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An unfitting punishment
The recent news of an Austrian father who held his daughter captive as a sex-slave for 24 years has shocked the world. Although Josef Fritzl signed a confession admitting to the horrific crimes, “even if he is convicted of the worst offence of rape, he can only be jailed for a maximum of 15 years–nine years less than the sentence he inflicted on his own daughter.”
His case has sparked a growing clamour for a reform of Europe’s lenient penal system and debate over whether harsher U.S. style sentencing guidelines could be used to deter such heinous crimes.
“Fifteen years for destroying human lives is unacceptable,” said Harald Vilimsky, a public safety policy official with Austria’s conservative Freedom Party.
“Any punishment that falls a single day short of a life sentence is a mockery of the victims.”
Do you agree–why or why not?
back to top45 Comments to “An unfitting punishment”
This is the kind of crime where even a life sentence is unacceptable. Once proven guilty, he should be summarily executed.
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Hmmm… punishment for this?
The Cask of Amontillado comes to mind. Barring that, the next equivalent: life. It’s close enough. I rather doubt that many will come to see him, fewer if any to lament his eventual death.
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Correctimundo Make it Man. But Socialists don’t like to put people in prison or believe in punishment much at all, as this case shows, much less executing people. Their population is in serious decline so no executions and they have to import Islamfascist Muslims that want them dead rather than Mexicans that just want their land back they claim was stolen from them
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This case is absolutely horrific. These people will never have a normal life, though it will be “better.” Anything would be. And Austria had better be planning to care for these people for the rest of their lives.
For Fritzl, it probably is a life sentence because of his age, but change the facts a little and you could have a much younger person facing this lenient punishment. Suppose he had been 30 years old when his daughter was 11 and he had imprisoned her then. 30 + 24 to discovery of crime = 54 + 15 for prison, he’d be 69 on release. Change the years of confinement before discovery of the crime to a lesser amount, and he’d be younger still upon release.
The article didn’t mention how they calculate their charges or their sentences, but here he’d be subject to multiple counts of aggravated rape, false imprisonment, charges for what he did to the minors, etc. He’d never see the light of day whatever his age, even if declared incompetent or insane.
There just is no adequate punishment for this guy, even the death penalty. This is an unimaginable crime, just like Jeffrey Dahmer’s crimes were unimaginable. We know what happened to him. I doubt those working on our Sentencing Guidelines contemplated something like this either, but we have a system that would allow multiple counts, concurrent sentences, etc. How Fritzl gets only 15 years for repeated rapes and imprisoning 4 people is beyond me. They have to review how they charge people and how they sentence people over there. At least life.
If we learn anything from this, it would be to report strange behavior — and I think taking wheelbarrows of food at night into your basement is strange behavior. It is an unimaginable crime, so no charges can be lodged against that tenant, but I’d never get over not saying something.
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???
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Llama was referring to the current law which IS 15 years, so his statement stands. Look at the amount of destruction it took for Harald Vilimsky to say that they are wrong.
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Llama made a categorical statement about socialists which is false.
If I were to say “Republicans don’t care about black people,” and point to a long stretch of history during which this was largely true, you would rightly rebuke me that my categorical statement was false, bilious, and completely unhelpful to any rational discussion.
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NJLawyer, I agree with you that seeing your neighbor take wheelbarrows of food into his basement at night is weird behavior. Personally, I would find some creative way of figuring it out. Maybe it’s just my “female intuition”, though.
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#5 JJF,
Thanks for reminding people they can never ever believe what a socialist says because they are liars. It is better to watch what they do instead if you want to see the truth in socialists. In this case this man may get 15 years, if he is given the maximum sentence socialists allow. The 15 years is by no means certain, we will have to wait and see.
Never trust your life or money to what a liberal or socialist says or does. This is the only rule to remember.
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Llama,
Are you writing parody? You’d be pretty good at it.
Ok, so although the socialist says he wants the man imprisoned for at least 24 years, he doesn’t really mean that, because he’s a socialist and all socialists are liars.
