"The death penalty is not a proportional punishment for the rape of a child"

[il Padrino Ute]

Originally Posted by Cali Coug

It depends on what purpose you believe the death penalty serves. If you believe the death penalty is a punishment enacted out of vengeance by a society so repulsed by an offender that it can only be satisfied by watching the offender die, then maybe it is appropriate. That seems like a very bad basis for the death penalty, though.

If you view it as a deterrent for crime, then is there any evidence that sex offenders are deterred by the death penalty? I doubt it. In fact, given the almost universal presence of mental addiction of sex offenders to sex (particularly pedophilia), I would bet that is one of the groups of criminals least likely to be influenced by the possibility of the death penalty.

So what logical reason is there to make it available for this kind of crime? Nobody disputes the vulgar, heinous, disgusting and evil nature of sex crimes, particularly where a child is involved. I do think we may be succumbing to a dark inner desire to watch bad people suffer and die (which itself is perverse) when we ask for sex offenders to be executed (and that dark inner desire is frequently expressed in the form of "I don't even care how he is killed- make it painful). It seems to me that we can and ought to be better than that.

What logical reason? How about justice?

There is a difference between justice and vengeance. Vengeance is what would happen if justice isn't served.

[Cali Coug]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

This opinion is a perfect example of what I was saying yesterday about Scalia:

"Justice Alito wrote a dissent lamenting that the majority had ruled out executing someone for raping a child 'no matter how young the child, no matter how many times the child is raped, no matter how many children the perpetrator rapes, no matter how sadistic the crime, no matter how much physical or psychological trauma is inflicted, and no matter how heinous the perpetrator’s prior criminal record may be.'”

This is Alito writing but it's an illustration of the point: his opinion is really not based on "strict construction." He likes the death penalty. He can't believe there aren't rapists out there who would deserve the death penalty their crime was so horrible. Often the conservative justices are just as big or bigger offenders at imposing their own moral order as the liberals. "Strict construction" is often the pretext or the cover.

I totally agree with this. Even Tex, when pressed, will admit he prefers a conservative ruling to a ruling based on strict construction (he has admitted just that in the past, which, to his credit, is at least more honest than Scalia or Thomas will be on the topic).

[Cali Coug]

Originally Posted by il Padrino Ute

What logical reason? How about justice?

There is a difference between justice and vengeance. Vengeance is what would happen if justice isn't served.

You are assuming that the only method of obtaining justice is to execute the individual. Why is that the case?

Pardon me, but I don't think you are interested in justice. I think you are interested in vengeance.

Take your quote below:

"Tex and I are apparently in the minority here, but I will not apologize for believing that anyone who would rape a child should die. And it should be the slowest, most excruciating painful death possible."

Is that justice?

[il Padrino Ute]

Originally Posted by Cali Coug

You are assuming that the only method of obtaining justice is to execute the individual. Why is that the case?

Pardon me, but I don't think you are interested in justice. I think you are interested in vengeance.

Take your quote below:

"Tex and I are apparently in the minority here, but I will not apologize for believing that anyone who would rape a child should die. And it should be the slowest, most excruciating painful death possible."

Is that justice?

My opinion of what should happen and how a state would carry out an execution are two different things.

If the state decided that lethal injection would be appropriate, that's fine with me.

And I have absolutely no reason to justify how I feel about it to you.

[Cali Coug]

Originally Posted by il Padrino Ute

My opinion of what should happen and how a state would carry out an execution are two different things.

If the state decided that lethal injection would be appropriate, that's fine with me.

And I have absolutely no reason to justify how I feel about it to you.

A bit of an odd position to take in a debate about a topic. "I have no reason to justify my position."

That ends the debate rather quickly, doesn't it? You may find it less time consuming to refrain from posting in a debate at all.

[Tex]

Originally Posted by Cali Coug

It depends on what purpose you believe the death penalty serves. ...
So what logical reason is there to make it available for this kind of crime?

Originally Posted by Cali Coug

Well hang on, then. What is the purpose of the death penalty if not to influence behavior? That is the primary rationale given for the death penalty. That is the primary rationale for our entire penal code.

I disagree. As it concerns the death penalty, any behavioral deterrence is merely a welcome side effect.

I look at the death penalty as just punishment for an appropriate crime. Not revenge.

Originally Posted by Cali Coug

The language of the Eighth Amendment is "cruel and unusual punishment." What are the justices to do in interpreting that language if not deciding what society views as being cruel and in determining the extent to which the punishment is unusual? Is there some sort of fixed meaning to the terms "cruel" and "unusual?"

Read the dissent of the 4 minority justices.

[Tex]

Originally Posted by Cali Coug

I totally agree with this. Even Tex, when pressed, will admit he prefers a conservative ruling to a ruling based on strict construction (he has admitted just that in the past, which, to his credit, is at least more honest than Scalia or Thomas will be on the topic).

Wrong, and SU is wrong about what he said too. My moral opinion on the death penalty aside, the majority laid out a very weak case for why it violates the 8th amendment.

[il Padrino Ute]

Originally Posted by Cali Coug

A bit of an odd position to take in a debate about a topic. "I have no reason to justify my position."

That ends the debate rather quickly, doesn't it? You may find it less time consuming to refrain from posting in a debate at all.

No, I feel no reason to justify my position to you, as you are a bleeding heart liberal and I'm not and nothing either of us could say will change the other's point of view.

Just accept that and move on.

[Tex]

Originally Posted by il Padrino Ute

No, I feel no reason to justify my position to you, as you are a bleeding heart liberal and I'm not and nothing either of us could say will change the other's point of view.

Just accept that and move on.

Cruel and unusual is subjecting oneself to Cali Coug's trademarked Death-By-Hen-Pecking.

[Cali Coug]

Originally Posted by Tex

I disagree. As it concerns the death penalty, any behavioral deterrence is merely a welcome side effect.

I look at the death penalty as just punishment for an appropriate crime. Not revenge.



Read the dissent of the 4 minority justices.

Again, is life in prison devoid of justice or somehow less just than the death penalty? It would have to be for the death penalty to be preferable if deterrence is not of primary importance.

And read the majority of the 5 justices.