Nobel Prize vs Proof that the Death Penalty MUST kill innocents

In another thread, a couple posters argued that use of the death penalty inherently means that innocent people will be killed. They argued that because if the justice system is a human made and run system, and humans are fallible, the system will eventually have to fail and so innocents will end up being wrongly convicted.This is actually a collection of fallacies, self-servingly arranged. But I want to move away from that and concentrate on something else they said... no one can devise such a system, and if they can then they'll probably get a Nobel Prize. How the heck can I resist that? Well honestly it is the person who gets such a system enacted not simply thought of which would deserve the prize, but I'll run with the gag.Whereas most would seem excited to pursue such a challenge they actually used it as a reason for me not to proceed any further... hmmmmmmm. It gets me excited and I want to share the wealth. So let's go.It seems to me the following scenario would be a concrete situation where knowledge of a person's guilt is assured:A person is caught during the act of murder, or while trying to escape from the scene, with several direct witnesses, as well as concrete physical evidence tying him to the murder (weapon on him, evidence from scene on him, videotape of him at scene killing people), plus a confession from the person.Am I correct that this would be enough for us to be certain he is guilty and that there is no chance (beyond him setting himself up) he could be innocent?If so, if we created a system of evidentiary rules excluding the death penalty outside of cases with all of this evidence together, would we not have a system capable of executing only guilty parties?This message has been edited by AdminPhat, 04-12-2005 04:39 AM

No those are both very broad subjects and my focus is extremely specific. It was claimed by two different posters that the existence of a death penalty in any judicial system MUST result in an innocent person being executed. That is to say there is absolutely no set of rules which can be made which would prevent innocent people from being executed.They also said that if one could come up with such a set of rules they'd likely get a Nobel Prize. I am riffing on that claim to draw people into a discussion of what system could elminate the possibility of innocent people ever getting the death sentence, though there might be one available in the system.To start with I have given an example case which I would hope is beyond dispute whether the person is guilty, in order to start crafting rules of evidence.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

The guy framed himself?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Not undisputed confessions. I was not discussing cases where they have a "confession" which the accused now says was forced out of him or her.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Let me get this straight, the cops for some inexplicable reason decides to frame a person by creating an "event", planting witnesses at the event, as well as some photographic evidence with a double made before the event, somehow capturing him right there, or capturing the "double" and switching the real guy for him later...And then they get the guy to agree to their fake confession, even during the trial procedure?That is a plausible scenario to you?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Nipping this one in the bud right now. I am not discussing metaphysical concepts of "guilt", nor the debate of whether people of lesser faculties should be executed.I am asking the question if it is really true that we cannot create rules to determine in some cases that a person definitely commited a certain act.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

This is getting ridiculous. First of all let me tell you that I do not believe that cops are saints, but that does not make everything possible.To fake all of the above, plan it out beforehand, and then play it out in real time so that on top of the physical evidence discovered on scene, one can have multiple witness testimony (not just statements), and a confession that the accused agrees with, is ludicrous.Or let me put it this way, if they were going to go to the trouble of doing all of the above, they could have simply walked up killed the guy and claimed self-defence. Generally cops do not frame guys they want to kill, they just do it and plant a gun at the scene.And let me say I find it intriguing that you are all missing the point that your arguments of abuse of a system, rather than a system failing, would end up rejecting all law enforcement in its entirety.What the real question is, is there any case that we can positively know someone did something and thus create rules based on that level of evidence. In my estimate, I think only 30% of cops are good and trustworthy. However they are also not supergeniuses. Gary Powers? You mean the guy shot down in the U2? What murders was he convicted of with a confession that matched all of the physical evidence, corroborated by multiple witnesses? Oh yeah, and like he really had access to an attorney and freedom to reject his confession.If this is too tough for you to handle, how about this?...A man at a public event begins shooting people. There is live national coverage of the massacre in progress. The police capture him on camera and take off his mask. He yells his name and that he wants to kill everyone there.Are you capable of accepting that evidence as a fact that he did do it, and not possible for a frame up?Remember, you guys are the one with an absolute. All I need is a contradiction... remember? Unless you guys are going to claim eternal ignorance, the absurdity of which will become apparent, if it hasn't already, it is possible to create rules of evidence which bar the possibility of innocents being killed.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Your reply continues the charade which is really starting to grate on my nerves. Your position is that something is IMPOSSIBLE because of the existence of human error. Unfortunately it is NOT IMPOSSIBLE, indeed it is PATENTLY NOT IMPOSSIBLE because you can make claims to knowledge in specific cases.Therefore you can devise rules based on criteria which must be met for that knowledge and thus remove any possibility that a person being executed might have been innocent.And no I am not going to simply set out one system, as there may be more than one. What I want to do is show you that you can do it if you think about it honestly.I am not going to change this, especially for a person who only asserts and does not offer an actual argument why it must be impossible. No, you apparently did not understand the analogy. It was not a spectrum of innocent people not being killed to all innocent people being killed. It was a spectrum of the trade offs. There will be a point where you still have no innocents killed, yet not all guilty people executed. I am discussing the creation of a system. You must start with specific certain cases, in order to create rules. That is what I tried to do and you have treated it rather badly. You didn't even try.There is a thing as willfull ignorance. Should I take this as an admission you agree with me? I already said systems need to be reformed, and that I am totally for suspending executions until reformation takes place. Neither have you ever seen me claim an adequate system has been in place.Yes, you can create an adequate system. It is not just theoretically possible, but practically possible. It may not end up being applied very often, but I did not argue that it had to be. Stop insulting my intelligence.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