Thanks for the advice, by the way. I’ll be sure to entrust my life and money to conservatives, instead. Like Donald Rumsfeld and Enron.
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JJF,
My rule has never ever failed me and is based on real world and scholastic experience and research. It certainly wasn’t free either.
It was not my fault no sane person respects or trusts whack job socialists today. But someone is as=t fault. You are blaming the wrong person. IF you believed in personal responsibility and accountability you would quickly see that someone else is responsible and accountable for this wise advice and it is not a llama.
Also, if you were not so deep in the forest so too speak you would see how your socialist ways are seen by others more fortunate than yourself not to be brainwashed by socialist propagandists and ideologues who lie to you at every turn.
It is much more liberating and free to be able to think for yourself and pursue happiness without having to walk in lockstep with thieves and whack jobs who do not have your best interest at heart. Blame you mother and father if you want to since they more than likely sent you on your miserable ways but you now know the truth so you can only blame yourself from now on.
It is not difficult to be fair, decent and honest, especially with yourself, as you think. But you are who you hang with and you are doomed until you break yourself free from mind, spirit and body killing socialists.
That is the best advice a llama can ever give a potential whack job. I’m guessing you know better though
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Llama,
If we’re going to have a fair and open discussion about criminal justice, we need to be able to look honestly at the methods and results of other nations. Blanket statements about how they (1) don’t really want to punish criminals, (2) are all liars anyway, and (3) are just brainwashed “whackjobs” are unhelpful and frankly ridiculous.
That’s no way to discuss policy. Replace each instance of “socialist” with “the Christian right” in your post and you’ll see what I mean — it reads as an illogical screed, supported by nothing but prejudice, accomplishing nothing but a vented spleen.
But this:
is sound and biblical advice (Prov. 18:17 — “The first to plead his case seems right, Until another comes and examines him”). We could all, myself definitely included, use a reminder of it now and again.
So I’ll thank you for that bit and leave out the rest.
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Well, JJF, why don’t you tell us just what the policy should be for multiple rapes and false imprisonment?
Please also discuss how the current, liberal, socialist policy only results in a 15 year sentence of multiple rapes and false imprisonment.
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Please substitute “for” instead of “of” in the last line. Sorry.
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I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know what the punishment for the repeated rape and imprisonment of one individual should be.
But I do have some small claim at being a logician, and I know that Llama’s screed about socialism was completely irrelevant and substantially false.
Anyway, I’m usually glad to pontificate on matters upon which I have no special knowledge — that’s the egalitarian beauty of teh Internets. I’d say that it is impossible to recoup this woman her losses by any kind of “tit-for-tat” punishment, so that should not be the focus of the prosecutors. In fact to do so would be to lessen the severity of his crime, to suggest that 24 years in a fairly comfortable facility well supplied with modern conveniences somehow pays this woman back for 24 years of rape and broken trust. Clearly the state cannot rape the man, nor do I believe it should kill him. So what are we left with?
The man has incurred a debt to justice that he cannot repay. Life imprisonment with no possibility of parole is the best option left him as he awaits either God’s judgment or the mercy of Christ. I personally think hard labor and no amenities (weight room, cable tv, etc.) acceptable treatment of violent prisoners, as long as they are treated with dignity and not abused.
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But JJF, the current sentence maximum for all his crimes is 15 years. The current policy in place, whatever their guidelines, provides only 15 years for the most horrific rapes or imprisonments. In the US, it would takes days to type the indictment on this guy. They’d throw the book at him and there would something like 300 plus years of penalties when all the individuals counts were tallied ensuring that he’d be kept off the streets. Our policy ensures that when you have an “unimaginable” crime, something like “we have to let you go in 15″ doesn’t happen. The socialist policy in Austria is appalling.
Of course there’s no way for this animal to repay what he’s done. You ask “what are we left with?”
