No Death Penalty. What Is Your Position?

[Town Heretic]

So, TH, what IS the gold standard?

That's not even the question, JR. He's trying to rest an argument on a thing that's not itself even essential to the contest. I'm not debating whether it is cruel and unusual, it's established as a legal process. My objection isn't on that point, but on the unintended and avoidable taking of innocent life.

How about God Himself and His word?

Not in a secular society or its laws. I don't want any church, mosque, or synagogue in charge of that. History tells us that it goes badly for everyone outside of the dominant group when that happens. Christian killing Christian over exegesis, Jew and Muslim, Christian and Muslim, and on and on.

God said to put murderers to death to protect the innocent, and that it was just as wrong to let a guilty man go free as it is to kill an innocent man.

We aren't talking about letting a guilty man go free though.

Your suggestions are biased

Every idea is biased, every perspective. The question is, biased in what way or toward what particular? In my case, the bias is a firm belief that it is wrong to take innocent life, and wrong to risk it absent necessity.

in that they try to protect the innocent more than they punish the guilty, which puts you in the wrong.

That's not true, JR and saying it isn't offering an argument of parts that establishes it, no matter how right you believe you are to say it.

Now do that, make an offer of proof and we'll have something to look at and discuss.

See? There you go again. Trying to protect the innocent more than you try to punish the guilty.

No, I'm not. Which is why you can't and don't say how that's happening, only declare it to be happening. I can't debate how you feel, can't break that feeling into parts and demonstrate its insufficiency, but if you try reason I'm your huckleberry. I'm more than ready and interested in that conversation.

Those two things need to be BALANCED. Your suggestions do not achieve that balance.

Either you protect the innocent or you do not. If you say, "Well, we'll probably kill some innocent people, but more people will be safer for it," you at best proffer an ends justify the means argument. And before you even have that much you'll have to establish, empirically, that you're assertion is demonstrably correct.

Anytime you're ready to make that effort I'll be happy to meet it.

 

[Stripe]

While I fully support the DP, the discussion of error-free verdicts should be a mandatory in DP cases.

The best way to do this is to radically overhaul the "justice" system.

As it stands, lawyers are required to prosecute or defend without consideration of guilt. And this system is respected?

 

[Stripe]

accidental murder

There's no such thing, of course.

 

[JudgeRightly]

That still leaves the problem of the reliability of the two or three witnesses.

If by "witnesses" you only mean "eyewitnesses," then you're already limiting the pool of evidence more than God did.

A security camera and the recorded footage is a pretty reliable witness.

 

[Right Divider]

Eye witnesses are notoriously unreliable. I've seen illustrations of that in interviewing and deposing multiple witnesses to a singular event. It's like a game of telephone in the macro.

They were the best you could get before forensic evidence, which itself isn't perfect, but resting on that or excluding prosecution in the absence of that would be a worse idea given what we can do today. In fact, we've had cases without witnesses solved by forensics and murderers identified and convicted by that very thing.

Forensic evidence can also be highly problematic, especially in the hands of those that have ambitions to find guilty convictions.

I don't have numbers, but I would believe that the cases of wrongful guilt based on faulty or tampered forensic evidence far outnumber those based on faulty eye witnesses.

 

[ok doser]

EXAMPLE: The Central Park Five. A horrendous verdict based on a shady investigation and malicious prosecution.

The prosecutor and the judge should have been executed

 

[Right Divider]

If by "witnesses" you only mean "eyewitnesses," then you're already limiting the pool of evidence more than God did.

A security camera and the recorded footage is a pretty reliable witness.

• They are not mentioned in scripture.
• Unless they are fake.
• Unless they require "interpretation".

These days, faked evidence is becoming a real problem. Even videos can be faked to a high degree with modern computer technology.

 

[Stripe]

• They are not mentioned in scripture.
• Unless they are fake.
• Unless they require "interpretation".

These days, faked evidence is becoming a real problem. Even videos can be faked to a high degree with modern computer technology.

It's almost impossible to tamper with a video without leaving obvious traces.

https://www.youtube.com/user/CaptainDisillusion

 

[JudgeRightly]

• They are not mentioned in scripture.

