Capital Punishment

Here is a couple articles on Capital Punishment in recent news:
Iraq Execution
Texas Drugs
Maryland
Catholic
Error

I made up all the titles.

The 'Iraq Execution' article shows the U.N. condemns use of the death penalty, especially on the scale that Iraq used it just recently.

The article 'Texas Drugs' illustrates the sometimes less-than-ideal ways in which proponents of Capital Punishment seek to administer the death penalty. This shows a situation in which the execution itself could become increasingly inhumane.

The article titled 'Maryland' details a desire to end Capital Punishment in Maryland.

The article titled 'Catholic' shows how devout Catholics, who are usually very conservative, are increasingly becoming opposed to Capital Punishment.

'Error' details how our justice system does indeed make mistakes.

Now, on to my main points regarding Capital Punishment.

In sum, I think Capital Punishment is bad.

(1)Now, the most important question regarding capital punishment is a question regarding the whole of our justice system. The question is: What is the purpose of incarceration, and subsequent punishment, of criminals? The primary purpose of correctional institutions in any democratic nation is rehabilitation. Though secondary purposes, such as protection for/from society, exist, criminals ideally should be free once they have been 'fixed'. Violent criminals should be free from prison once they are sane again - once they are no longer unstable and deemed healthy. In an ideal system, the justice system would be based entirely off rehabilitation.

Tangentially, when I say healthy and fixed I am relying on the presumption that one needs to be mentally abnormal in order to commit insidious crimes such as rape and murder. Healthy people don't kill people intentionally.

For an example, say a criminal commits murder. They then get caught and convicted. They get sentenced to life in prison without chance of parole. Twenty years into their sentence, they have learned their lesson. The criminal has repented, realized the error in their ways, and is never going to commit another heinous act again. Obviously, if society knows all the information aforementioned, then I can't see any reason why the criminal should stay in prison. Keeping them locked up proves nothing. Their doesn't seem to be any rational argument to keep them locked up given these circumstances. Therefore, in an ideal system, the once-murderer should be set free and reintroduced into society.

The problem arises when society doesn't know if the murderer is in fact cured. This is why our society has introduced arbitrary sentencing times. This is why a burglar gets less time than a murderer. To realize the error of burgling, and recovering appropriately, takes less time than doing the same for murdering. The problem that our society has is it sometimes focuses only on the punishment itself, not the purpose of the punishment. Sometimes we sentence people, who are perfectly capable of rehabilitation, to cruel or unusual punishments just to spite the person. We get caught up in the moment and forget the overall point of the system: rehabilitation.

By definition, Capital Punishment, and to some extent life without parole, is pointless. Capital Punishment, because it literally prevents the criminal from reforming, doesn't serve a purpose. It is the embodiment of unusual punishment because it is a punishment that serves no point.

(2)A counter-argument to my claim is that we sentence violent criminals to protect the rest of society. If that is the sole reason we sentence violent criminals, then it would make sense to keep them incarcerated for as long as possible.

The flaw in the logical, simply put, is the criminals are being punished for something they have yet to do. They are being sentenced for longer times than needed because when they get out they have a higher potential to commit crimes. Notice, they have a higher potential to commit crimes, which does not mean they will commit crimes.

Basically, if you punish a prisoner, by sentencing them to a longer than needed sentence, you are punishing them twice. Once for what they did, and once for what they may do after they get out. Punishing someone for what they may do, even if the person has a higher than average chance of doing it, is inherently problematic. It creates a standard to punish others for what they may do, based purely on the statistical likelihood of them doing it.

In English 11 last year, I satirically used similar logic (or pseudo-logic rather), though brought to an extreme, to justify incarcerating large portions of our population. Here is some of that article:

The Federal prisons system has the most people in correctional facilities per capita in the whole world. This means that we are doing a great job keeping criminals off the streets. One can logically conclude that this means that our country has the lowest crime rates in the world and ergo the safest country in the world. However, statistically speaking, this is not true. Among other similarly, both technologically and socially, advanced countries, our violent crime rate is below only Australia. So, our problem is now two-fold: we have a exponentially increasing prisoner population, and we have to deal with a high violent crime rate. The reasonable answer to this dilemma is to both incarcerate more prisoners and to keep them in there for a longer time, while simultaneously building bigger and stronger correctional institutes. Once you commit a crime you are always a criminal. Therefore, you are always dangerous to society. The longer you stay in prison the more safe everyone else will be.

