Death Penalty and Stanley Tookie Williams

You guys are trying to use math to evaluate the death penalty and our justice system but you are forgetting the most important equation. Which can be expressed in a number of ways:Rich = innocent, Poor = guilty (at least from a probability perspective)$$$$$$$$$$$ > $$$$A good friend of mine always brought up this excellent point:"What would people call OJ Simpson if he was poor""OJ the black murderer" (or more probably black would be replaced by the n-word)....In any case my opinion is that the death penalty is stupid, expensive and counter-productive. However, that doesn't mean that tookie williams deserved any special clemency because he wrote children's books.So we need to work on eliminate the death penalty (which, although I have some moral objections, my practical objections are much stronger).... instead of working on finding excuses to pardon criminals (unless there is good reason beyond thinking the death penalty is wrong)We had to stop using the death penalty here in illinois because they found out there were large questions about the guilt of some significant percentage of the people being executed. (If anyone is interested I can look up the article)

Well, how about all the lives he saved by counseling teens to avoid the gang life?I appreciate that a few token gestures won't, in your mind, offset the killing of several people in cold blood. But what gestures would? What more did he have to do than he did to merit a stay of execution and a life of imprisonment?What he did was bad. I don't think anybody disputes that. And according to the people of California, specifically 12 of them, what he did and who he was merited, at that time, the death penalty. And I can understand the views of those who believe that no deeds hence can bring those four people back to life, nor undo the tide of gang violence that has risen in his wake.But to those people, who supported his death, what could he have done? What actions hence would have been enough to commute his sentence to life imprisonment? None of the mob who called for his head ever seemed to be able to answer that question, but if we're going to empower governors with the ability to commute sentences, it's an issue that we need to have guidelines for. Why not have them, exactly?

Crash, in principle I agree with you. I think the death penalty is stupid, wrong, immature and barbaric. However, the law (even though it is totally corrupt) is what it is and I would like to see it applied somewhat fairly.You do raise an interesting question about the justice system. What does someone have to do to repent. One thing I think is completely wrong with our system is that it's goal is always punishment and no rehabilitation. I personally would rather see people get rehabilitated and re-integrated into society if possible instead of paying 50,000 a year to incarcerate them.Of course the prison system is a whole other topic. Anyone who is imprisoned in the united states is being subjected to cruel and unusual punishment due to the prevelance of prison rape.In fact (and this is off-topic) any guard or warden that knowingly looks the other way or ignores sexual assault complaints should be jailed for conspiracy to commit rape. Also any prisoner who is raped should receive compensation.The death penalty is just a symptom of a larger problem with our legal system. (i.e. it doesn't work). We send non-violent criminals to jail and they come out as hardened violent people.This message has been edited by Mini_Ditka, 12-30-2005 10:00 PM

Discipline crash. Apply more discipline to avoid ad hoc reasoning. This is yet another turn. First you say you did see my standard. Then you say you never saw me create a standard. And now you return to admitting you saw me create a standard. The question was not whether you remembered what was within the standard, but whether I had ever posted one at all. Remember? You shifted to a position accusing me of asserting that I had, but I never really did.I'm glad we can have that settled now... right? So one cannot say I have ownership over absolutely all black pens in my apartment, because there may be nonblack pens in my apt as well as black pens outside of my house? Inspection of the term absolute reveals only that your position is absolutely flawed. You can definitely use absolute to refer to the contents of a subset. ??? I don't need to do that at all. Why would I? You do have the ability to discern between what you experience and what you do not, correct? If you and I both experience something, then it is by definition part of our shared experiential world. Theoretical ones involve appeals to mechanisms beyond our shared experiential world, in other words beyond evidence (to make it very short), as well as those that appeal to possibilities that could have evidence but none is provided and the reason given for this lack of evidence is connections between vast numbers of overtly unconnected people in an orchistrated conspiracy. The last is certainly useless as far as law goes, as if they have the power to do that, they could just as easily kill you anywhere else.Practical vs Theoretical its really quite easy. What bullshit. I was going through a short list, without details. But they shouldn't be hard to fathom... Well we can count. We can count, right? And I did not just say impartial. I said unrelated and unconnected in any social sense. Now how would I figure out whether two people were unrelated or unconnected in a social sense to each other? Oh its a mindbender. Sheesh. First of all, you want me to go into detailed forensic explanations of how we determine if something could or could not have been tampered with? For a guy trying to argue that 911 was the result of faking planes bringing down two buildings (using EVIDENCE), your position here seems a bit disigenuous.Secondly I did not just say untampered. I said UNCONTESTED. That means all a defendent has to do is raise a reasonable argument that the evidence could have been tampered with. Boy do you have that wrong. You begin by working on how evidence can be invalidated, and then what evidence would be so separate such as to make the possibility of the first one being fake a practical nonissue.Believe it or not this does work in reality, especially if one allows the defendent to use potential for tampering as a valid way to remove the possibility for a death penalty. If there is a potential for lies, then they just need to raise it. If they do not, then the potential is reduced to 0 by the defendant themself.I mean what the heck, I had confession of the defendant, certified by an independent psychologist, and backed again before execution. How is that possibly going to be a potential lie?What I think is funny is that I also added the possibility of requiring having been convicted of such an offense before, or request for DP by the defendant. How are those going to possibly be potential lies? Once again showing that you simply do not bother to read when your mind is made up. It was not just undetected, it was UNCONTESTED. And as far as confession extracted by coercion goes, this is what I said... Public setting, confirmed by psychologist and family/friends, as well as reconfirmed by the defendent before the execution? What possible coercion could there be? Let me point out how disappointed I am to see you return (after an absence), only to conduct debate in the same low standards practiced before your departure.Your strawman of my position is burned, now deal with my actual position.