Well, Austria ought to be left with a policy which, when confronted with an extreme crime should result in life imprisonment, at the least — not just 15 years! Why don’t they have such a policy? What kind of people create a criminal justice system that is so lenient that even this horrific crime only garners a 15 year sentence? What does it take for socialists to impose a sentence that realistically matches the severity of the crime? There are those who believe that focusing on feeling sorry for the criminal — which is what socialists do — allows the criminal to essentially get away with heinous crimes and that such a soft policy invites crime and doesn’t deter it. A public policy that slaps the wrist of someone like this is no policy at all.
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He should be executed. Since that apparently isn’t a legal option, give him his 15 years. But give them in solitary confinement “for his own protection” and the minimal food and water possible for life, or else let him be unprotected. (Fellow prisoners will kill him.)
Do I sound harsh? I don’t mean to be; justice requires that this man pay with his life. Nothing short of that is adequate. But if that is not allowed, let his 15 years of forfeited life be bereft of any human kindness.
And may God have mercy on his family and bring them to Himself. May God have mercy on him as well–I mean that sincerely–but the state must show no mercy. Justice is their absolute duty here.
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jjf (15): I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know what the punishment for the repeated rape and imprisonment of one individual should be.
… Clearly the state cannot rape the man, nor do I believe it should kill him.
Frank: Why do you so easily cast aside execution, which is the biblical penalty for this man’s crimes of kidnapping and forced incest?
To say you “don’t know” what this man’s penalty should be betray’s either an ignorance of or a contempt for God’s standards of criminal justice. And then you “don’t believe” he should be executed for his crimes … what is the basis for this “belief”? How does the ruler of Romans 13 “bear the sword not in vain” if he is unable to execute those criminals God says are worthy of execution?
You really don’t need to be a lawyer to determine the appropriate punishment. You just need to know and believe God’s Word.
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NJLawyer,
It is obvious that I, like you, take issue with JJF’s remarks re. appropriate punishment for this man.
But that said, I’m right there with him in his criticism of Llama’s overly broad assertion re. socialists’ views on prison and punishment.
Llama tends to see things in remarkably oversimplistic terms. E.g., if you oppose the Iraq war, Llama calls you a liberal — that’s all there is to it. And if some terrible evil occurs (as in this story), it’s almost certainly the result of socialism, even if what socialism actually is — a political-economic theory — has nothing to do with the particular evil Llama is addressing.
Take this exact topic, for example. I’ll readily grant that socialism is often propounded by socio-religio-cultural liberals, and those same liberals typically hold a biblically-faulty view of crime and punishment.
But strictly speaking, socialism as an ideology or political theory doesn’t even address the issues of crime and punishment. Additionally, in some of the stricter socialist nations, they were only too eager to imprison or even execute people, whether for both genuine biblical crimes, or for bogus crimes contrived by humanistic statists.
JJF had it exactly right at (5):
“???” indeed! Llama made an overly-broad, blanket statement about socialists that was not only false, but disproven right in the very story itself! Ironically, had Llama said “But social liberals don’t like to put people in prison or believe in punishment much at all,” this whole side conversation wouldn’t have happened, because he would have been correct.
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Llama,
Incidentally, in your view of things, what ideology/perspective do you consider to be the polar opposite of “socialism”?
IOW, if “socialism” is evil and the source of numerous evils, what “-ism” is good, and the source of countless goods?
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As you note Frank, socialism is an economic theory, but the people who support socialism and foster it are also social liberals, and I think that’s what Llama was really saying — that when you follow this economic view, odds are you are also lenient when it comes to crime, that the two go hand in had, and both things have an adverse effect over the long haul. You are hanging your hat on “strictly speaking.”
I certainly knew where Llama was coming from. I also know that JJF is NOT commenting on what it is in the socialist/socially liberal society that is Austria (and others) that came up with a criminal justice system with such a lenient punishment. And he doesn’t want to even consider it. JJF is playing dumb about with his “I don’t know.” When my niece was 2-1/2, I told her not to eat my chocolate bar. I came back later only to find an empty wrapper. I asked who ate that chocolate. She said “I don’t know” (really cute, too.) Melted evidence, however, was all over her face. She knew, and so does JJF.
