Speaking of death penalty

[hebner20]

After reading the thread about the man in Texas who may have been wrongly put to death I offer this:

We have all heard someone say that they would rather let X# of guilty people go free than have 1 innocent man wrongly go to his death. I honestly don't think I agree with this. Let's say 10 guilty people go free and are in the general population. How many more crimes do they commit and ultimately how many people do they kill? If you subscribe to the Judeo-Christian ethic of a God that has ultimate judgment, then if the innocent man dies wrongly he will be exonerated by the only true judge that matters - God. If that is the case, isn't the logical conclusion to administer liberal doses of capital punishment and not worry about the 1 that wrongly pays the ultimate price?

I am not really advocating a "kill them all and let God sort them out" philosophy but it seems that no one challenges the concept of letting 10 or 100 go free vs letting 1 innocent die.

Thoughts?

[leadpipe]

Because "letting 10 go free instead of killing 1 wrongly accused" is hypothetical, and nowhere near reality.

Making sure one is truly guilty has no bearing on ANYONE else.

[hebner20]

Because "letting 10 go free instead of killing 1 wrongly accused" is hypothetical, and nowhere near reality.

Making sure one is truly guilty has no bearing on ANYONE else.

I agree. I don't think you get my point. You must make sure you are convicting the right person using all possible means such as DNA etc, but to rule out capital punishment on the chance you might get 1 wrong for every 10 or 100 or 1000 is not a good argument for me.

[leadpipe]

Because "letting 10 go free instead of killing 1 wrongly accused" is hypothetical, and nowhere near reality.

Making sure one is truly guilty has no bearing on ANYONE else.

I agree. I don't think you get my point. You must make sure you are convicting the right person using all possible means such as DNA etc, but to rule out capital punishment on the chance you might get 1 wrong for every 10 or 100 or 1000 is not a good argument for me.

So, you'd be O.K. if 10% of the people they killed were wrongly convicted?

It's death, man, O-V-E-R. You can't have a mistake rate.

Again, one isn't related to the other. Making sure you are correct has no bearing on letting someone go free. None.

and, as I've said in another thread, I'm a big fan of the victims. If you kill someone I don't care how awful and painful your death is, as a matter of fact, I'd be in favor of a cruel method. But you gotta be right.

And again, politics are involved. The woman I spoke of, Joyce Gilchrest, in the other thread, who was involved in the state of Oklahoma forensics lab, and was "persuaded" into making evidence fit. Why might you think she would do that???? Never hurts to make the right people happy.

But I digress. To be clear. Capital punishment is great in theory, but just like welfare and unions for example, if they are abused they become dangerous.

[jfiling]

False dichotomy. Eliminating the death penalty does not equal letting guilty people go free.

[hebner20]

Because "letting 10 go free instead of killing 1 wrongly accused" is hypothetical, and nowhere near reality.

Making sure one is truly guilty has no bearing on ANYONE else.

I agree. I don't think you get my point. You must make sure you are convicting the right person using all possible means such as DNA etc, but to rule out capital punishment on the chance you might get 1 wrong for every 10 or 100 or 1000 is not a good argument for me.

So, you'd be O.K. if 10% of the people they killed were wrongly convicted?

It's death, man, O-V-E-R. You can't have a mistake rate.



Again, one isn't related to the other. Making sure you are correct has no bearing on letting someone go free. None.

and, as I've said in another thread, I'm a big fan of the victims. If you kill someone I don't care how awful and painful your death is, as a matter of fact, I'd be in favor of a cruel method. But you gotta be right.

And again, politics are involved. The woman I spoke of, Joyce Gilchrest, in the other thread, who was involved in the state of Oklahoma forensics lab, and was "persuaded" into making evidence fit. Why might you think she would do that???? Never hurts to make the right people happy.

But I digress. To be clear. Capital punishment is great in theory, but just like welfare and unions for example, if they are abused they become dangerous.

I am not in favor of a 10% error rate (using 10 was a bad example), but usually people against the death penalty use a much larger number than 10 it is usually 1,000+. I would be ok with that against the backdrop of final exoneration in the hereafter by God as the ultimate judge.

I'm not quite getting your response to my post and I’ll take the blame for that. I did not post this as a rebuttal to the other topic. It just got me thinking. I really wanted the discussion to be about why the following phrase is not challenged: "I would rather let 1,000 guilty men go free rather than kill 1 innocent man" I think that statement goes counter to the concept of the good of the whole is greater than that of the individual.

So, if you say that you must have 100% accuracy well that won't happen but I am ok with it. I will not disagree with the fact that political agenda/coersion factors into getting the wrong man but I think the greater good is served in the 999 other times. If we are going to have capital punishment then that is the risk we take i guess.

Maybe I did not read the other thread closely enough and I am missing your point. If so, again sorry to be a little dense.