death penalty~your opinion

[lady cop]

since the scott peterson jury is currently deliberating his fate, perhaps it is timely to discuss the death penalty. these kinds of discussions never change anyone's mind on such a volatile issue, but i find it most interesting to hear the opinions of diverse people. i once spent 12 hours 'babysitting' a man who was about to be executed, and in the deep dark hours of the night he had much to reveal to me. most of it lies. but fascinating nonetheless. it was eerie to speak intimately with a dead man walking. :grave:

[dave_a]

I am fine with the death penalty for cold blooded killers and such, the problem I have with it is that there have been folks sentenced to death who weren't guilty.

So, I am OK with it in theory, but find it problematic in practice.

[wade-w]

Some crimes are so heinous that my gut reaction is that in those cases the death penalty would be justified. However, I am against the death penalty, and think that it should be abolished.

Even if the problems of uneven application could be overcome, we cannot guarantee that no innocent person would ever be executed. As far as I'm concerned, that's the bottom line. In the US the standard for determining guilt is "beyond a reasonable doubt." That's not bad, but "beyond a reasonable doubt" is not "no doubt," and I can't see how to justify putting someone to death when there is any doubt whatsoever.

[Petra]

Briefly, as I'm about to be bumped off the computer by an impatient child...


I am against the death penalty for several reasons. I'll touch on a couple of them, then return tonight to followp.

The first reason has already been mentioned: that of potentially condemning an innocent person to death.

Secondly, those states with the death penalty have no reduction in violent crime and homicide. In fact, from memory, they are worse. I'll find stats to support that claim later.

So, from the position of the death penalty being a fair punishment given only to those who are absolutely 100% guilty, it fails. And as a deterrent to homicide and other brutal crimes, or as a means of making society-at-large safer, it fails.

Yes, I do have instances where I hear of something particularly heinous and I utter curses of painful and fatal revenge upon the perps, but I also know that makes me little better than them and achieves nothing at all.

That said, I have no idea what to do with the likes of Scott Peterson, but I'll chew the cud on that a little more and see if I can get a clue or something.


For the most part, I tend to think of those countries and states that do exercise the death penalty to be inferior civilisations, marred by barbarity.

[wildernesse]

I am against the death penalty, mostly because I think it is immoral for the state to execute people. But also in many cases our justice system doesn't appear to be doing it's job well--it seems that similarly situated people don't meet with the same consequences, for one.

[LadyShea]

I have no problem with the death penalty in very specific cases where A) There is NO doubt (such as Ted Bundy, not only was there overwhelming physical evidence, but he admitted to the killings and even IIRC led authorities to recover some of the bodies) and B) If the killer knew what they were doing, ie: wasn't incapable of responsibility due to certain mental illnesses. I again use Bundy, because he knew exactly what he was doing, knew it was wrong, and just didn't care and C) Could never be allowed back into society. Bundy would have killed indefinitely.

I guess what I am saying is it was okay to execute Ted Bundy ;). Seriously, I am only comfortable with the death penalty if all three of the above conditions are met, and I can't think of who else might qualify at this moment.

[lady cop]

hello LadyShea...a few people that would qualify right now, in my opinion, danny rolling, the 'gainesville ripper' who butchered 5 college students, beheaded one. david westerfield who murdered little Van Damm girl, richard allen davis , who murdered young Polly Klass, ALL pedophile child-killers, darlie routier who stabbed her two little boys to death in a vicious case of overkill (i have seen their autopsy photos), 13 year old Carlie Brucia's rapist-murderer,and a bunch of people in our sheriff dept. jail who i personally know. i could go on and on, i am talking about people of whom i have no doubt they are guilty of these heinous crimes, thanks mostly to modern forensics.

[godfry n. glad]

I am foresquare in favor of the death penalty. I, too, think that this penalty has been all too quickly applied in cases where it should not have. There is, in my opinion, a big problem with equity in the application of the punishment.

However, when a small child is snatched three blocks from my home, carried into another state, tortured, disemboweled while concious and painfully murdered while hanging in the perpetrator's closet, the perpetrator, after being arrested, leads investigators to the shallow graves of three other children he'd likewise kidnapped, tortured and murdered, and he told those sentencing him that he should be executed, for if released into society again he would most assuredly repeat his crimes because he got a thrill out of it....then I support the death penalty.

It is not a deterrent to dissuade those who might, but an eradication of those who have. The only regret I have is that the easy death these people receive is too good for them, especially in consideration to the miserable, painful and often agonizing terror they imposed upon innocents.

There are predatory humans. There is no purpose served in our warehousing them at our expense for the rest of their natural lives.

Call it retroactive abortion if it makes you feel better.

godfry

[ApostateAbe]

I would advocate the death penalty if it weren't just an euthanasia and if it didn't cost the public more than life in prison. I would prefer to bring back public hangings. You don't punish capitol criminals by putting them to sleep like a stray dog or your granny. That is more of a reward.

[godfry n. glad]

Here's another question for you lady cop:

Have you ever arrested a New Hampshireman for a crime that demanded incarceration? If so, was he dispatched poste haste, did he commit suicide or was he gunned down making a run for it?

godfry

[lady cop]

Here's another question for you lady cop:

Have you ever arrested a New Hampshireman for a crime that demanded incarceration? If so, was he dispatched poste haste, did he commit suicide or was he gunned down making a run for it?

godfry
it sounds as though you are citing a particular case with which i am unfamiliar. although i spent many happy years skiing wildcat in new hampshire, and love the granite state, i was not a cop up there.

[lady cop]

I would advocate the death penalty if it weren't just an euthanasia and if it didn't cost the public more than life in prison. I would prefer to bring back public hangings. You don't punish capitol criminals by putting them to sleep like a stray dog or your granny. That is more of a reward.
i always wanted to know...when they prepare the injection site they use sterile procedure...what, are they afraid the guest of honor will get an INFECTiON?? :eek:

[Dingfod]

Ah, frontier justice. Take someone that was caught in the act of a heinous murder, try, convict and shoot them dead at the scene. I can deal with that. I'm probably not even above that. But, in so many cases, conviction in court murder cases hinges on the scantest of forensic evidence, and even though I'm a firm believer in forensic science's abilities in that regard, sometimes mistakes are made. We have a state crime lab tech in Oklahoma, Joyce Gilcrist, that gave false testimony about lab test results and did such shoddy lab work that it has cast doubt on over 3000 cases, 23 of which are either on death row or already have been executed. It is a travesty. How can you put anyone to death that has been convicted on the basis of evidence that potentially flawed.

[godfry n. glad]

Here's another question for you lady cop:

Have you ever arrested a New Hampshireman for a crime that demanded incarceration? If so, was he dispatched poste haste, did he commit suicide or was he gunned down making a run for it?

godfry
it sounds as though you are citing a particular case with which i am unfamiliar. although i spent many happy years skiing wildcat in new hampshire, and love the granite state, i was not a cop up there.

Nah...

It's just my obtuse sense of humor.

I have a close friend who lives in Manchester. The state motto, which is plastered on each and every state license plate: "Live Free or Die". He is amused by this communal expression and its possible effects if taken literally.

So... I was just wondering whether New Hampshiremen actually lived by this credo. It sorta makes me wonder whether the state of New Hampshire has saved itself the cost of a penal system.

Seems pretty straight forward.

Forgive me...it was a lame digression in a serious thread.

godfry

*past expiration date>>>when good humor goes bad

[lady cop]

works for me Godfry...it will take me a little time to get to know the proclivities and style of people here! as to NH penal system...ask pam smart. they do have prisons! and in your scenario...sounded like suicide by cop to me. not uncommon. the northern new englanders, of which i was one, are fiercely independant thinkers and brook no interference in their lives by government. and as an aside, the white mountains of new hampshire are so beautiful in every season. winter skiing the best, summer camping and hiking lyrically beautiful, fall colors are mind-bending, and spring is ok too. good for hang-gliding at loon mountain. keep writing!

[Beth]

I am now mixed. I spoke out against Bundy's execution when I was a teen. Later in life, I supported death when my step sister, i believe was murdered by her hubby, body never to be found, police not looking because she has a warrant against her. I wanted the fucker dead. I wanted proof of what he did and I wanted the fucker to die. I would have flipped the switch or gone to school just so I could administer the injection. But my fury abated and I am still mixed.

When I hear of a child being murdered or learn about a serial predator, I wonder if they should live. They are dangerous. But then, I also know that it is likely we sometimes execute innocent people or people who have truly reformed while waiting for sentence to be carried out. What changed me was the, what I believe, state santioned murder of Amos King (http://www.ccadp.org/amosking.html). His execution has changed my view on the death penalty. The state sanctioned death of just one innocent man cries for the abolishment of all state sanctioned deaths, IMO.

[seebs]

I am rather torn.

I think that, in practice, certainty is not possible enough. Even apparent willing confessions are sometimes in error.

I think the death penalty was more justifiable when we couldn't feed our people, but now, it seems to me unnecessary.

[Desert Dweller]

I am for Civilisation and against Corporal Punishment/Death penalty.
Simply it is uncivilised because it goes against the principle of the sacredness of life. Just because a nutter psychopath kills in the most henious way doesn't mean everyone else (the State) ought to loose their principle.

And as others have pointed out, it's a bit embarrassing when later evidence shows innocence.

[godfry n. glad]

...the principle of the sacredness of life.

Please elucidate.

godfry

[livius drusus]

I think life is on principle sacred, not because it is divinely created but because it is all we have. There is a largeness to it that I can't describe just by saying it's "precious" or "valuable", an imperative to preserve it if at all possible. The fact that I don't believe that the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away only confirms for me that taking life is so totally not my province.

Does that mean there are no circumstances under which killing is necessary or a just response? No, of course not. It does mean, however, that I have a profound moral aversion to the institutionalization of murder, particularly as a (painfully ironic to me) response to murder, and given all the unknowns and failings of a human institution like the criminal justice system others have already pointed out above.

I apologize up front for the near incoherence of this post. I have never been able to describe this well and I fear I never will. :deepsigh:

[viscousmemories]

these kinds of discussions never change anyone's mind on such a volatile issue, but i find it most interesting to hear the opinions of diverse people.
I disagree that it never happens. I've changed my mind on several volatile issues as a result of discussions here and at other forums. I'll agree that it doesn't happen very often, though. A lot of people appear to be more interested in promoting and/or seeking validation for their views than scrutinizing them.

i once spent 12 hours 'babysitting' a man who was about to be executed, and in the deep dark hours of the night he had much to reveal to me. most of it lies. but fascinating nonetheless. it was eerie to speak intimately with a dead man walking. :grave:
He was telling you things you knew or found to be lies? Like info about his crimes or...? I would expect a dead man walking to be more... philosophical?

Anyway this issue is one on which my opinion has been changed by threads like this one. I used to support the death penalty wholeheartedly. I don't believe human life is sacred, and I do believe that brutal rapists and killers should be removed and discarded from society like cancerous tumors.

On the other hand, I am not convinced that it is possible for the State to administer the death penalty fairly and evenly. In the US for example (if I understand correctly), too many innocent people and a disproportionate number of black people have been executed. To me these are good reasons not to continue administering the death penalty despite my firm belief that there are people who should die.

[Beth]

Anyway this issue is one on which my opinion has been changed by threads like this one. I used to support the death penalty wholeheartedly. I don't believe human life is sacred, and I do believe that brutal rapists and killers should be removed and discarded from society like cancerous tumors.

On the other hand, I am not convinced that it is possible for the State to administer the death penalty fairly and evenly. In the US for example (if I understand correctly), too many innocent people and a disproportionate number of black people have been executed. To me these are good reasons not to continue administering the death penalty despite my firm belief that there are people who should die.I tend to agree with this, Tom. I do believe that there are people who should not breath, but I don't believe the state should sanctions executions.

[lady cop]

he told me details about his case that i knew for certain were lies. he did, however, wax philosophical about his impending execution in re: his daughter, regrets for her. and he told me he was ready to go after 18 years on florida's death row, i did believe that. he also told me things about his buddy from the row, ted bundy, which i knew were bullshit, but ted's bullshit.

[Petra]

What is the death penalty supposed to achieve?

[viscousmemories]

he told me details about his case that i knew for certain were lies. he did, however, wax philosophical about his impending execution in re: his daughter, regrets for her. and he told me he was ready to go after 18 years on florida's death row, i did believe that. he also told me things about his buddy from the row, ted bundy, which i knew were bullshit, but ted's bullshit.
That seems pretty mundane. What about talking to him did you find fascinating? Was there anything particularly interesting about his case or his personality? What was his crime?

You haven't said but it seems like you are in favor of the death penalty as it is currently applied in the US. Is that safe to say? If so, what do you think about the flaws that various people have brought up here? Does it dissuade you at all, for example, that the system may execute innocent people or be racially inequitable?

[lady cop]

i would agree the death penalty has been inequitable in american history. by race and by finance. only since DNA and forensics have been able to remove any doubt have i been in favor of the death penalty in certain cases...child murderers and cop-killers to name two. the guy was "fascinating" in that it is unusual to talk to someone who knows date certain and means of their own death. it was the atmosphere that surrounded the conversation, something too nebulous to describe adequately. his crime...he saw a woman with a flat tire. he abducted her, raped her, shot her. he said in his appeal that he shot her accidentally (bull) but then shot her again on purpose since "nobody would believe a black man had accidentally shot a white woman after raping her". pure bull. he had a codefendant who was there and his testimony was very credible. he received life in prison. all of this may seem mundane to some, but i found it compelling. especially the bits about bundy who i had "followed" for years. nothing earth-shaking, but denials. denials he had to retract later when old sparky loomed before him.

[D. Scarlatti]

I'm for it, because without it we wouldn't be able to keep pace with enlightened societies like North Korea and Iran.

I also find it interesting that in 1990 Louisiana spent eleven cents per capita for indigent defense, compared to the national average of $5.37.

[Petra]

:bow:

:chuckle:

[Petra]

I also find it interesting that in 1990 Louisiana spent eleven cents per capita for indigent defense, compared to the national average of $5.37.

Jesus, that's a huge difference in funding. :eek:

[Petra]

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=12&did=168


As executions rose, states without the death penalty fared much better than states with the death penalty in reducing their murder rates. The gap between the murder rate in death penalty states and the non-death penalty states grew larger (as shown in Chart II). In 1990, the murder rates in these two groups were 4% apart. By 2000, the murder rate in the death penalty states was 35% higher than the rate in states without the death penalty. In 2001, the gap between non-death penalty states and states with the death penalty again grew, reaching 37%. For 2002, the number stands at 36%.

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/DeterMRates3.GIF

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/execsbyyr90-00.gif



Again, I must ask - what is the death penalty supposed to achieve?

[viscousmemories]

i would agree the death penalty has been inequitable in american history. by race and by finance. only since DNA and forensics have been able to remove any doubt have i been in favor of the death penalty in certain cases...child murderers and cop-killers to name two.
Sounds like a reasonable position to me. :yup:

the guy was "fascinating" in that it is unusual to talk to someone who knows date certain and means of their own death. it was the atmosphere that surrounded the conversation, something too nebulous to describe adequately.
Fair enough. I didn't mean to trivialize your experience, I just didn't see anything particularly fascinating about him being ready to go and feeling sorry for his daughter. I get what you're saying, though. It would be interesting.

his crime...he saw a woman with a flat tire. he abducted her, raped her, shot her. he said in his appeal that he shot her accidentally (bull) but then shot her again on purpose since "nobody would believe a black man had accidentally shot a white woman after raping her". pure bull. he had a codefendant who was there and his testimony was very credible. he received life in prison.
I have very little sympathy for violent criminals in general, and even less for rapists. It sounds to me like his death wasn't a net loss for humanity.

all of this may seem mundane to some, but i found it compelling. especially the bits about bundy who i had "followed" for years. nothing earth-shaking, but denials. denials he had to retract later when old sparky loomed before him.
I didn't mean to suggest that your experience was mundane, but as I said above I just wasn't sure what aspect of his testimony you found fascinating. Anyway I saw the TV miniseries about Bundy. Like most people I find serial killers fascinating. Did you ever get a chance to meet him?

[Beth]

i would agree the death penalty has been inequitable in american history. by race and by finance. only since DNA and forensics have been able to remove any doubt have i been in favor of the death penalty in certain cases...child murderers and cop-killers to name two. the guy was "fascinating" in that it is unusual to talk to someone who knows date certain and means of their own death. it was the atmosphere that surrounded the conversation, something too nebulous to describe adequately. his crime...he saw a woman with a flat tire. he abducted her, raped her, shot her. he said in his appeal that he shot her accidentally (bull) but then shot her again on purpose since "nobody would believe a black man had accidentally shot a white woman after raping her". pure bull. he had a codefendant who was there and his testimony was very credible. he received life in prison. all of this may seem mundane to some, but i found it compelling. especially the bits about bundy who i had "followed" for years. nothing earth-shaking, but denials. denials he had to retract later when old sparky loomed before him.Is this the case where the guy claimed he had consentual sex with the victim and that he later accidentally shot her?

[lady cop]

to answer Luna...what does it achieve? theory is "justice". punishment. actually to make sure they don't get out and kill again. see i KNOW with 100% certainty that ted will never kill another human being. ...and Viscousmemories, i too find some serial killers interesting as hell. most are banal, as is evil. i have met evil. more than once. i never met ted. the tv movie was lame however, barely scratched the surface.

[viscousmemories]

Again, I must ask - what is the death penalty supposed to achieve?
For one thing it's an alternative to providing a long lifetime of free room, board, medical care, etc. to someone who rapes, tortures and murders little children.

[lady cop]

Beth...yes, that's the case. (florida case.) it was no way consensual. and even if it were, he still murdered her.

[D. Scarlatti]

I'd like to see the death penalty for the guy that broke into my car and stole my CD player. That would keep him from breaking into my car and stealing my CD player ever again. If that seems too harsh then maybe the state can appoint some guy to break into his car and steal his CD player.

[lady cop]

I'd like to see the death penalty for the guy that broke into my car and stole my CD player. That would keep him from breaking into my car and stealing my CD player ever again.
this is true, but i think the theory is the punishment must fit the crime...want me to pistol-whip him for you? :whup:

[Petra]

Justice is as subjective as punishment.

If those States that have the death penalty are also those States with a much higher murder rate, what has the state-sanctioned killing of one convicted murderer done to make that society more safe?

And to further D. Scarlatti's point, are you aware that the US is in some fine company with regard to capital punishment?

http://www.amnestyusa.org/abolish/index.do

Since 2000, only five countries are known to have executed juvenile offenders: China, Democratic Republic of Congo, Iran, Pakistan, and the USA. 13 of these 21 executions have been in the USA.

http://www.derechos.org/dp/

At the dawn of the 21st century, the death penalty is considered by most civilized nations as a cruel and inhuman punishment. It has been abolished de jure or de facto by 106 nations, 30 countries have abolished it since 1990. However, the death penalty continues to be commonly applied in other nations. China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the United States and Iran are the most prolific executioners in the world. Indeed, the US is one of six countries (including also Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen) which executes people who were under 18 years-old at the time they committed their crimes.

[wade-w]

Again, I must ask - what is the death penalty supposed to achieve?
For one thing it's an alternative to providing a long lifetime of free room, board, medical care, etc. to someone who rapes, tortures and murders little children.


Well, yes, it is an alternative. A more expensive alternative, in point of fact.

[LadyShea]

Luna, I think in certain people, like Bundy and Gacy, are just mad dogs that need to be put down. I don't think the death penalty need achieve anything more than that. Of course that's just my opinion, and as I stated, I only support the death penalty if certain criteria are met.

[lady cop]

i have no argument with those who disapprove, and understand their positions. especially in view of the history of the death penalty in the US.this country was founded on violence, and continues to outgun the rest of the world in murder rates. we have more serial killers operating at any given time than any other country. there are probably 27 out there right now. i have a view drawn from personal knowledge of a number of killers. the problem for me is that life without parole is often not what it proclaims. they get out. for some a permanent solution is the answer. i can cite horrific cases, but it won't change the view of most anti DP people. i came to my opinion mostly through many years of studying criminology and through my work. another question is, could "you" (nobody in particular) "pull the switch"?....(um, maybe i misread, but the US has NOT executed 13 juveniles. not in modern history.)

[LadyShea]

another question is, could "you" (nobody in particular) "pull the switch"?....(um, maybe i misread, but the US has NOT executed 13 juveniles. not in modern history.)

I could pull the switch for someone who meets my criteria (which now that I look at them and consider them, really only apply to serial killers). Hell I could pull the trigger if needed to protect myself or others from such predators.

[Petra]

Luna, I think in certain people, like Bundy and Gacy, are just mad dogs that need to be put down. I don't think the death penalty need achieve anything more than that. Of course that's just my opinion, and as I stated, I only support the death penalty if certain criteria are met.

