http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,24401719-5001030,00.html
An article by Sydney Daily Telegraph editor-at-large Mr. Garry Linnell appeared in last Friday's issue, dealing with the death penalty. It was a timely piece, reminding us that the majority of Australians support the death penalty’s re-introduction. There is a difficulty with the following portion, though:
An article by Sydney Daily Telegraph editor-at-large Mr. Garry Linnell appeared in last Friday's issue, dealing with the death penalty. It was a timely piece, reminding us that the majority of Australians support the death penalty’s re-introduction. There is a difficulty with the following portion, though:
Revenge is a visceral impulse that is hard-wired into our DNA. It's why we have a justice system in the first place - to extract retribution against those who offend against us.
It is good that he recognises the primary end of the justice system (not rehabilitation or deterrence, but justice), but I would quibble over his use of the word ‘revenge’. Revenge and retribution are virtually synonymous, but the former tends to evoke rather more unsavoury connotations than the latter (but then again, the ‘restorative justice’ crowd regard retribution and vindication as dirty words too). Revenge tends to imply a personal ill-will, while retribution implies something more abstract and impartial. As Our Lord demands, we must forgive our enemies, but clearly this pertains to the individual, not the State, and in any case the individual, as far as his status as a subject of the State is concerned, is entitled to desire that justice and the common good be served.
Mr. Linnell also pointed out the moral élitism of the anti-execution advocates:
Mr. Linnell also pointed out the moral élitism of the anti-execution advocates:
But apparently [the pro-execution stance] is a "simple" and "primitive" view - the same disdain the opinion shapers in this nation have for the rest of us whenever the subject that dare not be spoken about in public is raised.
[…] Argument is stifled because the anti-death penalty lobby cloaks itself in such a secure shroud of moral superiority that no middle ground can be found.
[…] So here's a moral question for all those on the high ground. If we hold human life to be so sacred then surely those who snuff it out - particularly in the most heinous cases - deserve a penalty that recognises the true severity of such a crime.
I suppose that the problem, though, is that there is, one expects, a high correlation between those who regard society as having ‘outgrown’ the death penalty and those who have no compunctions over abortion i.e. the value they put on life is subjective and inconsistent. And they are so deeply utilitarian in their outlook that they refuse to admit that justice involves the meting out of punishment as an end in itself, or they will even, absurdly, argue that the justice system should not concern itself with justice, and instead should behave as an arm of the welfare system.
Mr. Linnell deserves to be applauded for raising this issue, and I look forward to seeing the reaction in the letters pages. (As of Saturday there were no letters on it.)
Reginaldvs Cantvar
Mr. Linnell deserves to be applauded for raising this issue, and I look forward to seeing the reaction in the letters pages. (As of Saturday there were no letters on it.)
Reginaldvs Cantvar
3 comments:
My e-mail to Mr. Linnell
Dear Mr. Linnell:
Seeking the death penalty is not an act of revenge, in any regard. Retribution, yes, and they are very different.
The following does not directly apply to you, but you will get the crux.
Sincerely, Dudley Sharp
The Death Penalty: Neither Hatred nor Revenge
Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters, contact info below
Death penalty opponents say that the death penalty has a foundation in hatred and revenge. Such is a false claim.
A death sentence requires pre existing statutes, trial and appeals, considerations of guilt and due process, to name but a few. Revenge requires none of these and, in fact, does not even require guilt or a crime.
The criminal justice system goes out of its way to take hatred and revenge out of the process. That is why we have a system of pre existing laws and legal procedures that offer extreme protections to defendants and those convicted and which provide statutes and sanctions which existed prior to the crime.
It is also why those directly affected by the murder are not allowed to be fact finders in the case.
The reality is that the pre trial, trial. appellate and executive clemency/commutation processes offer much greater time and human resources to capital cases than they do to any other cases, meaning that the facts tell us that defendants and convicted murderers, subject to the death penalty, receive much greater care and concern than those not facing the death penalty - the opposite of a system marked with vengeance.