We are not discussing electrons, we are not discussing the ToE, we are not discussing...We are discussing the level of evidence to prove a causative connection. That is did A cause B? Outside of the molecular level or at great distances (time or space) we can accept evidence of causation pretty commonly.At this point you and contra are arguing we cannot in any way prove that the sun set at night, because it might have been a set up.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

It appears you did not read the OP, or I did not make it clear enough. This thread was not designed for me to simply blurt out a system.This thread was designed for me to walk those who doubt a system can be created, using the very techniques used to create the methods you just praised (the scientific method). This is of course why I find much of this ironic. You are arguing to me that humans cannot devise a system which has failsafes, while at the same time pointing to one.Tentativity is a failsafe within science. Assigning "guilt" (which is the establishment of causation) can be tentative, but just as there are some things which move beyond tentative even in science, so goes it for the courts.How we achieved the "rules" of science is by looking at specific cases (usually hypotheticalsso we can exaggerate our knowledge) and asking questions to derive failsafe methods of assigning "knowledge". This is where we continue the journey of developing criteria. Only the first point has to be accepted. In any of the cases do you accept them as cases of knowledge of guilt? Please let me know which one so we can proceed.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Honestly I thought I was the philosophical skeptic. Now it appears my getting up in the morning might very well have been a police setup, elaborately arranged in some brainwashing experiment. And not just that I have to acknowledge the logical possibility of it, I must actually conduct my life and create rules of knowledge to include that possibility as an equal probability!I guess from my vantage point I'm thinking the guy with the absolute conspiracy theory is the one that is credulous. Ahem... unarmed cops can and do kill people. Better than showing a system is showing its construction. Still waiting for you or schraf to start moving with the system of constructing a system. Actually it is logical, but I'll deal with corruption a little bit later. As far as law enforcement goes, you reject it so you are against courts altogether then. That is you don't accept any sentences ever being handed out.Of course this directly contradicts your earlier posts claiming that courts DO have authority and can show what is right or not. Let's talk irony. I set out a post and try to deal with criteria of evidence to build a system, you then construct a strawman by which I have to deal with confessions in a system I am not even discussing.The system necessary to create Powers' confessions I will heartily agree should not have the death penalty.Wait, maybe I just need to clarify something. What I am NOT trying to do is say that the death penalty can be safely applied under ANY system, what I am rejecting is that there is NO system where it can be applied safely.Gary Powers is a strawman. Actually no, it really isn't that easy. You can watch multimillion dollar movies with thousands of man hours invested in them and still spot the CGI effects.Experts can be called in to discuss the possible manipulation of the video. If it is in contention then the case could be barred from applying the DP, thus eliminating any chance unless the defendant does not argue the video is real. You missed my chuckle over that already I guess. You can't calculate that stuff anyway. This is more of a process of elimination through rules, binary. It isn't adding up odds.Someone else mentioned it first and I just ran with it as a gag. No, actually I have to show you how one can be devised. That is what I proposed within this thread.And I would argue it does not have to be immune to "perversion" as ANYTHING can be perverted. To blame something for overt abuse, is ridiculous and in the case of the justice system will logically lead to the elimination of all courts, police, and laws.What needs to be shown is that in a practically running system, there is no chance an innocent will be killed and there are sufficient safeguards for all but the most outrageous (improbable) cases of abuse. Are you mistaken that the sun rose this morning? How about that it rose in the east? Why do you believe this?If we really have to start from scratch we can. It'd be easier if you just started admitting where you actually have knowledge.Hmmmmm. That's not a bad idea. Why don't we start without my giving an example at all... you give one. What WOULD be a case where you could say a person was absolutely guilty?