I'm a conservative who opposes capital punishment, a position that often elicits surprise and questions.
Here's yet another great justification:
Jerry Miller could be angry that a rape victim misidentified him, or that he spent a quarter of a century in prison for a crime he did not commit. He could be bitter that he was paroled as a registered sex offender, forced to wear an electronic monitoring ankle bracelet that signaled his every move.
But Miller, 48, says he is "blessed."
Since his release in March 2006, he moved in with a cousin in the south suburbs and got two jobs, one at a bus service for the disabled and one as a cook in a Dolton barbecue joint.
At the same time, he continued fighting to prove his innocence, a battle he has finally won.
On Monday, prosecutors will ask a Cook County Circuit judge to erase Miller's conviction and sentence because recent DNA tests on evidence have excluded him as the attacker.
"I am not angry. I am thankful and I feel proud of myself," Miller said Friday in an interview at an office near the Zion Christian Center in Dolton, where he attends weekly services. "I accomplished what I set out to do -- to show that they lied on me .... I made it. I'm not swept under the rug anymore."
Miller's will be the 200th exoneration in the nation based on DNA evidence, according to the Innocence Project, a non-profit legal clinic in New York.
It will be the 27th DNA exoneration in Illinois.
(Emphasis added.)
One of my fundamental political beliefs is that the government is most often incompetent and unresponsive. I don't trust the government to spend wisely or enact policy judiciously, so I certainly don't trust them to make decisions about whether someone should be allowed to live or die. Aside from the moral considerations of capital punishment, 27 convictions later reversed by DNA evidence is 27 pieces of damning evidence that our flawed government shouldn't be entrusted with the power to decide life and death.
I'd argue that the death penalty is too broadly applied with our relatively imperfect justice system. Though I would not do away with the death penalty completely, I would establish a far stronger burden of proof for death penatly sentencing. Guilty beyond a reasonable doubt for conviction but for a death penalty sentence the guilt must be established beyond any doubt. I would also allow for the death penalty with anyone convicted of murder in prison beyond a reasonable doubt but purely out of pragmatism.
Until the imperfections in our justice system can be remedied it is very difficult for me to support the death penalty sentencing process as it currently stands. Though I'd wager that almost all of those convicted are guilty, the few innocents who may be deprived of life without further due process of law conflicts with my view of appropriate execution of law. I do not however subscribe to the belief that execution is any more cruel or unusual than incarcerating someone for the rest of their natural life which is in itself an extremely prolonged death penalty when you get right down to it.
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http://glock21.blogspot.com
The evidence, to which you refer, would better support banning eyewitness testimony, not capital punishment. Basically the argument I read from IP and Glock21 is that we shouldn't have capital punishment because a few innocents might be executed. So using this logic would you agree that:
We should ban driving because the government is incompetent in enforcing the licensing of competent drivers, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of innocents?
We should ban surgeries because the government is incompetent in enforcing the absolute competence of physicians and hospitals, resulting in the deaths and/or removal of healthy organs, limbs and tissue?
We should ban police officers because the government is incompetent in selecting, training, and maintaining a force of absolutely competent and ethical police officers, resulting in the deaths and maiming of innocents by officers who use violence?
I'm sure your answers would be "no, of course not" to these questions and many others like it. So what actually distnguishes your stance on captial punishment argument from these three examples?
No system is perfect. We should strive to make the system as fool-proof as possible. All processes have common cause variation. A process running at a quality level of six standard deviations would still fail, on average, 3.4 times out of a million. Let's not throw the baby out with the bath water. Some crimes merit the killing of sub-human monsters.
BTW, why doesn't anybody get their knickers in a twist about wrongful incarceration? Spending 30 years in jail is not reversible-unless you can control time. I support capital punishment, but there has to be a fair, timely process to protect against wrongful execution.
"I'm sure your answers would be "no, of course not" to these questions and many others like it. So what actually distnguishes your stance on captial punishment argument from these three examples?"
In capital punishment, the government decides who lives and who dies. In the other examples, the government doesn't.