Calling executions a product of hatred and revenge is simply a way in which some death penalty opponents attempt to establish a sense of moral superiority. It can also be a transparent insult which results in additional hurt to those victim survivors who have already suffered so much and who believe that execution is the appropriate punishment for those who murdered their loved one(s).
Far from moral superiority, those who call capital punishment an expression of hatred and revenge are often exhibiting their contempt for those who believe differently than they do.
The pro death penalty position is based upon those who find that punishment just and appropriate under specific circumstances.
Those opposed to execution cannot prove a foundation of hatred and revenge for the death penalty any more than they can for any other punishment sought within a system such as that observed within the US - unless such opponents find all punishments a product of hatred and revenge - an unreasonable, unfounded position
Far from hatred and revenge, the death penalty represents our greatest condemnation for a crime of unequaled horror and consequence. Lesser punishments may suffice under some circumstances. A death sentence for certain heinous crimes is given in those special circumstances when a jury finds such is more just than a lesser sentence.
Less justice is not what we need.
A thorough review of the criminal justice system will often beg this question: Why have we chosen to be so generous to murderers and so contemptuous of the human rights and suffering of the victims and future victims?
The punishment of death is, in no way, a balancing between harm and punishment, because the innocent murder victim did not deserve or earn their fate, whereas the murderer has earned their own, deserved punishment by the free will action of violating societies laws and an individuals life and, thereby, voluntarily subjecting themselves to that jurisdictions judgment.
copyright 2001-2008 Dudley Sharp, Permission for distribution of this document, in whole or in part, is approved with proper attribution.
Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters
e-mail sharpjfa@aol.com, 713-622-5491,
Houston, Texas
Mr. Sharp has appeared on ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN, C-SPAN, FOX, NBC, NPR, PBS , VOA and many other TV and radio networks, on such programs as Nightline, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, The O'Reilly Factor, etc., has been quoted in newspapers throughout the world and is a published author.
A former opponent of capital punishment, he has written and granted interviews about, testified on and debated the subject of the death penalty, extensively and internationally.
Another e-mail to Linnell.
Where Linnell got it right
The Death Penalty: More Protection for Innocents
Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters, contact info below
Often, the death penalty dialogue gravitates to the subject of innocents at risk of execution. Seldom is a more common problem reviewed. That is, how innocents are more at risk without the death penalty.
To state the blatantly clear, living murderers, in prison, after release or escape, are much more likely to harm and murder, again, than are executed murderers.
Although an obvious truism, it is surprising how often folks overlook the enhanced incapacitation benefits of the death penalty over incarceration.
No knowledgeable and honest party questions that the death penalty has the most extensive due process protections in US criminal law.
Therefore, actual innocents are more likely to be sentenced to life imprisonment and more likely to die in prison serving under that sentence, that it is that an actual innocent will be executed.
That is. logically, conclusive.
16 recent studies, inclusive of their defenses, find for death penalty deterrence.
A surprise? No.
Life is preferred over death. Death is feared more than life.
Some believe that all studies with contrary findings negate those 16 studies. They don't. Studies which don't find for deterrence don't say no one is deterred, but that they couldn't measure those deterred.
What prospect of a negative outcome doesn't deter some? There isn't one . . . although committed anti death penalty folk may say the death penalty is the only one.
However, the premier anti death penalty scholar accepts it as a given that the death penalty is a deterrent, but does not believe it to be a greater deterrent than a life sentence. Yet, the evidence is compelling and un refuted that death is feared more than life.
Some death penalty opponents argue against death penalty deterrence, stating that it's a harsher penalty to be locked up without any possibility of getting out.
Reality paints a very different picture.
What percentage of capital murderers seek a plea bargain to a death sentence? Zero or close to it. They prefer long term imprisonment.
What percentage of convicted capital murderers argue for execution in the penalty phase of their capital trial? Zero or close to it. They prefer long term imprisonment.
What percentage of death row inmates waive their appeals and speed up the execution process? Nearly zero. They prefer long term imprisonment.
This is not, even remotely, in dispute.
Life is preferred over death. Death is feared more than life.
