The Biggest Problem with the Death Penalty

[camerong]

I just attended a lecture by a US Court of Appeals judge who discussed the death penalty. His point about the death penalty was not that it was per se wrong, but that the process leading to the death penalty is in such a bad state that we cannot continue executions.

Among the problems the judge recognized:
-Misconduct by the investigating police department. Murder cases often involve a great deal of political pressure, and there are many examples where police have fabricated evidence, mishandled or destroyed exculpatory evidence, forced confessions, struck plea bargains with other witnesses to fabricate or exaggerate stories, etc.
-Misconduct by the prosecutor. Prosecutors in several recent capital cases have neglected to turn important evidence over to the defense (in violation of both law and ethical duties).
-Misconduct by the trial judge. All kinds of rulings can be made incorrectly. One example was where jury instructions gave the jury the option of either sentencing the defendant to “life WITH the possibility of parole, or death” where the instruction should have given the option of life WITHOUT parole or death. Incredibly, the state supreme court held that that was a harmless (nonreversible) error.
-Misconduct by state appeals judges. Many state supreme court justices are elected, and bow to political pressure to uphold wrongful (or at least problematic) convictions.

These are problems that exist with the whole of the justice system; but unlike most criminal cases, mistakes made in dealing death cannot be fixed.

We hope…that the defendant whose life is at risk will be represented by…someone who is inspired by the awareness that a less-than-vigorous defense…could have fatal consequences for the defendant. We hope that the attorney will investigate all aspects of the case, follow all evidentiary and procedural rules, and appear before a judge…committed to the protection of defendants’ rights…

But even if we can feel confident that these actors will fulfill their roles…our collective conscience will remain uneasy. Twenty years have passed since this court declared that the death penalty must be imposed fairly and with reasonable consistency or not at all, and despite the effort of the states and courts to devise legal formulas and procedural rules to meet this…challenge, the death penalty remains fraught with arbitrariness, discrimination…and mistake…

From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death. For more than 20 years I have endeavored…to develop…rules that would lend more than the mere appearance of fairness to the death penalty endeavor…Rather than continue to coddle the court’s delusion that the desired level of fairness has been achieved…I feel…obligated simply to concede that the death penalty experiment has failed. It is virtually self-evident to me now that no combination of procedural rules or substantive regulations ever can save the death penalty from its inherent constitutional deficiencies… Perhaps one day this court will develop procedural rules or verbal formulas that actually will provide consistency, fairness and reliability in a capital-sentencing scheme.

Justice Blackmun, who voted to UPHOLD an automatic sentence of the death penalty in two landmark cases in 1976, remarked just before retirement that despite his and his colleagues efforts to make the death penalty fair, the problems with the system rendered the death penalty irreparably broken:

We hope…that the defendant whose life is at risk will be represented by…someone who is inspired by the awareness that a less-than-vigorous defense…could have fatal consequences for the defendant. We hope that the attorney will investigate all aspects of the case, follow all evidentiary and procedural rules, and appear before a judge…committed to the protection of defendants’ rights…

But even if we can feel confident that these actors will fulfill their roles…our collective conscience will remain uneasy. Twenty years have passed since this court declared that the death penalty must be imposed fairly and with reasonable consistency or not at all, and despite the effort of the states and courts to devise legal formulas and procedural rules to meet this…challenge, the death penalty remains fraught with arbitrariness, discrimination…and mistake…

From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death. For more than 20 years I have endeavored…to develop…rules that would lend more than the mere appearance of fairness to the death penalty endeavor…Rather than continue to coddle the court’s delusion that the desired level of fairness has been achieved…I feel…obligated simply to concede that the death penalty experiment has failed. It is virtually self-evident to me now that no combination of procedural rules or substantive regulations ever can save the death penalty from its inherent constitutional deficiencies… Perhaps one day this court will develop procedural rules or verbal formulas that actually will provide consistency, fairness and reliability in a capital-sentencing scheme.

