Death Penalty and Executions

[juliod]

Capital punishment frequently comes up as a topic of discussion in this forum. Typically, most people express dissatisfaction with the current system in the US. I'd like some comments on this proposal for reform.

There are usually two objections to the current system. Advocates of the death penalty think there are two many levels of appeal and that it takes too long and is too uncertain. Opponents complain that too many innocent people are convicted and that executions are often unnecessarily cruel.

My proposal is straightforward. It would be implements at the state level, where most executions take place. Basically it is composed to two provisions:

1) Prior to an execution, the Governor of the state must certify that the convict is in fact guilty and that execution is appropriate considering all the facts and compared to similar crimes. This duty would have to be done by the Governor personally and cannot be delegated.

2) The Governor of the state would personally carry out the execution. The Governor would have to personally operate the mechanism, the switch, button, or level than directly leads to death. The Governor must remain in full view of the prisoner until a pronouncement of death.

My goal is to increase the sense of personal responsability in capital cases. That is what I think is lacking, and what leads to all the problems with the death penalty. The governor is the Chief Executive, let them execute. That will be the motto of our movement.

Why are executions too cruel? It's because no one in actual authority is involved in them. They are carried out by anonymous prison officials who may be sadists in the first place. Even lethal injection, once thought to be a humane method, is now suspected of causing extreme pain and suffering in some, perhaps many, cases. If the Governor were doing the execution directly, they would want to be very sure that things were done right, if only for their own conscience.

Why are innocent people still being found on Death Row? It's because no one in actual authority actually cares. Judges, in my view, are a hopeless case. Politicians, OTOH, often need to make a posturing tough-on-crime stance. They would be less likely to ignore evidence of actual innocence if they had to personally and publicly state they they are convinced of the justice in this specific case. No more hiding behind a jury.

My plan would tie the chief executive more directly to the execution, both in decision and action. Since they would have no simple defense in case the convict were later shown to be innocent, the Governors would take these cases much more seriously and give them greater consideration (and not just whether it makes them look "tough").

Opponents of executions often seem frustrated that as the date of an impending execution comes up it is impossible to get anyone in authority to look at evidence of innocence. Governors won't meet with their representatives. Courts won't grant hearings. The problem is that often the evidence of innocence is quite convincing. If there were a high official who must tie his or her personal dignity, reputation, and honor to the guilt of the condemned, we would not have these issues.

I think if my proposal were implimented it would be very helpful in weeding out those miscarriages that plauge our capital system, and lead to a reduction in the need for multiple appeals and repeated rulings.

DanZ

[MagusYanam]

Magnus, your criticism was of Bailey, not me. I am happy to defend my own beliefs. You were already critcising Bailey through a proxy- why you now complain about it is odd.

I was simply criticising Bailey on the forum, not giving you an e-mail and telling you to forward it to him (which, as it seems is the case, you chose to do). I had thought that when I wrote 'please inform Mr. Bailey...' the juxtaposition was rhetorical enough in tone that you wouldn't take the phrasing seriously. I see I was wrong.

My invitation for Mr. Bailey to join the forum still stands.

Religious positions in favor of capital punishment are neither necessary not needed to justify that sanction. However, the biblical and theological record is very supportive of the death penalty.

Many of the current religious campaigns against the death penalty reflect a fairly standard anti death penalty message, routed in secular arguments. When they do address religious issues, they often neglect solid theological foundations, choosing, instead, select biblical sound bites which do not impact the solid basis of death penalty support.

The strength of the biblical, theological and traditional support for the death penalty is, partially, revealed, below.

I don't think you really believe what you just wrote, otherwise you wouldn't have spent so much time and effort arguing the point, and instead moved on immediately to the practical issues you touched on later.

The arguments of anti-DP religious groups may be secular in nature, but the foundation for them is not secular, and it is erroneous of you to infer that they do not have any solid theological basis for their claims. Most of the time, it is not the anti-DP camp that does the bulk of the quote mining. The anti-death penalty rhetoric I've heard from religious sources is often far more broad and thematic - dealing with the Gospel as a whole and how it relates to power and the ethics of violence and vengeance (with which, as you must admit, the death penalty is rather intimately concerned).

The core of the Gospel is not about conceding to the demands of civil society, though it is about dealing with sinners. And the way Christians are called to deal with those who sin against us is to love them, regardless of their offences, and to forswear vengeance, as that falls within the realm of the Most Sovereign and no other sovereign. It is not an easy path to walk. It is one of the most difficult things that Christ asks us to do; I know it as well as any, being human myself.

