"This circus of incompetence and dishonesty is the real issue with the death penalty. We don't even reach the point where theoretical questions about the moral justification or effectiveness of capital punishment start to matter, because so many of the people sentenced to death are actually innocent. Whatever it means in theory, in practice capital punishment means killing innocent people."
If you've ever seen some of the background info when death penalty cases are overturned, it is extremely clear that a lot of people have a very scary definition of "beyond a reasonable doubt". I was in jury duty once and one of the attorneys went around and asked "What do you think about the statement that 'It's better to let 5 guilty men go free than put 1 innocent man in prison.'" The majority of people said they disagreed, that was too many guilty people going free. I'm thinking to myself "So these people are all OK with ~16% of prisoners being innocent? Are they all sadists?" I realize a lot of it is that people are just bad at math, but it general it's clear to me that, in a lot of trials the jury doesn't really differentiate between the "beyond a reasonable doubt" and "preponderance of the evidence" standards.
I've wondered to what extent the death penalty is useful so that people can send an innocent person to life in prison while patting themselves on the back for being so civilized and compassionate that they didn't literally kill them.
As a former engineer and manager whos partner is a lawyer I'll almost certainly never be empaneled to a jury, but I've heard from plenty of people who were.
One instance comes to mind where a (ordinarily) bright coworker returned from jury duty and told me about how they convicted someone of a lesser charge which was logically impossible to be guilty of without being guilty of the more serious charge. The jury were convinced he was innocent but was also convinced that he was a bad dude and it didn't feel right that he'd get off. My understanding is that no one in the jury thought he was guilty of the crimes he was accused of (the lesser or the greater), but the prosecution had successfully (and perhaps rightfully) smeared the accused's character.
I didn't talk about it with him further have hearing his description because I didn't know how to be civil about it, my coworker sent an person to prison who wasn't guilty. Not a jury, but him: 'cause a single person could have hung that jury and he didn't. I get that the social pressure can be intense, and I try to have sympathy for people who are trying to do the right thing in such situations... but... damn.
I get that the social pressure can be intense, and I try to have sympathy
for people who are trying to do the right thing in such situations... but...
damn.
If you're curious, you should talk to him. I was a juror on a murder case, voted to convict one of the defendants. While he did, in fact, kill the victim (affirmative defense), I'm unsure that I would class his actions as murder or manslaughter. And I'm sure I'm not comfortable with the sentence a murder conviction carried, although my peers were quite confident (again, affirmative defense).
Sure, there's peer pressure, but there's a lot more pressure from the legal system to adhere to archaic definitions of truth and guilt. Pressure from the legal system carries a much bigger stick than pressure from the other jurors. Don't even think about jury nullification or you'll be on a judge's shit list. Trust that the police translated things into English correctly before the official translator arrived. Trust that there aren't any mitigating circumstances in the undocumented gap in time. Trust that the judge is not withholding material evidence. I rationalize my behavior because I followed the letter and spirit of. the law, but yeah there's a fair bit of shame and regret that tends to stick with me. Personally I'd aim for empathy were I you because nothing in our legal system is so cut and dry.
It's been well over a decade-- so no contact now. I did talk about it enough that I was pretty convinced that they thought they were innocent of the charges. It's can be much harder to understand someone's position when you're not under the pressures yourself, I surely didn't at the time though I was aware but being aware doesn't mean getting it.
I think at the time I perceived him as being kind of glib about it, bragging that they didn't give the person a worse conviction. In hindsight, he may have been feeling bad and looking for validation or an escape from his doubts. But I couldn't be too helpful then because I didn't get it. Maybe I get it a little more now, or at least I'm less prone to think that individuals doing the "right" thing (though they should!) is a meaningful fix for systemic problems. ... and a lot less enamored with the idea that anyone should be rushing into making trouble for themselves out of some principle.
That jurors take their role seriously and make their best effort as they understand it is all we can fairly ask of anyone.
Thank you for stepping up to mention your experience and for your service. Had you not been in seat it would have been someone else, perhaps someone who'd suffer the same regrets you've suffered (so you spared them), or someone who would have taken it less seriously and suffered no lingering regrets (unfair to accused, their victims, and the public-- regardless of the outcome).
