• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Expert says fire for which man was executed was not arson

Hell, has the State of Illinois ever actually executed a guilty person?

There are reasons why I don't ever do anything in Illinois. I don't even drive through the state-- if I have to go east for some reason, I go around.
 
Kandahar said:
He shouldn't have to find evidence proving his innocence. The burden of proof is on the prosecution, and these claims cast reasonable doubt on the veracity of the prosecution's claims.
Click to expand...

And the prosecution proved his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt at trial, using the evidence that was available at the time. The fact that there is a dispute about that evidence 18 years later doesn't mean that the proper procedures weren't followed at the time of the trial.

Middleground said:
FACT: it cost taxpayers more to kill than to keep in jail for life. Look it up.
Click to expand...

This of course assumes that you place no value on the lives that are saved via deterrence resulting from the death penalty.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/us/18deter.html?_r=1

For the first time in a generation, the question of whether the death penalty deters murders has captured the attention of scholars in law and economics, setting off an intense new debate about one of the central justifications for capital punishment.

According to roughly a dozen recent studies, executions save lives. For each inmate put to death, the studies say, 3 to 18 murders are prevented.

The effect is most pronounced, according to some studies, in Texas and other states that execute condemned inmates relatively often and relatively quickly.
Click to expand...
 
Agnapostate said:
That's not a very sound criticism, considering that the death penalty is consciously and deliberately designed to induce...death, while prison deaths will be unintentional for criminal justice purposes.
Click to expand...

A prisoner is more likely to die in the general prison population than on death row.
 
RightinNYC said:
This of course assumes that you place no value on the lives that are saved via deterrence resulting from the death penalty.
Click to expand...

I've not read Mocan's work (which seems the most significant study mentioned in the article), but existing empirical research into the deterrence effect of capital punishment seems somewhat problematic. For example, Zimmerman's Estimates of the Deterrent Effect of Alternative Execution Methods in the United States: 1978-2000 notes that "[t]he empirical estimates suggest that the deterrent effect of capital punishment is driven primarily by executions conducted by electrocution. None of the other four methods of execution (lethal injection, gas chamber asphyxiation, hanging, and/or firing squad) are found to have a statistically significant impact on the per capita incidence of murder." That doesn't seem to be at all a sound conclusion, which indicates that there are methodological deficiencies present in the existing empirical research that corrupt the accuracy of their findings.

apdst said:
A prisoner is more likely to die in the general prison population than on death row.
Click to expand...

I've not looked into the matter, but that still has no bearing on the issue of the compensation system, since a more appropriately managed system would apparently involve gen. pops with low murder rates and death rows with high and efficient execution rates.
 
Agnapostate said:
I've not looked into the matter, but that still has no bearing on the issue of the compensation system, since a more appropriately managed system would apparently involve gen. pops with low murder rates and death rows with high and efficient execution rates.
Click to expand...

Sounds good in theory, I reckon.
 
Agnapostate said:
I've not read Mocan's work (which seems the most significant study mentioned in the article), but existing empirical research into the deterrence effect of capital punishment seems somewhat problematic. For example, Zimmerman's Estimates of the Deterrent Effect of Alternative Execution Methods in the United States: 1978-2000 notes that "[t]he empirical estimates suggest that the deterrent effect of capital punishment is driven primarily by executions conducted by electrocution. None of the other four methods of execution (lethal injection, gas chamber asphyxiation, hanging, and/or firing squad) are found to have a statistically significant impact on the per capita incidence of murder." That doesn't seem to be at all a sound conclusion, which indicates that there are methodological deficiencies present in the existing empirical research that corrupt the accuracy of their findings.
Click to expand...

Even if we assume that this one study is correct and that there is no deterrent effect from any other type of execution (which seems implausible on its face, given the difficulties in studying that due to the fact that it's generally only used by choice now), that's not an argument against the death penalty, but rather an argument for the use of the electric chair over lethal injection.
 
RightinNYC said:
Even if we assume that this one study is correct and that there is no deterrent effect from any other type of execution (which seems implausible on its face, given the difficulties in studying that due to the fact that it's generally only used by choice now), that's not an argument against the death penalty, but rather an argument for the use of the electric chair over lethal injection.
Click to expand...

That's actually an analysis of the majority of the empirical literature on the death penalty, and the idea that execution via electrocution has a deterrence effect while execution via lethal injection, gas chamber asphyxiation, hanging, and firing squad do not is probably unsound. It could theoretically be related to perceptions of the brutality of electrocution that deter potential murderers, but again, it's far more likely that there are methodological deficiencies present in the empirical literature that has rendered much of it unsuitable as a basis for policy formation.
 
RightinNYC said:
And the prosecution proved his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt at trial, using the evidence that was available at the time. The fact that there is a dispute about that evidence 18 years later doesn't mean that the proper procedures weren't followed at the time of the trial.
Click to expand...