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

Heheheh... I've been liking your posts so don't take what I'm about to write as a slam on you personally. What an intelligent, righteous, mature, and civilized argument to make. I'm for the death penalty. While you may feel so offended by the death penalty that you wish the above were true, its not true. Let's leave off the name-calling okay? Agreed. But there are people who will not be rehabilitated. While I don't believe the state should be dealing in "punishment", that is for individuals to do in hot fits of rage, society can remove people so long as they are a threat. This could be permanent removal for those that are known murderers who are highly likely to kill again. They are the equivalent of a rabid dog.In an earlier post you tied $$$ to guilt or innocence. I agree with this sentiment. It is a problem that needs to be fixed within the system, and simply removing the death penalty does not solve that major flaw.Adding a handful of innocent people on death row to those massive amounts of innocent people with long or life sentences, somehow does not seem like the answer.The flaws of using the death penalty are evidentiary problems at court. They need to be tightened. The flaws with cases involving other sentences are also evidentiary and ought to be tightened. The difference between the two is that one needs to be tightened more than the other. Okay.As far as rich people getting better treatment than poor people, that is a problem in how courts are run... the adverserial process we use. I think the evidence is in that it is a flawed procedure and needs to be fixed.I'm tired of seeing the death penalty being used as a scape goat for the problems of the legal system. To me its like watching people blame sex and violence on tv for what is happening in society.

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

You never have, in this thread, as far as I can tell. You appeared to be referring to this thread, originally; and if you look back you'll see that that's the context of my remarks.I've never disputed that you laid out standards in that other thread, but that was many months ago, and again, I don't commit your posts to memory. Nor do you seem to do the same for mine, judging from your responses as of late. Sure, but what you're trying to say is more akin to "I have ownership over absolutely most of the black pens in my house." Which is a nonsense statement, like saying "I'm absolutely mostly sure." People say that as a joke. Just as your position is kind of a joke. Yes, of course, but our shared experimental world also must include experiences that neither one of us have had yet, and you don't provide a reliable test - any kind of test, actually - for discerning between possibilities that you'll never experience and those you simply haven't experienced yet.Until you do that, you don't have a reliable scheme for discerning between practical and theoretical possibilities, and therefore that construction is not rigorous enough, in my mind, for the application of the death penalty. You're free to disagree, once again, on the basis that we assign our own arbitrary requirement of rigour to the death penalty; but there's simply no disputing the fact that your construction of "practical vs. theoretical" is not rigorous, but simply a subjective label you yourself apply to experiences that you estimate, at best, you'll never have. Sure it is. You just guess which experiences you're likely to have, and which you're not.But how do you know you guessed right? Yeah. How could you do it if they were determined to conceal their connectedness to each other, or to the victim or to the patsy?I suggest that in fact, it is a mindbender to you, because throughout the thread you've failed to explain how to do it, though I've been asking for nothing else. So, that's your solution? It's up to the defendant, now, to prove he's innocent against the assumption of guilt? "Innocent until proven guilty" demands that all evidence be considered suspect until verified, so the onus is actually on your prosecution to defend the legitimacy of their evidence, not the other way around. And who decides what is reasonable, and by what means do they do so? You don't believe that it's possible to lie to a psychologist? Tell me, Holmes, what powers of infallible lie detection do you believe that psychologists possess? The coercion that these people cannot detect. How do you propose to eliminate that possibility?Or do you just assume that possibility doesn't exist? And on what grounds do you do so?

