect on criminality.

Which, of course, embarrasses all their favorite criminal-law punishments for ee.g, violations of the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965, violations of VAWA, violations of smoking bans, etc., etc., etc., ad nauseam et ad infinitum.

Let's start calling them on this disconnect more often.