I have raised a number of problems regarding the death penalty elsewhere, and though I was aware of the above problem, its one that few people outside of the legal field consider. If the death penalty was acceptable to Catholicism, surely we must be concerned with applying it fairly. As the above indicates, it is often unfairly applied now, and it may be impossible to make it fair.

 

[revertfromLDS]

I was under the impression that we as Catholics find that the death penalty is NOT acceptable. Wasn’t this a change as a result of the phrasing “only in the most extreme cases” by John Paul II? I have always thought that the official standing of the Church was against capital punishment. Regaurdless of wether or not there even is an official standpoint for or against, I think Jesus would’ve been against. Therefore, I am against it.
Peace!

 

[camerong]

I was under the impression that we as Catholics find that the death penalty is NOT acceptable. Wasn’t this a change as a result of the phrasing “only in the most extreme cases” by John Paul II? I have always thought that the official standing of the Church was against capital punishment. Regaurdless of wether or not there even is an official standpoint for or against, I think Jesus would’ve been against. Therefore, I am against it.
Peace!

Well-put! And I think this is clearly the correct interpretation; however, there are many Catholics on this forum who do not oppose the death penalty. And there are many Catholics who, in my mind, do not oppose the death penalty strongly enough. So that’s the point behind this argument.

 

[crazzeto]

I was under the impression that we as Catholics find that the death penalty is NOT acceptable. Wasn’t this a change as a result of the phrasing “only in the most extreme cases” by John Paul II? I have always thought that the official standing of the Church was against capital punishment. Regaurdless of wether or not there even is an official standpoint for or against, I think Jesus would’ve been against. Therefore, I am against it.
Peace!

For the most part, except in countries where it is the only practical means to permentantly seperate dangerous persons from society. In the USA the death penalty is wrong, it’s actually cheaper, not just possible to lock some one up for good. In a third world nation with limited money for prisons, and no ability to permenantly incarserate a prisoner, the death penalty is allowed.

 

[kooldood]

I just attended a lecture by a US Court of Appeals judge who discussed the death penalty. His point about the death penalty was not that it was per se wrong, but that the process leading to the death penalty is in such a bad state that we cannot continue executions.

Among the problems the judge recognized:
-Misconduct by the investigating police department. Murder cases often involve a great deal of political pressure, and there are many examples where police have fabricated evidence, mishandled or destroyed exculpatory evidence, forced confessions, struck plea bargains with other witnesses to fabricate or exaggerate stories, etc.
-Misconduct by the prosecutor. Prosecutors in several recent capital cases have neglected to turn important evidence over to the defense (in violation of both law and ethical duties).
-Misconduct by the trial judge. All kinds of rulings can be made incorrectly. One example was where jury instructions gave the jury the option of either sentencing the defendant to “life WITH the possibility of parole, or death” where the instruction should have given the option of life WITHOUT parole or death. Incredibly, the state supreme court held that that was a harmless (nonreversible) error.
-Misconduct by state appeals judges. Many state supreme court justices are elected, and bow to political pressure to uphold wrongful (or at least problematic) convictions.

These are problems that exist with the whole of the justice system; but unlike most criminal cases, mistakes made in dealing death cannot be fixed.

We hope…that the defendant whose life is at risk will be represented by…someone who is inspired by the awareness that a less-than-vigorous defense…could have fatal consequences for the defendant. We hope that the attorney will investigate all aspects of the case, follow all evidentiary and procedural rules, and appear before a judge…committed to the protection of defendants’ rights…

But even if we can feel confident that these actors will fulfill their roles…our collective conscience will remain uneasy. Twenty years have passed since this court declared that the death penalty must be imposed fairly and with reasonable consistency or not at all, and despite the effort of the states and courts to devise legal formulas and procedural rules to meet this…challenge, the death penalty remains fraught with arbitrariness, discrimination…and mistake…

From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death. For more than 20 years I have endeavored…to develop…rules that would lend more than the mere appearance of fairness to the death penalty endeavor…Rather than continue to coddle the court’s delusion that the desired level of fairness has been achieved…I feel…obligated simply to concede that the death penalty experiment has failed. It is virtually self-evident to me now that no combination of procedural rules or substantive regulations ever can save the death penalty from its inherent constitutional deficiencies… Perhaps one day this court will develop procedural rules or verbal formulas that actually will provide consistency, fairness and reliability in a capital-sentencing scheme.