"No system is perfect. We should strive to make the system as fool-proof as possible. All processes have common cause variation. A process running at a quality level of six standard deviations would still fail, on average, 3.4 times out of a million. Let's not throw the baby out with the bath water. Some crimes merit the killing of sub-human monsters."
If we can't administer the death penalty perfectly and without error, then we shouldn't be trusted to administer it - period. Moral consideration aside, any system that involves the state killing a human being must be absolutely perfect, as the consequences of an error and the government unjustly killing one of its citizens. That's unthinkable.
"BTW, why doesn't anybody get their knickers in a twist about wrongful incarceration? Spending 30 years in jail is not reversible-unless you can control time. I support capital punishment, but there has to be a fair, timely process to protect against wrongful execution."
The death penalty is irreversible. When administered incorrectly, there are no remedies. Wrongful incarceration, as horrible as it is, at least offers the hope of reversal and restitution. And you'll noticed that the article I've linked to in the post starts with a story of wrongful incarceration, so I'd hardly say that nobody cares about it.
Glock, you appear to be saying that guilt beyond a reasonable doubt is different than guilt beyond any doubt.
On the surface that may appear to be so, but your standard is unachievable in any world. That's why we call the standard in criminal cases "guilt beyond a reasonable doubt".
No one can erase "unreasonable doubt" since it is "unreasonable".
Are you suggesting the defendant escapes the death penalty if a juror "unreasonably" believes the defendant is really a cucumber, the defendant can read minds, the defendant can make himself invisible, etc?
When we want perfection we insist on proof beyond all "reasonable" doubt. That's as far as it goes.
I agree with the Gordy on this, unless you can have perfection you shouldn't excute people. I'm also only for using capital punishment in extreme cases. Sadam fine, if Obama is found please do, but the execution of people who even have questionable mental capabilities or those under the age of 18 is going too far in my opinion.
"Basically the argument I read from IP and Glock21 is that we shouldn't have capital punishment because a few innocents might be executed."
Actually I was arguing to keep the death penalty but limit its use to clear cut cases and prison-murder situations for pragmatic reasons. I think this would help reduce the chance of an innocent being mistakenly put to death by the government but also keep it as an option for extremely heinous crimes and as a deterrent for murderers in prison.
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http://glock21.blogspot.com
anon... actually what I was trying to explain was that I'd demand that the death penalty could only be applied in cases where the jury had no doubts whatsoever, not even the reasonable doubt, that allows them to convict even if there are still some holes in the evidence. For conviction the reasonable doubt rule should still hold, but for sentencing with the death penalty I feel it is important to demand no doubt by the jury, reasonable or otherwise. For prison murders I'd say that reasonable doubt can hold for both conviction and sentencing to death.
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http://glock21.blogspot.com
"Moral consideration aside, any system that involves the state killing a human being must be absolutely perfect, as the consequences of an error and the government unjustly killing one of its citizens. That's unthinkable."
IP stated it well. Also as a conservative and realist, I am totally against capitol punishment due to the falibility of government.
A process running at a quality level of six standard deviations would still fail, on average, 3.4 times out of a million.
There are currently 2 million prisoners in the U.S. Let's say that we take the non-violent drug offenders out of that number, whose guilt or innoncence doesn't hinge on DNA, and we get about 1 million prisoners. 200 of those convictions have been overturned on DNA. I don't know much about statistics and standard deviations and the whatnot, but I do know that 200 is significantly greater than 3.4, so clearly the system isn't as fool-proof as it could be.
I'm with Glock21 - we should reserve the death penalty for both the worst cases, and for the most clear ones, evidence-wise. There are plenty of cases where someone gets the chair for one murder, relying on eyewitness testimony, which is less reliable than some people think. Some big cities like Philadelphia have D.A.s that ask for the death penalty for *every* murder, usually as a tool to get the suspect to plea bargain for life or 20-year stretches. That doesn't seem like a very good use of it - plus the worst offenders, like the BTK Killer, plea for life right off the bat, because the cops are more interested in finding where the bodies are and closing case files.
