Pharyngula

"Uh, I don't know, Um, I don't know what to say. I don't know. (pauses) I didn't know anybody was there. Howdy."

Posted by: Robert | December 23, 2007 5:57 PM

We know for a fact that at least one was innocent. After Congress passed the law allowing only three appeals, one condemned man had the odd experience of having the killer who really committed the murder confess. Texas argued that they didn't need to hear a fourth appeal, since the other appeals had all been legal, and three appeals are all that are required. Innocence, the state argued, is not a good enough reason to get a condemned person off of death row.

Texas won at the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which is no surprise. But the U.S. Supreme Court reviewed, and they found that the condemned man had his three bites at the apple. Innocence was not a good enough reason to reopen the case. At that phase, reopening usually requires a showing of malfeasance on the part of the prosecutor. The state argued the prosecutor, while withholding evidence it was required to give, hadn't significantly violated the prisoner's rights in doing so, as demonstrated by the jury's having found the man guilty.

So, with another man confessing to the crime and the state no contending that the confession was faulty in any way, Texas executed someone other than the confessed killer. The killer could not be prosecuted, of course, at that point.

This occurred before George Bush even became governor, but it's a pretty famous case, and one wonders whether he knew he was lying when he said Texas had never executed an innocent man, or whether he really is that clueless.

Sadly, there are more cases:
http://www.texasmoratorium.org/article.php?sid=1188

Posted by: Ed Darrell | December 23, 2007 6:13 PM

One is too many. On second thoughts, zero is too many. No judicial system should perform irreversible punishments, as all legal processes are potentially flawed.

Posted by: Steve Zara | December 23, 2007 6:16 PM

I would like to apologize to the victim's family for all of the pain I have caused them.

I would like to tell my family I love them and I hope to see them again soon.

Lord Jesus, thank you for giving me the strength and the time in my life to find Jesus Christ and to be forgiven for all of my sins.

Thank you for the changes in my life you have given me, the love and closeness of my family, and my beautiful daughter.

Thank you for using me -

-John William Cockrum #854

Seems like they threw the switch a little too soon on that one.

Posted by: Dan | December 23, 2007 6:32 PM

The state argued the prosecutor, while withholding evidence it was required to give, hadn't significantly violated the prisoner's rights in doing so, as demonstrated by the jury's having found the man guilty.

*shakes head Lewis Black style*

that's as perfect a circle as I've seen today.

he's guilty because he was found guilty.

case closed.

wait, what's the purpose of an appeal again?

*shakes head again*

Posted by: Ichthyic | December 23, 2007 6:37 PM

I kind of think that death is at least somewhat less irreversible than imprisonment! Also, wrongly imprisoned people can at least be offered compensation on their release. Sentence should be able to be reduced as a result of new evidence at any time after the initial trial. Truth should not have an expiry date. People have been released years or even decades after their false convictions. Even assuming a civilized society should impose the death penalty, it implies a certainty about the evidence and the verdict that simply can't be justfied.

Posted by: Steve Zara | December 23, 2007 6:54 PM

Here is the case of a judge who took a chance on a 14-year-old killer.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071222/ap_on_re_us/youth_on_trial_judge_s_gamble

I know of atheists who think that the only answer is to lock 'em up and throw away the key. But at 14?

Posted by: bernarda | December 23, 2007 7:32 PM

The real question is how many innocent people have not been killed by escaped prisoners serving long sentences, like these guys.

So, we should kill prisoners to prevent them from escaping jail? Are you insane?

On the subject of incarceration:

Drug Offenses: 98,622 (53.6 %)
Weapons, Explosives, Arson: 26,870 (14.6 %)
Immigration: 19,233 (10.4 %)
Robbery: 9,333 (5.1 %)
Burglary, Larceny, Property Offenses: 6,783 (3.7 %)
Extortion, Fraud, Bribery: 8,172 (4.4 %)
Homicide, Aggravated Assault, and Kidnapping Offenses: 5,589 (3.0 %)
Miscellaneous: 2,069 (1.1 %)
Sex Offenses: 4,997 (2.7 %)
Banking and Insurance, Counterfeit, Embezzlement: 1,006 (0.5 %)
Courts or Corrections: 742 (0.4 %)
Continuing Criminal Enterprise: 563 (0.3 %)
National Security: 96 (0.1 %)

http://www.bop.gov/about/facts.jsp

Posted by: Abbie | December 23, 2007 7:56 PM

bernarda,

I know tons of Christians who think children should be eligible for the death penalty.

I agree with everyone who said the death penalty is far too permanent to use in our imperfect justice system.

