Perhaps, but I'm not sure. I've been thinking some about what we tolerate from the people charged with public safety and why. I think, in my blogging and writing about criminal justice, I've undervalued the basic human need for order, and overvalued a basic human commitment to individual rights. I don't mean to sound high-minded. Order is important. If you know the rules, even if the rules are draconian, you can plan your day, you can imagine how the next day may shape up, you have some sense of what awaits your children. But under chaos, say in a country besieged by competing warlords or a place where there's insufficient sanction to deter criminals, you have no sense of what the future holds.But in addition to making me mad, I'm hopeful that this story will change some "hearts and minds." Specifically, I hope that social conservatives (particularly in Texas) take some time to reflect on the implications of the fact that Texas executed an innocent person -- and that Rick Perry is trying to cover it up. It's hard to think of something that more directly contradicts the "culture of life."
For this reason, though, it's an area where a political coalition of social conservatives and secular progressives could do a lot of good, if the political will existed.
The death penalty promotes our sense of order--it offers assurance that those who savagely violate our most cherished morals will be harshly penalized. The question, for me, is what will we tolerate to preserve that assurance? What I hope will come out of this case is a more honest debate about the death penalty. I strongly suspect that Rick Perry--at this point--knows that something went badly wrong in Willingham's execution, and yet still believes in the death penalty. What I hope will emerge is death penalty advocates honest enough to admit that no system of state-sponsored execution can be infallible, because people are fallible. I want them to come out and say what's clear--innocent people will be executed. I want them to stop treating us like children, and make the argument.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
I feel you, but no government official will make that argument. Our sense of order is derived from the accumulation of details: the constitution, the bill of rights, the amendments - the bodies created to defined these articulated rights.
The death penalty plays a role in that, but it's a stretch to imagine the US being a warlord driven country without it. And for an official to say innocent people will die is to put way too much weight on the effects of the death penalty as a deterrent. Anyway - society works because most people agree not to commit crimes and there is a police force to straighten those who break the agreement. It's the police that are the mandated body, I think, not the particular punishments.
Plus, innocent people just can't die and get explained away as a consequence of justice.
I agree that they'll never make that argument, and the reason they won't is because there are enough basically decent voters out there who won't support a system that openly acknowledges that innocent people will be executed. They're willing to be willfully blind and take politicians at their words when they say the system works, but they won't accept a system that admits failure.
Right, although I think you're asking the "basically" in basically decent to cover an awful lot of ground.
They won't make the argument b/c death advocates don't believe anyone is actually innocent. I've had this conversation before and the response is "well, they must have been doing something wrong, otherwise they wouldn't have gotten caught/been in the wrong place/etc."
So even if the "wrong man," is executed, it wasn't an "innocent man," ergo, The System works.
Travitt,
I have to agree. I think that is the argument.
Good luck with that. In some ways, the death penalty and abortion are two completely different issues. In others, it’s almost impossible not to see how the two debates mirror one another. My beliefs are pretty murky on both issues. I absolutely can’t get fully behind either issue, but can’t imagine a world in which they weren’t unfortunate societal necessities. The only way to get real cooperation on these cultural debates is for both sides to have faith in the other to be mature and honest partners trying to find a just solution. To trust them not to perceive a willingness to compromise as a weakness worthy of being exploited. But usually, neither side has any reason to think that’s the case. If death penalty defenders begin to accept flaws in the system, they understand, quite rightly that such a recognition opens the system up to being toppled. Likewise, with abortion, if pro-choice groups begin to recognize that every abortion is literally the taking of a human life, then they open themselves up to having to meet the debate from a stance they’ve rarely been willing to take. Both are arguments that can be made. Indeed, both are arguments that SHOULD be made. But the fact of the matter is that neither side has any reason to trust the other, so I’m not holding my breath.
As a pro-choice person I can only speak for myself to say that I am not willing to admit that an abortion is taking a human life because I'm not God and I don't know exactly when a human life begins. But I am totally willing to sit down and discuss the issue of abortion with any anti-choice person who is open minded enough to talk about contraception. People who yell "slut" at women entering abortion clinics, accuse the 40 million American women who've had an abortion of being murderers, or shoot doctors in the back are terrorists who are beyond a civilized discussion.
The Ryan-Delauro bill has the support of anti-choice, Christian groups who have recognized the need to reduce the number of abortions through methods that actually work -- greater access to contraceptives. So some compromise has happened and some agreement has been met, though staunch anti-abortion opponents are determined to stop this joint effort which will improve the lives of women without increasing the number of abortions.
