The Supreme Court in the US just ruled 5-4 that a person given the death penalty is not able to claim their 8th Amendment rights; the right to not suffer "cruel or unusual punishment", and can be killed in whatever manner the state decides is most convenient.
Neil Gorsuch was particularly brutal in his comments:
- "...Even hanging, Justice Gorsuch wrote, is perfectly constitutional despite being “no guarantee of a quick and painless death”... Gorsuch reminds us that the Eighth Amendment does not promise “a prisoner a painless death”. That is something, he added, that victims of capital crimes seldom receive..."
Oof.
So this one really gets me in a mental quandary.
Some people are fucking evil and need to be eliminated. We all know their names by heart. Leaving them in prison costs me money, or gives them the chance to wait until social norms change and they get a more lenient sentence, or they can escape to do more evil. So execution makes sense. Remove the dross from the gene pool.
(Update: This paragraph is wrong. I re-wrote it below.) However, in the US we get most death penalty cases wrong. Our justice system is deeply flawed, and it is far more common to see someone on Death Row exonerated of all charges, than it is for them to be executed.
Since 1976, 1-in-10 Death Row inmates have been exonerated. That demonstrates our justice system is deeply flawed, and is a huge fucking problem. It makes me feel like the death penalty needs to be taken off the table completely.
Finally, the severity of the sentence for a crime has proven time and time again to have zero impact on the criminal's thinking. (Despite what Hollywood would have you believe.) So the death penalty is simply us admitting as a culture that we have failed in both our criminal justice and rehabilitation systems (and healthcare), and that it is just easier to kill people for state-sponsored revenge/retribution, than for any moral, logical, or empirical reason.
This question of the Death Penalty is fucked no matter which way you look at it.
But Gorsuch is one bloodthirsty motherfucker, man.
When you count the automation appeals and all the hoops to jump through so you don't kill the wrong guy, it usually would have cost the state a lot less to just give life without parole from the start....
Right? But "life without possibility of parole" needs to be absolute, except in the instance where new evidence that exonerates the accused comes to light. There are often health claims, and other "extenuating circumstances" that are being considered to shorten life sentences. So judges have resorted to tacking on multiple life sentences. Hell, even Charles Manson gets regular parole board hearings. Why the fuck is that?!? Dude should never be let out. Die in prison. Get cremated. Ashes are thrown out with the garbage.
Sure. He is now. But that doesn't mean he didn't have a whole bunch of parole hearings. In fact, one of his fellow killers is up for parole, and they have recommended it be granted: https://www.sltrib.com/news/workplaces/2019/01/04/charles-manson-follower/
I thought about submitting this related article yesterday https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/09/redemption-court/566963/