Death penalty

[triumphguy]

It appears that between 25-40 actual innocents have been sentenced to death since 1973, out of the 8300 so sentnced, or 0.4%.

Of those, all were released, except one, who died of cancer while on death row.

It may be hard to find a more accurate sanction.

 

[Regular_Atheist]

I know this could be considered slightly off-topic, but could someone explain why so many Catholics support the death penalty if equally as much seem to oppose assisted suicide? Is that not hypocritical?

 

[dudleysharp]

If the death penalty worked then countries such as the USA which has one of the highest rates of capital punishment in the world should have the lowest murder rate.

SNIP

Do we even need to check the stats to know the reality of that?

1. It would be wise if you did.

Some countries with the death penalty and some without the death penalty have higher murder rates that other countries with or without the death penalty, some lower.

I have a detailed review within my links, below.

I think the US is in the lower half of murder rates, at 4.7 in 2011.

1. Deterrence or non deterrence of executions is not measured by murder rates, any more than deterrence or non deterrence of all criminal sanctions is measured by crime rates.

All sanctions deter some, regardless of crime and/or murder rates.

Please review:

– “DEATH PENALTY DETERRENCE CLARIFIED”
prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2012/12/death-penalty-deterrence-clarified.html

– DETERRENCE, THE DEATH PENALTY & MURDER RATES
prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2012/12/deterrence-death-penalty-murder-rates.html

– Innocents More At Risk Without Death Penalty
prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2012/03/innocents-more-at-risk-without-death.html

– “Death Penalty, Deterrence & Murder Rates: Let’s be clear”
prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2009/03/death-penalty-deterrence-murder-rates.html

 

[dudleysharp]

Catholics respect the Bible, after all, we compiled it! But we also rely on Holy Tradition and a living Magisterium. Take a couple of your examples:

In both these cases (and I could provide many more), it was clearly recognized that there is a tension between the death penalty and the 5th Commandment, not to mention the two commandments of love, the foundation of the moral law (Matthew).

There has NEVER been tension between the 5th Commandment and the death penalty, just the opposite was true, as is clear within Traditon and the Magesterium.

As is well known and, even today, the 5th Commandment is a refernce in oppositin to murder and/or other illicit killings, not the death penalty.

The biblical foundation for the death penalty is found in Genesis 9:5-6 and is based, specifically, upon “shedding blood”.

2260: “For your lifeblood I will surely require a reckoning… Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for God made man in his own image.” “This teaching remains necessary for all time.”

2261 Scripture specifies the prohibition contained in the fifth commandment: “Do not slay the innocent and the righteous.” The deliberate murder of an innocent person is gravely contrary to the dignity of the human being, to the golden rule, and to the holiness of the Creator. the law forbidding it is universally valid: it obliges each and everyone, always and everywhere.

“An ‘innocent’ person.”

2258 “Human life is sacred because from its beginning it involves the creative action of God and it remains for ever in a special relationship with the Creator, who is its sole end. God alone is the Lord of life from its beginning until its end: no one can under any circumstance claim for himself the right directly to destroy an innocent human being.”

“An ‘innocent’ human being”

Always and everywhere there is the prescribed sanction of "For your lifeblood I will surely require a reckoning… “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed.”, which, is confirmed in the Council of Kent, that execution represents paramount obedience to that commandment.

“Paramount obedience”

 

[dudleysharp]

snip

I think those against the death penalty in principle because of 2267 need to get a better understanding of Church Tradition and where the Church is coming from when saying this.

(I’ll go by sentence here)

1. The 1st part of 2267 seems like a slap in the face to traditional Catholic teaching when it says, “the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.” It seems like a contradiction snip

It’s worse than a contradicition. It is made up out of whole cloth.

There has never been such a teaching.

“The most reasonable conclusion to draw from this discussion is that, once again, the Catechism is simply wrong from an historical point of view. Traditional Catholic teaching did not contain the restriction enunciated by Pope John Paul II” .

"The realm of human affairs is a messy one, full of at least apparent inconsistency and incoherence, and the recent teaching of the Catholic Church on capital punishment—vitiated, as I intend to show, by errors of historical fact and interpretation—is no exception.

