tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14162253.post1743635395961077897..comments2024-03-28T18:57:15.124-06:00Comments on Wash Park Prophet: California's Death Penalty Held UnconstitutionalAndrew Oh-Willekehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537151821869153861noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14162253.post-29090955547225119262014-08-22T22:49:26.507-06:002014-08-22T22:49:26.507-06:00It was announced today that California's attor...<br />It was announced today that California's attorney general, despite being a personal opponent of the death penalty, will appeal the ruling to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. News reports have claimed that an appellate ruling would bind the entire circuit, which is technically true but deceptive, as the factual basis for the ruling is very specific to California.andrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08172964121659914379noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14162253.post-50551160730400490072014-07-18T17:14:22.286-06:002014-07-18T17:14:22.286-06:00Indeed. Honestly, I'm not opposed in principl...Indeed. Honestly, I'm not opposed in principle to capital punishment, and I could care less about the manner in which it is imposed, but from a strictly utilitarian perspective it makes no sense. A core original idea of executions was economically motivated - it was cheaper to execute someone promptly than to pay government officials to house large numbers of people for life, or at least, very long periods of time. Murderers were so useless to society that it wasn't worth spending the money to provide them free room and board for years to keep them out of circulation in society - unless, of course, they were hereditary nobles. A system that spends more money on unredeemable people, rather than less, has skewed priorities.<br /><br />Of course, there are also problems that the process itself. Particularly (1) plea bargains of non-guilty parties induced by exposure to a potential death penalty, (2) incompetent and underfunded defense counsel assigned to these cases (some of the cases upheld in Texas and other Southern states are particularly egregious in this regard), (3) prosecutorial ethical violations in not disclosing exculpatory evidence, (4) "death qualified juries" that have a built in prosecution bias relative to other criminal juries, and (5) inadequate processes for assessing exonerating evidence discovered after conviction, mean that the accuracy of guilty verdicts is lower rather than higher in death penalty cases.<br /><br />andrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08172964121659914379noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14162253.post-58245581277210425892014-07-17T07:15:06.813-06:002014-07-17T07:15:06.813-06:00To me, the most interesting takeaway from this is ...To me, the most interesting takeaway from this is the COST of executions.<br />$308M/execution in California.Dave Barneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07355264650239868491noreply@blogger.com