Some good news today on the capital punishment front, as Connecticut’s state Supreme Court has ruled the state’s use of the death penalty to be unconstitutional.
After a sweeping two-year review, the state Supreme Court outlawed capital punishment in Connecticut Thursday, saying the state’s death penalty no longer comports with evolved societal values and serves no valid purpose as punishment.
The 4-3 decision would remove 11 convicts from Connecticut’s death row and overturn the latest iteration of the state’s death penalty, a political compromise effective April 2012 that halted executions going forward but allowed death sentences to be imposed on the inmates already sentenced.
The majority decision, written by Justice Richard N. Palmer, found flaws in the death penalty law, which banned “prospective” death sentences, those imposed after the effective date of the law. But the majority wrote that it chose to analyze capital punishment and impose abolition from a broad perspective.
After analysis of the law and “in light of the governing constitutional principles and Connecticut’s unique historical and legal landscape, we are persuaded that, following its prospective abolition, this state’s death penalty no longer comports with contemporary standards of decency and no longer serves any legitimate penological purpose,” Palmer wrote.
“”For these reasons, execution of those offenders who committed capital felonies prior to April 25, 2012, would violate the state constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.”
This is excellent news, given all the numerous examples of execution of innocent people, and people exonerated from death row based on DNA and other evidence. There’s just no way the death penalty can be justified anymore, and I’m glad that Connecticut realizes this.
Now if only we could get five SCOTUS votes on a ruling like this…
Gin & Tonic
I am in most cases opposed to the death penalty, but this ruling by CT means that Joshua Komisarjevsky will not get the needle, and I confess I am not delighted by that.
Another Holocene Human
Zandar, you are an optimist.
chopper
@Another Holocene Human:
i was going to say ‘on LSD’ but that’ll work too.
Thoughtful Today
Right wingers hate government power … except they don’t.
It’s a lie.
If you are against government power you don’t hand let government murder Citizens except in self-defense or war.
Tying someone to a chair and murdering them is cold blooded murder, that right-wingers give government that ultimate power illustrates a central illogic to their ideology.
gogol's wife
@Gin & Tonic:
Why are some murder victims more important than others? If the death penalty is wrong, it’s wrong, period. Do you think that the parents of kids shot in Hartford mourn them any less painfully than Dr. Petit mourns his family? They held up the vote on the death penalty in CT just so that the killers of his family could be condemned. I find that repellent.
Omnes Omnibus
This is a good thing.
Lavocat
I have been against capital punishment since about 1990, when I graduated law school. People should see it for what it is: state-sanctioned killing by people with political agendas. Period. Why do you think so many poor and minorities have been subjected to it?
Frankly, when you really do the research, life imprisonment without the possibility of parole is not only safer, more humane (insofar as the state is not killing you!), less expensive, and more ethical, it is also, in some ways, much more harrowing than capital punishment. Imagine spending the rest of your life living in a tiny box, having every aspect of your life under a microscope. I think I might prefer death to that sort of existence.
Now, if we can just reduce the exorbitant sentences of almost every offender, especially non-violent ones.
Thoughtful Today
Corrected:
If you are against government power you don’t let government murder Citizens except in self-defense or war.
Another Holocene Human
@Lavocat: Agreed. I understand the fear that underlies excessive sentencing, and it definitely sucks when say, somebody commits a 1st degree murder but manages to destroy enough evidence and introduce enough uncertainty that they’re convicted of or plea to a lesser charge and only do 7 years only to decide to kill another person for the insurance money 10 years later. But at the same time I just don’t see why we need more than 30 years for first degree. I mean, that’s an unimaginable stretch of time, and brains restructure themselves in somewhat less time than that. Sure, a psychopath who’s killed before with no hope of rehabilitation needs to be locked up for life for all of our protection. But what is the point of punishment past the point of rehabilitation? Why continue to punish someone past the point where they are no longer a danger to us? What moral good does that serve? What’s the point of it all?
