Death Penalty

The question isn't whether the death penality prevents an individuals from committing future crimes which violate the Rights of the People. Obviously a dead person cannot commit any crimes. The question is whether the death penality necessary to prevent a person from committing future crimes that violate the Rights of the People. The answer to this is a resounding no, it is not.

Incarceration without the possibility of parole, in solitary confinement if need dictates, prevents an individual from committing any future crimes that violate the Rights of the People.

Here are my problems related to the death penalty:

1) We know that DNA has proven that over 140 individuals on death row were completely innocent. Were it not for the DNA we would assume these individuals would have been executed and the government would have been executing innocent people. The unnecessary taking of an innocent person's life is, by definition, murder and yet no one is held accountable for these murders of innocent individuals.

2) In many cases there is no DNA evidence that can exhonerate an innocent person that has been convicted of a crime where the deaty penalty is imposed. These individuals are executed even though, in many cases, the primary witnesses against them recant their testimony after the trial. Often these witnesses cite pressure and coercion by the prosecution in recanting their testimony. In any case because we know that DNA which can exhonerate the accused is not available and because of the statistical evidence that DNA evidence does result in overturning convictions we know that the government is executing innocent individuals. Once again murder of innocent individuals by the government is taking place and no one is being held accountable for the murder of these individuals.

3) In capital punishment cases the juries are not unbiased. In all capital cases the jury is screened to ensure that they support the government's authority to execute the accused. This establishes that prior to the trial the jury has already been screened and is prejudicial on the side of the prosecution. Capital punishment cases do not use an unbiased jury of one's peers in reaching their verdict because of this screening process.

4) As was noted at the beginning of my post, and has been pointed out repeatedly in prior posts, the death penalty is not required for the protection of the Rights of the People. Life in prison, with the possible requirement for solitary confinement, without the possibility of parole is all that is required to protect the Rights of the People from even the most heinous if individuals.

5) Finally, and this is the BIGGIE, is that once a society allows the government to kill individuals under the law there is literally no limit to the laws that can be passed which allow the government to kill people. It does not stop at executing people responsible for commiting murder which violates the Right of Life of others. We, the United States, already have other criteria where the death penalty is imposed where no one's individual Rights have been violated. A person can be executed for conspiracy even when no actual act is committed that violated anyone's Rights. A person can be executed for spying even though no Individual's Rights have been violated.

Because it is only a matter of "law" the Congress of the United States or the Legislation of the States can impose the death penality for virtually any reason they might choose. The only way to prevent the legalization of state sponsered murder for purposes such as enthic cleansing, racism and political thought control is to prohibit the execution of individuals by the government.

Want examples? How many Jews would have died in Nazi Germany if the death penality was prohibited in Germany? How many political prisoners executed in the former USSR, or in China, or in Cuba, or in Iraq, or in many other tyrannical nations would have died if the government was not authorized to ever execute anyone.

In spite of claims that "It can't happen here" the truth is that whenever a government is allowed to execute the People under the law they will execute innocent people that have violated no one's unalienable Rights. All that is required is to pass a law authorizing this murder of the People by the Government and the Government controls the laws. History has shown that it does "happen here" eventually in all nations. I can think of no nation, including the United States, that hasn't executed innocent People when they have the authority to do so.

The only way to prevent the execution of innocent People by a government is to make it illegal for the government to execute People.

 

Solitary confinement of the type which you are suggesting would amount to cruel and unusual punishment, which is obscene and in violation of 8th Amendent to the U.S. Constitution.

As disussed earlier, human fallibility is NOT a valid reason for abolishing capital punishment, for if it were, by the same line of reasoning, we would also have to abolish the Great Writ of habeas corpus. After all, considering that the CJS errs on the side of innocence, there will be many more wrongfully exonerated of a capital offense and released from custody, than are wrongfully convicted of such and executed.

In other words, there is no way for the CJS to circumvent the awesome responsibility of making immutable life and death decisions. When it releases a wrongfully exonerated defendant who then goes on to commit an atrocious murder subsequent to his release from custody, the CJS has no less blood on its hands than it would have in the case of wrongfully executing a defendant who was, in fact, innocent of the crime of which he was convicted.

Moreover, capital punishment has the indirect effect of putting the pressure on the CJS to GET IT RIGHT. Indeed, were it not for the exigent circumstances presented by a sentence of death, more than a few inmates on death row, who had been wrongfully convicted and then were later proven innocent through the efforts of the Innocence Project, might easily have spent the rest of their lives in prison for a crime they did not commit.