Some crazy nut-jobs argue that we should put people in different prisons for different crimes. (i.e. if you commit a violent crime you go to prison, whereas if you say shoplift you would only have to pay fines and restitution) I’m here to say that any and all arguments in support of this Ideology are completely and totally fallacious. One only needs simple common sense to see the falsehoods in the aforementioned idea. Let me give you this simple scenario to show you to my way of thinking: If a person steals a packet of gum, knowing full well that stealing is illegal, they did willfully and maliciously break the law. These same laws are what keep the fabric of society intact. If said person can, without remorse or regret, commit such an act, then no personal moral ideals exist in sufficient enough quantity to stop them from committing much more serious crimes, such as murder or assault. Therefore, all criminals should be treated with the same harshness as the worst offenders: mass murderers and the like. Because if one can commit one crime then no personal moral ethics will stop them from committing another. Although stealing gum is not as serious as committing murder, I consider it an investment to lock up everyone who has even a remote possibility of murdering somebody.

The offspring of those who a currently, or have at one point or another, served a sentence in prison have a higher incarceration rate when compared to the rest of the general population. So, it’s only obvious that we need to do something about the sons and daughters of criminals. Well, because improving their lot in life, by providing funds towards education and other social welfare projects, would be simply ridiculous, the only reasonable solution left is to imprison these children. They could potentially threaten other people. I consider it a preemptive imprisonment for crimes which they have yet to commit. My opponents argue that we should only imprison the appropriate amount of these children. The appropriate amount being the percentage of them that are likely to commit crimes. However, I reason, that the only way to stop the offspring from committing crimes is to incarcerate all of them. That way we can be 100% sure that there isn’t even a possibility for them to wreak havoc upon society. The best way to combat crime is through prevention. Using this same principle, I can also conclude that we also need to imprison all peoples whose income is less than the national median income, all immigrants, and the state of Louisiana. These different groups all have higher crime rates than the national average and therefore should be imprisoned for it.

As you can see, it is fallacious to use statistical likelihood to justify imprisonment.

(3)On yet another point, even if it were reasonable to imprison those who have yet to do something - which it isn't - the way it is decided whether or not a person has a higher chance to commit crimes is inherently flawed. It is based on society's view of the subject in question. Though we like to pretend that humans are inherently reasonable and logical all the time, often times we are persuaded by sensationalism and other corrupt arguments from pathos.

Arguments from pathos are present in our courtrooms. Now, not all arguments using mankind's emotional responses are egregious. Though, of the three different modes of argument - pathos, ethos, and logos - pathos is the most easily corruptible. It is also the most effective at generating a response. Because of the effectiveness of arguments appealing to people's emotions, the arguments involving pathos as the center-piece of the argument are commonly used in the courtroom.

Since the objective of both the prosecution and the defense is to most effectively convince the jury, the adept lawyer disregards all arguments against their own. They don't present all the evidence; only the evidence that furthers their own cause. The adept attorney will sometimes intentionally commit logical fallacies or distort facts in order to further their own ends. Since the majority of the jury may be ignorant, they are then persuaded by the brute emotional response that they have.

Now, if the system works, meaning both the defense and prosecution have equally eloquent attorneys, then there is no problem. The two lawyer's fallacies cancel each other out, or neither lawyer commits to using fallacious reasoning out of fear of being called out on it.

The problem arises when both attorneys aren't equally matched. If that happens, for whatever reason, the actual truth of the trail becomes insignificant, or at least less significant. Which is one reason why more serious crimes require a greater amount - that is a more convincing amount - of evidence.

Another reason more serious crimes should require more evidence is the fact that more serious crimes permit more serious punishment. When the state punishes someone, for whatever crime, they are essentially revoking something from that person. Whether the thing revoked be time, money, community service, etc, it doesn't matter. The more one revokes from that person, the more possible detriment that person endures. The greater detriment that person endures the more possible error in the states justice is possible. The state wants to minimize the amount of error it produces within the criminal justice system. Since being wrong - that is giving the wrong verdict - on a serious crime has the possibility to produce more error when compared to a less serious crime, the requirements to incarcerate serious criminals is therefore more stringent.

Also, the sentencing shouldn't be reliant on the jury answering correctly necessarily. Thus, sentences that do rely on absolute correctness, that is sentences that are themselves absolutes, shouldn't be permitted - unless you're willing to make the argument that juries are never wrong. The death penalty, and to some extent life imprisonment, is an absolute punishment. It takes away everything the murderer has. With respects to the murderer, it revokes an infinite amount from him. Ergo, unless the juries never answer incorrectly, the death penalty cannot be allowed.