Actually, I kind of agree with you in some instances and within some very, very strict criteria. I would have little issue with the likes of Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc, being given the death penalty. Bundy and Gacy, too. Sometimes, when I'm in a particularly harsh mood and hear of brutal torture, rape, murder, war crimes, etc, I can hear myself thinking - equally as violently - "just kill the fucker - take him out".

But the death penalty is an extreme punishment, and by god, you'd better be damned sure of who you're killing and why you're killing them. If there is to be a death penalty, then it must be used so rarely and only for the most brutal and unrepentant of criminals, that most years would not see a single execution carried out.

Unfortunately, too many are carried out annually - providing neither foolproof justice for only the guilty, nor acting as a deterrent to future brutal crime. So, overall, I cannot support it.

[Petra]

.(um, maybe i misread, but the US has NOT executed 13 juveniles. not in modern history.)


I have no other source right now beyond Anmesty International, but those are the figures they quote. I'm going to have to go soon - it's getting on for 8am and I gotta do stuff! - but when I return I'll try to find more supporting evidence.

In the meantime, another page at AI says this:

In August 2000, the UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights resolved that the execution of people who were under the age of 18 at the time of the crime “is contrary to customary international law.” A principle of customary international law is a general practice accepted as law. It is binding on all countries, regardless of which treaties they have or have not ratified.

The United States and Somalia are the only countries in the world that have not ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Twenty-one* U.S. states allow for the execution of people who were 16 or 17 at the time of the crime. Out of the 38 death penalty states, 16 have abolished this punishment for juvenile offenders.

In the past five years, the United States has executed 13 juvenile offenders. Eight of these executions took place in the state of Texas. The rest of the world combined carried out five such executions. The United States accounts for four of the last five known juvenile offender executions in the last two years.

As of January 2004, more than 70 juvenile offenders sat on death rows throughout the United States; this constitutes approximately 2% of the total death row population.

In 2003, legislators in 14 states that still allow for the execution of juvenile offenders considered bills to abolish the practice. Bills that would ban the death penalty for juvenile offenders cleared legislative committee hurdles in Arkansas, Florida, Missouri, Nevada, and South Dakota, but ultimately did not pass.

Organizations including the American Bar Association, American Psychiatric Association, Child Welfare League of America, Coalition for Juvenile Justice, National Council on Crime and Delinquency, National Mental Health Association, and Physicians for Human Rights have expressed opposition to the juvenile death penalty.

"I don't think we should be proud of the fact that the United States is the world leader in the execution of child offenders." –U.S. Senator Russ Feingold, November 11, 1999


* The Missouri Supreme Court recently held the juvenile death penalty to be unconstitutional under federal law, a decision that may or may not be reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court. Legislatively, the juvenile death penalty is still on the books in Missouri.

http://www.amnestyusa.org/abolish/juveniles.html

[lady cop]

the UK has abolished the DP, but they used to take them out and hang them :hang: very soon after sentencing. here, in US, there are appeals for many many years, every facet of case examined under a microscope ad nauseum. to be a deterrent/preventative/punishment it should take place within the lifetime of the condemned.

[lady cop]

Luna...i did misread, it seemed to say we executed juveniles. it meant they were under 18 at the time of their offense. i can only say this...a 17 year old with a gun can kill me just as dead as a 56 year old. and these days that scenario is not unlikely.

[Petra]

I have to run now, but found a link which looks interesting - I'll have to read it closely much later in the day, though - but on a brief skim, I found this:

A total of 226 juvenile death sentences have been imposed since 1973. Of these, 78 remain currently in force and are still being litigated. Of the other 148 sentences finally resolved, 22 (15%) have resulted in execution and 126 (85%) have been reversed or commuted.


The U. S. Supreme Court has held that the U. S. Constitution prohibits execution for crimes committed at age 15 and younger but permits execution for crimes at ages 16 or older. However, the Court recently has come within one vote of declaring unconstitutional all executions for crimes committed at age 17 or younger.


The annual death sentencing rate for juvenile offenses has been declining rapidly and now is much less than half of the annual rate of the late 1990s.


Of the 40 death penalty jurisdictions in the United States, 18 jurisdictions have expressly chosen a minimum age of 18, 5 jurisdictions have chosen an age 17 minimum, and the other 17 death penalty jurisdictions use age 16 as the minimum age.



Every other nation in the world has joined international agreements prohibiting the execution of juvenile offenders, with only the United States refusing to abandon its laws permitting the juvenile death penalty.

http://www.law.onu.edu/faculty/streib/juvdeath.htm

Gotta go - stay safe. :wave:

[Petra]

But just before I go...

Luna...i did misread, it seemed to say we executed juveniles. it meant they were under 18 at the time of their offense.I have to look into this further.

Even if the juvenile is executed as an adult, he would have been given his sentence as death as a juvy, wouldn't he?

Anyway...no more time to think right now - will have to think later. :D
i can only say this...a 17 year old with a gun can kill me just as dead as a 56 year old.Yup. and these days that scenario is not unlikely.And there is the crux, I guess - one must ask why that scenario is not so unlikely, and what can be done within communities to make it much less likely. So far the death penalty does not make this less likely.

[LadyShea]

And there is the crux, I guess - one must ask why that scenario is not so unlikely, and what can be done within communities to make it much less likely. So far the death penalty does not make this less likely.

Exactly. How do we go about making the gang lifestyle (for example of youth who kill) less attractive?

[livius drusus]

only since DNA and forensics have been able to remove any doubt have i been in favor of the death penalty in certain cases.

I don't think they do remove any doubt, though. DNA evidence like all evidence is bound by human - and therefore fallible - structures. Warrenly brought up the Joyce Gilcrist case as one instance of how forensic evidence which seems impregnable can be as false and misleading as witness testimony. The fuck ups in the FBI cime lab (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/04/16/national/main549626.shtml) is another example of how badly wrong it can go.

DNA evidence is still no guarantee that the right person has been caught.

[lady cop]

gilcrest et al have definately called some cases into question. proper DNA testing COMBINED with the circumstantial evidence in a case,as well as other forensics, where all doubt is removed, are the cases for which i approve of DP. the other side of that coin, the 'innocence project', which proves innocence through DNA is also an excellent use of the science.

[livius drusus]

All doubt is removed is a really high standard, though. As long as people are involved, I don't think that level of perfection is really possible.

[lady cop]

with a reasonable degree of certainty is what the law strives for. and usually in DP cases all the evidence is there. it is not applied lightly, and all protections and appeals are utilized. many examples can be cited both pro and con. i only advocate in cases where it is a sure thing under the law. that's all we have as a society, our law, our courts. and despite famous travesties, i have to come down on the side of our courts. the law is not immutable and citizens can undertake to change it. and...hey, SOMEBODY did it! it's not like we imagined the 5 butchered slaughtered beheaded college kids and danny rolling confessing, and all the attendant proof, we do not rely on confessions without supporting proof. and it's not like richard allen davis didn't kill polly klass and then give the court and her father the finger in open court, it's not like ted didn't kill about 100 girls, or westerfield didn't try to exchange his worthless life for the VanDamm girl's body/location. well , as shaguar would say, i'm winding up! LOL

[wildernesse]

Here's an interesting and recent story (http://www.2theadvocate.com/stories/112904/new_death001.shtml) out of Lousiana--what I found most interesting are the 6 people who were released from prison after being on death row. The errors in those cases are a result of either incompetent defense attys or misconduct by the prosecutors.

Where's the justice in imprisoning an innocent young person for 5 years, as in the case of Ryan Matthews?

[Adora]

I do not believe there is any crime a person should die because they have commited. As much as their crimes may be atrocious, sickening, as much as they may be psychotic, personally, I think the death penalty is barbaric and medievil.

[viscousmemories]

I think every opponent of the death penalty for violent criminals should be required to house one. :P

[wildernesse]

I think every opponent of the death penalty for violent criminals should be required to house one. :P

While I note the smilie, I don't think that any one is saying that violent criminals are as harmless as day old puppies and twice as cute.

[viscousmemories]

While I note the smilie, I don't think that any one is saying that violent criminals are as harmless as day old puppies and twice as cute.
Well of course I was being facetious, but the fact is that someone does have to put their own well being in peril to care for these people. I recently read a story about an inmate who fashioned a spear out of something in his cell, and jabbed a guard who was walking by. The guard had to have surgery for nerve damage in his arm, and if I recall correctly will never regain full use of it. Lucky for that violent sociopath we have a system that assures him a better quality of life than a homeless, indigent non-criminal living on the streets will get. Otherwise he might not live long enough to continue doing what he does best.

[livius drusus]

Except of course that homelessness is often criminalized as well, and you know what can happen to them in Texas jails. (Here's (http://wampum.wabanaki.net/archives/001146.html) the story I was thinking about which vm had told me about. It doesn't explicitly say he's homeless, though.)

I guess the point for me is that the fact that we as a society treat homeless people with callous indifference at best is a non sequitur response to those who oppose the death penalty on ethical and practical grounds.

[Zoot]

The death penalty is a barbaric practice based on primitive thinking. I call it barbaric because it is based on primitive thinking, and I call the thinking primitive because it needs a fucken slap and a welcome to the 21st century.

Firstly, the death penalty is based on a notion of justice that is synonymous with vengeance. This is evidenced by those saying that they think the death penalty is justified in particularly heinous crimes. This needs examination.

There are two notions of crime, and two corresponding notions of the appropriate response. The first is of crime as sin. The second is of crime as illness. The first is what I call primitive, the second what I call far more sensible. The appropriate response to sin is punishment - the infliction of suffering on the sinner, in proportion to the evilness of the sin. The appropriate response to illness is treatment - studying the causes, seeing the subject as no less a victim than those he may have hurt while sick.

The notion of crime as sin rests on the delusional principle of free will. Because free will is an incoherent non-concept, it would be more accurate to speak of it in a negative sense, talking about what "free will" is supposed to deny. So I'll rephrase. The notion of crime as sin rests on the idea that a person's actions are not ultimately determined by factors outside of their control.

If anyone wants me to explain how free will is an incoherent non-concept, I'll do so in another thread.

Anyway, people who see crime as sin have this notion that out of a kind of maliciousness for which the criminal is personally responsible, he actively chooses to "do evil", because he delights in it, due to that maliciousness which, again, he is personally responsible. His sin causes him to have gathered to him a certain amount of a mysterious substance called "guilt", which then makes inflicting suffering on him "right" and "good".

Sorry for all the scare quotes, but I have to beat myself in the head repeatedly just to attempt to adopt this nonsensical framework.

This sin-centric notion of crime is still the one under which most judicial systems are labouring, whether explicitly or implicitly. Some specifically Islamic courts enforcing Islamic law may make it explicit. "The woman has sinned and now God sees that she deserves punishment." (A sentence that includes at least four words that mean nothing to me.) Plenty of Western courts continue to keep these notions, but implicitly, referring to crimes as heinous and defendants as evil, appealing to the vengeance glands of the jury.

As is obvious, I think crime as illness is a far more sensible way of viewing things, in light of the obvious meaninglessness of free will and contextual nature of right and wrong. And I think this becomes only more obvious when the illness takes forms society tends to find shocking.

I'll sum it up quickly:

1. I think someone has to be out of their fucken minds to rape and kill someone, let alone a number of people.
2. Those people are out of their fucken minds.
3. People out of their fucken minds are not responsible for their actions.
4. People out of their fucken minds need to be treated, not punished.

The standard response to this, in my experience, is "if you let people away with doing these things on the grounds of insanity, then people will think they can commit these crimes and just pretend to be crazy to get off easy."

To those people, I say this: you weren't listening. If someone wants to do this shit, if someone wants to do this shit enough to think "hm, I can do this shit and get away with it if I say I'm out of my fucken mind", then that person is out of their fucken mind. They are as batshit insane as a vice-president's wife.

End rant.

[Desert Dweller]

Please elucidate.

godfry was asking about 'sacredness of life'. Well godry you might have noticed over the past decade or so an ongoing debate about euthanasia. Nobody has been ablel to resolve this and while a couple of States (including our own N.Territory for a while) have enacted legislation to permit euthanasia under certain (medical) conditions, I understand that those laws have been removed.
Now why can't we solve this seemingly simple dilemma? An old person is dying of cancer, can't be treated, wants to die with dignity...but we can't permit that under law. Why not?
The answer is that underlying our Civilisation exists inter alia the principle of 'the sacredness of life'. In other words we need a change of civilisation in order to address the euthanasia question. I must add that this 'sacredness' is very thin right now on the planet and possible human life has never been more expendable, nonetheless the principle perisists.

Now it exists in implicit form not explicit form. It lies embedded for instance in the hypocratic oath, the presumption of innocence, the individual right to happiness and liberty....etc.

I would have thought frankly that the sheer fact that the death penalty has failed every time to act as a deterent would be enough for a modern society, so it leads me to think there is some pathology underlying those States which continue to use it.

Oh ps. No offense intended ladycop but I really don't think you (your role) are the appropriate person to sit with a man on death row. Schitzophrenics also say a lot of what seems 'bullshit' so one needs training and a certain sensibility to comprehend their utterances. I suggest the same sensibility and training are required to understand the utterances of a human on death row. Also I think it is disgusting to hold a human in that status for so long.

[squian]

I think every opponent of the death penalty for violent criminals should be required to house one. :P
Perhaps every advocate of the death penalty for violent criminals should be required to throw the switch on a convicted criminal.

I once read something about justice that has stuck with me. A just society is one in which all the people who make the rules could wake up the next day as anyone. If you are for the death penalty, could you wake up the next day as a wrongly convicted person and not regret the decision? If you are against, could you wake up the next day as the parent of a murdered child and not regret the decision?

To me, both are hard to imagine. But the more I try, the more I fear the later. If someone I loved were violently murdered, I doubt I could contain the raw emotional reaction. I am afraid that I would put my entire will toward the death of whoever was at fault. Whether at my own hand or that of the state, the intent would be the same. In such a condition, I'm not sure that reason and logic would prevail. With blind emotion, I could find myself responsible (at least partially) for the death of a human being -- and possibly an innocent human being.

For me, that's just wrong. Hence, by the mechanism above, I am compelled to be against the death penalty.

[lady cop]

hello ...no offense taken, i assure you. it was a situation where the man was in our sheriff's jail for an appeal at our court, and the sheriff did not want him left alone, so some of us offered to sit with him (as overtime). actually i had a long career as a nurse before my current one, and i do understand your points. he was very rational and lucid, and very much in the (contemporaneous) present and place. my viewpoint was based on discussing his case and i knew the details, he was doing something i have seen before, trying out a story he could 'live' with, as it were. in my crude LE terms, bullshit. in my other brain, my more intellectual side, i knew he was rewriting his history to heal his own psyche, and perhaps get the approval of a female (me) since a female was his victim.

[Petra]

Zoot - you've given me an angle I had not really considered before. Thanks.

I think along similar lines, I guess, except that I see the whole of that person's family/community/society to be sick and in need of reform, not just the individiual. It's a 'whole society' problem to me. Quite can't good explain it, though. :chin:


Prevention is better than cure, as they say.

[LadyShea]

As is obvious, I think crime as illness is a far more sensible way of viewing things, in light of the obvious meaninglessness of free will and contextual nature of right and wrong. And I think this becomes only more obvious when the illness takes forms society tends to find shocking.

I'll sum it up quickly:

1. I think someone has to be out of their fucken minds to rape and kill someone, let alone a number of people.
2. Those people are out of their fucken minds.
3. People out of their fucken minds are not responsible for their actions.
4. People out of their fucken minds need to be treated, not punished.



Not all people who rape and kill are "out of their minds" in that they do not know what they are doing or do not understand right from wrong or are irresponsible for their actions. Again, Ted Bundy knew exactly what he was doing, he just didn't care.

Because you don't think or experience emotions (or more correctly experience non-emotion) like a sociopath, you assume they are "out of their minds". That is simply not always true.

[viscousmemories]

This is evidenced by those saying that they think the death penalty is justified in particularly heinous crimes. This needs examination.
I don't think people deserve to die as punishment for particularly heinous crimes. For one thing I don't even think death is the "ultimate punishment". In my opinion a long life of torture and deprivation is a far worse punishment. The reason I think some people should be killed is because I believe that people who commit particularly heinous crimes are less likely to be successfully rehabilitated and hence more likely to reoffend. As such they need to be segregated from society until such a time as they are no longer a threat, and in cases where that is never likely to happen it makes no sense (and in fact is less humane) to keep them alive in a cage.

I respect your illness model, but the fact is that a person infected with an illness that manifests itself in violence toward other individuals is not "as much a victim" as the people they rape, torture or murder. Can you explain how it is that a rapist suffers from the act at all, much less as much as the person they rape?

Besides, by your reasoning nobody is responsible for their own actions. So do we scrap the justice system and replace it with encounter groups for people to explore their rationale for their anti-social behaviors? What if they decide not to show up? Not their fault, right? I dunno. Maybe I'm just not getting your point.

[lady cop]

rewriting history in one's mind. in order to live with it. (assuming most people do differentiate between good and evil, right and wrong , as accepted norms in our society). i know a 34 year old whiskey foxtrot. white female. she was heavy into crack cocaine. and stealing from her grandmother to raise money for her habit. (crack is the root of 90% of all crime i see today). one night granny had enough and confronted her. she beat grandma to a bloody pulp with a hammer. and left her bare footprints in the blood. ok, three years later, the DA has all the evidence, we even took plaster casts of her feet. DA was seeking death. we'll call her alice. alice has been in jail 3 years awaiting trial. she has psychotic breaks sometimes, has homicidal ideations. and needs to be medicated. she is PC the entire time of incarceration. when her meds are working she is cheerful and friendly. this was not to control her, but to keep her level and not in mental pain. so our weak DA office decides at the 11th hour to accept a plea of second degree from her, when we had ALL the evidence for conviction on 1st. she is sentenced to 20 years, and will do about 14 according to my calculations. so i go interview her before she is sent to prison. in those years she NEVER admitted. so she tells me that yes, she did kill granny, but it was an accident, granny came at her and all she did was push her away, and poor lady fell and hit her head. she looked at me expectantly. i saw that crime scene. i know what really happened. but i said well alice just do good time and you'll be out soon with appeals. i could have gone right to DA and had plea thrown out. but you know what, alice is not one of the evil ones i have met. the truly evil. she was fucked up on drugs. she needed to convince herself of this fantasy so she could survive prison. i let it ride. and later i found out she had baited a black female who put a padlock in a sock and broke all of alice's facial bones. and i felt sad for her. they're all different and i am glad she didn't get DP. i am quite circumspect in who i believe needs to be put down. and some do. and dog analogy is apt. i live in the real world of killers. not some rarefied philosophical place. but i respect everyone's opinion.

[Petra]

... knew exactly what he was doing, he just didn't care.



Which is symptomatic of a true sociopath. Sociopathy is an illness, so in effect Zoot has a valid point, I think.


This doesn't excuse Bundy, or anyone like him, but this understanding (and I'm not talking hippy-love understanding with flowers and mung beans and stuff) can lead to prevention. It is the prevention of at least most of these crimes that should be paramount to any civilised society.

It's how we can make families and communities stronger, safer, and less likely to breed sociopaths that will make the difference in society.

[Petra]

I'm kinda torn in some ways, because I also find the dog analogy to be apt and I can relate to it.

[LadyShea]

But is sociopathology a product of environment or breeding or just an occasional physiological brain variance?



Which is symptomatic of a true sociopath. Sociopathy is an illness, so in effect Zoot has a valid point, I think.


This doesn't excuse Bundy, or anyone like him, but this understanding (and I'm not talking hippy-love understanding with flowers and mung beans and stuff) can lead to prevention. It is the prevention of at least most of these crimes that should be paramount to any civilised society.

It's how we can make families and communities stronger, safer, and less likely to breed sociopaths that will make the difference in society.

[Petra]

But is sociopathology a product of environment or breeding or just an occasional physiological brain variance?



That I don't know. In some cases it is inherent, in some it is developed (or triggered), I guess.

I know, it's a tough one. :chin:

[LadyShea]

But is sociopathology a product of environment or breeding or just an occasional physiological brain variance?



That I don't know. In some cases it is inherent, in some it is developed (or triggered), I guess.

I know, it's a tough one. :chin:


And then, just because they are "ill" doesn't automatically make them irresponsible for their actions does it? If they know the difference between right and wrong, know the difference between legal and illegal, and their "illness" is not really treatable (personality disorders do not really respond to meds like schizophrenia does for example), what can be done with them?

Also, it should be noted that not all sociopaths kill, rape, or commit crimes, most live relatively normal lives.

[Desert Dweller]

But is sociopathology a product of environment or breeding or just an occasional physiological brain variance?
I subscribe to the 'heap theory' . It works like this: if most people in a community are not honest with themselves about their drinking then they (so to speak) throw that out the window (outside consciousness). Someone has to cop all this unprocessed material. So along comes the weakest member and becomes the town drunk. This town drunk carries the weight for everyone else. If everyone else owned up honestly then the town drunk would get relief and chances are could reform.
A good example just now is paedophilia...everyone freaks out about it and the paedophile is about as low as one can go in our society. Yet how many people own up to the fact that deep down they find children attractive?

