Best Carolina executed the youngest person in the US*, 14yo George Stinney after a trial that lasted one day. The trial was May, he was killed in June. He only had one visit with his parents in that time and had no other support. His representation didn’t call witnesses or cross examine the State’s witnesses. He was propped up in the electric chair by a book because his limbs couldn’t reach the restraints.
I oppose Capital punishment, but not on moral grounds. I’m glad they killed Tim McVegh. I was relieved when Biden kept Dylan Roof on Federal Death Row. I wish Susan Smith could have rode the same chair that killed Stinney. I just don’t think our legal system is competent to separate the Dylan Roofs from the Marion Bowmans.
I just don’t think our legal system is competent to separate the Dylan Roofs from the Marion Bowmans.
Even if our legal system was, that wouldn’t stop a fascist government from using the death penalty to kill its targeted out-groups indiscriminately. Also, the death penalty isn’t a useful tool because it doesn’t fundamentally correct the underlining social and economic conditions that lead to the kind of violence it fails to deter.
Under some subjective moral systems the death penalty aligns with an ideal of justice. However all it does is kill more people. An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind. That is to say, no one learns anything of value from this process and dead people cannot learn. Justice does not demand punishment equal to that of the crime. In other words, justice can be obtained without necessitating us commit the very actions we have deemed to be unacceptable.
We should want to live under a system that is more humane than the criminals it prosecutes. Our punishment for failing to do this will be to be subjugated by our own flawed system and to have no one to blame but ourselves.
I have the same stance. Death is absolutely a just punishment for some crimes. But we can’t have nice things because humans have proven terrible at separating guilt and innocent.
Innocence Project has helped free literally hundreds of people.
Best Carolina executed the youngest person in the US*, 14yo George Stinney after a trial that lasted one day. The trial was May, he was killed in June. He only had one visit with his parents in that time and had no other support. His representation didn’t call witnesses or cross examine the State’s witnesses. He was propped up in the electric chair by a book because his limbs couldn’t reach the restraints.
I oppose Capital punishment, but not on moral grounds. I’m glad they killed Tim McVegh. I was relieved when Biden kept Dylan Roof on Federal Death Row. I wish Susan Smith could have rode the same chair that killed Stinney. I just don’t think our legal system is competent to separate the Dylan Roofs from the Marion Bowmans.
*is disputed, Georgia may have killed a 12yo
Even if our legal system was, that wouldn’t stop a fascist government from using the death penalty to kill its targeted out-groups indiscriminately. Also, the death penalty isn’t a useful tool because it doesn’t fundamentally correct the underlining social and economic conditions that lead to the kind of violence it fails to deter.
Under some subjective moral systems the death penalty aligns with an ideal of justice. However all it does is kill more people. An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind. That is to say, no one learns anything of value from this process and dead people cannot learn. Justice does not demand punishment equal to that of the crime. In other words, justice can be obtained without necessitating us commit the very actions we have deemed to be unacceptable.
We should want to live under a system that is more humane than the criminals it prosecutes. Our punishment for failing to do this will be to be subjugated by our own flawed system and to have no one to blame but ourselves.
I have the same stance. Death is absolutely a just punishment for some crimes. But we can’t have nice things because humans have proven terrible at separating guilt and innocent.
Innocence Project has helped free literally hundreds of people.