Europe at origin of chronic US execution dilemma

[Neil]

Which part?

The part you edited.

I had a typo because of auto correct on my phone.  I said oral fist instead of dose; that was the only thing I edited.

Doctors punching people in the mouth to death does sound pretty hardcore.

[DGuller]

The US tends to have longer or harsher penalties on the statute books than Europe but not really because those longer penalties are supposed to generate more deterrence.  The more important purpose is to generate prosecutorial leverage for plea and cooperation agreements, which have become key tools for obtaining evidence and convictions.  European systems tend to work differently in this regard - the penalties are lower in theory but there is much less of a chance that a suspect will be pled down and tried on a lower charge.

We have much longer and harsher penalties in reality as well as on the books.  And Canada engages in a similar plea bargaining system, but doesn't have nearly the excessive prison sentences the US does.

I don't think we have a "similar" plea bargaining system.

Do we sometimes engage in plea bargaining?  Yes.  But the usual rule of thumb is that if you enter a plea you might get about 1/3 off your sentence as opposed to taking it to trial.

There's none of this 'if you don't accept our plea you're going to receive a 99 year sentence' kind of negotiating I hear about in the US.

When you think about it, threatening someone with grossly excessive prison terms for excercising their right to fair trial may be violating the spirit of the Constitution in a couple of ways. 

[Capetan Mihali]

We have much longer and harsher penalties in reality as well as on the books.  And Canada engages in a similar plea bargaining system, but doesn't have nearly the excessive prison sentences the US does.

I don't think we have a "similar" plea bargaining system.

Do we sometimes engage in plea bargaining?  Yes.  But the usual rule of thumb is that if you enter a plea you might get about 1/3 off your sentence as opposed to taking it to trial.

There's none of this 'if you don't accept our plea you're going to receive a 99 year sentence' kind of negotiating I hear about in the US.

That's basically what I meant -- the excessive sentences are where the similarity ends.  But the fact that plea bargaining exists in Canada tends to show that you don't need insane maximum sentences and mandatory minimums to get guilty pleas from defendants, and thus avoid everyone taking every case to trial.

[Barrister]

We have much longer and harsher penalties in reality as well as on the books.  And Canada engages in a similar plea bargaining system, but doesn't have nearly the excessive prison sentences the US does.

I don't think we have a "similar" plea bargaining system.

Do we sometimes engage in plea bargaining?  Yes.  But the usual rule of thumb is that if you enter a plea you might get about 1/3 off your sentence as opposed to taking it to trial.

There's none of this 'if you don't accept our plea you're going to receive a 99 year sentence' kind of negotiating I hear about in the US.

That's basically what I meant -- the excessive sentences are where the similarity ends.  But the fact that plea bargaining exists in Canada tends to show that you don't need insane maximum sentences and mandatory minimums to get guilty pleas from defendants, and thus avoid everyone taking every case to trial.

There are lots of files where almost everyone takes them to trial, because 1/3 off isn't that much of an inducement is you think you have even a slight chance of beating the charge entirely.

[Neil]

There is political talk about mandatory minimums in Canada, and how they'd help us be tough on crime.  Mandatory minimums are bad.  Executions are good.

[DGuller]

Mandatory executions are best. 

[Valmy]

Mandatory executions are best. 

Talk about three strikes you're out.

[Razgovory]

When you think about it, threatening someone with grossly excessive prison terms for excercising their right to fair trial may be violating the spirit of the Constitution in a couple of ways. 

Oh certainly.

[The Minsky Moment]

One of the reasons US-style plea bargaining hasn't taken off on the Continent is because it is far more common in civil law systems that criminal cases are tried without juries.  My guess it is cheaper and more efficient to try criminal cases in these systems .  Even in Canada, which is a common law system, the proportion of criminal cases triable by jury is less.

The fact is that if the US tried criminal cases in the same proportion as say Germany the system would collapse - there aren't anywhere near enough procesutors, judges and public defenders to do that, not to mention the much higher burden on the ordinary citizenry in terms of jury service requirements.

One curious by-product of this development is the enormous discretionary power that is placed in the hands of the prosecutor's office, powers that that are not really consistent with the American consitutional ethos of suspicion of state coercive power and official discretion.

[Ideologue]

Why so much opposition to capital punishment?

I can think of two reasons: one I agree with, and one I don't.

