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Comment by nemothekid | Hacker News Reader

It's unfortunate that a lot of the messaging has shifted to he's innocent, where I believe the right message (and far less viral message), is the government has not shown enough evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that the death penalty is warranted. I don't believe in the death penalty because I don't think the state should have the authority to execute citizens and even moreso when a very high bar of culpability hasn't been reached.

In this quest for vengeance I think people forget these rules are in place for the State to not abuse it's powers. I'm not against the death penalty because I'm a hippy vegan. I'm against it because I don't think it's a power the state should be able to wield.

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> I believe the right message (and far less viral message), is the government has not shown enough evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that the death penalty is warranted.

The jury makes that determination after being locked in a room and forced to hear both sides and all the evidence. How much of the evidence are you aware of? What The Innocence Project posted?

This thread is full of people who are anti-death penalty who don't think some guy should be executed. That's hardly a surprise, but it has nothing to do with the evidence presented by the state.

The prosecutor's office and the victim's family both pushed to stop the execution due to reasonable doubt. Think they might have an idea of the available evidence?

The previous governor had begun an inquiry into the matter but the new governor shut that board down and blocked any and all attempts to halt the execution.

No, a prosecutor at no point argued that this guy was not guilty. Nobody argued that, except dishonest activists who lied to you. All prosecutor offered was commuting the death penalty to life without parole.

In addition, I don’t see how a random prosecutor’s opinion is relevant. If this was the original prosecutor who prosecuted the case, then it would have some evidentiary value. In this case, this is just some guy with zero connection to the original case. Why should we care what he believes, over opinion of hundreds of prosecutors in this country who are happy that the justice has finally been served?

The exact words of the person you're replying to were

> The prosecutor's office and the victim's family both pushed to stop the execution due to reasonable doubt.

Nobody claimed the prosecutor argued he's not guilty.

> Why should we care what he believes, over opinion of hundreds of prosecutors in this country who are happy that the justice has finally been served?

Because he's correct. The State doesn't have enough evidence to justify execution. Justice isn't being served by executing this man.

The victim's family do not believe in the death penalty, I have not seen anywhere that they doubt his guilt.

> This thread is full of people who are anti-death penalty

Who even argues in favor of it? What studies shows that the death penalty is effective? Who has done cost benefit analysis for civic life to have the government executing people generally speaking? So many truthy arguments on behalf of the death penalty.

I oppose the death penalty, but social policies should not be based on the outcome of cost/benefit analysis. If they were, executions would be used far more, on much less serious crimes, given rates of recidivism and revictimisation amongst certain crime types.

Cost benefit analysis wouldn't shake out in favor o execution on serious crimes due to add on effects.

Cost benefit analysis and evidence based policy making would lead to a restorative justice system.

Rehabilitation has not been shown to work regularly in practice, particularly for criminals with long criminal histories (such as Marcellus Williams). The primary benefit of incarceration is incapacitation - keeping repeat criminals off the streets.

Personally, I would make prison conditions less harsh, as long as we could guarantee that repeat criminals would stay in prison until they reach the age at which aggression has declined enough that they’re unlikely to impulsively commit crimes. That might have to be 50+ years old. Then they should be released with a UBI. Most people who would get sent to prison for decades after a life of crime were never suitable employees in the first place, and they’ll be even less so after prison. However, they should have enough money to live a life of dignity after prison, and if they can keep a job, they should keep all that money too.

> Rehabilitation has not been shown to work regularly in practice

It works when it's done right [0].

One of the main reasons it fails to work is when the justice system itself is perceived as unfair [0]. So, things like inconsistently applied sentencing (!), systemic racism (!), over-the-top punishments (!) even in cases with significant doubt (!), etc...

0 - https://www.innovatingjustice.org/sites/default/files/docume...

Cost benefit analysis would likely trace back to root causes in the same way it's cheaper to fix a bug before it gets shipped.

There's a great TED talk from a lawyer who was looking to reduce death penalty executions, who realised the best way to do that would be to reduce the number of murders and the best way to do that was to support kids and families with problems due to poverty and poor mental health.

The childhood anecdote from the guy he was working with that got executed has stayed with me for over a decade now:

https://youtu.be/HYzrdn7YLCM?si=ehMUoSFbLvQt_h3F

>How much of the evidence are you aware of?

I'm aware of the evidence - the lack of direct evidence is why I'm arguing against the death penalty. Again, I don't think the guy should be set free as it's credible he committed the murder. I'm against the state generally, and especially when there's no direct evidence, executing a defendant.

>This thread is full of people who are anti-death penalty who don't think some guy should be executed. > That's hardly a surprise, but it has nothing to do with the evidence presented by the state.