Abolishment of the death penalty allows the CJS to be careless with its dispositions and inattentive to necessary reforms.

Your analysis, as indicated earlier, is GROSSLY erroneous. Lifers are notorious for committing all sorts of atrocities while serving out their sentence, including murder, rape, mayhem (maiming), aggravated assault, robbery, extortion, theft, etc., etc., all the while undermining the rehabiltitative efforts of the correctional facility in which they are confined. These offenses are exacted upon other inmates (many of whom would be otherwise reformable but end up as hardened incorrigibles also), C.O.s, and other prison staff, as well as outside civilians in the event of an escape.

What are you talking about?

The government already has the authority to "kill individuals," as stipulated in the U.S. Constitution which authorizes the government to provide for the national defense.

This is why when a police officer puts a bullet in the head of some miscreant who is threatening the lives of innocent civilians, he is not charged with murder or the unlawful use of a firearm.

This is also why the Secretary of Defense is not charged with murder when he gives the go-ahead on a military operation in which people, some of whom may be innocent non-combatants, children even, are inadvertently killed in the process of killing targeted individuals.

Yes, and it is only a matter of law that the government does NOT impose the death penalty for any reason they choose. Indeed, this is the function of Criminal Code and Constitutional Law: to spell out what is and what is not civilized human behavior, and what is and what is not the parameters of government authority. Thus, to categorically prohibit the government from "killing individuals" would be to categorically prohibit the government from providing for the common defense.

That is completely absurd. Any goverment that would engage in such behavior would not be deterred by its own laws. Indeed, they would simply rewrite the law to suit their purposes, as did the Nazi regime.

Are you seriously comparing the Holocaust to capital punishment?

There is a very big difference between executing someone because of their race or ethnicity (or just because you feel like it) and executing them because they have proven themselves a malevolent threat to society.

To be sure, someone wrongfully convicted of a capital crime of which he was innocent will be executed. That is a statistical certainty in the fullness of time, just as it is a statistical certainty that someone wrongfully exonerated of a capital crime of which he was guilty will be released back into society to kill again (perhaps even more than once or twice).

Human fallibility is no cause for the eradication of any aspect of criminal law and justice, including the imposition of capital punishment. In the end, the CJS has no alternative than to choose in the face of objective uncertainty if it is to have any meaningful purpose.

 

Very likely the NON-execution of guilty killers results in far more people being killed by those killers than any amount of innocent people executed by the state. Those people will have been innocent also.

 

Stinney just got unlucky. Which is the only argument against the death penalty. Juries are fallible.

 

The death penalty is a greater protector of innocent lives.

Shiva, I have detailed some of the many examples of murderers harming and murdering, again, in prison, after escape, after improper release and aftr we failed to incarcerate them.

The death penalty is the only thing which can, absolutely, prevent a murdered from harming again. It is a rational truism.

This is, completely untrue. There have been 9 inmates released from death row because of DNA exclusion.

Review: The 130 (now 13 death row "innocents" scam
http://homicidesurvivors.com/2009/03/04/fact-checking-issues-on-innocence-and-the-death-penalty.aspx

You need to fact check.

There is no proof of an innocent executed in the US, at least since the 1930's.

The reality is that innocents are more at risk when we fail to execute murderers. This is a proven fact, which cannot be contradicted.

Of all human endeavors that put innocents at risk, is there one with a better record of sparing innocent lives than the US death penalty? Unlikely.

1) "The Death Penalty: More Protection for Innocents"
http://homicidesurvivors.com/2009/07/05/the-death-penalty-more-protection-for-innocents.aspx

2) Opponents in capital punishment have blood on their hands, Dennis Prager, 11/29/05, http://townhall.com/columnists/Denn..._capital_punishment_have_blood_on_their_hands

3) "A Death Penalty Red Herring: The Inanity and Hypocrisy of Perfection", Lester Jackson Ph.D.,
http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=102909A

What nonsense.

In all cases, from jay walking to serial murder cases, all chosen jurors must be able to impose the range of sentneces that exist within any given case, from fines or public service, probation to the death penalty. If a potential juror cannot agree that they can provide probation for a rape or the death penalty for a serial murderer, they cannot serve on a jury, because it has been found that such a juror cannot impose the law as may be required in that case.

