Aprotim ([info]herbie) wrote,
@ 2005-10-25 02:23:00
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I'm like CNN, except I just link to CNN
This looks like a job for an ethicist: Stanley "Tookie" Williams founded one of the largest street gangs in the country and was found directly guilty of the murder of four people. Since then, he has renounced gangs and violence, has written children's books advocating against these things, and has, as a result, found himself nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. A judge just sentenced him to death on December 13th. I think this is a perfect example of why I oppose the death penalty.

In other race-related news, Rosa Parks just died, at the age of 92. The juxtaposition of these events is somehow noteworthy, but I haven't really processed it enough to know what to say.

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Williams
[info]deadteddy8
2005-10-25 06:40 am UTC (link)
Do unrelated present-day good works redeem past transgressions? Does someone who donates millions of dollars to charity get a free pass on charges he embezzled thousands of dollars from a pension fund? I can't oppose the death penalty on those grounds.
The death penalty is easily opposable on the simple basis that prisoners on death row are no longer threatening anyone. Society's self-defense from those people is already assured by their incarceration. They're not going anywhere. Killing a prisoner is no better than killing any other helpless person.

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Re: Williams
[info]nishmael
2005-10-25 07:10 am UTC (link)
Do unrelated present-day good works redeem past transgressions? Does someone who donates millions of dollars to charity get a free pass on charges he embezzled thousands of dollars from a pension fund? I can't oppose the death penalty on those grounds.

That's a specious argument, as it only takes into account two options: execution or freedom. Not killing someone and setting them loose aren't the same thing. Also, I'm not sure I would call such good works "unrelated" to the initial crimes--it sounds rather like they're pretty closely related.

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Re: Williams
[info]deadteddy8
2005-10-25 08:07 pm UTC (link)
I'm not saying that there's a choice only between freedom and death. I should have been clearer. The point I'm trying to make is that when somebody does something bad, unrelated acts of goodness don't somehow make that bad thing moot or a less-bad thing. Whatever punishment this guy gets, those people he murdered aren't coming back. The good he's done since then is unrelated for that reason. There's nothing he can do for those people and their families, except ask forgiveness. They may seem related, but they're not.

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Re: Williams
[info]nishmael
2005-10-25 08:41 pm UTC (link)
The good he's done since then is unrelated for that reason.

For clarity's sake: you say it's unrelated, but what you mean is that it's related in a way that doesn't matter to you. It is related; it's one of the many consequences resulting from the original crime. If he hadn't committed the crimes in the first place, he wouldn't have had anything to renounce. No, these acts of goodness don't render the original criminal act moot, but they sure as hell aren't unrelated.

Once you've made that distinction, I think it's a question of whether the criminal justice system is more about protection/rehabilitation or punishment, which . . is a much bigger and more meaningful question, I think. Personally, I would question the merits of a system based entirely or primarily on punishment; the only real argument I can see in favor of such a system is that it would theoretically serve as a deterrent (punishment in child-raising, for example, is about establishing a system of right and wrong so that the child can have some framework for making decisions in the future), but I don't think there are a lot of people who are convinced that the current system actually deters people from committing crimes, and even that motivation would be better described as serving the purpose of protecting society. Other than that, punishment seems only to serve an empty abstraction--making a situation "right" by extracting some price from the guilty, entirely for its own sake. In the case of financial crimes, that makes sense, but not so much in more "serious" situations. Even with financial crimes, such retribution seems to be more about protecting people than about punishment per se--if some asshole steals money from me and gets caught, then I get my money back, or as much of it as is possible. It seems that a criminal justice system's role in society ought to be more about protecting the citizenry (locking a violent criminal up if he's likely to commit violent crimes in the future). Imprisonment as rehabilitation serves this purpose; the life of the criminal can become decent/moral/productive/whatever, assuming said criminal accepts the immorality of his or her transgression, and likewise the society benefits from having another functional person. Punishment is a means to an end, not an end in itself, and the death of a society's citizens isn't much of a worthwhile end.

Whatever punishment this guy gets, those people he murdered aren't coming back.

No, they're not, so what advantage is gained by executing him? What end, besides making the families of the victims feel better (which is not a valid reason to execute someone; as much sympathy as I have for people who have lost family members to violent crime, there's no moral justification for placing their desires over anyone else's, which is what we do when we say "he should be executed, because the families deserve justice"), is served by putting him to death? Or rather, what end is served by putting him to death that couldn't be equally well served by imprisoning him? About the only thing I can come up with is that executing him eliminates the minuscule chance of him escaping from prison--and that more-or-less-negligible logistical advantage is sure as hell not enough to override the lack of moral justification.

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Re: Williams
[info]flamingophoenix
2005-10-26 12:03 am UTC (link)
I think it's a question of whether the criminal justice system is more about protection/rehabilitation or punishment

That's entirely the core of the problem. Do we put people in prison to punish them for their crimes, or to make them into functional members of "society" ? In the past, I've been firmly on the "punishment" side; however, my views are constantly shifting. I'm currently leaning a bit towards "rehabilitation," with a healthy side of "protecting society from criminals." Etc.

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Re: Williams
[info]herbie
2005-10-25 03:45 pm UTC (link)
There are a lot of reasons to oppose th death penalty. This does not cover every reason I oppose the deth penalty. I oppose the death penalty because it is:
a.) irrevocable in the face of new evidence
b.) couched in the belief that one heinous act can make the rest of one's life worthless, and that there is more value in ending the life then allowing people to grow
c.) unnecessary, as life imprisonment is equally effective at keeping somebody out of society (I don't believe cost should even enter into a discussion of whether or not to kill somebody, but then, Pat Robertson feels differently, so clearly that's not universal)
d.) immoral

Clearly this case doesn't define my reasoning, but it is one example of why I oppose the death penalty. I never claimed that good deeds, related or not, redeem previous crimes - I'm just saying that his life is not so bereft of value that killing him will make the world better.

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Re: Williams
[info]deadteddy8
2005-10-25 08:16 pm UTC (link)
I think we agree with each other. I just read an implication in your post that because he is apparently a good guy now, his punishment is too harsh. I don't think that's right, because some things, such as four murders, require maximum punishment and there's nothing he can do to reduce it. If one thinks a fair maximum punishment is death, as the state prescribes, then so be it. But I think death is an unfair maximum punishment, so I'd argue from that angle, as you do in your response.

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Re: Williams
[info]flamingophoenix
2005-10-26 12:05 am UTC (link)
I know you said cost shouldn't come into it, but by every estimate I have ever heard, it costs MUCH more to kill a man than to imprison him for life. But I could be wrong.

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Re: Williams
[info]nishmael
2005-10-26 12:57 am UTC (link)
I haven't seen any particularly good definitive numbers, but yeah, factoring in appeals and such, execution seems to be more expensive on average.

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[info]farrow
2005-10-25 12:03 pm UTC (link)
do you mind if i quote your first paragraph on my journal? or, alternatively, link my lj-friends over to this entry and start a bloodbath in your journal?

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[info]herbie
2005-10-25 03:19 pm UTC (link)
I'd prefer the latter, or at least a combination of the two. I always enjoy spirited discussion, and I'd like to see what people say.

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[info]nishmael
2005-10-25 05:15 pm UTC (link)
Mmm, textual bloodbath.

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[info]pwylltwiceborn
2005-10-26 01:54 am UTC (link)
"textual bloodbath"

a quote that should be appropriated for some rapper calling another out.

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