A capital idea

The Supreme Court is pondering the death penalty yet again. Some excerpts:

Polls show that Americans are still supportive of capital punishment but that they favor life imprisonment if given the option.

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The justices in recent years have eliminated the death penalty for the mentally retarded and for juveniles. They have also been more demanding about the evidence presented to juries during sentencing and about the competence of lawyers defending the accused.

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According to the petition filed by the Kentucky inmates, Ralph Baze and Thomas Bowling, resulting court decisions are a "haphazard flux ranging from requiring 'wanton infliction of pain,' 'excessive pain,' 'unnecessary pain,' 'substantial risk,' 'unnecessary risk,' 'substantial risk of wanton and unnecessary pain,' and numerous other ways of describing when a method of execution is cruel and unusual."

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"There's nothing speculative about whether there can be problems," said Elizabeth Semel, director of the Death Penalty Clinic at the law school at the University of California at Berkeley. But proving widespread problems is difficult, she acknowledged, because of secrecy surrounding the procedures and an inability to know whether inmates were properly anesthetized.

I've got an easy answer to those last two problems: abolish the death penalty.

That sumbitch needed killin

Have some more grits while yer at it.

Because some people just need killing

Grits for Breakdast, on the death penalty: The missus thinks I'm going to "get in trouble" for writing this, but I think, as a practical matter, I'd prefer a death penalty privatized on a case by case basis at the discretion of 12 jurors than operated by the government itself. What do you think?

Me, I'm a native of the Lone Star state, now a long-time resident of the East Coast version of the Wild West, and I confess to a great deal of sympathy for this view of murderers and their victims:

The truth is that Texas's propensity for killing its citizens, and its leniency with some murderers, are both expressions of the a single principle. Texas doesn't execute murderers to show its regard for the value of life; it does so because some people (as the parable says) need killing. Sometimes the guy who -- in the eyes of Texas -- needs killing is the accused, and sometimes he's the complainant.

"He needed killin', and my guy was the guy to do it" has long been a viable defense in some Texas murder cases. These are cases in which the State often couldn't secure convictions despite being technically murder; it'll be even less able to secure convictions in the future from juries that know that, if they convict, prison will be the only option.

On the whole though, I'm opposed to anything that smacks of vigilanteism. I don't want to live in a place where people are allowed to, or feel compelled to, take the law into their own hands. But the reality is that some people do kill in self-defense and those people, unless they later get it into their heads that a bullet is the way to deal with everyone who irritates them, are not going to be a danger to me. Turn 'em loose on probation.

Besides, I just plain dislike killin' be it state-sponsored or not. The death penalty, like torture, ought to just be one of those unquestioned and unquestionable taboos that requires no further philosophical justification beyond Dude, we don't do that kind of thing here.

[ just an aside on the death penalty ... ]

I was skimming this article and decided to vote. This is what the results looked like at the time [yes, I'm in the 21%]:

Death Penalty

I'm against it.

Chilling factoid: public defenders that I know tell me that about 25% to 50% of their clients, were they offered the choice, say they'd rather be executed, instead of being sentenced to life in prison.

Another chilling thought: I've only heard this from public defenders, not from any criminal defense attorneys in private practice.

Anti Death Penalty web sites:
Death Penalty Information Center
Amnesty International: Abolish The Death Penalty

As of this writing, 1 in 8 people on death row in the US has been absolved of the crime they are condemned for:
The Innocence Project

I've been told that this documentary accurately portrays the justice system in the state of Florida:
Murder on a Sunday Morning

Pro Death Penalty web site:
Pro Death Penalty

From the US Dept of Justice:
Bureau of Justice Statistics