Capital Punishment is Pro-life

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otm

I’ll like to hear your reaction to Karl’s piece linked by Cindy on this thread.

Chris C.
 
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Southernrich:
Good for Karl, but I’ll stick to what the Pope has said, if you don’t mind. The death penalty, even if moral, is obsolete.
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Southernrich–

can you give me an example of a human action that is moral and obsolete.

Chris C.
 
Chris C.:
can you give me an example of a human action that is moral and obsolete.
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The death penalty. Does the Church recognize that imposition of the death penalty can be morally permissible under certain circumstances? It does. Did the Pope confirm that the death penalty can be morally permissible? He did.

Is imposition of the death penalty obsolete? Yes, it is, because there are good alternatives to its imposition.

I do concede that Saddam Hussein might be one of those who might well deserve the death penalty, but even him, I’d like to see locked up.
 
Chris C.:
Quasimodo, you wrote:

“There are innocent people being released from death row all to[o] often.”

Would you rather they weren’t released? Anyway, name 5. Name 3.

haha. a poorly constructed sentence, for sure. I trust you understand that there are innocent people on death row. One is too many.

“What if you were sitting innocently on death row?”

I would surely harbor misgivings about the skills of the legal practioners who put me there, but that would have no bearing on the morality of the death penalty.

Perhaps not, but it would (eventually) have an effect on YOUR view of the morality of it.

Moreover, if I were put to death for a crime I did not commit and the prosecuters and police had done their jobs and made an honest error, they would not be cupable for murder.

How generous of you. Tell that to the widow & children of another innocent man.

“You could say that our whole penal system should be abolished because an innocent man might be accidently incarcerated. Again the reasoning seems faulty to this humble ringer of bells. Our society has a means to at least partially recompense the innocent for incarceration.”

Because a system of justice is imperfectly administered, we can’t throw the baby out with the bath water. Many marriages end in divorce, but I still think people should get married.

Because we know it is imperfect, we should not apply an irrevocable penalty

“Moral?” Really? Is that the word the church has used?"

Well, things are either immoral or they are moral. And the Death penalty is not immoral. So what does that leave?

“A life sentence is also punishment of the guilty and in obedience to the commandment.”

Maybe. But the catechism makes no mention of life sentences.

" A life sentence gives the guilty a chance to repent."

So does time on death row. Indeed. We are interested in the quality of the time not the quantity.

" An unrepentant killer was just put to death this week."

Where? Who?

Now what was his name? I ferget. Lucasville, Ohio. Killed a guard in prison by driving a blade through his heart while awaiting sentencing for another murder. He had the bible removed from the preparation room. The first condemned man in the state since the death penalty was reinstated to refuse a minister. When I read his story, I said, "Fry him, its only justice! " I realise that I wanted revenge not justice. That is, IMHO, why we still have the death penalty: revenge. There are other means of justice available to us.
Chris C.
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Quasimodo–

I think your arguments are personal and circumstantial.

Southernrich–

sorry to be unclear. I know you think the death penalty is obsolete. I meant another example. In any case, I don’t see justice and retribution (or mercy for that matter) as ever being obsolete.

Chris C.
 
Chris C.:
I meant another example.
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Perhaps slavery. Although the Church always strove to ameliorate the sufferings of slaves, the practice was not condemned until 1462 when Pius II called it a “great crime.” Later Popes likewise condemned it.

So until then, it could have been understood as moral (though undesirable) and then became obsolete.
 
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quasimodo:
I trust you understand that there are innocent people on death row. One is too many.
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This is an error many make. In any cost/benefit analysis, they concentrate on either the numerator or the denominator to the exclusion of the other.

Yes, one innocent death is too many. But that must be weighed against the loss of innocent life in the ABSENSE of the death penalty.

The death penalty should be rare, but is still necessary.
My personal opinion is that, in a capital crime, the sentencing phase should require a different standard for guilt than the “beyond a reasonable doubt” required for conviction. And the evidencary rules should be relaxed greatly for this phase.

Yes, we’ve come a long way in our incarceration practices. However, if a person is sentenced to “life” but NOT kept in prision for life, and kills someone else, that’s every bit as heineous as having an innocent person executed.

Even if a killer is kept in prision for life, there are problems. If the person is truly dangerous, they will not stop being a danger in prision, either to other inmates or to guards.