I don't want to get derailed here, but I think this a false equivalence:
1.) First and foremost, there are many pro-choices who will concede abortion is the taking of human life. One of my best friends has a father who's literally gives abortion, and wrote an entire book about the issue and concedes the issue of fetal life. Aylet Waldman just published a book where she struggles with same issue, and contrasts herself with her mother's views on the issue, and earlier feminists. I myself concede the argument for fetal life. My pro-choice-ness isn't based on that.
2.) I don't know any prominent pro-death penalty people who will advocate for the death penalty, conceding that innocent people will be killed. Their entire argument is premised on the idea of protecting the innocent, and demonizing criminals.
3.) To be clear, there are a lot of pro-choicers who don't concede human life. But there's at least a debate. There is no real debate among death penalty people, because they fear that conceding the execution of the innocent would sink their cause. I don't believe that conceding the human life question, in regards to abortion, means the same thing to pro-choicers. And I don't think it actually means the same thing to people.
4.) People who've experienced abortions are already grappling with the moral implications. They aren't reading about in the newspaper. They have a direct inescapable culpability. They're involved in the process in a way that people supporting the death penalty are not. It's worth noting that a significant number of pro-choicers will be people who've actually had an abortion. In the main, I don't think you ever forget that experience.
I had no intention of derailing. I concede in the second sentence that there are very real distinctions. True, I didn't innumerate any of them. That being said, I think a similar debate exists within the community of death penalty supporters as exists within abortion rights defenders. But, as with the abortion rights community, it more or less exists as an internal debate. And within those communities, they are recongnized as losing arguments, so you almost never have leaders within the larger debate who are willing to make what could be self-defeating concessions to opponents of the general position.
But you're right, I don't want to derail the thread. I think the similarities between the two issues are real. If, imperfect. But I will defer to you as to whether or not this angle is too distracting to your intended point.
To be clear, I didn't mean to accuse you of attempting to derail. I engaged, so I'm party to it. I'll raise it in a separate thread in the near future.
I didn't mean to imply that I sensed an accusatory tone. I meant to be showing respect for your concern. Which I think is warranted. It is a topic that can easily consume all of the air in the room. We can derail without meaning to. That's all I took you as saying.
You know and I know that the argument that its better to kill a few innocent people than to take away our ability to kill people won't fly in America. To admit Willingham's innocence is to signal the death knell of the Death penalty in America. This is why they are so willing to lie cheat and steal to stop it.
don't forget the amazing power of denial. I don't think everyone who disagrees is evil or lying, but rather won't even admit to themselves he was innocent because they fear the implications (and/or don't like the people on the other side of the argument)
Being against the death penalty, the two arguments I've relied most on is the cost to the state (thanks to multiple appeals, primarily) and that it's not a deterrent--there are studies to back this up, but also the basic logic that someone willing to do something so heinous as to warrant the death penalty will not be thinking about the legal consequences. The "we've probably executed innocent people" argument never seems to be as convincing to the people I've argued against, but the Willingham case might change that.
Also, I'm not sure the death penalty adds to order, even outside of my own perspective. I think you can make the argument that people often turn a blind eye to police brutality--not that they should-- because of their desire for order, but the death penalty seems to be just about vengeance. I think if it were about order, than life in a crowded, run-down prison would be enough.
"To admit Willingham's innocence is to signal the death knell of the Death penalty in America."
Unfortunately, the idea that you are guilty simply by being arrested, much less convicted, no matter what the 'evidence,' is widespread. I just want to take a minute and highlight the work done by the organization V.O.T.E., Voice of the Ex Offender, in New Orleans:
http://vote-nola.org/
I think part of the problem is the stigmatization of the incarcerated, fueled by a tabloid approach to even nonviolent crime that makes things like rape suffered in prison into the stuff of sitcom jokes (my personal why-TV-makes-me-want-to-kill-myself, TNC). Until folks who are imprisoned are able to be seen as human beings, the chance that folks will be able to have a serious debate about the death penalty is, unfortunately, quite slim. The assumption remains in many places that if you're there, you deserve what you get. I wasn't shocked at the lack of outrage after Abu Ghraib simply because there's so little whenever widespread abuses--sexual torture and other physical abuse--is uncovered in jails throughout the lower 48.
Just wanted to say I agree with this, despite the fact that I myself probably have quite a bit of instinctive fear/dislike of the incarcerated or ex-incarcerated.
I agree with most of what's been said in here already. I'd just like to add that I think it's interesting that this case, of all the questionable cases ever to end with an execution, is the one that's getting attention. With that in mind, I don't think this case to change anyone's opinions.