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Because Old Testament law, as law, is meant only for God’s chosen people. America is not God’s chosen people. So while the OT law teaches us about the character of God and his view of justice, it does not and should not bind modern America to its rules and penalties.
In other words, I cast aside the execution of rapists for the same reason I cast aside the execution of homosexuals. Add in a deep distrust of government power and little faith in the competence of large bureaucratic systems, and I think it prudent to restrict the state to non-lethal punishments.
“The sword” is symbolic of state authority and force, not necessarily execution. Romans 13 still applies — the sword not borne in vain would be whatever punishment the state doles out, from fines to imprisonment to death.
I would balk at this, too. I know a few social liberals, and I do not think they believe punishment is an inappropriate response to willfully criminal behavior. For example, they would love to see war criminals punished, and do in fact see such punishment as fulfilling a debt to justice. I will grant that for many crimes, social liberals tend to think instead in terms of rehabilitation into or removal from society, but I do not think it would be fair to say that they “don’t believe in punishment much at all.”
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Are you asking why Austria had such a lenient sentence in the first place? I have read or heard nothing of the thought processes that went into that decision, so I reject falling back on simplistic prejudices like “Oh, it’s because they’re liberals and socialists.”
Even liberals and socialists have reasons. If I had to guess, I would say that they had some hope of rehabilitating a rapist and letting him rejoin society. I think these are ideas worthy of debate: Is it possible to rehabilitate a criminal? Is it just? But I don’t think that debate is well served by statements like “socialists don’t care about punishment.”
But let me put the question to you, since you seem to have an answer in mind. Why do you think Austria had such a lenient sentence on the books? Do you have any reasons or evidence for your idea?
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JJF,
One can argue that the OT punishment for rapists and homosexuals was for Israel alone, but not that capital punishment itself was. That was specifically mentioned back in Genesis before Israel existed, and thus must be seen as broader than Israel. The sword also at least allows for the possibility of execution, but I think Genesis goes farther and mandates it in cases of murder. Further, I think that governments have the right of execution for violence short of murder (such as this one); I personally think in this case, justice would not be served by anything short of execution: This was carefully planned, cruel (to his own flesh), long-term, etc.
This family will never be whole. I pray that they will come to know Jesus, if they haven’t already, but the chances of suicide, mental illness, and horrid dysfunction are huge. I don’t know how many other children this man had with his wife, but we know of eight people (including his wife) whose lives he destroyed, plus two possible deaths that were his fault (the newborn child and the murder being investigated). He should get the strongest possible sentence–and that is death.
If it were immoral for him to be executed, then we’d have to figure out another penalty that might fit. Since it isn’t immoral for the state to execute him, I wish they had the laws in place to do so, because in this case failure to execute does mean failure of justice. His family may not ever know real peace–but they could have a start at it with his death, which his imprisonment will probably fail to accomplish. More important than the “results,” however, is the fact that he deserves death.
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Cheryl D:
You make a good case. I agree that Paul’s sword metaphor leaves open the possibility that government may justly, using authority lent from God, execute a criminal. Of course Romans 13 does not mean that all situations in which the government imposes the death penalty are just. We’d agree that anyone using the passage to justify the killing of women who remove their burqas is misapplying Paul.
So Paul then gives us a general principle — governmental authority comes from God — which is left to the wisdom of individuals to apply in specific cases. I make my case against capital punishment from there. I won’t say God mandates against it, but I will say that governments taking that final authority will, without fail, abuse and mismanage it horrifically. Recently there were a rash of states in the U.S. where governors commuted piles of death sentences because DNA evidence was exonerating so many people. They believed that the political pressure to appear “tough on crime” led prosecutors to seek convictions rather than justice. This has likewise been a problem in Guantanamo Bay. I heard an interview on NPR with a high-ranking military prosecutor who resigned because he was under constant political pressure, including the demand to secure more convictions in the months leading up to election day to help bolster Republican chances.
