Dylann Roof sentenced to death

[Zakuvia]

Oh, no.

Until they can scientifically prove, within a 95% confidence interval, that he is of no more danger to the society than the average person.

I trust a presumed expert's say-so to tell me which kind of toothbrush to use. I don't trust their guesswork to determine human lives. Releasing a murderer is death penalty - for his next victim. The same degree of confidence that we apply to sentencing people to capital punishment (admittedly through a different standard) must be applied to releasing people who are known to kill others.



P.S. And even then, if there was a reliable test that actually could show that someone isn't dangerous, there's the little problem that they've elected to take others' lives, for no reason other than their personal desire to do so. Do we really want a society where it's a choice you're permitted to make?

That was pretty much my point : they determine to the best of their ability whether Person A is safe to be released. And yes - it is never going to be scientifically provable, but arguably you can never apply the same standard to convicting someone of the crime you are deciding whether to release them of or not (I swear that sentence makes sense if you read it right!).

And yes - on the whole, I would prefer them to err on the side of caution, but in the end it has to be down to the person/people in the room. If they believe, to the best of their ability, judgement, knowledge and experience, that Person A is no longer a danger to their fellow man, than Person A should be released.

And I would not call that guesswork - I would call it very well educated experience. In the same way that when I write software, test it, debug it, test it again and then give it to a customer and it runs for 30 years that was not just me guessing that it would work - it was my educated experience. (Not the best of analogies I know).

Indeed it wasn't. I appreciate your thought out opinion, but I disagree with it on a simple metric: computers can't lie to you. You can misread the results, and you can even program them to be deceptive, but a set of codes, regardless of complexity, cannot lie. Humans can. Imagine that your mindset is that your ethnicity as a whole is in danger of depopulation and that the only solution is the 'final' one. You would do any and everything you could to be released in a manner to allow you to commit whatever atrocity you did once again. This includes deliberate deception, and one that would fool a 'panel of experts'.

[Calladan]

That was pretty much my point : they determine to the best of their ability whether Person A is safe to be released. And yes - it is never going to be scientifically provable, but arguably you can never apply the same standard to convicting someone of the crime you are deciding whether to release them of or not (I swear that sentence makes sense if you read it right!).

And yes - on the whole, I would prefer them to err on the side of caution, but in the end it has to be down to the person/people in the room. If they believe, to the best of their ability, judgement, knowledge and experience, that Person A is no longer a danger to their fellow man, than Person A should be released.

And I would not call that guesswork - I would call it very well educated experience. In the same way that when I write software, test it, debug it, test it again and then give it to a customer and it runs for 30 years that was not just me guessing that it would work - it was my educated experience. (Not the best of analogies I know).

Indeed it wasn't. I appreciate your thought out opinion, but I disagree with it on a simple metric: computers can't lie to you. You can misread the results, and you can even program them to be deceptive, but a set of codes, regardless of complexity, cannot lie. Humans can. Imagine that your mindset is that your ethnicity as a whole is in danger of depopulation and that the only solution is the 'final' one. You would do any and everything you could to be released in a manner to allow you to commit whatever atrocity you did once again. This includes deliberate deception, and one that would fool a 'panel of experts'.

But here is where my analogy comes into its own in a glorious way :-

I wasn't talking about computers lying to you - I was talking about the code not running in production.

(Anyone who has worked in software programming for any length of time will tell you that you can test and test and test and test until you are blue in the face, but the moment you release the code to the customer, they will do something totally unexpected - something you could never imagine someone doing - and it will break the code and produce a bug you have to fix. Or there will be some new data that you hadn't taken account of because you didn't know about it, and that will produce a bug that you have to fix. So while you produced the code to the best of your ability - using all your knowledge, experience and judgement - there was still a problem in the outside world).

And when I wrote my post and my analogy, that was what was in my mind, because that is what I was thinking about. But clearly you took it another way - a way I hadn't thought of (because I just didn't consider the idea that someone might think that I might think computers could lie to me) and so pointed out a flaw in my argument.

