The Atlantic - Latest Comments in Is Executing An Innocent Man Enough?

Re: Is Executing An Innocent Man Enough?

radley — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 11:17:56 -0000

You don't cover Rick Perry much do you?

Re: Is Executing An Innocent Man Enough?

CitizenE — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 09:19:12 -0000

In America, we are entranced by argumentation, rather than problem solving. An issue like the Death Penalty is highly emotional, and so the Marquis of Queensbery of Critical Thinking, eschew fallacy, claims must be grounded in reason and backed with evidence, are thrown out the window, and it's argument as anything from food to street fight. Basically, the facade that we are a civilized, evolved society when it comes to many issues of life and death, is easy to see through, but in our nation, winning the argument is everything.

I don't wish to go on a tangent, but yesterday in my local newspaper a columnist who during the run up to the Iraq war promoted the WMD fabrication and never backed down on it even after all the info was in, reiterated a stance that Global Climate Change was a hoax citing one scientist who never has done any first hand study on the phenomenon, while today, as almost every day we read new evidence and scientific finding in the daily news, a raft of scientists predicted that within ten years there will be no polar ice in the arctic.

Why I bring this up, is that in our nation rather than really critically thinking something using ethical argumentation as one tool among many to identify and specify our challenges and offer a variety of solutions, we personally identify with our subjective views of situations to the degree that we don't mind bringing brass knuckles, loaded guns, knives and chains to what is supposed to be an intellectual boxing match. Honesty? Puh-leese, what's honesty got to do with it; we lie to ourselves believing our own lies as the truth; that's how so many specious arguments are presented sincerely.

The Death Penalty makes very little sense, except, perhaps, in exceptional situations; certainly, it goes against all of our Judeo-Christian notions of morality. Added to that, it is increasingly being proven that not only is the penalty frequently enough misplaced, but that it also contains racial biases in that misplacement that run counter to all the progress we have made as a society for the past half century. Little matter--fear, sadism, vengeance--off with their heads.

Re: Is Executing An Innocent Man Enough?

BreakerBaker — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 08:26:22 -0000

I didn't mean to imply that I sensed an accusatory tone. I meant to be showing respect for your concern. Which I think is warranted. It is a topic that can easily consume all of the air in the room. We can derail without meaning to. That's all I took you as saying.

Re: Is Executing An Innocent Man Enough?

Ta-Nehisi Coates — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 07:02:44 -0000

Bingo.

Re: Is Executing An Innocent Man Enough?

wiliwili — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 03:44:22 -0000

there's no such thing, though theoretically, this is every "beyond a reasonable doubt" guilty verdict. REALLY guilty ("I strenuously object!") isn't an option. though whether the death penalty is applied I suppose could be based on some other criteria.

but it seems what you're really asking is if there are any situations that might warrant the death penalty, and that's really not relevant. or I should say it misses the point. even if we apply stricter and stricter criteria eventually an innocent person will be executed. it astounds me (and it seems TNC), that not everyone can admit this.

Re: Is Executing An Innocent Man Enough?

Jelperman — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 01:37:47 -0000

I live in Texas and the desire to kill convicts has NOTHING to do with a "culture of life". It has to do with a culture of sadism. Texas and the rest of the South is only a generation removed from lynching as a spectator sport. Freak show executions are part of this tradition.

There's a reason George W. Bush -AKA, the Crawford Caligula- gave us both the freak show execution of Karla Tucker as well as Abu Ghraib.

Re: Is Executing An Innocent Man Enough?

wiliwili — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 01:28:05 -0000

don't forget the amazing power of denial. I don't think everyone who disagrees is evil or lying, but rather won't even admit to themselves he was innocent because they fear the implications (and/or don't like the people on the other side of the argument)

Re: Is Executing An Innocent Man Enough?

OGWiseman — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:35:26 -0000

TNC - I wonder what you think of cases where there is no factual dispute about what happened. Such cases do exist; I just saw one on Lockup on MSNBC who killed his whole family and admitted it on camera. Would you favor execution in those cases?

Re: Is Executing An Innocent Man Enough?