The Holy Father is obviously invoking the principle of double effect in the passage, for his concern is to deny that the “fatal outcome” is attributable to the self-defender’s intention; accordingly, he cites Part II-II, Question 64, Article 7 of the Summa at this point. Paragraph 56 then begins with the remark, “It is in this context that the question of capital punishment arises.”

But this is false, at least historically, for the question was never considered by the Church within that context.

But—and here we return to the interpretive errors of the Catechism —in the case of capital punishment, not even such force is required.

The personal self-defender needs to be forced into performing the lethal action; the soldier, the minister of the judge, and the executioner do not. Since the latter three figures do not necessarily act on the spur of the moment and since, when not so acting, they have various means at their disposal, force (in the sense we have been discussing) cannot be the morally decisive factor. In other words, given their shared context as officers of the law, the principle of double effect as set out by Aquinas cannot apply to them."

Kevin L. Flannery S.J. - Capital Punishment and the Law – 2007 (30 pp)
Ordinary Professor of Ancient Philosophy at the Pontifical Gregorian University
(Rome); Mary Ann Remick Senior Visiting Fellow at the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and
Culture (University of Notre Dame)

 

[dudleysharp]

Another thing: snip

1. This is when we cross the line from Church doctrine into prudential judgment. Here it is the former Pope’s (and evidently the present Pope’s since he oversaw the entire process of putting together the Catechism) prudential judgment that using non-lethal means is more in keeping with the common good. I personally agree, and based on their statements I would suspect so does most of the hierarchy. I think it is especially important to note that if prudential judgment is inserted into the Catechism that is teaching Church doctrine, it is in the Church’s eyes a very important judgment that shouldn’t be taken lightly. snip

Consider this newest recommendation:

(a) “If bloodless means are sufficient” (2267) in this eternal context:

(b) “If anyone sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed.” (1) “This teaching remains necessary for all time.” (2260)

and (a)'s obvious conflict with Genesis also has additional conflicts within its own document, just as one section above

(c) the “common good” “requires” an unjust aggressor be rendered “unable to inflict harm”. (2265) as well as within 2267, itself, as rendering the aggressor “INCAPABLE OF DOING HARM”.

The Catechism is stating that “The common good requires rendering the unjust aggressor unable to inflict harm” (2265) except that we should rarely, if ever, render an unjust aggressor unable to inflict harm. There is a contradiction.

This Catechism decides that an eternal biblical mandate should be overruled by a poorly considered dependence on current penal security. Astounding. The Church has knowingly done this.

Does the absence of death penalty better correspond with “the common good and with the dignity of the human person”?

In the first part of this Catechism, the document makes the opposite argument.

Commensurate punishments, by definition, better correspond to the common good and human dignity and the absence of a commensurate punishment injure both the common good as well as human dignity.

With Numbers 35:31 there is: “You shall not accept indemnity in place of the life of a murderer who deserves the death penalty; he must be put to death.”

Deserves as in justice, retribution.

When it comes to commensurate or proportional sanctions, of course we can disagree on what that may mean, prudentially. However, with murder and its proper sanction, I think we are instructed with Genesis, Numbers and traditional Church teachings that the proper sanction for murder is death.

In addition, had EV been properly thought through (3,4), it would have concluded that innocents were better protected with the death penalty and, therefore, it is a greater defender of society and, as such EV would have not created the errors which were then wrongly put into the Catechism.

2267 "Today, in fact, given the means at the State’s disposal to effectively repress crime by rendering inoffensive the one who has committed it, without depriving him definitively of the possibility of redeeming himself, cases of absolute necessity for suppression of the offender ‘today … are very rare, if not practically non-existent.’ John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae 56).

The Catechism and EV are, hereby, using the secular standard of penal security as a means to outweigh justice, balance, redress, reformation, expiation and prior Church teachings. 2267 cannot stand.

This is such a poorly considered prudential judgement as to negate its “prudential” moniker.

 

[dudleysharp]

I don’t think this evaluation holds; self-defense might allow killing but I don’t think it can be extended to include executions.

All criminal justce systems have been constructed as a means of societal self defense.

CCC 2263 The legitimate defense of persons and societies is not an exception to the prohibition against the murder of the innocent that constitutes intentional killing. “The act of self-defense can have a double effect: the preservation of one’s own life; and the killing of the aggressor… the one is intended, the other is not.”

