We think about that all the time but drafts will be a fact of life as long as war exists and many countries have compulsory service. Even in the case of the volunteer, it is OK for a state to kill a solider who volunteered but not a serial killer?
It's not a given, actually. Drafts and levies are a recurring theme in military, but it's not a constant, and much of historic warfare was done by what we today would call "professional soldiers", without any conscripts. A lot depends on how warfare looks - conscripting, especially during wartime gets you lots of bodies, but not particularly willing ones, and they won't be eager learners. If your doctrine is what Russians are doing right now in Ukraine, sure, you will eventually need a draft then. If it's more high-tech, maybe not so much.
As far as serial killers go, that's a really bad example because there were several high-profile cases historically of people executed instead of the serial killer who actually committed the murder - for example, Aleksandr Kravchenko was executed for a murder committed by Andrei Chikatilo (who would eventually also be executed). Or how about Timothy Evans? So it's not like this is an option that comes free of innocent suffering, either (I should also note that the people who actually carry out the execution later learning that they killed an innocent is also not exactly great).
1. The state isn't sending the soldier to die, it's sending them to fight. They may die, but dying isn't the purpose. The state would very much prefer them to not die, in fact.
2. Nothing bad happens if we just don't kill the serial killer.
The "state" does not have a preference, states are conflicted by nature. Probably would not take much effort to find examples of serial killers who were not killed doing something bad, killing another inmate, killing a guard, getting out on a technicality, etc, etc, etc. Yes, if we lived in a utopia things would be perfect and you would not be ignoring the point.
My definition of utopia allows for disagreement, my issue was with his methods, avoiding the original point and not the disagreement. I never tried to justify anything, at most I expressed a preference for killing serial killers over having wars.
Why? Because killing serial killers is good, and having war is bad?
I think the person you were responding to had a more utilitarian view. When war happens, the death of conscripted young people is unavoidable. It's kill or be killed. We prefer wars not to happen, and people not to die, but it's not a choice.
Killing a serial killer who has already been apprehended is a choice. And it's here that we can actually start weighting options and see what is better for the society, bringing up possibilities of wrongful convictions, Blackstone's ratios and second order effects of the death penalty.
I made no such judgement, just sort of but not really implied that I would rather serial killers die than random people and then admitted it in a purely intellectual pie in the sky sort of way—killing serial killers will not end war. Plenty of examples in history when a draft was used in times other than kill or be killed, when it was political. It is ok for the state to kill its citizens for political reasons but only when those political reasons are war? At what point does civil unrest become civil war? When that line is crossed the killings suddenly become OK? What if it were treason instead of murder and the execution of that traitor could help mitigate civil war and far more death? That comment opened a massive can of worms, it is more complicated than ideals and what we would like.
And then add euthanasia to the mix. I think euthanasia should be legal. It comes from my own battles with MS and my immobility issues. If I get paralyzed, I would rather choose euthanasia, personally.
That is incorrect. The right answer is absolutely if there is no uncertainty and then realizing there has never been a murder in all recorded history where the standard of no uncertainty is met to the level required on the timeline it takes to convict someone and to ban it.
The entire Council of Europe, i.e., until also recently including also Russia, have agreed to abolish the death penalty during peacetime, with this being mostly implemented in practice.
It seems to me the parent comment you respond to refers to handling of an actively developing "immediate danger to the public" situation by law enforcement, where judgement calls have to be made, sometimes ones of lethal consequence.
... but that's an entirely different debate from death penalty after facts have occurred.
It's interesting seeing police around the world handling such things:
HELSINKI (AP) — A man stabbed eight people Friday in Finland’s western city of Turku, killing two of them, before police shot him in the thigh and detained him, police said. Authorities were looking for more potential suspects in the attack.
I've seen many examples of police engaging with firearms in the US that are eye watering .. eg: police firing across an intersection with moving traffic into a darkened mall | storefront that active shooters retreated into .. so, no clear line of sight, chance of hitting car that crosses fire line, chance of hitting innocents deeper in store, etc.
I have seen PoliceActivity videos and such, it is indeed crazy what is going on in the US wrt. shootings (from cops and others alike).
Or calling the cops on your family member because they are in psychosis or what have you, and they end up killing a member of your family. I do not think I would ever call the cops in the US to deal with such cases.
Few days ago I saw on Reddit police video where officer shot guy who resisted arrest. Redditors were applauding to officer, probably because it was Jan 6 insurrectionist but still I was in shock. Yes the officer could have been in danger but this would hardly happen in my country. Police officers are not nice here but they do not expect most people could have gun. So they do not execute people escaping the arrest. I find it insane how casual were Americans about that.
I've heard it said that the defense lawyers job is to make sure that the court does their job and the prosecution does their job and the police did their job.
They may know that the person is going to be sentenced to death, but they still need to make sure that the state does everything right because that's the only ethical thing to do.
How many innocent people is it okay to put to death? You'll note that I'm not saying that either of the examples that you gave are innocent people, but innocent people are put to death, so: how many?
This isn't a trick question. It's not okay to say, well, ideally there should be none. I'm asking right now since you think we should be hanging people in the public square.
The death penalty necessarily means in our imperfect information world that innocent people will be put to death. So there's no bright line for anything that we can point to and say that's how you do it.
It is also not okay to say that they exhausted all avenues of the justice system available to them and unfortunately it didn't work and them's the breaks kid.
So how many innocent people is it okay to put to death?
> The death penalty necessarily means in our imperfect information world that innocent people will be put to death.
Unfortunately, the governments and law enforcement community's answer to this problem will not be "may be we need to reconsider our laws". It will most likely be "then let's make sure we have more information to determine the truth i.e. more surveillance".
I know, were that it weren't necessary. Adam Carolla said there should be a way to make a lie detector where if you fail it 3 times or 10 times or whatever, that's it, jail. I just pulled a sample from my transcripts, from 2003:
How many innocent people is it okay to put into prison?
You cannot give years back to an innocent prisoner any more than you can give life back to an innocent executee.
There is a cost to any action, including inaction. There is a cost to not executing justice (which is what capital punishment is, in the case of the guilty: justice); there is a cost in doing injustice.
An innocent prisoner years later can at least be compensated monetarily and try to get a life. Sure, it's not perfect, but at least it's something. A corpse is pretty final, though, and there's no recourse.
"It's not ok" is a value judgement. I am not implying that a death penalty means bad things never happen. I support death penalty because I value an orderly and safe society more.
In the form I would accept, it would be used on people convicted of heinous crimes, some of which will be innocent, with the effect that fewer heinous crimes occur.
In general, when will the US stop considering acceptable that... you cannot lie to the police, but the police can lie to you?
When will everyone believe that making someone take the blame in exchange for a shorter time in jail is beneficial to society at large... when the real perpetrator walks away unscathed, and a innocent is jailed for something he didn't even commit?
I'd say the main thing is police should show how all leads have been followed, the investigation followed a logical and evidence based approach and all evidence handed to defence.
In, like, an interview situation, no, you won't get an additional charge. I am not a lawyer but. It is a crime to lie to federal agents, specifically the FBI. I'm not sure about the rest. And if you do light of the police, it'll be held against you. But even if you don't lie to the police, it'll be held against you. So, you know, just don't say anything. Except "lawyer, please."
If a person did not commit a crime and if their strategic best choice is pleading guilty for the crime that has x% probability of receiving death penalty, it says something about the whole process.
