Posted on 11/16/2005 10:09:15 AM PST by Coleus
Why is it that the Bishops get so upset by yearly capital punishments of 59[2004]but they don't get nearly as exercized by millions of abortions?
It seems that, in terms of the 2/1000 model you want this:
The 1000 murderers get a death penalty. Then they get sorted by probability of reoffense in prison or escape. Then those that are high risk are executed and you expect them to be roughly what the state executes today in number. Let's say they are the unlucky 2 from my example. The sentences of the 998 are commuted to, -- what, life? in the name of mercy. (It is, of course, not mercy to let 998 get away without a just sentence as is the present condition of affairs).
You maintain that that would be in accordance to the Catechism.
I think that it would be an improvement over what we have, because all 1000 get snetenced to what the justice demands and the application of mercy is by future threat to society rather than by which lawyer screams louder.
But it will not resolve the fundamental issue that the modern state is not morally justified in killing anyone. The reality will be that the unlucky 2 will end up killed based on some criteria, spoken or unspoken, nothing to do with danger. This is because the state has no interest in justice and assessment of danger coming from a murderer 10-20 years down the road is impossible. The lawyers simply would use such criterion to prolong the legal circus and renumerate themselves.
It also does not address the issue of prison technology. I think, if we can put a man on the Moon we can design a prison where the inmates cannot escape or hurt anyone yet have requisite creature comfort. But logical way to conform with the Catechism is to do just that rather than create an extravagant legal system around projections of future danger.
Dear annalex,
"It is, of course, not mercy to let 998 get away without a just sentence as is the present condition of affairs."
Then you are free to argue that all 1000 should be executed.
Personally, I agree with the Catechism of the Catholic Church that only those whom we prudentially judge cannot be restrained should be executed.
"But it will not resolve the fundamental issue that the modern state is not morally justified in killing anyone."
I'm not sure why the modern state is less morally justified in carrying out the death penalty than, say, the pagan Roman emperors, and yet St. Paul seems to recognize these men as wielding the power to execute criminals as the instruments of God. It's hard for me to think that Gov. George W. Bush was less morally justified than, say, Caligua.
"The reality will be that the unlucky 2 will end up killed based on some criteria, spoken or unspoken, nothing to do with danger."
Actually, in Texas at least, that is an explicit criterion.
Instead of trying to abolish the death penalty, why not work to reform it so that this would become the primary criterion?
"It also does not address the issue of prison technology. I think, if we can put a man on the Moon we can design a prison where the inmates cannot escape or hurt anyone yet have requisite creature comfort."
As an analogy, your statement tells against your argument. I hope that the failure rate of our prisons (escapes and murders of other inmates) does not rival the failure rate of NASA (shuttle catastrophes, deaths in the Apollo program, near disaster in Apollo 13, etc.).
Technology can do a lot of neat stuff.
What it typically can't do is guarantee 100% success against human ingenuity, even when that ingenuity is applied to evil purposes.
sitetest
Justice would be served if all 1000 were executed, but considerations outside of justice advise against it. These considerations are Christian mercy, chance of a mistake, and the inadvisability to give the government that much power.
I'm not sure why the modern state is less morally justified in carrying out the death penalty than, say, the pagan Roman emperors
Nor is it better morally equipped as the level of public morals today is not above the Roman Empire. I am not aware, for example of Rome considering baby killing a right or disqualifying judges because they worship, say, Jupiter. My point is, however, that majoritarian politics do not provide a justification to kill anyone, -- divine law does. The Roman empire at least recognized pagan gods as authority, we only recognize ourselves.
why not work to reform it so that the [future danger] would become the primary criterion?
I am all for it. All you need is a good psychic and bingo, you will know if in 10 years the convict will off a guard with a plastic fork he stole from the cafeteria. Failing that, the Catechism commands us to work on prison technology rather than killing people because we cannot engineer a better way.
Dear annalex,
"Justice would be served if all 1000 were executed, but considerations outside of justice advise against it. These considerations are Christian mercy, chance of a mistake, and the inadvisability to give the government that much power."
Then developing laws and policies that refrain from executing those deserving of death but of whom it can be reasonably thought that they will be restrained by incarceration is a good thing. And executing those who likely will not be restrained protects society, as well as the policy of not executing them all. Having no death penalty allows those who will kill again to do so, and will rightly inflame members of society to wish to execute everyone deserving thereto, on the theory that it is better to kill 1,000 deserving criminals than to permit 1,000 innocents to be killed by those who might have been executed.
"Nor is it better morally equipped as the level of public morals today is not above the Roman Empire."