So I think that while the state may in theory be just in executing some criminals, it is in practice unjust on too many occasions.
Please cite the verses from Genesis that you believe place all nations under a moral obligation to punish murderers with execution.
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JJF, I think Austria HAS — not had — such a lenient sentencing structure because of a misguided and unrealistic view of crime, punishment and rehabilitation. Simply put, like most social liberals, they have bleeding hearts and some of that blood has seeped into their brains — they have a totally unrealistic view of human nature and can’t honestly face the fact that there are people (repeat rapists would be one group) who cannot be rehabilitated and need to be removed from society entirely. It’s a total failure to understand human nature.
The US does have provision to lock someone up and throw away the key when they have done something so horrible that there is no punishment severe enough. We at least protect society by keeping the animal in prison for life. Austria evidently did not even contemplate such provision, and yes, for me, that is a function of unrealistic thinking on the part of social liberals. There’s evil in the world, there are “bad” people in the world, and it is appalling that liberals choose criminals over the good and decent.
They shouldn’t just be looking at our SENTENCING guidelines. They should be looking at our statutes and the way we bring charges. That’s the easy remedy. Stopping the liberal ability to slide down every slippery slope when it comes to morality is a different undertaking. Maybe liberals don’t contemplate such evil because they are closer to it having accepted so easily the killing of children in the womb, having denigrated every other moral boundary as well.
That there is this inability to contemplate evil happened on a continent that witnessed the “unimaginable” 60 some odd years ago astounds me.
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JJF,
“Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.” (From memory, so that’s KJV.) That doesn’t sound like it’s saying it’s maybe OK to do so, but it’s the appropriate, expected result of murder. We don’t need any more authority than that; and I think that any reason we might have to stop executions cannot be as strong as that reason to do them.
I think this case shows one reason that mandatory maximum sentencing, or even laws about what is appropriate punishment, can have unexpected consequences. If a judge or jury had access to any punishment available, they might well break with tradition and choose the death penalty for such a case. The option isn’t open to them.
JJF, I’m sure guilty people have been sentenced; but probably more often, guilty people fail to be convicted. Refusing to execute people doesn’t save people from unjust punishment. If I were falsely convicted of murder, I wouldn’t be relieved by a 50-year sentence rather than execution! Whether or not people should be executed, and whether people are justly convicted, are two completely different issues, and should be dealt with separately.
Me? I’d rather see ten innocent people executed each year than see 500 guilty people not get execution. (That does NOT mean it’s OK to execute the innocent–but again, I’m assuming they’ve been tried and found guilty, and would otherwise spend life behind bars. I’d rather execute everyone on death row than leave everyone on death row to face life in prison.)
Many people “exonerated” of crimes are actually guilty, by the way–it’s just that the evidence wasn’t there. For instance, if a woman is raped by two men, and only one leaves DNA evidence, does that mean the other man is innocent? Nope.
Relying too heavily on DNA evidence is just as bad as ignoring it; it can sometimes prove someone guilty (as in this case, where the man is proven to be the father of his daughter’s children), but it can’t necessarily prove that someone is innocent. I do think there should be a high standard for conviction, but once a person is tried and found guilty of a capital crime, he should be executed quickly.
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Cheryl,you quote the KJV for us:
“Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.”
Based on the balance of your post, may I suggest that you re-read the first word “WHOSO.” This verse only sanctions the extreme punishment for the actual guilty party, which is why I am troubled by your comment: “I’d rather see ten innocent people executed each year than see 500 guilty people not get execution.”
You have condemned 10 innocent people who are not the “WHOSO” (the actual guilty party), and it flies in the face of the biblical verse you quote. This also flies in the face of our legal tradition which is just the opposite concept, that it is better for the guilty to go free than for one innocent person to be found guilty. This is why we have the rules of evidence we have; this is why we have the concept of “reasonable doubt.”
Believe me, it matters to the ten innocents!