“and societies”

Although all sanctions are based in justice or otherwise redressing the disorder, it has always been a secondary and vastly important and intended purpose that both laws and the enforcement of those laws, through sanction, that both would defend society by

1. deterring criminal actions by the threat of sanction, within the law
2. deterring criminal actions by the actual imposition of sanction and
3. deterring criminal actions by the example of others being subject to the impostion of sanction.

The Church recognizes this, quite specifically, with the “defense of society” language, as well as with Aquinas’ similar comments, as well as those of others’.

Reason and history tell us that laws, and the implemntation of them, via sanctions, provides a societal defense.

It is undeniable, be it by the presnece of the law, itself, or by its imposition, through sanctions, be it fines, community service, incarceration or execution.

To exclude it, is to exclude both history and reason.

 

[dudleysharp]

snip But when our modern society, which is morally backward, thinks that capital punishment is not based off of the dignity of the human person but its degradation, it isn’t really going to be beneficial to the common good or the person’s human dignity snip

This backasswards description of why we should limit executions has been presented as the most compleeling argument as to why this newest teaching, on dramatically limiting executions, is proper.

Nothing could be furhter from the truth.

Does the Church just throw up her arms and say “We give up. The humanism is just too much for us, we will change Chrch teachings because man has fallen even further away from God”.

Please. That maybe what some weakkneed techers are dolling out, but is the opposite of reason.

When man falls even more, the only options is to reinforce Church teachings, enforcing that all sanctions are based upon redressing the disorder, bringing balance back, improving not only the plight of the vitim, but recognizing the medicinal aspects of the sanction onto the wrongdoer.

Instead, Swiss Guy and his seeming acceptance of this tact, is to say, lets just fold our tent and succumb to mans errors, instead of fighting than as hard as we can, to enforce the true teachings, not abandoning them.

I say that is just pathetic and cannot possibly be the rational for the change in teaching, unless the Church admits She has simply failed and has not the heart to fight for truth and against human error.

 

[dudleysharp]

snip

When would it be necessary to execute someone if he is not a moral or physical threat to society? snip

So are you suggesting Bl. Pope John Paul II didn’t know what he was talking about?
snip .

Human error cannot accurately predict when known criminals will harm again, as has been well documented throught time and the world.

As CCC states the common good requires that unjust aggressors be made unable to harm.

Rationally, this calls for more executions, not an extraordinary restriction of them.

Had PJPII knwn what he was talking about, which he did not, he would have realized that executions provide a greater defense of society and thus, we would not be discussing his errors which were brought into the CCC.

What we have now, is a teaching which puts more innocents at risk and a lesser defense of society.

Factually, rationally and prudentially, these newest teachings cannot stand, just based upon the facts.

1. The Death Penalty: Saving More Innocent Lives
   prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2012/03/death-penalty-saving-more-innocent.html
2. Innocents More At Risk Without Death Penalty
   prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2012/03/innocents-more-at-risk-without-death.html
3. LIFE: MUCH PREFERRED OVER EXECUTION
   99.7% of murderers tell us “Give me life, not execution”
   prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2012/11/life-much-preferred-over-execution.html

 

[Regular_Atheist]

Isn’t this judging life through a utilitarian viewpoint? I’m sure it might be more convenient or practical to put criminals to death, but isn’t that something that Catholics generally try to avoid? if you’re going to state that it’s okay to judge the value of a person’s life like that, then why is the euthanasia of a sick, dying man who wants to be killed wrong? Would it also not be just as practical to kill the old man? What if doing so would, in the long-run, help society? It could free up hospital beds, and stop resources being wasted on a man who would soon die anyway.

I don’t understand how you can oppose euthanasia/assisted suicide but support the death penalty.

 

[dudleysharp]

Isn’t this judging life through a utilitarian viewpoint? I’m sure it might be more convenient or practical to put criminals to death, but isn’t that something that Catholics generally try to avoid? if you’re going to state that it’s okay to judge the value of a person’s life like that, then why is the euthanasia of a sick, dying man who wants to be killed wrong? Would it also not be just as practical to kill the old man? What if doing so would, in the long-run, help society? It could free up hospital beds, and stop resources being wasted on a man who would soon die anyway.

I don’t understand how you can oppose euthanasia/assisted suicide but support the death penalty.

That is, precisely, the point.