Well, for the sake of argument, if we are no better - nor worse - than the Romans, we are no less morally fit, as a society, to use the death penalty, as Paul seems to have allowed for the Romans.
By the way, the Romans had no problems with abortion, killing of handicapped infants, etc. Several of the Roman emperors believed themselves gods, and thus answered to themselves.
"I am all for it."
Glad to hear it.
"All you need is a good psychic and bingo, you will know if in 10 years the convict will off a guard with a plastic fork he stole from the cafeteria."
There are ways of determining who is less likely to be restrained. You have no confidence in them. I don't consider them fool-proof, but have confidence that they will eliminate by their employment at least some harm to society.
"Failing that, the Catechism commands us to work on prison technology rather than killing people because we cannot engineer a better way."
Actually, the Catechism doesn't command this so much as assume that the technology exists. Certainly, very sophisticated prison technology exists. But it isn't, and never will be perfect, and will not stop from committing mayhem a significant percentage of aggressors who have no internal restraints. See: Ted Bundy [killed dozens of individuals - incarcerated several times; escaped a couple of times from maximum security incarceration; finally, after his last murder, executed by the state of Florida; no murders since execution - just a coincidence??].
sitetest
You go to the head of the class!
I agree that commuting a sentence of death to life without parole when no possibility of reoffense exists is a good thing. It is not the same as bare justice, which would demand execution of all guilty of the same crime. Again, justice is but one component of goodness, other components are mercy, self defense, and unintended consequences such as governmental power.
the Romans had no problems with abortion
Yes, Rome had abortions (especially baby abandonment) but I am unaware of laws in Rome treating such behavior as a sacred right. Bad emperors existed. Bad, even delusional elected rulers exist as well. We cannot reason by anecdote. The idea that if a majority want to kill somebody, killing that somebody becomes law is evil. The idea that a professional decides justice regardless of the mob is not evil.
At any rate what we are down to is possibility of reoffense. So was St. Paul (who knew the imperfections of prison technology of his day firsthand) and is the catechism. I don't disagree that if we truly are not capable of securing our prisons, and at the same time are capable of telling who the future recidivists are, then we should execute the future recidivists. So it is a battle of two imperfections, one, technological imperfection of prisons and two, psychological imperfection of telling future behavior and opportinuty. Somehow I think that the former is solvable and the latter is not. As a society we are better technologists than psychologists.
Dear annalex,
"I don't disagree that if we truly are not capable of securing our prisons, and at the same time are capable of telling who the future recidivists are, then we should execute the future recidivists. So it is a battle of two imperfections, one, technological imperfection of prisons and two, psychological imperfection of telling future behavior and opportinuty. Somehow I think that the former is solvable and the latter is not. As a society we are better technologists than psychologists."
Frankly, I don't think that either imperfection is solvable. I work in technology, and started out in psychology. Although both may be improved, nothing in my 25 years + experience suggests that either imperfection is susceptible to being remedied.
However, these are the categories with which we're dealing:
1. Offenders who cannot be restrained. These offenders deserve death, and for prudential reasons, should be identified and executed.
2. Offenders who can be restrained. These offenders deserve death, but for prudential reasons, should be shown mercy.
If we execute no one, innocent persons will die, as those who will not be restrained will kill again (think: Ted Bundy).
If we execute those whom we believe cannot be restrained (Category 1), but sometimes execute those who would have been restrained (Category 2), then we will reduce the number of innocents who will die (although still not reduce that number to zero). Those in Category 2 who are executed because of the imperfection of our knowledge really don't have much about which to complain. They were, after all, deserving of death. That we found it imprudent to grant them mercy due to our flawed judgment is not to deny them anything of which they were deserving.
Thus, if we execute two murderers out of a thousand, with one who would have properly belonged to Category 1, and the other to Category 2, we will have executed to persons deserving of death, shown mercy to 998 otherwise deserving of death, and saved one innocent life.
If we execute no one, then the innocent life will be lost.
In the first scheme, a small number of persons deserving of death will die, and fewer persons who are innocent will die.
In the second scheme, no persons deserving of death will die, and more persons who are innocent will die.
Annalex, I'm not trying to describe a perfect or utopian system. I'm merely asserting (and demonstrating) that limited use of the death penalty ameliorates (NOT eliminates) the future harms done to society by the aggressors.
sitetest
A single occupancy cell can be designed which simply cannot open, which still allows plumbing, air, sunlight, regular meal delivery, exercise, and contact with humans through phone and camera only. Romans did not have it, but in 21 century it is elementary.