Which is EXACTLY what we were talking about -- that experts can use their best judgement, with all their experience, knowledge and wisdom -- and yet still something might happen once Person A is released that they could not have foreseen.

Which was your point, and was my point (I swear it was my point).

I think the only thing we differ on is that I am willing to accept that - if the panel of experts that are lined up on any given day all agree that Person A is safe to be released, then Person A should be released, where as (if I understand you correctly) you don't think that they should?

[Zakuvia]

Indeed it wasn't. I appreciate your thought out opinion, but I disagree with it on a simple metric: computers can't lie to you. You can misread the results, and you can even program them to be deceptive, but a set of codes, regardless of complexity, cannot lie. Humans can. Imagine that your mindset is that your ethnicity as a whole is in danger of depopulation and that the only solution is the 'final' one. You would do any and everything you could to be released in a manner to allow you to commit whatever atrocity you did once again. This includes deliberate deception, and one that would fool a 'panel of experts'.

But here is where my analogy comes into its own in a glorious way :-

I wasn't talking about computers lying to you - I was talking about the code not running in production.

(Anyone who has worked in software programming for any length of time will tell you that you can test and test and test and test until you are blue in the face, but the moment you release the code to the customer, they will do something totally unexpected - something you could never imagine someone doing - and it will break the code and produce a bug you have to fix. Or there will be some new data that you hadn't taken account of because you didn't know about it, and that will produce a bug that you have to fix. So while you produced the code to the best of your ability - using all your knowledge, experience and judgement - there was still a problem in the outside world).

And when I wrote my post and my analogy, that was what was in my mind, because that is what I was thinking about. But clearly you took it another way - a way I hadn't thought of (because I just didn't consider the idea that someone might think that I might think computers could lie to me) and so pointed out a flaw in my argument.

Which is EXACTLY what we were talking about -- that experts can use their best judgement, with all their experience, knowledge and wisdom -- and yet still something might happen once Person A is released that they could not have foreseen.

Which was your point, and was my point (I swear it was my point).

I think the only thing we differ on is that I am willing to accept that - if the panel of experts that are lined up on any given day all agree that Person A is safe to be released, then Person A should be released, where as (if I understand you correctly) you don't think that they should?

Correctamundo! (If I had that Pulp Fiction image, I'd post it.)

Precedent has a fairly severe impact on this. If we're talking about someone who, in a fit of rage upon seeing one's spouse with another person, shoots both dead? I don't see, after a good amount of time, that this person is dangerous to the general population, provided they do not enter into romantic relationships in the future. A person like that could be said to be safe. A man states that he is working to cleanse the population of an inferior race and guns down 19 of his choice of humans? That person cannot ever again be considered to be safe.

[Calladan]

But here is where my analogy comes into its own in a glorious way :-

I wasn't talking about computers lying to you - I was talking about the code not running in production.

(Anyone who has worked in software programming for any length of time will tell you that you can test and test and test and test until you are blue in the face, but the moment you release the code to the customer, they will do something totally unexpected - something you could never imagine someone doing - and it will break the code and produce a bug you have to fix. Or there will be some new data that you hadn't taken account of because you didn't know about it, and that will produce a bug that you have to fix. So while you produced the code to the best of your ability - using all your knowledge, experience and judgement - there was still a problem in the outside world).

And when I wrote my post and my analogy, that was what was in my mind, because that is what I was thinking about. But clearly you took it another way - a way I hadn't thought of (because I just didn't consider the idea that someone might think that I might think computers could lie to me) and so pointed out a flaw in my argument.

Which is EXACTLY what we were talking about -- that experts can use their best judgement, with all their experience, knowledge and wisdom -- and yet still something might happen once Person A is released that they could not have foreseen.

Which was your point, and was my point (I swear it was my point).