I well understand that the United States must be a secular society and not take upon itself such a model of government, but if Christian ethics were used to run a civil society, one might expect that it would follow, or at least attempt to, the standards of mercy and redemptive compassion that Christ himself demonstrated. If the death penalty could be administered mercifully and not in the spirit of vengeance or fear, I might support it. But as it currently stands, it is an abomination against Christian ethics and against the spirit of justice.

Oh yes, Mr. Sharp, it is MagusYanam - no 'n'.

[dudleysharp]

Magnus, your criticism was of Bailey, not me. I am happy to defend my own beliefs. You were already critcising Bailey through a proxy- why you now complain about it is odd.

I was simply criticising Bailey on the forum, not giving you an e-mail and telling you to forward it to him (which, as it seems is the case, you chose to do). I had thought that when I wrote 'please inform Mr. Bailey...' the juxtaposition was rhetorical enough in tone that you wouldn't take the phrasing seriously. I see I was wrong.

Magus. my obvious point was that you criticise my excercise in proxy, yet you criticised Bailey by proxy. Wining is unnecessary, particularly by you. Second, don't presume. I would have sent your criticism to Bailey, no matter your suggestions, rhetorical or not.

Yes, his book may be hard to find, but I do hope you get the chance to read it.

Religious positions in favor of capital punishment are neither necessary not needed to justify that sanction. However, the biblical and theological record is very supportive of the death penalty.

Many of the current religious campaigns against the death penalty reflect a fairly standard anti death penalty message, routed in secular arguments. When they do address religious issues, they often neglect solid theological foundations, choosing, instead, select biblical sound bites which do not impact the solid basis of death penalty support.

The strength of the biblical, theological and traditional support for the death penalty is, partially, revealed, below.

I don't think you really believe what you just wrote, otherwise you wouldn't have spent so much time and effort arguing the point, and instead moved on immediately to the practical issues you touched on later.

Magus, you are wrong. I do thorough research on many aspects of the death penalty - biblical references included. I have much interaction with the religious community. I have never used biblical justification for my own support for the death penalty. It is not part of why I support the sanction.


The arguments of anti-DP religious groups may be secular in nature, but the foundation for them is not secular, and it is erroneous of you to infer that they do not have any solid theological basis for their claims.

Our experience in this area is quite different, then.

Most of the time, it is not the anti-DP camp that does the bulk of the quote mining. The anti-death penalty rhetoric I've heard from religious sources is often far more broad and thematic - dealing with the Gospel as a whole and how it relates to power and the ethics of violence and vengeance (with which, as you must admit, the death penalty is rather intimately concerned).

I agree. That really is the point. Broad and general themes do not go to the core of the biblical debate - that is why antis generally avoid them. Specifics on the death penalty are not that hard to find, but they support the use of the death penalty. Bibical scholars and theologians often try to deal in specifics for the very reason that while generalities and themes can be very important, they are not instructive on limited points - like the death penalty.

In reviewing my post with the many quotes, certainly you know of Aquinas and Augustine, argueably the greatest scholar/saints of the Catholic Church and two of the few designated with Doctor of the Church. Some of the other scholars are much lesser known, but very authoritative, as well. Often, with such quotes, one looses the broad and thematic gathering of resources and reason which brought them about. Reading the original source material is of great benefit. I do not presume you haven't read much of that material, but am making a broad recommendation to others that, if interested in this topic, they take the time to read more on it.

Magus it is, my apology. What does your quote mean?

sincerely, dudley

[MagusYanam]

Magus. my obvious point was that you criticise my excercise in proxy, yet you criticised Bailey by proxy. Wining is unnecessary, particularly by you. Second, don't presume. I would have sent your criticism to Bailey, no matter your suggestions, rhetorical or not.

I assume you meant to say 'whining'. Which I wasn't. Nor was I arguing by proxy: I used my own reasons and my own argumentation when refuting Bailey's interpretations of scripture and Jesus' attitudes toward the law. I didn't rely wholesale on someone else's thinking for my argument, which is what I meant by 'arguing by proxy'.

I didn't want to call your previous post 'plagiarism', as you cited your source and 'plagiarism', as well as being incorrect terminology here, is loaded language. Still, not to sound patronising, but I'm honestly glad to see that in your subsequent posts, you demonstrate some good thinking.

Magus, you are wrong. I do thorough research on many aspects of the death penalty - biblical references included. I have much interaction with the religious community. I have never used biblical justification for my own support for the death penalty. It is not part of why I support the sanction.