In the case of yr Bundy (I'll take all this as said as I don't know of this character) the theory would posit that he acted like the bottom of the heap...everything which folks remain unconscious of seeps to the bottom where the weakest member cops it and acts it out.

[Beth]

I have read studies suggesting sociopathic behaviors may have something to do with a malformed frontal lobe or the lobe's inability to communicate properly with the rest of the brain. I also believe that, according to some psychology text books I have read that childhood incidents can cause this behavior as well, but, I wonder if those most adversly affected by incidents in childhood might have had frontal lobe defects.

[LadyShea]

In the case of yr Bundy (I'll take all this as said as I don't know of this character) the theory would posit that he acted like the bottom of the heap...everything which folks remain unconscious of seeps to the bottom where the weakest member cops it and acts it out.

You don't know who Ted Bundy is? What country do you live in? Anyway, he had high intelligence, good jobs, seemingly decent interpersonal relationships, was good looking and charming, and he raped and killed nobody knows how many women from coast to coast. Heres a good link (http://www.crimelibrary.com/bundy/attack.htm)

[Zoot]

Not all people who rape and kill are "out of their minds" in that they do not know what they are doing or do not understand right from wrong or are irresponsible for their actions. Again, Ted Bundy knew exactly what he was doing, he just didn't care. Because you don't think or experience emotions (or more correctly experience non-emotion) like a sociopath, you assume they are "out of their minds". That is simply not always true.

Ted Bundy knew exactly what he was doing, he just didn't care. In order to not care about doing those things, one must be out of one's mind. Because you experience those things as wrong, you assume sociopaths do to. That is simply not always true.

[Zoot]

But is sociopathology a product of environment or breeding or just an occasional physiological brain variance?

Either way, is it under the sociopath's control? And do we "punish" people for things outside of their control?

Fascinatingly, the main attempt at a non-emotional, non-religious argument for the death penalty (all arguments referring to "deserving punishment" are emotional and religious) is one of the best arguments against the death penalty. We are told that the threat of the death penalty will prevent people from committing crimes that could bring it upon them. If that was true, what better argument could there be that their actions are determined by factors outside of their control?

[wildernesse]

Well of course I was being facetious, but the fact is that someone does have to put their own well being in peril to care for these people. I recently read a story about an inmate who fashioned a spear out of something in his cell, and jabbed a guard who was walking by. The guard had to have surgery for nerve damage in his arm, and if I recall correctly will never regain full use of it.

And this is true of prisoners who haven't committed crimes where they are even eligible for the death penalty, so I don't see how killing off those few people who have somehow qualified for the death penalty makes prisons all that safer.

[LadyShea]

Either way, is it under the sociopath's control? And do we "punish" people for things outside of their control?

Sociopaths are totally capable of understanding and controlling their actions.

We are told that the threat of the death penalty will prevent people from committing crimes that could bring it upon them. If that was true, what better argument could there be that their actions are determined by factors outside of their control?

I don't think the death penalty is a deterrent at all, and sociopaths really don't care about consequences.

[lady cop]

i appreciate your premise Zoot, but in pragmatic terms, yes, ted controlled whether he picked up a log and smashed in the heads of coeds in a dorm while fucking them in the ass and biting their nipples off. and westerfield controlled whether he went into his neighbor's house and took their sleeping daughter. and yes, rolling controlled whether he cut the head off of a sweet young lady and placed it on a bookshelf. these things were PREMEDITATED, not heat-of-passion-out-of-my-mind. they were calculated. if it's horrible it must be insanity... not according to what counts in our courts, the legal definition of insanity. there is evil, i have looked into its eyes. just plain evil. it exists. if these people had enough presence of mind to try to evade authorities, then i guess they knew it was wrong. sick, yes. unable to control? no. respectfully...L.

[Zoot]

Sociopaths are totally capable of understanding and controlling their actions.

Everyone controls their actions. It's just that they control their actions on the basis of reasons, and they don't control their reasons. That is why everyone's actions are ultimately determined by factors outside of their control. I'm not saying that the murderous sociopath doesn't want to murder. I'm saying that wanting to murder is sick, and should be treated, not punished.

[Adora]

I think every opponent of the death penalty for violent criminals should be required to house one. :P
And I think once again this board is suffering from a severe case of UScentrism.

Do you know where the most executions and death penalties are carried out each year? And when I say "most" I mean at the very least 90% (by statistics released by the UN and HRW over the past 10 years)?

China.

That means that the majority of "legal" executions and death penalties around the world are carried out by one of the most corrupt and legally deficent systems in the world.

Just as I condem polygamy because whilst it may be a very pretty theory in a perfect fucking utopia it absolutely sucks to high heaven in real practice, the same goes with capital punishment. In Japan, the same levels of corruption and a ridiculously flawed legal system (no juries, questionable processes, Yakuza involvement at the highest levels, police brutality on a massive scale, etc etc) also lead me to question any validity of anyone convicted and sentenced to death there.

Now, you can condem a crime to any extent you want. But as long as there's a very strong conviction in my mind that most sentences of the death penalty around the world (and I mean the US as well) are within very flawed legal systems, I cannot possibly support it.

And yes, at a very basic human level, I believe condeming an individual to death because of a violent act they have commited is allowing emotional responses to violence and crime and vengence to get in the way of logic. Your response, VM, is a perfect example. Responses like this allow emotion to narrow the field of vision and for people to absolve themselves of any responsibility within crimes. Oh yes, little Jimmy was ignored by his mummy as a child and fucked by his stepdad and has a slight frontal lobe issue, but he's dead now, so mummy may be sad and daddy may have moved onto another whore, but what about the social services who didn't pick up the fact this kid was being destroyed, or the legal system who allowed a rapist to continue commiting its crime?

When the individual is dead, these questions no longer have to be asked, and so problems remain unaddressed in society.

[Zoot]

if it's horrible it must be insanity... not according to what counts in our courts, the legal definition of insanity. there is evil, i have looked into its eyes. just plain evil. it exists. if these people had enough presence of mind to try to evade authorities, then i guess they knew it was wrong. sick, yes. unable to control? no. respectfully

I'm afraid the evidence is against your conclusion. If they were able to control, and wanted to, they would have. Therefore they either didn't want to control, or were unable to control. Either way, they're insane.

[lady cop]

Catch-22 lives. hey, we can agree to disagree i hope. i have to deal with these poor misguided fuckers. and i don't turn my back. regardless of their Dx or medical condition, i just know their history. and the court has to have some guideline. legal insanity is pretty well defined and circumscribed.(and trust me, i know the evidence).

[Zoot]

Catch-22 lives. hey, we can agree to disagree i hope. i have to deal with these poor misguided fuckers. and i don't turn my back. regardless of their Dx or medical condition, i just know their history. and the court has to have some guideline. legal insanity is pretty well defined and circumscribed.

If the current state of the law is the authority in this discussion, then I am just plain wrong, yes. As I said, I think the law currently operates with primitive notions of sin and guilt, and I disagree with it in a great many ways. I am questioning those assumptions. I find them to be nonsensical.

For example, I don't want to rape or kill anyone. What's the difference between me and a murderous rapist? There must be a difference, surely, since I'm so consistently not committing rape or murder and the murderous rapist does commit those crimes. Is it that each day we wake up and are faced with the same decision - to rape or not to rape - and I choose one, while he chooses the other? Do I choose not to rape because rape is "bad"? Does he choose to rape because rape is "bad"?

Could it be that we are different people with different desires, different priorities, different habits because we have different bodies and brains, raised in different environments, with different levels of poverty, different education, different parents or lack thereof? In other words, could the difference between him and me be things entirely out of our control?

I don't get this whole idea of someone making a responsible decision divorced from all of the architecture that provides them with absolutely all of their decision-making tools.

[lady cop]

you know what...i was a "hippie" peacenik in the 60's. off the pigs and all that. it was silly. come talk to me when one of your loved ones has been slaughtered like a pig in a charnel house. i don't give a rat's corpse if teddy's mommy lied to him about who his real daddy was. talk to the mothers of those 100 girls. idealism is wonderful, and i am a compassionate woman. see my post about "alice". but this is rhetoric, not real life. and of course the courts and their current state is the arbiter...what else do we have? should we engage a marial boatlift in reverse and put them on rafts in the gulf stream? what do you propose? spare me the hospital for the criminally insane...at that venue some ivory tower dr. can pronounce them "cured" and unleash them upon the public again. we shoot rabid dogs and raccoons. why not rabid people? i really need to get away from this thread because i like to maintain civility and i am winding up. once again, respectfully... and have a good evening.

[D. Scarlatti]

we shoot rabid dogs and raccoons. why not rabid people?

Maybe it's a "there but for the grace of god go I" thing.

I would imagine a lot of people opposed to the death penalty have no problem with cops shooting rabid people whilst the latter are acting out in the throes of their rabidity, like the guy that shot the Pantera dude in Ohio. And I doubt too many DP opponents shed a tear when Jeff Dahmer got his head caved in in prison here (no DP in Wisconsin for Jeff).

While my own objection to the DP is more intuitive than anything else, I find the continually increasing layers of procedural niceties kind of repellent too. The more baroque procedural embellishments become, the more our DP system reeks of premeditated killing on the part of the state.

By the way we don't execute juveniles, but we execute adults that committed capital crimes while they were juveniles.

[Zoot]

you know what...i was a "hippie" peacenik in the 60's. off the pigs and all that. it was silly. come talk to me when one of your loved ones has been slaughtered like a pig in a charnel house.

You mean, "Let's see if you still disagree with me when you're emotional to the point of irrationality"? Maybe I would. Alternatively, you could just get me really drunk, or hit me very hard in the head.


i don't give a rat's corpse if teddy's mommy lied to him about who his real daddy was. talk to the mothers of those 100 girls. idealism is wonderful, and i am a compassionate woman. see my post about "alice". but this is rhetoric, not real life.

This is real life. Those mothers will want revenge, yes. They will want to hurt the person who hurt them. I'm not disagreeing with that. I'm disagreeing that those mothers should scribe the foundations of the legal system.


and of course the courts and their current state is the arbiter...what else do we have?

There was a time when the courts didn't consider black people as equals to white people. There was a time when stoning people to death was an acceptable punishment. What else do we have? Ourselves, our minds.


should we engage a marial boatlift in reverse and put them on rafts in the gulf stream? what do you propose? spare me the hospital for the criminally insane...at that venue some ivory tower dr. can pronounce them "cured" and unleash them upon the public again.

I propose that the judicial system should be brought up to date, no longer using archaic and primitive language of guilt and punishment. Criminals should be treated as if ill: quarantined if their illness could harm others, studying the causes of the illness, treating the illness to remove it, letting them out of quarantine when/if they are no longer a danger. No more of this vengeance stuff. No more of this "inflicting a proportionate amount of pain on them" stuff.


we shoot rabid dogs and raccoons. why not rabid people?

We treat sick animals, why not treat sick people?

But if your attitude is analogous to shooting rabid dogs, I'd only ask for consistency. I hope you'd be similarly happy with shooting the mentally handicapped, the senile, those infected with incurable transmittable diseases, etc.


i really need to get away from this thread because i like to maintain civility and i am winding up. once again, respectfully... and have a good evening.

I didn't mean to anger you. I'm just not in the habit of backing down from my convictions when my views conflict with someone's religion. I'll do my best to have a good evening.

[Petra]

[...I find the continually increasing layers of procedural niceties kind of repellent too. The more baroque procedural embellishments become...

What do you mean, Scarlatti? I don't quite get you...

[wildernesse]

we shoot rabid dogs and raccoons. why not rabid people? i really need to get away from this thread because i like to maintain civility and i am winding up. once again, respectfully... and have a good evening.

We don't dispose of "rabid people" in the same way we do rabid animals because they are humans--plain and simple. I know that from your earlier posts you're really just talking about the Bundys of the world and not the kid who got rounded up as a usual suspect and whose defense atty slept through the trial--and really, I don't know what to do about the Bundys of the world. It's just taking the high road, in a way--adherence to a principle that human life has value, even wormy old rotten human life--to not allow the state that much power over people. That principle can pale in comparison to the results of some people's actions. But, I don't think that killing the perpetrator solves anything in the long run--it sure doesn't bring the victims back. Lock them up and throw away the key.

I think I know what you're getting at, though--it's really easy to slip into a vague romanticized version of people on death row (and in a lot of other cases, where things aren't quite right with the world--hookers with a heart of gold and what not).

[Petra]

...because i like to maintain civility and i am winding up. once again, respectfully...

It's cool, lady cop.

It is not unusual for us to disagree on some issues rather vehemently and still be friends with 'nuff mutual respect to move forward with. :)

It's also okay to lose your cool occassionally. (At least that's what I tell myself when I lose my cool and just start calling everyone a cunt or something. :blush: )

It's all good. :)

[lady cop]

excuse me, where did i say shoot handicapped, diseased or senile? i am not some nazi. and once again...all we have between us and them is the court. and i do not advocate pain. i advocate safeguarding the public. that's what i do. if you don't like the laws you must do what you can to change them. history is rife with injustice, which i abhor. i am sworn to uphold the law... and i put my own physical being in between you and them.that is due to my conviction.my money is where my mouth is.i don't want some POS to take me away from my loved ones. i am strong-minded also, but i respect your viewpoint.

[Zoot]

We don't dispose of "rabid people" in the same way we do rabid animals because they are humans--plain and simple. I know that from your earlier posts you're really just talking about the Bundys of the world and not the kid who got rounded up as a usual suspect and whose defense atty slept through the trial--and really, I don't know what to do about the Bundys of the world. It's just taking the high road, in a way--adherence to a principle that human life has value, even wormy old rotten human life--to not allow the state that much power over people. That principle can pale in comparison to the results of some people's actions. But, I don't think that killing the perpetrator solves anything in the long run--it sure doesn't bring the victims back. Lock them up and throw away the key.

I think I know what you're getting at, though--it's really easy to slip into a vague romanticized version of people on death row (and in a lot of other cases, where things aren't quite right with the world--hookers with a heart of gold and what not).

Yes, that's the problem with presenting my view on the matter. Because I place the "blame" on the circumstances that gave rise to the criminal instead of the criminal himself, some people interpret me as suggesting that the crime itself was not tragic. Really, I think the crime is very tragic. I just happen to think that it had one more victim than others do.

[D. Scarlatti]

What do you mean, Scarlatti? I don't quite get you...

I think that while lots of people are quite enthusiastic about enforcing capital punishment (for retribution mostly), the system itself is averse to it. There is a shitload of protections for defendants built into the Bill of Rights here, which become increasingly complex and nuanced every time the Supreme Court addresses one of them, because the facts of each individual case necessarily affect the broader rule that emerges from the opinions.

The Court (and the courts) have been back and forth on this issue for decades. As you may know capital punishment was even outlawed by the Supreme Court for a few years. Since its reinstatement the Supreme Court has established various special procedures that state trial courts need to follow. This has made the process kind of unwieldy, in that states that do have capital punishment come up with their own interpretations of those procedures, and there are constantly cases coming in front of the Supreme Court that allege states violated the procedures that are supposed to apply to all states in the same way. But it just doesn't work out that way.

So the capital criminal procedure, which is supposed to be uniform throughout the country since it is based on the federal Constitution, applies differently to various defendants in various parts of the country, depending on where the commission of the crime took place. It's kind of related to the chart that you posted, which shows a higher incidence of capital crimes in the states where capital punishment is more zealously sought by local prosecutors.

[Zoot]

excuse me, where did i say shoot handicapped, diseased or senile?

Well, they're all dangerous too, and not responsible for pain they might cause (assuming the diseased only infect others unintentionally). They're like rabid dogs, just like the criminally insane.


and once again...all we have between us and them is the court. and i do not advocate pain. i advocate safeguarding the public. that's what i do.

Then why were you appealing to the emotions of the victims' loved ones in your argument for the death penalty? It seemed like you were saying that the death penalty is more appropriate than life-long quarantine.


if you don't like the laws you must do what you can to change them. history is rife with injustice, which i abhor. i am sworn to uphold the law... and i put my own physical being in between you and them.that is due to my conviction.my money is where my mouth is.i don't want some POS to take me away from my loved ones. i am strong-minded also, but i respect your viewpoint.

I'm glad you do, and I'm not belittling your work. I wouldn't have you do anything different, though naturally I'd rather you saw things a little differently. In my hypothetical reformed justice system, your job would remain much the same - protect people from sick people, catch the sick people, hand them on to the courts, who can assess how much treatment they require, and what kind.

I like to think that police officers are also working on preventing the illness, by working with communities to prevent kids from being infected by crime as they grow up, etc.

In fact, my reformed system would be very similar to the current one. Except there would be no death penalty, since there are only emotional appeals supporting it - appeals based on mistaken premises - and the emphasis would be entirely on rehabilitation with no mention of heinous crimes or deserving punishment.

[Petra]

Gotcha. Thank you, Scarlatti. :)

[Petra]

excuse me, where did i say shoot handicapped, diseased or senile?

I didn't take it that he meant that that's what you do (or would do), but that he was drawing parallels with "rabid".

[LadyShea]

Sociopaths are totally capable of understanding and controlling their actions.

Everyone controls their actions. It's just that they control their actions on the basis of reasons, and they don't control their reasons. That is why everyone's actions are ultimately determined by factors outside of their control. I'm not saying that the murderous sociopath doesn't want to murder. I'm saying that wanting to murder is sick, and should be treated, not punished.

Sociopathology isn't really treatable. There's no drugs that work, therapy doesn't work. The fact is you have probably met a sociopath, I know I have. For the most part they function in society.

Millions of people have impulses to kill or even desire, but don't because they have conscience and empathy...the only thing that allows a sociopath to do so is they don't care about other people. They simply don't care, they have no conscience. So how should we "treat" them when their illness isn't treatable?

[lady cop]

Zoot...there is no such thing as life-long quarantine. and i cannot police parents in how they raise their kids. i can only deal with the results. when you get assaulted and robbed and knifed who are you going to call? 911 (me) or a shrink? do you have any respect for my experience in this venue?

[D. Scarlatti]

That's another thing. We have death row inmates here that are not mentally fit to receive the punishment. So we inject them with psychoactive drugs in order to render them coherent enough to be executed, and the courts have specifically condoned this practice. That's seriously fucked up, in my opinion.

[Zoot]

Zoot...there is no such thing as life-long quarantine.

You don't have life imprisonment in your country?


and i cannot police parents in how they raise their kids. i can only deal with the results.

That's the thing, eh. More ethical questions - should the state sit back and let the parents infect the children with crime? But I was really thinking more about things like poverty. It's hardly coincidence that impoverished areas give rise to the most crime.


when you get assaulted and robbed and knifed who are you going to call? 911 (me) or a shrink? do you have any respect for my experience in this venue?

I don't see how this is relevant. Do you think I'm saying that crimes don't occur? Do you think I'm saying that at the time a crime is occurring, everyone should sit down and chat? Do you think I'm saying that it's fun to be the victim of crime?

I have respect for your experience in stopping crimes, catching criminals, and dealing with recent victims of crime. But I am not talking about any of those things. I am talking about the way the judicial system, and society in general, views crime as sin rather than as illness.

[lady cop]

i agree with Mr. Scarlatti....we don't need to give nutjobs psychotropics to render them sane enough to be executed. if they are genuinely insane they need housing and safekeeping away from the public at large. forever.

[Zoot]

Sociopathology isn't really treatable. There's no drugs that work, therapy doesn't work. The fact is you have probably met a sociopath, I know I have. For the most part they function in society.

Millions of people have impulses to kill or even desire, but don't because they have conscience and empathy...the only thing that allows a sociopath to do so is they don't care about other people. They simply don't care, they have no conscience.

Did they choose to have no conscience? Why are they to be punished for it?


So how should we "treat" them when their illness isn't treatable?

Not treatable so far. But then, treatment of sociopaths has been a fairly low priority in societies that want to lynch the ones who come to the fore. But if treatment isn't possible and there's no way to prevent them from being a danger to others, life-long quarantine is the only response consistent with the following values:

1. We value the safety of the populace at large.
2. We do not kill people for things outside of their control.

For the state to murder them because of things they did because they're mentally ill is something we generally find abhorrent. If we want to throw that value out, then age, mental health, mental retardation should not be factors in sentencing.

[Zoot]

i agree with Mr. Scarlatti....we don't need to give nutjobs psychotropics to render them sane enough to be executed. if they are genuinely insane they need housing and safekeeping away from the public at large. forever.

Genuinely sane people don't want to rape and murder.

[lady cop]

Zoot..i got hurt on the job friday night and i need sleep. i am sooo tired and you are keeping me up! LOL...life in prison sentence here rarely means life, that is part of the problem. where are you from if i may ask? and christ now i have to solve poverty too? can we continue this another time? i also have to ask, respectfully of course..are you young and a student? you are clearly quite intelligent and idealistic and remind me of my young hippie self. there was no reasoning with me in regards to the emerging women's rights movement. which is why i am a cop in a man's world.