I think the only thing we differ on is that I am willing to accept that - if the panel of experts that are lined up on any given day all agree that Person A is safe to be released, then Person A should be released, where as (if I understand you correctly) you don't think that they should?

Correctamundo! (If I had that Pulp Fiction image, I'd post it.)

Precedent has a fairly severe impact on this. If we're talking about someone who, in a fit of rage upon seeing one's spouse with another person, shoots both dead? I don't see, after a good amount of time, that this person is dangerous to the general population, provided they do not enter into romantic relationships in the future. A person like that could be said to be safe. A man states that he is working to cleanse the population of an inferior race and guns down 19 of his choice of humans? That person cannot ever again be considered to be safe.

But - just to play Devil's advocate for a moment (because I don't necessarily disagree) - the second person is going to be universally known. To law enforcement and to the general public. So if he is released, then he will be on probation for the rest of his life, and will be kept under close watch for all of that time, limiting the amount of damage he could do when out in the world. And given that the release date for this (hypothetical) person (since we are clearly not discussing anyone in particular!) would be WAY in the future - when they are 60/70/80 - then that makes it even more unlikely they are going to be dangerous and able to do anything other than rant about the damn blacks and their damn evil ways.

So (again - Devil's advocate) it might be that they can be suitable for release way in the future simply because the chances of them actually being able to do anything bad are so small (with the law enforcement, the media, the public and so on) that the actual danger to society is zero. In fact, it might be safer NOT to release them because if they are ever returned to the community THEIR life could be in danger from the relatives of the victims. (But that opens up a whole other topic which is probably best not to go in to!)

As to whether I agree/disagree - I would still say that such a person deserves to be regularly reviewed, and be treated the same way that the first person is treated. That yes, the crime and circumstances are taken in to account during the review, but that the state doesn't just look at the crime for the first person and say "we will review this person every five years (or whatever period) and judge if they are fit for release" then look at the second person and say "Nope - never getting out".

If the second person is reviewed and still judged as dangerous, then yeah - don't release them, obviously. But still - carry out the reviews. Because otherwise it strikes me as just... wrong. (I am not a fan of "life without chance of release" - as I said previously it is inhumane and barbaric and not what a civilised system should be about).

[Zakuvia]

Correctamundo! (If I had that Pulp Fiction image, I'd post it.)

Precedent has a fairly severe impact on this. If we're talking about someone who, in a fit of rage upon seeing one's spouse with another person, shoots both dead? I don't see, after a good amount of time, that this person is dangerous to the general population, provided they do not enter into romantic relationships in the future. A person like that could be said to be safe. A man states that he is working to cleanse the population of an inferior race and guns down 19 of his choice of humans? That person cannot ever again be considered to be safe.

But - just to play Devil's advocate for a moment (because I don't necessarily disagree) - the second person is going to be universally known. To law enforcement and to the general public. So if he is released, then he will be on probation for the rest of his life, and will be kept under close watch for all of that time, limiting the amount of damage he could do when out in the world. And given that the release date for this (hypothetical) person (since we are clearly not discussing anyone in particular!) would be WAY in the future - when they are 60/70/80 - then that makes it even more unlikely they are going to be dangerous and able to do anything other than rant about the damn blacks and their damn evil ways.

So (again - Devil's advocate) it might be that they can be suitable for release way in the future simply because the chances of them actually being able to do anything bad are so small (with the law enforcement, the media, the public and so on) that the actual danger to society is zero. In fact, it might be safer NOT to release them because if they are ever returned to the community THEIR life could be in danger from the relatives of the victims. (But that opens up a whole other topic which is probably best not to go in to!)

As to whether I agree/disagree - I would still say that such a person deserves to be regularly reviewed, and be treated the same way that the first person is treated. That yes, the crime and circumstances are taken in to account during the review, but that the state doesn't just look at the crime for the first person and say "we will review this person every five years (or whatever period) and judge if they are fit for release" then look at the second person and say "Nope - never getting out".

