Rick Perry deserves plenty of shame for being a terrible arbiter of justice. But that's a very different crime from murder (though I would be open to arguments that it's actually a worse one).
Practically, once someone's been sentenced to life in prison without parole, the difference between that and the death penalty is one of cost and a question of accuracy. I would not be entirely comfortable bringing back the death penalty with the justice system functioning as it often seems to, on a practical note. Milgaard and Sophanow are too recent.
If it was brought back, I would think that it would be best applied by the Supreme Court and require serious, large-scale damage - people who repeatedly took actions that lead to death or suffering on a large scale (serial rapists, massive-scale fraud, multiple murderers, or (and I feel a little odd for saying this, yet I think it's at least as defensible as multiple murders) multiple home invasions).
The goal of the death penalty has never been (in my view) deterrence. Its goal is censure (and, I suspect, simplicity). Society has formally washed its hands of you. That's why you could often get it commuted to transportation for much of the Victorian era.
The one bit I'm concerned about in the reaction to the graph is the idea that it's impossible to generalize about groups and their behavior. Which seems a bit questionable. I think you shouldn't express these ideas in graph form, but they're definitely not illegitimate of themselves.
Well, maybe one can generalize about groups and their behaviour, but one's ability to make predictions about any individuals is suspect. Maybe it's like the weather forecast in that we sometimes have general ideas of what's going to happen, but we might not know if it will rain or snow on your particular driveway.
I could live with an exile system in place of the death penalty, but requiring similar standards to the ones you posit. I am firmly against the death penalty not only because it can't be corrected if it turns out the judgement was in error, but because two wrongs don't make a right. It's hard to resort to such a hackneyed phrase, but what I mean is that killing the (alleged) murderer won't bring back the victim(s). It's only necessary that he not be able to or be inclined to kill again, and that there is some sort of deterrent to killing in the first place.
The ability to make predictions about individuals from groups is basically what lets society function. Such predictions should not be relied on as though they were inarguable truth, but asking the FBI to distribute their limited resources according to some notion of equity as opposed to some notion of probability seems like a questionable decision.
Exile systems are morally questionable on the basis that if the person is such a big problem, why is it OK to offload him onto others? Telling a thief to go next door because your neighbors aren't home is a scummy thing to do.
The problem with your second statement is that you assume the sole goals of the justice system are rehabilitation and crime prevention. Those aren't even the sole goals of the current one:
718. The fundamental purpose of sentencing is to contribute, along with crime prevention initiatives, to respect for the law and the maintenance of a just, peaceful and safe society by imposing just sanctions that have one or more of the following objectives:
to denounce unlawful conduct; to deter the offender and other persons from committing offences; to separate offenders from society, where necessary; to assist in rehabilitating offenders; to provide reparations for harm done to victims or the community; and to promote a sense of responsibility in offenders, and acknowledgment of the harm done to victims and to the community. (1995, c. 22, s.6).
The death penalty would meet the first, the third, the fifth and the sixth.
The fact that it won't bring the victims back does not obligate us to hold onto the perpetrator indefinitely. Nor is killing someone necessarily a wrong of itself - killing people in self-defense is generally accepted as OK, as is killing people in war (though that's arguably an extension of self-defense). We're OK with killing people through neglect. We will cheerfully move the goalposts on what constitutes 'people' in order to justify killing the very old and the very young (for all that I don't know that I disagree with moving them).
We have a duty to the victim to see the offender found and punished. We have a duty to the members of the victim's family to reasonably attempt to allay their fears and their grief.
And, to be quite frank, if killing a multiple murderer helps people he hurt sleep at night, I'd call it a win.
I get what you're saying about the problems of offloading, but getting a fresh start in a new place might be just the thing for some people. It'd just be a more serious version of your local narcissist that can't keep the same set of friends for more than twenty minutes. j/k Exile would be just the thing were we not very much interested in other places and cultures. Now we need to treat the world as being one place with one people (for some purposes anyway) and exile won't work anymore.
I engage in "unlawful conduct" regularly. I've smoked pot. I've downloaded songs off Napster and Kazaa and BitTorrent. I've violated copyright. I used to run red lights. I speed when everybody else is speeding. I've bought liquor for minors. Who the hell hasn't done these things? When the laws are effed up, why should unlawful conduct be something to denounce?
I hear you on holding onto a perpretator indefinitely and questioning if that's a good use of a society's resources. I still find killing repugnant and would prefer to go far out of my way to avoid it.
You're kind of missing the point re: denunciation (and it used to be punish - evidently we got wussy in 1995). It's about denouncing the offense in question, not criminality generally.
