Have you caught any of the death penalty debate raging on at various blogs? It started with a post by Eugene Volokh condoning the pre-hanging torture of an Iranian serial killer who had raped and murdered at least 20 kids. Key quote:
"I particularly like the involvement of the victims' relatives in the killing of the monster; I think that if he'd killed one of my relatives, I would have wanted to play a role in killing him. Also, though for many instances I would prefer less painful forms of execution, I am especially pleased that the killing — and, yes, I am happy to call it a killing, a perfectly proper term for a perfectly proper act — was a slow throttling, and was preceded by a flogging. The one thing that troubles me (besides the fact that the murderer could only be killed once) is that the accomplice was sentenced to only 15 years in prison, but perhaps there's a good explanation."
This drew responses by Matthew Yglesias, Clayton Cramer and others. Daily Kos rounded up some of the responses from the counter-position in a post here, you can find many others by scrolling down in the original Volokh post - one of the reasons I read them so regularly is that they don't silence the opposition, but try to debate the topic through. Follow-up posts by Eugene Volokh discuss the slippery slope issue and runs through and addresses the counter-arguments.
Then, demonstrating the effectiveness of reasoned, rational debate, Eugene Volokh changes his mind based on this post by Mark Kleinman regarding the practical problems with having such a punishment available:
"What I found most persuasive about Mark's argument was his points about institutions: about how hard it would be for a jury system to operate when this punishment was available, and how its availability would affect gubernatorial elections, legislative elections, and who knows what else. Even if enough people vote to authorize these punishments constitutionally and legislatively (which I've conceded all along is highly unlikely), there would be such broad, deep, and fervent opposition to them -- much broader, deeper, and more fervent than the opposition to the death penalty -- that attempts to impose the punishments would logjam the criminal justice system and the political system.
And this would be true even when the punishments are sought only for the most heinous of murderers. It's not just that you couldn't find 12 people to convict; it's that the process of trying to find these people, and then execute the judgment they render, will impose huge costs on the legal system (for a few examples, see Mark's post). Whatever one's abstract judgments about the proper severity of punishments, this is a punishment that will not fit with our legal and political culture."
I have to say my position tallies closest with this quote of Matt Yglesias' on this one:
"Unleashing excess cruelty on serious wrongdoers doesn't, in the end, solve anything, or balance out any sort of scales. Dead kids aren't revived and they're not really avenged, either. Family members pain and loss doesn't go away. You're merely telling people that they can and should try to fill the void left in their souls with the suffering of others. . . . But of the sort of thing we're contemplating now, there's no real affirmative case. Indulge the desire for cruelty for cruelty's sake and all you'll get is cruelty."
Unlike Matt, I don't think the cruelty would necessarily bleed over into other areas, or create a cruel streak in our society. But I take a rather utilitarian approach on it all: if we want to add more punishment, what good will it serve, what will it add to our society? The only response I can see for adding torture is that it will provide an outlet for the urge for retribution.
While retribution is one of the debatable goals of the penal system, I've never been fully persuaded of the merits of it. What good does it ultimately serve? I've never had that satisfactorily answered.It doesn't bring back the victim. It doesn't plug the holes of loss. Sure, you can say it satisfies a primal urge for vengeance. But isn't that ultimately a twisting of the very motivations that drive your typical murderer into a more palatable form for our consumption?
"The murder is cathartic and allows the killer to release hitherto repressed and pathologically transformed aggression - in the form of hate, rage, and envy.
But repeated acts of escalating gore fail to alleviate the killer's overwhelming anxiety and depression. He seeks to vindicate his negative introjects and sadistic superego by being caught and punished. The serial killer tightens the proverbial noose around his neck by interacting with law enforcement agencies and the media and thus providing them with clues as to his identity and whereabouts. When apprehended, most serial assassins experience a great sense of relief."
The Psychology of Serial and Mass Killers
"When the child grows up, according to these authors, all they know are their fantasies of domination and control. They have not developed compassion for others. Instead, humans become flattened-out symbols for them to enact their violent fantasies."
Crimelibrary.com summarizing Robert Ressler, Ann Burgess and John Douglas in Sexual Homicide: Patterns and Motives.
It's an interesting debate, one particularly worth reading if you're interested with death penalty issues because some of the arguments can be expanded and extrapolated to apply to the death penalty as a whole.
Oooh! Oooh! The UI College of Law Moot Court Team reached the international competition. Congrats! Way cool! I remember Van O. rather well. It's extremely stressful, but gratifying when you kick *ss.
Obligatory Terry Schiavo commentary:
Matt and Teresa took sides on the issues earlier.
My two cents, on the moral issues only (somewhere in the archives I discussed legal issues. I'll provide the link later):
1) Teresa said "All her husband wants is for her to rest in peace. People say he is only fighting for the money, that he is scum for starting a new family with a new woman. If your spouse died fifteen years ago and the only way to stop her parents stringing her up like a marionette and parading her around town like she was alive was to stay married to her then everyone would be on your side, even if you had already moved on and started a new family." I don't buy that. For the simple fact that it was her husband who kept her strung up like a marionette long enough to bring a case to court and collect additional damages based on lifelong therapy. Then apparently began withholding that therapy. It's widely known in tort circles that a vegetable case is worth far more than a death case, to put it bluntly and crassly. That's because you've got the added horror for the jury to consider of living your whole life that way. If he was truly convinced she wouldn't want to live this way, why did he not petition from the beginning to let her die?
2) I don't have the medical qualifications to know whether she's essentially mentally a "puppet," or just a severely handicapped human being who has some minimal cognitive thought. Either way, any woman who had the problems with bulimia she'd had would not want to be kept alive in this state. Think about it. She hated her self-image enough to starve herself to the point of collapse. She's now not only slightly overweight, she's the poster child for severe brain damage. She's trotted out in video clips. There are Terry Schiavo jokes. God save us from ever having this happen to us. She'd be horrified if she knew what she'd become.
So, while I don't think the husband has her best interests at heart, I do think the parents are deluding themselves if they think she'd want to go on living. It's time to let go.
UPDATE: Dweeze pointed out this link undercutting the theory that Michael Schiavo is in it for the money. I stand corrected. In the comments, Ellen's got a further Wikipedia link.
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