Jophiel wrote:
gbaji wrote:
50,000 "innocent" people die in car accidents every single year.
They're still dead though, aren't they?
Let me get this straight. You're against a hudred or so people being executed anually by the state, after having been through multiple layers of our legal system and determined to the best of our ability to have committed a crime or crimes deserving of death, because there's a possiblity that maybe one or two of them *might* be innocent.
But you're perfectly ok with 50,000 people dying each year, who did nothing illegal, were not even accused of doing anything illegal, had no "right" to a defense, nor years of appeals, nor possiblity of reprieve. They just died. For random reasons. Purely because they got behind the wheel of a car.
The government *could* ban cars. Just like it *could* outlaw the death penalty. One of those actions would result in far more savings of life. Certainly a much much much higher percentage of "innocent life".
Why do we argue for one, but not the other?
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Christ, you ******, if there was an option to say "Sometimes there might be car accidents but no one will ever die as a result", don't you think we'd jump all over it? There is a very easy way of saying "No one will be wrongfully executed as a result of judicial error." But you'd rather make analogies saying "But people die in cars so it's acceptable that we execute people wrongfully! Just one of them thing, dontcha know?"
Is there really an "easy way"? Or does it just seem easier because the cost of doing so is less obvious?
The problem is that your logic can be equaly applied to *all* levels of punishment in our system. "No one will ever be wrongfully charged with life in prison as a result of judicial error". All we have to do is not charge anyone with a crime. Just assume everyone is innocent and we'll never make a mistake.
You need to focus on the one and only think that makes the death penalty "different" then any other. Cause the mere fact that it can be applied wrongly isn't sufficient. If that's your sole argument, then you must apply it to every other charge and sentence as well (with disasterous results IMO). The only difference is that once the sentence of death is actually carried out, it cannot be reversed. Wheras someone could be serving a life sentence and at any future point be exonerated.
That's the *only* real point to make here. But it's still a really slim one, becasue it's not like we drag people out to the back of the courthouse immediately after the trial and execute them. It often takes *decades* between when the sentence is passed down and the sentence is actually carried out. In the meantime, the convicted person has dozens of options for appeal or reprieve. We only actually execute people after all of them have been exhausted.
That time frame is important. Because you're arguing as though it's the inaccuracy of the sentencing that is a problem. But it's the innacuracy of the actual execution of that sentence that matters. Those are two very different things. One may have mistakes. In fact, we know it does because over a hundred people on death row have had their sentences overthrown. However, it's unlikely that very many mistakes get made in the second. Astronomically unlikely.
Death is death Joph. To the dead, it doesn't matter how it happened. I think that in the grand scheme of things, the statistical odds of you being incorrectly accused of a crime and convicted to death, and failing all appeals, and then being executed are so ridiculously low as to be utterly irrelevant. And when contrasted to all the other things that could kill you, many of which we could also take action to change, it just seems like this has by far the least benefit. It sounds nice on a protest sign, I suppose, but you'd literally be better of arguing for better safety features in cars. You'd save a hudred times more "innocent lives".