I'm alternately outraged and fascinated that this story can still exist under the radar of the 24-hour news channels. How can this not be the dominant story in the country right now?
To be fair, CNN and MSNBC have covered it.
They've covered it, but it hasn't been treated as a particularly big story. We all know what a media frenzy can look like, and this has been treated as more of a "interesting story of the day." That's why Perry can ultimately get away with what he's doing, because he knows no one will shine the light on his actions for long.
It is getting coverage in Texas papers. The Fort Worth Star Telegram and Houston Chronicle are both covering it. Today's Star Telegram article, however, points to wider disputes between Perry and the forensic panel (see here: http://www.star-telegram.com/texas/story/1683464.html).
And though I'm too lazy to look it up at the moment, the comments on a recent Houston Chronicle story pretty much sum up the sentiment of many death penalty supporters: Willingham was guilty, and all efforts to prove otherwise are driven by a liberal agenda to get rid of the death penalty. There is little effort to deal with the specific criticisms of the original investigation, rather it is an effort to paint those making the criticisms as biased and untrustworthy. Willingham's character, of course, is pointed to as further evidence of his guilt.
Americans operate on fear. If a few innocent people die so that they can feel safer so be it. We've proved that over and over again.
And by few I mean millions.
After reading more on Massachusetts history with the death penalty-I was pretty amazed at how often the issue has come up and how it is nearly always a divide between governors and legislators. It disturbs me to think that at any given time the guarantee that the state can not kill you is dependent on such a small, changing group of people. Mitt Romney's work on the death penalty is such a prime example of the lack of intellectual curiosity and creative problem solving in the Republican party. In the face of overwhelming evidence of wrongful murder convictions in Massachusetts and other states Mitt Romney didn't reassess his position on the death penalty, instead he wasted a great deal of time and money on his Governor's Council on Capital Punishment, to convince legislators that they would institute a death penalty system "as infallible as humanly possible." Thankfully, he failed. Did no one read that statement and just laugh out loud? If its made by humans it is at its core pretty damn fallible Romney.
This is a great post and thread.
People are reluctant to let go of the death penalty because they're afraid that the bad old days of urban decline and decay and violent crime will return. That's understandable, but wrong. The next time a conservative goes on about the death penalty, ask him/her this--"Do you trust the government, this very same government you deride daily on so many issues, to get each and every execution right?" Because here's the thing--no true conservative can shrug off the possibility of the state--through incompetence, malfeasance, or both--executing a person for a crime they did not commit.
That's an interesting point, Claudius. Why aren't more conservatives skeptical of this particular government-run institution? Why so much trust in Governors, Legislators, Prosecutors and (in many states) elected Judges? And conversely, why does the usual trust liberals have in the collective "people" evaporate?
This is a dichotomy that goes back to the mid-1960's.
Conservatives came to view law enforcement as the defender of mainstream society against the violent crime and decay that was devastating urban America, in particular. They saw the cops as hamstrung by blinkered liberal politicians and judges who were obsessed with the rights of the accused and convicted at the expense of victims of crime, and society in general. To be fair, this view was not totally wrong. It's just that the response to it--ever-more draconian laws and ever-increasing powers to law enforcement--eroded the rights of law-abiding citizens, and were often ineffective anyway. It was a sense of security purchased with a diminution of liberty.
There were a few lefties who thought that increased crime was an unfortunate, temporary side effect of reforming the criminal justice system, which they viewed as a greater threat to civil society. This was particularly true of the Far Left, which viewed cops as oppressors--again, not without cause. But the truth is that most liberals were very worried about violent crime--they just didn't have an answer for it. It was liberalism's great misfortune that the rise in violent crime came at precisely the time that the New Deal / Great Society era of liberalism was out of intellectual gas, so to speak.
The death penalty was restored in the mid-to-late 1970's as part of a much larger 'restore law and order' movement.
A depressing number of people shut off their reasoning capabilities when they see someone in a uniform. Scientists in lab coats, government officials in suits, celebrities in fashionable clothes-these people are self-interested, immoral, blathering about stuff they know nothing about, dishonest, etc. Pop those same people into police or military uniforms and suddenly they're fine upstanding guardians of the public, who would never [i]dream[/i] of writing a dishonest report of an incident, bending a rule or lying to suit their agenda.
The liberal trust in "the people," rarely extends to killing people.
Well, if social conservatives in Texas are like social conservatives in Georgia, Publius may have a long wait.