Again, what nonsense. Does anyone believe that the US can pass a law which requires the execution of parents who drive their children to school?

That would be no limit.

Shiva's lack of reason, as well as her outlandish claims, have no support, with any of her claims, as consistently shown throughout these posts.

Shiva, I think you simply made this up.

I have not read that anyone has stated no innocent can be executed.

By definition, any human system can err.

But, the reality is that innocents are more protected with the death penalty and by executing murderers, as detailed and not rebutted,

 

Not just very likely, it is a fact.

Of all human endeavors that put innocents at risk, is there one with a better record of sparing innocent lives than the US death penalty? Unlikely.

1) "The Death Penalty: More Protection for Innocents"
http://homicidesurvivors.com/2009/07/05/the-death-penalty-more-protection-for-innocents.aspx

2) Opponents in capital punishment have blood on their hands, Dennis Prager, 11/29/05, http://townhall.com/columnists/Denn..._capital_punishment_have_blood_on_their_hands

3) "A Death Penalty Red Herring: The Inanity and Hypocrisy of Perfection", Lester Jackson Ph.D.,
http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=102909A

 

Why bother then? Kill all the poor and all those you have mistreated, everywhere. Trouble is, there'll be no-one left but you luxuriating in your total sinlessness.

 

Someone incarcerated for life cannot murder again, assuming the prison guards are competent. If prison guards are not competent, then there's a pretty big problem. Convicted murderers are not the only people in prison capable of murder.
And my real problem is with the death penalty being common or applied to all murderers. Murderers actually have a pretty low recivitism rate. Most murderers are not Jeffery Dahmer.

Which increases court costs and potentially pushes back court dockets (slowing down due process for others). Usually this amounts to guilty killers going back to court again and again until they finally drop the death sentence (usually that's what the appeals are about, not a change of verdict). It doesn't help the not-guilty who were found guilty unless new evidence pops up. New evidence doesn't necessarily pop up in a timely manner. Just ask the "arsonist" executed in Texas.

I think this is absolutely false.
Studies have gone either way. Frankly most studies on crime statistics and "prevented crimes" are suspect. If you look at all the pro/anti-gun arguments about crime, you can't help but notice they too go either way, largely because crime moves in its own trends that are difficult to link to any variables.

The one study I've ever seen on the death penalty providing deterrence is not good.
It suggests that the death penalty works when 1) it is widely publicized and 2) only for a short period of time.

Think about that.
That means that:
a. we need to be a barbaric society that makes executions common and very well publicized
b. after a while, wouldn't it wear off as society gets used to seeing executions and they lose their shock power?
c. it's very possible then that the problem is that the media focus on people who get off, get small sentences, or on how "easy" prison living is rather than on the reality of prison and conviction rates. The death penalty only gets publicized because it is sensational, much like all the "outrages" the media focus on.

Not everyone subscribes to the punitive motivation. Personally I find it primitive and it has a tendency to use individuals as scapegoats for larger problems (and when it comes down to it, the desire for retribution does not require that the one punished is the right one, so long as we think it is-- and you'll notice prosecutors and victims' families seem to have that figured out before the trial starts).
The reason for our bureaucratic justice system is to separate emotion and focus on how best to protect people and ensure the innocent are not made scapegoats.

 

I believe that virtually all death row inmates are incarcerated in solitary confinement but might be wrong.

Solitary confinement does not constitute complete exclusion from human associations which might be considered to be cruel and unusual punishment. Solitary confinement does establish that no person shall be allowed access to said convict except his attendants, counsel, physician, a spiritual adviser of his own selection, and members of his family, and then only in accordance with prison regulations. The prisoner is not denied all access to others but that access is severely limited.

Numerous Court cases relate to solitary confinement and generally it is acceptable to the Courts although in some cases it is not. It is dependent upon the specifics of the actual case. Let is remember that solititary confinement would be based upon an order by the court if it were deemed to be necessary. Not all cases of capital murder would warrant solitary confinement. What is important is that it would not be an arbitrary decision by the prison system but instead a decision made by the Court based upon necessity.

The cases where I've found solitary confinement to be overruled by the Courts was when that confinement was not ordered by a Court. I believe that is the fundamental difference as to when it is acceptable and when it is not.

 

Most convictions for murder do not result in the death penalty and this thread is exclusively about the death penalty. In the arguments it has been presented that life in prison without the possibility of parole, and in solitary confinement if deemed necessary based upon the evidence presented in court and ordered by the court, is a viable alternative to the death penalty that ensures the protection of the Rights of People.