I mean... A solid half of the US population has demonstrated that they think the death penalty is reasonable punishment for using a forged hundred dollar bill. Not surprised those same people would ensure "guilty" parties are punished to the fullest extent, collateral damage be damned.
I can't speak to Washington, but in California it's well beyond jurors being unable to grasp "beyond a reasonable doubt" because jurors, not judges, determine the sentence (life v death). The sentencing guidelines use verbiage that a lot of lay folk are not familiar with (e.g. mitigating) and jurors are not allowed to use a dictionary to define words they don't understand. Judges are not obligated to allow jurors to ask questions or for clarification during any phase of the trial. It's been a while since I've thought about capital cases but I believe written copies of the sentencing guidelines aren't provided to jurors. Given that we're talking about the ultimate punishment here, the system is (in California at least) a colossal mess.
> jurors are not allowed to use a dictionary to define words they don't understand
Is this the "no outside information rule" ?
I just asked the oracle and it explained a bunch of stuff that I won't reference because I can't fact check it right now, but it sounds like the amount of "discretion" a judge has over what the jurors can do and ask is utterly illogical.
Not a lawyer, but I just looked up juror selection and found this hot pocket.
I should probably clarify (and I'm not a lawyer either). In California jurors in are not guaranteed the right to ask questions regardless of the charges. This actually caught one of the defense attorneys by surprise at the trial I was a juror on (well after I'd studied this shit at uni). In capital cases, jurors determine the sentence – this is unique to capital cases. Different states do things differently.
Is this the "no outside information rule" ?
My understanding was that this was due to the law wanting laypeople (nee jurors) to use precise legal terminology. Whereas no outside information feels more like "don't do outside research on the facts of the case".
It sounds like, and it should be confirmed but ...
The court decides what information the jurors have, and it wants them to use precise legal terminology, yet there is no guarantee that those terms will be defined and they are not allowed to use dictionaries to define terms, nor is there a guarantee that a jurors questions will be answered.
Sounds like the default should be a mistrial. Sounds like a situation ripe for making things that are "only true in a court of law" and no where else.
Yeah that's more or less my take. Essentially the court wants a jury of laypeople who are able to understand legal terms that professionals spent years in school studying. They also want jurors to render opinions on things completely without contextual knowledge – the case I was on involved alcohol so having strong opinions on alcohol was a nearly instant dismissal, I've never seen so many teetotalers in my life.
There are people working to change this, and I think the ability to ask questions is a relatively new development, but it's slow going as anything with our legal system generally is.
I don't think this really iimplicates the death penalty specifically. Those 4% would still spend their lives in prison, and prison is a terrible place to be.
I think the argument he's making is a good one, specifically for changing the way things are done with regard to prosecutions. Punishing innocent people is unjust, regardless what the punishment is.
First and foremost, I think prosecutors who can be definitively proven to have lied or withheld evidence to get a conviction should be handed the same sentence they attempted to get in the prosecution. Same goes for police, investigators and non-coerced witnesses. This would eliminate a good degree of the perverse incentive in the system, death penalty or no.
Beyond that, I think we have too much faith in forensics and expert witnesses.
I believe in the death penalty, and generally speaking corporal punishment. But I don't believe in using the death penalty as punishment, only as a way to remove otherwise uncorrectable violent people from society. So I'd support rules that only allow it on a second or later offense. But I do believe it should apply potentially to all haenous violent crimes, including rape, unlawful detention, armed robbery and the like, given repeated violations by the same individual. I also happen to believe that prison is barbaric and should be abolished.
> I don't think this really iimplicates the death penalty specifically. Those 4% would still spend their lives in prison, and prison is a terrible place to be.
You can set a prisoner free and try to compensate them for being wrongfully imprisoned. You can't un-kill someone.
> Those 4% would still spend their lives in prison, and prison is a terrible place to be.
You're missing the point. If someone is incarcerated and later found to be innocent, they can be released. If someone is executed and later found to be innocent, nothing can be done.
Don't death row inmates get the most exhaustive appeals process of practically any class of prisoners? Honestly if I were innocent I think I'd prefer to be on death row which has the most costly (to the state) and exhaustive of all the appeals processes.
This change could counterintuitively condemn more innocent people.
Yeah, what I always try to bring up when people point out the possibility of executing innocent people is that the people on death row get the best shot at proving their innocence that society is willing to give them. No one else in prison gets more legal representation made available to them, both from the state and various non-profit groups.