I think most people have an emotional reaction to capital punishment (whether for or against), and then find rational arguments to back up their position. It's difficult to change feelings with facts- often the only thing that works is a different, more powerful emotion. So if the emotional wallop of guilt for executing an innocent man hits death penalty supporters hard enough, there may be some reflection.
Ironically, when the death penalty itself is on trial, its defenders are not willing to convict it unless it's proven ineffective "beyond a reasonable doubt"- a skepticism that was not much apparent in Willingham's case. Unfortunately I think those on the side of the state (prosecutor, "expert" witnesses, etc.) have introduced enough doubt to offer "rational" cover to those who still support the DP for emotional reasons.
I think most people have an emotional reaction to capital punishment (whether for or against), and then find rational arguments to back up their position. It's difficult to change feelings with facts- often the only thing that works is a different, more powerful emotion.
This! The death penalty was recently (2007) repealed here in New Jersey. There was some complaining by conservative law & order types, but overall dissent was pretty minimal. The issue had ceased to be emotional, as no one had been executed since 1976.
Should note that 8 people were on NJ's "Death Row" at the time of the repeal, including the killer of Megan Kanka (for whom Megan's Law was named).
I don't have it in me today to read the background on Willingham -- my brain is too easily hijacked by sorrow these days, and my workload too full right now -- but would someone mind telling me: Was he a known criminal beforehand? Or a miscreant of some kind? If I recall, he was crashing on someone's couch in the house that burned down and tried to save someone but was overcome by smoke -- this suggests to me that at the very least he was probably without his own home.
Here's why I ask: I think that for a lot of people of a certain conservative bent, the death penalty being applied to people innocent of the crime for which they are killed doesn't matter all that much -- because the guy was already seen as a threat to them in some way. He must have done SOMETHING wrong, and well, maybe it wasn't enough to deserve the death penalty, but, hey, he wasn't one of the good guys! Or an innocent baby! That kind of thing. It appears to be very easy to convince people that certain people aren't people like them, and can be readily dispensed with.
He'd been arrested--and I believe, convicted-- for domestic assault.
Well there you go.
(And thank you!)
Well there you go.
(And thank you!)
(Hmm. This may show up twice because the first time it was grabbed for moderation. For some reason! If you're seeing this twice - sorry!)
Yes, I absolutely think this is the most important point when it comes to Willingham and similar cases. People don't really care if he's guilty of the crime, because he's already guilty of being a shitty human being in their eyes. I mean, the prosecutor essentially defended his case wiht this very fact. Pathetic and typical.
guilty of being a shitty person - that's exactly it, isn't it?
It makes me think of the response that I invariably get from people when I start talking about how prison rape isn't a joke (well, shouldn't be a joke) because rape is rape and no one deserves to be raped -- that, moreover, we do not sentence people to X number of years and Y number sexual assaults. Etc. Some people nod their heads, but, inevitably, some people are like "You know what? Fuck them. You murdered someone, you robbed old ladies in their apartments? I don't care you if get raped."
But the thing is, even while I agree that a murderer or (in Willingham's case) a potential wife beater is -- indeed -- a shitty person, our entire society suffers if we don't treat all people, even the shitty ones, as human beings. My life, the life of my children, is made worse, coarser, less valuable, when we as a society deem certain humans less than human.
(aside from the, you know, moral and legal implications!)
(aside from the, you know, moral and legal implications!)
More than anything, telling prison rape jokes just proves that someone has a really shitty sense of humor. Seriously, they are so obvious and cliche that it blows my mind that people still go there.
(I'm trying to correct a failure to make an obvious point in my previous response to you, and the system is not letting me reply to myself, so I'll try to do it by replying to you, but this is mean to be @ myself!)
...aside from the, you know, moral and legal implications!
Ella, I think you are referencing a similar case of Ernest Ray Willis, who was exonerated and freed after serving several years. He was able to afford a legal defense that led to the hiring of an arson investigator who was able to re-create the kind of fire that would allow for the burn patterns and lack of burns on the victim that had always previously been considered evidence of arson.
It was that arson investigator who provided the report on Willingham's case that was basically disregarded by the Perry admininistration.
I think it was in the Willis case that he was basically staying with a friend. Willingham was in his own home with his three children when the fire occurred, and the children were all killed. As other responders have noted, he did have other brushes with the law.
If I understand you correctly, I agree with you entirely. I have no problem -- or little problem, anyway -- with the idea of the government taking citizens' lives. The government does that, in one form or another, quite regularly. And I do think that some people are bad enough that they deserve to be executed.