Then you postulate that we can foretell the mindset of a convict to place him in the proper category. That we patently cannot do with any precision. Any two-tier system like that will immediately drift toward placing everyone in Category 1, or disintegrate into what we have already, a pinball machine that executes mostly bad people randomly.
Dear annalex,
"A single occupancy cell can be designed which simply cannot open, which still allows plumbing, air, sunlight, regular meal delivery, exercise, and contact with humans through phone and camera only."
LOL. So this fellow is never to be in the presence of other human beings. That is difficult enough for those who enter that sort of life voluntarily, and they require extraordinary grace to accommodate it. It is inhuman to force it on people. Excessively long periods of solitary confinement have often been used as a means of torture. You have underestimated the cruelty of your means.
However, there are problems even with the inhuman circumstances that you describe. Speaking of science fiction, a cell that cannot be opened? Of course the cell can be opened. How did the poor, abused, tortured fellow get put in their in the first place? Star Trek transporter? And once he dies, it will be opened again, to remove him. Thus, the cell has been opened before and will be opened again.
As good as the technology may be, you haven't factored in original sin. Those who administer the prison will never be free from its effects, and prison staff have been known to aid prisoners in the commission of further crimes.
As for determining who is more likely to re-offend and who is not, it isn't difficult to make a rough distinction between the two groups, and then calibrate it based on detailed analysis of results.
"Any two-tier system like that will immediately drift toward placing everyone in Category 1, or disintegrate into what we have already, a pinball machine that executes mostly bad people randomly."
Actually, in the United States, that hasn't happened at all. It appears that putting the judgment of life or death principally in the hands of jurors, rather than judges, has caused a judicial reticence in handing out the sentence of death.
There are more persons accused of capital crimes than prosecuting attorneys actually prosecute for capital crimes. There are more actual capital case prosecutions than sentences of death pronounced by juries. It appears that individual jurors are loathe, in our society, to be personally responsible for the judgment of death, and typically, must be convinced that the sentence is truly necessary. Plenty of folks, when commenting from afar, will be heard to say of a particular criminal, "I'd pay to throw the switch, myself." However, when it comes down to it, not as many persons are all that willing to personally judge another to have to die for his crimes.
In my own state of Maryland, although there are numerous first-degree murders each year, we generally average less than one capital prosecution per year, and juries very rarely return death sentences. I think in the last 30 years, perhaps two individuals have been executed in Maryland. In Texas, that veritable cornucopia of death sentences, now that the death penalty cases that had been backing up for a couple of decades are mostly being resolved, even there, the number of executions per year is on a steep decline, with 23 executions in 2004, down from 33 in 2002, and far below its peak in the 1990s.
I note on an anti-death penalty website that executions, which have been falling for some years now, will continue to fall: "Future numbers are expected to drop because there has been a significant reduction in new death sentences in recent years."
http://www.religioustolerance.org/executd.htm
It seems that American society as a whole wants the law to have the CAPACITY to execute some criminals, but wishes to EXERCISE that option only occasionally.
sitetest
Well, the cell can be opened in emergencies: initial placement, medical intervention (unless it can be done remotely and with medication), death. But if it is not opened for any routine reasons, you can make the open procedure failsafe by including interlocks for oversight and several armed guards. This would eliminate conspiracy or assault.
Is it cruel? Some would argue that any incarceration is cruel, let alone death penalty. It affords every creature comfort. It is psychologically hard to be incarcerated no matter how often you see a guard with a meal service. By that logic you just cannot have a penalty system at all.
Assuming you are right that Americans want to have the death penalty option but they want it rarely exercised, so what of it? Why should justice depend on what people want? This is again that fundamental idea that democracy delivers justice. It is wrong.
If two guards, a SWAT team, and a prison director need to cooperate to open a cell, it is not a conspiracy if a prisoner escapes, it is the prison in toto seceding from the country. Not going to happen.
What is cruel is allowing prisoners to have their mini-society built around anal rape.
If the death penalty is returned less and less, then it is an indication that perhaps the trend is toward its elimination altogether.
Dear annalex,
"If two guards, a SWAT team, and a prison director need to cooperate to open a cell, it is not a conspiracy if a prisoner escapes, it is the prison in toto seceding from the country. Not going to happen."
Not really. All you need is one or two conspirators who can overcome the resistance of the rest, whether by well-placed, asymmetrical force or through deceit.
"What is cruel is allowing prisoners to have their mini-society built around anal rape."
Another important area of needed reform. I wholeheartedly support any efforts toward reform in this area. I find it disgusting that some people consider this due punishment for criminals.