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NJ Lawyer,
No, I haven’t condemned the ten innocent men–juries or judges have. What I have said is that we can’t sit back and say it’s OK that ten innocent people spend their lives in prison as long as we don’t execute them. They’re two different issues: An innocent person shouldn’t be found guilty (nor should a guilty man be declared innocent), but that says nothing at all about whether we should execute those who HAVE been found guilty in a court of law. Since those on death row have been found guilty (and yes, unfortunately there might be a few innocents among them–thought I suspect the number is quite low), then executing them swiftly is no worse, legally or morally, then leaving them on death row till they die. Morally, in fact, it’s preferable. The only case in which it isn’t preferable is the case of the person who actually is innocent and will be discovered to be innocent early in his imprisonment, and before his execution.
Now, if it were me, if I’d been imprisoned on death row unjustly, I’d rather be executed a year after my arrival there than sit there for 30 years and finally be set free. Delaying justice doesn’t necessarily even help the truly innocent, in one sense.
NJ Lawyer, not only am I going on the basis that these people have already been found guilty in a court of law and would spend their lives in prison if they weren’t executed (which I don’t see as preferable to execution), but I also tend to think that most people who are exonerated of this crime are probably guilty of murder, of this person or of someone else. For the truly innocent, I have sympathy. But someone who gets the death penalty because it’s his fifth brutal murder, and DNA evidence later shows someone else was the actual murderer in this case…well, if he was present but not the trigger man, but really was guilty of four prior murders, oh well. Execute him anyway.
I do think it would be a good idea that murder have clear PROOF before someone is convicted. The issue is more on that side than on the issue of whether someone who has been found guilty should get executed. Two different issues; let’s work on the one that is truly the problem.
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We need to weed out revenge, because it grows wild and chokes justice, which we cultivate with so much pain.
Our purpose should not be to get even with criminals, but to be superior. Whether they deserve lenience or harshness, we deserve the glory of Solomon, whose gift for justice never trifled with the irrevocable past, but purchased profit of the future.
Retribution is futile, because we cannot undo wrong. Unless we are content to take evil along with the good, like Job, we cannot overcome misfortune. The accountants of revenge affect our wounds with gangrene.
CHERYL D.’s vindictive preoccupations are a dungeon of horror. A criminal merely offends the law. CHERYL D. wants to corrupt authority and put the law itself out of office. Willingly to put a prisoner in the way of murder, as she wants, is to be no better than the criminal she excoriates in this thread.
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Do I sound harsh? I don’t mean to be; justice requires that this man pay with his life.
This isn’t about the lenience or harshness of your sympathies and antipathies, dear CHER”YL D. Justice requires every person be treated according to law. Anything different would be unjust. Beyond that, the primary consideration is the safety of society.
. . . let his 15 years of forfeited life be bereft of any human kindness.
It’s not about him, either. It’s about the kind of people we are.
Refusing to execute people doesn’t save people from unjust punishment. If I were falsely convicted of murder, I wouldn’t be relieved by a 50-year sentence rather than execution! . . . Me? I’d rather see ten innocent people executed each year than see 500 guilty people not get execution.
CHERYL D.’s argument is chillingly apposite to American justice. A number of DA’s who practice the Death Penalty in Harris County, TX are on record as opposing life imprisonment due to its cruelty in comparison with the DP. According to this reasoning, the wrongly convicted above all others deserve the gentle mercy of the DP, which offers them a quick release from our fallible system of justice. The prisoner’s desire to cling to life is not a rational choice.
On the other hand, Dostoevsky argued from experience that judicial homicide is the cruelest of all deaths (even more heinous than Raskolnikov’s ax murders), because the executed suffer something no other homicide victim suffers — foreknowledge.
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P.S. Thirty years ago, a White woman was raped in Jonesboro, LA by a black man. The police presented a lineup and she identified one of the men as her rapist. At trial, the victim testified that she could have no doubt about his identity because she had known him, and tutored him in school. A few years ago, the man was exonerated by DNA.