In other words, if the possible amount of error is infinite, as is the case in Capital Punishment, then the certainty required to justly incarcerate murderers is absolute. Absolute punishment requires absolute certainty.

Basically, if you are to sentence someone to an absolute, like the death penalty, you have to be absolutely sure they in fact did what they are being punished for. Our system, and any system for that matter, can't accomplish perfection, even one-time perfection. The amount of proof required increases with both the severity of crime and punishment. If the punishment is lenient, then the amount of proof is lenient. If the punishment is an absolute, then the amount of proof is absolute.

Really, it's better to let 100, or even 1000, guilty people go, than incarcerate one innocent person, if the punishment is death. The detriment towards society that will occur by letting guilty people go is a lesser negative than the absolute detriment that occurs when an innocent person is killed.

(4)Capital Punishment doesn't, by enlarge, deter crime.

In states without the death penalty the crime rates are significantly lower than states with the death penalty. Though this doesn't suggest keeping the death penalty raises crime rates, it merely suggests that if a state were to abolish the death penalty, they wouldn't experience a large increase of crime.

According to the ACLU, when a survey conducted questioning police chiefs throughout our country to rank the most effective factors that, in their opinion, contributed to decreased crime rates, the death penalty was ranked last. It was behind longer sentences, gun control, more police officers, curbing drug use, among others. Which shows that if one desires to decrease crime rates, the death penalty is the least effective means by which to do so.

Violent crimes, and murders in specific, can be divided into two different categories. Those which are premeditated and those which aren't.

If a crime is premeditated it means it has been thought out prior to when the crime is committed. Literally, that is what premeditated means. Criminals, by enlarge, don't premeditate their crimes with the intention of being caught. They plan on getting away with their crimes most of the time. Therefore, since the intention of the criminal is to escape, the difference between Capital Punishment and life imprisonment doesn't matter. The criminal plans on escaping anyway so why bother with worrying about the punishment.

If the crime isn't premeditated, then most likely the reason the murderer murders is to satisfy a barbaric urge to give in to emotional distress. The higher cognitive functions of the murderer are suspended. Basically, the murderer loses their cool. If the higher cognitive functions, such as reason and logic, of the murderer are suspended, then the murder doesn't consider adequately the negative repercussions of the murder they are about to commit. Hence, they will not consider the death penalty when committing the murder, at least not adequately. If they don't consider the repercussions, then there isn't a possible way for the death penalty to deter that particular murder.

A third set of circumstances exists. If the criminal does premeditate their crime yet expects to get caught, which happens incredibly rarely, then most likely the criminal intends to become a martyr or is insane. If they are insane, then it is already unconstitutional for us to kill them. If they wish to go down as a martyr, then likely Capital Punishment is expected and they are willing to die for their ideology. Hence, under neither circumstance does Capital Punishment deter a crime.

There are circumstances in which Capital Punishment actually causes more deaths to occur (besides the murderers). In 1996, Daniel Colwell, who suffers from a mental illness, kill random individuals in a Georgia parking lot because he wanted to die. He was to afraid to take his own life so he had the state do it for him.

(5)Capital Punishment is contrary to the 'unalienable' rights that we fought for in the Revolutionary War. In the Declaration of Independence, we declare that Great Britain violated the basic human rights everyone possesses, and they violated the social contract between themselves and us, thus they were no longer fit to govern over us. Ideologically, they breached the social contract and that breach gave us the right to overthrow them. We fought a war over what we perceived as an infringement upon our rights. Now, this relates to Capital punishment because among the rights endowed by our creator - the rights possessed by everyone regardless of creed, sex, economic background, philosophical ideology, etc - is the right to Life. The right to Life is unalienable - that is the literal right to Live. Nothing - no entity, government, organization, or person - has the right to take away the right to Live.

In the Bill of Rights, in our Constitution, we are guaranteed specific rights. These rights are given to us by the government in exchange for the governments sovereign over us. It's a social contract. Now, the Constitution doesn't explicitly state people have a right to live because the government doesn't have the authority to give that right. The right to live is unalienable. Hence, since the government never possessed the ability to endow people with the right to live, the government also doesn't have the authority to take that right away.

In the 5th amendment to our constitution, it states:
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence(sic) to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Notice that is states, "nor shall they (the defendant) be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." This clause does not invalidate my point, nor does the clause indicating, "No person should be held to answer for a Capital..." Though both clauses imply that Capital Punishment is possible under our Constitution, indeed it is possible, neither clause states it as a necessity.