1) No one is beyond rehabilitation.  Bullshit.  There are sadistic assholes out there who can only improve things for the rest of us by being taken out.
2) The potential for mistakes.  Considering how many death row inmates are being exonerated now, who knows how many innocent people get executed due to flawed trials or evidence?  We make mistakes when we get emotional, and death penalty cases are all about emotion- we can't afford that when someone's life is on the line.

How about because it doesn't work as a deterrent?

Why would they fail to work as a deterrent?  Few people want to die.  So is it because serious criminals tend to lack any redemptive capacity, or is it because they recognize that death is preferable to long terms of imprisonment?  Neither strikes me as a terribly good reason for opposing the death penalty, especially when for every person you imprison you could no doubt feed, clothe, and house two ordinary citizens.

[The Brain]

That the state should put people in gaol without them having been proved guilty in a court of law is not self-evident.

[Razgovory]

Why would they fail to work as a deterrent?  Few people want to die.  So is it because serious criminals tend to lack any redemptive capacity, or is it because they recognize that death is preferable to long terms of imprisonment?  Neither strikes me as a terribly good reason for opposing the death penalty, especially when for every person you imprison you could no doubt feed, clothe, and house two ordinary citizens.

When you assaulted that guy were you thinking about the jail time you'd have to spend?  Were you considering it a fair trade off?

[OttoVonBismarck]

Lot of nonsense both in the article and the DP situation in general. For one, about the same time the United States catches up to Germany in terms of number of people executed, or even just matches total number executed all time versus Germany's from 1935-1945 I'll listen to a German's opinion on the DP without laughing. For two, the blurb about rehabilitation is irrelevant to this discussion about DP. In the U.S. every State that has the death penalty only allows it for "murder with specific aggravating factors." These factors tend to be: victim under the age of 12, murder combined with other crimes ex. rape, kidnapping, victim being a police officer, multiple murders by the same defendant etc. These are not people I want rehabilitated, these are Breivik style monsters that no society should afford the chance to be redeemed or improved. Whether we should execute them or not, I don't have a strong position, but these are people whose crimes are so grave that they should never be allowed to be part of society so rehabilitation shouldn't really enter the discussion concerning them.

Outside of Federal drug laws, it's also not common at all for someone to get a life sentence for a non-violent crime. We do sentence people to effective life sentences for particularly gruesome violent crimes other than murder, but I'm fine with that. People gasped in shock a few months ago when a woman who beat her kid got a 99-year sentence from a Texas judge. But if you read more about it, she took her three year old kid and superglued her to a wall (not even sure how that is possible) and then beat the kid literally to the brink of death, kid barely survived and only did so because of very good work by doctors. That woman doesn't deserve to leave prison. Or guys like Ariel Castro, he didn't murder anyone but I think kidnapping three children and raping/beating them every day for 10 years isn't a crime I want to see someone get rehabilitated for, that's a crime where you don't get to be part of society after you're caught doing it.

[OttoVonBismarck]

As a practical matter though I don't really understand why we've chosen to use the three drug cocktail in any case. There are tons of drugs that not only are known to not cause pain when administered at a lethal dose, but are known to cause extreme euphoria. These are drugs that you pretty much could never stop from getting into the hands of State Departments of Correction. Not to mention thinks like nitrogen gas style asphyxiations which we also know factually would not cause pain--in fact the "exit bag" is the standard advised "painless fool-proof suicide method" with various suicide-rights forums and groups. The biggest issue with the gas chambers that States used in the past was an association with Nazism and the fact the toxic chemicals were dangerous to be around for prison staff. But if you pump a sealed room full of nitrogen the person dies and then you just vent it, and nitrogen would be harmless if it escaped from the chamber in some freak accident as it'd be escaping into a much larger area so no one would become oxygen starved.

Finally, several of the drugs we do actually use in executions are like 100+ year old compounds old school apothecaries could whip up in their backroom labs in a half hour. Not sure each State couldn't employ 2-3 pharmacists as compounding pharmacists and make the shit themselves.

[Zanza]

For one, about the same time the United States catches up to Germany in terms of number of people executed, or even just matches total number executed all time versus Germany's from 1935-1945 I'll listen to a German's opinion on the DP without laughing.

The article could just as well have been written by a French or American or Chinese author. It doesn't really contain any references to a specific German perspective, merely naming Germany in the larger context of multiple European countries with similar views. So I fail to see how Germany's history of executions has any relevance to the discussion.