If the second person is reviewed and still judged as dangerous, then yeah - don't release them, obviously. But still - carry out the reviews. Because otherwise it strikes me as just... wrong. (I am not a fan of "life without chance of release" - as I said previously it is inhumane and barbaric and not what a civilised system should be about).

I'm of the mind that people are taught that actions have consequences, and ultimate actions towards a person deserve ultimate consequences. I've moved away, as I've said, from saying that executions are permissible in these cases, but I cannot in good conscious state that I would abolish life imprisonment. What that sets is an idea that no crime, regardless of traumatic effect or egregious loss of life, has an ultimate punishment. At some point, I, as a now maliciously motivated actor, could take the life and wellbeing away from as many people as I like and, so long as my internment wasn't with someone like the Hellraiser guy, I could still net a gain in terms of life lived freely in old age more than I offered any of my victims. I have no concept of an afterlife, so the idea of taking lives is repugnant to me, and the act of doing so should be discouraged as publicly as is possible. This doesn't influence crimes of passion, I well understand. This is for people conceiving of premeditated murder.

As for the DA portion, what would be the point of releasing a person that old when they've already made themselves worthless to society by committing an act that not only removes them from society during their worthwhile years, but also leaves them living in a scenario akin to 1984 set in a retirement home? At what point would it be any different from them living their senile years in captivity, where their odds of committing offenses against the public are reduced to zero, when there's still a ghost of a fraction that it could still happen otherwise?

[Calladan]

But - just to play Devil's advocate for a moment (because I don't necessarily disagree) - the second person is going to be universally known. To law enforcement and to the general public. So if he is released, then he will be on probation for the rest of his life, and will be kept under close watch for all of that time, limiting the amount of damage he could do when out in the world. And given that the release date for this (hypothetical) person (since we are clearly not discussing anyone in particular!) would be WAY in the future - when they are 60/70/80 - then that makes it even more unlikely they are going to be dangerous and able to do anything other than rant about the damn blacks and their damn evil ways.

So (again - Devil's advocate) it might be that they can be suitable for release way in the future simply because the chances of them actually being able to do anything bad are so small (with the law enforcement, the media, the public and so on) that the actual danger to society is zero. In fact, it might be safer NOT to release them because if they are ever returned to the community THEIR life could be in danger from the relatives of the victims. (But that opens up a whole other topic which is probably best not to go in to!)

As to whether I agree/disagree - I would still say that such a person deserves to be regularly reviewed, and be treated the same way that the first person is treated. That yes, the crime and circumstances are taken in to account during the review, but that the state doesn't just look at the crime for the first person and say "we will review this person every five years (or whatever period) and judge if they are fit for release" then look at the second person and say "Nope - never getting out".

If the second person is reviewed and still judged as dangerous, then yeah - don't release them, obviously. But still - carry out the reviews. Because otherwise it strikes me as just... wrong. (I am not a fan of "life without chance of release" - as I said previously it is inhumane and barbaric and not what a civilised system should be about).

I'm of the mind that people are taught that actions have consequences, and ultimate actions towards a person deserve ultimate consequences. I've moved away, as I've said, from saying that executions are permissible in these cases, but I cannot in good conscious state that I would abolish life imprisonment. What that sets is an idea that no crime, regardless of traumatic effect or egregious loss of life, has an ultimate punishment. At some point, I, as a now maliciously motivated actor, could take the life and wellbeing away from as many people as I like and, so long as my internment wasn't with someone like the Hellraiser guy, I could still net a gain in terms of life lived freely in old age more than I offered any of my victims. I have no concept of an afterlife, so the idea of taking lives is repugnant to me, and the act of doing so should be discouraged as publicly as is possible. This doesn't influence crimes of passion, I well understand. This is for people conceiving of premeditated murder.

