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Comment by donatj | Hacker News Reader

I think there is a somewhat reasonable argument that a punishment should mirror the crime, and any less than inhuman and barbaric to the inhuman and barbaric lacks actual justice?

I’m not saying I agree, I don’t personally support the death sentence, but if you’re actually interested in changing peoples minds it’s good to know where they’re coming from, and why they may not find your argument compelling.

I personally find the posts argument far more compelling.

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You can never 'match' the crime. Even if you go justicing around 'an eye for an eye' style, the perp will always have taken the initiative. You can never get that back. Everything you do is just a reaction.

That is what makes crime so heinous.

So your focus should be prevention at any cost first and foremost, then justice as prevention (= rehabilitation) as well. Murdering a murderer is pretty solid prevention though, I give you that.

> You can never get that back. Everything you do is just a reaction.

Yes, but you can try. I can see why the loved ones of a murdered person feel someone is 'getting away' when he is still alive. Killing them feels much more like payback.

I don't that this does reasonably make sense, but I can understand where they are coming from.

> Killing them feels much more like payback

I'm sure many find that it didn't feel like it at all, because of my argumentation. Payback will always be incomplete. It can never be paid in full.

Even if you kill someone over and over again (some Sci-Fi comes to mind), the perp always took the first step and elevated his role in society unjustly.

Lack of punishment can lead to more crime if people lose faith in the system. To take it to an extreme, if murder were punished with only a fine then victim families would just hire assassins to kill off a murderer if they feel the fine doesn’t suffice.

As the loved one of a murdered person, I can speak to this. Nothing will bring back my loved one. Nothing. Gone forever. A hole left unfilled for eternity. Executing her killer won't bring her back. It won't help anyone "heal" or "find solace" or any other words that politicians use.

I'm not from the US, so my knowledge on the death penalty is quite limited. But I clicked on a link posted below listing executions in Texas, and I was shocked to see that the most recent execution was last year for a crime committed back in 1993. Why?? You've already locked the guy up for almost three decades, what possible benefit is there to executing him now?

I get that he ruined (well, ended) someones life, but what does society gain from ruining his life in turn, to the point of what feels like mental torture: Being locked up for such a long time, all the while knowing that you will eventually just be executed.

> but what does society gain from ruining his life in turn, to the point of what feels like mental torture: Being locked up for such a long time, all the while knowing that you will eventually just be executed.

From what I gather on Americans' comments about this over the years it's mostly about "not spending taxpayer money" to house, feed and take care of criminals that received a death penalty.

I don't know how true this argument can be given all the costs over decades associated with a death penalty judgment (appeals, preparation for death row, maintaining death rows, etc.)

Quick edit after reading the thread a bit more, an example of what I mentioned: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26900987

It's the result of a decades-long lawfare campaign by anti-death penalty activists. The more protracted and expensive it is to carry out the death penalty, the easier it is to argue for abolishing it on the practical grounds of cost rather than convincing Americans of the ethical case. A rather messed up byproduct of this is cases like the one you highlight, where the convicted person is left on death row for decades as they make hail-mary appeals.

The death penalty used to be much faster. But through a series of laws and court rulings starting in the 1970's, they decided that the case has to go through a super long sequence of appeals and court proceedings, with the intent of making doubly triply extra sure we're not executing innocent people.

People themselves choose death over long prison sentences [1]. Which is less humane is a matter of perspective.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz

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