You can split hairs about whether the evidence was available at the time. But the point is that NOW the evidence strongly suggests there's a reasonable doubt to his guilt. Oops.

RightinNYC said:
This of course assumes that you place no value on the lives that are saved via deterrence resulting from the death penalty.
Click to expand...

The death penalty has an economic cost associated with it. Let's assume for a second that the death penalty does, in fact, deter murders. What if, instead of spending huge amounts of taxpayer money on death row appeals, we spent it to hire more police officers? Which deters MORE murders - having the death penalty or having more cops?

If you cannot definitively answer the question in favor of the death penalty, I'd prefer to err toward the solution that DOESN'T involve the government executing potentially innocent people.
 
Last edited:
apdst said:
By that logic, let's just stop putting people in prison, because a few of them might be innocent.
Click to expand...

If you are in prison and later you are exonerated, then you get out of prison. If you are executed and later exonerated, you are still dead.
 
apdst said:
Unless, of course, they die in prison. Then what?
Click to expand...

EVERY person that is executed and found innocent is still dead.

Not EVERY person that is in jail and found innocent is dead from being jailed.

There is at least a chance for a person jailed and found innocent to walk out that jail alive. There is no chance if they are executed.
 
TheNextEra said:
EVERY person that is executed and found innocent is still dead.

Not EVERY person that is in jail and found innocent is dead from being jailed.

There is at least a chance for a person jailed and found innocent to walk out that jail alive. There is no chance if they are executed.
Click to expand...

But, they have a higher probability of dieing doing a life sentence, than they do of dieing on death row.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
If you are in prison and later you are exonerated, then you get out of prison. If you are executed and later exonerated, you are still dead.
Click to expand...

The more advanced technology we have to prove innocense, means the more advanced technology we have to prove guilt, so the odds of convicting an innocent person are shrinking all the time.
 
apdst said:
The more advanced technology we have to prove innocense, means the more advanced technology we have to prove guilt, so the odds of convicting an innocent person are shrinking all the time.
Click to expand...

Well then, lets do away with judges and juries then and simply write software to hand out death sentences.

Dim intDeathSentenceCounter As Integer = 10
Dim intTexasResident As Integer = 2
Dim intPoor As Integer = 5
Dim intCantAffordADecentAttorney as Integer = 4

Public Function DeathSentence = YourDead
'Put Code here
End Function
 
Last edited:
apdst said:
You gotta be kiddin' me! You mean I actually have to prove that to you?

From 2001 to 2006 there were over 18,000 prison deaths.

Bureau of Justice Statistics - Deaths in Custody 2001-2005 - Table 1. Number of State prisoner deaths by cause, 2001-2005
Click to expand...

While that may be true it is somewhat irrelevent.

I could point out that being in prison is safer (in regards to death rate) than not being in prison.

Prisoner mortality rates
Bureau of Justice Statistics - Deaths in Custody 2001-2005 - Table 3. Mortality rate per 100,000 State prisoners, by cause of death, 2001-2005

US Population mortality rates
FASTSTATS - Deaths and Mortality

But what does this add to the subject of the original post?
 
apdst said:
But, they have a higher probability of dieing doing a life sentence, than they do of dieing on death row.
Click to expand...

You are completely and utterly wrong.
 
TheNextEra said:
EVERY person that is executed and found innocent is still dead.

Not EVERY person that is in jail and found innocent is dead from being jailed.
Click to expand...

People sentenced to death are not executed immediately, and everyone who serves a sentence of life-without-parole will die in prison eventually. Thus, the only difference between the two is a matter of time-- the prisoner on death row still has a chance of being found innocent before he is executed, and the prisoner serving life-without-parole has only a slightly better chance of being found innocent before dying.

In either case, there's no possible way that the State can restore what has been taken from them.
 
Kandahar said:
I award you a BS in Statistics. How many people are in the general prison population? How many people are on death row? Jesus Christ. :roll:
Click to expand...

BS in statistics? Did we kill 18,000 death row inmates in the same amount of time? You asked and you received. Sorry if you're not pleased with the facts.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
Well then, lets do away with judges and juries then and simply write software to hand out death sentences.

Dim intDeathSentenceCounter As Integer = 10
Dim intTexasResident As Integer = 2
Dim intPoor As Integer = 5
Dim intCantAffordADecentAttorney as Integer = 4

Public Function DeathSentence = YourDead
'Put Code here
End Function
Click to expand...
You going to use Basic to write code for the death machine. I suppose you are going to run it on Windows. Holy crap.... :shock:

.
 
apdst said:
BS in statistics? Did we kill 18,000 death row inmates in the same amount of time? You asked and you received. Sorry if you're not pleased with the facts.
Click to expand...

Except you didn't just say that more prisoners died in general prison than on death row, which is obvious. You said:

A prisoner is more likely to die in the general prison population than on death row.
Click to expand...

This is patently false.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom