Regarding the Death Penalty.
Oct. 25th, 2004 02:03 pmThis post from ![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
fiorebrilliante almost drew this long rant from me on her comments page. But I was civil and put it here, this way any resulting flamewar comes to my inbox and not hers:
As for the death penalty, I've always thought that it is essentially a non-sequitor, given our current state of affairs in the justice system. We have a policy of "Innocent until proven guilty." That whole statement to me, means that you will let some of the guilty go free, in order to ensure that those you lock up have really and truly committed a crime. In other words, you are going out of your way to ensure that you do not punish the innocent. Our system is based on an idea that the innocent must be preserved, at the cost of allowing the guilty to benefit. We are being tasked to preserve the chance that a person might be innocent, using all reasonable means.
If we could be sure that those we lock up are truly guilty, then a punishment without reprieve (like death) might be justified, since we could say that their guilt is certain. There might be a case then, to say that they were unredeemable (something I do not believe,) or that their removal might be seen as a deterrent to make society safer (something I sincerely doubt.) It would be a debate to hold on that day.
But we can not say that there are no innocent people on death row. Project Innocence finds more every year, simply because advances in technology have turned up incontrovertible evidence that they were not guilty of the crimes that of which they were convicted. It is therefore reasonable to assume that further advances in forensics could free even more innocent people. Given that, a punishment like death, that allows for no chance for future advances in forensics to clear a criminal, is not preserving every reasonable expectation that they might be innocent.
For that reason I've often thought that a constitutional change to "Guilty Until Innocent" would be an interesting thing to try and bring up, mainly because it suits our current vindictive mindset in the United States, (It seems that more and more, society demands a punishment for a crime, and the persons punished need not necessarily be the ones that committed the crime. The thought that the guilty sometimes go free (look at the OJ case, I'm not saying he was or wasn't guilty, I just want you to consider the reaction,) positively infuriates some people, even though it is the way our legal system is structured by default,) and also because it might wake some people up to the inequalities in the system. I don't think legislators would be so keen on things like the Patriot Act in that type of society, nor would they think so glibly about things like three strikes and the like. The law would be a more powerful and less forgiving instrument, and perhaps we wouldn't wield it so casually, or disregard it so easily.
Just an opinion, and I expect to get flamed, so don't be afraid to fire back.
fiorebrilliante almost drew this long rant from me on her comments page. But I was civil and put it here, this way any resulting flamewar comes to my inbox and not hers:As for the death penalty, I've always thought that it is essentially a non-sequitor, given our current state of affairs in the justice system. We have a policy of "Innocent until proven guilty." That whole statement to me, means that you will let some of the guilty go free, in order to ensure that those you lock up have really and truly committed a crime. In other words, you are going out of your way to ensure that you do not punish the innocent. Our system is based on an idea that the innocent must be preserved, at the cost of allowing the guilty to benefit. We are being tasked to preserve the chance that a person might be innocent, using all reasonable means.
If we could be sure that those we lock up are truly guilty, then a punishment without reprieve (like death) might be justified, since we could say that their guilt is certain. There might be a case then, to say that they were unredeemable (something I do not believe,) or that their removal might be seen as a deterrent to make society safer (something I sincerely doubt.) It would be a debate to hold on that day.
But we can not say that there are no innocent people on death row. Project Innocence finds more every year, simply because advances in technology have turned up incontrovertible evidence that they were not guilty of the crimes that of which they were convicted. It is therefore reasonable to assume that further advances in forensics could free even more innocent people. Given that, a punishment like death, that allows for no chance for future advances in forensics to clear a criminal, is not preserving every reasonable expectation that they might be innocent.
For that reason I've often thought that a constitutional change to "Guilty Until Innocent" would be an interesting thing to try and bring up, mainly because it suits our current vindictive mindset in the United States, (It seems that more and more, society demands a punishment for a crime, and the persons punished need not necessarily be the ones that committed the crime. The thought that the guilty sometimes go free (look at the OJ case, I'm not saying he was or wasn't guilty, I just want you to consider the reaction,) positively infuriates some people, even though it is the way our legal system is structured by default,) and also because it might wake some people up to the inequalities in the system. I don't think legislators would be so keen on things like the Patriot Act in that type of society, nor would they think so glibly about things like three strikes and the like. The law would be a more powerful and less forgiving instrument, and perhaps we wouldn't wield it so casually, or disregard it so easily.
Just an opinion, and I expect to get flamed, so don't be afraid to fire back.