Justice Blackmun, who voted to UPHOLD an automatic sentence of the death penalty in two landmark cases in 1976, remarked just before retirement that despite his and his colleagues efforts to make the death penalty fair, the problems with the system rendered the death penalty irreparably broken:

I have raised a number of problems regarding the death penalty elsewhere, and though I was aware of the above problem, its one that few people outside of the legal field consider. If the death penalty was acceptable to Catholicism, surely we must be concerned with applying it fairly. As the above indicates, it is often unfairly applied now, and it may be impossible to make it fair.

Yo, make your posts shorter. Anyway, the death penalty is always wrong. Always.

 

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

IMHO the biggest problem with the Death Penalty is that the District Attorney (or who ever heads up the prosecution in a given jurisdiction) decides whether or not to go for the Death Penalty when a case is a Capital case.

There are not checks and balances applied, it is all up to them to decide.

My problem with this was shown in two cases that happened where I lived.

A prominent lawyer in the city I lived in hired his brother-in-law (his wife’s brother) to kill his wife (that is to kill his own sister). He did so then both were eventually arrested and charged with capital murder and conspiricy (I believe it was the conspiricy charged that raised this murder to a capital case).

The out going DA decided to go for the Death Penalty for the brother-in-law who commited the murder. He did not decide on the husband, he left that for the new DA who was coming into office shortly after he determined the first case. The in comming DA decided not to go for the Death Penalty for the husband who had contracted the murder of his wife.

This just did not pass the smell test for me. The husband was a lawyer that every lawyer in the city knew and he was rich. The brother-in-law who killed his sister after being hired to do so by the lawyer was from out of state and not living very well.

Just doesn’t seem right.

 

[camerong]

Apparently all the pro-death penalty Catholics hang out on the “Secular News” forum…

 

[DaveBj]

I was under the impression that we as Catholics find that the death penalty is NOT acceptable…

Only those who have razored Gen. 9:6 out of their Bibles.

(Full disclosure: I support the death penalty only in those cases where there is no doubt whatsoever about the identity and guilt of the accused.)

DaveBj

 

[revertfromLDS]

Only those who have razored Gen. 9:6 out of their Bibles.

(Full disclosure: I support the death penalty only in those cases where there is no doubt whatsoever about the identity and guilt of the accused.)

DaveBj

Maybe you stopped reading after the first book… Even if I had razored out that “man shall shed the blood of man who shed’s blood”, I still would have come to other passages like “Thou shalt not kill” and “let he who is without sin cast the first stone” and the ever-popular “love your neighbor as yourself.”
Pope John Paul II offered forgiveness to his would-be assasin and Pope Benedict XVI apologized on behalf of the Church for its role in the brutal killing of muslim’s, jews and other groups during periods like the Crusades and the Inquisition.
Not to bring back an old cheesy catch phrase, but what would Jesus do?
But in the interest of pointing out a contradiction, it was, afterall, an unjust use of capital punishment that fulfilled all the prophecies of the old testament and for which we have to thank for our eternal salvation. Irony!
Maybe it is a necessary evil, (at least it was at the time of the reign of Tiberius Caeser).
But I think not…
Peace!

 

[DaveBj]

Maybe you stopped reading after the first book… Even if I had razored out that “man shall shed the blood of man who shed’s blood”, I still would have come to other passages like “Thou shalt not kill” and “let he who is without sin cast the first stone” and the ever-popular “love your neighbor as yourself.”
Pope John Paul II offered forgiveness to his would-be assasin and Pope Benedict XVI apologized on behalf of the Church for its role in the brutal killing of muslim’s, jews and other groups during periods like the Crusades and the Inquisition.
Not to bring back an old cheesy catch phrase, but what would Jesus do?
But in the interest of pointing out a contradiction, it was, afterall, an unjust use of capital punishment that fulfilled all the prophecies of the old testament and for which we have to thank for our eternal salvation. Irony!
Maybe it is a necessary evil, (at least it was at the time of the reign of Tiberius Caeser).
But I think not…
Peace!