That's not what I am trying to say. The pen analogy was correct as I wrote it. Let me try another that is more simple...X=A+B While All X requires All A and All B (no fractions for either), All A does not require one have All X or All B. A is an entity in and of itself. In this case that would be practical certainty (the set of certainties involving wholly practical issues). This makes no sense as far as general epistemology goes, much less the specific context we are discussing (court cases). The shared experiential world would be what is capable of being experienced, even if one has not yet had such an experience. That you have not experienced a shoe in a store down the street, does not make that shoe something outside the shared experiential world. I'll start by disputing that this is even an argument. Its as if you think using important sounding words makes name calling something valid. Note your indisputable fact is at best an assertion. ??? Way off. Are you suggesting you do not know what forms of experience you share with others in this world? Or at worst, that you believe you cannot come to an understanding which forms of experience are shared with others? The explanation of HOW, would always be case specific. That makes trying to explain a general rule pointless, and a complete explanation exhaustive. You don't know what uncontested means? It does not mean shifting the burden of proof to the accused. It actually eases the defense by not needing evidence to prove tampering. Oh and by the way, this was not about winning the case, it was about the prosecution being able to use the death penalty. So you don't know how trials work either? All evidence is not considered suspect, evidence is considered neutral. The accused is considered innocent until evidence is provided in an amount and such a way as to prove guilt in a courtroom. It is not demanded that the prosecution provide evidence that the evidence they provided was not the product of tampering. Uh... I was working under the assumption we weren't discussing the suicide abetting the serial killer. Remember I said that's what it comes down to, and then you implied it didn't. Why would a nonsuicide lie to a psych about whether the confession was coerced or not? What possibility? That a person is coerced into being executed against their will by an invisible force which prevents them from saying "I was coerced", even at the moment of execution? It appears to me that you don't like the death penalty and in order to make your desire sound reasonable, you have chosen a criteria which is impossible to meet. A criteria you would not accept in any other part of your life.The more important an issue is the more serious and REASONABLE a person should be. Introducing illogic and courting incredible theoreticals is not treating the issue with a greater seriousness and reason. It is NOT becoming more rigorous.If a person said to you knowledge regarding the beginning of life is so important to get right we must be more rigorous, and so teach ID, I doubt you'd agree that was correct.

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

Sorry man, didn't mean that to be directed at anyone poster. Just my opinion on the death penalty itself. People can certainly disagree....One thing I will agree with you on (and I think you were expressing this) is that the death penalty is the LEAST of our problems with the legal system. There are much bigger problems to tackle

Then you're equivocating between a situation of subsets defined by location and a situation of subsets defined by ordinality, and then trying to apply a descriptor that means "maximum ordinality" to a set for whom exists a set with larger ordinality.The pen analogy, as I have corrected it, is the proper analogy for this situation. And it handily demonstrates that your construct is simply nonsense. I never said it did, Holmes. Try to read closer. If you do you'll see that what I've been continually asking you to do is provide a reliable test between the experiences that have yet to be had in the experimental world simply because they haven't happened yet, and the experiences that have yet to be had in the experimental world because they're impossible to have.You don't appear to be able to. Moreover, as a philosopher, you should recognize that you won't be able to. Since you can't, what has or has not happened in the experimental world can't be taken as a guide to what is possible and what is not. Which I take to mean you have no idea how to respond. Fair enough, but you should have just said so. I know what experiences I have shared; but since no one can see the future, how can I know which experiences I will share and which I won't ever?Do you see how this is crucial to your position? You assert offhandedly that there are experiences in our shared experimental world and experiences that are not, but you have absolutely no idea how to tell the difference. You can't even tell me. According to the state of modern philosophy it's impossible to know.And now, knowing something that it's impossible to know is supposed to be your airtight standard for the death penalty? As I said, you're either putting us on, or you're trying very hard to erect a standard for the death penalty that has the deceptive appearance of practicality but is applicable in no practical situation, and thus won't ever be used.Which puts you over on my side, ultimately - no death penalty. Well, wait now. Last post you said they needed a "reasonable argument" that tampering had occured. Now you say they simply need to assert tampering?I do know what "uncontested" means, Holmes. Your posts, and your constant equivocation on terms, pretty much proves to me that you do not. So clarify your standard for me. Do they need a reasonable argument to contest, by which "reasonable" most people would take to mean "has some evidence"; or do they simply need to assert tampering to avoid the death penalty? Absolutely a non-answer to my question. No, it's considered suspect unless there's a trail of verification from the evidence to the scene, audit procedures for evidence, etc. Evidence is not assumed to be valid; the state has to follow strict proceedures to ensure the validity of evidence. Which is why you can't simply drop new evidence into a court proceeding that the other side hasn't had a chance to see, except in some very limited (and arguably unconstitutional) circumstances.Surely you're not ignorant of how police handle evidence, are you? Surely you didn't assume that they just drop it in a ziplock and leave it sitting out in the patrolman's breakroom until they need it for trial, right? What do you think evidence lockers and sign-in sheets are for? They ensure the validity of evidence when the state presents it. Evidence whose validity cannot be ensured, because of a violation of those proceedures, cannot even be admitted to the courtroom. So, there's nothing you're willing to give your life for? If that's the case, can you understand perhaps how a different person might disagree? Absolutely. No other part of my life involves the state executing other human beings who may or may not deserve it, so I believe that a unique standard of proof for that unique situation is justified.Indeed, my standard is impossible to meet, which is why I oppose the death penalty, even though I believe that its possible to commit a crime that deserves to be punished by death.It's like you're catching on, finally. Took you long enough, though.