The penal system is only justified by its instrumentality. Otherwise we are no better than the criminals ourselves. Any “punishment” that serves no pro-social purpose is simply needless cruelty, and as members of the democratic society that enacted this regime we share the guilt of the prison guard and the executioner.
trollhattan
@Lavocat:
GW Bush and Gonzo formed a cult of death when they were running Texas, which Rick Perry continued with zeal, culminating in at least one veritably innocent executed. I don’t doubt the current douche-in-charge is doing the same, except for the speedbump represented by the kerfuffle around the chemistry of death. Just remember, we’re more free than those sissy developed countries that don’t have a death penalty.
Brachiator
@gogol’s wife:
There are some crimes that the average person considers exceptionally abhorrent, that shocks the sensibilities, etc. This is reflected in how we charge the crimes and the sentences imposed even when there is no death penalty.
I oppose the death penalty not because I necessarily see it as wrong, but because I don’t think it can be fairly applied, and because there is no recourse when an innocent persons is executed in error.
@Lavocat
Not everyone thinks that way. Some might see it as a fair exchange for getting away with murder.
And there are some people who are against imprisonment without possibility of parole. After a while, they say, why bother keeping the person in prison? He or she isn’t harming anyone anymore, and the dead are conveniently forgotten.
Roger Moore
@Gin & Tonic:
I understand the feeling that some people really deserve to die, but it isn’t enough to justify continuing capital punishment. The risk that an innocent will be put to death far outweighs the risk that a really heinous criminal will only rot in prison for the rest of his life instead of being put to death.
Roger Moore
@Thoughtful Today:
FTFY. More people than just citizens deserve the full protection of the law.
gratuitous
It’s curious to me that the proponents of the death penalty have such a broad intersection with the segment of the population that doesn’t think the government can do anything right, like manage Social Security.
gogol's wife
@Brachiator:
Those exceptionally abhorrent crimes tend to happen to well-to-do white people in the suburbs.
The state should not be killing people. Period.
Brachiator
@Another Holocene Human:
What’s the point of punishment at all? A man kills his wife because he hates her. She’s gone and she’s the only one he hated. There is no point to rehabilitation, since he has worked out his anger with prejudice.
A woman kills her children because she wants to be with her lover. If she says, “Hmmm, I see I may have over-reacted,” why not free her?
What do we owe the dead? Prison sentences and even the death penalty have a symbolic, ritual and social purpose. If the idea is that we only jail someone when there is a risk that they might re-offend, then there are thousands of people who could be let out.
Snarki, child of Loki
I’d rate this 99.9% good.
I used to oppose the death penalty 100%, but George W. Bush showed me the error of my ways, during the trial of Saddam.
Because if a Head of State is so evil, starting egregious wars without justification, murdering tens of thousands of innocents…with NO question as to what was done or who did it: Death Penalty.
But a bit of mercy: Cheney just gets life.
Another Holocene Human
News to celebrate: US uninsured rate is now in the single digits: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/report-americas-uninsured-rate-falls-below-10/
Best. President.
WereBear
We certainly need to restructure our prison system, and we should start with not imprisoning people for non-violent drug offenses.
So there’s room for the rapists and murderers who otherwise get short sentences.
Brachiator
@gogol’s wife:
There was a guy who dragged a young black girl into a restroom, molested her and killed her. I would volunteer to strangle him if this were an approved method of execution.
The state kills people all the time. We are the state. The only question is when we allow this to be done.
Brachiator
@Another Holocene Human:
The Democrats need to hit back hard with this. The GOP has been opposing universal health care on ideological grounds. Rarely did anyone hold them to offering a workable alternative. Now, it’s an easy challenge. Show us where vouchers or a purely free market plan has achieved similar results.
But, but, he didn’t get us single payer.
mtiffany
@Lavocat:
To say nothing of the fact that if someone has been wrongly convicted and then exonerated at a later date, they’re still alive. And also, too, to say nothing of the racial and class disparities in how brown or poor (or brown and poor) you are determines how likely you are to be sentenced to death…
CONGRATULATIONS!
Death penalty is the surest sign of a society still wedded to absolute barbarism. I never have and never will support it.
lowercase steve
@Another Holocene Human:
Deterrence presumably, though that is often given as a pat justification for vengeance.
Another Holocene Human
@Brachiator: I won’t get into the retribution argument you’re making, because my belief is that it’s wrong and that’s that. But your examples are just plain incorrect from a criminological point of view.
