Trial by Fire - a case of death penalty in Texas

[DontSayBanana]

So what's a guy on death row to do if later on there surfaces a video where another guy kills the victim?

Have a motion  filed to vacate the conviction, if the prosecutor hasn't already done so to avoid a PR nightmare.

[DontSayBanana]

By the way, the big issue in this case is probably not the wrongful death itself (though it makes for the best headlines).  There are plenty of cases of state government being involved with wrongful death; notably in cases of police officers who have killed civilians in a response situation.  There are also cases of executions where the convicted have never been formally exonerated, but are popularly believed to have not been guilty (first case that springs to mind is Mary Surratt, one of the "Lincoln assassination conspirators").

This case is huge because it would be the first time the state was formally held responsible posthumously.  Typically, cases and appeals are not reviewed after the suspect's death, because it would be a waste of administrative time for such symbolic gestures, but in this case, the state is actually on the hook for the person's death as part of the (informal at this point) appeal. 

You can't convict a dead man because he has no ability to answer in his own defense, but while that doesn't necessarily mean you can't exonerate a dead man, the state would probably be pressured to do something more concrete than just posthumously vacate the conviction.  Also, it would most likely be the state required to compensate the convict-turned-victim's estate; in theory, the state is liable for wrongful death, but many of those response situation cases are rubber-stamped as "improper response" and the liability is turned to the emergency responder- between the conviction and the upholding of the appeals process, there would be no question the judge on the bench was acting as a representative of the state.

[Agelastus]

What is fucked up is that you haven't bothered to think through what is being said, and instead are just reacting emotionally.  Agelastus is arguing that murder is "defined as the taking of human life in any circumstances other than self-defence."  He claims it is murder to protect a family member by killing the person about to kill their kid, because it is not "self-defense." He claims it is murder for a soldier to kill an enemy who is not shooting at him because it isn't "self-defense."

That's not the way the law should be, that's pinheaded daftness.  The reason that the common definition does not uinclude protecting the family or country isn't because it is an "appeal to authority" (look up the definition of the phrase before you misuse it again, mkay?), it is because society has thought about this issue, unlike Agelastus and you.

To be frank, Grumbler, I've been "thinking about the death penalty" for over twenty-five years, ever since I've been old enough to understand that not everybody thinks as I do. It's hard to avoid thinking about it given the world we live in, when even advanced, western style, democracies seem to consider it a justifiable punishment. It's taken me years to work through just exactly why the whole idea gives me such a fundamental feeling of wrongness when I hear about it on the news, or from other sources, especially as I have in the past had the thought "he/they deserved to die" when I have heard of particularly brutal crimes.

I try not to be a hypocrite even when something I believe to be right contradicts some of my own emotional responses. For example, I support the right of a woman to have an abortion, even though the idea itself makes me very uncomfortable. I am certain part of the reason for this discomfort is that I can quite easily see my mother making another choice to the one she obviously made, as I am posting here - I am supporting a right for women that could quite easily have seen me never being born (my mother is a single, unmarried woman, who to this day will not tell me who my father is.)

Anyway, so yes Grumbler, I do think about the issues before I take a definite position - which is why although my stance on the death penalty is in line with the views of the politicians who run my country, my stance on sentencing for crimes that would merit the death penalty in other countries is not.

So before you jump to conclusions and your well-worn sarcasm, perhaps you could ask me to explain further instead of resorting to ridicule?



And yes, I used the term "western style democracy" advisedly, as the USA is NOT the only country of that description that retains this particular archaism, as I am all to well aware. 



And, of course, your definition of self-defence is clearly much more narrow (and narrow minded) than my own.

[grumbler]

You are really starting to get unoriginal in the bollocks you post. 

Duh!    I was copying your post almost word for word.  Of course I wasn't original, and of course it is bullocks.  That is my point!