How many people's lives would be saved if the death penalty deterred their murderers? If you don't apply the maximum penalty in clear-cut beyond-any-doubt cases, then a murderer's worst-case scenario changes from the electric chair to free food, shelter, and medical care for life.
If you don't have the death penalty, how do you punish someone who murders in prison while serving a life sentence?
Try applying your unrealistic, no-errors criteria for government-sanctioned killing to the allied invasion of Europe in WWII. Absolute perfection is never a criterion for moral action.
"How many people's lives would be saved if the death penalty deterred their murderers? If you don't apply the maximum penalty in clear-cut beyond-any-doubt cases, then a murderer's worst-case scenario changes from the electric chair to free food, shelter, and medical care for life."
I've never been convinced that the death penalty is an effective deterrent to murder. I don't think any studies have proven any sort of deterrent effect.
That said, the problem with erroneous application of the death penalty isn't the clear-cut, beyond any doubt cases. It's in the cases which have resulted in the government mistakenly executing some of its own innocent citizens.
"Try applying your unrealistic, no-errors criteria for government-sanctioned killing to the allied invasion of Europe in WWII. Absolute perfection is never a criterion for moral action."
I don't see the two as even remotely comparable. Would you please clarify?
Using deterrence as the only criteria to the debate is to limit those considerations and deciding factors to matters economic (deterrence relies on an economic analysis). You know what also would be a good deterrent? When someone is accused or convicted of a crime, you brutally and painfully kill their family. Yeah, it may deter crime but there is more to the equation.
The problem with political debate is that we pigeonhole discussion into one form of analysis and one form alone. This is largely a factor of our highly-specialized and segmented form of higher education. People aren't trained in liberal arts, they're training in Physics, or Biology, or economics, etc. That's why it's patently absurd that we have genetic biologists running out saying only their analysis and needs should be considered in stem cell research (or more accurately embryo-destroying stem cell research). It's more than a scientific question. It's an economic one (adult stem cells wins that discussion because adult stem cells work today). It's an ethical one. So on.
To reduce the death penalty question to simple economics is to flatten the debate and ends up prefiguring the outcome. The death penalty is more than just economic, it's also a moral/ethical question, a philosophic question, and a legal question. All angles must be weight instead of using "deterrence" as the end-all-be-all of the discussion.
For the record, I'm also against the death penalty.
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j
Part-Time Pundit
Even Britain has the death penalty for treason. To eliminate it entirely after 9/11 would be most unfortunate.
I hate to think we could catch Osama bin Laden and sentence him to a lifetime of cable television and gymnasium membership.
It is good people discuss public policy decisions. It is dismaying when legal issues are discussed and people discuss without much knowledge of the facts and/or policy reasons.
I wish a State's Attorney or defense lawyer would weigh in.My impression of crime and punishment is that it's not Jerry Orhbach on Law and Order, it's much more than that.
What next, the public policy of dissolving sutures or removing sutures after surgery? What did "House" do?
If you don't have the death penalty, how do you punish someone who murders in prison while serving a life sentence?
A good number of people in this thread are not arguing against the death penalty in all cases, just in many or most cases (although I can only speak for myself). The prison murder cases seem like good candidates for the chair, if you ask me, and may in fact be one of the few cases where the death penalty *may* (or may not) be a deterrent, notwithstanding John Bambenek's argument about deterrence.
Try applying your unrealistic, no-errors criteria for government-sanctioned killing to the allied invasion of Europe in WWII.
We don't apply those criteria for war - that's why it's war, and not a court proceeding. In war we are trying to kill as many enemy soldiers as possible, and even take the risk of killing innocent bystanders to do so. In legal proceedings, we are trying to mete out justice while preserving people's constitutional rights, and are zealous enough about citizens' rights that we will even let the guilty go on a technicality - the notion being that we can survive as a society better with a criminal on the loose better than we can survive as a society where the govt doesn't uphold our rights.
Even Britain has the death penalty for treason. To eliminate it entirely after 9/11 would be most unfortunate.
I hate to think we could catch Osama bin Laden and sentence him to a lifetime of cable television and gymnasium membership.