Again, call me a "small government" freak, but I think the cases in when the state should be allowed to execute someone is vanishingly small. I don't think anyone should live in a state that is allowed to execute someone based entirely on testimony.

"In this quest for vengeance I think people forget these rules are in place for the State to not abuse it's powers. I'm not against the death penalty because I'm a hippy vegan. I'm against it because I don't think it's a power the state should be able to wield."

I am not sure what the US tries to achieve with the death penalty. Deterrence? Seems not to work. And EU countries have much lower violent crime. Even if they have assault rifles at home (Switzerland). Revenge? An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.

> not sure what the US tries to achieve with the death penalty. Deterrence?

Retribution, incapacitation and deterrence [1]. (In my opinion, in that order.)

[1] https://www.bsslawllc.com/blog/2021/12/the-four-pillars-of-s...

> the government has not shown enough evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that the death penalty is warranted

The jury only provided the unanimous guilty verdict. After that point, the defendant has been declared guilty beyond all reasonable doubt by the state, and it's up to the judge to determine the appropriate punishment for someone guilty of the crime of 1st degree murder, robbery, etc.

It's possible that some on the jury did not want the death penalty, but were not ready to acquit.

> I'm against it because I don't think it's a power the state should be able to wield.

To your point, the Innocence Project claims 251 exonerations, with ~9% (22) exonerations coming after the death penalty had already occured. The IP reported receiving 65,600 letters for assistance, so around ~0.4% of all requests for help were later proven to be wrongful convictions. There are currently around 2,200 prisoners on Death Row (https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/death-row/overview/death-row-us...). Assuming the ~0.4% wrongful conviction rate is representative for this population, that would be around 8-9 people. Some States have paused executions, and the US executes about ~20 people per year. So that would be a wrongful execution every ~12.5 years on average, again if these percentages are representative of death row convictions.

Friend, this is completely the wrong math on so many levels!

I don't even know where to start... these numbers are not even remotely representative of anything about the larger prison population.

    The IP reported receiving 65,600 letters for 
    assistance, so around ~0.4% of all requests 
    for help were later proven to be wrongful convictions. 

    [...]

    Assuming the ~0.4% wrongful conviction rate is 
    representative for this population

For this to be even remotely representative of the overall wrongful conviction rate, this would mean that the IP thoroughly investigated and pursued all 65,600 cases and that new and completely fair trials were conducted in all 65,600 cases.

- The 251 exonerations were obtained by pursuing only a small fraction of those 65,600 cases. Presumably ones where they felt most certain of overturning the conviction.

- The 65,600 letter-writers are surely not representative of the overall prison population; this is a subset of convicts who have the resources to know about the IP and get a letter to them, with some kind of self-belief in their own innocence

- While apparently not true in this case the standards for death sentences tend to be higher than those for other convictions because they are so likely to be appealed, so the percentage of wrongfully convicted people on Death Row is likely to be different than that of the general convict population

- etc etc etc

I don't think your numbers are correct even as a back-of-the-envelope Fermi equation sort of estimate...

Sure, it’s a ballpark, but in the context of a conversation about how many innocent people are being executed, I think the wrongful conviction rate of the entire prison population is less relevant than a ballpark rate of those wrongfully sentenced to life/death. For example, if the wrongful conviction rate for minor offenses or white collar crimes was as high as 10%, it wouldn’t necessarily indicate that 10% of people sentenced to death were also wrongfully convicted. Its very possible that juries dealing with more serious crimes and more serious punishments are more careful in their decisions or innately require a higher burden of proof to convict.

I assumed that most of the letters received by the IP are for life/death sentences or at least major crimes with multi-decade long sentences, which I think would probably have a more consistent wrongful conviction rate in the group vs. the entire prison population.

And while you’re right that the IP might only have the resources to attempt to overturn the top X% cases, one could assume that they don’t win all their cases and that the next tier of cases they don’t accept would have diminishing returns.

So I think it’s fair to treat this estimate as closer to a lower bound with some significant error bars, but I’d be surprised if the reality is 5x or 10x higher.

> The jury only provided the unanimous guilty verdict. After that point, the defendant has been declared guilty beyond all reasonable doubt by the state, and it's up to the judge to determine the appropriate punishment for someone guilty of the crime of 1st degree murder, robbery, etc.

In Missouri (as in most US States with capital punishment), the death penalty must separately be approved by the jury after the jury convicts.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the_Un...

Thank you, I learned something new. And overall if you’re going to have the death penalty , probably a better process than a single judge deciding.

> I'm against it because I don't think it's a power the state should be able to wield.

100% agree. We ought not grant the state the power to take our lives.

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