In regard to the examples you offer: congratulations for supporting the illegal drug trade, downloading is legal in Canada, running red lights is dangerous and your behavior was dumb, and interfering in other people's parental rights is the sort of thing that can get you into a nasty civil suit. The fact that people may do these things does not mean they shouldn't be illegal.
Me, I'd say if you get to the point where you can prove he did it to a standard even higher than that at criminal trials, to the Supreme Court, and let him use up his appeals? You've officially gone out of your way.
1. Why thank you. I'd grow my own but I can't be assed and don't have a safe place for it anyway.
2. Not for much longer, I imagine.
3. Yes to both. That was probably a poor example.
4. Parental rights? Give me a break. Just because parents by code of law have authority over their 17-18 year olds when they're out of the house doesn't make it right.
Gone out of the way, sure. But if capital punishment returns to a mainstream debate in this country, I'm on the "no" side. No government should have a codified right to end a person's life.
2. Well, yes, but the fact that the Conservatives ask for more when the Americans bend them over is hardly the fault of the current law. Complain when it's actually illegal.
4. Doesn't necessarily make it wrong, either. If you think the age of majority should be lower, that's one thing. But arguing random schmucks should be able to determine whether kids should get alcohol is unwise, IMO. Kids being able to determine whether they should get alcohol is routinely demonstrated to be unwise, too.
5. Governments can end people's lives in all kinds of exciting ways. War and martial law are just the two that spring to mind most quickly. Our government constitutionally has the right to end people's lives so long as it's fundamentally just - if you don't like that it can do that, you've got a problem.
Furthermore, it wouldn't be the government doing it - the judiciary are separate from the government. The government might be able to determine WHAT could get you killed (though they can already do that), but another organization would decide if it could happen.
Can't the legislative branch reorganize the judiciary or legislate the judiciary out of existence? And who appoints Supreme Court justices? And who pays the bills for the CA's office? They're a separate branch, yes, but still part of the government. People who think we live in an ideally-functioning democracy might even say we all are the government.
4. I do think the age of majority should be lower, perhaps as low as 16. It'd be a hard pull just to get it to 18 in provinces where it's 19, though. Hard to rally around a banner of "Let's let younger people have access to liquor!" I'd be tempted to put a provision in the law allowing clubs to only allow access to those 18+, but since the age of consent is 16, that's probably not necessary.
They can't legislate the judiciary out of existence. And you must remember that there is always a large difference between what can theoretically be done and what is likely to be done.
The feds appoint all judges above the provincial trial division.
There are decent arguments for raising the age of majority above eighteen (people are fairly stupid, after all) - it's only as low as it is because that's as low as it's practical to make it and there's a lot of history behind eighteen.
I could make arguments for raising the ages for driving and voting, but even though I was an idiot when I was 18, does that mean every 18-year-old is? And if you're old enough to go to university (and pay for it)...
I read an interesting article on this subject on the NY Times website. Are you on Google Plus? otherwise, remind me to link you to the article.
Basically, it argues for something like a graduated approach, because the actual age matters less than the proper build-up of responsibility and experience. It's not constructive to just confer rights upon a certain age, regardless of that age, because adolescents don't just spontaneously develop the hardware to handle stuff as an adult at some arbitrary age, making some people precocious or delayed.
I'm going to stop now and make you read the article yourself. ;-)
Practically, once someone's been sentenced to life in prison without parole, the difference between that and the death penalty is one of cost and a question of accuracy. I would not be entirely comfortable bringing back the death penalty with the justice system functioning as it often seems to, on a practical note. Milgaard and Sophanow are too recent.
If it was brought back, I would think that it would be best applied by the Supreme Court and require serious, large-scale damage - people who repeatedly took actions that lead to death or suffering on a large scale (serial rapists, massive-scale fraud, multiple murderers, or (and I feel a little odd for saying this, yet I think it's at least as defensible as multiple murders) multiple home invasions).
The goal of the death penalty has never been (in my view) deterrence. Its goal is censure (and, I suspect, simplicity). Society has formally washed its hands of you. That's why you could often get it commuted to transportation for much of the Victorian era.
The one bit I'm concerned about in the reaction to the graph is the idea that it's impossible to generalize about groups and their behavior. Which seems a bit questionable. I think you shouldn't express these ideas in graph form, but they're definitely not illegitimate of themselves.
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I could live with an exile system in place of the death penalty, but requiring similar standards to the ones you posit. I am firmly against the death penalty not only because it can't be corrected if it turns out the judgement was in error, but because two wrongs don't make a right. It's hard to resort to such a hackneyed phrase, but what I mean is that killing the (alleged) murderer won't bring back the victim(s). It's only necessary that he not be able to or be inclined to kill again, and that there is some sort of deterrent to killing in the first place.
