Death Penalty decision imminent for Boston Bomber

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The 8th Amendment obviously comes into play here. Torture clearly violates it. Capital punishment was well established at the time of the Constitution's drafting and thus was clearly within bounds. Stoning was not.

Now admittedly there were forms of punishment that were acceptable in 1783 which clearly aren't today. Flogging comes to mind, but I question how widespread it was at the time, as opposed to fading in use. While hardly uncommon in 1783, it was very uncommon indeed (outside, sadly, military and slavery applications) by the time most of the Founders has died 50 years later. (In b4 likely link to historical treatise describing a civilian flogging; the key here, guys, is 'widespread'. )

Capital punishment is not just 'my' borderline for the justice system, but for Florida and all the other states that carry it. I don't see how including capital punishment in the legal system is any more 'arbitrary' then excluding it.

That's for the opportunity to once more post my screed about how the courts have horribly misinterpreted the 8th Amendment.  The language about "cruel and unusual punishment" is a direct lift from the 1689 English Bill of Rights and its intent there was not about limiting the ability of the legislature to determine what punishments would be handed out for various crimes but the ability of judges.

As you pointed out, the standard of what punishments are appropriate for certain crimes has changed since the Constitution was adopted, generally towards the abolition of corporal punishment and a considerable reduction in the use of capital punishment. This indicates that "cruel" is a subjective opinion, not objective and thus reinforces the concept that the determination of what is too cruel is a decision to made by legislators and not judges.

The whole "evolving standards of decency" the court often makes use when invoking the 8th amendment is bogus.  Not because those standards aren't evolving, but because it is not the court's function to decide when they have evolved but the legislature's.  (That's not even counting the bogus idea that they can only evolve in one direction. While I would not care for it, it's entirely possible society's standards would change to the point that corporal punishment and the use of capital punishment for felonies other than murder would be acceptable again.)

Now, as for the "unusual" part of the restriction, that's also covered by the "due process" requirement in the 14th Amendment.  If there is disparate treatment of people guilty of the same crime, then the courts can certainly intervene, as they did in Furman v. Georgia.

[Alcon]

OK, so your problem with punishing people is that it's not either compensatory or deterrent.

I have a problem with punishing people when it's not compensatory or a deterrent.

Here's my basic position.  I think the family or estate of a victim is not necessarily relevant to the criminal punishment.  That would be revenge and a criminal case is brought by the state so it doesn't really fit.

Yeah, that's kind of weird, but fundamentally our system does charge people with breaches against the order imposed by the state (or whatever).

I think criminal law is partly based on the equitable principle that if you deprive someone of liberty and break the social contract with the state, you should suffer to bring about equity in society.  Equity as between the criminal and the rest of society, so that the criminal isn't benefiting from the peace of society without reciprocating.  Equity as between the victim and the criminal so that the criminal has an equitable reduction in his liberty to prevent a type of quasi-unjust enrichment of liberty.

I understand what you're saying, but that seems to basically be the a legalistic paraphrase of the same moral claim I'm objecting to.  Yeah, I get that people feel that justice has been violated and the way of "restoring the balance" is by inflicting suffering on the person responsible.  I think it ties into the instinctual human hatred of inequity.  Except, in this case, the way of fulfilling the desire for inequity is the state executing someone.  Very occasionally, that person didn't even commit the crime.  This is not some sort of bland, procedural thing.  This isn't restitution.  This isn't based on some straightforward moral principle.  It's having the state kill people because it satisfies a very instinctual sense of "justice" that we can't really explain coherently.  How comfortable are you with that?

[bedstuy]

I think criminal law is partly based on the equitable principle that if you deprive someone of liberty and break the social contract with the state, you should suffer to bring about equity in society.  Equity as between the criminal and the rest of society, so that the criminal isn't benefiting from the peace of society without reciprocating.  Equity as between the victim and the criminal so that the criminal has an equitable reduction in his liberty to prevent a type of quasi-unjust enrichment of liberty.

I understand what you're saying, but that seems to basically be the a legalistic paraphrase of the same moral claim I'm objecting to.  Yeah, I get that people feel that justice has been violated and the way of "restoring the balance" is by inflicting suffering on the person responsible.  I think it ties into the instinctual human hatred of inequity.  Except, in this case, the way of fulfilling the desire for inequity is the state executing someone.  Very occasionally, that person didn't even commit the crime.  This is not some sort of bland, procedural thing.  This isn't restitution.  This isn't based on some straightforward moral principle.  It's having the state kill people because it satisfies a very instinctual sense of "justice" that we can't really explain coherently.  How comfortable are you with that?

I'm against the death penalty for 99% of normal homicides for the reason you say.  We generally can't be sure of the guilt of an accused murderer.  I would only allow the death penalty in cases where there is no conceivable way the person is not guilty and there is outrageous anti-social behavior without any type of mental health excuse.  The Boston bomber is about 100% likely to be guilty and engaged in terrorism, that would be my basic reasoning here.

And, on the philosophical point, I'm comfortable with the basic moral idea I proposed, yes.  The idea of extremely harsh punishments like life in prison and the death penalty, I'm not too keen on in general.  And, I feel empathy even with murderers and I don't want anyone to be treated cruelly.  But, it's a sliding scale.  There are murderers and there are murderers.  I don't feel any empathy for the people who commit the most heinous crimes.

[Randy Bobandy]

This is a clear violation of the Boston Bomber's human rights.