But I have absolutely no faith in law enforcement's ability to capture, try, and convict the right guy, and punishment of the innocent is, by my lights, such a profound offense against the moral order of the universe, that I can't support the death penalty.
Most pro-death penalty people I know simply don't believe that innocent people get executed. The Innocence Project has done a tremendous amount to create a tangible counter-argument. Frankly, i think their the ones who deserved the Nobel Peace Prize.
Other JL, you and I seem to have a namespace collision. :) I was a bit startled when I read down this thread and saw comments under the name JL, because I was pretty sure I was reading this thread for the first time (and also don't live in Texas).
Maybe I need a more distinctive moniker...
Oh, man, sorry about that. I actually have two or three different accounts -- not, I hasten to say, for sinister reasons, but just because I have a short memory, and creating a new one is easier than trying to remember the password for my last one. For the record, I used to post here under the name Faivel (my real name is "Myles na gCopaleen" (that's an inside joke)). I'll go back to that, and you can have JL.
Cheers,
Faivel, I guess.
"they're the ones". It's still early in the morning here in Texas....
I think this is the political equivalent of what sports people refer to as "cheering for the laundry." I think Gingergene is on the right track - people make decisions emotionally, and then we sort ourselves into teams. Social conservatives see Perry on their team, and so he is a good guy to them, and he gets every benefit of the doubt, and they will do all sorts of mental gymnastics so as to justify his behavior. He is on the team, and that is what they need to know.
I don't mean to pick on social conservatives for this - I think it is fairly typical of all people in how we make decisions - but it is the example relevant to this discussion.
Also, I am constantly amazed at how much more civil and productive and interesting the discussion is here of these types of issues that usually get so inflammatory so fast. Thanks to you all.
Also, I think this reaction is about collective guilt- if I support a capital punishment system which killed an innocent man, I have blood on my hands. So there's more than just wanting the death penalty option available in the justice system, there's also a need to prove my own innocence. Another very powerful emotional argument that is difficult to overcome with a rational one.
The death penalty promotes our sense of order--it offers assurance that those who savagely violate our most cherished morals will be harshly penalized.
This hits the nail on the head. As a society, we are far more terrified that someone might break a law and not get punished for it than we are that someone might get punished for something they did not do -- even if it's the ultimate punishment we're talking about. That's why I'm glad that at least the laws champion protecting the innocent over punishing the guilty. I think that helps prevent at least some of the evil that can come about when our need for justice and order expresses itself as a lust for revenge.
I wish we could say it only happens in Texas, but alas it happens in many if not all states in this county.
I guess we could talk about the innocent people held at GITMO for almost a decade who got sucked up with some of the bad guys. Some of them did not live through it either.
While I agree the death penalty can never be infallable, is there any weight given to the advance of technology?
This argument about the death penalty has been made for years. Murder cases used to have to be built on much lesser evidence.
But now, isn't forensic evidence making it almost (Note: almost) possible to say for sure who did it in a lot of cases? Isn't DNA evidence supposed to be conclusive to a 1-in-a-Millions case?
It seems there should be a case for if this level DNA evidence (DNA Locations matched or some such) plus the physical evidence plus the witness testimony plus maybe the criminal finally says, "yeah, you got me"...
If these all add up can then the death penalty apply? If not, them default down to life in prison.
I guess to me this shouldn't be a "all or nothing" argument.
The thing is that forensic evidence demonstrated that Willingham had not started the fire and therefore was not guilty. Perry ignored that evidence and sent the man to die anyway. Forensic evidence doesn't mean much if you're hell-bent on murder anyway.
Can't there be some legislative or judiciary safe guards? Why not?
Forensic evidence isn't as cut-and-dried as you may think. In this case, for instance, you have dueling arson experts disagreeing about things like burn patterns and accelerant puddling. Except that during the trial only the state's expert testified (that it was definitely arson). Willingham did not have the money to hire his own expert, so there was no competing testimony for the jury to consider. It was only after Willingham was convicted that another arson investigator (working pro bono) came to the opposite conclusion, that there was no arson. At that point Willingham's only hope was to win an appeal, but he never did. So much for the judiciary safeguard.
And just recently Justice Scalia made the following statement (regarding the Troy Davis case): "This Court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is “actually” innocent".
If being found innocent by a court of law isn't enough to keep the state from killing you, I think we have a system that is completely broken.
Humans still have to handle the evidence, so there will still be opportunities for mistakes, corruption etc.
Here's the original story: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/07/090907fa_fact_grann/
Note especially how eyewitnesss changed their stories from the time they spoke to police vs. what they said in court. Willingham was first seen as a distraught, pathetic man who failed to save his children. After he was charged with killing them, the same people saw the same behavior as that of a cold, remorseless killer, or remembered what they saw completely differently.