If a prisioner (assuming recalcitrance) is sentenced to life, exactly what kind of disincentive can you give them to prevent them from killing a guard they dislike?
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quasimodo:
Perhaps not, but it would (eventually) have an effect on YOUR view of the morality of it.
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One’s stance should ideally be based on objective, not subjective, criteria.

quasimodo said:
Because we know it is imperfect, we should not apply an irrevocable penalty
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I’ve read about many people released from prision after 10, 20, even 30 years due to new evidence (usually DNA) being discovered. How exactly would you give them back those years?
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quasimodo:
Now what was his name? I ferget. Lucasville, Ohio. Killed a guard in prison by driving a blade through his heart while awaiting sentencing for another murder.
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Thank you. Proves my point exactly. That guard was a victim of NOT having that man put to death sooner!

That guard had a family, too.
 
quasimodo…shame on you for laughing at someone. Telling people they have poor grammar shows you to be a very insensitive a mean spirited person. The person is just expressing there passions in life.

Be a reflection of Christ. Love not hate. Mercy and forgiveness whenever possible. As St. Francis once said it is not my job to preach the word of God…instead I should be the word of God. Mother Theresa exemplified that behavior. There is so much more to being Catholic than going to Mass. And this topic truly shows all our colors doesn’t’ it.
 
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Schabel:
I’ve read about many people released from prision after 10, 20, even 30 years due to new evidence (usually DNA) being discovered. How exactly would you give them back those years?
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With money. That’s what we use in other tort cases. There’s really nothing else available for compensation…
 
Southernrich

The Church’s teaching on slavery now is not inconsistent with any of its past teaching. If the Church were to reverse it’s teaching on the death penalty, that would be contradicting itself.

Anyway, I’ll allow that the death penalty could become obsolete even if I cannot think of the circumstances. I don’t agree that it is obsolete now.

Chris C.

I’m sure you know, btw, ofthe correspondence between Pio Nono and Jefferson Davis. When Pio Nono agreed to formally receive and embassy from the CSA, he stipulated that slavery was not to be discussed.

C
 
Others have mentioned it but it’s extremely important - not everyone on death row is guilty: Wrongfully convicted man on death row released .

Now with fingerprint analysis is being questioned, it opens up many other cases which were based on this. Recall the Oregon muslim who was wrongfully accused of assisting the Madrid bombers based on a partial fingerprint which was said to be “incontrovertible evidence” by four FBI fingerprint analysts but in the end turned out to be wrong. The Achilles’ Heel of Fingerprints

There isn’t any reason in the US to put someone to death - leave it to God. I’ll follow the Pope’s teachings on this one.
 
Chris C.:
Quasimodo–

I think your arguments are personal and circumstantial.

Of course they are. The person they put to death is a …well a person. The circumstances are that a lot of innocent people have been winding up on death row. I have been on jury duty a couple of times. Perhaps you have too. MY experience showed me in no uncertain terms that any relationship between justice and the law is a mistake. Any relationship between the evidense a jury sees and hears and the truth are an accident. You have as good a chance with a magic eight ball. In short, my experience as a juror tells me that the system is SICK at its core because the lawyers are not interested in truth…only victory. The idea of it being a crucible burning away everything but the truth is a fantasy. Money buys legal talent and legal talent buys verdicts as often as not… regardless of the truth. No it is not a system with which I would trust with even your life because I respect your life. But I would let it stick you in jail 😃

Southernrich–

sorry to be unclear. I know you think the death penalty is obsolete. I meant another example. In any case, I don’t see justice and retribution (or mercy for that matter) as ever being obsolete.

Chris C.
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Southernrich:
With money. That’s what we use in other tort cases. There’s really nothing else available for compensation…
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That’s not true. We don’t compensate them with money - how can you put a value on 30 years of your life? And a released convict is NOT allowed to sue for wrongful imprisionment.

Even if they were, it would NOT be adequate compensation. They were actually robbed of a good portion of their life.
 
Chris C.:
Anyway, I’ll allow that the death penalty could become obsolete even if I cannot think of the circumstances. I don’t agree that it is obsolete now.
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Of course, you are right that it is not obsolete if it could be employed even once perhaps against a monster like Saddam Hussein. I meant obsolete in the sense of out-dated.
 
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CPB:
quasimodo…shame on you for laughing at someone. Telling people they have poor grammar shows you to be a very insensitive a mean spirited person. The person is just expressing there passions in life.

er…what planet are you from? He responded to my poor sentence structure and I laughed at myself for the mistake.

Be a reflection of Christ. Love not hate. Mercy and forgiveness whenever possible. As St. Francis once said it is not my job to preach the word of God…instead I should be the word of God. Mother Theresa exemplified that behavior. There is so much more to being Catholic than going to Mass. And this topic truly shows all our colors doesn’t’ it.

Don’t be so “holier than thou” ok? As I was saying, I was laughing at MY mistake…is it permited by your standards to laugh at one’s self?
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Southernrich:
Of course, you are right that it is not obsolete if it could be employed even once perhaps against a monster like Saddam Hussein.
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I look forward to the Iraqi people’s verdict on this one.