[LadyShea]

Did they choose to have no conscience? Why are they to be punished for it?

If they choose to commit a crime they should be punished for their actions. You aren't listening or something. They can control their actions, they know right from wrong, and most sociopaths do not kill or rape.



Not treatable so far. But then, treatment of sociopaths has been a fairly low priority in societies that want to lynch the ones who come to the fore. But if treatment isn't possible and there's no way to prevent them from being a danger to others, life-long quarantine is the only response consistent with the following values:

1. We value the safety of the populace at large.
2. We do not kill people for things outside of their control.

For the state to murder them because of things they did because they're mentally ill is something we generally find abhorrent. If we want to throw that value out, then age, mental health, mental retardation should not be factors in sentencing.

You aren't listening. How many times do I have to tell you they are perfectly capable of controlling their actions? Not all mental illnesses render people irresponsible for their decisions.

[Zoot]

Zoot..i got hurt on the job friday night and i need sleep. i am sooo tired and you are keeping me up! LOL...life in prison sentence here rarely means life, that is part of the problem.

Again, that would have to be re-examined. The only reason life doesn't mean life is because there's this idea of "doing your time", paying a price for a sin, rather than being isolated because of illness. If the focus was on isolation due to illness, life could mean life, if it's untreatable. We hardly let a cancer patient out of chemotherapy before the cancer's gone just because we figure he's "done his time".


where are you from if i may ask?

I'm a Kiwi. But the discussion is still important to me, even though I don't live in countries like Iran, America, North Korea or China. The idea of guilt and punishment is still at the foundation of most of my country's legal views and societal views on crime.


and christ now i have to solve poverty too?

No, you don't, but someone has to. And poverty's not so much a problem to be solved as a crime to be stopped. It's just a much larger crime than most. My point was just that we know half the factors that cause crime, but reducing those factors doesn't seem to be a priority for many people. Not necessarily you, but for many.


can we continue this another time? i also have to ask, respectfully of course..are you young and a student? you are clearly quite intelligent and idealistic and remind me of my young hippe self.

Well, I'm 24, so that's young. I've been a student recently, but I spent a number of years working after I dropped out of high school. It's funny, I find your view idealistic. You seem to think that people have some magical power to just choose not to commit crime. The real world just isn't like that to me.


there was no reasoning with me in regards to the emerging women's rights movement. which is why i am a cop in a man's world.

Fair enough. Those are important issues to, and probably related in many ways.

Please to go sleep and feel better. The message board will always be here in the morning, and I'm in no hurry.

[Zoot]

If they choose to commit a crime they should be punished for their actions. You aren't listening or something. They can control their actions, they know right from wrong, and most sociopaths do not kill or rape.

You aren't listening. How many times do I have to tell you they are perfectly capable of controlling their actions?

Everyone controls their actions. They just don't control their reasons for controlling their actions in a particular way. The guy who sees aliens chasing him controls his action of running down the street away from them. We call him insane because of his reasons for controlling his actions in a particular way.

You say most sociopaths don't kill or rape. Great. Then they're not the people I'm talking about. I didn't actually bring the term "sociopath" to the discussion. I simply said that for someone to want to commit murder or rape, they must be insane. In other words, if someone wants to control their actions into raping or murdering, they must be insane.

[lady cop]

damn, i am never getting to sleep, yes Zoot, they can choose not to kill people. yes they can. i think you like to argue for the sake of "winning". ok , you can 'win'. but you will never have my experience or insight into killers. not unless you go into police work or criminology. argue your theories all night. i KNOW 26 killers. you are a very good wordsmith , and so am i , i write legal briefs when i have time. this conversation is over. my kids are older than you. that is not derogatory, but indicative of experience. how about i put you in a room with the guy i arrested who chopped up his buddy into pieces and put him on the campfire like s'mores? want to discuss his childhood or mental health history with him? one on one? he has an axe to grind. LOL

[Zoot]

damn, i am never getting to sleep, yes Zoot, they can choose not to kill people. yes they can. i think you like to argue for the sake of "winning". ok , you can 'win'. but you will never have my experience or insight into killers. not unless you go into police work or criminology. argue your theories all night. i KNOW 26 killers. you are a very good wordsmith , and so am i , i write legal briefs when i have time. this conversation is over. my kids are older than you. that is not derogatory, but indicative of experience. how about i put you in a room with the guy i arrested who chopped up his buddy into pieces and put him on the campfire like s'mores? want to discuss his childhood or mental health history with him? one on one? he has an axe to grind. LOL

Lady Cop, you are spending a lot of time listing reasons why you should know best, rather than sharing what it is exactly that you know. I have made points, and you have preferred to list qualifications rather than address the points. You've also put some time and effort into dismissing my points because of their source (24 years old, not a cop, etc.) Occasionally adding the word "respectful" doesn't make you respectful.

I would much prefer you didn't assure me that you were being respectful or not derogatory, and instead addressed my points. I'll make them again so that you can address them (and not me, or my lack of various qualifications), or maybe so that someone else can address them.

1. Free will is a superstition that it's about time we outgrew.
2. The current judicial system is founded heavily on notions of sin, guilt, responsibility and punishment that are themselves founded on the superstition of free will.
3. These notions of sin, guilt, responsibility and punishment reach their culmination in the doctrine of the death penalty, where a criminal guilty of a sin is given the punishment they deserve.
4. Instead of treating crime as a sin, it would be more consistent to treat crime as an illness, and thus as a society concentrate more on determining the causes of crime than on inflicting proportionate suffering on criminals.
5. Related to this, in order to want to rape or murder, a person must be severely twisted in the head. The rapist/murderer is dangerously and tragically insane.
6. Considering that we do not punish dangerously insane people (though we do isolate and treat them), it would not be consistent to have the state murder them.

For clarification, here are some things I'm not saying:
1. I'm not saying that crime is okay, or that the victims of crime are not victims, or that the victims of crime do not suffer.
2. I'm not saying that while a crime is being committed, everyone should sit down and have a chat over a coffee.
3. I'm not saying that police officers do not serve a vital and important role in protecting people from those insane people who want to murder and/or rape.

And just so you know, the following things are irrelevant:
1. How much experience you have in dealing with criminals. This discussion is about the human mind in general, and society in general, and the judicial system in general, and the death penalty in general.
2. How old you are, or the age of your children.
3. How much of a hippie you were in the past.
4. How emotional and irrational I might become if something horrible happened to someone I loved.

As a suggestion, don't refer to me at all. Just refer to the points I'm making.

[Petra]

I think you're both talking past each other a bit, now.

I can't quite articulate it sorry; but, well, you're talking past each other. :shrug:



Anyway! It must be beer o'clock, I can smell the barbecue already. Hello, sunshine! :D

:wave:

[lady cop]

goodnight. and who did i call names? i don't do that.

[Zoot]

I think you're both talking past each other a bit, now.

I can't quite articulate it sorry; but, well, you're talking past each other.

Well, yes. I'm making points and she's essentially calling names. What can you do.

The thing is, the notion of guilt and punishment is so deep-set into our minds and language that it's difficult to think your way out. I mean, the very language we use in courts is saturated in it - "guilty" being the obvious one. I should get David Gould in here. He's writing a book about this very thing at the moment. Unfortunately, I've been banned from CF for saying, "Chopper, sic balls," which I find hilarious enough to not bother appealing.

Lunachick, could you go into CF and send a PM to DG and invite him to FF? He's pretty OG when it comes to the DP. OK?

[Desert Dweller]

he raped and killed nobody knows how many women from coast to coast. Heres a good link
well thanks but no thanks, I really don't need to know anything about such a sordid matter.

Why do I see different posts after I've pressed the Reply button?

[Zoot]

goodnight. and who did i call names? i don't do that.

Sorry, you're quite right, you didn't. But you have to understand, your references to my age or your age, your experience as a cop or my lack of it, or your condescension towards views you call idealistic and identify with your youth as a "hippie" are about as unhelpful as calling names.

I could well be wrong about what I say, and that could well be due to my age, or due to my lack of experience as a cop, but to imply that my views are less worth listening to because of those things is fallacious and unhelpful. I welcome being proven wrong, but there's a difference between being proven wrong and being told you're wrong.

I also hope that you don't think only police officers are qualified to have ideas about how their countries are run. That turns a deaf ear to an awful lot of people who must live under the system.

As I mentioned earlier, seriously discussing the death penalty is a little strange to me, as I've grown up with the idea of it as a kind of barbaric practice from the past, living on in Islamic theocracies and Communist China. Being forced to come up with reasons for disapproving of it is something like being forced to come up with reasons women should have the vote - worthwhile, but until someone questions it, I take it for granted.

So I am grateful of an opportunity to discuss the death penalty. I don't like to take things for granted.

I'm guessing I have been very unclear, because your responses, and the things that seem to be making you angry, are directed at things I didn't intend to say. You seem to think I'm saying that the crimes themselves are less than they are, or that the victims don't suffer, or that police officers don't have an important job. I certainly didn't mean any of those things. My criticisms, in this discussion, are levelled at the philosophical foundations of the judicial system. And the foundations of the justice system are philosophical, whether people know it or not. The notion that everyone has the right to a fair trial, for example, is a philosophical notion, and relatively recent in the history of the world.

I'm definitely not hassling your job, or your experiences in that job. If anything, my points are regarding events long after you've done your job - in the courts, with the jury and the lawyers and the judges. And I also think that even though neither you nor I have any experience at being a judge, we should still have very serious thoughts about how they do their jobs, and that we are qualified to have those thoughts.

I agree with your criticism of the notion of "life imprisonment", and if that's a reason for the death penalty, I think that people getting out of prison before they are rehabilitated needs to end. But as I mentioned earlier, criminals are only let out of prison too early because the system is set up under those ideas I think are mistaken - that imprisonment is a punishment to even things up after the guilt of a crime. That sometimes the sentencing judge can choose between imposing a prison sentence and imposing a fine is further evidence of this. Fining a criminal, or punishing with imprisonment, without attempting treatment or rehabilitation, is only going to be an incentive to not get caught next time. The basic desires to commit crimes remain untouched - fuelled, if anything, by society with other criminals in prison.

To really see where I'm coming from, I think the best question to seriously ask is, "What is the difference between me and a murderer?" or "What is the difference between me and a rapist?" People do what they want to do. So my question is, why do these people want to commit these crimes? And why do they want them, but you and I don't?

My point is, I apologise for making you angry. I didn't intend to. If you'd like to keep talking about this, it might be very helpful if you summarise what you think I'm saying.

[Petra]

Lunachick, could you go into CF and send a PM to DG and invite him to FF? He's pretty OG when it comes to the DP. OK?


LOL! Okay, I was with you up until PM. Who's DG and what's OG? :D


I can only invite him if he won't bust me, 'cos I've been permanently banned not once, but twice, already. :blush:

[Goliath]

I can only invite him if he won't bust me, 'cos I've been permanently banned not once, but twice, already. :blush:

Once....twice....three times a lady..

or:

Once...trice...twee times da maby...

[Petra]

I think this is interesting because lady cop is coming from an angle that includes picking up the immediate, gruesome pieces - from crime scene to courtroom, on behalf of the victims and potential future victims; and you, Zoot, are coming from a post-courtroom angle - what to do with the culpable and convicted after the police, lawyers and etc have worked out the who, why, and hows of the crime itself.

I think my angle is trying to come in before the crime has been committed - how do we prevent people becoming murderers or victims - but my thoughts and expression of those thoughts are still rather nebulous.

However, I think that the three angles working together, rather than in opposition to each other, would raise civilisation above the primitive and tribal, reduce violent crime, help build stronger communities, and progress society beyond the 'need' for the death penalty.

Yes, I am quite willing to admit I'm a dreamer. No, I don't think that's a bad thing.

[Petra]

LOL! Goliath, you Bayou Boy - I'm trying to be serious here!

[seebs]

Lunachick, could you go into CF and send a PM to DG and invite him to FF? He's pretty OG when it comes to the DP. OK?


LOL! Okay, I was with you up until PM. Who's DG and what's OG? :D


I can only invite him if he won't bust me, 'cos I've been permanently banned not once, but twice, already. :blush:

DG == David Gould. OG, I'm not so sure about.

[Petra]

Why do I see different posts after I've pressed the Reply button?

You might need to do a cleanup of all your temporary internet files, cookies and what-have-you.

When was the last time you gave 'er an oil change and tune-up?

[Petra]

DG == David Gould. OG, I'm not so sure about.

Cheers, seebs.

I'll get onto it, Zoot - but you may need to remind me in the morning. Right now I must crash. :tired:

G'night.

[Goliath]

LOL! Goliath, you Bayou Boy - I'm trying to be serious here!

:roflmao: ...wow, I've been called a lot of things, but never a Bayou Boy...I'm so much a Northerner.

That was really cute though...thanks. :)

Right now I must crash. :tired:

G'night.

Night?! What do you mean?! It's the morning! Get up, damn it! :poke: :D

[Shaguar]

Zoot I may be missing all sorts of points here but what exactly are you saying, that post sentencing there should not be a "Punishment" element to prison just a "Rehabilitation" programme.

Yes our systems do rely on the notion of free will and that to transgress the law using that free will incures punishment, so give me an alternative.

Car thieves steal becaaue they want to sell the car, as Maslow said

"Maslow's hierarchy of needs was an alternative to the depressing determinism of Freud and Skinner. He felt that people are basically trustworthy, self-protecting, and self-governing. Humans tend toward growth and love. Although there is a continuous cycle of human wars, murder, deceit, etc., he believed that violence is not what human nature is meant to be like. Violence and other evils occur when human needs are thwarted. In other words, people who are deprived of lower needs such as safety may defend themselves by violent means. He did not believe that humans are violent because they enjoy violence. Or that they lie, cheat, and steal because they enjoy doing it. "

Now in our modern society why would for example somone who has a house, income, food etc want to keep stealing cars, because they want to make some more money, ie it is a thought out criminal act for gain, should that criminal act be punished or "treated".

[LadyShea]

I simply said that for someone to want to commit murder or rape, they must be insane. In other words, if someone wants to control their actions into raping or murdering, they must be insane.

Ted Bundy knew exactly what he was doing, he just didn't care. In order to not care about doing those things, one must be out of one's mind. Because you experience those things as wrong, you assume sociopaths do to. That is simply not always true.

No, not all are insane nor must they be insane. You can assert it all day but it doesn't make it more true. Some people kill for money, some for power...rape is often about power (most rape victims know their rapists). Some people kill or rape simply because they want to and they don't care about other people.

Just because it's not something YOU would consider doesn't make all killers insane. And I keep mentioning sociopaths because they are ill, but able to control their actions and know right from wrong, so IMO are culpable for those actions.

Maybe you can define insane and "out of one's mind" so we don't keep going in circles.

[LadyShea]

he raped and killed nobody knows how many women from coast to coast. Heres a good link
well thanks but no thanks, I really don't need to know anything about such a sordid matter.



You posited a theory and applied it to Bundy, I thought you might want to see if your theory fits.

[LadyShea]

Oh and for the record, I do think many killers are insane and therefore not responsible for their actions.

Lady who cut her baby's arms off then called police and sat and waited for them= temporary insanity due to severe post partum psychosis and should be treated instaed of incarcerated. They are, unfortunatey, probably going to seek the death penalty though.

Diane Downs who premeditatively shot her kids to get them out of the way in favor of a man she wanted, then made up a story to avoid prosecution= not insane, should be held responsible for her actions. Serving a life sentence.

[godfry n. glad]

Diane Downs who premeditatively shot her kids to get them out of the way in favor of a man she wanted, then made up a story to avoid prosecution= not insane, should be held responsible for her actions. Serving a life sentence.

Who has since escaped from incarceration...twice, if memory serves...and been returned.

godfry

[lady cop]

Diane Downs who premeditatively shot her kids to get them out of the way in favor of a man she wanted, then made up a story to avoid prosecution= not insane, should be held responsible for her actions. Serving a life sentence.

Who has since escaped from incarceration...twice, if memory serves...and been returned.

godfrydowns escaped? how?? :jail:

[godfry n. glad]

I'm just a bit uncomfortable with some of the assertions made here.

First, some seem comfortable referring to Iran and other countries where capital punishment is used as being "barbaric", and by extension, the reason that they are "barbaric" is that they use "barbaric" techniques in attempts at social control.

I keep hearing echoes of "life is sacred" here and keep wondering if it's better to keep someone barely alive, torture them daily and make sure their agony is maximal...for as long as possible. Is that more acceptable? Because from what I've heard here, it is. The life is saved, but it's made infinitely more miserable...or so it seems. No one here has a better comprehension of what happens to our conciousness after death than do I...how can he make the claim that a lifetime of incarceration is better than a quick, relatively painless death?

How is it that an imposed death penalty is less "barbaric" than life imprisonment?

I don't think anyone here...is capable of deciding which is more "barbaric" than the other.

Also, this attitude of "those who commit crimes must be mentally ill" smacks of the Soviet Union's "those who question the state must be mentally ill and should be institutionalized and 'treated'"...it makes me very uncomfortable.
It seems you'd replace prisons with mental hospitals....<sigh>....big dif.

godfry

[livius drusus]

I think you may be conflating some of Zoot's arguments with some of onthedole's, godfry.

[viscousmemories]

I guess the more I think about this from each of the different perspectives presented here, the less I can support the death penalty. At least as it is currently applied in the US and around the world.

I agree with the essence of Zoot's argument that deviant behavior is a symptom of a larger problem, and that as a society we would glean more benefit from studying and/or treating violent criminals than from killing them.

In cases where the crime is particularly heinous and the risk of reoffending is high the subject could be labeled "Permanent High Risk", which would be equivelant to life without parole.

Fundamentally I would prefer to live in a society where pre-meditated killing is morally unacceptable, and I don't really see how we can get to that point as long as we have state-sponsored pre-meditated killing.

Incidentally this would be a hell of a lot easier to fund and support if we legalized all drugs and took all non-violent offenders out of prison and put them to work in community service programs. Frankly I've never understood the need to incarcerate non-violent offenders.

[livius drusus]

Zoot, I have to agree with godfry that your construction of anti-social/criminal behavior as forms of mental illness is just as potentially damaging in its government sponsored institutional form as the notion of purely retributive justice. A person who commits any crime at all could be hospitalized indefinitely under that schema, and I suspect the definition of crime, always murky, would become a very fluid one indeed. Think Guantanamo and "enemy combatants".

It also seems to me that this construction would also render the justice system even more toothless than it already is when confronting non-individual crimes like organized crime syndicates or corporate crime.

On another note, lady cop, I'm uncomfortable with the implication that opposition to the death penalty is grounded in an idealized world view based on little or no visceral understanding of the reality of crime. It seems to me that your own perspective on the death penalty is somewhat idealized: you support it in cases when scientific evidence has proven beyond any doubt whatsoever that person x committed crime y, and even then only when crime y has crossed a certain threshold of opprobriousness like child rape/murder or dismemberment or cop killing.

As far as I know, not one government which uses the death penalty applies it in such a manner. In reality, the death penalty is not at all reserved for those crimes, nor is the evidentiary standard for conviction anywhere like as high as the one you advocate. In reality, the death penalty is used against retarded people (as long as they're black, natch), or against enemies of the state, or enemies of Islam.

[lady cop]

i absolutely agree that the death penalty has historically been unfairly applied. which is why "my" criteria for those eligible is pretty defined and definate. i have certain attitudes gleaned from my work and experience, but i also hate injustice. for me it's case by case. this entire thread has been of great interest to me, and i certainly did not mean to imply that Zoot had an opinion of lesser value than my own, not at all. i simply know that my opinions are formed by what i have lived, like anyone else. and it hasn't been pretty. one more example of why i feel the way i do...this past year a wonderful young (33) detective ( Todd Fatta) goes to serve a warrant on a child pornographer. he enters the home quietly and calmly at the invitation of this POS. at that point he is shot point blank through his bullet proof vest, directly into his heart. another cop funeral to attend, and another unanswered radio call. do i want to see the POS sentenced to death? yes. absolutely. and then i know that he will never get out on parole even if his appeals take 23 years. do i care if he is a sick bastard? nope. once again...respectfully.

[livius drusus]

Well, yes, but again, it seems to me that you don't support the actual death penalty as it actually works; you support the death of people you believe deserve it due to the nature of their crime. That's not really the same thing, imo, because support for the death penalty implies support for the death penalty as currently applied.

If what you're supporting does not match the current practice, then aren't you actually against the current practice and advocating another thing altogether?