It is the Church that has made utility the primary issue, when it should be justice and redressing the disorder.

The entire change in death penalty teaching is based upon the death penalty, allegedly, beiing unneeded unless to defend society, which the Church has wrongly found to be a nearly non existant circumstance.

Even if we, wrongly, accept the Church’s turn to utility, She is still wrong on the facts, because innocents are better protected by the death penalty and the death penalty provides a greater defense of society.

You are correct, it is wrong for the Church to have depended upon utility.

The Church teachings on euthanasia and suicides of any kind are very clear as moral evils.

The death penalty is not and never has been.

 

[Swiss_Guy]

This backasswards description of why we should limit executions has been presented as the most compleeling argument as to why this newest teaching, on dramatically limiting executions, is proper.

Nothing could be furhter from the truth.

There are other compelling arguments, and I’m not sure that it’s the most compelling, but I think it’s a genuine argument.

Does the Church just throw up her arms and say “We give up. The humanism is just too much for us, we will change Chrch teachings because man has fallen even further away from God”.

Please. That maybe what some weakkneed techers are dolling out, but is the opposite of reason.

When man falls even more, the only options is to reinforce Church teachings, enforcing that all sanctions are based upon redressing the disorder, bringing balance back, improving not only the plight of the vitim, but recognizing the medicinal aspects of the sanction onto the wrongdoer.

No problems here.

Instead, Swiss Guy and his seeming acceptance of this tact, is to say, lets just fold our tent and succumb to mans errors, instead of fighting than as hard as we can, to enforce the true teachings, not abandoning them.

I say that is just pathetic and cannot possibly be the rational for the change in teaching, unless the Church admits She has simply failed and has not the heart to fight for truth and against human error.

Straw man.

I don’t believe the Church has changed her teachings.

If I may, here is what some people who reject Vatican II will point to about how it “clearly” abandons Church teaching on religious freedom:

Libertas 30: * Another liberty is widely advocated, namely, liberty of conscience. If by this is meant that everyone may, as he chooses, worship God or not, it is sufficiently refuted by the arguments already adduced.*

Quanta Cura 3: From which totally false idea of social government they do not fear to foster that erroneous opinion, most fatal in its effects on the Catholic Church and the salvation of souls, called by Our Predecessor, Gregory XVI, an "insanity,"2 viz., that "liberty of conscience and worship is each man’s personal right, which ought to be legally proclaimed and asserted in every rightly constituted society;

Now here is Vatican II in Dignitatis Humanae:

*2. This Vatican Council declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom. This freedom means that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power, in such wise that no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits.

The council further declares that the right to religious freedom has its foundation in the very dignity of the human person as this dignity is known through the revealed word of God and by reason itself.(2) This right of the human person to religious freedom is to be recognized in the constitutional law whereby society is governed and thus it is to become a civil right.*

Some see this as a contradiction. Properly interpreted, it isn’t. I think the death penalty is in a similar situation right now, where some see what is said in the Catechism, Evangelium Vitae, Compendium of CST, various documents from the Vatican, etc etc as a contradiction of previous Catholic teaching or the Vatican has no idea what it is talking about.

Imho, this is not the road to take when interpreting the death penalty.

Had PJPII knwn what he was talking about, which he did not,

Well, if you don’t have much respect for the intelligence of the Holy Father, I guess I’m going to have trouble discussing the Catholic Faith with you. So I’ll tie off the conversation with you here.

---

Fun fact to all: Vatican City abolished the death penalty in 1969.

 

[dudleysharp]

Dear Swiss Guy:

For clarity, I am changing the order a bit.

strawman

You think it a straw man that I say the teachings have changed.

You’ll have to prove that “strawman” accusation, because I have proven my case and you have not made yours.

Your strawman is an empty allegation.

Briefly, the Church’s position, for almost 2000 years, in tradition, within the Majesterium, with Doctors of the Church, the saints and popes, is that the death penalty is a just if not mandatory sanction for the crime of murder. Mandatory has the same definiton as just.

Further, within the Council of Trent CCC, executions were paramount obedience to God’s law, reiterated within the latest CCC, within the fifth commandment, and also, as

2260: “For your lifeblood I will surely require a reckoning… Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for God made man in his own image.” “This teaching remains necessary for all time.”

Paramount obedience.

