Sig
DP Veteran
- Joined
- Sep 18, 2011
- Messages
- 2,179
- Reaction score
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- Gender
- Male
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- Other
We should really abolish the death penalty. It's expensive and justice is blind. People have been murdered by the state on charges they were innocent of. If a person is wrongfully jailed they can be set free and compensated. If you execute an innocent person the only thing the state can do is go "oops!"
I wouldn't worry about it. The body count of innocents will always be much, much higher on the side where the CJS f*cks up and either wrongfully exonerates a guilty man or underprosecutes him, and he subsequently kills again.
To be sure, the CJS has a lot more blood on its hands for wrongful exonerations and underprosecutions, than it ever will for wrongful convictions in death penalty cases. If we are to argue against capital punishment on the grounds of human fallability, then we should also argue against the Great Writ of habeas corpus on the same grounds. After all, would it not be more prudent to retain custody of a defendant who is acqutted by a jury in a death penalty case wherein considerable danming evidence is presented during trial? What if he really is guilty and kills another innocent person subsequent to his release?
In the end, the law must choose in the face of objective uncertainty, even in matters of life and death. There is no way around this. The CJS could just as easily have acquitted Davis and released him back into society, only to have him shoot yet another police officer to death, or the CJS could have commuted his sentence to 'life without parole', only to have him murder an inmate or C.O. soon after being released into prison general population. In both instances, the CJS would have the blood of the innocent on its hands, no differently than they would for executing Davis after wrongfully convicting him (if that is even the case here).