It’s not meant to be funny at all.
The living victims, or the rest of society, they have rights. Dead people are dead.
Honestly, they have no rights.
Perhaps it doesn’t need to be pointed out.
Don’t get me wrong, there are good reasons to fry the guy, and I’m fine with that as long he’s guilty, but they don’t include the “rights” of dead people.
I hate biased newspapers. I really do. I especially hate biased name dropping…
[quote]Massif wrote:
Cass Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule set out their arguments in a paper to be published in this month’s Stanford Law Review. It is provocatively titled: Is Capital Punishment Morally Required?
[/quote]
Well, I’m a professor at Stanford and I can confirm you the paper will be there – however that piece of sh*t newspaper neglected to mention it will be there ALONG with a rebuttal, called “No, Capital Punishment is Not Morally Required: Deterrence, Deontology, and the Death Penalty”, by Carol S. Steiker, from Harvard Law School, along with ANOTHER rebuttal called “Uses and Abuses of Empirical Evidence in the Death Penalty Debate” from economists John J. Donohue & Justin Wolfers.
No, Capital Punishment is Not Morally Required: Deterrence, Deontology, and the Death Penalty
Abstract:
Cass Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule have argued that, if recent empirical studies claiming to find a substantial deterrent effect from capital punishment are valid, consequentialists and deontologists alike should conclude that capital punishment is not merely morally permissible, but actually morally required. While there is ample reason to reject this argument on the ground that the empirical studies are deeply flawed (as my friends John Donohue and Justin Wolfers elaborate in the separate essay, ALSO in the Stanford Law Review, called “Uses and Abuses of Empirical Evidence in the Death Penalty Debate”), this response directly addresses Sunstein and Vermeule’s moral argument. Sunstein and Vermeule contend that recognition of the distinctive moral agency of the government and acceptance of “threshold” deontology (by which categorical prohibitions may be overridden to avoid catastrophic harm) should lead both consequentialists and deontologists to accept the necessity of capital punishment. This response demonstrates that neither premise leads to the proposed conclusion. Acknowledging that the government has special moral duties does not render inadequately deterred private murders the moral equivalent of government executions. Rather, executions constitute a distinctive moral wrong (purposeful as opposed to non-purposeful killing), and a distinctive kind of injustice (unjustified punishment). Moreover, acceptance of “threshold” deontology in no way requires a commitment to capital punishment even if substantial deterrence is proven; rather, arguments about catastrophic “thresholds” face special challenges in the context of criminal punishment. This response also explains how Sunstein and Vermeule’s argument necessarily commits us to accepting other brutal or disproportionate punishments, and concludes by suggesting that even consequentialists should not be convinced by the argument.
In regards to the other essay from the team of economists:
Uses and Abuses of Empirical Evidence in the Death Penalty Debate
Abstract:
Does the death penalty deter homicides? We assess the credibility of various approaches, and assess the robustness of existing results.
Specifically, we: compare the history of executions and homicides in the United States and Canada; contrast executing and nonexecuting states; analyze the effects of the judicial experiments provided by the Furman and Gregg decisions and assess the relationship between execution and homicide rates in state panel data since 1934. We then revisit the existing instrumental variables approaches and assess two recent state-specific execution moratoria. In each case we find that previous inferences of large deterrent effects based upon specific samples, functional forms, control variables, comparison groups, or IV strategies are extremely fragile and even small changes in specifications yield dramatically different results. The fundamental difficulty is that the death penalty – at least as it has been implemented in the United States – is applied so rarely that the number of homicides that it can plausibly have caused or deterred cannot be reliably disentangled from the large year-to-year changes in the homicide rate caused by other factors. As such, short samples and particular specifications may yield large but spurious correlations. We conclude that existing estimates appear to reflect a small and unrepresentative sample of the estimates that arise from alternative approaches. Sampling from the broader universe of plausible approaches suggests that the only reliable inference is that the effects of capital punishment – either positive or negative – are small.
As a sidenote: next time you decide to post something as biased, at least have the smartness of not insulting not only my intelligence but also my friends and colleagues’.
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
By the way, you can’t beat NJ. Make fun all you want. Just stay the hell out. We like it without everyone else knowing how good it is…and we sure as shit don’t want you bumbkins driving on our highways.[/quote]
I’m sorry to say, but this bumbkin here will be driving on “your” highways next weekend. 