Now, we have a new teaching (I know, you don’t think its new, but you haven’t proven that), based upon alleged “traditional Church teachings”. teachings which we have established do not exist. Both PJPII and the CCC were, simply, factually wrong. I have providend evidence for that and you have not rebutted it.

I think it both new and represents a change that the Church has:

1. staked their new claim on traditional teachings which do not exist and
2. changed from paramount obedience to God’s law, to a new standard based upon the ever changing whims of man’s prison security, wherein PJPII finds that the only time executions can be justified is when they are required “to defend society” and that “as a result of steady improvements . . . in the penal system that such cases are very rare if not practically non existent.”

The contrasts are stark.

I have great respect for PJPII’s intelligence. Your saying I don’t, is not just a strawman, but worse. I stated he was just plain wrong, as a matter of fact. His was a statement made out of ignorance, much like the imaginary “traditional teachings” that don’t exist.

I don’t know where PJPII got evidence to the contrary or what he may have wrongly presumed, but the evidence is that the death penalty is a greater protector of innocent life and therefore a greater defender of society.(1)

It is a mystery, how PJPII and the CCC have chosen a path which attempts to spare almost all murderers, at the cost of more innocent lives. Collectively, they are factually, doing more harm than good, and the opposite of what they thought they were doing. (1)

Quite the change.

Both 1 and 2 are clear and obvious changes to prior teachings. Prove they are not.

1. You find it a genuine argument that the Church has changed (rearranged, restated?) Her teachings because society doesn’t comprehend the Church’s foundation of “redressing the disorder” or the medicinal aspects of capital punishment and, because of man’s weakness the Church sought a way to limit executions.

Allegedly, this might stem from the arguement that it harms the “common good” that societies excercise in capital punishment is only based within hatred, revenge or the sort, as opposed to a correction of the disorder and other medicinal aspects.

That would acknowledge a change in teachings, based upon the problem of man’s error, in this context.

1. Another problem, here, is that the Church presented no evidence that the majority of persons do not support executions based upon justice, the same foundation of support for all sanctions. If that is the case, why the change? I think Ender has properly established that justice, or just retribution, is the foundation for correcting the disorder and redressing the disorder. I think they are hand in hand and I find that is what both Genesis and the 5th command are teaching.
2. If that is a genuine arguement and I have heard it, before, it is a change that the Church decided to hide the real reason for the change. I think not being more open about the reason for the change, if that is one of the genuine arguments, is a bad sign and change on its own. Truth is more important and less destructive than masking the problem. So, if this is a genuine argument, the way it was hidden is a bad change.
3. If true, this would be a very bad sign, indeed. Instead of confronting the problem, head on, reiterating Church teachings, the Church has decided to run away from them and succumb to man’s weakness, by catering to them, with a change in teaching, to all but do away with the death penalty, in an effort to lessen any harm to the “common good” by limiting man’s opportunities to wrongly infuse error into the execution process.

One can only hope that this is not a genuine argument. As a Church policy of apeasement, for any of man’s weaknesses, would damage the “common good” endlessly

What makes it an additional change is that the Church found a need to change Her teachings based upon man’s errors in this regard.

I can’t imagine that a prudential judgement will ever be entered into a Catechism, again, not do I believe it has ever happened, before.

Boy, what a change.

contd

 

[dudleysharp]

contd

1. a) Pope John Paul II: Prudential Judgement and the death penalty
   homicidesurvivors.com/2007/07/23/pope-john-paul-ii-his-death-penalty-errors.aspx
   
   b) The Death Penalty: Saving More Innocent Lives
   prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2012/03/death-penalty-saving-more-innocent.html
   
   c) Innocents More At Risk Without Death Penalty
   prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2012/03/innocents-more-at-risk-without-death.html
   
   d) LIFE: MUCH PREFERRED OVER EXECUTION
   99.7% of murderers tell us “Give me life, not execution”
   prodpInnc.blogspot.com/2012/11/life-much-preferred-over-execution.html

CASE EXAMPLES

The Holy See could find these types of cases every day, seemingly, forever, if she looked. It seems likely that hundreds or thousands of innocents die, everyday, because of the irresponsibility of prison systems allowing unjust aggressors to harm and murder, again, in contradiction of the curious ignorance within EV and 2267.

a) “Prisons and the Education of Terrorists”, Ian M. Cuthbertson, WORLD POLICY JOURNAL, FALL 2004

“The use of prisons as a means of recruiting new members into terrorist organizations while providing advanced training to existing members is hardly a new phenomenon. FOR MORE THAN 30 YEARS (my emphasis) , European countries have been beset by a variety of nationalist and leftist terrorist groups, some of them highly sophisticated organizations with large rosters of combat and support personnel.”