But to some extent that still has the same effect as the death penalty - you can only give someone life imprisonment once. So if you (an abstract you - not you personally!) decide to kill one person because you think it's fun, and you KNOW you will spend the rest of your life in jail regardless, then what is to stop you from killing a dozen more because they can't put you in prison for any longer than the rest of your life? (In the same way that if they execute you for killing one person, they can't execute you twice for killing two).

As for the DA portion, what would be the point of releasing a person that old when they've already made themselves worthless to society by committing an act that not only removes them from society during their worthwhile years, but also leaves them living in a scenario akin to 1984 set in a retirement home? At what point would it be any different from them living their senile years in captivity, where their odds of committing offenses against the public are reduced to zero, when there's still a ghost of a fraction that it could still happen otherwise?

My hope (and I admit it might be somewhat hippy-dippy and dreamlike) is that they will become a useful member of society when released - helping the society they wronged so many years before. And - at the very least - they will be free. And I know I said they would be watched, but I didn't mean in a 1984 kind of way - I just meant if they tried to buy a gun, or explosives, or started getting involved in racist gangs or the like, the authorities would probably realise and do something about it - maybe send them back to jail (which is, from what I understand, a standard punishment for violating probation in the UK. I can't speak to the US or other countries obviously). But they would be free to live their lives as normal citizens, which I think - at 60, 70, 80 - is what most people would want.

[Ifreann]

P.S. And even then, if there was a reliable test that actually could show that someone isn't dangerous, there's the little problem that they've elected to take others' lives, for no reason other than their personal desire to do so. Do we really want a society where it's a choice you're permitted to make?

I don't think that sentencing murderers who would otherwise be executed to an indefinite period in prison and only releasing them when the relevant authorities are satisfied that they are no longer a danger to society counts as giving them permission to murder people.

[Salandriagado]

If what is constitutional changes as a result of their decisions, then they are, in fact, amending it.

No they are altering the interpretation of what is written. There have been no changes or additions to the the Constitution itself

In which case, I stand by my original assertion: the death penalty is unconstitutional, and the Supreme Court will rule it as such at some point in the future, thereby making it always unconstitutional.

[Scandinavian Nations]

That was pretty much my point : they determine to the best of their ability whether Person A is safe to be released.

Screw the best of their ability. They're not students in high school.

All that matters is the results: that they don't make our society worse.

You wouldn't go to your neighbor with a non-life-threatening medical problem and ask him to treat you to the best of his ability, would you?
A decision doesn't have to be made. If their ability isn't good enough, they shouldn't do anything.

You can prove your actions don't increase the crime level by showing that the people you've released don't have an above average crime rate. Or, at worst, stay within a single standard deviation of the mean, or whatever we deep acceptable.

Right now, the homicide rate for ex-cons exceeds the population average by well over an order of magnitude.
In other words, the best of their ability is a crapshoot. For the non-native speakers, the term doesn't imply they're tossing their crap at a wall (though they might as well do that); it means they're about as accurate as a "skilled" dice player.

[AiliailiA]

A stranger was made welcome in a church. Call it a church, a mosque, a temple or a shrine, it's all the same. There is pitifully little good advice or preserved knowledge in any religion, most of the culture is just pointless rituals to demonstrate adherence, of each follower to all the others.

Religions to me, are like ethnic minorities. Their food is interesting. There is singing and dancing, which is interesting. I'm all up for incorporating their food and their festivities into my multicultural society. But giving up the many fun things I do, which are against their religion or their culture? No. Multiculturalism is good, if it allows us all to experience new and different things, if it gives each of us individually more freedom to choose between (and take from, by choice) all the different cultures which we would never have been exposed to in a monocultural society. Multicultarlism is bringing the world to us (or a suburb near us, where we could easily and safely visit) but it's not about forcing anyone to live by the rules of some other culture.

It's really disappointing to me, that Dylann Roof sat so long in the church listening to the sermon and the contributions of the parishioners, and then murdered them. It's like he tested his resolve to kill, by spending some time to get to know his victims ... then he killed them anyway, like he meant to do when he went in. That's worse than just killing people at random. Excuse me, if I deprecate the propaganda word, but that is worse than terrorism.