My apologies. 
[quote]vroom wrote:
WTF? I realize you’re trying to be your usual cute, witty, deep-thinking(ahem) self, but that is not funny or appropriate.
It’s not meant to be funny at all.
The living victims, or the rest of society, they have rights. Dead people are dead.
Honestly, they have no rights.
Perhaps it doesn’t need to be pointed out.
Don’t get me wrong, there are good reasons to fry the guy, and I’m fine with that as long he’s guilty, but they don’t include the “rights” of dead people.[/quote]
Did they have the right not to be shot in the head when they were alive? Do they have the right to justice now?
I think they do.
[quote]AZMojo wrote:
PS - I have to give my “Best state in the Union” vote to California. I’ve spent time in TX, lived in NJ, WA, AZ, and CA, and CA is far and away the best. Although, to be fair, I did enjoy my time in San Antonio and think it’s a great town, just not a great as L.A. San Diego, or O.C., broke or not.[/quote]
Thank you, sir. Appreciate the compliment.
And we’re not really broke: we just like to make the Governor think we are so he doesn’t put his grubby hands in OUR money!
In reality, we could pay all our debts tomorrow! Cash!
[quote]Did they have the right not to be shot in the head when they were alive? Do they have the right to justice now?
I think they do.[/quote]
Massif,
I’m not arguing against justice.
My sense of justice calls for appropriate reaction to the crime as well.
I know it sounds strange, but the dead truly have no rights.
Here’s a silly analogy. Let’s say John Doe kills every other human on the face of the earth. There is only him left. Now, obviously, we can all pass judgement on him, and make decisions as to what this person deservers.
However, it is only the living, and societies dependant upon rules, that have the right and the ability to enact justice.
As strange as it sounds, the dead are dead, they no longer care.
Once again, I’m not arguing for clemency and I’m not suggesting that he doesn’t need punishment. I’m just trying to put the reasons for it in the right place. The purpose of his punishment will be to satisfy those that still live.
By the way, I’m not in any way attempting to trivialize the crimes or the loss of life.
[quote]hspder wrote:
I hate biased newspapers. I really do. I especially hate biased name dropping…
Massif wrote:
Cass Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule set out their arguments in a paper to be published in this month’s Stanford Law Review. It is provocatively titled: Is Capital Punishment Morally Required?
Well, I’m a professor at Stanford and I can confirm you the paper will be there – however that piece of sh*t newspaper neglected to mention it will be there ALONG with a rebuttal, called “No, Capital Punishment is Not Morally Required: Deterrence, Deontology, and the Death Penalty”, by Carol S. Steiker, from Harvard Law School, along with ANOTHER rebuttal called “Uses and Abuses of Empirical Evidence in the Death Penalty Debate” from economists John J. Donohue & Justin Wolfers.
No, Capital Punishment is Not Morally Required: Deterrence, Deontology, and the Death Penalty
Abstract:
Cass Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule have argued that, if recent empirical studies claiming to find a substantial deterrent effect from capital punishment are valid, consequentialists and deontologists alike should conclude that capital punishment is not merely morally permissible, but actually morally required. While there is ample reason to reject this argument on the ground that the empirical studies are deeply flawed (as my friends John Donohue and Justin Wolfers elaborate in the separate essay, ALSO in the Stanford Law Review, called “Uses and Abuses of Empirical Evidence in the Death Penalty Debate”), this response directly addresses Sunstein and Vermeule’s moral argument. Sunstein and Vermeule contend that recognition of the distinctive moral agency of the government and acceptance of “threshold” deontology (by which categorical prohibitions may be overridden to avoid catastrophic harm) should lead both consequentialists and deontologists to accept the necessity of capital punishment. This response demonstrates that neither premise leads to the proposed conclusion. Acknowledging that the government has special moral duties does not render inadequately deterred private murders the moral equivalent of government executions. Rather, executions constitute a distinctive moral wrong (purposeful as opposed to non-purposeful killing), and a distinctive kind of injustice (unjustified punishment). Moreover, acceptance of “threshold” deontology in no way requires a commitment to capital punishment even if substantial deterrence is proven; rather, arguments about catastrophic “thresholds” face special challenges in the context of criminal punishment. This response also explains how Sunstein and Vermeule’s argument necessarily commits us to accepting other brutal or disproportionate punishments, and concludes by suggesting that even consequentialists should not be convinced by the argument.