The evidence shows, instead, that murders tend to continue murdering people until they get caught. Doing the deed pleased them, it provided a benefit to them, and they’re going to do that again because those sorts of brain circuits are self-reinforcing.
Just getting caught alone is one of the biggest factors in stopping recidivism, before you ever get to prison time.
However prison stays are also effective in reducing recidivism.
It is very rare for someone to deliberately kill somebody, freak, and never do it again. In fact, most murderers who go through the criminal justice system and aren’t maintaining the “I didn’t do it, and nobody saw me do it” defense try to convince the judge that they are truly contrite, sorry, and changed in their heart. Some people, rarely, do commit murders and are overcome with guilt, shame, and fear.
Your example man who abused his wife until he finally murdered her is not that guy. His criminal career is not over.
Another Holocene Human
Is Germany ignoring the “duty to the dead” by meting out such short sentences to murderers?
Isn’t the duty to the dead to see that no more innocents die?
Germany’s homicide rate is far below our own.
lowercase steve
@Brachiator:
Deterrence of others who might commit crimes when faced with less severe punishment/lower probability of being caught; quarantine of those who (may) present a danger to the public; rehabilitation of those who may (possibly) be reintegrated; punishment/vengeance on the wicked.
Criminal Justice serves all these purposes simultaneously at one level or another. And the public fights over the prioritization of these goals, over the trade-offs between them, and over the moral acceptability of Type I v. Type II error and the morality of the tactics employed in pursuit of one or all of these goals.
Another Holocene Human
@lowercase steve: I’d like to see any evidence that deterrence really works.
Making something illegal is a deterrent. Enforcing the law is a deterrent. But making an example of somebody? Seems more like instigation.
Research on criminals shows that they don’t believe they’ll get caught. So they’re not thinking about the penalty. Research on capital punishment in the US also shows there’s not much to the notion of the deterrent factor of that.
I can give plenty of anecdata about the deterrent effect of something being a felony, yet, again, the research I’ve seen doesn’t support that.
Maybe it’s because people who commit felonies are just dumb enough to think they can outsmart the law. IDK.
Kropadope
@Gin & Tonic:
I don’t know much about this fellow, but shouldn’t he have some time for reflection so that hopefully some day he can appreciate the gravity of his crime? If not, shouldn’t he have decade upon decade to languish instead of a quick, painless end?
lowercase steve
@Another Holocene Human:
There is plenty of simple “aging out” of violent crime that occurs without any need for formal rehabilitation (though this can help too…especially efforts to promote economic reintegration after released) so simple sequestering of violent criminals through the period where they are most likely to commit additional crimes otherwise is often enough….60 year sentences are a waste of resources unless you have some evidence of rather impressive deterrent effects.
Another Holocene Human
@lowercase steve:
The first, yes, absolutely (there are absolutely people in our prisons who are a danger to the public, not to mention a danger to other prisoners), the second, of course, but the third?
I feel as though the truly wicked are not moved by our punishments, and instead we cruelly punish to an excess beyond all reason those who are able to be rehabilitated. Sure, anyone can feel discomfort being stuck in a cell with shitty food. Or suffer the outrages of beatings by guards and botched first aid by prison contractors. But the true punishment meted out is shame. The truly wicked don’t have that.
And there’s one more thing. We punish so many of the innocent along with the guilty.
Kropadope
@Brachiator:
If they tried to engage on health policy instead of opposing everything outright, they would have had an opportunity to set just such a scheme up in a state and see how well it performed.
kc
Great news! Note the close vote, though: 4-3.
lowercase steve
@Another Holocene Human:
I am a strong opponent of Becker’s rational choice theory of crime so I generally agree that deterrent effects are vastly overstated. And frankly fear of punishment/likelihood of getting caught is not sufficient to explain why the vast majority of people don’t commit violent crime (socialization, normative behavior, etc.)
Thoughtful Today
Roger Moore, in a perfect world, your correctly correcting me from the left would make my position the moderate centrist position.
