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CatofAlexandria
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Thanks, cam. Just wondering for selfish reasons, really. The 9th circuit isn’t all bad, just big. 
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pnewton
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*That *is the biggest understatement I have ever seen. Nonetheless, I understand the point about level of certainty of conviction. In Texas, a specific criteria is set for the death penalty where the defendant should be considered a continuing threat. I think it would also be reasonable to include an additional burden of proof. However, nothing will, or ever has been 100%. Despite this, the Church historically has still allowed the possibility of the death penalty to be administered by civil authorities.
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camerong
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I think an increased burden of proof would be a good idea, if not a necessity. Another thing would would be a necessity is to treat death penalty cases differently in terms of the procedural fairness due the accused. We allow certain amounts of error and prejudice to exist in the system because a perfect, or even nearly-perfect, system would be untenable and we would never be able to capture the bad guys. But we tolerate the same level of error or prejudice whether the accused is charged with stealing a wallet or committing murder, and whether the penalty is probation or death. It is not REQUIRED that we put people to death–a number of states don’t do it and seem to get along just fine–so we should not be willing to tolerate any error in the process when death is at issue.
The California State Supreme Court–a liberal court, you would agree–upheld the conviction and death sentence of a man whose jury instructions were gravely in error. The instructions gave the jury the option of sentencing the man to life WITH the possibility of parole or death, whereas they were supposed to have given the options of life WITHOUT the possibility of parole or death. Foreseeably, the jury chose death, thinking it the only way to keep the killer from being put back on the streets. And the state supreme court held that to be non-reversible error. That is just one example among many of the problems with the death penalty in this country.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is the issue we are faced with. Not death penalty in the abstract, but death penalty as decided and administered by a flawed and unreliable system. Anyone who understands the system, and still advocates putting convicts to death in our system today, must accept that we will put innocent people to death with no absolute necessity to have the death penalty (at least without better procedural protections) in the first place.
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pnewton
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I will accept the possibility of putting a person to death, innocent of the crime of which he is accused, but still a proven danger to society. I will not agree that there is never a necessity, not if we wish to protect society, unless we are willing to suspend the right against cruel and unusual punishment, in an effort to keep people needing death secure beyond all but possibility.
Complete isolation from society and contact with all outside the prison would have to be severed. Some sort of discipline would have to be available that has deterence to a man with nothing to lose. Any system of rewards inside prison would have to preclude an method of escape, or knowledge of the outside world. All of these steps are currently prohibited by interpretation of the Eighth Amendment.
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camerong
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That’s an interesting point. It is certainly true that a number of people accused of homicide have pretty clearly either killed before or have a high likelihood of killing in the future. Its also true, of course, that some have been sentenced to death who are innocent of the crime charged and of any other crimes. Should we treat the two similarly? Never thought about that before.
Another good point. I agree that the alternative to the death penalty ought to be virtually intolerable to the individual. I accept that sentences produce justice, and immense suffering is required on the part of the offender to produce justice. I agree with you that a relatively comfortable life without parole may not be sufficient.
Which is why–and I think we agree on this–the death penalty should be a theoretically available option. I just think it shouldn’t be actually available until we make significant changes in the law to virtually eliminate the possibility of innocent people being put to death.
Do you think we truly need the death penalty though? I can see how it would be beneficial, but let’s assume the concerns I have raised are both real and unable to be fixed. What is the pressing need for a death penalty? As I mentioned, it does not seem that murder is rampant in states which have no death penalty. So, I see it this way: with significant problems with the death penalty, and with no easy fixes anytime soon, and with no demonstrable need for it, we should have a permanent moratorium until the situation changes significantly.
Edit: I think I see your overarching point. The death penalty is needed because if we don’t put some of these creeps to death, they will kill again, in or outside of prison. And with our current 8th Amendment jurisprudence, nothing besides death can really prevent this.
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Ender
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There are two ways to approach capital punishment: as a moral question and as a practical one. It seems that the concern of the OP is moral, not legal. I don’t consider the debate from the legal/practical side; I am interested in what the Church teaches and addressing the morality of the death penalty. It isn’t that practical considerations are not serious issues; it is just that they are not part of a debate on the morality of capital punishment.
The Church denounces sin. She does not teach that denunciation is an objective of punishment.
And anyone who understands the system must accept that innocent people will be murdered by repeat murderers who are themselves not executed. If you raise the issue of innocent deaths caused by using the death penalty then you also need to address the issue of innocent deaths caused by not using it.
This is a good question and I think the only answer is that justice requires it.
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camerong
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The difference, I think, is that when a murder kills an innocent, only he is responsible. When the state kills an innocent, we are all responsible. There is a difference in moral culpability between wrongly killing someone and wrongly allowing someone to be killed, even when its that clear.
Since you raised it, I think it is fair to say that those who are likely to kill upon escaping are less likely to be wrongfully convicted–because they are more likely to have done it. I might be willing to support the death penalty if it always involved a consideration of the convict’s threat. In most states and in federal court, it does not. Consequently, evidence the person’s likelihood of killing again is not even admissible in court. So while you advocate the death penalty as a means of stopping killers from killing again, if it does this in reality, it only does so by chance. Except in Texas, apparently, but I’m not at all familiar with law in Texas.
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pnewton
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In Texas, the instruction on to the jury in a capital case is that they are to weigh whether the evidence supports that the convicted person is likely to continue to present a danger to others.
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Ender
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I don’t advocate executing prisoners to prevent future crimes; I advocate executing them as punishment for crimes they have already committed. Preventative execution is the position in the Catechism which I reject. Their position is that we don’t need to execute prisoners because they are not likely to be a threat - which surely implies that if they were a threat to commit future crimes it would be appropriate to execute them. My understanding is that the Church teaches - in a schizophrenic way - that the murderer incurs a debt that nothing less that his life can repay. I brought up the point that the death of innocent people cannot be looked at simply from the perspective of those wrongfully killed by the state as many more will surely die if the guilty are not executed.
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Ender
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There are several things about 2267 that seem unreasonable and one of them is this: it allows the state to execute someone if the likelihood is great that he will otherwise commit a serious crime. What is disturbing about this is that it allows for someone to be executed to prevent a crime for which he could not be executed for committing. I fail to see how it is just to execute a person based on the probability that he would commit a crime that is itself not punishable by death. It is hard to imagine anything that more completely divorces the concept of justice from the nature of punishment, which, given that justice is the prime objective of all punishment, makes 2267 incomprehensible.
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