From: lydick@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Speaker-to-Minerals)
Subject: Re: Capital punishment (was Re: abortion)
Reply-To: lydick@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU
Organization: HST Wide Field/Planetary Camera
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 07:51:42 GMT

In article <OLSON.92Apr15212547@husc8.harvard.edu>, olson@husc8.harvard.edu (Chip Olson) writes:
>In article <1992Apr14.201623.23815@cco.caltech.edu> lydick@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Speaker-to-Minerals) writes:
>
>>In article <1992Apr13.222723.11059@husc3.harvard.edu>, olson@husc9.Harvard.EDU (Charles Olson) writes:
>>>and the fact that capital punishment doesn't deter crime *in the slightest*
>>
>>It most certainly DOES deter crime:  We're sure there's at least ONE criminal
>>who won't do it again.
>
>"Maybe, but in order to make that at all significant, you'd have to have lots
>more executions, i.e. several per day... some might applaud this, but given
>that you'd either have to utterly clog the courts with the appeals or severely
>curtail the appeals process, it wouldn't fly... unless you want to get rid
>of the few safeguards we have against the execution of innocents."

Well, let's see now.  If we assume that, on average, we prevent one murder for
every convicted murderer we execute (and, given the fact that capital
punishment in California requires "special circumstances," this seems a not
unreasonable assumption;  BTW, the one "special circumstance" with which I take
strong exception is that of killing a policeman [they knew the job was
dangerous when they took it]), then if the "he can't murder again" argument
doesn't save a significant number of lives, capital punishment BY THE SAME
STANDARDS doesn't take a significant number of lives.  You can't have it both
ways.  Either both are significant or neither are.

>>>(why is it that the states that have the most executions, to wit. Texas and
>>>Florida, also have among the highest murder rates in the country?),
>
>>Perhaps you're looking at it backwards.  Maybe it's the states that have the
>>highest murder rates that decide to implement the death penalty.
>
>"I don't have my statistics handy, but I believe TX and FL fired up their
>electric chairs immediately after the Supreme Court relegalized the death
>penalty in '76 (?), and their murder rates haven't exactly plummeted since
>then.  Besides, the only way that executions might deter crime would be
>to carry them out the old-fashioned way - in the town square at high noon,
>with the head stuck up on a pike afterwards; none of this prison basement
>at midnight shit."

Totally irrelevent.  They execute only a small fraction of the murderers
convicted in either state.  Unless you can name a state in which the murder
rate HAS plummeted since then?

>>>"Simply put, I don't believe that anybody has the right to condemn another to
>>>death.
>>
>>Consider the fact that if you release a murderer (either via parole or via a
>>jailbreak), and he reverts to his old habits, you've condemned INNOCENT people
>>to death.
>
>"This is why I'm marginally in favor of life without parole for convicted
>murderers.  Consider the fact that if a person is executed, and later some
>new evidence comes up that proves their innocence, there is nothing that
>can be done-- the crime has already been committed.  And a far more vile
>crime it is than to let a murderer go free - at least in the latter case,
>the fellow might have repented his ways and decided to re-enter society.
>Our judicial system is far from perfect, and there will always be unfor-
>tunates who fall through the cracks."

And our penal system is far from perfect:  There will always be a few convicts
who are (either intentionally or unintentionally) released back into society. 
Newsgroups: alt.callahans