“Thou shalt not kill” comes from a book that is loaded with death penalty prescriptions, including for murder. If you had actually read the book, I think you might have known that, and you might not have been so quick to embarrass yourself

You may want to also check out Romans chapter 13:1-7, where government officials, even pagan government officials, are identified as God’s ministers to execute (word play intended) “the wrath.” That’s the same wrath that private individuals are forbidden to execute back in 12:19. “‘Vengeance is mine, I shall repay,’ says the Lord,” and the officials of the state are the ones who are appointed to carry out that vengeance.

People can slice and dice Holy Scripture any way they want to, but there is no way that they can use it to prove a blanket prohibition on the death penalty.

DaveBj

 

[revertfromLDS]

By the way DaveBJ, can there ever be such a case where there is NO doubt? I suggest to you a great Henry Fonda made for TV flick called “Gideon’s Trumpet” about Gideon v Wainright which was the Supreme Court trial from which we now have our Miranda rights. He couldn’t afford an attorney and since his case wasn’t a capital one, the judge ruled from the interpretation of the time that the court did not need to appoint him one. That’s loosely related here because I have always felt that any such case where there is someone who proudly confesses to some heinus murders and there is no “doubt” about their guilt, there is at the very least arguable doubt as to that person’s sanity. We here in Texas are infamous for executing mentally handicapped people, but I am not proud of that fact.
It is the sick that need a physician.
They need one for healing though, not for administration of a hypodermic needle filled with some toxic concoction!
Peace…

 

[Haliit]

Yo, make your posts shorter. Anyway, the death penalty is always wrong. Always.

Incorrect.

2267 Assuming that the guilty party’s identity and responsibility have been fully determined,** 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.
If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.

Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity “are very rare, if not practically non-existent.”

See the bold. Lawful state authority enacting the death penalty to protect society is perfectly within the moral law.

However, there is a caveat. " if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor."

In the United States, it isn’t. In some countries, it is.

 

[adrift]

Yo, make your posts shorter. Anyway, the death penalty is always wrong. Always.

You are indicating here that the death penalty is an intrinsic evil which is NOT what the Church teaches. camerong has another thread which is almost the same topic and I will repeat what I said .

I don’t support the death penalty for every murder committed. It should only be used when society would not be protected by life imprisonment. What I haven’t seen address is what to do with those who kill in prison when they themselves are there for life without parole? I would like to see thoughts on that situation.

 

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

Apparently all the pro-death penalty Catholics hang out on the “Secular News” forum…

I would not call myself “anti-death penalty”. I just do not like how it is applied.

Maybe you stopped reading after the first book… Even if I had razored out that “man shall shed the blood of man who shed’s blood”, I still would have come to other passages like “Thou shalt not kill” and “let he who is without sin cast the first stone” and the ever-popular “love your neighbor as yourself.”
Pope John Paul II offered forgiveness to his would-be assasin and Pope Benedict XVI apologized on behalf of the Church for its role in the brutal killing of muslim’s, jews and other groups during periods like the Crusades and the Inquisition.
Not to bring back an old cheesy catch phrase, but what would Jesus do?
But in the interest of pointing out a contradiction, it was, afterall, an unjust use of capital punishment that fulfilled all the prophecies of the old testament and for which we have to thank for our eternal salvation. Irony!
Maybe it is a necessary evil, (at least it was at the time of the reign of Tiberius Caeser).
But I think not…
Peace!

The Commandment is “Thou shall not murder” not “Thou shall not kill”.

That is a grave mistranslation used to put forward a certain agenda that is not present in the Bible.