Errr... the supermaxes like Florence ADX are pretty unpleasant places, as Moussaoui is probably discovering.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADX_Florence
If you don't have the death penalty, how do you punish someone who murders in prison while serving a life sentence?
By guarding them better.
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j
Part-Time Pundit
Your constitutional rights are to a trial before an impartial court by a jury of your peers and to not be subjected to cruel and unusual punishments. You do not have a constitutional right to a correct verdict. A judge can only over-rule a guilty verdict by a jury because of a legal fault, not because he disagrees with their judgement on the facts of the case.
I also have a much greater interest in seeing my ax-murdering neighbor hang than in killing a patriotic soldier with the misfortune to be fighting for the other side of a war.
IP-I think you're missing the points of some of the arguments with respect to your no capital punishment position.
You seem to speak of government as if it were an entity unto itself. Government is nothing more than a system filled with fallible human beings. It isn't the government who does something to you, it's the civil servants, bureaucrats and enforcers of the government who affect your life. It's the prosecuring DA with his personal biases, political aspirations, etc. who shoves a crappy case forward-think Mike Nifong.
Speaking of people, it still takes a jury (usually) or a judge to impose a sentence of death upon a convicted defendant. No evil, faceless government does that to a person. People are passing judgement upon people. It's fallible people on the juries who buy into a slick sales pitch from an attorney and decide a person's fate. Sometimes the jurists are prudent, thoughtful and thorough and sometimes they're just a collection of people with nothing else to do.
What singles out the imposition of capital punishment as the only human endeavor in which no error can be tolerated? I believe that was the point Warrior was trying to make with his comparison with another sanctioned use of violence by government: war. If you oppose captial punishment because of the merest possibility of any Type I error (i.e. government sanctioned killing of innocents), why wouldn't you be opposed to all war on the same grounds?
Just some thoughts for what they're worth...
I think that you may have misunderstood me, Warrior - I never said or even implied that there's a "constitutional right to a correct verdict," but rather that we, as a society "are trying to mete out justice while preserving people's constitutional rights" in courtrooms. It's an imperfect world (as 200 exonerations from DNA screenings prove), and sometimes there's no perfect justice, even in jury trials. In re: my comments on technicalities that let criminals go, I was referring to the overlooking of reading Miranda warnings, lack of search warrants, mishandled paperwork, and so on. I would wholeheartedly agree that if someone committed a serious crime and walked because the cop didn't read the Miranda warning, then justice has in no way been done. Still, that's the system that we have to work with, for better or worse. I also think that you have listed an incomplete group of rights of the accused (jury trial and freedom from cruel and unusual punishments) - there are many other explicitly guaranteed rights, like a speedy trial, freedom from excessive bail, freedom from double jeopardy, guarantees against self-incrimination, etc., as well as implicit rights, like a lawyer and a phone call.
I also have a much greater interest in seeing my ax-murdering neighbor hang than in killing a patriotic soldier with the misfortune to be fighting for the other side of a war.
Once again, war and courtroom trials are simply not the same thing, nor in any way comparable, except in the fact that in a very small number of trials someone ends up getting juiced for their crimes. Enemy soldiers (and here I'm thinking of uniformed soldiers of a legitimate state) are rarely Adolf Eichman types that one can say really deserve to get a bullet in the forehead, but are usually just regular folks that sometimes end up on the wrong end of a tank round. It sucks that they are in that position, but that's war, not justice. There's no either or choice.
I also have a much greater interest in seeing my ax-murdering neighbor hang than in killing a patriotic soldier with the misfortune to be fighting for the other side of a war.
You know, I'm looking for a house, and this post makes me imagine asking the realtor for a location with no ax-murdering neighbors. (Reasonable property taxes would be good too.)
"Speaking of people, it still takes a jury (usually) or a judge to impose a sentence of death upon a convicted defendant. No evil, faceless government does that to a person. People are passing judgement upon people. It's fallible people on the juries who buy into a slick sales pitch from an attorney and decide a person's fate. Sometimes the jurists are prudent, thoughtful and thorough and sometimes they're just a collection of people with nothing else to do."