In regards to the other essay from the team of economists:
Uses and Abuses of Empirical Evidence in the Death Penalty Debate
Abstract:
Does the death penalty deter homicides? We assess the credibility of various approaches, and assess the robustness of existing results.
Specifically, we: compare the history of executions and homicides in the United States and Canada; contrast executing and nonexecuting states; analyze the effects of the judicial experiments provided by the Furman and Gregg decisions and assess the relationship between execution and homicide rates in state panel data since 1934. We then revisit the existing instrumental variables approaches and assess two recent state-specific execution moratoria. In each case we find that previous inferences of large deterrent effects based upon specific samples, functional forms, control variables, comparison groups, or IV strategies are extremely fragile and even small changes in specifications yield dramatically different results. The fundamental difficulty is that the death penalty – at least as it has been implemented in the United States – is applied so rarely that the number of homicides that it can plausibly have caused or deterred cannot be reliably disentangled from the large year-to-year changes in the homicide rate caused by other factors. As such, short samples and particular specifications may yield large but spurious correlations. We conclude that existing estimates appear to reflect a small and unrepresentative sample of the estimates that arise from alternative approaches. Sampling from the broader universe of plausible approaches suggests that the only reliable inference is that the effects of capital punishment – either positive or negative – are small.
As a sidenote: next time you decide to post something as biased, at least have the smartness of not insulting the intelligence of me and my friends and colleagues.[/quote]
Oh, for fuck’s sake. Did you really just say “have the smartness” to do something?
Actually, the article DID say that one of the rebuttals in the same paper stated that the data was so complex that it was impossible to interpret it accurately. It is the same one that said the data could be read so that 18 people died as a result of each execution.
I thought a professor at Stanford would have researched that properly before acting like his panties were on fire. (In case you missed it, that is me insulting your intelligence right there. I don’t know what the hell you were talking about in your original post).
If you actually read the article, you would know that its author is against the death penalty, but this report, from two respected economists (I won’t say who they are - that would be name dropping) made him think. How the fuck is getting someone to think suddenly bad?
Unfortunately, I don’t have access to the Stanford Law Review like you do. This means I can’t check every little detail that the Sydney Morning Herald puts in about it. You act like I’ve fucked your sister (and your collegues’ sisters as well), when all I’ve done is put part of a thought provoking article on a this thread.
It’s funny how militant some of you peaceniks really are.
[quote]vroom wrote:
Did they have the right not to be shot in the head when they were alive? Do they have the right to justice now?
I think they do.
Massif,
I’m not arguing against justice.
My sense of justice calls for appropriate reaction to the crime as well.
I know it sounds strange, but the dead truly have no rights.
Here’s a silly analogy. Let’s say John Doe kills every other human on the face of the earth. There is only him left. Now, obviously, we can all pass judgement on him, and make decisions as to what this person deservers.
However, it is only the living, and societies dependant upon rules, that have the right and the ability to enact justice.
As strange as it sounds, the dead are dead, they no longer care.
Once again, I’m not arguing for clemency and I’m not suggesting that he doesn’t need punishment. I’m just trying to put the reasons for it in the right place. The purpose of his punishment will be to satisfy those that still live.
By the way, I’m not in any way attempting to trivialize the crimes or the loss of life.[/quote]
That makes more sense.
Don’t the living give the dead rights? I’m mean, the dead have the right to divide their property as they wish through their will or legal representitive. The have the right to not be indecently dealt with etc etc. I don’t think the dead have the right to bare arms (or is it bear arms?), but they do have rights as allocated by the living.
Sure these rights can change any time the living get organised enough to do something about it, but the same goes for anybody’s rights.
[quote]Massif wrote:
That makes more sense.
Don’t the living give the dead rights? I’m mean, the dead have the right to divide their property as they wish through their will or legal representitive. The have the right to not be indecently dealt with etc etc. I don’t think the dead have the right to bare arms (or is it bear arms?), but they do have rights as allocated by the living.