With those considerations please provide a link to any known case of a person sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole and that is confined in solitary ever committing the murder of an innocent person.

To my knowledge no such case can be documented so the case of murders by someone convicted under the above criteria is effectively zero and the comparison to innocent individuals being murdered by the government is false.

Of course the murder of even one innocent person by the government is completely unacceptable.

 

Since incarceration without the possibility of parole, in solitary confinement if deemed necessary by the Courts, provides the protection of innocent people so the death penalty is not required at all.

We do know that the death penalty has resulted in the execution of innocent people and so the death penalty actually results in the death of innocent people and is not a factor in sparing any innocent person's life which can be accomplished by other means.

The death penalty results in the State sponsored death of innocent people and is not required to provide the protection of the Rights of Innocent People.

 

Doesn't matter. We are not talking about death row inmates, remember? In your world, the death penalty is abolished. Everyone convicted of a capital offense is a lifer.

Solitary confinement is a slow, cruel, spiritual death, often culminating in utter madness and suicide.

I do not care a whit about such opinions. Those Courts are flat out wrong.

"In the US Federal Prison system, solitary confinement is known as the Special Housing Unit (SHU),[17] pronounced /ˈʃuː/. California's prison system also uses the abbreviation SHU, but it stands for Security Housing Units.[18] In other states, it is known as the Special Management Unit (SMU). [19]

Current estimates of the number of inmates held in solitary confinement are difficult to determine, though generally the minimum held at any given time has been determined to be 20,000.[20]

The negative psychological effects have been well documented,[21] leading one judge in a 2001 suit to rule that “[Solitary confinement] units are virtual incubators of psychoses—seeding illness in otherwise healthy inmates and exacerbating illness in those already suffering from mental infirmities.”[22]

In 2006, the Commission on Safety and Abuse in America, chaired by John Joseph Gibbons and Nicholas Katzenbach found that: "The increasing use of high-security segregation is counter-productive, often causing violence inside facilities and contributing to recidivism after release."[23]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solitary_confinement

One more thing:

Correctional facilities have a limited amount of resources alloted to them. Those resources should be directed toward rehabilitating the salvageble inmates with the expectation of releasing them back into society, better than when they were first incarcerated. We should not waste such limited resources on warehousing incorrigibles in solitary cages where they spiritually and psychologically degenerate for how ever long it takes Death to overtake them.

 

Why do you keep saying that? It was wrong the last time you said it. It is still wrong now!

Do you think if you keep repeating this thoroughly erroneous assertion enough times that it will magically metamorphosize into a correct assertion?

IT WON'T. Stop wasting your time.

There you go again! I can't believe it!

I explained what is wrong with such an analysis yesterday. Did you fail to read it?

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds, my poor fellow. Try not to be blindly dogmatic. It makes you seem stupid.

 

I have only been addressing inmates that would currently receive the death penalty and no others. The alternative I've provided is in lieu or execution.

As for solitary confinement it is indeed harsh but then it would only be based upon a determination of the court that solitary confinement was necessary for one of two reason. 1) The prisoner is so violent that he would endanger others in the prison population, or 2) That solitary confinement was necessary for the safety of the individual being incarcerated. Both of these have valid arguments which would support the court ordering solitary confinement.

Of course the opinion that killing the convicted person is superior to life without the possibility of parole, possibly in solitary confinement, is absurd. What are we going to call capital punishment next? A mercy killing?

Yes, it does cost to keep someone imprisoned for life but it costs more to impose capital punishment. While the following link provides numerous studies on the cost of capital punishment I will quote just the first one from California:

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-death-penalty

A couple of glaring facts the first of which paying for anyone to be on death row is $90,000 per year or about $250/day while (not mentioned in this report) the average cost per inmate in prison is about $125/day so it costs twice as much to incarcerate someone on death row.

The commission reflects in their report that the current criminal justice system is not a fair process and just to make it fair would increase the cost from $137 million to $232 million.

Finally if life incarceration was imposed instead of the dealt penality the cost would go from $137 million to $11.5 million.

Yes, we should focus our prison system on rehabilitation for those that would benefit from it. By eliminating the death penalty there would be more money, not less, for use in rehabilitation according to all of the experts.

 

As repeatedly stated to you and as never rebutted by you, is that the death penalty offers greater protection for innocents.