Another Holocene Human
@lowercase steve: Agreed. 60+ to me would have to be a psychopath with low intelligent with multiple counts. That person will never stop killing. This one freak had raped and killed little boys. They let him out and the police picked him up in a creepvan masturbating as he watched elementary school kids walking home from school. Another guy ran from a MI conviction and turned up in FL where he killed a neighbor boy two decades later. And they’re trying to figure out who else he killed. Grim Sleeper. Still killing in his 50s. (Actually, not so low intelligence that one. But definitely not right.)
Unless it has changed in the last few years, the max for first degree murder in Massachusetts was 30yrs. That’s a lot of years. It seems to be more than sufficient. Yet I compare that to other states and they have sentences appropriate to Elvish life spans.
Another Holocene Human
@trollhattan: That video of Texas death penalty fans celebrating when someone was executed was chilling.
Fwiw, their expressions reminded me of purple bandaid lady.
Horrible people, every one.
Lowercase steve
@Another Holocene Human:
I don’t think punishment should be a part of that mix at all (so zero priority) but historically it is one the functions of the penal code and it is part of what some people (unfortunately) want out of the justice system.
Mike E
@Roger Moore: The death penalty should be abolished IMO in order to eliminate a political tool used by DAs/Attys Gen (& governors) to get noticed for higher office.
Brachiator
@Another Holocene Human:
Interesting assertion, but you have created an example of a particular type of murderer and offer no evidence to support your view.
The evidence may well be out there, but I certainly did not run across when I took a course in contemporary ethical issues, which included the death penalty. I admit though, that I had more fun with the section on legalizing drugs.
Robert Blake killed his wife (OK, he was acquitted, but lost the civil suit). He has not killed anyone else.
Also, can you show that there is any rehabilitation which reliably corrects the “self-reinforcing brain circuits” you allege exists?
And it is not just a retribution argument. What, ethically, do we owe the dead and their families?
Very good question. What do Germans think about this? Why have any jail sentence at all?
Also, the short prison stays don’t seem related to recidivism.
Given Germany’s past, and their past disregard for the dignity of other people, this change in their culture is very interesting. And it might be something to learn from. I wonder how some Texans, who love the death penalty, would consider the German model.
Another Holocene Human
Brachiator, you say the dead call out for justice, but in a discussion of prison sentence length, your argument is circular.
Justice is getting the justice that is due, proper, normal, and expected, except where the normal course of justice is unjust (say, for rape victims).
If the expected sentence for a murderer is 7 years, that is justice. If 30 years, that is justice. If 50 years, that is justice. If life, that is justice. If life without possibility of parole, that is justice. If it is death, that is justice. Look around the world, and they have all defined justice differently. So again we come to the question, what prison sentence length is just? How did we come to this determination? And we will talk about deterrence, and rehabilitation, and psychiatric evaluations, and dangerousness, and recidivism, and who we are as a society, but the dead will not come into it. We serve the dead by bringing the guilty to justice, but it is the living who decide what justice is.
mtiffany
I wish I could remember the name for attribution (I want to say Steven Pinker?) and the actual quote for full effect, but here goes the awful mangling:
“If the unjust taking of a human life is murder, and the state executes an innocent man in our name, the we are all guilty of murder.”
Forget the retribution, “duty to the dead,” and “debt to society” arguments and realize that no justice system is perfect because people aren’t perfect and therefore the innocent can be and are wrongly convicted. The frequency of wrongful convictions is irrelevant because if just one person is wrongly convicted and executed then we are all murderers.
Roger Moore
@Kropadope:
Which they might have done if they saw getting health care for more people as a desirable goal. They don’t. It should be clear to anyone paying attention that their goal all along has been to avoid any kind of HCR, and all of their proposals- at least since Nixon- have been in bad faith. They have never proposed HCR except as a counter to Democratic proposals, even when those Democratic proposals have been attempts to reuse previous Republican proposals. That is not the behavior of people who are actually interested in improving health care.
J R in WV
I live in West Virginia, SW of Charleston, in a very rural county. I have been on two first degree murder juries over the years.
There is no death penalty in West Virginia, which is pretty advanced for a state as rural as WVa is. I don’t even remember when the death penalty was ended, and “Old Sparky” at the Moundsville prison was shut down forever. It was that long ago.
