Discussion for article #233243
Really? Good for him!
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The guy obviously hates America. We canât have life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness if the state isnât killing people.
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He also recently fulfilled a campaign pledge to expand Medicaid, ending the previous Republican governorâs convoluted attempt to create an alternative to Medicaid expansion that would take ACA money and give it to private insurers. That took a long time to do and was a clunky and inferior alternative. All of which suggests that good stuff happens when Democrats VOTE IN THE MIDTERM.
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The Governorâs decision will not play well with the Pennsyltucky âpro-lifeâ community?
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Itâs so refreshing to see a Dem showing some balls, standing up, being counted and doing the right thingâŚand critics be damnedâŚonce in a while.
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I donât have a problem with Gov. Wolfâs moratorium. I also donât have a problem with the death penalty. Just clean up the process.
As many of you know, I have been involved in a number of conversations about the death penalty, always as a strong advocate. Maybe it is my Texas upbringing. Throughout all of those, no one has been able to convince me we needed to stop the death penalty. Until this Thanksgiving when I was talking to my aunt who is also a strong supporter. The woman is as dumb as dirt, and she told me that over the summer she was a juror on a capital murder trial that ended with a death penalty sentence. And the more I listened to her, the more I was thinking, I wouldnât want her on my jury, especially not if life and death is on the line. So I find myself recently conflicted. I am still a strong supporter of eliminating the fundamentally broken and, for lack of a better word, evil in our society. But I donât want people like my aunt having any say in that decision. So I donât know where I stand now.
Just ironic it was talking to a supporter of the death penalty that finally changed my mind.
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Amen. Unfortunately, PA has been gerrymandered to the extent that Râs control both houses of the Commonwealthâs legislature. Wolf is a breath of fresh air, but PA is still Pitt and Philly with Alabama in between.
I have never been a supporter of the death penalty.
A few years ago I had an interesting experience that your comment just reminded me of. My next door neighbor was on a jury for a robbery trial. After the trial began he realized that the defendant was a cousin who he hadnât seen since he was a child. He was afraid to tell the Judge, so he just remained on the jury throughout the trialâŚ
Another good reason to not have the death penalty.
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My Governor. Iâm happy to say that after the Corbett disaster.
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I am curious to know what purpose you believe (or once believed) the death penalty serves. The only thing I could ever come up with was vengeance, but I canât really square that as a proper role of government. In your post you doubt the competence of the state to judge who is evil or fundamentally broken, but even if that judgement was perfect, what good would be served by eliminated them as opposed to simply removing them from society?
The Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association said Wolf had no authority to impose the moratorium, calling it a misuse of the concept of a reprieve.
Perhaps sentence commutations or outright pardons would be more suitable to the Penna DAA?
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There are several reasons. One is a punishment. They took a life unwillingly from someone, and they need to know that their life is going to be taken as punishment. Punishment is, after all, the whole reason we have a justice system. Because it sure as hell doesnât seem to be reform.
Another reason is the opposite of the question you posed. Why should we keep them alive. Why should we, as a society, endeavor to provide these individuals with food and shelter, and entertainment and exercise when we have good law abiding citizens who donât have those things. Providing for them for the rest of their lives isnât right, it is better than they deserve, and it certainly isnât justice. When we start providing for our fellow citizens, then maybe we can start talking about the need to provide for the worst of us.
Thatâs interesting because this post reminded me of the many people I respect, including you, who differ from me in supporting the death penalty. Usually their rationale is it should be available to punish the most heinous crimes. Thatâs certainly understandable. But to me the convincing argument against it is that unless you ban it, thereâs no way to guarantee you wonât execute an innocent person. The idea of that just horrifies me, we know it happens, and if I support the death penalty I could be a party to it happening again. There are other arguments against it but that one alone suffices for me.
It seems to me that punishment is maybe three parts deterrence and one part vengeance. Itâs been a long time since Iâve looked at studies, but Iâm guessing itâs still fair to say that deterrent effect of capital punishment is marginal at best and perhaps debatable at all. That leaves the balance tipping toward vengeance.
I suppose vengeance on the part of the state substitutes for personal vengeance, which could get messy and out of control, but does the state have its own interest in exacting vengeance? Maybe it does, but the state has to be deliberate in its actions. How much vengeance is the right amount? Why do we have to take steps to kill them without pain? Why canât we torture them first?
In answer to your second question, because theyâre still humans.
I donât think even the most ardent supporters of the death penalty think that it deters murderers. It has been well established to not work as a deterrent. But punishments arenât always necessarily about deterrents. That is why the phrase âdebt to societyâ exists. You did something bad, and now you have to pay for it. And how do you make someone like Ted Bundy or Timothy McVeigh pay for their crimes? By letting them live a paid-for, fairly-comfortable life for the next 70 years? Torturing is inhumane, so we just get rid of them like the trash that they are. So no, I donât think of it as a deterrent. It is punishment, which is not the same as vengeance.
As for them being humans, I agree that biologically they are humans, but they lack humanity. There is something about being human that separates us from the animals. Serial killers have lost whatever that is. It is no different to me than putting down a rabid dog.
But your definition of punishment (minus deterrent) is exactly vengeance: Infliction of punishment in return for a wrong committed; retribution (American Heritage).