By Shiva wanting to end the death penalty, she knowingly spares murderers at the cost of more innocents dead.

Of all human endeavors that put innocents at risk, is there one with a better record of sparing innocent lives than the US death penalty? Unlikely.

1) "The Death Penalty: More Protection for Innocents"
http://homicidesurvivors.com/2009/07/05/the-death-penalty-more-protection-for-innocents.aspx

 

Sig, many have corrected Shiva, constantly, but she just acts as if it never occurred and she doesn't address it.

Her position is that weak and she knows it, therefore she just avoids it.

 

Again, Shiva, you failed to fact check.

A Rebuttal to "Cut This: The Death Penalty"(1)

Death Penalty vs Life Costs in California
By Dudley Sharp

Clark/California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice (CCFAJ) cost review is wildly inaccurate and I doubt that there is any more veracity to the death row costs than with their lifer cost evaluations. None of Clark/CCFAJ's numbers can be relied upon.

Clark says: "In total, California's death penalty system costs taxpayers $137 million per year. Contrast that with just $11 million per year if we replace the death penalty with permanent imprisonment."

For 700 inmates, that is:

death penalty costs: $137 million per year or $196,000//inmate/yr.
life imprisonment costs: $11 million/year or $15,700/inmate/yr.

It is complete utter nonsense.

Some reality:

The last full California audit (Sept 2009) found the average costs, 2007-2008, per adult inmate was $49,000/inmate/yr. (2) In 1997, it was $25,000/inmate/yr. (3).

This $49,000/inmate/yr is the average for all inmates, not the level IV security of death row inmate like criminals that will cost more, if not much more. Clark is stating that these enhanced security prisoners will cost $34,000/inmate/yr LESS than the average cost for all Ca inmates. Clark's lack of credibility is of an astounding level. Clark's analysis is laughable.

But, Clark/CCFAJ get even worse.

Without the death penalty, Clark/CCFAJ's select group of former death row murderers would likely be in level IV security and, as lifers, would die as geriatric prisoners or from earlier illness, likely costing on average $80,000-$100,000/inmate/yr., or more, with a rare few costing a $1 million or more per year with illness and/or geriatric stages. Geriatric problems often begins at age 50 for inmates.

NOTE: The California Medical Facility for corrections averages $83,000/inmate/yr. (4). Add to that the additional costs of Level IV security cells.

But, for Clark/CCFAJ, former death row inmates, now lifers, cost $15,700/inmate/yr.

But, it gets even worse for Clark/CCFAJ.

Clark will admit, if prodded (5) that "the figure of $137 million estimates the entire cost of the death penalty system, not simply housing, but also inclusive of all post-conviction costs, including legal appeals."

In other words, Clark is admitting escalating the death penalty costs over the alleged cost comparisons of incarceration between lifers and death row. Not at all surprising Clark excludes such from the lifer costs.

The Clark/CCFAJ's cost comparisons/evaluations are a very bad joke. Instead of making an honest apples to apples cost comparison, Clark brings us an apples to Rolls Royce cost comparison, as if it is apples to apples.

Because so many of these cost comparisons are so pathetically unreliable, California considered that an objective assessment by RAND should be considered (6). The basis for a proper evaluation was presented, but Ca rejected doing the study.

CONCLUSION - Save even more money?

There is no need for California to have a death row. Current death row prisoners can be placed in Level IV security cells, or lower levels depending upon evaluations, just as Missouri and Kansas do.

California can make their death sentenced inmates cheaper than their lifers, if they properly manage their citizens money, as Virginia does. California must only have the will to be responsible stewards of their citizens resources - something that seems to elude California lawmakers, just as basic, accurate evaluations evade Clark/CCFAJ.

Today, there is no reason for Ca death row to cost more than level IV security and a proper evaluation would likely show death row cheaper or no more expensive than Level IV.

There would be no cost savings in getting rid of death row, with the exception that, if Calif had a responsible death penalty protocol, there would be many more executed murderers, thus reducing incarceration costs on death row, saving money on incarcerations costs over other level IV prisoners.