The Death Penalty is not murder.

 

[camerong]

I’m a bit disappointed to see that no one addressed my OP. It was not meant to address the death penalty as a whole, but a particular aspect of it.

By the way DaveBJ, can there ever be such a case where there is NO doubt? I suggest to you a great Henry Fonda made for TV flick called “Gideon’s Trumpet” about Gideon v Wainright which was the Supreme Court trial from which we now have our Miranda rights. He couldn’t afford an attorney and since his case wasn’t a capital one, the judge ruled from the interpretation of the time that the court did not need to appoint him one. That’s loosely related here because I have always felt that any such case where there is someone who proudly confesses to some heinus murders and there is no “doubt” about their guilt, there is at the very least arguable doubt as to that person’s sanity. We here in Texas are infamous for executing mentally handicapped people, but I am not proud of that fact.
It is the sick that need a physician.
They need one for healing though, not for administration of a hypodermic needle filled with some toxic concoction!
Peace…

(Actually, Gideon v. Wainright recognized the right to a court-appointed attorney for most criminal cases. Miranda v. Arizona, two years later, recognized the right to Miranda warning. Also, not to be too particular, but its called a Supreme Court “case,” not a Supreme Court trial–a case goes to trial and is then appealed eventually to the Supreme Court.)

But much more importantly, you raise a good point about executing mentally retarded defendants, a practice which at least 13 states still allow.

Nevertheless, I do wish to focus the discussion on the system of the death penalty–that is why I made a parallel thread on the Secular News forum, where I thought the thread would get more discussion from the numerous supporters of the death penalty that I had met there.

 

[DaveBj]

By the way DaveBJ, can there ever be such a case where there is NO doubt? I suggest to you a great Henry Fonda made for TV flick called “Gideon’s Trumpet” about Gideon v Wainright which was the Supreme Court trial from which we now have our Miranda rights. He couldn’t afford an attorney and since his case wasn’t a capital one, the judge ruled from the interpretation of the time that the court did not need to appoint him one. That’s loosely related here because I have always felt that any such case where there is someone who proudly confesses to some heinus murders and there is no “doubt” about their guilt, there is at the very least arguable doubt as to that person’s sanity. We here in Texas are infamous for executing mentally handicapped people, but I am not proud of that fact.
It is the sick that need a physician.
They need one for healing though, not for administration of a hypodermic needle filled with some toxic concoction!
Peace…

Yes there are cases where there is no doubt. Overwhelming forensic evidence, combined with multiple eyewitnesses (who are not compromised by having received plea bargains for their testimony), perhaps combined with confessions that provide otherwise unknown details of the crime.

Capital punishment under my “administration” would not include cases based, for example, only on circumstantial evidence. By the same token, the justice system under my “administration” would always be on the lookout for exculpatory evidence. I am as interested as anyone in not executing innocent persons. But I am equally interested in protecting society by permanently and irreversably removing persons who are guilty of particularly heinous crimes. Which is precisely God’s interest, as revealed in Sacred Scripture, for instituting the death penalty in the first place.

DaveBj

DaveBj

 

[revertfromLDS]

Incorrect.

See the bold. Lawful state authority enacting the death penalty to protect society is perfectly within the moral law.

However, there is a caveat. " if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor."

In the United States, it isn’t. In some countries, it is.

See to me, the caveat is near the end of the quote when it says “is extremely rare or non-existent.”
Also, I must apologize for my apparent lack of knowlege in court case history, proper use of terms and absolute inability to read. I made a mistake in assuming that I had chosen a fairly decent argument in agreement with my Catholic faith. If my “agenda” is the protection of human life as something sacred from its natural begining to its natural end, then I guess I am just some putz that can’t see the benefit of ridding society of certifiable scum with the green light from the Almighty and am living in some sort of misguided fantasy in which murderers and rapists and child molestors are worthy of breathing the same air as us chosen to carry out their come-up-ins.

 

[camerong]

Also, I must apologize for my apparent lack of knowlege in court case history, proper use of terms and absolute inability to read.