Furthermore, history tells us that lifers have many ways to get out: Pardon, commutation, escape, clerical error, change in the law, etc.
In choosing to end the death penalty, or in choosing not implement it, some have chosen to spare murderers at the cost of sacrificing more innocent lives.
Furthermore, possibly we have sentenced 20-25 actually innocent people to death since 1973, or 0.3% of those so sentenced. Those have all been released upon post conviction review. The anti death penalty claims, that the numbers are significantly higher, are a fraud, easily discoverable by fact checking.
6 inmates have been released from death row because of DNA evidence. An additional 9 were released from prison, because of DNA exclusion, who had previously been sentenced to death.
The innocents deception of death penalty opponents has been getting exposure for many years. Even the behemoth of anti death penalty newspapers, The New York Times, has recognized that deception.
To be sure, 30 or 40 categorically innocent people have been released from death row . . . (1) This when death penalty opponents were claiming the release of 119 "innocents" from death row. Death penalty opponents never required actual innocence in order for cases to be added to their "exonerated" or "innocents" list. They simply invented their own definitions for exonerated and innocent and deceptively shoe horned large numbers of inmates into those definitions - something easily discovered with fact checking.
There is no proof of an innocent executed in the US, at least since 1900.
If we accept that the best predictor of future performance is past performance, we can reasonable conclude that the DNA cases will be excluded prior to trial, and that for the next 8000 death sentences, that we will experience a 99.8% accuracy rate in actual guilt convictions. This improved accuracy rate does not include the many additional safeguards that have been added to the system, over and above DNA testing.
Of all the government programs in the world, that put innocents at risk, is there one with a safer record and with greater protections than the US death penalty?
Unlikely.
Full report -All Innocence Issues: The Death Penalty, upon request.
Full report - The Death Penalty as a Deterrent, upon request
(1) The Death of Innocents: A Reasonable Doubt,
New York Times Book Review, p 29, 1/23/05, Adam Liptak,
national legal correspondent for The NY Times
copyright 2007-2008, Dudley Sharp
Permission for distribution of this document, in whole or in part, is approved with proper attribution.
Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters
e-mail sharpjfa@aol.com 713-622-5491,
Houston, Texas
Mr. Sharp has appeared on ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN, C-SPAN, FOX, NBC, NPR, PBS, VOA and many other TV and radio networks, on such programs as Nightline, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, The O'Reilly Factor, etc., has been quoted in newspapers throughout the world and is a published author.
A former opponent of capital punishment, he has written and granted interviews about, testified on and debated the subject of the death penalty, extensively and internationally.
Pro death penalty sites
www.homicidesurvivors.com/categories/Dudley%20Sharp%20-%20Justice%20Matters.aspx
www.dpinfo.com
www.cjlf.org/deathpenalty/DPinformation.htm
www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/links/dplinks.htm
www.coastda.com/
www.lexingtonprosecutor.com/death_penalty_debate.htm
www.prodeathpenalty.com
www.yesdeathpenalty.googlepages.com/home2 (Sweden)
www.wesleylowe.com/cp.htm
Thank you for that information and the links, Mr. Sharp.
I was pleased to see an unequivocally pro-capital punishment opinion piece appear in a major Australian daily paper. Mr. Linnell's invocation of revenge was problematic, but was only mildly so when compared to the imprecisions and evasions of the anti-capital punishment crowd. The first comment at the on-line post of Mr. Linnell's article is a prime example of a failure to comprehend the basic terms.
(The biggest problem of all, though, is among those who acknowledge the necessary distinctions among the different ends involved in the justice system, yet refuse to see punishment as anything other than a means to other ends. See the discussions I've been having in the comboxes of the following blog posts:
http://cardinalpole.blogspot.com/2008/09/confutation-of-some-objections-to-death.html
http://aebrain.blogspot.com/2008/09/when-does-smile-excuse-murderous.html
I also submitted a comment at the Tele's on-line edition but it appears not to have been accepted yet. See this post:
http://cardinalpole.blogspot.com/2008/09/comments-on-death-penalty-and-paid.html
Post a Comment