Quasimodo–we are in some agreement on the merits of jurisprudence as it is practiced (or malpracticed) today in the US. But…if you knew the guy was guilty, then would you agree that it would be moral to put him to death for the murder he committed?

Chris C.
 
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quasimodo:
Quasimodo is correct; I poked fun at his ambiguous sentence. That’s okay to do on these forums isn’t it? I mean, good heavens.

And it’s “their” passions, not “there” passions.

(actually here you would want “his” passions–singular)

HA HA–all in fun!!

Chris C.

Quasimodo–I don’t think your mean spirited; I think you’re a softy!

C
 
Chris C.:
Quasimodo is correct; I poked fun at his ambiguous sentence. That’s okay to do on these forums isn’t it? I mean, good heavens.

And it’s “their” passions, not “there” passions.

(actually here you would want “his” passions–singular)

HA HA–all in fun!!

Chris C.

Quasimodo–I don’t think your mean spirited; I think you’re a softy!

C
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I may blush. … nah 😛

I really can’t spell or type but I do know the difference between:
two, to, and too
your, you’re, y’all you youse, you’nds
their, they’re, there
me. myself and I
who and whom

it just doesn’t come out right when it comes time to hit the keys

So, your question is essentially…if I saw a one person kill another so that **I knew ** he was guilty, would it be moral to impose the death sentence? Not necessairly. I can think of many extenuating circumstances that would not change his guilt but would affect the morality of the sentence imposed. Is he retarded? How retarded? Is he mentally ill? How ill? Where do we draw the line? Who draws the line? The clowns in the legislature? They are all politician lawyers, not real people (sorry Karl 😛 ).

One circumstance (that probably won’t mean much to you because you are working from a theoretical point of view and I am looking at it from a personal, practical, circumstantial point of view) is that I might see two such murders. One guilty person might server 15 or 20 years for the crime and the other gets flushed down the toilet because of the luck of the draw on the jury or the lawyers or the witnesses, or the judge, or his hair cut or clothes, or his countenance, or his breath. So, no, in a system where these decisions are made by fallible, sinful, fallen, mere mortals…no it would not be moral. You see, speaking about these things theoretically is meaningless. Real people are really executed not theoretically. it is a right to life issue for me.
 
I’ve already written pretty much all I want to say on the matter (about 2000 words) in the thread: Capital Punishment (part 1)

There are a couple of quick points, however.
  1. *]Prisoners released from death row are used as an example why the judicial system is wrong. One can just as easily argue that our system correctly weeds out errors through 10+ years of appellate review, and is actually quite effective.
    *]I believe there is not a single proven example of an innocent person being executed in the modern era. If there was, the anti-death penalty crowd would be trumpeting it.
    *]People argue about the “21st century penal system”. That cannot be used for the basis of making a moral judgment, except on a case-by-case basis. The penal system in which country? US? Colombia? Nigeria?
    *]Remember, an infallible teaching of the Church has to be true forever. Thus the assessment of the penal system today cannot be an infallible teaching. The penal system today says nothing about the penal system tomorrow. After all, the Dark Ages came after the Roman Empire. Who knows the state of civilization in 1000 years?
    *]What about crime lords who continue to order executions and run their crime empires from within prison? This is common in Columbia. Consider the death row prisoner who gets his sentence changed to life. What about the other inmate or guard he murders in prison?
    *]In a political era where we have all seen uncountable instances where “Life in Prison” no longer means life, what about the murderer paroled to murder again?
    *]What if all those people set free in Illinois ended up causing
    additional murders because the deterrent is no longer a deterrent? I’ll cover this below.

    For arguments sake, what if the findings of the GETTING OFF DEATH ROW: COMMUTED SENTENCES AND THE DETERRENT EFFECT OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT from The Journal of Law & Economics at the University of Chicago Law School are valid? Here is a brief summary:
    …The results show that each additional execution decreases homicides by about five, and each additional commutation increases homicides by the same amount, while an additional removal from death row generates one additional murder…
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    If a single execution does, in fact, prevent five murders – or even worse, if a single commutation causes 5 additional murders – doesn’t that argue for the death penalty? After all, the CCC tells us: “Legitimate defense can be not only a right but a grave duty for one who is responsible for the lives of others. …”

    Does it make a moral difference whether we know ahead of time the names and addresses of the 5 people whose lives are saved? I don’t think so. After all, God knows even if we do not.

    I am also not proposing that this study is “gospel” either. There are other studies out there that would disagree. But I am certainly willing to consider that the possibility exists that executing people does save lives.
 
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