Capital Punishment in the US

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Franzl, I have double perspective since, while I was raised and spent most of my life in Warsaw, which is in fact normal large European city, I lived also for five years in a very small town in Eastern Masovia, which is use to call as "Polish Alabama". The level of conservatism and tolerance in this areas cannot possibly be compared to places like U.S. South nor many rural areas.

And, if we're speaking of economy, even PO, which is considered "liberal" (in European way of understanding) wouldn't fit American economic conservatism.

However, if we're talking about areas like Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York City, then most of Poland, except of big cities, is certainly more conservative.

Btw, just out of curiosity, you evern been to Poland. It's close

[Franzl]

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I'll have to take your word for it. But again, specfic issues aren't really what I meant. Conservative in that area, I would imagine, would be more of a "collective" feeling. Anti-individualism in a way....not opposition to liberal social issues. Does that make any sense?

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The correct meaning of "liberal", I might add.

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No, that's not what I meant. No place in Western Europe would quite fit the economic views of a lot of American "conservatives". I might add, though, that the difference in views is primarily about the role of the welfare state and what the state should finance.

A lot of things in some Western Europe companies are actually more liberal than in the U.S. (Privatization of the German postal service......privately run DB trains (although technically owned by the government, it's operated privately and at a profit.)

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On specific issues, yeah....but see above for what I meant about "conservatism".

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No. But I would be interested in doing so at some point.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It's obviously absurd to judge social conservatism in Poland based on social conservatism in the U.S.

[Franzl]

It's obviously absurd to judge social conservatism in Poland based on social conservatism in the U.S.

That's what I was trying to say....that "conservatism" means something different depending on who you're talking to. Poland, IMO, can be considered "more conservative" than the U.S. in certain aspects using an appropriate definition.

[Marty4Bayh]

i support capital punishment, but it must be enforced with a moderation and common sense, and no one gets hurt.

/marty

[Franzl]

i support capital punishment, but it must be enforced with a moderation and common sense, and no one gets hurt.

/marty

Not even the person being
executed?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

As to the general issue of why the different American reaction... it's hard to evade the conclusion that, to a sizable extent, it's all about race. Although it would be a mistake to believe, as many opponents do, that the Death Penalty is applied primarily to Black murderers - though this was true in the 50s and 60s. The death penalty is applied primarily to murderers of Whites, especially if they are Black. However, most murderers of Whites are White, and most murderers of Blacks are Black, and White murderers have on balance (especially recently) a somewhat larger chance of being sentenced to death. Of course, and as usual, race is to an extent a standin for class here. It's just more easily ascertained than class.

So do many prosecutors and jury members implicitly believe that white lives are more precious than those of minorities?  Thanks!

That does seem to be true to an extent. There are, of course, other important factors at work.

"Random" murders tend to offend more than domestic murders. Black-on-White murders tend to fall into the first category (obviously). So do all murders with middle class victims.

Death penalty cases cost money, and prosecutors make choices in which cases to seek them, based on what they expect juries to do (which is not necessarily the same as what juries really would do). Prosecutors' expectations about juries certainly are pretty openly racist.

Prosecutors are also less likely to seek the death penalty when the victim's family opposes it. Most Blacks oppose the Death Penalty. Which is, of course, directly linked to its racist application in the past.

Finally (and for just that reason) prosecutors have informally given up on the death penalty in many heavily Black counties. When people do get sentenced for inner city Black-on-Black murders, it's typically in counties where the juror pool will be dominated by White suburbanites, some of whom might implicitly just not care one jot about the life of either victim or killer. Which raises issues with the whole "jury of his peers" concept.

Actually it is a requirement that the jury pool accurately reflect the racial demographics of the area (whether its county or city I can't remember. Was covered in my Judicial Process class I had near the end of college.) There is no requirement on the racial makeup of who ends up in the actual jury though.

[krazen1211]

There is really a 1 word answer to most of these.

Vengeance.

So why the does the attitude favoring vengeance much stronger in the US compared to Europe?  Thanks!

I think its a standard US cultural attitude that's relatively ingrained in the people. Part of it has to do with the nature of US individualism: We believe in many cases that people are more responsible for their actions than the welfare state europeans. This extends to economic issues too.

But even in Europe support for the death penalty (in theory) is relatively strong. It's just the politics that does not reflect that.

[Marty4Bayh]

i support capital punishment, but it must be enforced with a moderation and common sense, and no one gets hurt.

/marty

Not even the person being
executed?

i was thinking about innocent people. stop playing with words.

/marty

[Franzl]

i support capital punishment, but it must be enforced with a moderation and common sense, and no one gets hurt.

/marty

Not even the person being
executed?

i was thinking about innocent people. stop playing with words.

/marty

Then write better words.

[Marty4Bayh]

i support capital punishment, but it must be enforced with a moderation and common sense, and no one gets hurt.

/marty

Not even the person being
executed?

i was thinking about innocent people. stop playing with words.

/marty

Then write better words.

oh, you know what i was thinking of. why hating?

/marty

[Frink]

i support capital punishment, but it must be enforced with a moderation and common sense, and no one gets hurt.

/marty

Not even the person being
executed?

i was thinking about innocent people. stop playing with words.

/marty

Innocent people have been given the death penalty quite frequently; despite attempts by the state(s) to keep this from coming to light.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

i support capital punishment, but it must be enforced with a moderation and common sense, and no one gets hurt.

/marty

Not even the person being
executed?

i was thinking about innocent people. stop playing with words.

/marty

Innocent people have been given the death penalty in history quite frequently; despite attempts by the state to keep this from coming to light as much as possible.

Don't argue with Evan. He have a long history of trolling.

[Marty4Bayh]

i know it's hard but perfect death penalty system is possible.

[Franzl]

i know it's hard but perfect death penalty system is possible.

Even if...what practical purpose would it serve?

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Returning to an actual topic, interesting thing about capital punishment in the United States is that is several states it's more or less a fiction.

Take Pennsylvania for example. Since reintroduction of the death penalty, only three executions took place and all were so-called "voluntary" (when a prisoner was waiving his rights to appeal in order to speed a process) under Ridge. And that's despite successive Governors (Thornburgh, Casey, Ridge, Schweiker, Rendell) signing really a lot of death warrants.

Rendell signed, for example, over 113 death warrants during his eight years in office and no one was even executed under his administration.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

We also have states that where overall, pardon the wording, executions seemed more like accident, and exception from the rule. Idaho, for example, exected one prisoner since 1976 (in early 1990s).

Also, there are still states with death penalty in books that did not execute anyone since reintroduction. New Hampshire even had empty death row until very recently. And I don't think states like New Hampshire or Kansas are anywhere close to execute someone.

[minionofmidas]

Yeah, Pennsylvania likes to have a special category of life without parole that it calls "death row".
California does occasionally execute, but it too has a gigantically bloated death row.