There should have been more outrage when Texas executed a man for the arson-related homicide of his three children recently — because there is very strong evidence (not just witnesses saying they could no longer swear to their testimony but actual *facts*) that not only was he innocent, but it wasn’t even arson. A tragic accident took the lives of his three children, the state’s original arson investigator used bad science to rule it an arson, dubious circumstantial evidence was used to pin him as the arsonist (though even if it had been arson, the only evidence it was him was that he was present at the time and was not an impossibly perfect husband and father), real arson experts later testified that the original investigator’s report was wrong and that the cause of the fire was almost certianly accidental . . . and knowing all that, the state of Texas executed him anyway. Gov Perry was the one who refused to order a stay and allow an appeal where the real expert arson testimony would’ve revealed the truth. An innocent man almost certainly died, framed by an incompetent arson investigator and a conviction-happy prosecutor who refused to entertain the notion that he’d been misled or that the original investigation was botched. To protect the reputations of the incompetent, a man died.
This man? I don’t know whether he was innocent or not. But I cannot support the death penalty for the precise reason that our justice system is horribly unfair. A death penalty cannot, in conscience, be permitted unless we have a justice system which is fair. I’m not just talking about executing the innocent, either. That is clearly a problem, but it goes further than that. Even if all those convicted really are guilty, the death penalty cannot be used unless it is applied consistently and fairly, without prejudice. This obviously does not happen; the severity of your sentence will often relate strongly to the quality of your legal representation. Poor people represented by public defenders will tend to get a much worse deal than rich people represented by a crack legal team. The result is predictable — far more poor people are executed than middle-class people, and it’s pretty much unheard of for rich people to be executed, even for the same crimes.
Elmar_M: the nurture/nature argument is not so clear, and it’s not really prudent to assume that our ancestors were protected from “defective” psychopath genes by expelling them from the tribe. Plenty of psychopaths are embraced by society, largely because their lack of remorse makes it much harder to detect them than it is to detect the guilt of a moral person — you can’t detect the guilt of a psychopath because generally they don’t feel any guilt. In fact, some studies have shown that there is an unusual prevalence of psychopathic behavior among leaders. This is not because leaders are inherently psychopaths; it’s because psychopaths can better compete due to the unfair advantage of being willing to stomp on other people in their climb to the top. History is replete with psychopaths who were not only not expelled but achieved high statute in society and produced a lot of offspring. Also, never assume that there is only one survival/reproductive strategy in play within a particular species. There are usually several, often contradictory.
As far as making criminals work to repay their debt to society, this is not actually frowned upon. Corporal punishment tends to be frowned upon in our society (though it’s popular in some societies, such as Singapore, which I’ll discuss shortly), but working to pay off your debt to society is not. Prisoners perform menial labor in many prisons; the old stereotype of them making license plates is not without basis. Prisoners in minimum security are also commonly used to collect litter by roadsides, though they have to be less of a flight risk to be allowed out. There are also work-release programs where prisoners work actual jobs, but return to the prison or halfway house at night, with their earnings monitored; this tends to be more as a means of transitioning them back to normal life, however. And then there is the sentence of “community service”. Sometimes, a convicted person may be sentenced to community service. This means quite literally working for the damage they have done. It’s usually something menial, and may be tailored to fit the crime or to give the convicted a better perspective of those he/she wronged. It’s not the same as sending them to the salt mines, but honestly, I’m glad — the days when chain gangs were used to manually smash boulders were all too often a death sentence for non-capital offenses.
Singapore has brutal punishments for some crimes, even ones which we tend to consider more mischief then a serious problem. The reason they’re effective there is because they are meted out swiftly and consistently — and because Singapore is small enough, geographically, that it’s hard to hide from the law. Negative reinforcement is only an effective deterrent if it is swift, consistent, and fair. Otherwise, it backfires — just look at countries with sharia law. Nigeria has sentenced two men to public amputation of their hands for cattle rustling. The people know the government is willing to carry that sentence out. Yet people keep stealing cattle. Why? Because they are desperate, yes, but mostly because they don’t think they’ll get caught. And odds are in their favor; Nigeria lacks the manpower to catch all cattle rustlers. America too — look how many murders go unsolved for decades, if they are ever solved at all. As long as criminals think there’s a decent chance of getting away with it, the severity of the punishment will not be a deterrent. So we have a punishment which we have demonstrated we cannot dispense fairly and which is ineffective as a deterrent. What’s the point?
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