Actually, lots of things are worse than terrorism.

I don't fit General any more. I'm too old, I'm too slow. I take too many word to express common ideas. When I attempt a neologism to express an uncommon idea in one or two words, it falls on deaf years.

<Pause>

I oppose the death penalty on principle. Government should not kill any citizen: it's really quite fundamental to my idea of just government. I'm for big government, big in the economy, around fifty percent of GDP passing through government hands as taxation and spending. Income redistribution, welfare state, being most of that, but some punitive taxation and industry subsidies too. Capitalism is the main game, government gets things done by spending money, government represents ALL the people not just those with lots of money to spend. So of course, a democratic government is a socialist government, it spends money it did not earn but rather seized by the popular will. Taxes.

THAT is the role of government. In a world which could quite easily be ruled by capitalism, by exchange of money for goods and services, government of each nation, using old-fashioned police and military and archaic laws, are the only viable opposition. National governments are the shrinking but still formidable expression of the People's will. Clumsy, inefficient, corrupt, but still better than no opposition at all.

Capitalism red in tooth and claw would be worse. It would be far worse, it would cause far more human suffering than the stupid wars our misguided governments get into, trying to defend broad (stupid, but at least predictable) national interests.

Governments should not kill their own citizens. However you define "freedom", being dead is the opposite of it.

[Calladan]

That was pretty much my point : they determine to the best of their ability whether Person A is safe to be released.

Screw the best of their ability. They're not students in high school.

All that matters is the results: that they don't make our society worse.

You wouldn't go to your neighbor with a non-life-threatening medical problem and ask him to treat you to the best of his ability, would you?
A decision doesn't have to be made. If their ability isn't good enough, they shouldn't do anything.

You can prove your actions don't increase the crime level by showing that the people you've released don't have an above average crime rate. Or, at worst, stay within a single standard deviation of the mean, or whatever we deep acceptable.

Right now, the homicide rate for ex-cons exceeds the population average by well over an order of magnitude.
In other words, the best of their ability is a crapshoot. For the non-native speakers, the term doesn't imply they're tossing their crap at a wall (though they might as well do that); it means they're about as accurate as a "skilled" dice player.

With all due respect, bollocks to that.

In the UK (and the US as far as I know) people are put in jail - possibly for the rest of their life - based on them being guilty beyond reasonable doubt. Twelve people - twelve men and women - are asked, to the best of their ability, to judge whether Person A is guilty of murder beyond a certain standard of proof. And those twelve men and women are not experts in criminal law, psychology, police procedure or anything else - they are just twelve men and women taken off the street and stuck in a court room more or less at random.

So if the legal system is willing to let twelve strangers decide whether someone can be sent to jail, then I think asking TRAINED PSYCHOLOGISTS to make their best judgement, using all their experience and all the knowledge, as to whether Person A is now a danger to the public or not is not something that is a crap shoot and is not something that is random or something that is idiotic or stupid. Not compared to the jury system that put Person A in prison in the first place.

And if you are going to make statements like "the homicide rate for ex-cons exceeds the population average by well over an order of magnitude" I would ask you to provide statistics and back it up with facts from actual government sites, otherwise I will just assume you are making the statistic up and ignore it (no offence).

Finally - the point about going to my neighbour with a medical problem is equally bollocks. Because I am not talking about letting random people off the street decide whether to let someone out of prison, I am talking about psychiatrists, psychologists and people who have training in dealing with murderers, mass murderers and other killers. A more legitimate comparison would be to ask me if I had a non-life threatening medical problem and went to doctors at St Barts, or Great Ormand Street or my Local GP and asked THEM do to treat me to the best of their ability. And - to answer THAT comparison - yes, I would be happy to do that. (And before you ask, St Barts is a hospital in London that is fairly well known and Great Ormand Street is one of the most famous children's hospitals in the world).