Of the three terms in the 'Life Liberty and Property' clause two of them, liberty and property were chosen for, presumably, a reason. They did not say 'pursuit of happiness' because the pursuit of happiness is an extremely ambiguous term. The pursuit of happiness is also an ideological term - a philosophical one. They used property, among other words, to cement the Constitution to the political environment of the day; to put the abstract idea, originally from Locke, into a practical form. To disambiguate the supreme law of the land just to the point where it becomes practical. By doing so, they also, as a result, tied the Constitution, in some ways, to what the social norms of the day were. Social norms progress as history progresses. Therefore, right and wrong - at least in some respects - is different now than it was then. Ergo, a completely Originalist approach to the Constitution is absurd. Because the Originalist approach may be erroneous in some respects, it isn't wise to simply take everything in the Constitution literally without any interpretation. The interpretation should thus be comprehensive and take into account the morals of our time. It should take into account the norms surrounding us just as the Constitution was drafted to take into account the norms surrounding their time. Just because the Constitution hints at the possibility for the death penalty - though never explicitly stating that Capital Punishment ought to be used - doesn't mean we should use Capital punishment blindly as the abhorrence of Capital Punishment should never be considered a solution to anything, regardless of how heinous the crime may be.

The liberty which the constitution endows us with is the only liberty that the Constitution can endow us with: Positive Liberty. Positive Liberty (which is the technical term) is, in sum, the right to be oneself's own master. The freedom to control your own life. Positive Liberty contrasts with Negative Liberty. Negative Liberty is, in sum, the ability to not be a slave. The right to be free of others domination over you. Everyone, regardless of anything, is born with Negative Liberty. Negative Liberty is unalienable. It is impossible to legitimately revoke someone's Negative Liberty. People always possess the freedom to escape domination. Through coercion, one may force others into slavery, thus taking away their Negative Liberty. However both the act of coercion and consequential repeal of said person's Negative Liberty are crimes against humanity. No matter what entity commits the coercion and eventual de-liberation, the result is the same. The entity violated the unalienable rights of humans and therefore committed an abhorrent crime against humanity itself.

The term pursuit of happiness, in addition to the tone of the rest of the Declaration of Independence, leads me to believe the Declaration was written in a much more ideological frame of mind than the more pragmatic Constitution. The Constitution had to be grounded whereas the Declaration did not. Thus, because the Declaration was written more in the abstract, it wouldn't be fallacious to say most probably the other two terms - Life and Liberty - were also meant to be on the abstract side of things. They were written in the ideal. They were phrased that way to highlight what the ultimate goal is - what the ideal unalienable rights are. The right to Live is unalienable, the right to Negative Liberty (that's the technical term) is unalienable, and the right to pursue your own happiness - provided it doesn't violate John Stuart Mill's Harm Principle - is unalienable.

In sum, the three rights guaranteed in the Declaration are unalienable. In fact, they technically don't even need to be guaranteed, as they are inherent in all humans. The three rights in the Declaration guaranteed are as follows: the right to Live, Negative Liberty, and the pursuit to become happy within the restraints of society. The three rights in the Fifth Amendment are as follows: the right to live your life as you see prudent - the right to determine your own livelihood, Positive Liberty, and property - your possessions. The three rights in the Fifth amendment are all rights that can be taken away if the Social Contract is violated; the three in the Declaration are indeed unalienable.

Just because the Declaration was abstract then doesn't mean it has to still be purely abstract now. I am not stating that I want the Declaration to be the supreme law of the land. That is absurd. However, the Declaration declares the enlightened philosophy that our Constitution was later based off of. The Declaration declares this philosophy in full force. It wasn't an official law, and thus wasn't subject to realism. It could be as ideological as it wanted. In the time of the Constitution, it was somewhat of a norm to have capital punishment as part of a legal system. So, because the Constitution had to be at least marginally grounded to its time, Capital Punishment was included to be a possibility within the Constitution. However, just because it was at one point Constitutional, doesn't mean Capital Punishment remains constitutional today. The ideological message of the Constitution, and the enlightenment period in general, converted into today's norms, would be contrary to Capital Punishment.

(6)Nowadays, the world (at least the civilized western-style democracies) are overwhelmingly opposed to Capital Punishment. Japan, Belarus, India, and the U.S. are the only western-style democracies in the world to still use Capital Punishment. In the E.U., it is outlawed. No country, except Belarus, in Europe has Capital Punishment. 51% of nations belonging to the U.N. prohibit Capital Punishment. In addition, 4% only allow it during war time, and 25% haven't actually used the death penalty in over ten years. The U.S. belongs to the group of 40 nations (20%) who still use Capital Punishment. Most of these nations are either Despotisms or are in Asia. In Asia the philosophy regarding Capital punishment is different. The U.S. ranks fifth on the list of most people executed per year, behind China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq, but luckily we are ahead of Yemen and North Korea. The U.S., a liberal democracy, is comparable to a monarchy, two theocracies, a dictatorship, an anarchic pseudo-democracy, and an oligarchy. Obviously world-wide the U.S. has fallen behind when it comes to Capital punishment. In fact, we are about twenty years behind the other nations of the world.

