> there's this thing called justice
In pursuit of justice, we sometimes tip over into revenge.
Given the fact that we've sent innocent people to their executions, I'm uncomfortable labeling it justice.
In pursuit of justice, we sometimes tip over into revenge.
Given the fact that we've sent innocent people to their executions, I'm uncomfortable labeling it justice.
Accidents in enclosed spaces lacking oxygen provide plenty of prior art for killing a human without panic nor suffering. I believe certain drugs such as morphine in high enough doses would also induce death with minimal pain.
Yet the state-sponsored murderers still use barbaric methods. Even in states where the "gas chamber" is a thing, cyanide is used instead of inert gases such as nitrogen, despite the latter surely being cheaper, easier to procure and safer to handle for the murderers and the rest of prison staff.
If you mention you know about jury nullification you’re going to get dismissed as a juror.
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/02/us/02jury.html
> In North Carolina, at least 26 current death row defendants were sentenced by all-white juries. In South Carolina, a prosecutor said he struck a black potential juror because he “shucked and jived” when he walked.
There are other selection biases at play; any of those peers who oppose the death penalty are struck from the jury as a matter of course.
- special prevention
- general prevention (=deterrence)
- revenge
- retribution (revenge)
- deterrence
- rehabilitation
- incapacitation (they can't re-offend if they're in prison or dead)
In these sort of discussions about justice online, the first is often cast as illegitimate, the second as impossible, the third as the gold standard, and the fourth is frequently ignored completely.
Few people ever defend retribution, so I will here. Many people who are victims of crimes have a desire to see retribution done. If the government does not play at least some lip service to the desire for retribution, then more people will take it into their own hands. They'll seek vigilante justice. Vigilante justice is dangerous to society because it's often capricious and disproportionate. It is better for governments to sate the desire for retribution using official processes which can be checked with safeguards, such as trials.
If that were the case, we'd see significantly higher amounts of "vigilante justice" in countries that have abolished the death penalty, right?
I think "vigilante justice" is more often than not "vigilante policing", when people believe criminals aren't being sufficiently investigated and arrested, not when people believe criminals aren't being sufficiently executed