Although I will admit that that definition should have been written as "the deliberate taking of human life in any circumstance other than self defence". I blame the time of night for that omission, and apologise for it profusely. To be absolutely clear on my position, I should also have added the qualifier that assisted suicide in cases of terminal illness is also not murder, which I inexplicably forgot in my post above. Despite my personal discomfort with the idea, it does involve a person's free choice, so I would be somewhat hypocritical to oppose it.

So, now you are backing off the position that I pointed out was (in your words) "bullocks?"  You should be thanking me, then, for forcing you to reconsider an absurd position.

Presumably, given your rather poor attempt to ridicule my position, you believe murder to be morally correct?

Presumably, since I got even you to admit the position s "bullocks," my post served its purpose.  This strawman deserves, and will get, no response.

I am unaware of any definitive proof that some form of our existence continues after death; I would be greatly interested if you have such proof as it is a matter of obvious concern to most people in this world? If you do not have any proof, then I find your objection to my contention that punishment should be for this world, not the next, spurious in the extreme.

WTF?

Your attacking my intellectual honesty for expressing my own personal opinion on the subject of the death penalty is also pretty low. I expected better of you Grumbler. Although your previously expressed opinion that somebody was "happy to die" should have warned me of the possibility, I suppose.

The entire purpose of your made-up definition of murder is to make the purely emotional argument that "the death penalty is murder."  No, I don't find that intellectually honest.

[grumbler]

May I point out that that is mostly covered by the "self defence" portion of my definition. The military is used to protect the country (although definitions of what constitutes legitimate protection can be somewhat fluid) and the only police officers who would fall foul of my definition that I can think of are the members of Latin American deathsquads, whose activities I am convinced all Languishites would revile. 

You may not point that out, as it is untrue.  Self-defense means just that: defense of self.  Defense of others is not self-defense, and murder isn't "killing a human except in self-defense," it is the unlawful killing of a human being.  Which, of course, you know but cannot concede because that makes your appeal to emotion fail.

You are not, unfortunately for you, going to get to weasel-word your way around self-defense to make you appeal to emotion fly.

Military personnel deliberately killing unarmed civilians are court-martialled - that's murder; military personnel who shoot at people who are armed and capable of shooting back - that's not murder. Police officers who kill in circumstances other than self-defence are generally not swept under the carpet these days either.

Bullshit.  Military personnel who bomb or shell cities and kill civilians are not court-martialed, because their actions are not unlawful (though they are also not self-defense).

[Pat]

What is fucked up is your way of arguing. That in the Unites States a premeditated state-sanctioned killing is not considered murder is so for no other reason than that that is the way the law is written. He is clearly talking about how it should be, and not how it is. When you say his definition is contrary to the commonly accepted one you say "this is how it is". That is no more than simple appeal to authority. And that is a game anyone can play, whenever anyone say anything contrary to what is commonly accepted. Except, of course, those with any sense of intellectual honesty.

What is fucked up is that you haven't bothered to think through what is being said, and instead are just reacting emotionally.  Agelastus is arguing that murder is "defined as the taking of human life in any circumstances other than self-defence."

Here is where you go wrong. He is not arguing that murder is defined that way. Your quote omits "...morally wrong". He is saying that he will, for the purpose of his moral, not legal, argument, define it that way. Only when he is finished explaining how he feels on the matter does he mention the legal status and how it compares. Moral, not legal. Do you see a difference between the two? No, you probably don't.

But you're right I did react emotionally. Anyone could see what he meant, but instead of replying in good faith you exploited his vagueness by misconstruing his meaning and insult him in the most rude manner.

[grumbler]

That makes sense since Murder is a legal term.  Perhaps you are looking for a word like "homicide"

I know that. You're missing the point.

mur·der  (mûr'dər)   
n. 
The unlawful killing of one human by another, especially with premeditated malice.


What decides what is lawful killing and what is not lawful killing? The law decides that. The law is different in different places and has been different in different times. The legal definition of murder can be anything. A dictator's killings are not murder as long as they are legal by his own law.

