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[facilitatorn]

I think that the bulk of the research shows that without extremely high apprehension and conviction rates for a class of crimes, deterrence is low regardless of the penalty. I’m not sure executions per se have any deterrent value.

The reason for executing the trumps and the Agnews of this nation is more by way of ritual affirmation of values, watering the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants, than any deterrence.

The case against performing executions is still stronger than these reasons.

We can keep trump and his complicit offspring in a life of complete solitary confinement in the darkest holes in our nation’s vast prison system, taking them out once a year for a televised delousing and dental checkup to plier out any potential rotting teeth, rather than subjecting them to state sanctioned murder despite the fact that they are clearly the worst of the worst.

[facilitatorn]

https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/five-things-about-deterrence

Certainty has a greater deterrent effect than severity, according to this.

[josh]

https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/five-things-about-deterrence

Certainty has a greater deterrent effect than severity, according to this.

Thanks! i will take a look at it tomorrow evening, after class is done. (Tomorrow is Science Fiction - penultimate session for the term.)

[facilitatorn]

Have fun. I never did a sci-fi class though I did teach Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep for something called Technology and Society. I had to a mini unit on Noir for my students for it to make sense. I felt old.

http://www.amazon.com/Seveneves-Novel-Neal-Stephenson/dp/1469246864

http://www.amazon.com/Diamond-Age-Illustrated-Primer-Spectra/dp/0553380966

Two titles in the Genre worth the look.

http://www.amazon.com/Hyperion-Cantos-Dan-Simmons/dp/0553283685

An absolute master work

[Hamilton Samuels]

The death penalty has its place. There are truly evil, unrepentant humans who forfeit their right to be kept alive.

I'm sure you can think of some who have deserved that penalty.





However,

That's what life without parole is for.

No. That's too nice. Apparently you have a different understanding of the special character of folks like Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Harold Shipman, or someone like Nikolas Cruz...



 

[Hamilton Samuels]

But what are the arguments for the death penalty vs. life in prison?

Some people will kill until they are killed. That's who they are. 

From the FBI: Research (on serial killers) has demonstrated that in those offenders who are psychopathic, scores vary, ranging from a high degree of psychopathy to some measure of psychopathy. However, not all violent offenders are psychopaths and not all psychopaths are violent offenders. If violent offenders are psychopathic, they are able to assault, rape, and murder without concern for legal, moral, or social consequences. This allows them to do what they want, whenever they want.

The relationship between psychopathy and serial killers is particularly interesting. All psychopaths do not become serial murderers. Rather, serial murderers may possess some or many of the traits consistent with psychopathy. Psychopaths who commit serial murder do not value human life and are extremely callous in their interactions with their victims. This is particularly evident in sexually motivated serial killers who repeatedly target, stalk, assault, and kill without a sense of remorse. However, psychopathy alone does not explain the motivations of a serial killer.

Understanding psychopathy becomes particularly critical to law enforcement during a serial murder investigation and upon the arrest of a psychopathic serial killer. The crime scene behavior of psychopaths is likely to be distinct from other offenders. This distinct behavior can assist law enforcement in linking serial cases.

Psychopaths are not sensitive to altruistic interview themes, such as sympathy for their victims or remorse/guilt over their crimes. They do possess certain personality traits that can be exploited, particularly their inherent narcissism, selfishness, and vanity. Specific themes in past successful interviews of psychopathic serial killers focused on praising their intelligence, cleverness, and skill in evading capture.

Also...• Regardless of the motive, serial murderers commit their crimes because they want to. The exception to this would be those few killers suffering from a severe mental illness.


https://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/serial-murder#four


These are not people who we should warehouse, feed, and provide medical care for. They are incorrigible, and if they escape, like Bundy did, for example, they will continue to kill.



Just take them out, execute, avoid blaming their mother, and move on.

[Hamilton Samuels]

Re:  death penalty vs life w/o parole

There ARE murders committed from prison - demanded by hard core killers serving time - of underlings on the outside

Yep. Take a look: Gang members imprisoned in South Carolina’s Department of Corrections used contraband cellphones to run a sprawling drug empire that left a trail of violence and death in the Palmetto State, according to a massive federal grand jury investigation unveiled Thursday.

For years, imprisoned members of the Insane Gangster Disciples orchestrated the beating, kidnapping and murder of people who threatened their $50 million-a-year methamphetamine and heroin trafficking operation, federal prosecutors alleged at a press conference outside Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia.

Other gang members carrying out their orders conducted drive-by shootings, tampered with witnesses and kidnapped, tortured and murdered a York County woman they suspected was a police informant, according to the 147-count indictment.

https://www.postandcourier.com/news/prosecutors-gangsters-in-sc-prisons-ordered-murders-ran-drug-empire-with-cellphones/article_04894756-39a4-11eb-a3c2-0bce083d05c4.html

That's a good example of why a death penalty should be implemented at times.

[bodiddley]

I can understand an argument that someone who is in prison for life and kills again, either another inmate or someone on the outside via conspiracy (ordering a killing), might be deserving of the death penalty.  It is a problem that someone who is never getting out of jail isn't terribly deterred from killing again (especially in a non-death penalty state).

But the idea that the death penalty is useful to prevent gang members from running a criminal enterprise (with murder) from jail seems pretty weak.  How about simply running the prison better.  Why/how do inmates have cellphones they are not permitted to have?  Seems prison staff is very likely complicit.