someone linked me to this page that has a bunch of snazzy people stating what they thing is a dangerous idea. here's what richard dawkins said about the death penalty. Page not found | Edge.org(edit: fix link to reference the Dawkins essay mentioned, rather than the Kosslyn essay - AdminNWR)This message has been edited by AdminNWR, 01-02-2006 12:33 PM

If you have thought of Richard Dawkins as an important evolutionary scientist, you should give up that idea right now. For to credit Dawkins with any scientific achievement is to say that Dawkins is responsible for that work. Yet Dawkins himself denies "the very idea of responsibility."Okay, that's a bit tongue in cheek. I am applying Dawkins' reasoning to Dawkins himself to show that it makes no sense.It is standard practice for scientists to take a mechanistic stance toward what they are studying in their science. Dawkins is making the mistake of treating that stance as if it were reality. He thereby implicitly denies his own consciousness, the purposefullnes of his own activities, his own humanity. Is it any wonder that some people are confused? See Evolution and Specialness of Humanity for a discussion of such confusion.That Dawkins' thesis on responsibility does not work should be clear from the fact that Dawkins does not even seem to follow it himself. If Dawkins really believed his own thesis on responsibility, he would believe that the court itself is merely behaving in accordance with antecedent conditions. But here he is holding the courts responsible for their decisions.I'm sorry, Mr Dawkins, but I must disagree. We are conscious. We are, under normal circumstances, responsible for our conscious actions. And evolution works, and is so creative, because biological systems are not the mechanistic systems that you take them to be.

What makes you say that? I would, in fact, say the opposite - evolution works and is creative because biological systems are essentially mechanistic, not in spite of that fact.Dawkins is correct that, ultimately, all of our actions stem from (possibly undescribable) mechanistic consequences of natural law. But, uniquely, humans want to believe in their own consciousness. We want to believe that we're individuals. And if we reduce all "bad" actions to mechanical flaws, we're forced to reduce everything we don't like about other people to the same reasoning.My wife doesn't like football? Must be something loose in her head. My parents believe in a different religion than I do? I'll just reach in and fix that. But what about the ways in which I disappoint people? Or the ways in which Dawkins does?Ultimately, people have the right to choose to commit crimes. They have the right to choose to be criminals. They have the right to betray their friends and loved ones, because, individually, we demand the right to make choices that disappoint others.

We will have to agree to disagree on that, at least for the moment. A discussion would take us far off-topic, and into what should be discussed in a science forum rather than the Coffee House. I disagree with that. I see "natural law" as having consequences for us, but only in the sense that we use them in our planning and in our decisions. I take natural law to be a human invention. Nature is under no obligation to obey natural law. Rather we, or our scientists, are under an obligation to design what we call "natural law" so that it describes nature as closely as possible.Again, this is drifting off-topic. If you want further discussion it should be in a science thread somewhere. That somehow seems contradictory. If our behavior is mechanistic in the way you say it is, then we have no ability to choose anything.

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Impeach Bush

I've never been a big fan of Dawkins so it's no surprise I'd disagree. His reasoning in this case is worse than normal. Fawlty logic... Many do, but they don't all have to. He never mentions the argument I made, and some also use. Yet he uses an attack on this single position as if it has relevance for the death penalty. This is wholly fallacious. The scientific view of human behavior is that people do use retribution within moral principles. That's about it. He never gets around to explaining how science actually rules anything "incompatible" as a moral principle. People throw out and otherwise destroy faulty equipment, especially if it poses an ongoing threat. Equipment, and specifically computers, are NOT bound by moral or legal codes. The above statement is about as ridiculous as arguing we shouldn't tax people because we don't tax computers. Not at all. Whether machines or not, one of our "programs" is certainly the ability to choose between actions, even when a choice is hard. It can be argued that some lack such programming, but that is not the majority, and does not erase the question of what we should do with the individual machine which is malfunctioning. The functional capabilities of the human mind are arguably the product of evolution. There is no degree of evidence strong enough to suggest that the "truer analysis" of the world is humans incapable of choice, being machines destined to do whatever they are going to do because of wholly external pressures.Human minds, even those within a mechanistic universe, can have the ability to self-analyze their systems... a cross checking program.