Well, there's also the massive coercive power of the state behind the prosector who is collecting and presenting evidence to that judge and jury. Yes, our governments, though they're as good a system as has ever been developed, are fallible because each of us is fallible. Isn't that just as compelling a reason to avoid capital punishment? Our system is based on people: who among us is really ready or qualified or flawless enough to decide to kill another human being?
"What singles out the imposition of capital punishment as the only human endeavor in which no error can be tolerated?"
Because it uses the power of the state to kill a citizen. Really, in my mind, that's all it takes. I think the power of the state is already so vast as to be frightening. Add in the power to compel death, and a track record fraught with errors, and I see no reason to continue the practice. And that's without even brushing on the moral implications.
"I believe that was the point Warrior was trying to make with his comparison with another sanctioned use of violence by government: war. If you oppose captial punishment because of the merest possibility of any Type I error (i.e. government sanctioned killing of innocents), why wouldn't you be opposed to all war on the same grounds?"
Well, no. I don't agree that the analogy is appropriate, but even if it is, the logical comparable conclusion is that I would oppose war in which all the participants, from the political leadership to the lowliest footsoldier, are forced to fight.
I believe we need to establish a "culture of life," but only for embryos and fetuses.
If you don't have the death penalty, how do you punish someone who murders in prison while serving a life sentence?
A good number of people in this thread are not arguing against the death penalty in all cases, just in many or most cases (although I can only speak for myself). The prison murder cases seem like good candidates for the chair, if you ask me, and may in fact be one of the few cases where the death penalty *may* (or may not) be a deterrent, notwithstanding John Bambenek's argument about deterrence.
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This reminded me of the David Wong case. http://freedavidwong.org/
I'm pretty close to Gordy's viewpoint. Naturally, I would like to see some consideration of the likelihood of the death penalty as correlated to class and race in the justice system. The studies I've seen which study the race of the victim are particularly disturbing. As are the contrasts in defense between rich and poor.
"It's the prosecuting DA with his personal biases, political asperations, etc. who shoves a crappy case forward--think Mike Nifong."
Or how about Champaign County's own John Piland?
We had a thread just a few weeks ago that reviewed charging data under Mrs. Reitz. Comments were made regarding the charging decisions Mr. Piland used to make, and I still have one of his campaign brochures bragging about how crime numbers were down. As I read it, I thought, "yes, but nationally they're down even more. what was he doing wrong?"
My father told me when I was a child that the justice system has nothing to do with justice and *everything* to do with how good your lawyer is---and maybe more importantly, how good of a lawyer you can afford. And he's a lawyer who has tried many death penalty cases---some of which he lost even though he was convinced they *weren't* guilty.
One of these was overturned later on appeal because the primary witness recanted and the secondary witness, a man whose IQ is quite low, was intimidated into testifying for the state. No physical evidence connected him to the crime and his alibi witnesses (all four of them) were discounted because they couldn't remember the exact TV show they were all watching 3 years prior when the crime was committed.
It's not much of a surprise that many overturned verdicts come in cases where the defendant had a public defender or a state-paid attorney....
You should haven't to pay the ultimate price because you can't afford to hire someone that will do a good job defending you. And sometimes, even when you do have a good lawyer, you still end up losing.
In addition, while the state of Illinois has put into place some reforms because of the overturned death penalty cases in Illinois, you as a defendant do not have the same resources as the state does in a case. While the state can turn to state resources for evidence testing, etc., the defendent will have to pay out of pocket for those same expenses. You are at a disadvantage the entire time.
It's an advocate-based system and your outcome will ultimately be determined by the quality of your advocate. I'm just not convinced that we are at a place where the innocent can be weeded out from the guilty in death penalty cases.
Excellent post, IP.
Actually, I've been planning to do more analysis with the charging data, though it'd be helpful to get more data from the Circuit Clerk's offfice. (It'd probably be possible to just scrape the case lookup website if I had to.) So what kinds of things would be useful? I was interested in looking at recidivism, outcomes when cases went to jury/bench trials, proportion of defendants who were assigned public defenders, etc. Any other ideas?