Sure these rights can change any time the living get organised enough to do something about it, but the same goes for anybody’s rights.[/quote]
The dead don’t have rights. They are dead. The only people who give a shit are those still alive. A will only allows a LIVING person to decide where their stuff goes when they are no longer here. They will have no influence at all after they die even if they change their mind about who should get what on their death bed. If they didn’t revise their will, what they truly want will never be carried out. Proof alone that the dead have no rights.
I do agree with the other poster who pointed out the possible benefit to society if he stays alive. It IS a possibility. To deny that he has had a positive influence is blind. Gang activity won’t dissappear by killing him. In fact, there is a very strong possibility that more will avoid that lifestyle because of his influence. I hate to break this to some of you, but a Gang leader in prison who was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize holds much more street credibility than any politician or law official who tries to stop gang activity. That does boil down to pro’s and cons making killing for the sake of retribution illogical regardless of the will of the victims.
That doesn’t mean I don’t despise what he did 30 years ago. I do find his actions repulsive. However, after he gets killed, then what? A state gets to brag that they killed someone? What if gang crimes increase due to this (due to upset gang members) and more people die as a result? Does this logically make sense to carry this action out in that context?
Had they killed him immediately, there would be no discussion. However, 30 years is a very long time. There are people (including one of his victims) who will never even live on this planet as long as he has spent in jail. In fact, you could very well say that he spent MOST of his life not doing what he was convicted of.
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
AZMojo wrote:
My internal debate-
First, let’s disregard the Nobel Peace prize nomination(anyone can be nominated, you don’t have to “qualify”).
Second, the system is what it is and he was convicted and sentenced to death for his crimes, fine.
Since the system is what it is, he has served nearly thirty years in prison since then, without his sentence being catrried out, fine.
During those thirty years he has made an effort and arguably influenced others away from following a similar path.
My question is, would putting him to death at this point be the best thing for society?
Nobody is saying he should ever get out of prison here, just debating the applicability of the death penalty. IF he can actually do some GOOD, doesn’t it make sense to keep him alive? By carrying out his sentence, we prevent him from contributing further, and possibly helping others.
I mean, he may actually be able to save more lives, at this point, than he took.
This is what I’m saying. I understand both points. But if a man who was there can show the way away from that life, whether his intentions are good or not, isn’t it better to society to keep him? We had one poster on here say he influenced him- Williams may have saved a life. How many more are out there that have seen the light because they do not want to be where he is now? How many to follow?
[/quote]
Aside from the murders he was convicted of, he started the fucking Crips. Saving Williams (saved by a children’s book?) doesn’t come close to the damage the Crips have done since he started them.
[quote]Massif wrote:
Actually, the article DID say that one of the rebuttals in the same paper stated that the data was so complex that it was impossible to interpret it accurately. It is the same one that said the data could be read so that 18 people died as a result of each execution. [/quote]
I know. I read the article. And it is because I read the article that I am so upset.
Problem is that the way the article is written it shows a complete disrespect for the arguments shown, by distorting them to the point of sounding ridiculous.
If you want to see for yourself, as soon as it gets published, I’ll be happy to provide you with a PDF copy of the papers. It’s not like we make money out of it, and they are released into the public domain.
[quote]Massif wrote:
If you actually read the article, you would know that its author is against the death penalty, but this report, from two respected economists (I won’t say who they are - that would be name dropping) made him think.[/quote]
I READ the article. That’s exactly my problem: the article is absurd, distorted to the point of being unethical.
What you are saying, for example, is nonsense. The two guys who wrote the article defending the death penalty are NOT economists – they are LAW professors – and the two economists that actually wrote one of the rebuttals are providing very good evidence that the whole exercise is absurd. Not in the way its described in the newspaper article, but actually in a very systematic and scientific way.
The journalist completely glosses over the other rebuttal, fails to give credit to all the authors, and distorts the contents of both the original article and the rebuttal he does mention.
[quote]Massif wrote:
You act like I’ve fucked your sister (and your collegues’ sisters as well), when all I’ve done is put part of a thought provoking article on a this thread.[/quote]
What set me off is the fact that the article in the newspaper is providing a tremendously distorted view of the papers. Misquoting is a very serious mistake in my book.