One of the murder trials I was on, jury foreman actually, the victim was a convicted murderer, but sentenced to life with mercy, which means he got out on parole. He immediately began promising to kill a witness who helped put him away for murder for hire.
The witness (who worked as a welder at a rail car manufacturer until he retired with kidney cancer) shot the “victim” at a friend’s trailer, and testified that the victim came in, saw him, threw down a 12-pack of beer, and pulled out a .38 revolver. Shots were fired from that pistol into the ceiling of the living room.
Donald shot back with a small .380 pistol that was his wife’s, she insisted that he take it when she dropped him off at his friend’s trailer to visit.
We found Donald not guilty. In the jury room, we decided that because Donald had every reason to fear that the victim intended to kill him, a promise we heard about from many witnesses, as Billy Joe promised to kill Donald every night at the pool hall he wasn’t permitted to be in. Donald heard those promises second hand, and believed them, as Billy had been convicted of murder for hire.
I’m proud of my state for not killing people outright. I don’t think the police kill very many people who are unarmed and innocent of serious crimes, either. They all get to attend the State Police Academy and learn about professional law enforcement, for one thing.
An officer did shoot and kill a guy the other day, who had been involved in a domestic violence event, fled, was found, and shot at the Sargent who them shot back. I think it’s hard to make that murder – more like suicide by cop.
I have never had trouble with a police officer, my last speeding ticket was for 67 in a 55 zone – on a limited access multiple lane highway which is now a 65 MPH highway – so you can tell it was a long time ago.
But I am white, albeit bearded with a pony-tail. Bald and gray bearded too, now. I do drive newer cars/trucks, which probably helps. I don’t deny that DWB (driving while black) is a problem in some places, maybe many places.
tl;dr West Virginia doesn’t have a death penalty, and I’m proud of that. The Republicans hate that, and would fix it, but so far, they can’t. Good!
Another Holocene Human
@Brachiator: The wiki article paragraph on Anti-Social Personality Disorder and Psychopathy and Recidivism appears to be well-sourced:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recidivism#Mental_disorders
From the same page they quote some stats (not controversial in any way) that violent crimes such as rape and murder have far lower recidivism rates than larceny and burglary.
It’s difficult to find the research I saw about repeat offenses and arrest because it brings up so many similar articles. But when you bring up Blake, he was arrested and went through a lot of legal process. So, this is a situation that engages a lot of powerful emotions (including fear and shame) and the very real possibility, nay, reality, of upending his world. Which is exactly what I was saying, getting caught, specifically, being arrested and charged, reduces recidivism all on its own. Before you even get to prison time.
There’s research that’s been done on sex offenders and while that isn’t the same as murder, they’re both violent crimes that require at least a moment of extreme selfishness on the part of the perp. (Killing in self defense is not murder.) And the research on sex offenders shows that some of them stop on their own, and some of them don’t stop until they’re caught. But having been caught, recidivism after being caught is quite low. Yeah, I think this research applies more broadly to these kinds of violent crimes. (Maybe not to 2nd degree barfight/bar insult intoxicated murders, that’s testosterone + st00pid and these sorts do indeed age out.)
Nice strawman, I said the suck and shame of being locked up did that. And those brain circuits will decompose if not reinforced, just like with an alcoholic. They’ve done brain imaging studies of former alcoholics and found out that the reward circuits no longer activate when shown images of alcoholic drinks in those who have been sober for over a decade. They do light up in those who’ve only been abstinent for a few years.
Education and vocational training in prisons is one of the typical types of rehabilitation. It should be thought of as providing a different career path for felons when they leave prison. It’s certainly possible that recidivism rates for non-violent felons are so high because burgling houses or dealing drugs is the only profession that they know.
For a successful example, check out this public intellectual, who went from burglar to author, lecturer, culture critic (heh), and community organizer.
(It’s not clear from the link, but after dropping out of high school, he attended classes while in prison. You know, back when they had budgets for shit like that.)
There are other attempts at rehabilitation. Quite out of fashion, I know. But with so many Americans being felons now, it makes the hypocrisy of not treating them as human beings ever so much more galling.
Mike E
Our TEA legis in NC are chomping at the bit while attempting to restart capital punishment here…I’m hoping their ham-fisted attempts hit legal barrier after legal barrier ad infinitum.