Ta-Nehisi Coates — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 21:26:39 -0000

Again, it isn't a literal argument for what I believe. You can't understand how people are thinking by constantly telling you why they're wrong. We know it's wrong. We can't keep having the same damn conversation and acting like everyone else is just crazy or stupid.

Re: Is Executing An Innocent Man Enough?

Ta-Nehisi Coates — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 21:24:17 -0000

No serious debate about missile defense occurs without considering overall military preparedness. No serious debate about public healthcare ignores the impact on private industry and the economy. Why, then, do we view punishment theory in isolation? Why is the death penalty debate divorced from a debate about the broader penalogical principles underlying our society? If you say the death penalty is abhorrent, then isn’t the follow up question “Compared to what?” If you say that we are discussing the death penalty, I reply that I am discussing how we punish people in this country.

This is bad logic. It's true that context is important, but there are some actions that no context will justify. We take for granted, for instance, that no criminal justice policy would justify the state-sponsered rape of, say, four year old girls. We take for granted that no foreign policy context, in this era, could ever justify the intentional and deliberate murder of thousands of innocents. We take for granted that no agricultural policy could justify, say, slave labor. Likewise, a lot of us are interested if any criminal justice policy could ever justify the execution of an innocent man. If you want to make the case that it could, I'm all ears.

All of that aside, your central charge that "we" don't discuss other aspects of cj is demonstrably false. On a weekly basis it's discussed right here, by me. On more than a weekly basis it comes up in the open thread.

In this specific thread, the issue is Willingham. That's the point of this thread. If you'd like to talk about other aspects, it's worth following this blog and weight in when we talk about other aspects. Or taking it to the Open Thread.

No one would go to, say, the thread below on the murder of a child in Chicago and say, "Why aren't we talking about the senseless execution of an innocent man in Texas?" That would be baffling...

http://ta-nehisicoates.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/09/the_limits_of_compassion.php

Re: Is Executing An Innocent Man Enough?

JL — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 20:31:00 -0000

Jarsallen, you say: "Transferring a few thousand death row inmates into facilities filled with literally millions of prisoners subjected to daily abuse and brutality is not meaningful."

I'm afraid I have to disagree. It is meaningful. Just ask the guys who would be transferred from death row into the general population: I'm sure they'd find it meaningful.

It's true that we need to completely rethink the way we approach punishment and incarceration -- you get no argument from me there. But, for example, we can certainly debate abortion without necessarily contextualizing it in a reconsideration of women's health issues, adoption patterns, or whatever. We have to draw the line somewhere: it would be easy enough to leapfrog over you and say we can't talk about *any* of this stuff without first addressing the problem of capitalism, or belief in the existence of God, or whatever you might posit at the heart of the heart of these debates.

Indeed, often enough, changing people's minds about an effect can make them slowly start to reconsider the causes, too. Our collective response to AIDS, for example, was one way to open a conversation about gay rights and homophobia in general.

Re: Is Executing An Innocent Man Enough?

JL — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 20:15:03 -0000

Oh, man, sorry about that. I actually have two or three different accounts -- not, I hasten to say, for sinister reasons, but just because I have a short memory, and creating a new one is easier than trying to remember the password for my last one. For the record, I used to post here under the name Faivel (my real name is "Myles na gCopaleen" (that's an inside joke)). I'll go back to that, and you can have JL.

Cheers,

Faivel, I guess.

Re: Is Executing An Innocent Man Enough?

Consumatopia — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 18:41:54 -0000

Order can't come from disorder--you can't beat the Second Law. If the government is executing the innocent--a mistake that cannot be undone--then it is an amplifier of disorder, not a protector of order. It's like trying to defend yourself with a cheap gun that explodes in your hand when you use it--it's stupid, and everyone can see that it's stupid.

That's why the "honest" pro-death penalty argument will never fly--it's self defeating and the only people gullible enough to believe it are Cass Sunstein and others so determined to find the counter-intuitive that they miss the obvious.

Re: Is Executing An Innocent Man Enough?

alegna — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 18:20:24 -0000

Travitt,

I have to agree. I think that is the argument.