Posted by: Pygmy Loris | December 23, 2007 7:59 PM

Some of the final statements are awfully verbose and stylised for people who are statistically more likely to be poorly educated and of lower socio-economic background. You have to wonder how many had words put into their mouths so to speak. Interestingly too I notice all the men in their 20's are either black or hispanic. I'm thinkng a few reasons for this, including poorer access to legal advice therefore a short appeal process etc etc. I can only see one woman, Karla Faye Tucker but there are some ambigous names and I haven't checked them all. There's just too many.

Posted by: Bride of Shrek | December 23, 2007 8:17 PM

This blog exhibits as big a case of T-envy as I have seen lately...Hook em!

Posted by: Schooner | December 23, 2007 8:27 PM

Let's do it, man. Lock and load. Ain't life a [expletive deleted]?

G.W. Green #576

Posted by: Geoff | December 23, 2007 8:38 PM

Killing people is wrong.

Posted by: Archaeopteryx | December 23, 2007 9:01 PM

Pro-death Texans, and conservatives in general would rather kill an innocent man rather than have a guilty man serve life in prison. (Kill 'em all and let god sort 'em out.)
We know this because they say only Jesus was perfect, so they agree the justice system, as a construct of man, must be imperfect.

Posted by: wildlifer | December 23, 2007 9:28 PM

why doesn't it surprise me in the least that Ian is anti-abortion, but pro death penalty?

utter shocker, i tells ya.

but this is even more inane:

That eliminates imprisonment, since there's a statistically significant probability that any offender (particularly a murderer) will be murdered while incarcerated. Jeffrey Dahmer comes to mind.

so, uh because a tiny number of prisoners are murdered by other prisoners, we should of course conclude that prison is defacto a death senetence.

this guy needs to smoke less crack.

Posted by: Ichthyic | December 23, 2007 9:36 PM

You wonder how many were innocent; I wonder how many innocent victims were saved... . Looking at the "offender information", one of them served three years for muder in California and was then paroled. Perhaps his victim in Texas would have benefited from a more Texan approach to justice in California?

Posted by: Mike | December 23, 2007 9:44 PM

PZ, don't worry God will sort them out.

Posted by: daedalus2u | December 23, 2007 9:56 PM

Re: #28

So it's all just a numbers game? As long as the number of innocents put to death by the state is

How about an alternative, true life sentences for those normally sentenced to death, with the opportunity to prove their innocence? That should drop the number of innocents killed by the state to zero without increasing the number of innocents killed by individuals.

Posted by: Gary Bohn | December 23, 2007 10:58 PM

I agree with Ian on this one.

The problem is not capital punishment. The problem is a flawed criminal justice system too incompetent to prevent innocent people being convicted, as well as being racially biased.

From a moral standpoint, I have no issue with capital punishment. I would go so far as to say that the family of any murder victim has a moral claim on the life of the killer. Every breath that person draws is on sufferance. The family has the right to decide if he lives or dies. Just seems common sense to me. To the people who whine, "But that's just revenge!"...so? Explain why revenge is morally wrong.

Posted by: Martin | December 23, 2007 11:04 PM

From a moral standpoint, I have no issue with capital punishment. I would go so far as to say that the family of any murder victim has a moral claim on the life of the killer.

So, the families of the executed people have a moral claim on the lives of the executioners.

They are, after all, murderers. Their acts are premeditated (often days or months in advance), and there are several witnesses to the incident.

But not one of them is ever prosecuted for murder, nor the other guards and attendants for being accessories to the act.

The law, it seems, is enforced capriciously at best.

Posted by: Seraphiel | December 23, 2007 11:19 PM

"If violence is wrong in America, violence is wrong abroad. If it is wrong to be violent defending black women and black children and black babies and black men, then it is wrong for America to draft us, and make us violent abroad in defense of her. And if it is right for America to draft us, and teach us how to be violent in defense of her, then it is right for you and me to do whatever is necessary to defend our own people right here in this country." Malcolm X

How can a supposed Christian nation ever reconcile war and capital punishment with the fact that one of only ten commandments handed down by their supreme being is that they shall not kill? Not to mention Christ's admonition to judge not... or the emphasis placed on forgiveness... If it's wrong here then it is wrong over there.

Posted by: Chad | December 23, 2007 11:38 PM

So, the families of the executed people have a moral claim on the lives of the executioners.
They are, after all, murderers. Their acts are premeditated (often days or months in advance), and there are several witnesses to the incident.

Typical inability to make meaningful distinctions from the bleeding-heart side.

The person executed by the state is executed for the crime of premeditated murder against an innocent person. Once they have chosen to commit this crime, they themselves are no longer innocent citizens, but criminals. As their execution is a form of legal punishment for the murder they committed, their execution cannot itself be considered murder, as it is legally mandated punishment decided upon by a court of law and a jury. By taking an innocent life, they have forfeited the right to their own.

You might as well argue that anyone thrown in jail for the crime of kidnapping has himself been kidnapped.