The woman continues to insist she was right against the factual impossibility of her claim. The alternative would be devastating. She’s a casualty of her own need for vindication, if not revenge. Fortunately, the man we imprisoned for 25 years out of a life sentence wasn’t executed — even though the rape victim deserves to have that on her conscience, too.
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Cheryl D. (27): Me? I’d rather see ten innocent people executed each year than see 500 guilty people not get execution.
Frank: Have you ever seen “Insomnia” with Al Pacino, Robin Williams and Hillary Swank? If not, I can’t recommend this excellent film enough.
Reason I ask is, it occurred to me after seeing it that one reason otherwise good cops might “go bad” by manipulating evidence to nail a suspect who was almost certainly guilty of the crime anyway (or at least another similar crime he’s committed), is that people (be they cops or not) would prefer to see somebody punished for heinous crimes than for those crimes to go unsolved, and that this attitude is probably due to a lack of faith in God’s final judgment.
If somebody escapes judgment in this life, they will either face judgment in the next — or Jesus will have faced it for them on Calvary, if they eventually come to faith in Him.
These possibilities don’t sit too well with us. We want that dirty SOB to get what he’s got comin’ to him, and we’d rather not consider the possibility that he didn’t commit this particular crime. (I’m speaking in general of course, not about the fellow in Austria.)
That said, I hope you’ll accept this in the manner in which it’s intended: I think the more biblical point of view would be to rather see 500 guilty people not be punished in this life than for even one innocent person to be punished unjustly.
As you can tell from above, I’m a strong supporter of the concept of the civil magistrate bearing the sword. But a guilty man who escapes the temporal justice system will be dealt with in eternity — or his Savior will have been dealt with in his stead; while an unjustly punished, innocent man … Well, let’s just say that in order for the civil magistrate to do justice more often and more reliably, I think he should seek to follow biblical standards of testimony, evidence and justice.
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Frank,
I don’t want to see the innocent punished. But my starting point is the belief that a man on death row is already being punished!! If we really don’t want to see ten innocent people punished for the sake of 500 guilty, then we should empty all prisons. Since we won’t do that, then the argument that “he might possibly be innocent, and therefore we cannot execute him” doesn’t make a lot of sense. Do we believe justice has been done in finding him guilty, or don’t we? If we don’t, then let’s work on THAT angle, not the rightness or wrongness of execution.
Scroop Moth, either you’ve greatly misunderstood me or I misspoke. I was rather thinking of a case some years ago in which a woman’s husband molested her daughter and was convicted. As a child molestor and an ex-cop, he was going to serve his time in solitary for his own protection. Austria, in not allowing sufficient punishment, has put iself in the same spot–the choice between putting this man in solitary confinement or letting him be with other prisoners who are likely to take it into their own hands and kill him as the state refused to do. Would that be murder? Yes, it would, and I don’t condone it. At the same time, I think vigilante justice IS a thwarted desire for justice. It tends to run amok (the lynchings in our own country’s past). But the state that refuses justice must contend with it. I personally wouldn’t be sad to hear this man had met this kind of end…and I suspect you wouldn’t be either. It’s not how his life should end, certainly not–but “should” has already been thrown out the window in this case. The state is left with second-best options and no possibility for justice.
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CHERYL D. Since we won’t [empty all the prisons], then the argument that “he might possibly be innocent, and therefore we cannot execute him” doesn’t make a lot of sense.
You seem to base your arguments on the unstated proposition that punishment and execution are terms with interchangeable meanings. You reason that a factually innocent convict obtains no advantage, and society avoids no ethical hazzard, when a death sentence isn’t carried out, because the convict remains in prison, which is still punishment, and no less undeserved than execution. You also suggest that a factually innocent convict is ill-served by not being executed, because you yourself would rather die than do time. Here’s what you said:
executing them[the factually innocent] swiftly is no worse, legally or morally, then leaving them on death row till they die. Morally, in fact, it’s preferable.