• 
  
  There are a lot of things that aren't mentioned in scripture that we have today. Yet the term "witness" is not used in the Bible ONLY for "eyewitnesses", but also for inanimate objects.
  
  

  [*]Unless they are fake.

  
  ?
  
  

  [*]Unless they require "interpretation".

  
  What do you mean by that?
  
  Security footage is pretty straightforward...
  

These days, faked evidence is becoming a real problem. Even videos can be faked to a high degree with modern computer technology.

Sure, but is your argument then that we should therefore not use it at all as a witness against a criminal?

The standard is two or three, not just one.

Corroborating evidence would show that the footage is either real or fake.

And remember, it would be the duty of the judge and those under him to be sure to examine everything and everyone thoroughly.

 

[Right Divider]

It's almost impossible to tamper with a video without leaving obvious traces.

https://www.youtube.com/user/CaptainDisillusion

And yet sometimes it gets by if nobody catches it.

 

[Stripe]

And yet sometimes it gets by if nobody catches it.

If it's a meme on Facebook, perhaps. In a trial situation, these things should be examined as a matter of course, which would swiftly spot manipulation.

 

[Right Divider]

If it's a meme on Facebook, perhaps. In a trial situation, these things should be examined as a matter of course, which would swiftly spot manipulation.

One would certainly hope so.

I'm simply saying that all evidence needs to be examined extremely carefully if the execution of the guilty is to be the end result.

 

[TrumpTrainCA]

You say the death penalty is an issue that can be legitimately debated and then go on to state this:



There is ALWAYS a necessary discussion when it comes to the criminal justice system and protecting the rights and lives of the innocent.

Lives of the of the innocent? That is Rich coming from a supporter of infanticide

 

[Town Heretic]

Forensic evidence can also be highly problematic, especially in the hands of those that have ambitions to find guilty convictions.

As with all science that can be checked and that's why we have a system of appeals. It's relatively easy to safeguard the process and ensure accurate science. You can't really do much about people's filters and memory though.

I don't have numbers, but I would believe that the cases of wrongful guilt based on faulty or tampered forensic evidence far outnumber those based on faulty eye witnesses.

I'd argue it runs contrary to a consideration of how long we've had both. The numbers should be dramatically one sided against witnesses given what we know. Even if half the forensic science was willfully muddled.

This from an article on overturning wrongful convictions by the Innocence Project on the need to reform eye-witness testimony:

"Mistaken eyewitness identifications contributed to approximately 71% of the more than 360 wrongful convictions in the United States overturned by post-conviction DNA evidence." (link)

 

[ok doser]

Forensic evidence can also be highly problematic, especially in the hands of those that have ambitions to find guilty convictions.

see Charles Randal Smith

the incidence of such abortions of justice would be reduced by applying Deuteronomy 19:16

 

[ok doser]

One would certainly hope so.

I'm simply saying that all evidence needs to be examined extremely carefully if the execution of the guilty is to be the end result.

should it be less so if lifetime incarceration is the likely sentence?

 

[ok doser]

wrongful imprisonment of the innocent is kidnapping

wrongful execution of the innocent is murder


in each case, those committing the wrong - those committing the crime of kidnapping or murder should pay with their lives

 

[ok doser]

now, that should take care of wrongful treatment of the innocent by the government

now, let's get back to what government is supposed to be doing, which is protecting the innocent from criminals

In the case of murder, i haven't seen anything presented that works better than swift justice, the facts presented to and weighed by a judge, a decision made and the sentence carried out, swiftly, harshly and publicly. It worked in the past for Israel, it works today in Singapore. It worked in America in the past as well. No reason to think it wouldn't work again.

 

[Stripe]

Notice how when we say "witnesses" and carefully delineate exactly what we include in the term, Town decides we must have said "eyewitnesses."

 

[Catholic Crusader]

Notice how when we say "witnesses" and carefully delineate exactly what we include in the term, Town decides we must have said "eyewitnesses."

I would love to say what I really think of TH but I am trying to respect the recent mods directives not to make personal attacks. Suffice to say that his posts here have no credulity.

BACK TO THE TOPIC: My position is stated in posts #300