And, by the way, I’m not upset at YOU, I’m upset at the journalist. You’re just the messenger, I understand that.
[quote]vroom wrote:
WTF? I realize you’re trying to be your usual cute, witty, deep-thinking(ahem) self, but that is not funny or appropriate.
It’s not meant to be funny at all.
The living victims, or the rest of society, they have rights. Dead people are dead.
Honestly, they have no rights.
Perhaps it doesn’t need to be pointed out.
Don’t get me wrong, there are good reasons to fry the guy, and I’m fine with that as long he’s guilty, but they don’t include the “rights” of dead people.[/quote]
Sure they do. The prosecutor represents the “people”. They also represent those who cannot represent themselves, in this case the murdered victims.
Murder is hardly a victimless crime because the victim is no longer alive.
However, if the semantics have you in a tizzy substitute the word victim for dead.
[quote]hedo wrote:
Sure they do. The prosecutor represents the “people”. They also represent those who cannot represent themselves, in this case the murdered victims.
Murder is hardly a victimless crime because the victim is no longer alive.
However, if the semantics have you in a tizzy substitute the word victim for dead.
[/quote]
One of the main lines of reasoning in a retribution analysis is that the punishment confirms the worth of the victims, the value of what was lost when they were hurt or killed.
Px, it makes sense that he should have been put to death alot sooner…i agree
[quote]AZMojo wrote:
My question is, would putting him to death at this point be the best thing for society?[/quote]
YES.
[quote]Massif wrote:
vroom wrote:
WTF? I realize you’re trying to be your usual cute, witty, deep-thinking(ahem) self, but that is not funny or appropriate.
It’s not meant to be funny at all.
The living victims, or the rest of society, they have rights. Dead people are dead.
Honestly, they have no rights.
Perhaps it doesn’t need to be pointed out.
Don’t get me wrong, there are good reasons to fry the guy, and I’m fine with that as long he’s guilty, but they don’t include the “rights” of dead people.
Did they have the right not to be shot in the head when they were alive? Do they have the right to justice now?
I think they do.
[/quote]
Totally agree.
[quote]doogie wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
AZMojo wrote:
Aside from the murders he was convicted of, he started the fucking Crips. Saving Williams (saved by a children’s book?) doesn’t come close to the damage the Crips have done since he started them.
[/quote]
So file a class action suit or something.
To my knowledge, he hasn’t been convicted of all the crimes perpetrated by the Crips since their inception.
What I’m saying is that he may now actually be a benefit to society because of what he’s been doing. So killing him may not serve society’s best interest, except to make death penalty lovers feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
[quote]AZMojo wrote:
What I’m saying is that he may now actually be a benefit to society because of what he’s been doing. So killing him may not serve society’s best interest, except to make death penalty lovers feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
[/quote]
It doesn’t make those that support ther death penalty feel ‘warm and fuzzy’. It allows justice to be served. He killed a man and made fun of him as he was dying. He was found guilty of Capital Murder. He has run the course of the appeals process.
It is time for him to serve the sentencethat was handed down to him - children’s books or not.
[quote]rainjack wrote:
AZMojo wrote:
What I’m saying is that he may now actually be a benefit to society because of what he’s been doing. So killing him may not serve society’s best interest, except to make death penalty lovers feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
It doesn’t make those that support ther death penalty feel ‘warm and fuzzy’. It allows justice to be served. He killed a man and made fun of him as he was dying. He was found guilty of Capital Murder. He has run the course of the appeals process.
It is time for him to serve the sentencethat was handed down to him - children’s books or not. [/quote]
So you believe there will never be a case where someone’s life lived between the time of conviction and the time of his death penalty (if it happens to be several years between) will ever need to be reviewed?
[quote]Professor X wrote:
So you believe there will never be a case where someone’s life lived between the time of conviction and the time of his death penalty (if it happens to be several years between) will ever need to be reviewed? [/quote]
This particular case has had the crap reviewed out of it. I am sure there have been instances in which the convicted has made such an incredible change that commuting the sentence was the right thing to do.
Tookie has had his turn around looked at time and again. No one has seen it worthy of sparing his life. The Governator has the last say - and hopefully he will do that soon.