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April 7, 2004
In Good Company

The top 4 countries in terms of people executed by the state:

  1. China
  2. Iran
  3. U.S.A.
  4. Vietnam

Come on people, we can do better! Let's shoot for that #1 spot!

Two children were known to have been executed in 2003, one in China and one in the U.S.

Since Canada outlawed the death penalty for murder in 1975, their homicide rate has fallen by 40%. So much for the deterrent rationale.

I should note though that Canadians overall seem to be reasonable people, while we, as a nation, seem to be batshit insane. That might have something to do with it too.

And last, but not least, since 1973, 113 prisoners have been released from death row after new evidence proved their innocence. We'll never know how many innocent people haven't been so lucky.

Source: http://news.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGACT500122004

Comments

Previous Comments

And another interesting statistic that I quoted often in 1996 (the numbers since then have invariably changed).

Since 1900, 24 people have been put to death in the United States where later evidence proved their innocence. This was (in 1996) exactly one person every four years.

In a few of my thousands of debates against the death penalty, I would often quote this statistic and ask people "would you allow your child (sister, father) to be the innocent person killed in order to maintain our death penalty laws?" Oddly enough, they invariably answered "Yes, if it means that more criminals will be put to death, YES!"

I usually gave up the debate at that point. It's hard to compete with that logic. Sigh.

Compassionate and smartly funny site, well done. Saw you on the Halo-scan comments link and liked your "Angrier than you are" tag line. Political humor is tough, which is why I generally avoid it, but the current administration does help things considerably. I generally stick to easy laughs.

As for the death penalty, I am against it as constituted, and probably against any empirically practical application. However, in theory, if it was swift, brutal and public like the drawing and quartering Foucault details in "Discipline and Punish," 100% accurate, and was meted out for crimes that go past the pall of all redemption (such as participation in genocide), then I think that honest satiety of a legitimate public hunger for vengeance would in fact be a good thing. In short, my objection isn't grounded in an absolute sanctity of human life position, or the redeemability of all souls, but rather that the current system (and probably any real life system) is hopelessly fucked. Politically this makes me against the death penalty, but rhetorically outside much of the movement.

I also am not completely on the side of the sanctity of all life argument.

To me, the basic and unchangeable point is what you point out: that no system of justice will ever be perfect, and it is a far greater crime to kill one innocent person than to let hundreds of guilty people remain alive. (Alive and in jail, I might add.)

Thanks for your kind words about my site.

Actually, I am not comfortable with those sort of x guilty = y innocent arguments, because (i) I am not sure that, outside of pure consequentialism which I suspect we both reject, how useful it is to import mathematical formula into philosophical debates, and (ii) they are particularly vulnerable to reductio ad absurdum -- surely even the most ardent advocate of that position -- can conceive of a point at which she would rather some number of innocent suffer than some other number of guilty go unpunished (e.g., one innocent vs. all guilty). Our legal system, indeed any system of dispute resolution whether administered by a state or some other entity, must in some measure traffic in doubts, and have a way -- if only administratively -- to resolve them. So by requiring anything less than some platonic idea of certainty in order to incarcerate, we necessarily accept that, in fact, some wrongly accused persons will be punished.

And I am not convinced that, because the penalty imposed is death, that somehow it is uniquely irremediable. Does discovering the innocence of a now senile lifer feel all that different from executing an innocent person? Does trying to restore the fragmented personality of a raped and brutalized soul strike us as remediable?

So my opposition lies in the fact that, as the ultimate punishment, it has a unique expressive quality about what sorts of conduct define the outer pale of acceptability. And that system, though purportedly neutral and however couched in moral absolutes, has been coopted -- and cannot not be coopted -- in both design and practice to reinforce and advance the necessarily political ends of some group(s) over others, rather than expressing a consensus of outrage. The background considerations of race, class, sexual preference and infinite other prejudices and foci of political interest make the legitimate operation of a system of capital punishment impossible.

My analysis of my own position is usually less muddled, but I have to get back to work.

My grammar is usually better too. Sorry.

J.W.,

You make a very compelling (and erudite) argument.

However, to me it is more simple. The taking of a life by the state is by its nature different than any other punishment, and not only because it defines the fringes of acceptability. Even your examples of a senile lifer and a raped and brutalized soul, tragic as they are, do not to my mind approach execution.

We may feel, and they may feel, that these punishments are "worse than death" or as bad, or comparable. Phrases like "living hell" come to mind.

No matter how terrible the suffering though, there is nothing so irremediable as death. It is a special case, alone and unto itself.

Your first paragraph I believe is right. Our system does traffic in doubts, and that is what removes the death penalty from consideration. We do not -- we could not -- require a "platonic idea of certainty" to convict or incarcerate, and that is again why we cannot traffic in death. In short, I believe death is absolutely uniquely irremediable.

In the end, I'm glad we agree on the conclusion, if not the underlying argument.

well no political commentray really... just that reading those stats makes me DAMN proud (and thankful as well) to be Canadian.

Agreed. You and I are splitting fine if interesting hairs; in the interim, people who we both agree should not be killed are. The left has had enough self-cannibalization -- let's snack elsewhere for a while.