I've been wrong before, and I will be again - part of being human. But even though Biblical references for the death penalty may not really matter to you, don't fall into the trap of assuming support where none exists. The death penalty was a social reality of the ancient Hebrews. To say that 'the death penalty should be a social reality for us' as a result is, at a basic level, logically fallacious - simply listing instances where the death penalty is referenced in the Bible doesn't cut it.

I agree. That really is the point. Broad and general themes do not go to the core of the biblical debate

Fine, I agree - they don't go to the core of the main scholarly debates. But for practising Christians, the core of belief is the Gospel. And to fine-pick such political messages out of the Gospel, broadly speaking, is to miss the point, sometimes so direly as to turn the results into something not Christian.

To be sure, there are some political messages that do go to the very core of the Gospel. Treatment of the poor, the outcast and the infirm, for example. And I also think that mercy, and grace, even in political and judicial settings, have a firm, central grounding in the Gospel. But concerning the death penalty, particularly in a modern setting, it seems to be a secondary, even peripheral issue. So going by broad themes is often necessary if you want to remain true to the spirit of the Gospel.

As to Aquinas and Augustine, they are indeed great scholars. But I'm going to put on my Protestant hat for a moment and say they are not authoritative in the same way the Gospel is. My church is renowned for its latitudinarianism (in fact, the policies of the Church of England even necessitated the coining of the term), but the primary authorities are 'scriptura, fama et ratio' (Scripture, Tradition and Reason - the quote in my signature). And though Augustine and Aquinas are part of church tradition, they have their place, and they do not, in and of themselves, deserve to be treated as Truth (with a capital 't') if what they say is in conflict with Scripture and Reason. (You have to remember that the Church Fathers were humans too, products of their sociopolitical and socioreligious environments. In Augustine's case, and to a lesser degree in Aquinas', they stood to gain much through support of the Roman Imperial - later Papal - status quo.)

[MagusYanam]

Magus. my obvious point was that you criticise my excercise in proxy, yet you criticised Bailey by proxy. Wining is unnecessary, particularly by you. Second, don't presume. I would have sent your criticism to Bailey, no matter your suggestions, rhetorical or not.

I assume you meant to say 'whining'. Which I wasn't. Nor was I arguing by proxy: I used my own reasons and my own argumentation when refuting Bailey's interpretations of scripture and Jesus' attitudes toward the law. I didn't rely wholesale on someone else's thinking for my argument, which is what I meant by 'arguing by proxy'.

I didn't want to call your previous post 'plagiarism', as you cited your source and 'plagiarism', as well as being incorrect terminology here, is loaded language. Still, not to sound patronising, but I'm honestly glad to see that in your subsequent posts, you demonstrate some good thinking.

Magus, you are wrong. I do thorough research on many aspects of the death penalty - biblical references included. I have much interaction with the religious community. I have never used biblical justification for my own support for the death penalty. It is not part of why I support the sanction.

I've been wrong before, and I will be again - part of being human. But even though Biblical references for the death penalty may not really matter to you, don't fall into the trap of assuming support where none exists. The death penalty was a social reality of the ancient Hebrews. To say that 'the death penalty should be a social reality for us' as a result is, at a basic level, logically fallacious - simply listing instances where the death penalty is referenced in the Bible doesn't cut it.

I agree. That really is the point. Broad and general themes do not go to the core of the biblical debate

Fine, I agree - they don't go to the core of the main scholarly debates. But for practising Christians, the core of belief is the Gospel. And to fine-pick such political messages out of the Gospel, broadly speaking, is to miss the point, sometimes so direly as to turn the results into something not Christian.

To be sure, there are some political messages that do go to the very core of the Gospel. Treatment of the poor, the outcast and the infirm, for example. And I also think that mercy, and grace, even in political and judicial settings, have a firm, central grounding in the Gospel. But concerning the death penalty, particularly in a modern setting, it seems to be a secondary, even peripheral issue. So going by broad themes is often necessary if you want to remain true to the spirit of the Gospel.

As to Aquinas and Augustine, they are indeed great scholars. But I'm going to put on my Protestant hat for a moment and say they are not authoritative in the same way the Gospel is. My church is renowned for its latitudinarianism (in fact, the policies of the Church of England even necessitated the coining of the term), but the primary authorities are 'scriptura, fama et ratio' (Scripture, Tradition and Reason - the quote in my signature). And though Augustine and Aquinas are part of church tradition, they have their place, and they do not, in and of themselves, deserve to be treated as Truth (with a capital 't') if what they say is in conflict with Scripture and Reason. (You have to remember that the Church Fathers were humans too, products of their sociopolitical and socioreligious environments. In Augustine's case, and to a lesser degree in Aquinas', they stood to gain much through support of the Roman Imperial - later Papal - status quo.)

