rickyp wrote:Fate

I'd say it's a good thing for society--if there are sufficient safeguards. I think we have those.

depending on which local jurisdiction one finds oneself in the US - 60 to 90% of defendants require a public defender.

Not relevant. In a capital murder case, you're not going to wind up with a "dump truck" (inmate slang for a bad attorney).

You think it means innocent people aren't being put to death?

Almost no one is being put to death. Let me know when the next "innocent" person is killed by our system.

Fate

Not relevant. In a capital murder case, you're not going to wind up with a "dump truck" (inmate slang for a bad attorney)

Bull.

Most Deserving of Death?: An Analysis of the Supreme Court's Death Penalty ...
By Professor Kenneth Williams

According to this study, of defendants who end up on death row, most have been poorly represented. And most by public defenders.
(Google Books won't let me cut and paste a quote. Chapter two covers it...)

rickyp wrote:Fate

Not relevant. In a capital murder case, you're not going to wind up with a "dump truck" (inmate slang for a bad attorney)

Bull.

Most Deserving of Death?: An Analysis of the Supreme Court's Death Penalty ...
By Professor Kenneth Williams

According to this study, of defendants who end up on death row, most have been poorly represented. And most by public defenders.
(Google Books won't let me cut and paste a quote. Chapter two covers it...)

No, no bull. As has been shown, the trial is only the first round of a 15-round fight. It took 15 years after the State Supreme Court upheld this woman's conviction before she was executed.

Seriously, show me someone executed in the US in the last two years who you think was innocent.

Or, show me someone executed in the US in the last 10 years who was only represented by public defenders and was put to death.

Furthermore, not all PDs are bad attorneys, so your "Bull" comment is just so much excrement.

It's social science which means trying to isolate the causal factors is difficult. And yes Sass it could be any number of things. But then again the standard of proof bar is pretty low here, which is only to support one of the grounds for my opposition to capital punishment. If it can be proven that opposition to capital punishment does not have any positive effect on homicide rates, then I would have to concede the point.

I personally think that opposition to capital punishment can be justified without recourse to unprovable and largely irrelevant pseudo-science. If I didn't think that way then I wouldn't oppose it...

Doesn't the fact that crime rates going down both in countries that have and don't have the death penalty reduce that as a factor?

Certainly public defenders in a major city handling a capital case are going to be competent. But there are a lot of defendants who have gotten poor representation in death penalty cases.

I am not sure what you mean by pseudo-science, Sass. Most (if not all)political beliefs cannot be reduced to some kind of scientific certainty. And beliefs regarding the appropriateness of capital punishment are no different. You look at the world, look at the data you can, and make a determination. There is no scientific certainty that your position that the possibility of error precludes capital punishment is correct. In fact, I am not sure why that is such a big thing as government makes decisions all the time that cause more deaths. The fact that government is administering the death penalty in a discriminatory manner would seem to be a big concern, but government making an unintentional mistake--it happens (funding decisions, military involvement, inadequate health care, police brutality). Just keep trying to do better. There is something deeper than just government error causing death that makes the death penalty wrong IMHO.

Doctor Fate wrote:I would only add that I'm (likely) more familiar with the criminal mind than most here. The kind of prisons we have in the Western world don't frighten them or fret them . . . not even a little.

I think the problem is here that the police don't actually understand criminals or criminality as much as they like to think they do.

Yes, the plush conditions of death row might be a bit overrated ...
http://www.texasobserver.org/solitary-men/

I think DF might be thinking of some inmates on non-death row who acclimate themselves to prison to some extent.

bbauska wrote:Doesn't the fact that crime rates going down both in countries that have and don't have the death penalty reduce that as a factor?

Well it certainly undermines the idea that putting people to death makes a difference.

danivon wrote:

bbauska wrote:Doesn't the fact that crime rates going down both in countries that have and don't have the death penalty reduce that as a factor?

Well it certainly undermines the idea that putting people to death makes a difference.

Or that it doesn't...

danivon wrote:

Doctor Fate wrote:I would only add that I'm (likely) more familiar with the criminal mind than most here. The kind of prisons we have in the Western world don't frighten them or fret them . . . not even a little.

I think the problem is here that the police don't actually understand criminals or criminality as much as they like to think they do.

Well then, please enlighten me.

freeman3 wrote:Yes, the plush conditions of death row might be a bit overrated ...
http://www.texasobserver.org/solitary-men/

I think DF might be thinking of some inmates on non-death row who acclimate themselves to prison to some extent.

Ah, yes, I was actually taking the "life without possibility of parole" argument at its face and not conflating it with "death row," which you seem to be doing.

Well, I guess death row facilities do not qualify "as the kind of prisons we have in the western world."