Reply
Exile systems are morally questionable on the basis that if the person is such a big problem, why is it OK to offload him onto others? Telling a thief to go next door because your neighbors aren't home is a scummy thing to do.
The problem with your second statement is that you assume the sole goals of the justice system are rehabilitation and crime prevention. Those aren't even the sole goals of the current one:
718. The fundamental purpose of sentencing is to contribute, along with crime prevention initiatives, to respect for the law and the maintenance of a just, peaceful and safe society by imposing just sanctions that have one or more of the following objectives:
to denounce unlawful conduct;
to deter the offender and other persons from committing offences;
to separate offenders from society, where necessary;
to assist in rehabilitating offenders;
to provide reparations for harm done to victims or the community; and
to promote a sense of responsibility in offenders, and acknowledgment of the harm done to victims and to the community. (1995, c. 22, s.6).
The death penalty would meet the first, the third, the fifth and the sixth.
The fact that it won't bring the victims back does not obligate us to hold onto the perpetrator indefinitely. Nor is killing someone necessarily a wrong of itself - killing people in self-defense is generally accepted as OK, as is killing people in war (though that's arguably an extension of self-defense). We're OK with killing people through neglect. We will cheerfully move the goalposts on what constitutes 'people' in order to justify killing the very old and the very young (for all that I don't know that I disagree with moving them).
We have a duty to the victim to see the offender found and punished. We have a duty to the members of the victim's family to reasonably attempt to allay their fears and their grief.
And, to be quite frank, if killing a multiple murderer helps people he hurt sleep at night, I'd call it a win.
Reply
I engage in "unlawful conduct" regularly. I've smoked pot. I've downloaded songs off Napster and Kazaa and BitTorrent. I've violated copyright. I used to run red lights. I speed when everybody else is speeding. I've bought liquor for minors. Who the hell hasn't done these things? When the laws are effed up, why should unlawful conduct be something to denounce?
I hear you on holding onto a perpretator indefinitely and questioning if that's a good use of a society's resources. I still find killing repugnant and would prefer to go far out of my way to avoid it.
Reply
In regard to the examples you offer: congratulations for supporting the illegal drug trade, downloading is legal in Canada, running red lights is dangerous and your behavior was dumb, and interfering in other people's parental rights is the sort of thing that can get you into a nasty civil suit. The fact that people may do these things does not mean they shouldn't be illegal.
Me, I'd say if you get to the point where you can prove he did it to a standard even higher than that at criminal trials, to the Supreme Court, and let him use up his appeals? You've officially gone out of your way.
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2. Not for much longer, I imagine.
3. Yes to both. That was probably a poor example.
4. Parental rights? Give me a break. Just because parents by code of law have authority over their 17-18 year olds when they're out of the house doesn't make it right.
Gone out of the way, sure. But if capital punishment returns to a mainstream debate in this country, I'm on the "no" side. No government should have a codified right to end a person's life.
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2. Well, yes, but the fact that the Conservatives ask for more when the Americans bend them over is hardly the fault of the current law. Complain when it's actually illegal.
4. Doesn't necessarily make it wrong, either. If you think the age of majority should be lower, that's one thing. But arguing random schmucks should be able to determine whether kids should get alcohol is unwise, IMO. Kids being able to determine whether they should get alcohol is routinely demonstrated to be unwise, too.
5. Governments can end people's lives in all kinds of exciting ways. War and martial law are just the two that spring to mind most quickly. Our government constitutionally has the right to end people's lives so long as it's fundamentally just - if you don't like that it can do that, you've got a problem.
Furthermore, it wouldn't be the government doing it - the judiciary are separate from the government. The government might be able to determine WHAT could get you killed (though they can already do that), but another organization would decide if it could happen.
Reply
4. I do think the age of majority should be lower, perhaps as low as 16. It'd be a hard pull just to get it to 18 in provinces where it's 19, though. Hard to rally around a banner of "Let's let younger people have access to liquor!" I'd be tempted to put a provision in the law allowing clubs to only allow access to those 18+, but since the age of consent is 16, that's probably not necessary.
Reply
The feds appoint all judges above the provincial trial division.
There are decent arguments for raising the age of majority above eighteen (people are fairly stupid, after all) - it's only as low as it is because that's as low as it's practical to make it and there's a lot of history behind eighteen.
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otherwise, remind me to link you to the article.
Basically, it argues for something like a graduated approach, because the actual age matters less than the proper build-up of responsibility and experience. It's not constructive to just confer rights upon a certain age, regardless of that age, because adolescents don't just spontaneously develop the hardware to handle stuff as an adult at some arbitrary age, making some people precocious or delayed.
I'm going to stop now and make you read the article yourself. ;-)
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