" . . . terrorist groups were able to retain a large degree of cohesion within the prison setting, which they discovered to be a favorable environment for training members in new skills and planning future operations."

“Al-Qaeda and its network of associated organizations has taken full advantage of the relatively lax practices in European, and even some American, prisons. The pool of potential recruits is vast.”

In 10/2003 , " . . . John Pistole, the FBI’s executive assistant director of counterterrorism/counterintelligence, called U.S. correctional institutions a “viable venue for radicalization and recruitment” for al-Qaeda. Harley Lappin, the director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, sees the bloated prison population of disgruntled and violent inmates as being ‘particularly vulnerable to recruitment by terrorists.’ "

b) “Hell in the heart of paradise”
“The Bali bombers were allowed to preach to the prison population, radicalising scores of impressionable young Muslims, as well as fund and organise subsequent attacks from their cells.”
4:40PM Monday November 23, 2009 Source: AAP , tvnz.co.nz/travel-news/hell-i…radise-3174543

c) Anwar al Awlaki, a spiritual leader at two mosques where three 9/11 hijackers worshipped, a native-born U.S. citizen who left the United States in 2002, was arrested in 2006 with a small group of suspected al-Qaida militants in the capital San’a. He was released more than a year later after signing a pledge he will not break the law or leave the country. He is now missing and encourages violence against Americans from his website, Awlaki used his site to declare support for the Somali terrorist group, al-Shabaab and celebrated the acts of US Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, who murdered 13 and wounding 29 in a shooting spree. al Awlaki called upon other Muslim’s to duplicate those acts. “Radical imam praises alleged Fort Hood shooter”, Associated Press, 11/9/09, 6:19 pm ET news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091109/…t_hood_muslims

UPDATE: “New Evidence Suggests Radical Cleric Anwar al-Awlaki Was an Overlooked Key Player in 9/11 Plot”, foxnews.com/politics/2011…key-player-11/

UPDATE: al-Awlaki killed in a CIA drone strike - nor more a living threat.

d) " . . . Today’s prison inmates are willing to pay up to $10,000 for a smartphone that can allow them to run a drug ring, stalk their prey—and maybe even escape."

" . . . Parchman Mississippi State Penitentiary . . . shocked everyone when it blocked more than 216,000 texts and 600 phone calls in a (SINGLE MONTH) from within the prison walls."

In the first 9 months of 2011, California seized 11,400 cellphones from criminals behind bars.

"Smartphones Are the New Prison Contraband, Daily Beast, 10/16/11
thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/10/16/smartphones-in-prison-new-contraband-allows-inmates-to-make-money.htm

e) 16 al Quaeda Escape in Jailbreak in Iraq
theage.com.au/world/alqae…0924-g4no.html

f) 23 escape from Yemen prison, 13 are al Quaeda
globalsecurity.org/securi…k_in_yemen.htm

g) Governor commutes 108 year sentence: Offender later murders 4 policemen, while on bond for two child rapes
google.com/hostednews/ap/…OLEwwD9CACTHG0

h) Repeat sex offender,“cripple” serving life, overpowers guards, escapes
blog.taragana.com/law/2009/11…ongoing-17934/

i) Officials “embarrassed” by Texas death row inmate escape, Houston Chronicle, November 06, 2005
policeone.com/corrections…inmate-escape/

“. . . Thompson claimed he had an appointment with his lawyer and was taken to a meeting room. However, the visitor was not Thompson’s attorney.” “After the visitor left, Thompson removed his handcuffs and his bright orange prison jumpsuit and got out of a prisoner’s booth that should have been locked. He then left wearing a dark blue shirt, khaki pants and white tennis shoes, carrying a fake identification badge and claiming to work for the Texas Attorney General’s office.” “This was 100 percent human error; that’s the most frustrating thing about it.” “There were multiple failures.” Trial jurors and victim’s relatives were terrified.