That's the problem I find with most people against capital punishment. They throw their umbrella wide to make baseless generalizations, and they cannot distinguish between crime and punishment. They think that simply by turning your points back on you they have refuted them, when reality is more complex than that.

Still, these are general moral points, and do not take away from the fact the American criminal justice system is too corrupt and not sufficiently competent to mete out capital punishment without sufficient safeguards.

Posted by: Martin | December 23, 2007 11:51 PM

They throw their umbrella wide to make baseless generalizations

You mean, like the baseless generalization you just made - that everyone executed by the state is a person who has actually committed murder? Those kinds of baseless generalizations?

When the state executes a man whose innocence is no longer in dispute, why aren't murder charges brought forward? Seraphs point about capricious law enforcement holds true. When judges sentence the innocent to death, why don't judges receive the death penalty?

Posted by: Chet | December 24, 2007 12:04 AM

Note: Karla Faye Tucker was born again on death row (who isn't?) and even Pat Robertson pleaded for clemency.

Posted by: Colugo | December 24, 2007 12:07 AM

And what of the cases where the victim had no family? or where there are multiple vicdtims and the families disagree about the death penalty? It would seem very much like removing the responsibility for capital punishment from the states shoulders onto the victim/s family.

Posted by: Bride of Shrek | December 24, 2007 12:26 AM

The argument that a murderer has forfeited their right to live really makes no sense.

Are you arguing that punishments must, in some way, be equal to the crime committed? What about assault, or rape?

Just what sort of moral calculus to you use to come to the conclusion that a murderer should be executed?

phat

Posted by: phat | December 24, 2007 1:05 AM

Can we get the last statements of all the people Bush has killed in Iraq?

I wonder how many of them were innocent?

Posted by: CalGeorge | December 24, 2007 1:18 AM

well, I know of one person on that list, through his mother admittedly, who should never have been sentenced to death for what he did.

yes, he killed someone. no one denied that - but it was not first degree murder by anyone's definition except the judge and prosecuting attorney. Suffering from Gulf War Syndrome, the guy would have gotten life at most anywhere else.

In the strangest twist of fate, however, the mother supported Dubya's election, even though he was the governor when her son was executed...because she thought he was "more" anti-abortion than Kerry.

Yeah - unsurprisingly she was a bit of a fundy.

Posted by: CanadianChick | December 24, 2007 1:26 AM

"I wonder how many of them were innocent?"

They were ALL innocent, don'tcha know.

Not only don't we know that, we know otherwise, moron.

Just like O.J.

O.J. was not innocent, moron.

The real question

"how many of them were innocent" is a real question, moron.

how many innocent people have not been killed by escaped prisoners serving long sentences

All the living ones and almost all of the dead ones, moron. This is what a moron calls a real question?

Posted by: truth machine | December 24, 2007 1:45 AM

Archaeopteryx wrote:

Killing people is wrong.

Posted by: Ian H Spedding FCD | December 24, 2007 1:51 AM

seriously, since people die from drunk drivers, all drunk drivers should be executed to minimize the harm they might cause to others.

I think there's a case to be made for prosecuting drunk driving as attempted homicide, as a deterrent measure. I wouldn't condone execution, though.

Killing people is wrong.

I shoot dead a man who is about to shoot you dead. Am I wrong?

Needless killing is wrong, poor phrasing notwithstanding. Explain the need for executions.

(Though arguing with a person who thinks that a single fertilized egg has more of a right to life than a conscious, sentient human who may be innocent is probably akin to giving medicine to the dead...)

Posted by: Azkyroth | December 24, 2007 1:57 AM

damn, Phat has beaten me to the punch twice now. I was thinking the same thing earlier with the correlation not equalling causation, and was just about to ask Ian what in the hell his example has to do with capital punishment.

If you're on the West Coast, I'd love to do a few rounds with ya sometime.

cheers

Posted by: Ichthyic | December 24, 2007 1:58 AM

phat: "There has never been a legitimate study done that shows that the death penalty deters any crime."

Getting off Death Row: Commuted Sentences and the Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment
H. Naci Mocan, R. Kaj Gittings
The Journal of Law and Economics, vol. 46 (October 2003)
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/382603?journalCode=jle

Abstract

"This paper merges a state‐level panel data set that includes crime and deterrence measures and state characteristics with information on all death sentences handed out in the United States between 1977 and 1997. Because the exact month and year of each execution and removal from death row can be identified, they are matched with state‐level criminal activity in the relevant time frame. Controlling for a variety of state characteristics, the paper investigates the impact of the execution rate, commutation and removal rates, homicide arrest rate, sentencing rate, imprisonment rate, and prison death rate on the rate of homicide. The results show that each additional execution decreases homicides by about five, and each additional commutation increases homicides by the same amount, while an additional removal from death row generates one additional murder.Executions, commutations, and removals have no impact on robberies, burglaries, assaults, or motor‐vehicle thefts."

