Death penalty and Max

Max Sawicky sawicky at epinet.org
Sun Mar 7 23:24:52 PST 1999



> But as I pointed out (and you dismissed with a
> sneer) justice cannot be the issue. The people you
> consider most deserving of the death penalty
> cannot be punished to the extent that any pure
> eye-for-an-eye tooth for a tooth justice would
> require. You explicitly rejected such "justice" in
> one of your posts on the grounds that you are
> insufficiently bloodthirsty. But if justice is
> not the issue, then the only question is one of
> protecting society. Life imprisonment certainly
> does this as well as any humane execution.

I wasn't sneering at all. I may have been abrupt because your argument didn't stand out amidst the din. I just don't buy your interpretation of justice. A torture-murderer doesn't have to be executed via torture for justice to prevail. Any more than a multiple- murderer has to be executed more than once.


>
> Incidentally, you also said that this no longer
> the "United States of Lyncherdom". I presume you
> mean this literally, and are not suggeting that
> most of those accused of criminal acts receive
> reasonably fair trials these day. There does seem

There's clearly much room for improvement, to say the least. I think it's also fair to say there has been progress in this century.


> to be a real problem with false convictions. At
> least 80 people who have been convicted and
> sentenced to death have had their convictions
> overturned. Some of us take this as a hint that

I've already conceded the salience of this consideration.


> all is not well in our criminal injustice system.
> If you need information on just how unfair our
> system is, I will be happy to provide it -- but it
> would suprise me for someone who usually tries to
> take postitions based on facts to be ignorant in
> this matter.

I don't think I need information on the basic fact. I've already had more personal experience with the criminal justice system than I'd have wished.

If you know a way to measure "how unfair" the system is, I'd be happy to be educated as to the trend in unfairness since 1900.

mbs



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