[lady cop]

of course the system isn't perfect currently, but i believe the checks and balances improve constantly. once again, it is just case by case for me. would i support a moratorium on DP until it is perfect? no, it's never going to be perfect. but i am grateful for the ability to prove innocence as well as guilt. the appeals process works. should we execute the retarded? no. or the patently insane? no. should we execute at all? yes. after all criteria/elements are met. i am disgusted with the disadvantage of the poor, but i also know public defenders and ACLU do all in their power to ensure a fair trial.in fact, defendants have more rights than victims. i think i have exhausted my thoughts on this subject, wrote 'war and peace' last night.

[godfry n. glad]

Well, yes, but again, it seems to me that you don't support the actual death penalty as it actually works; you support the death of people you believe deserve it due to the nature of their crime. That's not really the same thing, imo, because support for the death penalty implies support for the death penalty as currently applied.

If what you're supporting does not match the current practice, then aren't you actually against the current practice and advocating another thing altogether?

As I read it, yes... she's against the current practice, but no, she's not against the death penalty. I read it that if she supports the termination of life for certain offenders, then she still supports the death penalty as a punishment for a heinous crime.

That's where I'm at, and just because I don't support the current application of the death penalty does not mean I oppose the death penalty.

godfry

[godfry n. glad]

Diane Downs who premeditatively shot her kids to get them out of the way in favor of a man she wanted, then made up a story to avoid prosecution= not insane, should be held responsible for her actions. Serving a life sentence.

Who has since escaped from incarceration...twice, if memory serves...and been returned.

godfrydowns escaped? how?? :jail:

Yep. Here's the story from the Oregon Sherriff's site:

But authorities hadn't heard or seen the last of Elizabeth Diane Downs. On July 11, 1987 -- three years after she was sentenced -- Downs pulled off a daring escape from the Oregon Women' s Correctional Center in Salem. Authorities said she scaled two, 18-foot fences surrounding the prison, climbed under a pick-up truck, and waited several minutes before calmly walking away. Prison officials later said they believe Downs wore several layers of clothing to avoid puncture wounds from the barbed wire atop the fences. A tattered striped shirt was found under the pick-up truck where Downs reportedly hid after scaling the prison fences.

An alarm hooked to the outside fence rang briefly at 8:40 a.m. that morning, but prison officials didn't think anything of it, saying the sensitive alarm went off accidentally at least once a day due to anything from a strong wind to a bird. However, when a nurse arriving at the prison 15 minutes later reported seeing a suspicious woman climb out from under a pickup truck and walk away, saying she believed the woman was Diane Downs, prison guards did a quick emergency roll call and discovered Downs missing.

A massive search of the Salem area was launched. Ironically, Downs, wearing civilian-type clothing, was picked up hitchhiking, virtually right across the street from the women's prison and adjacent to Division 2 headquarters of the Oregon State Police. The unwitting couple that picked up Downs drove her to the site of a restaurant at State and 24th streets, three blocks from the prison, where Downs got out.

The couple would later tell authorities Downs said she needed to get to a phone quickly because her boyfriend had just been injured in an automobile accident.

Downs' escape triggered a multi-state search which surprisingly ended 10 days later back in Salem -- less than a half mile from the prison. Indentations on a piece of paper found in Downs' cell were analyzed by the FBI. Using an electrostatic process, the FBI was able to enhance the indentations on the paper, which included an address of a house and a map showing its location.

Oregon State Police conducted a driveby surveillance of the run-down house for two days. Then, state and local police served a search warrant on the house and found Downs and four men inside. The four men were charged with hindering prosecution.

In November, 1987, Downs was transferred to the Correctional Institution for Women, in Clinton, N.J., a maximum security prison. In exchange, Oregon prison officials agreed to take two New Jersey criminals.

Downs made news again in September, 1991, when Marion County Circuit Judge Duane R. Erstgaard denied her request for a new trial. Erstgaard wrote his decision in a letter to Downs' attorneys, saying she was adequately represented by lawyers in her trial and appeal. The Oregon Court of Appeals upheld her convictions in February, 1987.

But Elizabeth Diane Downs, whose story was the subject of at least two novels and a made-for-television movie, continues to maintain her innocence in her never-ending efforts to overturn her 1984 convictions from her new home -- the Washington State Women's Correctional Institute in Gig Harbor, Wash.

So... at least once.

godfry

[livius drusus]

I think we're getting somewhere here, thank you lady cop and godfry for continuing to clarify.

For me, when you say you support the death penalty you are accepting its flawed implementation (ie, the murder of innocent people, the racial and economic biases, etc) as an unfortunate but unavoidable consequence of the imperfection of human systems. If when you say you support the death penalty you actually mean you support the termination of life for certain offenders in a theoretical system in which such abuses did not occur, then that's quite a different thing from my perspective.

Again, I would still be opposed to it on the grounds that I really, really hate seeing people killed, and I hate institutionalized killing even more, but I suspect many other current death penalty opponents would support it if they could be guaranteed an abuseless system limited in its application to the most vile criminals convicted on the most stringent evidentiary standards.

[Godless Dave]

I am fine with the death penalty for cold blooded killers and such, the problem I have with it is that there have been folks sentenced to death who weren't guilty.

So, I am OK with it in theory, but find it problematic in practice.

That's pretty much how I feel. I don't object on any humanitarian concern for those who are guilty, but on the practical concern that no fallible human justice system can be right 100% of the time about who is guilty, and one innocent person being executed is too many.

So I'm against it - I oppose it because it isn't and can't be perfect. But I don't spend much time campaigning against it. My state doesn't have it and manages to maintain a fairly low rate of violent crime.

[lady cop]

Dave, thanks for article on downs . she will forever be classified as an escape risk , in my county jail that means wearing a yellow shirt all the time. red shirts for dangerous and/or battery on a LEO. prisons may not have those type warning shirts, but she is no doubt in maximum security.

[viscousmemories]

would i support a moratorium on DP until it is perfect? no, it's never going to be perfect. but i am grateful for the ability to prove innocence as well as guilt. the appeals process works. should we execute the retarded? no. or the patently insane? no. should we execute at all? yes. after all criteria/elements are met.
Just to clarify part of what I think livius was getting at in her last post, when you say the "appeals process works", do you mean that people who should not be executed (ie. retarded/insane) aren't, or that every reasonable provision is made to prevent such a thing but it does occasionally happen?

If the latter, is it safe to say that you feel that a certain percentage of wrongful executions is tolerable "collateral damage" in the interest of keeping the death penalty available for those who truly deserve it?

I have to say, the more I think about the idea that some people should die, the less comfortable I am with it. I do still firmly believe that some people present enough of a risk to others that they should be removed from society fully and permanently.

However I think it would be possible to accomplish that with reasonable certainty without killing him/her, and might in fact prove to be more beneficial to the community at large, not least by giving us an opportunity to study the person and by actively condemning pre-meditated killing as a society.

[lady cop]

no, i don't think any collateral damage is tolerable. and i do think every reasonable provision is made to prevent the retarded and insane from being tried on a first-degree (death eligible) at the outset. that's why judges order competency exams. i would agree with life without parole if it really MEANT life without. and also i consider how dangerous the person will be to others during those years of confinement. we now have super-max prisons for the most dangerous, and it is a good solution.

[Petra]

Also, this attitude of "those who commit crimes must be mentally ill" smacks of the Soviet Union's "those who question the state must be mentally ill and should be institutionalized and 'treated'"...it makes me very uncomfortable.
It seems you'd replace prisons with mental hospitals....<sigh>....big dif.

godfry

I find that to be a huge leap....a bit like saying "those who like to put mayo in their salad" smacks of "those who like to pig out on supersized burgers at McDonalds, smothered in mayo and ketchup".


Also, I don't think Zoot was talking much about shoplifting or burglary, here - the main focus in this thread is on the types of crimes that may bring a death sentence on someone if convicted - crimes that have that rabid killer aspect to them.


Zoot, I was able to send a message to DG but didn't have enough posts to send a link - hopefully, he can follow my directions ok, and will BMX his POV on the WWW RT regarding the DP, ASAP. :D

[godfry n. glad]

Also, this attitude of "those who commit crimes must be mentally ill" smacks of the Soviet Union's "those who question the state must be mentally ill and should be institutionalized and 'treated'"...it makes me very uncomfortable.
It seems you'd replace prisons with mental hospitals....<sigh>....big dif.

godfry

I find that to be a huge leap....a bit like saying "those who like to put mayo in their salad" smacks of "those who like to pig out on supersized burgers at McDonalds, smothered in mayo and ketchup".

Huh? I guess I don't follow...

Also, I don't think Zoot was talking much about shoplifting or burglary, here - the main focus in this thread is on the types of crimes that may bring a death sentence on someone if convicted - crimes that have that rabid killer aspect to them.

Okay... Although once he started writing about crime in general, it didn't seem to me that he was making much of a distinction between capital crimes and non-capital crimes, just that anti-social behavior as manifested in criminal behavior was an indication of psychological imbalance and the perpetrators should be treated, not punished.

If one limits this approach to only capital crimes, does one then make some kind of distinction between the nature of capital crimes (i.e., psychological sources which should be treated) and non-capital crimes. I'd be curious as to how a distinction would be made for the perpetrator who kidnaps, assaults and rapes a girlchild, leaving her alive (a non-capital crime) and the very same crime which results in the death of the child (a capital crime, potentially).

Are you saying that shoplifting, bribery, intimidation, blackmail, fraud and all those other crimes should continue to be treated as "crimes", complete with "guilt" determined and everything? They are to be separated from capital crimes somehow? How would this be done?

Then, I'm at a loss as to how "sin" fits into this whole thing. I've never yet heard the word "sin" related to any criminal statute in the U.S.

godfry

[Zoot]

Now in our modern society why would for example somone who has a house, income, food etc want to keep stealing cars, because they want to make some more money, ie it is a thought out criminal act for gain, should that criminal act be punished or "treated".

Shaguar, I've avoided property crimes for a few reasons. Partly because I don't think any US states have the death penalty for stealing, and partly because I think property is a system that needs some examination too. If you're right, that people who have enough to live a perfectly content life steal out of a desire for more than that, it's likely a symptom of an entire system that imbues the value of gaining more money, more material wealth, into children from birth. It's a bit beyond the scope of the death penalty discussion, at least.

But, briefly, if I was to take my attitude to its logical end, all criminals would require treatment. That doesn't mean drugs. That means working out a way to make their time in prison bring about the end of their desire to steal in order to get more than they need.

Again, I don't feel the urge to steal. What's the difference between me and those guys, if their level of health and wealth is comparable to me? That's the question I'd ask.

[LadyShea]

Again, I don't feel the urge to steal. What's the difference between me and those guys, if their level of health and wealth is comparable to me? That's the question I'd ask.

You keep using this argument and it doesn't work for me. The difference is, they are not you. Some people are selfish, some people are greedy, some crave power and prestige and expensive baubles and whatever else.

Someone not thinking exactly like you do does not make them mentally ill. Maybe they're just assholes.

[Zoot]

No, not all are insane nor must they be insane. You can assert it all day but it doesn't make it more true. Some people kill for money, some for power...rape is often about power (most rape victims know their rapists). Some people kill or rape simply because they want to and they don't care about other people.

Just because it's not something YOU would consider doesn't make all killers insane. And I keep mentioning sociopaths because they are ill, but able to control their actions and know right from wrong, so IMO are culpable for those actions.

Maybe you can define insane and "out of one's mind" so we don't keep going in circles.

A few things. Firstly, "right" and "wrong" are notions no less superstitious than free will, so that's something to keep in mind. Absolute right and wrong, that is. There's also no such thing as absolute insanity. Sanity is a societal convention, and its definition changes over time.

So, to be consistent with the unintelligibility of free will, I'll say a few things to define insanity in this sense.

1. If someone is insane, we don't punish them, we treat them, because they are driven by compulsions that are outside our established bounds of acceptability - compulsions to hurt themselves, to hurt their children, to hurt others, to walk around naked, to talk loudly to people no one else can see, etc.

2. The compulsion to rape or hurt others is outside our established bounds of acceptability, so anyone who strongly wants to do these things is by the above definition insane.

3. This is based on the idea that not only do people do what they want, but they wanted to do whatever they have done. If someone rapes, then they wanted to rape. If they wanted to rape, they were driven by a compulsion we don't find acceptable.

What it is you mean by "knowing right from wrong" is a bit beyond me. They may know what others want them to do. They may know what is legal and illegal. If they have actually internalised the societal values of right and wrong, then they will to some extent want to do what is right, and there will be conflict between that compulsion and the compulsion to rape/murder. Again, that the latter compulsion overrides the former is just further evidence of their insanity, as defined above.

[Zoot]

You keep using this argument and it doesn't work for me. The difference is, they are not you. Some people are selfish, some people are greedy, some crave power and prestige and expensive baubles and whatever else.

Someone not thinking exactly like you do does not make them mentally ill. Maybe they're just assholes.

My point is that they didn't choose to be selfish, greedy, crave power and prestige and expensive baubles. They didn't choose to be assholes. And if the kind of asshole they are makes them do unacceptable things, then they're an unacceptable kind of person for reasons out of their own control, and that's why treatment is the appropriate response.

[LadyShea]

A few things. Firstly, "right" and "wrong" are notions no less superstitious than free will, so that's something to keep in mind. Absolute right and wrong, that is. There's also no such thing as absolute insanity. Sanity is a societal convention, and its definition changes over time.

So, to be consistent with the unintelligibility of free will, I'll say a few things to define insanity in this sense.

1. If someone is insane, we don't punish them, we treat them, because they are driven by compulsions that are outside our established bounds of acceptability - compulsions to hurt themselves, to hurt their children, to hurt others, to walk around naked, to talk loudly to people no one else can see, etc.

2. The compulsion to rape or hurt others is outside our established bounds of acceptability, so anyone who strongly wants to do these things is by the above definition insane.

3. This is based on the idea that not only do people do what they want, but they wanted to do whatever they have done. If someone rapes, then they wanted to rape. If they wanted to rape, they were driven by a compulsion we don't find acceptable.

What it is you mean by "knowing right from wrong" is a bit beyond me. They may know what others want them to do. They may know what is legal and illegal. If they have actually internalised the societal values of right and wrong, then they will to some extent want to do what is right, and there will be conflict between that compulsion and the compulsion to rape/murder. Again, that the latter compulsion overrides the former is just further evidence of their insanity, as defined above.

Well, as far as I am concerned this is incoherent and impossible to apply.

And I was using "Knowing right from wrong" in this sense as knowing and understanding the laws and societal norms and expectations.

[LadyShea]

My point is that they didn't choose to be selfish, greedy, crave power and prestige and expensive baubles. They didn't choose to be assholes. And if the kind of asshole they are makes them do unacceptable things, then they're an unacceptable kind of person for reasons out of their own control, and that's why treatment is the appropriate response.

What do you mean they don't choose to be assholes? Let me get this straight, according to you nobody is responsible for anything they do that is against what you consider "acceptable"? So the CEOs who raid their employees retirement funds and cook the books to get investment money and lie to shareholders aren't greedy fucks, they're mentally ill and should be treated?

I can't discuss this with you anymore.

[godfry n. glad]

My point is that they didn't choose to be selfish, greedy, crave power and prestige and expensive baubles. They didn't choose to be assholes.

They didn't? When presented with the always present options of how to behave in any given situation, those who are selfish, greedy, and craven have no ability to discern between these options?

All of them? All the time?

I doubt that.

And... I doubt that you have any way of knowing that they didn't choose.

godfry

[Zoot]

I'm just a bit uncomfortable with some of the assertions made here.

First, some seem comfortable referring to Iran and other countries where capital punishment is used as being "barbaric", and by extension, the reason that they are "barbaric" is that they use "barbaric" techniques in attempts at social control.

Countries like Iran, North Korea, the USA and China are barbaric to me in that particular regard, yes - the use of the death penalty.


How is it that an imposed death penalty is less "barbaric" than life imprisonment?

I don't think anyone here...is capable of deciding which is more "barbaric" than the other.

As I said in my first post in the thread, by "barbaric" I mean "based on primitive thinking".


Also, this attitude of "those who commit crimes must be mentally ill" smacks of the Soviet Union's "those who question the state must be mentally ill and should be institutionalized and 'treated'"...it makes me very uncomfortable.
It seems you'd replace prisons with mental hospitals....<sigh>....big dif.

Honestly, it makes me a little uncomfortable too. That's why I'm enjoying shaking myself up a bit with it. These are big ethical questions. If Western democracies were to follow my suggestions here and base the courts' attitudes on the understanding that free will is meaningless, then anyone who commits a crime would be diagnosed as having unacceptable desires. Those desires would be treated. So what is and what is not considered a crime would become, I think, even more important than it is now. There are a number of things that are considered crimes that I don't think should be.

But when it comes to rape and murder, I have little hesitation in saying that the desire to commit those actions are unacceptable to any community, and those desires must be treated, rather than focussing on punishing one of the victims of those desires.

[Zoot]

What do you mean they don't choose to be assholes?

I mean it's obvious that people don't choose what they want to do. They choose to do what they want to do, but they don't choose what they want to do.


Let me get this straight, according to you nobody is responsible for anything they do that is against what you consider "acceptable"? So the CEOs who raid their employees retirement funds and cook the books to get investment money and lie to shareholders aren't greedy fucks, they're mentally ill and should be treated?

They desire something unacceptable, and that desire is what caused the crime.

[Zoot]

They didn't? When presented with the always present options of how to behave in any given situation, those who are selfish, greedy, and craven have no ability to discern between these options?

All of them? All the time?

I doubt that.

And... I doubt that you have any way of knowing that they didn't choose.

It's obvious that they didn't choose. It's logically impossible that they did. You don't choose what to want. You don't choose your desires. If you do, how do you choose? Based on other desires. And do you choose them? If so, how? Based on other desires.

It's either infinite regression or not choosing your desires. And it can't be infinite regression, therefore, ultimately, no one can choose what it is that they want. They can only choose to do what they want.

[wade-w]

Zoot, there is an unstated premise in your arguments here that we know how to properly treat criminal offenders in order to rehabilitate them. Where do you get this idea? Do you really think psychology is that advanced? If you agree that we are not capable of what you are calling for, what do you propose we do with people who exhibit criminal behavior between now and whenever we are able to effect such cures?

[Zoot]

Zoot, there is an unstated premise in your arguments here that we know how to properly treat criminal offenders in order to rehabilitate them. Where do you get this idea? Do you really think psychology is that advanced? If you agree that we are not capable of what you are calling for, what do you propose we do with people who exhibit criminal behavior between now and whenever we are able to effect such cures?

Quarantine. Imprisonment without release. What are you doing releasing people when you know they still have the same desires that caused them to commit the crimes that got them in prison in the first place? Murderers paying off their Murder Credits by spending a set number of years in prison, then leaving as murderous as ever? That's nuts.

And I think that if the attitude of the justice system in general was of treatment rather than punishment, some advances in methods of ending those criminal desires would be made.

Note: I'm not talking about drugs and stuff. Though I suppose I can't rule that out.

[Zoot]

Also, this attitude of "those who commit crimes must be mentally ill" smacks of the Soviet Union's "those who question the state must be mentally ill and should be institutionalized and 'treated'"...it makes me very uncomfortable.

Another thought regarding this:

It makes me no more uncomfortable than the thought that "those who question the state should be executed." What is to count as crime is important in any system.

[godfry n. glad]

I'm just a bit uncomfortable with some of the assertions made here.

First, some seem comfortable referring to Iran and other countries where capital punishment is used as being "barbaric", and by extension, the reason that they are "barbaric" is that they use "barbaric" techniques in attempts at social control.

Countries like Iran, North Korea, the USA and China are barbaric to me in that particular regard, yes - the use of the death penalty.

Well... Does NZ put down dangerous animals? Do you think that's right? Do they allow you to euthanize your terminally ill pet animals...y'know, "humanely"? Then, if so, do they allow you to do the same for terminally ill humans? Or, are you like most barbaric nations and require that humans suffer in agony, pain and disability until such time that death finally overcomes them?

Your term is rhetorical and unclear.

How is it that an imposed death penalty is less "barbaric" than life imprisonment?

I don't think anyone here...is capable of deciding which is more "barbaric" than the other.

As I said in my first post in the thread, by "barbaric" I mean "based on primitive thinking".

That doesn't explain anything. It's merely defining using another undefined term. And... it doesn't answer the question.

Also, this attitude of "those who commit crimes must be mentally ill" smacks of the Soviet Union's "those who question the state must be mentally ill and should be institutionalized and 'treated'"...it makes me very uncomfortable.
It seems you'd replace prisons with mental hospitals....<sigh>....big dif.

Honestly, it makes me a little uncomfortable too. That's why I'm enjoying shaking myself up a bit with it. These are big ethical questions. If Western democracies were to follow my suggestions here and base the courts' attitudes on the understanding that free will is meaningless, then anyone who commits a crime would be diagnosed as having unacceptable desires. Those desires would be treated. So what is and what is not considered a crime would become, I think, even more important than it is now. There are a number of things that are considered crimes that I don't think should be.