However, I know a few folks who've served time in state and federal penitentiaries, and what I've been told is that although this is a terrible problem, and in some prisons it is notoriously endemic, it has been, altogether, exaggerated in our public discourse. I've been told by former prisoners that in most prisons, for the most part, if you mind your own business, others will leave you alone. Now, I have no first-hand experience in this regard, but those with first-hand experience have shared this with me.
"If the death penalty is returned less and less, then it is an indication that perhaps the trend is toward its elimination altogether."
Well, maybe. However, my own view is that as long as the death penalty is permitted in law, it will occasionally be used. I believe that in a society that is not undergoing open civil war or general civil unrest, a small dose of the death penalty will go a long way.
However, in societies where it is completely banned, I believe that eventually, the citizenry will become so revolted by the prospect of not having any effective means to defend against some aggressors, that they may eventually reinstate the death penalty, and there will be at least a short-term orgy of death. My own personal opinion is that we experienced a small amount of that phenomenon in the United States after the hiatus of the 1970s.
I look at countries like France and Great Britain, and I see in France the forces of M. Le Pen are becoming stronger and stronger. I can imagine that should the open fascists (re-)take France (from the crypto-fascists currently in power), the guillotine may well be reinstated, and there will be many Muslim necks exposed to its blade.
As I said earlier, I'm not looking for utopian solutions. I don't believe that we can achieve Heaven on earth.
But I do believe that with the grace of God, we can achieve good societies. In a good society, the death penalty will rarely be needed.
But it will be needed, even if only rarely.
sitetest
Well, you did not convince me. I do not see a threat of a massive conspiracy to free an inmate, unless we start taking political prisoners of napoleonic caliber.
I think that, with a prison reform that replaces the violent out-of-control micricosm that breeds pederasty and Musulmanity with more solitary confinement, the perceived need for occasional death penalty will subside.
It is another matter that the prison reform is probably not in the cards; in fact, I think that we should expect more pervasive government int he future that is even less effective than now. So, the mess in the justice system will become messier.
Dear annalex,
"Well, you did not convince me. I do not see a threat of a massive conspiracy to free an inmate, unless we start taking political prisoners of napoleonic caliber."
LOL! What a wonderful strawman!
Even in the most secure system, it'd only take one or two confederates to help free someone.
"I think that, with a prison reform that replaces the violent out-of-control micricosm that breeds pederasty and Musulmanity with more solitary confinement, the perceived need for occasional death penalty will subside."
Your version of solitary confinement is a nightmare. As I've said, it is literally in-human. But beyond that, it wouldn't guarantee that folks wouldn't escape, or get out from time to time.
However, prison conditions, good or bad, will not be the primary driver of whether we need to execute an aggressor, but rather whether there are any internal restraints left in the aggressor to make effective the external restraints placed upon him.
"So, the mess in the justice system will become messier."
Perhaps.
Again, that's really beside the point.
sitetest
Capital punishment for deliberate, intentional murder is Biblical, and Catholics need to believe in the Bible rather than the traditions of men. Jesus did not do away with the Law, but He fulfilled it (Matthew 5:17). "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" is still in force as far as God is concerned. These liberals love the law when it serves their ends, and hate it when it doesn't. And Jesse Jackson and company have shown, once again, who they really are.
Journalist Jeff Jacoby writes (and says it very well) in the Federalist yesterday, concerning the death penalty, "No passage in the Bible disapproves of it... The penalty for those who violate 'You shall not murder' (Exodus 20:13) is made explicit just a few lines later: 'Whoever strikes a man and kills him shall surely be put to death' (Exodus 21:12). The text specifies that this applies only to deliberate murder, not unintentional killing (or accidents). But for a willful killer, there can be no sanctuary: 'Take him even from My altar and put him death' (Exodus 21:14). Similar declarations appear in all five books of Moses, nowhere more dramatically or universally than in Genesis. Speaking to Noah after the Flood, God enjoins him—and through him, all of human society—to affirm the sanctity of human life by making murderers pay the ultimate price for their crime. 'Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has man been made' (Genesis 9:6)... Scripture could hardly be more explicit... When murderers keep their lives, human blood is cheapened. That is why reverence for life and capital punishment belong to the same ethical tradition. Civilized communities have not only the right but the responsibility to execute murderers. It may be a difficult responsibility to carry out. It may involve an assertion of moral authority that modern thinkers condemn. But easy or not, popular or not, the duty is ours to perform. The protection of human life is a grave obligation—never more so than when it involves taking a life away."
Source: Jeff Jacoby in the Federalist, 12-19-05
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