I'm a respectful agnostic who views human society as a complex system. Systems respond to meaningful inputs. The decision to execute or not is an input to the system. What is the result of the default decision, which is generally not to execute, versus what it might be were we serious about executing people, applying the death penalty in a meaningful way?
I met a man one time who worked in the federal prison system. We got to talking and I asked him if he believed in the electric chair. "No," he said, "electric bleachers."
That's the problem with the death penalty in the United States. It is not used properly. To be effective, the death penalty must be used, not threatened.
Criminals to which this new law would apply would be the really bad ones. Serial killers, contract killers, predatory gangsters, kidnappers, spies, bombers, torturers and rapists. Organized criminals illegally dumping hazardous waste, running extortion rackets, kidnappings and the like. Habitual criminals are, by definition, antisocial, and society ought to be more anticriminal.
The new law must not be ruined, though, as three-strikes was ruined in California by lack of common sense. A person who steals a pizza ought not go to jail for life. Likewise, a pornographer ought not be executed.
Notice that the new law, and the death penalty for violation of the new status crime, would have nothing to do with any paticular crime. The candidate for execution would be charged with being a bad criminal, not for the crime he was just convicted of. He demonstrated himself to be a bad criminal by meeting the standard of the new law. If a jury convicts on the new charge the penalty is death.
There's nothing new here. On jury duty a few years ago we convicted a gangster of drive-by murder. After the first trial we immediately went into a second trial and convicted him of a status crime. Conviction during the second trial, which depended on conviction during the first, affected sentencing. Well? Why not the same sort of status crime idea applicable to the very worst?
Sometimes a mistake will be made. It is simply true that life is not fair and mistakes are made. People die applying the law and keeping order. Usually it's the police, prosecutors and judges who come under the gun. Occasionally innocent citizens die.
Casualties of all kinds, including those wrongly executed, should be kept to an absolute minimum, like friendly fire accidents in war. Recognition that these types of casualties occur, and a process to minimize all such losses, would be required before proper use of the death penalty became fact. "Justos pagan por pecadores," was something my great grandfather would say, and he was right. The just pay for the sinners.
It seems hopeless to consider execution of large numbers of people. It'll never happen in this country until conditions are truly bad. The inability to carry out large numbes of justified executions may hasten the arrival of those truly bad conditions. In the meantime, as a function of increasing population density, there is proportionately less and less room for these abusive people. Oh, well....
