MCViewPoint

Opinion from a Libertarian ViewPoint

Posts Tagged ‘death penalty’

Stopping Murderers – The Postil Magazine

Posted by M. C. on December 5, 2022

The solution to this objection to the death penalty is to employ it only when we are certain of guilt.

Wow! Aren’t all guilty verdicts based on a convinced jury? And then you have this

https://www.thepostil.com/stopping-murderers/

Walter E. Block

There has been a spate of even more unusually horrendous mass murders in recent days, topped off by the monstrousness that occurred in Uvalde, Texas to school children and teachers. But pretty much every weekend there are reports from Chicago, Baltimore, New Orleans and other cities run by Democrats of shootings, sometimes stretching into the dozens.

What is going on here, and, more important, how can this be stopped, or, at least, the incidence of this phenomenon radically reduced?

One obvious point is to vote out the “progressive” wokesters in the next election. They have been undermining the morale of the police, trying to deprive them of financial resources by “defunding” them, turning prisoners loose, downgrading felonies to misdemeanors, etc. Before these politicians seized the city reins, there were fewer such murderous outbursts.

Another is to harden the targets. There should be one and only one entrance to a school, and there ought to be an awake guard posted right there. Arming teachers and staff would also go a long way in the direction of dissuading criminals from entry. Left wing politicians oppose these safety measures, but we can pretty much ignore their hypocritical criticisms: they surround themselves with armed guards.

If drugs were legalized, all of them without exception, there would be fewer murders. We have as evidence for this contention the example of booze. Under prohibition, gangs shot each other over turf. Does this now occur at liquor stores? Of course not.

Then there is the break up of the American family, or, worse, its failure to form in the first place. This is due to our welfare system. We had this program in effect for many years, with little ill effect on the family, but Lyndon Baines Johnson, another Democrat, greatly enhanced it in the mid-1960s. Then the family started falling apart. All too many kids nowadays grow up without a dad in the house. A non-intact family is causally related to all sorts of societal ill effects: crime to be sure, but also unemployment, lack of schooling, divorce, etc. Unhappily, if we were to end this pernicious program, it would take a generation or more for the beneficial impact on crime reduction to take place, given the negative social mores introduced in its wake.

Is there no other alteration that can have more immediate effects? Fortunately, there is: public executions. There will be a great hue and cry against implementing any such policy. One objection will be that if a mistake is made, the wrong person will be put to death. But to err is human. There are cases when an innocent man was incarcerated for decades; it hardly follows that no one should be in jail. Also, some of these folks were guilty of other equally serious crimes, and merely punished for the wrong one of many. The solution to this objection to the death penalty is to employ it only when we are certain of guilt.

See the rest here

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

It Is Time to End Federal Executions | The Libertarian Institute

Posted by M. C. on July 26, 2020

Not only is capital punishment a pointless gift of power to the state, but it also comes with the very real likelihood that someone innocent could be executed. A 2014 study estimated that at least 4% of people on death row are innocent. It is immoral to continue a practice that we know kills innocent people.

Until we have a system that can guarantee that every convicted person is without a doubt guilty, the death penalty will not be a moral option.

https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/it-is-time-to-end-federal-executions/

by

Last week the federal government executed three inmates. These marked the first federal executions in 17 years. The long lapse in executions may make this seem like a non-issue to some people but all executions are inherently wrong.

The Attorney General’s directive makes federal executions a new priority for the Department of Justice, which means there are likely more to come. Luckily, there’s a bill that has been introduced in the House of Representatives that can put an end to this practice at the federal level. In this article, I will highlight the moral, fiscal, and practical reasons to oppose capital punishment.

From a small-government stance, the death penalty is about as bad as it gets. There is no way the government can be more intrusive than to take someone’s life. By allowing the government to take someone’s life, we are giving it a form of ultimate power. Far too much power to give to the state. The government’s role in criminal justice should be to protect the populace, not to seek an eye for an eye. When a convicted criminal is in imprisoned, they are no longer a threat to the public. There is no additional value or an increased measure of safety by going even further and taking their life.

Not only is capital punishment a pointless gift of power to the state, but it also comes with the very real likelihood that someone innocent could be executed. A 2014 study estimated that at least 4% of people on death row are innocent. It is immoral to continue a practice that we know kills innocent people.

This argument is not to say that it is wrong to want some form of retribution or that murderers do not deserve punishment. The problem with seeking execution as a form of punishment is that allowing the government to decide who lives and who dies, outside of protecting someone from an immediate threat, can open up a Pandora’s box of government authority that can lead to a slippery slope of abuse.

We also must remember that the irreversible nature of capital punishment means we cannot get a life back if a wrongfully accused person is executed. A wrongfully convicted person’s right to life outweighs another person’s desire for retribution. Until we have a system that can guarantee that every convicted person is without a doubt guilty, the death penalty will not be a moral option.

One of the main arguments people make for supporting capital punishment is the fact that they don’t want to pay to feed and house convicted criminals for the rest of their natural lives. They believe that capital punishment is saving them money. This idea is wrong. It is far more expensive to put someone on death row than it is to sentence them to life in prison. The trials alone can cost hundreds of thousands more than a life sentence trial due to the increased man-hours for both prosecutors and public defenders. Then there is the cost of appeals and extra housing costs for death row inmates. A 2016 report by Susquehanna University found that on average a death penalty inmate costs $1.12 million more than a general population inmate. The fiscal argument in support of capital punishment falls flat on its face.

Not only is the death penalty immoral and expensive, but it is also inefficient as a deterrent. There is no evidence that the threat of execution deters violent crime. Evidence suggests that it has no effect on violent crime. A 2008 poll found that over 88% of criminologists do not believe the death penalty is a deterrent. Additionally, a 2010 report by Dartmouth University concluded that capital punishment does not lower homicide rates. If executions do nothing to reduce homicides, there is no real reason to continue them.

There is no moral, fiscal, or public safety argument for the death penalty. One cannot support concepts like limited government and fiscal responsibility while supporting capital punishment. Everyone that believes in these concepts should write to their representative and tell them to cosponsor H.R. 4052. An easy to use tool that helps you craft a letter can be found here.

Rob Faust holds a Bachelor of Science in criminal justice, served four years in the United States Air Force, and has worked as a defense contractor in the greater Washington D.C. area for eleven years. This experience and education motivate him to write about criminal justice and national defense policies.

Be seeing you

 

 

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , | Leave a Comment »