The indictment also highlights South Carolina’s years long struggle to stop the flow of contraband cellphones into its prisons, where they have been used by inmates to spread drugs and violence into the outside world. Since 2013, S.C. Corrections Director Bryan Stirling has unsuccessfully sought the federal government’s permission to stop those communications by jamming cellphone signals within state jails and prisons.

That's one possible solution.  Another is to search more and better, including the staff.  Also, I'd think it'd be easy to have some simple hardware that could detect cellphone usage from the prison.  Also, the phone company might cooperate and let the prison know when calls are made from their institution and the associated numbers.

[facilitatorn]

House certain units in a faraday cage in extra remote locations, if you are concerned about inmate communications.

The state should not be in the revenge business. It is never a good basis for policy.

[bodiddley]

You're begging the question by defining it as revenge.
The state should be in the justice business.
Justice for an intentional and premeditated killing could be seen as forfeiting your own life.  It's certainly the ancient Judeo-Christian tradition.

Have to say there is something unfair and creepy about a murderer living another 20 years or more in prison, while the victim's life was snuffed out prematurely.   Can certainly see how the victim's family feels it's unfair the killer gets to communicate with loved ones and go on living.

But I would limit it to depraved killings, mass murders, no doubt of guilt.  First degree -- planned and intentional murders only.

The execution Trump engineered last week: a few guys talk to a couple who stopped to use a pay phone at a convenience store.  They ask for a ride, with intent to rob them.  Pull out a gun, force the couple into the trunk, pick up some friends, ride around for hours trying to use the couple's ATM card.  Then the gang leader decides they have to kill the couple because they've seen his face.  A rather tawdry pathetic crime.  What was the plan?
So he shoots them in the head and orders a 16 year old in his gang to dump gasoline on the car and burn the evidence.  Some evidence suggest that the husband was killed but the wife was still alive after being shot in the head and the smoke killed her.  The 16 year who set fire to the car was just executed.

It seems he was planning to be part of a robbery.  Someone else escalated it to murder.  And he took a somewhat small and unfortunate part in it.  Was also just 16 at the time, and said he feared what would happen if he didn't obey the command to torch the car with the bodies in it.

This wouldn't meet my threshold at all.  He didn't intend to kill -- he thought the couple was dead.  He was under some duress.  He was just 16.  He only intended to commit a robbery, etc.  Even life in prison seems to harsh to me.
20-30 years jail time would be stiff.

[barton]

I think many of the problems with the DP are,  in this and other chats,  not objections to the concept so much as to its practical and just application in an error-free manner.   The inequity between race/class, leading to the SCt justice's adjective "capricious."  The effect upon prison employees who have to be the agents of someone's death.   The difficulties in precisely defining and measuring psychopathy in every case.   The undeserved cushiness of some death row digs.   For me,  it comes down to the question of infallibility -- could all those areas of error and inequity be remedied in the real world?

The money question is morally hazardous.   It also costs society more money to not stuff everyone over 70 in a suicide booth.   (or off a cliff,  as in that Swedish film,  "Midsommar")   I doubt much good comes from evaluating human lives from the focus of a profit center.   

[Hamilton Samuels]

I can understand an argument that someone who is in prison for life and kills again, either another inmate or someone on the outside via conspiracy (ordering a killing), might be deserving of the death penalty.  It is a problem that someone who is never getting out of jail isn't terribly deterred from killing again (especially in a non-death penalty state).

But the idea that the death penalty is useful to prevent gang members from running a criminal enterprise (with murder) from jail seems pretty weak. 

 

Dead people make no phone calls. Unless you know differently.

[Hamilton Samuels]

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan charged a Kenyan man with plotting to stage an attack in the style of Sept. 11 at the direction of al-Shabaab, a terrorist group that serves as al Qaeda’s principal wing in East Africa.

Cholo Abdi Abdullah, 30 years old, traveled to the Philippines in 2016 to train as a pilot and researched how to hijack an aircraft in preparation for crashing a commercial aircraft into a building in the U.S., Manhattan federal prosecutors said. They said he acted at the direction of an unidentified senior al-Shabaab commander who was also responsible for planning a 2019 attack at a Nairobi hotel.

“This chilling callback to the horrific attacks of September 11, 2001, is a stark reminder that terrorist groups like al Shabaab remain committed to killing U.S. citizens and attacking the United States,” acting Manhattan U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said in a statement.

Prosecutors charged Mr. Abdullah with providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, conspiring to murder U.S. nationals, conspiring to commit aircraft piracy and other crimes. He faces up to life in prison.

Hardly enough. THAT seems like a death penalty case to me.

[bodiddley]

I would be very surprised if the death penalty could be applied for a conspiracy charge.

Mob guys used to run their organizations from prison via talks with their lawyers and wives.  Sure it's easier with a contraband cellphone, but not necessary.

Again, there are other lesser drastic preventative methods than execution to stop convicts from using cellphones while in jail.

[Hamilton Samuels]

I would be very surprised if the death penalty could be applied for a conspiracy charge.

Mob guys used to run their organizations from prison via talks with their lawyers and wives.  Sure it's easier with a contraband cellphone, but not necessary.

Again, there are other lesser drastic preventative methods than execution to stop convicts from using cellphones while in jail.

What you're allowing to occur us more tale and murder in the streets. The death penalty for these guys ends is highly effective. Dead men make no calls, texts, give orders, consult, etc...