One interesting point is that the death penalty may be a symptom of disorder, not its cure.
Here is the piece in AC360 last night:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGMAMGmP75c
“The death penalty promotes our sense of order--it offers assurance that those who savagely violate our most cherished morals will be harshly penalized.”
To the contrary, the death penalty promotes only a false sense of false order.
According to the FBI, while murder has the highest rate of serious crimes “solved”, in only 64% of cases is a suspect arrested and convicted. After that happens, more than 25% of capital convictions are reversed, mostly for incompetent defense or errors by overzealous police or prosecutors, leading to new trials. (This compares to about 15% of non-capital case reversals.)
Additionally, 68% of death sentences are overturned on appeal. In 26 states since 1973, 138 people have been released from death row after irrefutable physical evidence of their innocence came to light. All, of course, had been convicted “beyond a shadow of a doubt”.
So while the sensationalism sold newspapers and titillated the TV viewers, while political careers were launched on the strength of the chatter about being tough on crime, the actual perpetrator of violent crime went unpunished. In a majority of cases someone literally got away with murder in our system.
Still, the U.S. murder rate has declined by almost half since 1980, even as the number of death penalty states and the number of executions has declined, also by half since its peak in 1999. The murder rate in execution states is consistently 40% higher than states without the death penalty, and the 20 states with the highest murder rates are all death-penalty states. These also correlate neatly with the historically highest rates of lynching and infant mortality, as well as the lowest rates of income and educational achievement.
We may feel comfortable, cozened in our ignorance. We may be able to turn a blind eye or rationalize that it can’t happen to our families and us because we are not poor or Black or Hispanic. We may even allow ourselves to be propagandized into voting for the perpetrators of official mass murder, but it has little bearing on law or order—and nothing to do with morals.
Right, but I think you missed the point. One can go back and forth about whether it's actually true or not. (You don't have to read much of this blog to figure out where I stand on that.) But the point is that people feel that way. Even if it's false sense, it still has consequences.
Although the issue of the death penalty as symptom rather than solution may suggest ways that it can be best opposed. Perhaps the best way to abolish the death penalty is indirect, via finding ways to remove people's sense of insecurity rather than attempting to appeal to their moral sense.
In short, the false sense may have different consequences.
I can't help but find some sad humor at the criticism about the lack of coverage this story received in the national news media. It has always seemed to me that we, the consuming public, has always received the news coverage we deserve.
Outrage at the execution of what may well have been an innocent man begs the question "What makes this demonstration of government power so much worse than other, more socially acceptable measures?"
"The death penalty does not deter!" cry abolitionists, waving their studies about while ignoring the equally compelling reports that go the other way. Yet I can say with unquestioning confidence that our prisons do not rehabilitate. Statistics on recidivism rates carry my argument through uncontested waters. Yet where the argument for abolition is merely that the death penalty may or may not decrease crime, no argument about prison reform raises half the hue and cry despite possessing twice the evidence.
"But he might be innocent!", and that's true, he might. Yet the Supreme Court has mandated automatic appeals of death penalty cases, as well as boards of review and clemency. Death is a punishment that requires a separate sentencing trial in every state and anything that might possibly mitigate the seriousness of the crime is allowed to be offered to the jury, which must additionally find that the murder had additional, aggravating factors to even qualify for the death penalty. By comparison under many states' 3-strikes laws an 18 year old might be sentenced to life imprisonment for theft of a golf club, and there is no protection against the clear disproportionality of the punishment to the crime. Perhaps the 18 year old is innocent as well- we may never know, as he is not afforded a mandatory appeal.
"The Death Penalty cannot be undone!" is the response, as though lethal injection were the only way to kill a man. Statistics on prison crime has shown that at least 25% of prisoners in California state prisons have been sexually assaulted or raped (the numbers go much higher if we assume rape occurs and isn't reported). Corporal punishment such as flogging was long ago deemed cruel and barbarous, yet we blind ourselves to the reality that even a minor sentence of incarceration is a de facto sentence to be violated and victimized. Supermax or high security prisons have had numerous reports written about their ability to drive their inmates slowly insane through isolation and lack of stimulus. Study after study has shown that prisoners subjected to the conditions of maximum security prisons suffer from psychological breakdowns from which no recovery is offered by meager prison mental health systems. Dementia, hallucinations, paranoia, and a host of other mental diseases are common, if not expected, among those serving time in our most secure prisons. A prison that hollows out a man until he is an empty shell has killed him just as surely as any needle.