If you are talking from the perspective of morals, and how you personally feel on the matter, i.e. how it SHOULD BE, and not from the perspective of what the law currently IS, then it makes perfect sense to come up with your own definition of murder.

What Grumbler is saying is that Angelastus' definition of murder is different from the definition in the law, and therefore Angelastus is intellectually dishonest. Do you find that intellectually honest?

The problem with arguments like Agelastus's (and your) appeal to emotion is that they are intellectually bankrupt.   They try to argue by redefinition, which is pointless because the definition of words (by definition, so to speak) is to make the meaning of words carry from the speaker/writer to the listener/reader.    If I call you a fucking coward, and mean by that a nice guy, you are going to be pissed because you don't share my definition.

To argue that the law "should say" that the DP is murder is also pointless because only the state can carry out the DP, and it doesn't need to make exercising certain of its own powers a crime to lose the power to act.  "I think no government should be empowered to execute because of X" is an emotionally neutral and intellectually honest; "I think government officials who execute condemned prisoners are murderers" is neither.

[Pat]

That makes sense since Murder is a legal term.  Perhaps you are looking for a word like "homicide"

I know that. You're missing the point.

mur·der  (mûr'dər)   
n. 
The unlawful killing of one human by another, especially with premeditated malice.


What decides what is lawful killing and what is not lawful killing? The law decides that. The law is different in different places and has been different in different times. The legal definition of murder can be anything. A dictator's killings are not murder as long as they are legal by his own law.

If you are talking from the perspective of morals, and how you personally feel on the matter, i.e. how it SHOULD BE, and not from the perspective of what the law currently IS, then it makes perfect sense to come up with your own definition of murder.

What Grumbler is saying is that Angelastus' definition of murder is different from the definition in the law, and therefore Angelastus is intellectually dishonest. Do you find that intellectually honest?

The problem with arguments like Agelastus's (and your) appeal to emotion is that they are intellectually bankrupt.   They try to argue by redefinition, which is pointless because the definition of words (by definition, so to speak) is to make the meaning of words carry from the speaker/writer to the listener/reader.    If I call you a fucking coward, and mean by that a nice guy, you are going to be pissed because you don't share my definition.

To argue that the law "should say" that the DP is murder is also pointless because only the state can carry out the DP, and it doesn't need to make exercising certain of its own powers a crime to lose the power to act.  "I think no government should be empowered to execute because of X" is an emotionally neutral and intellectually honest; "I think government officials who execute condemned prisoners are murderers" is neither.

This is appeal to authority. You are appealing to the authority of the state. Because the state says it's OK, it's OK! And yet, as I pointed out, a dictator's killings are not murder as long as they are legal by his own law. I take it, then, that it would be "an appeal to emotion" and "intellectually dishonest" and "fucked up" (etc) of me to call this hypothetical dictator a murderer.

[Agelastus]

Ah, crap it, I have to stop typing away while I am reclining like some faux Roman. I just lost the entire post I'd quoted and cropped in response to yours, Grumbler. 

Anyway, without the quotes, based on the first post.

(1) The point was you've used it and similar techiques of ridicule a heck of a lot recently; it's getting old and repetitive, and I would suggest you need a new string to your bow.

(2) Not backtracking at all; a general statement of position tends to have qualifiers once one gets down to the "nitty-gritty". And I have apologised for omitting the term "deliberate" from my original post, since my position as written would have had accidental deaths (such as a car driver obeying all the traffic laws who ran over a man who jumped out in front of him) listed as murderers.

(3) Agreed, a complete strawman, as I do not for one second believe that you consider murder morally correct. But your resorting to ridicule rather than reasoned argument certainly left that impression for someone who did not know your internet style.

And can you please spell "bollocks" correctly if you are going to use it. "Bullocks" is the animal, "bollocks" is something else as I am sure you are well aware.