Kropadope
@Mike E:
I hope that doesn’t mean you’re OK with them wasting millions of taxpayer dollars on fruitless legal battles.
Mike in NC
@Mike E: Gallows or guillotine?
Another Holocene Human
@Brachiator:
For Fuck’s Sake
Another Holocene Human
Given Great Britain’s past, and their past disregard for the dignity of
papistsmud peoplesother people, this change in their culture is very interesting.(Note: GB has much shorter sentences for violent crimes than the US does.)
Mike E
@Kropadope: Nope. Roy Cooper is our savvy AG (D) and won’t go for that shit…he’s running against McCrory in ’16 and oughta whip him.
Mike E
@Mike in NC: Hell, firing squad if they have their way…they’re passing bills to keep MDs out of the injection chamber (& use EMTs and/or RNs instead) plus they want to keep the lethal cocktail ingredients secret. Fuckers.
Kropadope
@Mike E:
Once savvy enters the picture, the D is unnecessary. Not that all Ds are knowledgeable and aware; but if you are, you’re a D.
Trying to skirt around the Hippocratic Oath, then?
John Casey
Connecticut has not exactly been a hotbed of executions. The last person executed was Michael Ross, a serial killer who essentially volunteered to be put to death in 2005. Before him, the last person executed was Joseph Taborsky, in 1960.
Mike E
@Kropadope: Yep. Ham-fisted, like I said above. The General Assembly just passed an emergency extension–on top of a 45 day supplement–to the state’s budget, making this the longest NC has gone without fixing their spending protocols…counties are laying off teacher’s assistants in the wake of this unprecedented uncertainty. ‘D’ would stand for “drive” in this case, but we’re stuck in ‘R’.
Kropadope
@Mike E:
Curious definition they have of “emergency.”
goblue72
@Another Holocene Human: Exactly. The dead are owed nothing – they are dead.
Brachiotomy also conveniently ignores the counter-argument made by multiple commenters on this thread – namely, that innocent people go to jail, and innocent people wind up on death row and get executed. We know this as incontrovertible and well-documented FACT. Appeal for the innocent is possible when the worst sentence is a jail time. Appeal is not possible for the innocent when they’ve been executed. And when the state executes the innocent, it commits murder – robbing the judicial system – and by extension, civil society – of whatever moral authority it may purport to possess.
Which is why the only country in the entirety of Europe, including Russia, with the death penalty is Belarus. (Russia still technically has the death penalty but it is effectively void as a result of various multilateral agreements it is a party to with the Council of Europe since 1996 and has had no executions within its formal borders since 1996, along with a single one in 1999 in the Chechen Republic). Most of the Americas – with the exception of the U.S. – has either abolished the death penalty outright, or limited it to very narrow, non-civil circumstances (genocide, treason, wartime acts, etc.)
We are, however, in good company with such luminaries as China and Saudi Arabia.
goblue72
@Brachiator: Translation – I took a class in navel gazing my sophomore year in college, but that won’t stop me from pontificating on criminology data.
A guy
Please end the death penalty. And abortion. But kill the dude who shot Cecil and the cop the shot michael brown.
Kropadope
@A guy:
Your idea, not mine.
Mike in DC
Pretty sure that the country could go all Norwegian with the prison system–no life sentences, prisons that aren’t hell holes, and an actual functional emphasis on rehabilitation –with no increase in crime and a marked improvement in recidivism rates.
mclaren
I think the problem here is that execution isn’t sadistic or slow enough to satisfy the U.S. judiciary. Now, if prisoners were sentenced to have portions of their skin removed very slowly using rusty cheese graters every day, no doubt the U.S. courts would wholeheartedly approve.
maurinsky
I was in a waiting room yesterday and the TV was tuned to ABC, and they led the news with this story by framing it as “sparing the lives of the Pettit family killers”.
The local news beforehand only spoke to pro-death penalty people.
I think this is the right decision even if it means some assholes are alive. They’re alive in jail, after all, it’s not like they have gone without punishment. Although the pro-death penalty people really savor punishment – they don’t want these guys to get medical treatment or food or any of the things that come along with being in jail.