(1) An article by James Clark, field organizer, ACLU of Southern California.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-clark/cut-this-the-death-penalt_b_627759.html\

(2) pg 77, fiscal year 2007-2008, http://www.bsa.ca.gov/pdfs/reports/2009-107.1.pdf

(3) www.bsa.ca.gov/pdfs/reports/97125.pdf

(4) page 80, fiscal year 2007-2008, http://www.bsa.ca.gov/pdfs/reports/2009-107.1.pdf

(5) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-clark/cut-this-the-death-penalt_b_627759.html

(6) "Investigating the Costs of the Death Penalty in California: Insights for Future Data Collection in California, RAND Corp., 2/2008
http://www.rand.org/pubs/testimonies/2008/RAND_CT300.pdf

 

Because by the logic of an inclusive, democratic state, we ought to function by the morality acceptable to MOST of us rather than by the morality of the most zealous of "high minded" of us. The latter approach is referred to as fascism.

 

Isn't the only way to determine that to ask someone.
Personally I'd rather be put to death than spend life in prison, with or without solitary confinement. But that is apparently not the same choice others would prefer.

How long do you expect people to live in prison?
And people are not executed quickly UNLESS you deny them the appeals that allegedly make them "more protected" than the average defendants.
Court costs are insane. Food and shelter at bulk rates is marginally cheap.
And the death penalty following is a cult that people are willing to spare no expense for. An example is Florida paying to press charges against a life-serving client in Georgia in order to give him the death penalty (and, well, let's be honest-- it's to help out the prosecutor's career... which is perverse as most wastes of money are unpopular!)

Yeah, you know? Trying to make (*)(*)(*)(*) sure we don't execute someone innocent.

Quickening the death penalty will ensure more innocents are executed. Which, by the way, removes one argument one of the pro-death penalty folks put out there.

I rebutted it and nobody responded.
And at least I can give Shiva credit for using a consistent philosophy to explain the moral reasons.
That certainly can't count for any less than just repeating over and over the lines of the death penalty cult.

That's a ridiculous claim.
If Shiva does not share your assumptions about the death penalty, that cannot be true.
The chances are low that not executing someone will lead to more murders.

You'd think people so worried about preventing murders would focus on preventing new murderers rather than trying hard to kill people who are already in custody in a total institution.

Unlikely based on what standard? There's no good evidence that the death penalty spares innocent lives.
Every piece of literature on the subject is ambiguous and incredibly biased.

And as I've noted before, the only serious studies that suggest a deterrent effect suggest that the deterrent is temporary and based on sensationalism from the media.

 

For those that don't believe our government is murdering innocent people, or at least that there are serious questions related to their guilt, we only need to address the following:

For more information:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy_Anthony_Davis

So long as we allow the death penalty innocent people are going to be murdered by our government.

 

Yes - it goes on and on. Our local Meeting took up the case of a similarly dubious verdict, but the man is dead now. This sort of thing is turning the best and most decent people against America.

 

Ask who, the condemned? And what if he wants to be boiled in oil?

We are talking about an execution, not a buffet. He gets the needle. End of story.

I don't. I expect them to die in the death chamber.

We should execute the condemned within five years of sentencing, unless there is some extraordinary reason for an extension.

Five years should be more than enough time to prepare a cogent appeal.

 

You were arguing that lethal injection (actually not such a pleasant way to die) is less cruel that solitary confinement for life.
I'm just saying that's up for debate.

What constitutes that? How do you expect it is to be uncovered.

According to Scalia, evidence of innocence isn't enough to reverse a death sentence.
And according to Rick Perry, evidence of innocence is not enough to prompt a stay of execution (it is however enough to fire the pesky folks who were looking into the evidence).

Should be? Should be?
And if it's not.
Oh well. Just an innocent death on all of our hands. No biggie.

 

We have already gone over this!

Using your loose definition of the term "murder," the government is murdering a lot more innocent people by failing to employ the death penalty, and failing to convict the guilty, than it ever has and ever will through execution. What do you suppose we do, sh*tcan the CJS altogether just because it's not always correct in its dispositions?

Let's suppose that Davis is granted a last minute commutation to life without parole, and two years from now he is called to testify in an unrelated murder trial. While in the county jail on a writ, he stabs to death some 19 year old kid who had been charged with grand larceny and resisting arrest, just for stealing a cigarette from him.

The CJS would now have the blood of this kid on its hands for not having executed Davis.

The point is that there is no way for the CJS to avoid making a momentous life and death decision here. If Davis is actually guilty, then he his a very dangerous man, and not executing him puts the lives of innocent people in serious danger. The kid in the above example certainly did not deserve to die, and all the "sorry" in the world will not bring him back.

In the end, the CJS must choose in the face of objective uncertainty.