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Comment by dangero | Hacker News Reader

How many times do things like this have to happen before we decide to stop using the death penalty in the US?

Someone innocent being sentenced to death is a tragedy. However, there are innocent people who get charged with life sentences or many decades, and they end up dying in prison from natural causes, murder, suicide, etc. Even if you get rid of the death penalty there will still be some innocent people who die in prison, or they spend a good part of their life in prison before they are exonerated. Sure they get a big fat settlement, but who cares if you went into prison at 20 and came out at 70 a millionaire. Not worth it. The point is I'm not sure getting rid of the death penalty would statistically save that many innocent lives, as harsh as that sounds.

Statistics don't matter, even if one innocent person is saved it's worth it. There is absolutely no advantage to the death penalty. I'm sure if you told any death row survivor (eg: Damien Echols) that you don't think it's worth abolishing it because their lives were over anyway they would have a strong disagreement. An important consideration is the way death row inmates are treated too, 10 years on death row is not good for a person so if they are found innocent they will have suffered serious damage (Damien Echols again), it's a complete waste. Damien Echols did an AMA on reddit last year: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/107jib/iam_damien_echo...

It saves money. That's at least one advantage.

If you include the cost of appeals (which are part and parcel of the death penalty in the US) the cost of executing a death row inmate becomes greater than the cost of incarceration for life. For example: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/20/california-death...

Anyone arguing for the death penalty on the grounds of financial probity is so morally and intellectually bankrupt that it is fairly safe to disregard their opinion on this subject entirely and to consider their opinions on all others to be at best deeply suspect.

Statistics matter. Not everyone on death row is innocent. How many people on death row kill other inmates?

EDIT: I meant to say how many people serving life sentences. But I suppose it applies to people on death row who never actually get put to death.

It amazes me that people defend the US system, especially in this way. If a statistical majority of a group do something, is treating the whole group the same a good idea? Using the same logic, most US citizens didn't commit any crime punishable by imprisonment, so why imprison anyone?

In fairness, the parent poster said "There is absolutely no advantage to the death penalty" and (s)he retorted. Not sure it is a 100% defense as much as refuting the "absolutely no advantage".

Perhaps people are under the impression that I am pro-death penalty because of my posts here. I am pro-death penalty in theory/philosophy, but I am not for it in the real world. Simply for practical reasons (cost of appeals process, and yes the possibility of false positives, etc.). I just posted to show that the issue of the death penalty isn't as black and white as people claim, and that the people who are for it aren't necessarily knuckle dragging blood thirsty fools. There are logical arguments for both sides, and the parent post didn't seems to recognize that.

"Statistics don't matter, even if one innocent person is saved it's worth it. "

You realise you could use the same statement to defend the death penalty? There are dozens of people in the UK who have been killed by people on life sentences that have been released but in earlier times would have face the death penalty.

I'm not pro-death penalty. I don't trust governments enough. I'd be happy with whole of natural life (i.e. no release ever) sentences.

Yeah, I think a long time in prison is better, be it 50 years or a whole life, though it will be more expensive for the government.

In the US, the costs really depend on the state. Some states take years upon years and allow many appeals. They also provide lawyers (if you can't afford it). Not to mention keeping the prisoner in death row is more expensive than regular.

>Sure they get a big fat settlement

Actually not that many do: http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=90978&page=1

So because doing X would only solve x% of the problem (without significant cost, as noted by another poster) for x < 100, we shouldn't do it? That's an absolutely insane argument. Apply it to business, software development, or whatever field you work in. The real key here is that commuting every death sentence to life in prison would cost almost nothing. So if it saves even one life, there isn't even a callous cost-benefit argument in favor of the death penalty! I myself am swayed by the moral arguments, no cost-benefit needed, but that's just me.

For anyone (hopefully everyone) against the death penalty there's a charity called Reprieve that do a lot of great work defending people on death row all around the world, they have some active cases in the US at the moment: http://www.reprieve.org.uk/. They've been a part of the release of over 60 Guantanamo Bay detainees and have represented over 300 US death row inmates.

I've just decided to run a Spartan Race (5K obstacle race) in aid of Reprieve in September in case anyone wants to donate: http://justgiving.com/SpartanRobin

Many people who support the death penalty are OK with a few false positives. Mind you, these people also think that 'it's a deterrent because you can't reoffend if you're dead' is a logical argument.

That's why we don't let people make the laws. People are myopic, panicky creatures. We elect representatives who make educated decisions for us. At least, that's how it works in the USA.

Like the decision to spy on us.

Ah yes, representatives. Representatives who are not people. That may well be true.

You'd rather pass laws by ballot initiative? I encourage you to go check the public opinion polls on a couple of issues you care about.

Ha ha, no. I just found it amusing to imply that our representatives are not human.

It is, certainly, a relief that the representatives we elect aren't people.

In all the states that still have the death penalty, a majority of the elected representatives favors the death penalty (or at least they don't want to risk displeasing the voters by trying to get it abolished). Otherwise, the death penalty would no longer exist. And the same is true at the federal level, since there's still a federal death penalty[1].

Those people who are "OK with a few false positives" include legislators, the president, governors, district attorneys, prosecutors, police, etc. In some cases, DAs and other law enforcement officials have fought tooth and nail to prevent old cases from being reopened, since they feared being embarrassed by the truth more than they feared an innocent person being in prison or getting executed. (I think that if anyone deserves the death penalty, it's those who knowingly send innocent people to be executed to further their own careers. That should be considered murder.)

Why shouldn't every case that was based on hair evidence (not just the 2000 that had technical legal errors) deserve to get a DNA test? If they still have the hair sample, they can test the hair's DNA against that of the prisoner. I'd suspect the reason they don't do this is that the government fears that exposing how fallible the legal system is will lead to massive public unrest.

And then there's the whole corrupt plea-bargaining system that induces people to plead guilty to crimes they didn't commit because they're afraid of being hit with the death penalty if they go to trial and lose (which is a high probability for poor people represented by public defenders).

All of these things are possible because of laws which our elected representatives have enacted and enforce.

[1] http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/federal-laws-providing-death...

the government fears

There are (at least) 51 governments in the USA. For the nth time, it's not a monolithic entity. After all, we have a good numbers of states that have banned or imposed moratoria on the death penalty too, and those states obviously have no compelling interest in preventing scrutiny of its reliability.

massive public unrest

No chance. People (collectively speaking) are indifferent to perfectly well-documented failures of the legal system as it is.

We elect representatives who make educated decisions for us. At least, that's how it works in the USA.

Chance would be fine thing.

Sadly, California had a chance to ban the death penalty last election via Proposition 34. The outcome wasn't even close, with 52% voting against the proposition [1].

Compared to other states, California executes very few criminals. Over the last 10 years, only three inmates have been killed. Compared to Texas which, over the same time frame, has executed 263 inmates [2].

However, California currently has the most inmates on death row (727) of any state. Since California doesn't execute the inmates it puts on death row, they end up costing the tax payers. An inmate on death row costs the state almost four times as much as a regular inmate ($175k versus $47k)[3].

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_34_%2820...

[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_people_executed_in_Tex...

[3]: http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/02/death-penalty-califo...

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