[MagusYanam]

Interesting article on the topic.


http://select.nytimes.com/2007/03/26/us ... tml?ref=us

In Alabama, Execution Without Representation

By ADAM LIPTAK
Published: March 26, 2007

Nobody much likes the fact that Alabama does not provide indigent death row inmates with lawyers.

"Perhaps, in a perfect world, every inmate would have a lawyer at the ready at all times," the states attorney general told a federal appeals court in a brief defending the practice last year. "But we live in the real world."

Three judges on that court, the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, also made sympathetic remarks about a utopian alternate reality in which prisoners about to be executed might actually be provided with lawyers.

"If we lived in a perfect world, which we do not, we would like to see the inmates obtain the relief they seek," Judge Joel F. Dubina wrote. The court unanimously rejected a class action suit from inmates asking for lawyers.

Not every bad idea is unconstitutional, the state and the judges said, and Alabama the only state that refuses to provide indigent death row inmates with lawyers should be able to go it alone in this area even at the risk of executing the unjustly convicted or the innocent.

Lawyers for the inmates will ask the United States Supreme Court to hear the case next month. There is, they say, a constitutional right of meaningful access to the courts. No condemned inmate, they add, can be expected without a lawyer to navigate the procedural minefields that Alabama has erected in capital cases.

In a series of cases starting with Gideon v. Wainwright in 1963, the Supreme Court has said that poor criminal defendants are entitled to free lawyers for their trials and their first round of appeals. But an ambiguous 1989 decision indicated that habeas petitions, which are civil suits challenging unjust convictions and sentences, may be a different matter. That decision is widely understood to require only that inmates have access to adequate prison law libraries. Alabama has about 200 people on death row. Few of them, presumably, have legal training or money to hire lawyers.

Yet if they are to challenge their convictions or sentences, they must master the hyper-technical intricacies of Alabamas rules of criminal procedure, conduct investigations from behind prison walls and prepare and file their own petitions for post-conviction relief. The deadline is one year, after which Alabama courts close their doors.

The attorney generals office cuts the inmates no slack, seeking and getting dismissals of the prisoners petitions for all manner of procedural shortcomings.

If a petition survives, a judge has the option but not the obligation to appoint a lawyer. Even then, there is a catch: the cap on compensation is $1,000, which will buy you an hour or two of a New York lawyers time but must pay for the hundreds of hours of work that goes into a habeas petition. A properly prepared petition is based on painstaking review of the trial transcript and appellate record, witness interviews, other investigation and extensive legal research.

An Alabama death row inmate lucky enough to get a lawyer will have one who is willing to work for less than the minimum wage.

Alabama responds by pointing to the quality of the volunteer lawyers who do often take on capital cases there.

"The overwhelming majority of Alabama death-row inmates enjoy the assistance of qualified (and often ber-qualified) counsel in collaterally attacking their convictions and sentences," the states lawyers told the appeals court. (ber-lawyers are apparently the sort who usually work for more than the minimum wage.)

That is pretty circular. Since good lawyers occasionally agree to fill the gap created by Alabamas refusal to provide any lawyers, the argument goes, the state may continue to provide no lawyers.

If the Supreme Court agrees to hear the case, it will have to decide what to do about its 1989 decision in Murray v. Giarratano. The decision is complicated, with four justices on either side, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy in the middle and Justice Sandra Day OConnor saying two things at once.

"The complexity of our jurisprudence in this area," Justice Kennedy wrote, "makes it unlikely that capital defendants will be able to file successful petitions for collateral relief without the assistance of persons learned in the law."

He was satisfied, he said, that the state in question in that case, Virginia, had complied with what the Constitution requires, given that no inmate there had gone without a lawyer and the prisons there were staffed with institutional lawyers to assist in preparing petitions.

In the almost 20 years since Giarratano, death penalty law has become even more complicated, and deadlines have tightened. But habeas petitions continue to succeed in overturning death sentences all the time. Scores of innocent inmates have been released from death row. In response, the rest of the country everywhere but Alabama provides people at risk of execution with lawyers.

To hear Alabama prosecutors and federal judges talk about it, those other states are a sort of inmates Eden, a perfect world populated by ber-lawyers. But it is not. It is America.