If somebody can't get off death row, it's not a matter of could, it's that they would have spent the rest of their life behind bars. So while, yes, convicting innocent people of crimes is evil, and absolutely must be avoided at all cost, it's not really a compelling argument against the death penalty, unless you have a really sunshine-and-roses view on rotting in a jail cell.
My personal view is that the death penalty should mostly be reserved for cases where the question of a trial isn't so much "did this person commit this act" as much as it is "did the act this person commit constitute a capital offense". War criminals are the quintessential example. It's public knowledge that the suspect was in charge of a group of soldiers, and those soldiers took certain actions. The war crime tribunal isn't trying to figure out if you did it, they're trying to figure out if they should kill you for it.
I agree and it's also cheaper to house them in prison for life without parole than to do a murder trial, get them convicted and executed.
So the system might be wrong about the conviction which is just an absolutely terrible thought and it's cheaper to skip the death penalty.
So the only real possible benefit is that it could be 1) a deterrent and 2) closure for the family.
But it seems life without parole is a pretty strong deterrent in itself. And part of the closure that the family perceives in an execution is, just a guess on my part, the fact that it takes so long and is emotionally draining that the family is also going through the long laborious process of a capital punishment conviction and execution.
If you don't have a death penalty, what's the sense of closure a family gets knowing they got life without parole?
I don't like death penalty because humans err and innocent people get killed, but I'm curious if the closure aspect of the death penalty is actually related to that process and not the closure they might get if they know they got the best possible conviction in a life without parole situation.
In other words - if the death penalty is removed, it seems plausible that a family could get the same or more closure with a life without parole sentencing as they avoid the emotional and mentally draining death penalty case and process.
I have to imagine that any closure from the execution is theoretical at best. To sit and watch the life drain from someone, at your behast, with your input, and for your benefit?
Well I'm trying to think about it like this - hypothetically... if there were NO innocent people convicted, the process itself of the death penalty may not even provide more closure than just life without parole.
It's a compelling rationale for the US certainly, but I'd argue that it's orthogonal to the important reforms to stop convicting innocent people of crimes.
Examples of things America could do to improve on that, unrelated to executing people:
- Forbid cops from lying when interviewing suspects. A fraction of people when confronted with bullshit accusations will shrug in resignation and let it wash over them. But many more get confused. If the cops seem sure I threatened a farm owner with a gun, then I guess maybe I did? They have CCTV footage after all, they say the tyre tracks are like fingerprints, nobody else in the world could have left those tracks...
- Abolish cash bail. Either people are too dangerous to let loose, too likely to flee, or they're not. If anything being rich makes you more able to flee than poor people. But cash bail makes people choose false confessions because it's cheaper, which is not only unjust it creates a perverse incentive to accuse poor people of crimes they didn't do.
> it's orthogonal to the important reforms to stop convicting innocent people of crimes
This is a good ideal. But in practice unachievable.
Realizing that, we should have mechanisms for double checking our work, correcting mistakes when found, implementing procedures to prevent it from happening again and minimizing the degree to which irreversible consequences are dealt.
But I'm not talking about setting the unachievable as the requirement, I'm talking about doing these really easy trivial reforms to take a step towards this ideal.
It's the difference between "We can't entirely rule out insect fragments in flour" and "I reckon we ought not to let 'em dump diseased livestock in the flour silo".
Americans think it's normal that their police get to lie to suspects. I guess this is cheaper than teaching them literally anything about interrogation, but it means all interviews are worthless by a reasonable person's standard. And yet because this is legal, and not only legal it's normal, the US courts will accept this as somehow evidence. Not evidence that the police are corrupt and incompetent, but evidence that the person being interviewed is guilty!
Took me five seconds even as a young college student to realize why the death penalty was absolutely ludicrous. You can reverse a life sentence in the event that new evidence comes to light exonerating the defendant, you can't reverse death.
Solid argument, but it's funny to call it "pg's reason" when it has been at the forefront of the capital punishment debate for literally hundreds of years.
I mean I call plenty of things "so-and-so's reason" for something, even if they're not the originator of the idea but just the person I and whomever I'm talking with happen to know about it from.
This seems like a silly linguistic nitpick to die on.
http://www.paulgraham.com/real.html