 

[dudleysharp]

It is unprovable, but consider the evidence.

The person is strapped down on a table.
The injection is done by machine.
He is not permitted any family or loved ones with him when he dies.
There is an audience of witnessed sealed behind glass.

Does this sound de-humanizing, or does it sound like he is being treated as having human dignity?

I don’t know, what do you think?

You left a few things out.

Have you ever had surgery? See if this sounds familiar:

The person is strapped down on a table.
The injection is done by machine.
He/she is not permitted any family or loved ones with him during surgery.
There is an audience of witnessed sealed behind glass, as is common to obsever the surgery.

Or these:

First, on average death row inmates get 11-12 years to, spritually, prepare for their deaths, as opposed to the seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months or years of horror that their victims suffer.

Secondly, during their time in jail, they have times with their friends and family, at visitations, through letters, phone calls, etc.

Their victims families get to visit the graves of their murdered loved ones.

Thirdly, the inmates have spritual advisors if they so desire. Their vicitms, against their desires, had holy words spoken at their funerals.

Fourth, the murderer is given the most extensive due process protctions known to man. Their victims only had cruelty rained upon them.

We do everything but dehumanize murderers.

It is they who dehumanized their victims.

 

[pnewton]

I don’t know, what do you think?

You left a few things out.

Have you ever had surgery? See if this sounds familiar:

The person is strapped down on a table.
The injection is done by machine.
He/she is not permitted any family or loved ones with him during surgery.
There is an audience of witnessed sealed behind glass, as is common to obsever the surgery.

The object of surgery is to save a life. In the death chamber, the object is to take a life. Sterilizing killing does not make it better. It makes in more impersonal. And of course murderers cheapen life. That was never in dispute.

 

[dudleysharp]

snip

Furthermore, I was making the point that your statement about a “very very large minority population that fetishizes crime and violence” sounds very general, to the point of stereotyping an entire minority group. From the point of view of many readers, this could easily have been taken as referring to Black Americans in general. Indeed, I have often heard very similar things said about the Black American population, in general, and this is a generality I reject.
.

some sad realities;

I encourage you to read the entire study.

Race, ethnicity and crime statistics.

For the White–Black comparisons, the Black level is 12.7 times greater than the White level for homicide, 15.6 times greater for robbery, 6.7 times greater for rape, and 4.5 times greater for aggravated assault.

For the Hispanic- White comparison, the Hispanic level is 4.0 times greater than the White level for homicide, 3.8 times greater for robbery, 2.8 times greater for rape, and 2.3 times greater for aggravated assault.

For the Hispanic–Black comparison, the Black level is 3.1 times greater than the Hispanic level for homicide, 4.1 times greater for robbery, 2.4 times greater for rape, and 1.9 times greater for aggravated assault.

From

REASSESSING TRENDS IN BLACK VIOLENT CRIME, 1980.2008: SORTING OUT THE “HISPANIC EFFECT” IN UNIFORM CRIME REPORTS ARRESTS, NATIONAL CRIME VICTIMIZATION SURVEY OFFENDER ESTIMATES, AND U.S. PRISONER COUNTS

DARRELL STEFFENSMEIER, BEN FELDMEYER, CASEY T. HARRIS, JEFFERY T. ULMER

Criminology, Volume 49, Issue 1, Article first published online: 24 FEB 2011

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1745-9125.2010.00222.x/pdf

 

[dudleysharp]

The object of surgery is to save a life. In the death chamber, the object is to take a life. Sterilizing killing does not make it better. It makes in more impersonal. And of course murderers cheapen life. That was never in dispute.

Your issue was dehumanization.

My facts show:

We do everything but dehumanize murderers.

It is they who dehumanized their victims.

I was addressing your exact point. You changed the topic.

Do you think we should have unsterilized executions?

How personal do you wish to make executions?

Do you have some suggestions?

Murderers cannot cheapen life. It has an great worth, regardless of how they treat they victims.

Never forget that.

 

[dudleysharp]

Just a thought - If all the money spent on the entire capital punishment process was spent on your prison system they might be a lot safer.

Unlikely.

Saving Costs with The Death Penalty
prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/02/death-penalty-cost-saving-money.html

 

[triumphguy]

Dudleysharp

Have you ever worked in a prison?