------------

The Impact of Incentives on Human Behavior: Can We Make it Disappear? The Case of the Death Penalty
H. Naci Mocan, R. Kaj Gittings
National Bureau of Economic ResearchWorking Paper No. W12631
2006

Abstract excerpt:
"...In this paper we extend the analysis of Mocan and Gittings (2003). We alter the original model in a number of directions to make the relationship between homicide rates and death penalty related outcomes (executions, commutations and removals) disappear. We deliberately deviate from the theoretically consistent measurement of the risk variables originally employed by Mocan and Gittings (2003) in a variety of ways. We also investigate the sensitivity of the results to changes in the estimation sample (removing high executing states for example) and weighting. The basic results are insensitive to these and a variety of other specification tests performed in the paper. The results are often strong enough to even hold up under theoretically meaningless measurements of the risk variables. In summary, the original findings of Mocan and Gittings (2003) are robust, providing evidence that people indeed react to incentives induced by capital punishment."

Posted by: Colugo | December 24, 2007 2:00 AM

Capital punishment is reserved for cases of malice and wanton disregard for life

drunk driving would seem to qualify, then.

so would regular speeders and other reckless drivers.

as far as "malice" goes, that has little to do with who has been executed in Texas... just check the offender details for the 400 or so in that list.

moral judgements on an "adult" level?

highly debatable that you are doing more than projecting your own personal set of standards in making such an argument.

Posted by: Ichthyic | December 24, 2007 2:01 AM

You must have great difficulty on reading comprehension tests.

You're the one who fails the test; Martin made the very generalization he was accused of, "that everyone executed by the state is a person who has actually committed murder", when he wrote

The person executed by the state is executed for the crime of premeditated murder against an innocent person. Once they have chosen to commit this crime, they themselves are no longer innocent citizens, but criminals. As their execution is a form of legal punishment for the murder they committed, their execution cannot itself be considered murder, as it is legally mandated punishment decided upon by a court of law and a jury. By taking an innocent life, they have forfeited the right to their own.

just as Chet wrote. If Martin doesn't believe the state to be infallible, then he shouldn't have written what he wrote, but the statement incorporates the assumption nonetheless.

There is no honest way to read his comments as indicative of a belief in the infallibility of the state.

There is no honest way to read the above statement in a way such that it does not make the assumption claimed.

This is a Discovery Institute-level quote-mine, and you should be ashamed.

There was no quote-mine; the quote of Martin was not changed in its meaning. To call it quote-mining is to suggest that he doesn't actually object to baseless generalizations. To call it quote-mining is shameful.

Posted by: truth machine | December 24, 2007 2:11 AM

Phat, comment #56
The graph in Lowe's article is based on US Dept of Criminal Justice data. Is it incorrect? The murder rate trend and the number of executions trend are mirror images of each other. That seems pretty conclusive to me.
I've looked at studies comparing murder rates between US states. Why is that relevant? I think some of these studies search for data to support a conclusion. Singapore has one of the lowest murder rates and the death penalty while South Africa has no death penalty and a horrendous murder rate. Does that negate the DPIC argument? Of course not. The causes of high murder rates are complex. Nevertheless within a country or state, it seems to me that abolishing the death penalty results in more murder victims.

Posted by: Bryson | December 24, 2007 2:12 AM

Sorry for the double post

Posted by: Bryson | December 24, 2007 2:15 AM

hmm, what's the crime in this forum for insipidity?

A most fitting word. One can only imagine what punishment Ian thinks fits burglary, rape, forgery, drunk driving, assisting a suicide, running a red light, illegal abortion ...

Posted by: truth machine | December 24, 2007 2:21 AM

There was no quote-mine; the quote of Martin was not changed in its meaning. To call it quote-mining is to suggest that he doesn't actually object to baseless generalizations. To call it quote-mining is shameful.

And to call something "quote-mining" when it occurs on the same fucking page as the original is...kind of silly.

Posted by: Azkyroth | December 24, 2007 2:27 AM

A pro-lifer places the highest value on human life.

None that I know of does.

One corollary of that must be that the needless and unlawful taking of human life is the worst offence that can be committed by people against one another. On the principle of proportionality,

I'm unaware of such a principle or the justification of it. In any case, as I suggested above it can't be applied to most crimes.

that offence should incur the worst punishment which is the death penalty.

But who loses the value of the life? Not the deceased. By your logic, this is a horrible punishment of the prisoner's friend and relatives.

[damn but I feel icky actually interacting with the Spedding slime]

Posted by: truth machine | December 24, 2007 2:29 AM