Deterrent: Death Penalty

[Lawdog Dago Dom]

At Townhall: Criminals Fear the Death Penalty More Than Life in Prison

[Blackwater 53393]

 Not only should the Death Penalty be an option in murder and other heinous crimes, there might should be certain crimes that, if convicted, the criminal would face mandatory execution!

[El Chapo]

39 minutes ago, Blackwater 53393 said:

 Not only should the Death Penalty be an option in murder and other heinous crimes, there might should be certain crimes that, if convicted, the criminal would face mandatory execution!

 

The Supreme Court has already opined on the issue and is it unconstitutional to use the death penalty for anything the government has tried to use it for other than murder (outside of military tribunals and law).  It is also not lawful for the death penalty to be mandatory, the process is far more complicated than that, and those things have been the law for so long that there is no going back on that.  The procedure for obtaining a death sentence is complex and extremely expensive.

 

As much as I like John Lott, this post is very sloppy.  Empirical research has shown for generations that the death penalty has zero general deterrent effect.  It costs millions of dollars to obtain a death sentence, even against the most worthy of candidate, yet the effect it has on the general crime rate is zero.  It's hard to think of any other political issue where people advocate spending millions of tax dollars for literally zero benefit.  This one is just emotional for people, and I get that, but it is not a responsible use of public resources to spend millions of dollars for no benefit.  All he really establishes by his words is that if the death penalty is threatened, people are willing to plead to life imprisonment.  What he ignores is that happens anyway.  I have personally seen and been present in the courtroom when a person pleded guilty to life imprisonment.  The best part is that there are no appeals, and that man will almost certain as the sun comes up tomorrow, die in prison.  His hope of ever seeing life outside of custody again is basically zero.

 

I am not opposed to the death penalty in principle, but I am opposed to using resources that could be used to actually improve public safety to for the political benefit of a few.  Even if the death penalty was available, I wouldn't want it sought even if my own family member was the victim, because even if the public did spend the millions to obtain a death sentence, the appeals process is so extensive that not only would it never be carried out, the chance that some attorney would find a reversible error decades from now is much higher; in death penalty cases there is no finality until the punishment is carried out, which in many cases, is never.  Imagine your family member is murdered, the defendant is convicted, sentenced to die, and 30 years from now, some judge orders a new trial of 30 year old facts.  The witnesses are dead, or can't be found, or forgot everything, and the state would be lucky to get any conviction in that circumstance.  And something like that happening is way more likely, maybe hundreds or even thousands of times of times more likely, if the defendant gets a death sentence instead of life imprisonment.

 

In my state, if a person gets a life sentence, he gets one appeal, to the Supreme Court, which affirms the overwhelming majority of those cases, and that person rots in a cage until he dies.  Absent something extraordinary happening, the case is over and the person is realistically never getting out of prison.  There are virtually no death cases (at least not in America, maybe in Iran or North Korea) that work out like that. 

 

I wish more people knew this.  There is an entire apparatus of people out there who do nothing but attack old death sentences and courts buy it.  It isn't like TV.  Don't take my word for it--there are volumes full of books, documentaries, and podcasts on the subject.

[Blackwater 53393]

Kidnapping can also get you the death penalty in some cases!

 

What does it cost to house a single criminal sentenced to life imprisonment for forty years?? Why shouldn’t/couldn’t the capital punishment standards be adjusted to further deter capital crimes??

 

Add to that the reinstitution of “hard labor” to sentencing of repeat and aggravated crimes!!  There’s nothing cruel or inhumane about making a convicted criminal earn his/her keep?? They receive food and shelter, free healthcare, and education!!  This is all at the expense of citizens who respect and obey the law!!  There are a number of services that can and should be obtained from those who don’t, as reparations for their criminal behavior!!

 

There are any number of other subtle changes that can and should be made to the penal system, reversing the unsuccessful practices we’ve witnessed over the last half century. They’ve failed to produce the results we were promised and have done NOTHING but increse recidivism and disregard for potential consequences!

 

Perhaps it’s time to take a step forward into the past!!

[Jeff, #21334]

Life without parole. It does not mean that just look at the mendez, brothers

[Eyesa Horg]

Bettin' I'd be more of deterrent if they were publicly hung at noon tomorrow after a conviction. They damn sure wouldn't end up back in the street doing it again. Once again the criminal doesn't have much to worry about when we put a price in punishment. If they get life in prison, it should be in solitary.

[Blackwater 53393]

With an average cost of $65,000.00 nationwide to house a prisoner and a 1.2 million person prison population in the USA., that amounts to roughly an 80 billion dollars a year tax burden!

 

Housing a prisoner for thirty years amounts to an average of two million dollars cost.

 

If that prisoner is held in Massachusetts, it’ll cost over $300,000.00 a year while the state of Arkansas only spends around $25,000.00 per inmate.

 

 But $80 billion a year over thirty years is $2.4 trillion dollars!!

 

None of this takes into account what is spent on the apprehension, processing, and prosecution of the criminal or the costs of repairing the damage done by those criminals.

 

Just a quick summary of the cost of crime…

[Rye Miles #13621]

It actually costs more for a person to be on death row than life in prison with no paroles and no appeals. There are so many appeals for death row inmates and they stay in prison for 20 or more years. I’m all for the death penalty with one appeal,  then, hang him at noon!