But when it comes to rape and murder, I have little hesitation in saying that the desire to commit those actions are unacceptable to any community, and those desires must be treated, rather than focussing on punishing one of the victims of those desires.

I'm just saying that if those crimes are of sufficient brutality and the perpetrator is likely to repeat those crimes (particularly personal crimes against minors, which seem to have a stunningly high recidivism rate after psychological and psychiatric treatment) then they should be separated from the bulk of humanity to protect other humans...not to extract retribution. If that means that the perpetrator would spend the remainder of their natural lives incarcerated....well...I begin to wonder what purpose that serves. Why should society undertake to provide room, board, health care and entertainment without employment for the remainder of their lives? Particularly if they have taken another life? Usually an innocent life? Brutally and uncaringly?

I'll say this for you, you have a much more faith in the efficacy of "treatment" for these folks than do I.

godfry

[Zoot]

That doesn't explain anything. It's merely defining using another undefined term. And... it doesn't answer the question.

Right, well, again in the original post, I said that the primitive thinking on which it was based was the belief in free will, which is a superstition best left in the Middle Ages.


I'm just saying that if those crimes are of sufficient brutality and the perpetrator is likely to repeat those crimes (particularly personal crimes against minors, which seem to have a stunningly high recidivism rate after psychological and psychiatric treatment) then they should be separated from the bulk of humanity to protect other humans...not to extract retribution. If that means that the perpetrator would spend the remainder of their natural lives incarcerated....well...I begin to wonder what purpose that serves. Why should society undertake to provide room, board, health care and entertainment without employment for the remainder of their lives? Particularly if they have taken another life? Usually an innocent life? Brutally and uncaringly?

I'll say this for you, you have a much more faith in the efficacy of "treatment" for these folks than do I.

Honestly, I don't know if they're treatable. I'm just taking my view to its logical end. If there's no free will, there's no responsibility in the current sense of the word, and it's inconsistent to punish criminals. I agree about separating them for life if they're never going to stop having those compulsions.

As for what's the point of keeping them alive? Well, I've been operating under the assumption that most people here are arguing for the death penalty under the notion that serious criminals "deserve" execution. The fact that you say this - "Particularly if they have taken another life? Usually an innocent life? Brutally and uncaringly?" - suggests to me that you're still operating under that notion.

I'll give some thought to putting animals to death.

[godfry n. glad]

Also, this attitude of "those who commit crimes must be mentally ill" smacks of the Soviet Union's "those who question the state must be mentally ill and should be institutionalized and 'treated'"...it makes me very uncomfortable.

Another thought regarding this:

It makes me no more uncomfortable than the thought that "those who question the state should be executed." What is to count as crime is important in any system.

But as I understood it, there is no "crime" in your hypothesized system. It's all "anti-social compulsion".

Are we using ECT in your "treatment"? How do we differentiate your "treatment" from torture?

I think you have an overly high opinion of the ability to "treat" these people.

But then, you have no choice in the matter, right?

godfry

[Desert Dweller]

You posited a theory and applied it to Bundy, I thought you might want to see if your theory fits.
If he is/was an heinous as he sounds then I can assume he came from a violent society where guns are common, crime is common, incarceration is common, racism is common and there is a big gap between the haves and the have nots.

[Zoot]

But as I understood it, there is no "crime" in your hypothesized system. It's all "anti-social compulsion".

To me, crime is the symptom of anti-social compulsion. There is crime, it's just not the archaic notion of sin. To me. To everyone else, it seems to be.


Are we using ECT in your "treatment"? How do we differentiate your "treatment" from torture?

I don't know about using ECT. I wouldn't personally want that.

How do we differentiate treatment from torture? Are you serious?


I think you have an overly high opinion of the ability to "treat" these people.

But then, you have no choice in the matter, right?

Nope. And similarly, if you gave me a convincing argument to the contrary of my views, I would have no choice but to change them.

[godfry n. glad]

As for what's the point of keeping them alive? Well, I've been operating under the assumption that most people here are arguing for the death penalty under the notion that serious criminals "deserve" execution. The fact that you say this - "Particularly if they have taken another life? Usually an innocent life? Brutally and uncaringly?" - suggests to me that you're still operating under that notion.



You bet.

So... You want to "treat" the guy who kidnapped small children, hung them in his closet, tortured them for days and then disembowelled them while concious and watched them die?

Why? So he can be released back onto the streets? In hopes that "treatment" works?

I'm sorry.... This guy deserved to die. There is no reason to give this guy three squares, a shower, a weight room, television, cards and dry bed for the rest of his life....at the cost of millions to us.

godfry

[Zoot]

You bet.

So... You want to "treat" the guy who kidnapped small children, hung them in his closet, tortured them for days and then disembowelled them while concious and watched them die?

Why? So he can be released back onto the streets? In hopes that "treatment" works?

I'm sorry.... This guy deserved to die. There is no reason to give this guy three squares, a shower, a weight room, television, cards and dry bed for the rest of his life....at the cost of millions to us.

What can I say. I can't argue with religious faith.

[viscousmemories]

If that means that the perpetrator would spend the remainder of their natural lives incarcerated....well...I begin to wonder what purpose that serves. Why should society undertake to provide room, board, health care and entertainment without employment for the remainder of their lives? Particularly if they have taken another life? Usually an innocent life? Brutally and uncaringly?
There are only two apparent benefits to killing the person, though: Vengeance and guaranteed permanent segregation from society. From a purely utilitarian perspective I'm not convinced that either justifies forfeiting the potential benefits of keeping the person alive, as I mentioned above, with more stringent lifetime incarceration practices. And it would be morally consistent with our cultural opposition to pre-meditated killing.

[LadyShea]

You posited a theory and applied it to Bundy, I thought you might want to see if your theory fits.
If he is/was an heinous as he sounds then I can assume he came from a violent society where guns are common, crime is common, incarceration is common, racism is common and there is a big gap between the haves and the have nots.


He was American if that's what you're hinting at. But if those things are the cause of serial killing, why aren't all 290+/- million of us killers?

And may I ask again where you live?

[Desert Dweller]

But if those things are the cause of serial killing, why aren't all 290+/- million of us killers?
Because you (290+ Million) are not at the bottom of the heap. The person at the bottom (gets sqeezed) takes on the denied emotions of the rest of the heap. Clearly the values of this particular heap include use of force, use of guns,
use of power-over, use of violence. If these exist they exist in people but most people deny their own violence etc (and can get away with that because they are well off enough, and their violence is managable) and that denied violence doesn't just go away...it goes to the bottom of the heap where the weakest member of the community (heap) takes in on and acts it out.

[LadyShea]

Because you (290+ Million) are not at the bottom of the heap. The person at the bottom (gets sqeezed) takes on the denied emotions of the rest of the heap. Clearly the values of this particular heap include use of force, use of guns,
use of power-over, use of violence. If these exist they exist in people but most people deny their own violence etc (and can get away with that because they are well off enough, and their violence is managable) and that denied violence doesn't just go away...it goes to the bottom of the heap where the weakest member of the community (heap) takes in on and acts it out.


That makes no sense. I have no idea what you're talking about.

[Zoot]

onthedole,

How do you account for those serial murderers/rapists who come from perfectly wealthy families with good education?

[Desert Dweller]

That makes no sense. I have no idea what you're talking about.
I think the second sentence alone would be better. Even better would be "I don't understand this theory".
I'd imagine that you are comfortable, able to hide your little shady bits, able to appear in public as 'normal', able to live fairly independently and able to put on a good face (don't worry it's what the large majority of people do...I'm not isolating you as a target or anything).

Loose all that, live on the street and I think you will suddenly understand the theory.

[wade-w]

Your theory fails in the case of Bundy and several other serial killers, onthedole.

[godfry n. glad]

Because you (290+ Million) are not at the bottom of the heap. The person at the bottom (gets sqeezed) takes on the denied emotions of the rest of the heap. Clearly the values of this particular heap include use of force, use of guns,
use of power-over, use of violence. If these exist they exist in people but most people deny their own violence etc (and can get away with that because they are well off enough, and their violence is managable) and that denied violence doesn't just go away...it goes to the bottom of the heap where the weakest member of the community (heap) takes in on and acts it out.


That makes no sense. I have no idea what you're talking about.

I think he's trying to say that the perpetrators of heinous crimes against persons do so because they are "on the bottom of the heap."

Now, I'm not sure what he means by that, but I'll assume that he means that it's those at the lowest end of the socio-economic scale in terms of income, wealth and status. If he does, I think he's way off base, 'cause I think you'll find sufficient numbers of socio-economic ordinaries amongst the ranks of heinous killers.

As for zoot and "freewill"...I'm not versed enough in philosophical discourse to understand your assertion without some explanation.

I think each and every one of us is presented with a series of choices as we go through our lives. We make choices largely dependent upon what we desire. I don't see how you've suddenly arisen with an entirely deterministic universe....or human society, at least. Can we extinguish our desires? Well, the Buddhists seem to think so. Can we act against our desires? Yes. And we do on a regular basis. You'd probably call it countervaling desires, which would be fine. You can desire one thing and behave contrary to that desire.

You seem to be saying I'm wrong, but you haven't given me any reason other than an unsupported assertion as to why.

At least it seems that way to me. :dunno2:

I'll tell you what... How about you implement that program in your country as a test? A little empiricism. Then, if it works out as you insist, then you can be the shining example for the rest of the world. And, having shown all that the problem can be adequately addressed, you can show us the manner in which you obtained your results. We can then assess as we wish.

edit: Hell...If you make it work, we'll start shipping you convicts. International trade. How's that?


godfry

(somehow, I just keep expecting aversive training in this scenario somewhere.....) ZOT!

[Zoot]

Well, it's a tough call. We've got 3000 years of religious thinking to deal with. Notions like free will are woven into the fabric of our very language.

I'll start a thread in the philosophy section explaining why free will is unintelligible. You're right, it was not very conducive for me to assert it without explanation.

[Desert Dweller]

How do you account for those serial murderers/rapists who come from perfectly wealthy families with good education?
IUnteresting that this post and another equate bottom of the heap solely with material wealth.
I don't I mean bottom of the heap in a psychological sense. So the fact that they come from wealthy families and have a good education means nothing...this statement is looking at the surface....regardless of the school we don't know how good a person's education is/was. Neither is psychological maturity the province of the wealthy...who are often the worst offenders with their arrogance, lack of understanding, power and influence. Just because someone 'appears' well off means nothing....it's their insides I'm interested in...

Someone said the theory didn't fit the Bundy case....but failed to show why.

[Zoot]

Godfry,

Free will thread is up: http://www.freethought-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?p=27208#post27208

[godfry n. glad]

How do you account for those serial murderers/rapists who come from perfectly wealthy families with good education?
IUnteresting that this post and another equate bottom of the heap solely with material wealth.
I don't I mean bottom of the heap in a psychological sense. So the fact that they come from wealthy families and have a good education means nothing...this statement is looking at the surface....regardless of the school we don't know how good a person's education is/was. Neither is psychological maturity the province of the wealthy...who are often the worst offenders with their arrogance, lack of understanding, power and influence. Just because someone 'appears' well off means nothing....it's their insides I'm interested in...

Someone said the theory didn't fit the Bundy case....but failed to show why.

Now, I don't think that's right, either.

I've been to the bottom of the psychological heap....well, close to it. I grew up in a household where my mother was institutionalized for half of the years she and I spend together on this planet. I've seen the inside of mental institutions from some very intimate perspectives. These people are not killers. Most mentally ill folks are perfectly harmless. Some are not. Same way in the sane population. Some folks are dangerous. Most aren't. I've been through pharmaceutical and cognitive therapy myself...and I never engaged a violent thought against anyone other than myself.

Nowadays, it seems even worse, as many of the institutions which provided a base for those who had a tenuous hold on functionality have disappeared. They are all "in the community" now. In group homes. Small facilities. And appearing with ever greater frequency in jails and emergency rooms.

I know the marginalized mentally ill. Too well.

godfry

[Clutch Munny]

In a nutshell, and without reading this long thread (so probably covering well-trodden ground):

No.

Because:

-- No consequential benefits
-- Bloodies the public's hands
-- Irreversible
-- Given high stakes, has paradoxical potential to make the justice system less willing to revisit cases
-- Interacts pathologically with American system of elected prosectorial/judicial positions

[LadyShea]

IUnteresting that this post and another equate bottom of the heap solely with material wealth.
I don't I mean bottom of the heap in a psychological sense. So the fact that they come from wealthy families and have a good education means nothing...

What does "bottom of the heap" even mean though?

this statement is looking at the surface....regardless of the school we don't know how good a person's education is/was.

If they earned good grades in a good school and got accepted to good colleges can we assume they had a good education?

Neither is psychological maturity the province of the wealthy...who are often the worst offenders with their arrogance, lack of understanding, power and influence. Just because someone 'appears' well off means nothing....it's their insides I'm interested in...

Again, please explain what you are talking about?

Someone said the theory didn't fit the Bundy case....but failed to show why.

Since I still don't understand your theory I couldn't tell you. Maybe you can see if he fits....Bundy was good looking, charming, a good student, liked to ski and was interested in politics. He won a summer scolarship to Stanford. He was also a sociopath.

[Petra]

-- Given high stakes, has paradoxical potential to make the justice system less willing to revisit cases

Hi, Clutch.

I'm assuming that you mean cases are less likely to be revisited after someone has been put to death already?

-- Interacts pathologically with American system of elected prosectorial/judicial positions

I don't understand what you mean here. Can you explain it to me please?

I'm such a bloody simpleton sometimes. A bit dumb, I'm afraid.

[godfry n. glad]

I simplify it with the following formula: You can choose to do what you want, but you can't choose what you want to do.

Thanks, zoot. I obviously have not yet read the entire thread, but I'll get around to it. This just intrigued me.

My first response is, "Can I choose not to do what I want, or what I don't want?"

Probably sophomoric.

Does it matter that a determinant is arbitrary? In terms of the infinite regression, that is.

godfry

[godfry n. glad]

In a nutshell, and without reading this long thread (so probably covering well-trodden ground):

No.

Because:

-- No consequential benefits
-- Bloodies the public's hands
-- Irreversible
-- Given high stakes, has paradoxical potential to make the justice system less willing to revisit cases
-- Interacts pathologically with American system of elected prosectorial/judicial positions

Hey, thanks, Clutch... Now I know I'm in outta my league.

Okay, here goes anyhoo.

-- No consequential benefits.
What qualifies as consequential? There are benefits...the saved cost in incarceration.

--Bloodies public's hands
No question, here. But it's not like they're clean. The public underwrites the military. Their entire purpose is to kill others for the safety and security of this nation.

--Irreverisble
Yep. Which I thought was the whole idea. Excision of a social pathogen.

--I don't understand the paradox. I need more explanation on this one.

--pathological reaction with political system
Wow. Now that's one I don't doubt and cannot adequately counter. I agree; and I don't like it. I don't like it at all.

I see you as saying is this: If the death penalty exists, it can be (and is, or has been) used to silence political opponents.

'Zat right?

godfry

(I'm still keen on the idea of penal exile for treatment.)

[Zoot]

My first response is, "Can I choose not to do what I want, or what I don't want?"

Probably sophomoric.

Does it matter that a determinant is arbitrary? In terms of the infinite regression, that is.

Depends on what you mean by arbitrary. There are reasons. They're just ultimately out of our control. Doesn't necessarily make them arbitrary in every sense of the word. If anything, maybe the complete opposite.

Can you choose to do what you don't want to do? Well, why would you? ;)

[Godfather]

I think each and every one of us is presented with a series of choices as we go through our lives. We make choices largely dependent upon what we desire. I don't see how you've suddenly arisen with an entirely deterministic universe....or human society, at least. Can we extinguish our desires? Well, the Buddhists seem to think so. Can we act against our desires? Yes. And we do on a regular basis. You'd probably call it countervaling desires, which would be fine. You can desire one thing and behave contrary to that desire.
I think the same way, except for the part about acting against our desires. We can act according one desire in a way which contradicts another competing but less powerful desire (or two, or three, or 50,000 complex, interconnected, competing desires). Everyone does this constantly. We decide which of our competing desires is the most important. It is usually called choice, but I prefer to call it motivation, as 'choice' implies equal freedom to select which desire we will designate as the most important in any given situation. But we don't have that freedom - the selection is based on countless learned or inherent factors which we simply did not get to choose.

People are trying to argue with Zoot about whether or not criminals are in control of their actions. This is, simply put, missing the point. He (and I) are not saying that criminals differ from normal people in not having control of their actions. We are saying that the whole concept of control is fundamentally unsound.

I'll tell you what... How about you implement that program in your country as a test? A little empiricism. Then, if it works out as you insist, then you can be the shining example for the rest of the world. And, having shown all that the problem can be adequately addressed, you can show us the manner in which you obtained your results. We can then assess as we wish.
OK, Zoot and I will do that when we run the country.

Hell...If you make it work, we'll start shipping you convicts. International trade. How's that?
No dice. Just like if your hospitals only tended to the symptoms of illness and ignored the causes, we wouldn't volunteer to take on your excess patients.

[Zoot]

I think Godfather would add that just because we recognise the compulsion to commit crime as a disease (and therefore the most important thing is to treat the cause), doesn't mean we don't want to treat the symptoms - crime itself.

[godfry n. glad]

People are trying to argue with Zoot about whether or not criminals are in control of their actions. This is, simply put, missing the point. He (and I) are not saying that criminals differ from normal people in not having control of their actions. We are saying that the whole concept of control is fundamentally unsound.

So how is it that criminals differ from normal people?

Why is the whole concept of control fundamentally unsound?

What is the appropriate concept to bring to bear upon this discussion?

godfry

[godfry n. glad]

[QUOTE]I'll tell you what... How about you implement that program in your country as a test? A little empiricism. Then, if it works out as you insist, then you can be the shining example for the rest of the world. And, having shown all that the problem can be adequately addressed, you can show us the manner in which you obtained your results. We can then assess as we wish.
OK, Zoot and I will do that when we run the country.

Hell...If you make it work, we'll start shipping you convicts. International trade. How's that?
No dice. Just like if your hospitals only tended to the symptoms of illness and ignored the causes, we wouldn't volunteer to take on your excess patients.

Aw, jeez.... No humanitarian measures to help the poor primatives? I mean, really, after you cured everybody there, then you'd have an excess of all these professionals who can do the treatments. We could ship 'em round trip. We're talking business, here. Top dollar, hard money, man. You're going to retrain them when they could go overseas, and help others. Y'know, feelgood "Treatments Without Borders". In the primitive countries?

See if we sell you any nuclear weapons. :P

godfry

[Zoot]

So how is it that criminals differ from normal people?

In their motivations.


Why is the whole concept of control fundamentally unsound?

Because people do what they're motivated to do. They control themselves in a manner in which they are motivated to control themselves. The buck doesn't stop at control.


What is the appropriate concept to bring to bear upon this discussion?

Motivation, as Godfather put it.

[Adora]

Wow, what a thread. o_o...

[lady cop]

Wow, what a thread. o_o...
deleted

[Zoot]

removed.

[lady cop]

erased

[livius drusus]

Suicide jokes = not so funny right now. I don't know if y'all are serious or not, but just for the record, I think this is a great thread.

[lady cop]

Suicide jokes = not so funny right now. I don't know if y'all are serious or not, but just for the record, I think this is a great thread.
sorry...please feel free to delete!

[Zoot]

Yeah, I've really enjoyed this thread. Thanks, everyone involved. Except for Godfather. Fuck you, man.

[livius drusus]

Naw... Not a big deal at all, lady. The important part is that this is the longest actual discussion thread on FF that has remained generally on topic. I think that's groovy as hell.

[viscousmemories]

I think it's a pretty interesting thread too, for what it's worth. And remarkably free of flaming considering the volatility of the subject. It was very thought provoking for me. :yup:

[D. Scarlatti]

-- Interacts pathologically with American system of elected prosectorial/judicial positions

Not sure I follow the "pathological" angle either,* but yes, there is something to be said of District Attorneys accountable to the bloodlust of their electorate.

On the other hand judges sit as triers of law, not of fact (although they can fuck that up of course, pace Lance Ito and his exclusion of the 911 calls made by Nicole Brown featuring a murderous O.J. clamoring around downstairs).

Juries decide questions of fact, and, as we saw today, they also decide whether to recommend death in the penalty phase of the bifurcated capital trials. So there are several checks and balances built into the system.

And the Supreme Court, which seems to be accepting more and more DP appeals, is comprised of life appointees.

* Probably some smart ass Canadian mocking our much vaunted criminal justice system ...

P.S. Jeffrey Dahmer, who used to live about six blocks from where I am, was not insane, that is, suffering from mental disease or defect, as we like to say. In fact he was anything but, but rather was 100% cognizant that his activities were socially unacceptable, and indeed took great pains to keep from getting detected. That was his downfall ultimately, that his rate of drugging and raping and killing and dismembering exceeded the rate at which he was able dispose of his victims.