(4) That's what I thought when I read your post.

(5) Is it any less intellectually dishonest to exclude emotional responses from a discussion of such an issue? We are human beings after all, not dispassionate robots. More to the point, I fail to see where my position was emotional; it was based around a reasonable proposition that a government is there to protect ALL of its citizens, and that depriving one of its citizens of life is breaking that basic contract.

Simply put, this implies that I consider the purpose of government to protect the individual first, rather than the abstract that is society. It appears you consider that the government's duty is to protect society first, then the individual, although that may be too extreme a reading of your position. I suppose one could argue that my position is based on emotion, since I give more weight to different considerations than you do, but then that would trap you in the same way.

[grumbler]

To be frank, Grumbler, I've been "thinking about the death penalty" for over twenty-five years, ever since I've been old enough to understand that not everybody thinks as I do. It's hard to avoid thinking about it given the world we live in, when even advanced, western style, democracies seem to consider it a justifiable punishment. It's taken me years to work through just exactly why the whole idea gives me such a fundamental feeling of wrongness when I hear about it on the news, or from other sources, especially as I have in the past had the thought "he/they deserved to die" when I have heard of particularly brutal crimes.

Big whoop.  i have been thinking about it even longer than you, and that hasn't made me make up new defintions for common words just so I can justify my position to myself.  My opposition to the death penalty, which I formulated in high school and have never had a need to reconsider, is based on two considerations:
(1) the odds of executing someone wrongly seem, in my mind, to be higher than the odds that, in the absence of the DP, a convicted murderer who would have been executed with the DP would escape and murder again.  Eliminating the DP would thus, in my opinion, reduce the number of innocents who die; and
(2) I do not trust any government enough to grant them the power to impose the ultimate sanction.  If I could, I would also rob them of the power to kill via war, but that isn't anything a single government which I can influence can accomplish, so I stick to the possible.

Note that neither of these reasons are appeals to emotion, and neither of them requires making up private definitions for public words.

Maybe 25 years isn't enough for you.

Anyway, so yes Grumbler, I do think about the issues before I take a definite position - which is why although my stance on the death penalty is in line with the views of the politicians who run my country, my stance on sentencing for crimes that would merit the death penalty in other countries is not.

I very much doubt that the politicians in your country believe that the President of the United States, or the governors of the applicable US states, are murderers.  Thisis appeal to authority is Teh Fail.

So before you jump to conclusions and your well-worn sarcasm, perhaps you could ask me to explain further instead of resorting to ridicule?

Nope.  If you say something stupid, I feel no obligation to point out that it is stupid in a polite way.

And, of course, your definition of self-defence is clearly much more narrow (and narrow minded) than my own.

If we are making up new, broader, definitions to "self-defense" than I can just say that execution is society exercising its right of self-defense against a murderer.  Executed murderers will not kill again, while some non-executed ones will.  Thus, whether we use the normal defintion or your universal definition, your "CP is teh murdur" argument fails.

[Agelastus]

You may not point that out, as it is untrue.  Self-defense means just that: defense of self.  Defense of others is not self-defense, and murder isn't "killing a human except in self-defense," it is the unlawful killing of a human being.  Which, of course, you know but cannot concede because that makes your appeal to emotion fail.

You are not, unfortunately for you, going to get to weasel-word your way around self-defense to make you appeal to emotion fly.

Oh? And if I kill a man who is going to kill my wife, thus causing me extreme emotional trauma, I am not acting partially in self-defence, then? A very specific example, of course, which is very difficult to extend to a generalisation, as I am sure you are aware.

But as we are not going to agree on the limits of how self-defence can be made to apply, then perhaps I should point out that criminal laws are quite often enacted as emotional responses to particular tragedies (the tightening of gun laws in the UK after Hungerford and Dunblane being good examples of such knee-jerk reactions) and thus expressing opposition to a particular aspect of law in both emotional and logical terms is perfectly justifiable.