The death penalty is no more brutal than the rest of our prison system. But then again the debate has never been about what makes us more or less humane as a society. I suspect much of the debate is about abolitionists feeling morally superior to the people of Texas.
You used a lot of words to make a very simple point. You happen to be okay with the possibility of innocent people being put to death. That's fine, but a lot of people aren't. Or maybe that's not what you're saying. Maybe you're just pointing out that prison is pretty shitty as well. Especially if you're really not guilty. To that I say: 'duh.'
You are correct, though, our entire penal system could use quite a bit of reform. That's not really what we are discussing here, and I don't think you'd find much disagreement about that point. But just because prison is terrible, and can also rob you of your humanity, does make the death penalty any less abhorrent.
Meant to say, "does not..."
Stating “Prison sucks, too” lacks poetry. But it also doesn’t contain the heart of my point which is, to paraphrase, that outrage over the abhorrent nature of the death penalty is hypocritical and intentionally narrow minded. No serious debate about missile defense occurs without considering overall military preparedness. No serious debate about public healthcare ignores the impact on private industry and the economy. Why, then, do we view punishment theory in isolation? Why is the death penalty debate divorced from a debate about the broader penalogical principles underlying our society? If you say the death penalty is abhorrent, then isn’t the follow up question “Compared to what?” If you say that we are discussing the death penalty, I reply that I am discussing how we punish people in this country.
My post was meant to drive home the point that the abolition of the death penalty achieves nothing for society. It does not demonstrate the evolving standards of a maturing society. It is not a victory of humanity over barbarism. Transferring a few thousand death row inmates into facilities filled with literally millions of prisoners subjected to daily abuse and brutality is not meaningful. Our prisons demonstrate our societal failings. They show the depths of our indifference to our fellow man.
That no one would disagree with my assertion that our prisons need reform raises the obvious question about why there is no move to reform prisons equivalent to abolishing the death penalty. The answer lies, I believe, in the mentality of activists: solutions are harder to muster up than outrage. Death penalty abolition is a boutique issue. It’s not about finding a solution to the evolving question of how society handles its most dangerous members. It’s about a particular class of people feeling superior to states like Texas and Georgia.
The article we are commenting on asserted that the debate is being dishonestly presented by the advocates of the death penalty. I assert that those who claim the death penalty is inhumane are not reflective enough in analyzing the standards society uses to measure inhumanity. If the blogger would demand that death penalty defenders acknowledge that the system is fallible, I would request abolitionists acknowledge there is far grosser and more widespread inhumanity present in our criminal justice system on which they are remarkably silent. Both sides of this debate have blinders on, and so long as that remains the case both sides with refuse to find compromise.
Jarsallen, you say: "Transferring a few thousand death row inmates into facilities filled with literally millions of prisoners subjected to daily abuse and brutality is not meaningful."
I'm afraid I have to disagree. It is meaningful. Just ask the guys who would be transferred from death row into the general population: I'm sure they'd find it meaningful.
It's true that we need to completely rethink the way we approach punishment and incarceration -- you get no argument from me there. But, for example, we can certainly debate abortion without necessarily contextualizing it in a reconsideration of women's health issues, adoption patterns, or whatever. We have to draw the line somewhere: it would be easy enough to leapfrog over you and say we can't talk about *any* of this stuff without first addressing the problem of capitalism, or belief in the existence of God, or whatever you might posit at the heart of the heart of these debates.
Indeed, often enough, changing people's minds about an effect can make them slowly start to reconsider the causes, too. Our collective response to AIDS, for example, was one way to open a conversation about gay rights and homophobia in general.
This is bad logic. It's true that context is important, but there are some actions that no context will justify. We take for granted, for instance, that no criminal justice policy would justify the state-sponsered rape of, say, four year old girls. We take for granted that no foreign policy context, in this era, could ever justify the intentional and deliberate murder of thousands of innocents. We take for granted that no agricultural policy could justify, say, slave labor. Likewise, a lot of us are interested if any criminal justice policy could ever justify the execution of an innocent man. If you want to make the case that it could, I'm all ears.
All of that aside, your central charge that "we" don't discuss other aspects of cj is demonstrably false. On a weekly basis it's discussed right here, by me. On more than a weekly basis it comes up in the open thread.
In this specific thread, the issue is Willingham. That's the point of this thread. If you'd like to talk about other aspects, it's worth following this blog and weight in when we talk about other aspects. Or taking it to the Open Thread.