Re: Is Executing An Innocent Man Enough?

Jarsallen — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:37:28 -0000

Stating “Prison sucks, too” lacks poetry. But it also doesn’t contain the heart of my point which is, to paraphrase, that outrage over the abhorrent nature of the death penalty is hypocritical and intentionally narrow minded. No serious debate about missile defense occurs without considering overall military preparedness. No serious debate about public healthcare ignores the impact on private industry and the economy. Why, then, do we view punishment theory in isolation? Why is the death penalty debate divorced from a debate about the broader penalogical principles underlying our society? If you say the death penalty is abhorrent, then isn’t the follow up question “Compared to what?” If you say that we are discussing the death penalty, I reply that I am discussing how we punish people in this country.

My post was meant to drive home the point that the abolition of the death penalty achieves nothing for society. It does not demonstrate the evolving standards of a maturing society. It is not a victory of humanity over barbarism. Transferring a few thousand death row inmates into facilities filled with literally millions of prisoners subjected to daily abuse and brutality is not meaningful. Our prisons demonstrate our societal failings. They show the depths of our indifference to our fellow man.

That no one would disagree with my assertion that our prisons need reform raises the obvious question about why there is no move to reform prisons equivalent to abolishing the death penalty. The answer lies, I believe, in the mentality of activists: solutions are harder to muster up than outrage. Death penalty abolition is a boutique issue. It’s not about finding a solution to the evolving question of how society handles its most dangerous members. It’s about a particular class of people feeling superior to states like Texas and Georgia.

The article we are commenting on asserted that the debate is being dishonestly presented by the advocates of the death penalty. I assert that those who claim the death penalty is inhumane are not reflective enough in analyzing the standards society uses to measure inhumanity. If the blogger would demand that death penalty defenders acknowledge that the system is fallible, I would request abolitionists acknowledge there is far grosser and more widespread inhumanity present in our criminal justice system on which they are remarkably silent. Both sides of this debate have blinders on, and so long as that remains the case both sides with refuse to find compromise.

Re: Is Executing An Innocent Man Enough?

kumquat — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:31:10 -0000

I've been surprised at how many random people who know nothing about this case but what they've read online insist that Willingham *must* have been guilty. One comment thread at the Volokh Conspiracy turned into an argument between "Well, _I_ would totally have gotten all _my_ kids out of the burning house alive, in that situation, therefore he must have wanted his kids dead" and "Dude, you have no way of knowing beforehand how effective you would be in such a crisis."

There seems to be a subconscious instinct to resist the idea that bad things can just happen to people who don't deserve them - and as a result, if something bad happens, some people will look for a reason to believe it was deserved. It's going on, albeit with much smaller stakes, in my MMO community right now. The game has been having a serious problem with gold-selling spammers, botters, and phishing, and recently carried out a mass ban of players suspected of such activities. Of course, they made some mistakes and banned some who were innocent, and some of these players posted complaints on the forums about being "banned for no reason". Every single one of those posted complaints has at least one reply along the lines of "lol, maybe you shouldn't have botted".

Re: Is Executing An Innocent Man Enough?

Carrington — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:07:06 -0000

Although the issue of the death penalty as symptom rather than solution may suggest ways that it can be best opposed. Perhaps the best way to abolish the death penalty is indirect, via finding ways to remove people's sense of insecurity rather than attempting to appeal to their moral sense.

In short, the false sense may have different consequences.

Re: Is Executing An Innocent Man Enough?

Gingergene — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:48:59 -0000

Forensic evidence isn't as cut-and-dried as you may think. In this case, for instance, you have dueling arson experts disagreeing about things like burn patterns and accelerant puddling. Except that during the trial only the state's expert testified (that it was definitely arson). Willingham did not have the money to hire his own expert, so there was no competing testimony for the jury to consider. It was only after Willingham was convicted that another arson investigator (working pro bono) came to the opposite conclusion, that there was no arson. At that point Willingham's only hope was to win an appeal, but he never did. So much for the judiciary safeguard.

And just recently Justice Scalia made the following statement (regarding the Troy Davis case): "This Court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is “actually” innocent".