Bullshit.  Military personnel who bomb or shell cities and kill civilians are not court-martialed, because their actions are not unlawful (though they are also not self-defense).

Well, I can say two things to this. One is that the Allies themselves ran in to difficulties with the legal ramifications of bombing cities at Nuremburg, after all.

The other is that they are not court-martialled because these days the civilian casualties are, to use a rather cold term,"collateral damage". The military personnel have been ordered to bomb military targets, and shit happens. If an order was given to deliberately target and massacre civilians by a soldier of any western democracy these days they would be court-martialled and punished for such an act, as you are very well aware. So that's a strawman you have just thrown up Grumbler!

[grumbler]

This is appeal to authority. You are appealing to the authority of the state. Because the state says it's OK, it's OK! And yet, as I pointed out, a dictator's killings are not murder as long as they are legal by his own law. 

This is utter bullshit!  I asked, politely, that you look up "appeal to authority" before you misused the term again, and you turned around and misused the term in exactly the same fashion again.

A dictator's killings may or may not be murder, based on both domestic and the relevant international law.  The whole "dictator" thing is yet another appeal to emotion. No one here is talking about killings by dictators, we are discussing the death penalty.  If you want to startt a thread about when a dictator's killings are murder, knock yourself out.

I take it, then, that it would be "an appeal to emotion" and "intellectually dishonest" and "fucked up" (etc) of me to call this hypothetical dictator a murderer.

This is called a strawman.  You are proposing my arguments for me.  Holmie don't play that game.

[grumbler]

Oh? And if I kill a man who is going to kill my wife, thus causing me extreme emotional trauma, I am not acting partially in self-defence, then?

Wait a second.  Are you proposing that a person can lawfully kill another in order to avoid "extreme emotional trauma?"  I know of no jurisdiction where avoiding  "extreme emotional trauma" is defined as the sort of "self-defense" that authorizes lethal force.

But as we are not going to agree on the limits of how self-defence can be made to apply, then perhaps I should point out that criminal laws are quite often enacted as emotional responses to particular tragedies (the tightening of gun laws in the UK after Hungerford and Dunblane being good examples of such knee-jerk reactions) and thus expressing opposition to a particular aspect of law in both emotional and logical terms is perfectly justifiable.

It may be your opinion that the tightening of gun laws was done merely for emotional reasons, as opposed to a sudden recognition that existing laws allowed things to happen which society wanted to make illegal, but this is mere argument by assertion.

Making laws based on emotion rather than logic has almost always led to tragedy and regret.  The displacement of the US Nisei is a good example of that.

Well, I can say two things to this. One is that the Allies themselves ran in to difficulties with the legal ramifications of bombing cities at Nuremburg, after all.

Not really. They had the statements of specific allied officers used against them as defense arguments, but the Allies had no difficulties deciding not to prosecute bomber crews.

The other is that they are not court-martialled because these days the civilian casualties are, to use a rather cold term,"collateral damage". The military personnel have been ordered to bomb military targets, and shit happens. If an order was given to deliberately target and massacre civilians by a soldier of any western democracy these days they would be court-martialled and punished for such an act, as you are very well aware.

The deliberate killing of civilians is, as you point out, lawful if justified by military necessity, a fact of which you are very well aware.

So that's a strawman you have just thrown up Grumbler!

Please learn the meaning of "strawman" lest you continue to misuse the term. 

[PDH]

I have to say, after much reflection, that SMU deserved the Death Penalty.

[Neil]

This is appeal to authority. You are appealing to the authority of the state. Because the state says it's OK, it's OK! And yet, as I pointed out, a dictator's killings are not murder as long as they are legal by his own law. I take it, then, that it would be "an appeal to emotion" and "intellectually dishonest" and "fucked up" (etc) of me to call this hypothetical dictator a murderer.

What's wrong with appealing to the authority of the state?  The state has the authority.