No one would go to, say, the thread below on the murder of a child in Chicago and say, "Why aren't we talking about the senseless execution of an innocent man in Texas?" That would be baffling...
http://ta-nehisicoates.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/09/the_limits_of_compassion.php
I've been surprised at how many random people who know nothing about this case but what they've read online insist that Willingham *must* have been guilty. One comment thread at the Volokh Conspiracy turned into an argument between "Well, _I_ would totally have gotten all _my_ kids out of the burning house alive, in that situation, therefore he must have wanted his kids dead" and "Dude, you have no way of knowing beforehand how effective you would be in such a crisis."
There seems to be a subconscious instinct to resist the idea that bad things can just happen to people who don't deserve them - and as a result, if something bad happens, some people will look for a reason to believe it was deserved. It's going on, albeit with much smaller stakes, in my MMO community right now. The game has been having a serious problem with gold-selling spammers, botters, and phishing, and recently carried out a mass ban of players suspected of such activities. Of course, they made some mistakes and banned some who were innocent, and some of these players posted complaints on the forums about being "banned for no reason". Every single one of those posted complaints has at least one reply along the lines of "lol, maybe you shouldn't have botted".
Order can't come from disorder--you can't beat the Second Law. If the government is executing the innocent--a mistake that cannot be undone--then it is an amplifier of disorder, not a protector of order. It's like trying to defend yourself with a cheap gun that explodes in your hand when you use it--it's stupid, and everyone can see that it's stupid.
That's why the "honest" pro-death penalty argument will never fly--it's self defeating and the only people gullible enough to believe it are Cass Sunstein and others so determined to find the counter-intuitive that they miss the obvious.
Again, it isn't a literal argument for what I believe. You can't understand how people are thinking by constantly telling you why they're wrong. We know it's wrong. We can't keep having the same damn conversation and acting like everyone else is just crazy or stupid.
TNC - I wonder what you think of cases where there is no factual dispute about what happened. Such cases do exist; I just saw one on Lockup on MSNBC who killed his whole family and admitted it on camera. Would you favor execution in those cases?
there's no such thing, though theoretically, this is every "beyond a reasonable doubt" guilty verdict. REALLY guilty ("I strenuously object!") isn't an option. though whether the death penalty is applied I suppose could be based on some other criteria.
but it seems what you're really asking is if there are any situations that might warrant the death penalty, and that's really not relevant. or I should say it misses the point. even if we apply stricter and stricter criteria eventually an innocent person will be executed. it astounds me (and it seems TNC), that not everyone can admit this.
Bingo.
I live in Texas and the desire to kill convicts has NOTHING to do with a "culture of life". It has to do with a culture of sadism. Texas and the rest of the South is only a generation removed from lynching as a spectator sport. Freak show executions are part of this tradition.
There's a reason George W. Bush -AKA, the Crawford Caligula- gave us both the freak show execution of Karla Tucker as well as Abu Ghraib.
In America, we are entranced by argumentation, rather than problem solving. An issue like the Death Penalty is highly emotional, and so the Marquis of Queensbery of Critical Thinking, eschew fallacy, claims must be grounded in reason and backed with evidence, are thrown out the window, and it's argument as anything from food to street fight. Basically, the facade that we are a civilized, evolved society when it comes to many issues of life and death, is easy to see through, but in our nation, winning the argument is everything.
I don't wish to go on a tangent, but yesterday in my local newspaper a columnist who during the run up to the Iraq war promoted the WMD fabrication and never backed down on it even after all the info was in, reiterated a stance that Global Climate Change was a hoax citing one scientist who never has done any first hand study on the phenomenon, while today, as almost every day we read new evidence and scientific finding in the daily news, a raft of scientists predicted that within ten years there will be no polar ice in the arctic.
Why I bring this up, is that in our nation rather than really critically thinking something using ethical argumentation as one tool among many to identify and specify our challenges and offer a variety of solutions, we personally identify with our subjective views of situations to the degree that we don't mind bringing brass knuckles, loaded guns, knives and chains to what is supposed to be an intellectual boxing match. Honesty? Puh-leese, what's honesty got to do with it; we lie to ourselves believing our own lies as the truth; that's how so many specious arguments are presented sincerely.
The Death Penalty makes very little sense, except, perhaps, in exceptional situations; certainly, it goes against all of our Judeo-Christian notions of morality. Added to that, it is increasingly being proven that not only is the penalty frequently enough misplaced, but that it also contains racial biases in that misplacement that run counter to all the progress we have made as a society for the past half century. Little matter--fear, sadism, vengeance--off with their heads.
You don't cover Rick Perry much do you?