From sawicky at epinet.org Mon Oct 11 05:08:36 1999
> 2) It's bloody expensive (~3x more than simple incarceration)
don't care
Just get revenge by any means necessary?
> 4) It leaves no room for appeal and thus denies due process
this contradicts your (2). There seems to me to be quite
a bit of scope for appeal, in light of the time between
conviction and sentence, tho this has contracted in the
past ten years, more in some states than others.
The guy whose head didn't quite explode has zero chance for appeal in the future. Some people have had convictions overturned many years later; this is especially true where the state has manufactured or supressed evidence. The process is flawed in the best case and manipulated by the state in the worst. You *must* have an opportunity to appeal in light of new evidence or theories.
> 5) It's cruel and unusual
(a) is irrelevant; (b) untrue
If true, it'd be unconstitutional; hardly irrelevant. Sure, Douglas and Rhenquist duked this one out, but I think there's still room to discuss.
> 7) It inflicts punishment on survivors of the deceased who weren't
> convicted
Another example of victim erasure; what about survivors of victims?
Victims and their survivors get justice without CP; otherwise, why not CP for all crimes? Justice is specifically not supposed to be some kind of equalizing eye-for-an-eye process. Victims and their survivors are split on the issue; nice of you to come to their aid.
Really, Max: "do it for the victim" sounds so much like "do it for the children" ...
/jordan