In Atkins v. Virginia, the Supreme Court prohibited states from executing anyone with "mental retardation." Mental health professionals define it as substantial limitations in intellectual functions such as reasoning or problem-solving, limitations in adaptive behavior or "street smarts," and evidence of the condition before age 18. This spring the Supreme Court will revisit their previous ruling from 12 years ago that left the details in the hands of the states. "Most likely, the case won't result in a dramatic shift in national criminal justice policy, but will further clarify who should and should not be eligible for execution", said Ronald Tabak, an attorney who has represented multiple clients with intellectual disabilities and chairs the American Bar Association's death penalty committee (article).
I think that it would definitely be best for the Supreme Court to clarify who should and should not be eligible for execution and set that standard for all of the states. The death penalty is quite a heavy punishment (The heaviest punishment.You can't really just bring someone back from the dead and have them retried.) and I think that if it is allowed in a state, no matter what state it is, the requirements should be the same. This revisit from the court won't change a whole lot for the states who still practice the death penalty, it will just set more of a standard. This topic is always a hard one. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about all of it. There are always going to be those borderline cases, and I agree with the advocates who want the Supreme Court to revisit these cases. There should be no doubts in a ruling when someone is sentenced to the death penalty. Maybe one day there will no longer be a death penalty anywhere in the United States. And maybe one day we will do more to help convicts so that they are able to function successfully in society. And then there's that impossible hope that one day people will stop doing such awful things to other people that get them sentenced to the death penalty.
I'm glad that the Supreme Court is reviewing the death penalty, even if it is just setting standards for it. The death penalty is a severe punishment and as you said, you can't bring a dead person back to life and retry them. That's why the death penalty should be heavily reviewed, and there should be undeniable evidence that proves they have committed such a deserving act. Otherwise, if a person is wrongly convicted and receives the death penalty, that is injustice that can never be mitigated or alleviated.
ReplyDeletePeople should be given a chance, but I do believe some crimes should be punishable by death. For some particular crimes, death seems to be the only way of justice done for victims of such crimes. The topic becomes controversial when people say "who decides what kind of crime is deserving of the death penalty", but to me it seems logically justifiable that if you take away someone's life (of course not in accidental cases), in order to balance the scale of justice, your life must be taken away from you. However people can change and deserve second chances which is why not all murderers should be sentenced to death. What justice does the family of the murdered victim get then? Definitely a controversial topic. Seems like the decision can be very circumstantial.
Check this: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/charter/pdf/text_en.pdf
ReplyDeleteSpecifically, Article Two.
So, the consensus in the EU is that where no application of the death penalty is acceptable. This is due to the fact that the right to life is inalienable. It is always morally wrong to alienate the right to life; it is always wrong to kill. Hence, how can someone justify doing something that is always wrong to do? And more importantly, how is Capital Punishment more just than any other form of punishment. The true injustice in democratic society is when a fundamental right is violated, whether it is the state violating it or not. Hence, justice is the minimization of this violation of rights. So, when a criminal is sentenced to death, isn't that a greater injustice than when the criminal is sentenced to life in prison? Neither of these two possibilities have any detrimental side-effects; the criminal can't harm society in either one. Moreover, if a criminal has the potential to reform, and is still sentenced to life, then isn't that also a greater injustice than letting the criminal have the potential of rehabilitating? This is why all Capital, and most - if not all - forms of life sentencing is antithetical to justice; it is injustice incarnate.
I would totally agree with you Ethan, but aren't there so people that are just so manipulative that they could pretend to be "better" and then go back into society and rape, kill, etc. again?
ReplyDeleteThink about what is required in order to "pretend" you are better though. Generally, in countries where there is a mandatory limit on the initial length of sentence, such as Norway, there is also a mandatory minimum sentence. A murderer of the first degree in Norway will generally get the maximum amount of sentence one can possibly get: 21 years. Afterwards, the murderer may have his sentence lengthened in five year intervals after a mental evaluation.
ReplyDeleteSo, the murderer would have to convince those giving the mental examination that the murderer is rehabilitated. This would require the admittance of fault and subsequently regret. In addition, it would require the acting skills of a master actor. The murderer would have to live a lie for years of his time in prison.
Now, if the murderer is a just a martyr (such as a terrorist or mass shooter), then he will likely not be willing to admit regret. In fact killers in this category often want to some degree to be caught. This is because the murderer wants the glory of the kill(ings); he wants to be a martyr for whatever cause. As is the case with Anders Behring in Norway, the murderer is actually fine with the punishment and doesn't wish to shorten the sentence; the crime was his cause and his cause is done. These murderers, because they are proud of the killings, are the murderers who would fail the mental examination after the aforementioned 21 years.
In addition to what amounts to rigorous mental evaluation, the rehabilitation system in Norway is designed to rehabilitate. Prison guards in Norway have to train for three years before they can start work. They take as many classes in psychology as they do in riot control. There is even special prisons in Norway designed to simulate the real world: Prisoners are given jobs within a community and they make a currency off of that job; they then can buy things from a common shared market. Only if prisoners are treated as humans will they behave as such.