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

Wow, you sure can use big words. Unfortunately they don't add up to anything. I showed you why the pen analogy did fit as I wrote it, using a very simple semi-symbolic logic example. You didn't address it at all and instead asserted the above.Here it is again... Now you explain why that is wrong, or using a similar simple diagramming system, detail your argument above. First of all I said EXPERIENTIAL not experimental. Secondly your "requirement" is a red herring. There is no logical reason anyone would have to provide such a test.Other than your saying so, you haven't provided an argument of why it would be useful, much less necessary. What I can also recognize is that it isn't necessary. We are discussing what we can do in the real world. What we can agree is our experiential world. I'll try this once more...In the BIV world they can operate according to "practical reality" of the world in which they live (as set by the mad scientist). That at any point the scientist may reveal to one or more of the BIVs the nature of their condition and so destroy that "practical reality" for them, is irrelevant.That avenue of argument is a nonstarter, since if one does start down that road then ALL other arguments (such as against the death penalty or for preemptively killing everyone right now) are made level. It validates any and all positions. The fact that you think you can choose only those which discredit the death penalty (to play it safe) shows the arbitrariness of your application... because you aren't actually playing it safe, you are only picking the ones that reach your a priori conclusion. No, I did respond. I said it wasn't an argument. You simply made an assertion. All you need to use to create rule systems is what forms of experience we do share, which is what we have understood from past experience. There is no need to appeal to the possibility of future forms of experience.If new forms of experience become available then we can adjust our rules at that point. ???? Our practical reality is one of objects and individuals functioning in a three dimensional environment (four if you count time).The state of modern philosophy is it's impossible to know? Really? Please list your reading material. But it's not impossible to know what is required for what I set out. You are trying to conflate practical and theoretical knowledge. That is to say because I can't know that I know that I know etc etc (using a justification system), or more simply put because I don't know the ultimate nature of the universe I cannot make a statement of what I know based on rules bounded by our shared experiential environment. That is not so, as I have already explained using BIVs. I did say they needed a "reasonable argument" and that isn't contradictory with assertion of tampering. It doesn't have to be proven but it should be within reason. For example if a piece of evidence is well documented to be in one place, and the defense asserts it just wasn't without any plausible mechanism for it getting from one place to another, than that wouldn't count. After all if the defense is arguing conspiracy then they should have some idea what that conspiracy is and how it works.Invisible Keebler elves won't work. It was an explanation of why you would not get such an answer. It requires case specific explanation. There is no such thing as general forensics rules that fit everything so that is out. And to go over all forensics would be exhaustive.Your argument is like a creo demanding an explanation for how each rock in the world got to where it was and how you determined that, and your understandable nonresponse proving that geology and physics don't exist. Hahahahahahaha... part of my work with the govt was dealing with SOPs with regard to evidence and data, some specifically with relation to evidence for court. You really just love to talk about stuff you have 0 knowledge of.The evidence is simply entered. It does not come into court as suspect. Yes rules for collecting evidence are in place, and yes they do help to ensure validity. These rules help prevent accusations of tampering, or defend against accusations when they are made. That is wholly different than saying all evidence is doubted.It is for the jurors, or court, to piece together evidence and it may be that one group of evidence indicates that another group is to be considered dubious. That's not the question. Your scenario involves someone giving their life such that a real killer will go free. If I am willing to do that then I am culpable for that anyway. I do not see how I could be coerced into such a situation or anyone else for that matter.How does one get coerced into getting themselves executed if they really don't want that to happen?Also, and I am still really curious about this, why would such a vast conspiracy necessary to conduct such a scheme not simply kill the person and then frame them? Each of your scenarios involves vast conspiracy in order to achieve a result capable of being produced more easily without using a drawn out murder trial. Don't you see where you are simply using what you want to justify the rule system used, rather than using an actual system to justify a conclusion?I don't like this so I demand others comply with an impossible criteria, is not reasonable at all. You might as well jump to the end and say what you mean: I don't like it so no matter what you say I think it's wrong. You aren't actually using a system and its sort of insulting to pretend you are.

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