If being found innocent by a court of law isn't enough to keep the state from killing you, I think we have a system that is completely broken.

Re: Is Executing An Innocent Man Enough?

Stacy — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:24:48 -0000

Meant to say, "does not..."

Re: Is Executing An Innocent Man Enough?

Stacy — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:23:53 -0000

You used a lot of words to make a very simple point. You happen to be okay with the possibility of innocent people being put to death. That's fine, but a lot of people aren't. Or maybe that's not what you're saying. Maybe you're just pointing out that prison is pretty shitty as well. Especially if you're really not guilty. To that I say: 'duh.'

You are correct, though, our entire penal system could use quite a bit of reform. That's not really what we are discussing here, and I don't think you'd find much disagreement about that point. But just because prison is terrible, and can also rob you of your humanity, does make the death penalty any less abhorrent.

Re: Is Executing An Innocent Man Enough?

sv — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:14:47 -0000

Just wanted to say I agree with this, despite the fact that I myself probably have quite a bit of instinctive fear/dislike of the incarcerated or ex-incarcerated.

Re: Is Executing An Innocent Man Enough?

Jarsallen — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:50:38 -0000

I can't help but find some sad humor at the criticism about the lack of coverage this story received in the national news media. It has always seemed to me that we, the consuming public, has always received the news coverage we deserve.

Outrage at the execution of what may well have been an innocent man begs the question "What makes this demonstration of government power so much worse than other, more socially acceptable measures?"

"The death penalty does not deter!" cry abolitionists, waving their studies about while ignoring the equally compelling reports that go the other way. Yet I can say with unquestioning confidence that our prisons do not rehabilitate. Statistics on recidivism rates carry my argument through uncontested waters. Yet where the argument for abolition is merely that the death penalty may or may not decrease crime, no argument about prison reform raises half the hue and cry despite possessing twice the evidence.

"But he might be innocent!", and that's true, he might. Yet the Supreme Court has mandated automatic appeals of death penalty cases, as well as boards of review and clemency. Death is a punishment that requires a separate sentencing trial in every state and anything that might possibly mitigate the seriousness of the crime is allowed to be offered to the jury, which must additionally find that the murder had additional, aggravating factors to even qualify for the death penalty. By comparison under many states' 3-strikes laws an 18 year old might be sentenced to life imprisonment for theft of a golf club, and there is no protection against the clear disproportionality of the punishment to the crime. Perhaps the 18 year old is innocent as well- we may never know, as he is not afforded a mandatory appeal.

"The Death Penalty cannot be undone!" is the response, as though lethal injection were the only way to kill a man. Statistics on prison crime has shown that at least 25% of prisoners in California state prisons have been sexually assaulted or raped (the numbers go much higher if we assume rape occurs and isn't reported). Corporal punishment such as flogging was long ago deemed cruel and barbarous, yet we blind ourselves to the reality that even a minor sentence of incarceration is a de facto sentence to be violated and victimized. Supermax or high security prisons have had numerous reports written about their ability to drive their inmates slowly insane through isolation and lack of stimulus. Study after study has shown that prisoners subjected to the conditions of maximum security prisons suffer from psychological breakdowns from which no recovery is offered by meager prison mental health systems. Dementia, hallucinations, paranoia, and a host of other mental diseases are common, if not expected, among those serving time in our most secure prisons. A prison that hollows out a man until he is an empty shell has killed him just as surely as any needle.

The death penalty is no more brutal than the rest of our prison system. But then again the debate has never been about what makes us more or less humane as a society. I suspect much of the debate is about abolitionists feeling morally superior to the people of Texas.

Re: Is Executing An Innocent Man Enough?

travitt — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:01:14 -0000

Humans still have to handle the evidence, so there will still be opportunities for mistakes, corruption etc.

Re: Is Executing An Innocent Man Enough?

travitt — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:23:48 -0000

The liberal trust in "the people," rarely extends to killing people.

Re: Is Executing An Innocent Man Enough?

mjnewt0n — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:04:39 -0000

Can't there be some legislative or judiciary safe guards? Why not?