Death penality, okay with requisite criteria?

"Is the death penalty okay?" has been asked many times. Some agree with it but I've noticed that among most that don't, an overwhelming majority base their nos on the fact that people can be wrongfully convicted. That's a valid point.

So assuming that the death penalty is only used in certain cases. Perhaps for heinous murders where there's 100% surety that people are guilty (Video and DNA evidence, witnesses and a confession (and a lack of expressed guilt, i.e. no chance of rehabilitation), what would your opinion be?

Even for people that have done terrible things, I don't think they should be put to death. The death penalty isn't about keeping society safe, it's about indulging people's desire for revenge. It's a dangerous and immoral thing in my opinion.

This sentence hits the issue on the nail. The death penalty is simply a means of 'retribution'. That said, so many victim families say how little retribution capital punishment provides after they've watched a criminal being executed. Supposedly it provides closure and restores justice - but this is very often a mistaken belief.

The death penalty protects society no more than life imprisonment does. Indeed it could be argued that the British legal system is slightly soft with sentencing, but that digresses from the issue at hand. The hypocrisy of the death penalty is unprecedented and I find it hard to accept that any state should have the 'right' to take life, regardless of what one might have done. As cliched to say as this is, how are we any better than the criminal by enforcing the death penalty?

Furthermore, a few side points of interest: the death penalty is fart more expensive than than life imprisonment (owing largely to legal fees) as the American justice system has shown; the death penalty categorically fails as a deterrent (statistical proof year-by-year from 1991); botched executions are still taking place in the modern day, leading to what can only be assumed as excruciating executions that are despicably inhumane. Clayton D. Lockett's execution in April this year in Oklahoma is a fine example.

Regardless of the offense, the death penalty is a shambolic disgrace.

Thanks for raising those other points. They really fly in the face of what a lot of people believe about the death penalty; people think it saves the country money, that it deters criminals and is reliable with minimal suffering. These are all decidedly incorrect as you point out.

Its failure as a deterrant I find particularly interresting because, with some inspection, I think it's to be expected. Murders are enacted either in the heat of the moment or are premeditated - if someone acts in anger, they aren't thinking of the consequences of their actions. And if the murder is premeditated, either they believe they can get away with it or are prepared to sacrifice themselves to a life sentence anyway. With such a severe sentence already on the table, is the criminal really going to be further deterred? No, probably not. It's just an intellectual masquerade - a contrived justification for a much more personal desire for retribution, as is betrayed by the passion with which people eagerly cry for lethal retaliations.

As Marquis de Sade once said, the premeditated murder by the state that we call the death penalty is the worst kind of murder. As you mentioned with anger, people often act impulsively without thinking of the consequences. For example, in the US you would likely be sentenced to death for the murder of a cop which is something that could be completely unplanned and spur of the moment. Supposedly that is worse than the state premeditating and planning an execution in advance. I think de Sade makes a good argument because there has to be some level of sadistic intent in planning and orchestrating a capital punishment execution that doesn't necessarily exist in an unplanned capital offense.
So many legal systems are based far too heavily on consequences, in my opinion. If the cop dies, it's the death penalty; if he survives, it'll be life imprisonment without parole. But the act of harming that policeman is the same regardless of the consequence - so the act itself isn't actually particularly important compared to the effects of that act, it would seem. Anyway, I've digressed somewhat.

Again you've summed up the crux of the matter well in your last sentence. I'm yet to hear any justification of the death penalty that actually carries any real weight.

Well, the US justice system is a paragon of amorality in my opinion. It's not about justice - that's just the vehicle to maintain public support. The reality is it's a system of corporate profits and, as we've discussed, indulgence in vice.

The indulgence in vice I'd call sadistic, though I think it's thankfully a fairly muted kind of sadism, being that it's tempered by what's profitable. There's plenty of sadism in other country's 'justice' systems though, what with torture and so on. In those systems I think the punishments are ideologically motivated or in efforts put towards the preservation of power by means of oppression.

I think you and I agree on a lot of this so I'll air my core objection to the death penalty and all retributive punishment: I don't believe people have free will, or at least the burden of proof has decisively not been met, which seems important if we're to found our entire criminal justice system on the premise that people are morally responsible for their conscious behaviour. Beyond my criticisms of how retribution doesn't work and is counter-productive, it just seems completely morally untenable without a justified belief in individuals' moral freedom and responsibility.

I don't think the US can be excluded from criticism of torture, given the fact Guantanamo is somehow still open. Why Obama hasn't shut it yet I don't know. But yes, obviously it's a more prominent issue in oppressive and often theocratic states like Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran etc.

Ah I believe we've had this philosophical discussion once before. I too hold hard deterministic views that undermine our whole justice system. I'm surprised more legal defenses don't follow the lines of Clarence Darrow, to be honest. Leopold and Loeb avoided the death penalty from arguments of psychological determinism.

No. I think having the death penalty undermines murder being illegal.

I don't believe any of the moral arguments against it, like "it makes us as bad as them". It doesn't. Assuming no miscarriages of justice happen (which is basically what this thread is), the people killed by death penalty would be murderers and other serious criminals.
What's worse - killing a murderer, or killing an innocent person for no reason? Murder victims are usually innocent.

That said, you can't really introduce it for cases with "100% certainty" and expect it to remain like that. No matter how hard you try, innocent people will be caught up in it eventually. It is just not possible to guarantee that no miscarriages of justice take place. That is why I strongly oppose the death penalty.

I don't believe any of the moral arguments against it, like "it makes us as bad as them". It doesn't. Assuming no miscarriages of justice happen (which is basically what this thread is), the people killed by death penalty would be murderers and other serious criminals.
What's worse - killing a murderer, or killing an innocent person for no reason? Murder victims are usually innocent.

I don't agree with state murder, no matter what the person has done.