I very much hope I did not offend you by correcting your statement yesterday. I did not intend it to insult, but merely to educate. Someone not in the legal field cannot hope to get all the cases and words right (we in the field often do not!) but we might as well use this occasion to become more accurate in our speech. I, as a new Catholic convert, would hope the same treatment when I incorrectly use “Catechisis” or some such word, so that I do not go on making the same mistake!

 

[Ender]

I’m a bit disappointed to see that no one addressed my OP. It was not meant to address the death penalty as a whole, but a particular aspect of it.

It is with some difficulty that I refrain from responding to the less than accurate comments about what the Church teaches about punishment, capital or otherwise, and limit myself to the point you raised. I’ll resist the temptation as long as I can.

Regarding fairness, I find it difficult to believe that it is a problem solely in capital cases. If having inadequate council, being poor, or a minority actually increases ones chances of receiving the death penalty why would one suppose that these same conditions would not lead to one receiving a harsher penalty whether or not it was a capital case? I see no rationale for arguing that prejudice in sentencing exists solely when the option is execution; the arguments you present against the death penalty would seem to be equally applicable to all sentences, which is an indictment of our entire criminal justice system.

Personally, I am not all that concerned with fairness. Let’s assume that there is arbitrariness in the imposition of the death penalty - we can use the example of the husband who had his brother-in-law murder his wife and whether it was it just that only the brother-in-law received the death penalty. If they should both have been executed, how is it better that both of them avoid their just punishment than that only one should avoid it? If neither of them should be executed then we should oppose the imposition of the death penalty because it was unjust, not because it was unequally applied. My concern with the application of the death penalty is not that we may fail to apply it to someone who deserves it but that we may apply it to someone who does not, but that is a concern for justice, not fairness.

Ender

 

[camerong]

It is with some difficulty that I refrain from responding to the less than accurate comments about what the Church teaches about punishment, capital or otherwise, and limit myself to the point you raised. I’ll resist the temptation as long as I can.

Regarding fairness, I find it difficult to believe that it is a problem solely in capital cases. If having inadequate council, being poor, or a minority actually increases ones chances of receiving the death penalty why would one suppose that these same conditions would not lead to one receiving a harsher penalty whether or not it was a capital case? I see no rationale for arguing that prejudice in sentencing exists solely when the option is execution; the arguments you present against the death penalty would seem to be equally applicable to all sentences, which is an indictment of our entire criminal justice system.

Personally, I am not all that concerned with fairness. Let’s assume that there is arbitrariness in the imposition of the death penalty - we can use the example of the husband who had his brother-in-law murder his wife and whether it was it just that only the brother-in-law received the death penalty. If they should both have been executed, how is it better that both of them avoid their just punishment than that only one should avoid it? If neither of them should be executed then we should oppose the imposition of the death penalty because it was unjust, not because it was unequally applied. My concern with the application of the death penalty is not that we may fail to apply it to someone who deserves it but that we may apply it to someone who does not, but that is a concern for justice, not fairness.

Ender

The difference between the typical case and the capital case is that the person wrongfully convicted (or wrongfully sentenced to death) is dead. There can be no fix when the person is dead. As the cost of being wrong increases, so does the necessity for being right.

However, there is much reason to believe that these mistakes occur more often in capital cases than non-capital cases. There is less political pressure on prosecutors and police to convict a car thief or a robber than to convict a murder suspect, especially when the murders are particularly heinous. Juries and judges are far more vengeful on accused killers than accused drug dealers, and are that much more willing to look over exculpatory evidence.

Of course you are correct that the concern is killing innocent people, not failing to kill guilty people, but the argument to which you are responding came from someone else, not me.

And frankly, I think the argument that we should be concerned about innocent people being killed (or people being greatly over-sentenced) speaks for itself. If we are at all concerned with justice (and a death penalty irrefutably presupposes we are), then we should be at least as concerned with an innocent person being killed as we are with a guilty party going free.