Of course since Wisconsin doesn't have the DP, Jeff got life, but soon came in contact with, as The Stranglers would say, an icepick that made his ears burn (not without first accepting the salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ, incidentally).

[Clutch Munny]

-- Given high stakes, has paradoxical potential to make the justice system less willing to revisit cases

Hi, Clutch.

I'm assuming that you mean cases are less likely to be revisited after someone has been put to death already?

Nope. I'm talking about the state of information you have to present yourself as possessing, in order to claim justification in killing someone. Once you've put your word on the line as saying the evidence supports killing someone... how prepared can you be to admit, even to yourself, that you might have overlooked some stuff? That's why capital murder cases are the ones that extract the most solemn proclamations of absolute certainty from police and prosecutors. Whaddya going to say? Okay, fine. So maybe he wasn't quite as guilty as we thought. Sorry about trying to kill him?



-- Interacts pathologically with American system of elected prosectorial/judicial positions

I don't understand what you mean here. Can you explain it to me please?


You mean you can't understand my hyper-compressed and totally opaque ramblings? What's your problem?

I'm sorry about that. What I meant was that the availability of the death penalty seems, as a matter of fact in many American contexts, to make for electoral competitions in which the platforms are Fry 'Em versus Fry 'Em Hotter; in which granting even a single case of clemency is a recipe for portrayal as soft on crime during one's reelection campaign. So there's reason to expect a relentless top-down political pressure for more convictions, more capital sentences, fewer reversals on appeal, and fewer pardons or commutations.

[lady cop]

Naw... Not a big deal at all, lady. The important part is that this is the longest actual discussion thread on FF that has remained generally on topic. I think that's groovy as hell.
scary music here....the thread that ate FF..... :wmummy: :dracula:

[Desert Dweller]

Bit circuitous at times and rather verbose....but yes, I agree it's a good thread.

Godrey you shared some of your early history, thank you for the disclosure. I feel I have been misread/misunderstood. Bottom of the heap does not necessarily equate with mental illness. So for Lady Shea's benefit I repeat:
to me it means bottom of the pschological heirarchy. Earlier, had you bothered to read it Lady Shea you might have noticed the examples I gave concerning the town drunk and the paedophile.

It is all about unprocessed emotional material. Let's go step at a time.
You agree that denial exists yes?
Well off people are better able to cover up/hide their denial.
Most people are not consciously aware that they have denial; but the fact is most of us are in denial about something...doesn't always have to be big.
Now these emotions which are denied don't go away. Don't disappear.

I'm sure you've said or realised by now that: everyone is connected, yes?
That's true, we exist inside what we might call 'a field'. eg your town/city has a field and you are in it, therefore there are certain views/attitudes you will have as a result.
Inside the field the (denied) energy doesn't just go away; it lands on the weakest member of that field and he/she will be pressed to take it on.

Again an e.g. the witch-hunt is a classic form of projection of that which is denied onto another person. The group then feel justified to persecute that person.

When people deny for instance that they are homophobic, then that energy comes out (is projected) and somewhere in that town a gay will get beaten up. If every man recognised/processed/integrated his small degree of gayness then gay bashings and homophobia would cease to exist.

If everyone admitted their own violence, worked with it, integrated it, then there would be no violence in that field (town/city whatever)...each time you work on something difficult (that neighbour you are in conflict with) the field gets a bit lighter. Everytime you deny (and thus project that conflict) the field gets a little heavier.

Now I know this is a new way of looking at things. However, this is not just my opinion. Its held by a large body of contemporary social scientists and psychologists and gradually we are coming to see that projection is a much stronger force than anyone imagined. It seems to work with mathmatical accuracy and incidentall it gives us all a way forward. All those things one can't do anything about directly (war in Iraq...) one can contribure to by working on the immediate violence, dispute, conflict...in one's neighbourhood.

So to those who say this doesn't apply to Bundy (who must be a really bad dude) I say check again. Look at the field he came from .... there was violence and guns and revenge and power used over in that field. He was not independent of his field! No one is. That is the point you see.

Ok .... questions now and let's see if we can turn this long thread into some understanding.

[Clutch Munny]

Okay, here goes anyhoo.

-- No consequential benefits.
What qualifies as consequential? There are benefits...the saved cost in incarceration.

How much does it cost, all things considered, to put someone to death -- responsibly, as one might say? That is, factoring in all necessary appeals and so forth. In any case, I was speaking of the lack of any robustly measurable deterrent effect.

--Bloodies public's hands
No question, here. But it's not like they're clean. The public underwrites the military. Their entire purpose is to kill others for the safety and security of this nation.

It's surely not the entire purpose of the military. Even granting that it is one of their roles under certain circumstances hardly means that it's all the same whether the State premeditatively kills its own citizens while they pose no danger.

--Irreverisble
Yep. Which I thought was the whole idea. Excision of a social pathogen.

Makes mistakes irremediable.

I don't understand the paradox. I need more explanation on this one.

I expanded on this to luna. The harder you have to sell your certainty, the less inclined you are to admit, even to yourself, that your state of information was incomplete, corrigible or otherwise had a non-trivial chance of being misleading. Justifying killing someone judicially requires the hardest sell, though.

I think this is among the greatest worries. Capital punishment, and the need to be seen not to have implemented it too casually, motivates police and prosecutors to resist the reexamination of evidence. (As does plain old bureaucratic inertia, for that matter.)

--pathological reaction with political system
Wow. Now that's one I don't doubt and cannot adequately counter. I agree; and I don't like it. I don't like it at all.

I see you as saying is this: If the death penalty exists, it can be (and is, or has been) used to silence political opponents.

Well, that's a very serious worry. But I was more alluding to the political crack cocaine that is Tough On Crime, from mayors to (especially) DAs to judges.

[Petra]

Clutch, thanks for the explanation. I got it now. :)


Onthedole, your last post is (I think) pretty much in line with what Zoot and Godfather are saying. It squares well with my own ideas of prevention through working to create stronger, healthier communities. I think.



(Sorry I'm getting so vague - I blame hormones and stuff.)

[godfry n. glad]

Thanks, Clutch...

Both cogent points.

Hmmm....

godfry

[lady cop]

just as an aside, bundy did not come from violence and guns, revenge and power(unless you mean american society as a whole) ...simply the typical dysfunctional family. i, on the other hand, am in a field of violence and guns and 'power' and have no desire to strangle people. (well, not usually.) bundy blamed porn at the end when he made admissions, yep, porn made him do it. his crimes were psychosexual in nature. and the female i know who shot her 4 year old twins in the head, well paxil made her do it. not to mention the alcohol level in her blood which rivaled that of a typical german village in october. where is personal responsibilty? do we abdicate that and say the devil (mental defects) made us do EVERYTHING we do? i need to stop arresting people and simply pat them on their evil little heads and send them to the doctor. and lest anyone who hasn't read this mammoth thread thinks i am some nazi cop, i am not, and have another good story for you when i get around to it.

[Zoot]

Hands up who thinks they're a different kind of person than Ted Bundy.

[D. Scarlatti]

Capital punishment, and the need to be seen not to have implemented it too casually, motivates police and prosecutors to resist the reexamination of evidence.

This isn't cogent, this is contradictory. If there exists a requirement against casual implementation, then the evidence is going to be continually reeaxamined and subject to a higher level of scrutiny.

You could make a better case for this by pointing to the failures of overworked public defenders and underpaid court appointed attorneys than by impugning law enforcement.

[Desert Dweller]

just as an aside, bundy did not come from violence and guns, revenge and power(unless you mean american society as a whole) ...simply the typical dysfunctional family. i, on the other hand, am in a field of violence and guns and 'power' and have no desire to strangle people.
Lady cop please read that section of my post again.

No of course you don't strangle people...you have a healthy ego, a mature outlook and overall sound like an adjusted person. Let me ask you then to probe inside and find out what it is you are in denial about? I don't expect you to post the answer but do the excercise.

[lady cop]

just as an aside, bundy did not come from violence and guns, revenge and power(unless you mean american society as a whole) ...simply the typical dysfunctional family. i, on the other hand, am in a field of violence and guns and 'power' and have no desire to strangle people.
Lady cop please read that section of my post again.

No of course you don't strangle people...you have a healthy ego, a mature outlook and overall sound like an adjusted person. Let me ask you then to probe inside and find out what it is you are in denial about? I don't expect you to post the answer but do the excercise.
clearly i must have missed something...i hope you'll explain, really. i am open to what i may be in denial about. and thankyou for kind words.

[Clutch Munny]

Capital punishment, and the need to be seen not to have implemented it too casually, motivates police and prosecutors to resist the reexamination of evidence.

This isn't cogent, this is contradictory. If there exists a requirement against casual implementation, then the evidence is going to be continually reeaxamined and subject to a higher level of scrutiny.

Well, I did say it was paradoxical. It isn't truly a paradox, though -- just a mismatch between our sense of what should be the case, as well as the idealizations we project onto human reasoning in the abstract, and the actualities.

I am not impugning police and prosectors. Quite the opposite. My claim is that in the first instance they do the best job they can be expected to do, irrespective of whether the most severe possible penalty is life imprisonment or capital punishment. But even when they are doing their best, all things considered, people are people. Over the long run you are always going to have scattered cases of investigations badly comprised by confirmation biases, representativeness biases, political pressures and the like. So the question is how the system responds when subsequent evidence or procedural concerns turn up that may cast doubt on a capital conviction. Like I said -- by the time you talk yourself and the court and the press around to believing that your information and methods warrant killing someone, it's extraordinarily hard to reopen your mind.

As for overworked attorneys and underfunded public defenders -- yep, the fact that they are overworked and underfunded is itself a reflection of the political will to have certain systematic advantages accrue to the prosecution. Fund those public defenders better, after all, and they might just win more. So, yes, that is one aspect of what I've been discussing, one of the pathologies stemming from the interaction of local politics with the criminal justice system that make capital punishment so fraught a prospect.

[LadyShea]

Bottom of the heap does not necessarily equate with mental illness. So for Lady Shea's benefit I repeat:
to me it means bottom of the pschological heirarchy. Earlier, had you bothered to read it Lady Shea you might have noticed the examples I gave concerning the town drunk and the paedophile.

I read it. It makes no sense because I can't even determine if you are speaking literally or metaphorically. You are using fluffy language with no clear definitions. What the hell is a psychological hierarchy?

You agree that denial exists yes?
Denial of what?
Well off people are better able to cover up/hide their denial.
So we are back to socioeconomics or does "well off" mean something other than wealthy where you live?
Most people are not consciously aware that they have denial; but the fact is most of us are in denial about something...doesn't always have to be big.
What kinds of "somethings"?
Now these emotions which are denied don't go away. Don't disappear.
Okay, so you're saying we deny emotions? In what way?

I'm sure you've said or realised by now that: everyone is connected, yes?
"Connected"? More fluffy crystal waver sounding language. Connected how and by what?
That's true, we exist inside what we might call 'a field'. eg your town/city has a field and you are in it, therefore there are certain views/attitudes you will have as a result.
What kind of field?
Inside the field the (denied) energy doesn't just go away; it lands on the weakest member of that field and he/she will be pressed to take it on.
Are you speaking figuratively in that people project denied emotions onto others or literally that somehow these emotions float into this filed and some kind of negative energy actually lands on people?
Again an e.g. the witch-hunt is a classic form of projection of that which is denied onto another person. The group then feel justified to persecute that person.
Hmm, I don't read that in the psychology of witch hunts at all.

When people deny for instance that they are homophobic, then that energy comes out (is projected) and somewhere in that town a gay will get beaten up. If every man recognised/processed/integrated his small degree of gayness then gay bashings and homophobia would cease to exist.
Um, evidence?

If everyone admitted their own violence, worked with it, integrated it, then there would be no violence in that field (town/city whatever)...each time you work on something difficult (that neighbour you are in conflict with) the field gets a bit lighter. Everytime you deny (and thus project that conflict) the field gets a little heavier.
Again I ask, are you speaking literally or figuratively, this sounds like more new age astrohooey.

Now I know this is a new way of looking at things. However, this is not just my opinion. Its held by a large body of contemporary social scientists and psychologists and gradually we are coming to see that projection is a much stronger force than anyone imagined.
Citations please so I can read it from some experts? I am really having a difficult time following you.
It seems to work with mathmatical accuracy and incidentall it gives us all a way forward.
Evidence?
All those things one can't do anything about directly (war in Iraq...) one can contribure to by working on the immediate violence, dispute, conflict...in one's neighbourhood.
This I can kinda understand.

So to those who say this doesn't apply to Bundy (who must be a really bad dude) I say check again. Look at the field he came from .... there was violence and guns and revenge and power used over in that field.
There is no indication of that. He was a sociopath. He had no empathy.

He was not independent of his field! No one is. That is the point you see.
No, I don't see.

Ok .... questions now and let's see if we can turn this long thread into some understanding.
I would like that, but really, I do not understand you at all. Perhaps someone can sorta translate for me.

[viscousmemories]

It is all about unprocessed emotional material. Let's go step at a time.
You agree that denial exists yes?
Well off people are better able to cover up/hide their denial.
Most people are not consciously aware that they have denial; but the fact is most of us are in denial about something...doesn't always have to be big.
Now these emotions which are denied don't go away. Don't disappear.
I don't believe that repressed emotions 'exist' in any meaningful sense of the word, so I disagree with your implication that they "have to go somewhere". I think denial is simply failing to consciously experience a neurological impulse.

I'm sure you've said or realised by now that: everyone is connected, yes?
That's true, we exist inside what we might call 'a field'. eg your town/city has a field and you are in it, therefore there are certain views/attitudes you will have as a result.
Inside the field the (denied) energy doesn't just go away; it lands on the weakest member of that field and he/she will be pressed to take it on.
No, I don't believe that everyone is connected in any relevant way. I believe that emotions are neurological impulses confined to an individual brain. Again, I don't believe that emotions exist as energy that has to go somewhere.

Now I know this is a new way of looking at things. However, this is not just my opinion. Its held by a large body of contemporary social scientists and psychologists and gradually we are coming to see that projection is a much stronger force than anyone imagined.
Can you cite any sources for this claim? I'm familiar with the concept of projection, but I am unaware of any movement toward viewing it as a particularly powerful or important force in social dynamics. Nor do I find your insinuation that all of us are in denial about something and projecting those emotions on others particularly compelling.

[LadyShea]

(well, not usually.) bundy blamed porn at the end when he made admissions, yep, porn made him do it. his crimes were psychosexual in nature.

That came up when he was talking to Dobson, right? I think he was just fucking with him. Manson fucks with anyone who will listen to him. Manipulation is a big thing with sociopaths.

[Desert Dweller]

Lady Shea wrote No, I don't see.
No you don't. I find you argumentative and unwilling to try to take on a new way of seeing a social dynamic.

Therefore I do not wish to respond to you. Communication is two way...some effort must also be made to listen and not be merely pedantic and ask teacher type what is your evidence questions. If you can't admit that denial exists then there's nowhere to go.

Lady cop....clearly i must have missed something...i hope you'll explain, really. It's nopt that I said this Bundy person came from a home of guns and violence...rather that these forces existed in the atmosphere that he grew up in. He didn't invent them. This violence and use of guns was there in his society.

As far as what you may be in denial about...it's notfor public viewing I don't think. The point here is that because we deny it we are not conscious of it as a part of us (thus we project it onto other people as it has to belong somewhere). So as a clue find a situation or person who really pisses you off...follow that inside and you'll find something you are not aware of (ie deny) in yourself. BTW we all do it...we all have something we project out there onto other because we can't own it in ourselves. Good luck with the exercise... it's self revealing and very healthy.

[LadyShea]

Lady Shea wrote No, I don't see.
No you don't. I find you argumentative and unwilling to try to take on a new way of seeing a social dynamic.

Therefore I do not wish to respond to you. Communication is two way...some effort must also be made to listen and not be merely pedantic and ask teacher type what is your evidence questions.

I asked a lot of questions in my response as a way to try to understand and get you to clarify. And it is normal to ask for evidence when dealing with assertions such as you made. It is not pedantic as I didn't try to "teach" you anything; I asked you to provide any kind of support or basis for your opinions. Why should I "take on" a new way of seeing things based on your unclear and unsupported statements?

If you can't admit that denial exists then there's nowhere to go.I asked you to define and explain what you meant by denial.

This violence and use of guns was there in his society.

Bundy didn't use guns.

[lady cop]

hello LadyShea...i recall it was with tanner ( and dobson too) , our erstwhile DA who went and held hands with teddy and prayed over him...gag me. and as for my denial , or not, i have no problem with airing it here. and what pisses me off is scumsucking murdering shitweasels. pretty straightforward that. doesn't exactly reveal my innermost child.

[LadyShea]

hello LadyShea...i recall it was with tanner, our erstwhile DA who went and held hands with teddy and prayed over him...gag me.

Well, either way, once he started calling in the preacher types he started yammering about porn...probably a last ditch effort to save his own ass. I still think it was bullshit fucking with people because he craved the notoriety.

[lady cop]

hello LadyShea...i recall it was with tanner, our erstwhile DA who went and held hands with teddy and prayed over him...gag me.

Well, either way, once he started calling in the preacher types he started yammering about porn...probably a last ditch effort to save his own ass. I still think it was bullshit fucking with people because he craved the notoriety.
big old brave and "intelligent" ( myth) ("bundy is a one-night-stand") ted was blubbering like a baby when old sparky was in his immediate future..he begged them to let him tell where the bodies were in exchange for keeping him alive.and he went on and on about how porn made him do it. no dice. he was dragged kicking and screaming to the chair. ask me if i have a problem with that. he knew exactly what he was doing for years.

[Desert Dweller]

Originally Posted by onthedole
In this post on page 8 Godfre there is a button which says:
Warning: Spoiler.

Can you tell me what this means?

[Desert Dweller]

i have no problem with airing it here. and what pisses me off is scumsucking murdering shitweasels. pretty straightforward that. doesn't exactly reveal my innermost child.

Rather superficial and I sense a put down in the innermost child comment. I

[lady cop]

i have no problem with airing it here. and what pisses me off is scumsucking murdering shitweasels. pretty straightforward that. doesn't exactly reveal my innermost child.

Rather superficial and I sense a put down in the innermost child comment. I
no putdown intended...i have a way about me that i forget people don't know.kind of a sardonic ( and self-deprecating) persona. it's not meant as a putdown at all and i would welcome insight. but note...my comments about murdering shitweasels is NOT superficial. i know them

[Desert Dweller]

Fair enought Lady Cop.

Vicscous and L.Shea might like to research Mindel .Arnold
Main ref might be "Sitting In The Fire: TRansformation of Large Groups using Diversity and Conflict"
Either Shambala Press or Lao Tsu Press, can''t recall the late 1990s year.
Also see: Process Oriented Psychology (online) and other works of Mindell...

[Dingfod]

I have the ability to follow some pretty strange lines of thinking and I'm following the some of the ones expressed here think they are pretty far out there, paranormal even. Psychological "fields"? Denied emotions have to go somewhere? Denial leads to crime? To use Penn & Teller's line, "Bullshit!" Those here that are disagreeing with you don't have to prove you wrong, you have to prove you're right because you are the one making the claims. I'll let Carl Sagan say it for me "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." You are making some rather extraordinary claims, you really ought to choke up with the extraordinary evidence. Hell, I'd settle for ordinary evidence. Don't tell me I don't get it, because I do get it, I disagree, but I do get what you are saying.

I think there is a reasonable argument that people that kill other people are in fact insane, at least by the definition of lacking inhibitions with regard to taking human life, conscience, if you will. That doesn't change the need to separate them from society, perhaps permanently. I'm against the death penalty only because of the not 100% surety factor; too many have been found to be innocent of the charges after the fact now, some after they were executed. In a civil society, that is not acceptable. Our U.S. criminal justice system is, or rather, should be based on that it is better to let some of the guilty slip through the cracks and go free rather than punishing the innocent. That applies to murder as well. In my opinion, there are far too many people that think the inverse, that it is better for a few innocent people to fry to make sure all the guilty are punished.

Punishment is almost all that prisons are about, rehabilitation is a joke. The only inmates that get rehabilitated are the ones that want to be rehabilitated. The recidivism rate among released inmates in the U.S. is tragic, about 50% are convicted on new offenses within 5 or 6 years after release and the total returned to prison closer to 70% when you include parole violations. Using the logic that the criminal cannot control what they want, how are you supposed to rehabilitate those that don't want to be rehabilitated? I'm not sure it is possible regardless of whether they can control what they want or not.

Marine found guilty of murdering a wounded teenage Iraqi was sentenced to three years inprisonment and a dishonorable discharge. Nice to know that's how little we value the little brown people's lives.

[wade-w]

I did a search on both Shambala Press and Lao Tsu Press. The Lao Tsu press search returned nothing related to a publishing house, and the Shambala Press returned no web site, but there were several titles listed as published by Shambala Press. All were Buddhist or new age related titles. There was also a shambhala press that did have a web site. They also specialize in new age type books.

