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Comment by Shivetya | Hacker News Reader

The death penalty isn't the problem and never has. There are far too many people who have no place in society and there is zero benefit to society to continue their existence.

That being said, abuse by the legal system of those who cannot afford to defend themselves properly has gone on for far too long and its not just a Southern thing. From the bail bond market to the plea bargain junket of Federal Courts, justice isn't the goal, successful prosecution is.

So until the goal posts are moved we are not going to fix this situation.

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The death penalty is a problem:

- it never really acts as a deterrent

- often the person on death row is basically in solitary confinement. So even if they are released, they are released crazy

- the penalty is quite final. there is no appealing afterwards

- it is mostly about revenge

- ripe with abuse

Seems to work in Singapore, look at their crime stats.

A lot more expensive than just keeping people in prison.

You forgot the part about executing innocent people.

Currently the rate is roughly for every 10 guilty people who are executed, 1 innocent person is executed.

I don't care how you cut that statistic, it's too much.

> You forgot the part about executing innocent people.

Parent covers this essentially in this point:

"the penalty is quite final. there is no appealing afterwards"

The reason we have an appeal process is because an initial sentence can be wrong or inappropriate.

Wow, that's really sad. Do you have a link for that statistic? How is it determined?

It's from the statistics of people on death row being exonerated for their crimes:

http://deathpenaltycurriculum.org/student/c/about/arguments/...

Since 1973, at least 121 people have been released from death row after evidence of their innocence emerged. During the same period of time, over 982 people have been executed. Thus, for every eight people executed, we have found one person on death row who never should have been convicted.

There are far too many people who have no place in society and there is zero benefit to society to continue their existence

That's the sort of rhetoric that normally preceeds genocides.

If that rhetoric had never been used to justify a genocide, would you decide it was actually true?

If not, then the fact that it has, doesn't make it false.

(I make no judgment about the claim itself, just about the argumentation.)

From a Pakistani television debate on the death penalty for blasphemy:

(anti-blasphemy commentator): How do you decide which half of the country gets to be the executioners?

To clarify, obviously I meant (anti-death penalty for blasphemy), although this man (Pervez Hoodbhoy) in fact opposes any penalty for blasphemy

> There are far too many people who have no place in society and there is zero benefit to society to continue their existence.

This is not connected to crime and punishment in any way; merely not benefiting society in any way isn't a crime, let alone a capital one.

  The death penalty isn't the problem and never has. There are far too many people who have no place in society and there is zero benefit to society to continue their existence.

And who exactly decides which people have no place in society to begin with?

The jury system seems badly flawed and the whole system seems badly stacked against minorities. Especially blacks and latinos.

Not a popular stance, but I agree with you. As a Swede I'd want the death penalty.

Then again, currently Sweden (all of Scandinavia) is on the extreme but on the other side.

Yes, if only Sweden was more like Louisiana....

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