These statistics don’t necessarily mean we have to change our Capital Punishment laws, though they do suggest it. They do however mean that the worldwide norm is that of no Capital Punishment. Generally speaking, doing something outside of the norm requires reason. The greater the variation the greater the reason required. We are far outside the norm. Hence, if we are to justify still using the death penalty, then we need quite a large amount of reasoning to back us up. Which has the effect of shifting the burden-of-proof towards those who are defending the death penalty, rather than those trying to change it.

(7)One of the arguments for Capital Punishment involves the differentiation between the definitions of killing and murder. The reason these two terms, according to the argument, is that it isn't ever right to murder but under certain circumstances it is acceptable to kill. The two definitions are as follows: kill is to end the life of someone, murder is the crime of deliberately killing someone. The only impact-ful difference between the definitions is the crime part. One of which, according to the definitions, isn't a crime and the other is a crime. However, both Capital Punishment and murder are crimes because they are both crimes against humanity. Murder also happens to be a crime in most, if not all, states (nations), but the laws which the nations set are insignificant when compared to the laws of humanity.

There is one acceptable circumstance in which killing is admissible. Killing in self-defense isn't bad, though that death has to be in-deliberate  You can't mean to kill someone in self-defense. This doesn't necessarily apply to only people. Any entity with independence of choice, positive liberty, may defend itself. Which, in effect, can authorize defense on the scale of states.

As I said, the laws of humanity outweigh the laws of an individual country. As Capital Punishment is contrary to the law inherent within humans dictating that it is wrong to kill, Capital Punishment is a crime - it's a crime against humanity. Killing deliberately while simultaneously breaking the aforementioned law is murder. Murder, I concur, is always wrong. Therefore Capital Punishment is always wrong.

(8)A contradiction arises if governments do indeed have the ability, or right if you will, to kill its own citizens - not to say that the government is killing at will, there are checks and balances within the system to prevent tyranny.

Still, the ability to use the death penalty creates a huge problem. The problem originates from the location where governments get their power, their right to rule. All government power is derived from the people it governs over. Every single power the government possess is derived from the people in one way or another. If government does indeed have the power of execution, then therefore people have the power of execution in their state of nature. In the state of nature, people may gain retribution for the wrongs done unto them by killing the offender.

Meaning, without government, people may kill other people as punishment. They may do this without breaking any morals, norms, or ethics. They may kill ethically. If the person chooses to kill ethically responsibly, then only a minor problem arises, like if they only kill for something equally detrimental towards themselves - an eye for an eye. However, when people are indeed in their state of nature, they are in effect independent. For a particular individual, the punishment for everything may be death. Hence, one can ethically kill someone else - provided they are in the state of nature - for only a minor infraction.

I don't think anyone would be willing to argue that killing someone for as little as thievery, or the like, is ethical. Indeed it isn't. Therefore, if governments do indeed have the right to execute - that is use Capital Punishment, then the aforementioned scenario has to be true. In order to be ideologically consistent, one who defends Capital Punishment has to be willing to defend that it is ethical to kill someone for as little as thievery if man is in its state of nature.

(conc)In sum, Capital Punishment is an abhorrent antediluvian practice which persists into the modern era despite the obvious ethical, moral, statistical, logical, and effectual deficiencies inherent within it. From a viewpoint of justice, it solves nothing because it is inherently unjust. From the viewpoint of the social contract existing between governments and peoples, it cannot possibly be justified in any logically consistent system as any social contract that allows it is null and void. From the pragmatic viewpoint that Capital Punishment decreases crime rates, the contradictory is true. From the idea that criminals should be kept incarcerated longer than needed purely to satisfy the statistically induced paranoia of some members of our population, it is a fallacious, erroneous, specious, and egregious form of deception to punish twice - once for what has been done, and once for what may become done. From a worldwide perspective, our country is one of the last bastions still engaging in a long-since antiquated form of punishment. From a ethical perspective, it is hypocritical incarnate to do unto one what they have done unto me - two injustices don't synthesize justice. From any reasonable perspective, Capital Punishment is contrary to necessary punishment - it is, by definition, cruel and unusual punishment.