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I'll answer both your posts on tentativity and science in this one post. You are of course absolutely incorrect. There are certain things, including causation which are not considered tentative.This level of skepticism was reached with Hume (one of my heroes), but ultimately proven impractical and unrealistic.You see a ball move across the table, touch another ball and stop, then the other ball moves. While there is a logical possibility that the first ball did not cause the second to move, it is accepted as probable beyond mere tentativity that that is what happened.Sure if later evidence came up that God stops one ball and just loves making the other ball move, we can end up accepting the new one, but it becomes absurd to hold such skepticism as part of scientific OBSERVATION.You are simply trying to head off a conclusion you do not want to reach, by bucking the very process which built science.If you are going to put your foot down and say their is simply no theoretical case you can think of, or no practical case that you can think of, or no real life case you can think of where you knew something as a certainty with regard to causation (in this case A commited murder), then I simply don't believe you. That is complete and utter incredulity.That is why I was reaching for specific cases, and then theoreticals. If I was to follow your strain of logic then there simply would be no science at all, for even observations and facts must be doubted at all times and no weight afforded them... including your own experiences.Again, Hume was my hero, but he was wrong and shot down ages ago. No, what I am suggesting is that UNLIKE QUANTUM MECHANICS, there is a reasonable point in dealing with human actions that have had a physical result, where we can say we know for sure there will be no more incoming information, or at the very least no practical probability that any new information could come in that would be different than what we already have.That you cannot conceive of that possibility is absurd to me. This is where you are equivocating. We do not need omiscient knowledge to have adequate, or practical "perfect" knowledge of something like a murder.Again, I am not arguing the same rules that apply for judging general "guilt" in a court room should be sufficient to allow for the DP. I think it should be much more stringent. It should be those cases where we can be practically certain of no further information which can reverse the current findings.To restart with a known specific case... is it probable, or practically conceivably possible that Dahmer was innocent of the crimes he was accused, and that any further evidence could come in to change that finding?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

No, only if we want to abstract things into the absurd. Yes in many cases "definite" cannot be reached due to practical realities. However in some cases we can reach a practical conclusion. I feel like I'm in the twilight zone here.There was a real life case where a guy gunned down a number of people on a train. Some of his victims managed to subdue him (while others died). The case was brought to trial and he insisted that it was someone else and that he was being framed by everyone. That is in spite of the fact that he was caught by the people he shot, the physical evidence was conclusive that he was there and it was his guns that shot the people. It appears that everyone here would agree with this man's defense?I just don't get it.Yes, we have a trial and evidence is presented. Within the trial it may be determined if the evidence rises to a level of certainty which allows the DP to come into play. No the execution need not be immediate as there is always an appeals process. Yes, eventually that process may end and the person be killed.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Et tu, Jar?I have never seen such incredible depths of skepticism in my life. Are you seriously telling me you never had one case of practical knowledge in your life, especially with regard to somebody doing something?I guess what I really should have done is start a thread on evidence, apparently no one believes evidence exists.Let me ask you this straight out... Do you believe that Dahmer actually killed those people, and that this is not a possibly mistaken belief?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Because I DO care about the possibility of innocent people getting killed, I believe that current evidentiary rules are inadequate. I think the move by the Illinois gov't was appropriate and should be followed by others.I should add that on top of all this reform I believe there should be a reform to change the system where sentence is not part of the deliberations for guilt of having caused the crime. There are cases of where DAs overstep (go for a higher sentence) and so lose the case by alienating the jury due to sentence.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)