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stella41b -> RE: Japan hangs three death-row inmates (2/1/2008 7:28:56 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: slaveboyforyou
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080201/ap_on_re_as/japan_executions
I hear all the time how the U.S. is the only western democracy that still has the death penalty, which is true. But I have always thought that was an ethnocentric, racist thing to say. Japan is the world's second wealthiest country, but no one ever mentions the fact that they have a strict criminal justice system. They also have one of the world's lowest crime rates. But apparently it doesn't matter. They aren't included in the discussion. I guess they are just nothing but slant-eyed savages in the minds of death penalty opponents.
What has the death penalty got to do with crime rates?
This is a logical fallacy supporters of the death penalty have, that people commit capital crimes knowing they're going to get the death penalty. This is quite naive when you consider the two stage capital trial process after Furman 1976, the work of the NCADP, the DPIC, and a few dozen American Supreme Court judgments such as Lockett vs Ohio, Edmunds vs Florida, and so on.
Yes, 38 states have the death penalty in their legislation, but only about six or eight states actively use it, including Texas and Virginia which together account for nearly half of all the executions carried out in the US, and there are only three counties in the entire country where state prosecutors routinely seek the death penalty, one is in Pennsylvania and the other two in Texas, one of which is Harris County.
Interesting to see also the effect that the American Medical Association's stance on medical professionals who take part in executions is having on the death penalty and its significant drop in the number of executions being carried out. States are finding it increasingly difficult to find technicians or medical professionals prepared to train prison staff for the 'IV 101' procedure which forms an essential part of the execution protocol for lethal injections. They are also finding it extremely difficult to find physicians willing to attend executions to carry out examinations of executed prisoners.
Some of these 38 states have already moved firmly in the direction of abolition - Illinois, New York, and New Jersey to give but three examples.
Incidentally China has also adopted lethal injection as its main method of execution and these executions are carried out in mobile death units such as ambulances and buses.
However I fail to see any sort of logical connection between the death penalty, crime rates and the wealth of a nation.
As for the poster above who's advocating more diverse and 'peculiar' methods of execution in the US there are already five different methods of execution legislated for - how many more methods do you need? However there's such a thing known as the Eighth Amendment of the US Constitution protecting people against 'cruel and unusual' punishments.
The whole purpose of the death penalty is to carry out sentence of death as quickly and humanely as possible, if ever you can have such a thing as a humane execution. I worry about the mentality of these people calling for more diverse and peculiar executions. I really do.
If there was any logical basis for having the death penalty in today's society then maybe it would be more widespread. But I think the simple fact that the majority of countries in the world having abolished the death penalty tends to speak for itself.
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