I also looked at Arnold Mindel. From what I could tell from excerpts of his work I found online, he is a typical crystal waver.

If this is anything to go by, I think you will need to come up with something solid before you are going to convince many here that there is anything at all behind your theory, and I reject out of hand your claim that what you said in your post is anything like mainstream in any reputable social science circles.

[Dingfod]

I also looked at Arnold Mindel. From what I could tell from excerpts of his work I found online, he is a typical crystal waver.Mindell is so out on the fringe that nobody has bothered to do a critical review of his work, at least that I can find using Google. The only editorial reviews of Mindell's work I could find at Amazon.com were from fellow new-age psychobabblers. To me there isn't very much said pro or con about a book that was published in 1995, well into the internet age (http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=97664&p=IROL-NewsText&t=Regular&id=643036&).

[livius drusus]

Originally Posted by onthedole
In this post on page 8 Godfre there is a button which says:
Warning: Spoiler.

Can you tell me what this means?

It's a customized vB code we created for hiding plot revelations during discussions of movies but which has developed into a multifunctional "click here to see something special" device. If you click on the button, you will see what godfry was saying.

Here's (http://www.freethought-forum.com/forum/misc.php?do=bbcode#spoiler) an explanation of how to use the spoiler tags.

[LadyShea]

Thanks for the research wade-w!

Onthedole, I seriously looked into new age for many years and recognize some of the terms and language you are using. I couldn't get any of the theories presented to me to mesh with reality and dropped the whole line of thinking in favor of science. I ask for evidence because that's what lacking in those circles, it is not that I lack an open mind.

[Zoot]

I'll add another thing.

Be emotional. Fine. But don't found the justice system on emotional superstitious irrationality.

[Desert Dweller]

Viscous wrote I believe that emotions are neurological impulses confined to an individual brain. Again, I don't believe that emotions exist as energy that has to go somewhere.
Ok let's go with that for a moment. Can you then explain to me the situation described by the expression: you could have cut the atmosphere with a knife.

Clearly the one who could have done the cutting is sensing something in that room/ group of people....what is s/he experieinceing?

Also can you explain the phenomena of psychological projection.

[Desert Dweller]

From what I could tell from excerpts of his work I found online, he is a typical crystal waver. I'd like to learn of somthing yo saw which you classified as crystal waver.

[Clutch Munny]

Viscous wrote I believe that emotions are neurological impulses confined to an individual brain. Again, I don't believe that emotions exist as energy that has to go somewhere.
Ok let's go with that for a moment. Can you then explain to me the situation described by the expression: you could have cut the atmosphere with a knife.

One in which two or more people behave in ways that indirectly indicate their discomfort, tension or anxiety.

I think it's a turn of phrase. People also say "over the moon", but I don't think that signifies a fundamentally lunar-orbital character to happiness.


Also can you explain the phenomena of psychological projection.
Confusing one's own psychological properties for those of other people. Having one's own state of mind co-determine the model one constructs of others' states of mind.

Hey, this answerin' questions bid'ness is fun!

[Zoot]

Yeah, when you "sense" tension in the room, you're doing it with your eyes and ears. Body language, tones of voice. It can be subtle, it can be subconscious, but it's not psychic. You sure as hell can't "sense" it from the next room.

[wade-w]

From what I could tell from excerpts of his work I found online, he is a typical crystal waver. I'd like to learn of somthing yo saw which you classified as crystal waver.

The Ally's Secret (http://www.sonic.net/%7Ebillkirn/allys_se.html)

'Nuff said.

[D. Scarlatti]

Crystals ... wha? I'm lost.

[lady cop]

i seem to be lost or disoriented...is this the death penalty thread? here's another one of my interminable stories...there was a really good cop. SWAT and all that, and a candidate for sheriff in his county. he and a couple others were robbing drug dealers. so one night all hell broke loose and someone got killed. there was a three-year federal investigation, and this guy was indicted and tried for first-degree murder. my sheriff held him for three years because his county could not hold a cop of their venue. this was HUGE news around here, and even nationally. i got to know and like this guy very well. he was smart, a cop, polite, respectful, affectionate. when he was found guilty, ok, i talked with him about it.in confidence i will hold forever. then we had to wait 3 days for jury to recommend life or death. i became very attached to him and was worried and upset. this was strictly verboten. this day peterson verdict came in i received a card from him saying " i miss you so so so much". it affected me a great deal. i have had cards from him before, and i cannot answer.will not answer. so here i am a hard-ass cop and feel really badly for a con. i cannot reconcile it. he is a cop gone bad. so why do i care? i don't think he killed the guy. M.E. said there were no ligature marks when the accusation was strangulation. i get very confused over my feelings. i talked to shaguar about this today, he said it's because i got to know him as a person. he also said this is a bad cop and i need to let it go. am i in the wrong job? i don't think so, because i LIKE to bust assholes. i mean i really like it.

[Desert Dweller]

Yes Lady Cop you indeed have a painful conflict of interest. The only way you can resolve it (IMO) is to choose sides. Become human and give up copping or stay copping and realise it is your personal connection which was your mistake. With the latter option you may experience a very slow and graduall loss of the ability to feel at all and then you'll be ready for a very senior position with high pay, high status and lots of power. Enjoy.

To the 'scientism' crew: Actually I envy your position. It's the classic and current dominant paradigm so very safe socially. It's touted as black and white so you can hold and express such strong and dismissive opinions. In short if it aint science then it aint worth anything.

I'm not sure how you continually convice yourselves to ignore the glaring holes that we of the new paradigm and slowly filling; but your position is powerful and yes, it is difficult to debate with; you are really another form of fundie who admits no talk of any 'crystal waving'.

Sadly for you we human being continue to refuse to be predictable and damn it we are also complex. So while you paradigm was marvellous for the industrial/machine age it is hopelessly out of it's depth when it comes to commenting about human behaviour. You simply have no basis; and forget all those wonderful quantitative statistics...as recent history has aptly demonstrated, they don't help at solving social problems.

Also there are a couple of other matters you continually remain in denial about. The first is the preservation of objectivity when it is clear to all others that there is no such beast.
Secondly researchers are themselves active participants in the situation researched yet you refuse to study this.
Thirdly, when dealing with people the framework and variables change in the course of the study and you cannot deal with this at all.
Finally, an important way of attesting social knowledge is to feed it back to the group which was researched and see how this feed back influences further action.

In the words of Paul Feyerbend: Science has become as oppressive as the Church was in medieval time.
So you may dismiss new ideas out of hand, ignoring the evidence because it's not produced in one of your elite journals, or crituqued by on of your mates, but in the end you will have to live with the fact that it is not you trying to forumulate new ways of being that help us as a species, you just keep doing the same old thing; adding a new little feature now and again to convince everyone you're actuall doing something.

The theory proposed earlier stands up to empirical reconstruction; you just can't be bothered to get out of your comfort zone to try it out.

And LP I take pains to avoid new age....if that's where you were I'm pleased your out but really falling back into the dominant paradigm is not progress.

[LadyShea]

Crystals ... wha? I'm lost.

Crystal waver is slang for new ager. Basically a catch all phrase for all kinds or psuedoscience types and snake oil salesmen.

[LadyShea]

So you may dismiss new ideas out of hand, ignoring the evidence

onthedole, I, for one, and nobody else that I know of here dismisses anything out of hand and you haven't presented any evidence to ignore.

Requesting citations, evidence, and definitions is not dogmatic especially after you made strong assertions....how else do you expect to convince people when you can't even tell them a book to read or a study to review or even discuss how you came to your opinions coherently? It isn't our fault that you can't clearly explain or support your theories.

And you are obviously not avoiding new age when the one author you mentioned writes about dream bodies.

[Zoot]

Yes Lady Cop you indeed have a painful conflict of interest. The only way you can resolve it (IMO) is to choose sides. Become human and give up copping or stay copping and realise it is your personal connection which was your mistake.

I disagree. I don't think it was a mistake, and I don't think it makes her a bad cop. I think having some amount of empathy with other human beings is a requisite for being a good cop, not a hindrance. And besides, Lady Cop likes busting assholes. Just turns out she didn't think this guy was an asshole. No conflict.

[viscousmemories]

To the 'scientism' crew: Actually I envy your position. It's the classic and current dominant paradigm so very safe socially. It's touted as black and white so you can hold and express such strong and dismissive opinions. In short if it aint science then it aint worth anything.
Speaking for myself, I don't believe social science is black and white, nor am I dismissing your theory a priori because it isn't scientific. However I can not give equal weight to every theory someone presents because there are far too many and I have limited time, so I have to pick and choose what theories I spend any time investigating.

As such, when someone posits a theory that flies in the face of the bulk of what I've learned throughout my life... well as someone quoted from Carl Sagan earlier: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Perhaps you should start another thread wherein you argue the merits of body psychotherapy.

By the way you claimed support for your theory from "a large body of contemporary social scientists and psychologists". Why did you claim the support of a large body of scientists if you reject scientific scrutiny?

[Desert Dweller]

So much to respond to:
a) I don't reject scientific scruitiny...but it must be about a material matter and not about human behaviour. I thank science for my motor car but not for teaching me anything about how to behave to further the human project.

b) The business about dreaming bodies and the double. The author makes it clear at the outset he is discussing shamanism and so his comments are to be taken from with that frame of refrence.

c) No one claimed anything about psychic (Zoot I think assumed this one)

d) social science almost by definition cannot be black and white. the criteria to make assessment is far different form that of mechanical science.

e) Requesting citations, evidence, and definitions Yes, I sympathise... this is the way it is done in science. So how are we ever to gain a useful understanding of anyting which may assist humans if we are tied to that system? Simply we can't. That paradigm defines what may and what may not occur. So we are forced to offer things for people to 'try out' and see how it works. I wish there was a body of evidence for you. I wish that when the spinning jenny was invented there was a brochure for people to explain it all. That's the nature of new discovery...it is outside the present paradigm. I only wish I could share a room and some time with you so you might experience the actuality of these matters.

Before I attempt to pull all this back into thread I'd just like to throw in that Lady Cop is upsetting to me because she wants and likes to bust 'arsholes' .
I would feel much better of one of you explained to her what a 'value judgement' is;
or how her criteria of what makes an arshole is subject to her personal expereince and upbringing. There are times when perfectly good people may.
'appear' that way due to circumstances.

We're investigating capital punishment and we're trying to decide whether bad people are really bad (off with their heads) or if their behaviour may be circumstantial. Now moving away from the extreme cases (Bundy) I have discovered that not only does the USA have more prisoners/capita than anywhere else but that a very large % of these prisoners are there for drug related crimes.
How can anyone suggest capital punishment is not barbaric when there are so many intermediate cases? Not every murderer is a Bundy.

And as far as keeping a person on death row for extended periods I think this just shows the calousness of the system. The extreme cases are a minority...get rid of the petty criminals in the system and lock up for life the extreme cases. They can remain productive for society even if it's in the laudry, or the metal room making number plates.

[Dingfod]

When James Hargreaves invented the spinning jenny he did so by first observing the spinning wheel that continued to turn after it was knocked over by his daughter. This gave him the idea of powering multiple spindles off one wheel. Then he built one, then no doubt, tested it before telling others. But, I'm sure he didn't stop at telling them of his idea, he showed them a working model, evidence that it worked. That's all I'm asking for, show me a working model.

Back on topic:
The death penalty may be the more humane choice for some inmates with life sentences. I know I wouldn't deal with being confined to a cell for the rest of my life, I like the open spaces too much. Give me liberty or give me death, or so said Patrick Henry in a completely different context.

As for busting assholes, I'm glad we've got folks like ladycop out there to maintain order and put away the antisocial criminals. BTW, busting means arresting and the assholes are the scum of the earth that most criminal-types are. And if she derives some degree of satisfaction in arresting scum, then she'll probably keep doing it and that's a good thing. I just hope one of them doesn't hurt her someday.

[Shaguar]

There appears to be some divergence form the original thread but I have to have a go here. There has been a lot of lofty, esoteric, and pseudo intellectual theories put up here.

So back in the real world, we have a structured society that has rules for the greater good, people will always break these rules, the position is clear to those people, if you break the rules you will be punished.

If you commit the ultimate crime you may have to pay the ultimate price.

I am not surprised that lady Cop refers to a large number of her clients in the way she does, I would expect by the time you have had the same person in 3 of 4 times in ayear for the same offences you mest start to get a little miffed. BTW I have always found in the most part that Law Enforcemnt offivcers treat most offenders very even handedly, much more so than I could. I am sure that when you work in this environment all the time it must affect your outlook, but let's face it however much people may moan about the cops who do they call when there is some prowler outside their house at 2.00am.

We have the rules therefore someone needs to enforce them, that is Law Enforcement. I would love to live in a completely free-thinking and free-acting society where we could all act as we like, there has never been and never will be such a society, the reason is because it has never worked.

[Dingfod]

I would love to live in a completely free-thinking and free-acting society where we could all act as we like, there has never been and never will be such a society, the reason is because it has never worked.The idealism involved here could be compared to the idealistic world of Libertarians. It hasn't really been tried and probably won't be in any real sense, making it impossible to test and repeat.

[Petra]

Become human and give up copping ...

These few words piss me off.

I have police family and they are human. I have witnessed my father sit in the dark with a bottle of whiskey crying because of the sheer brutality of a crime scene. That's human.

I have been arrested a couple of times, and not really arrested but taken downtown a few times more. Each time I was treated with courtesy and respect. They didn't make me feel inhuman and they weren't inhuman to me.

I have called the police a couple of times when I've heard a woman scream down the street at night. They were responsive and concerned. Just like humans.

Yeah, it was annoying getting busted - they rained on my parade, dammit. But they were human.

Some police are fascist cunts. Some non-police are fascist cunts. Most are not.



[/wee off-topic rant]

[Desert Dweller]

Each time I was treated with courtesy and respect.
Having grown up not too far from where you are Lunachick I can recall that the NZ police were the best I've ever come across anywhere.
With that experience behind me (my sister still works at the Auckland HQ...has done for decades and my neice is a detective) I must report that it is not the same in Australia. NSW was founded as a prison colony and sometimes I think the police have failed to enter modern times. They are not anyone I would ever assist and they are not anyone I have ever called. For me it's a line from Bob Dylan...."the cops don't need you and man, you'd better expect the same".

At least we don't have the death penalty, did away with that after 1965 when the last hanging occurred and after the event it was discovered that the guy was innocent! It's been a much better place since and murder rates did not go up as a result of doing away with that legislation of barbarity.

I don't think I would like to be a coloured person or latino in the poor part of town in the USA when the cops are around....maybe I've seen too many movies ... but it's a persistent image...
I'm sure lady cop is not like this but she spelled out a clear dilemma in her own words and regardless of what's been said since I can see her problem and her conflict.

[Petra]

I haven't been arrested in Oz (did a runner before they could talk to me - helicopter raid over Mullumbimby), but have been arrested in London, Guernsey, Holland and NZ.

This was all long ago in my misspent youth. Cop kid gone wild. :D
But I'm wiser now. Thankfully.


Anyway, I'm getting off topic a bit here. Sorry 'bout that.

It is a good thread, and I'm reading it. I don't have much to say at the moment though - feeling too vague.

Found this article though: Gradual Shift Seen in U.S. View of Death Penalty (http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1896&u=/nm/20041214/us_nm/crime_deathpenalty_dc_2&printer=1)

[Desert Dweller]

Gradual Shift Seen in U.S. View of Death Penalty
Not before time!

[Clutch Munny]

To the 'scientism' crew:

You don't appear to understand what this word means.

Actually I envy your position. It's the classic and current dominant paradigm so very safe socially. It's touted as black and white so you can hold and express such strong and dismissive opinions. In short if it aint science then it aint worth anything.

There's exactly zero reason to project this position on anyone in this thread, from what I've seen. Your failure to make your claims believable -- or to even seriously attempt this -- is nobody else's fault.

I'm not sure how you continually convice yourselves to ignore the glaring holes that we of the new paradigm and slowly filling; but your position is powerful and yes, it is difficult to debate with; you are really another form of fundie who admits no talk of any 'crystal waving'.

Empty rhetoric, and again applying to nobody here.

Sadly for you we human being continue to refuse to be predictable and damn it we are also complex.

Well, if I ever meet anyone who denies that humans are complex, I'll tell them, from you, that they're wrong.

As for predictability, in large measure humans are highly predictable. You'd never drive a car if you thought otherwise.

So while you paradigm was marvellous for the industrial/machine age it is hopelessly out of it's depth when it comes to commenting about human behaviour.

Which "paradigm" would this be? The "if you make a claim, you should be prepared to give some reason for it" paradigm is the only one I've seen in use so far. I had no idea that it was defunct for matters of human explanation!

For instance, yesterday I said to one of my colleagues that another one of our colleagues doesn't like rap music. He asked me why I said that.

If only I'd known to reply, "I'm talking about another human being here. You can't ask me why I say that! Asking for reasons and justifications for my claims? I mean... your paradigm was marvellous for the industrial/machine age, Dave, but it is hopelessly out of it's depth when it comes to commenting about human behaviour."

Misguided as I am, what I replied was, "He told me yesterday. Said his kids listen to it all the time and it drives him bonkers."

The theory proposed earlier stands up to empirical reconstruction

This would be the "poison the well then take a big drink" maneuver? After all your ill-informed and entirely irrelevant carry-on about science, you announce yet again that your "theory" is empirically supportable. Except the empirical support is impossible to articulate.

Let me say, incidentally, that in my view folks here have been pretty gentle with you, given your propensity for first producing unargued assertions, and then accusing your interlocutors of laziness or bias when they ask for some reasoning.

[LadyShea]

So much to respond to:
a) I don't reject scientific scruitiny...but it must be about a material matter and not about human behaviour. I thank science for my motor car but not for teaching me anything about how to behave to further the human project.
Human behavior stems from the brain, so medical science has much to teach us.

b) The business about dreaming bodies and the double. The author makes it clear at the outset he is discussing shamanism and so his comments are to be taken from with that frame of refrence.
Well, maybe in that article, but Mindell also wrote a whole book, Working on Yourself Alone: Inner Dreambody Work.

c) No one claimed anything about psychic (Zoot I think assumed this one)
Then please explain your energy comments. Were they literal or figurative? Do you believe that people's thoughts and emotions exist materially and can be felt by others through means other than empathy and/or reading facial expression, tone, and body language? By what mechanism can projected thoughts "settle" on unknowing bottom of the heap people if not "psychically"?

d) social science almost by definition cannot be black and white. the criteria to make assessment is far different form that of mechanical science. Nobody made this claim. All I asked for was some source besides you.

e) Requesting citations, evidence, and definitions Yes, I sympathise... this is the way it is done in science. So how are we ever to gain a useful understanding of anyting which may assist humans if we are tied to that system? Simply we can't. That paradigm defines what may and what may not occur. So we are forced to offer things for people to 'try out' and see how it works. I wish there was a body of evidence for you. I wish that when the spinning jenny was invented there was a brochure for people to explain it all. That's the nature of new discovery...it is outside the present paradigm. I only wish I could share a room and some time with you so you might experience the actuality of these matters.
Well, if it is actual, then everyone should be able to experience it anywhere. Why would we need to be in the same room?

Before I attempt to pull all this back into thread I'd just like to throw in that Lady Cop is upsetting to me because she wants and likes to bust 'arsholes' .
I would feel much better of one of you explained to her what a 'value judgement' is; or how her criteria of what makes an arshole is subject to her personal expereince and upbringing. There are times when perfectly good people may. 'appear' that way due to circumstances.
If LadyCop comes into contact with them, they are probably committing a crime, which entails a bit more than just the "appearance" of assholishness.

We're investigating capital punishment and we're trying to decide whether bad people are really bad (off with their heads) or if their behaviour may be circumstantial. Now moving away from the extreme cases (Bundy) I have discovered that not only does the USA have more prisoners/capita than anywhere else but that a very large % of these prisoners are there for drug related crimes.
How can anyone suggest capital punishment is not barbaric when there are so many intermediate cases? Not every murderer is a Bundy.
Most prisoners in the US are not on death row. Each state has specifc aggravators for capital cases, one or more of which must be present for the death penalty to even be sought. Not all murderers qualify, in fact most do not and the death penalty isn't even in play.

And I agree that nonviolent criminals, such as the majority of drug cases, should not be incarcerated...but I fail to see what those cases have to do with capital murder.

And as far as keeping a person on death row for extended periods I think this just shows the calousness of the system. The extreme cases are a minority...get rid of the petty criminals in the system and lock up for life the extreme cases. They can remain productive for society even if it's in the laudry, or the metal room making number plates.
Many criminals are so violent they can't be allowed interaction with the rest of the population. Some have committed crimes so heinous they are in danger from the other prisoners and so must be kept away from others for their own protection. Most prisoners do perform some kind of work, but what if they are so antisocial they simply refuse?