Besides the obvious point that mistaken imprisonment can be ameliorated while mistaken execution cannot, there are many things wrong with your thought processes. By killing a prisoner, we deprive him of the possibility of fighting for his vindication and of accomplishing his own liberation, and we deprive ourselves of knowledge of our error and an opportunity to make amends. You may prefer to check into your room in heaven, but what’s best for another prisoner, and for society, may be for that prisoner to play out his adversarial role against the system.
You say the only time it’s better for the factually innocent not to be executed is when he will be discovered to be innocent early in his imprisonment, and before his execution.. As we know, such discoveries have taken decades, and were only possible because defense lawyers kept their clients alive.
If you can’t see the perversity of your argument, not even the angels in heaven can help you: Me? I’d rather see ten innocent people executed each year than see 500 guilty people not get execution. Since you claim that imprisonment is “no less preferrable” than execution (#29), what you’re saying is that you would rather see 10 factually innocent people execueted each year (!) than to see 500 guilty people receive a form of punishment which is “no less preferrable” than another.
May God have mercy on your soul.
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Whoa….CherylD, you have stunned me.
Frank and Scroopy have added to my original concerns. Your responsive post to me shocks me a bit, and inasmuch as you are not trained in the legal profession, I can only hope that you have misspoken. In your post to me, this stood out:
“but I also tend to think that most people who are exonerated of this crime are PROBABLY guilty of murder, of this person or of someone else. For the truly innocent, I have sympathy.”
I certainly believe you mean the last sentence. I have capped the word “probably” because I want to remind you that this is not the standard in our country for guilt or the imposition of a sentence. We find people guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt” (not beyond all doubt) and we impose a sentence for that crime, not for what someone “probably” did. Now I know we all think that if someone did this, odds are he did that, but that doesn’t wash in a courtroom. We do require proof. And we do require due process.
I won’t get into the debate regarding life imprisonment being cruel and unusual punishment. That is pretty much defied by the instant fact pattern. Provided the due process requirements are met, I have no problem with the death penalty being lawfully carried out and reasonably swiftly as well. This was C.J. Rehnquist’s view which was why the rules were changed that all the issues be raised together rather than piecemeal to keep the process going once it gets to the Supremes. I agree with him.
Like Scroopy, this bothered me when you said: “Me? I’d rather see ten innocent people executed each year than see 500 guilty people not get execution.”
I’d rather see NO innocent people executed each year, and I think that is the understood goal of our justice system. If 500 rot in jail a little longer in the interests of due process, so be it. Unlike you, I’d rather NOT be executed if I’m not guilty, because hey, you never know…recently two lawyers came forward when their client died. They knew he was guilty and that an innocent man was rotting in jail for the crime he’d done. They didn’t want to break privilege. So, I wouldn’t give up my life so easily.
I am at a loss to understand you on this one. You have surprised me, mainly because I don’t think you thought this through enough.
If you do get on a death penalty jury, please make sure you tell the defense attorney your views, because he’ll get you kicked off for cause, and I think, rightfully so. Please reread your posts and those in response to them. There’s something fundamentally wrong with your thinking on this one.
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NJL,
I too was shocked when I read the post (34) I waited to see how others might respond. This sort of thinking on the part of ANYONE, and especially a juror, or anyone for that matter is terrifying, and cause for alarm. I’ve never heard anyone express themselves to believe this way.
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NJ Lawyer,
I admit ignorance of the process of exoneration…am going only by stuff I’ve read that might be inaccurate. Namely, the sort of thing being that we have eyewitness testimony of many kinds, the person arrested at the scene, etc., etc., but much of the evidence isn’t even brought forward in the trial because the DNA evidence is all the “proof” that’s needed. Later the DNA evidence is called into question (maybe some of it’s lost, I don’t know, and what is left seems to point to someone else, maybe an unidentified accomplice); there is no longer “proof” of his guilt and he is “exonerated.” At any rate, no one ever questioned his guilt, it was beyond doubt, but legally he is no longer guilty. It’s that sort of thing where I’d say, OK, he was already convicted of an earlier murder; he probably did this one as well, and I won’t be up in arms about his “false conviction.” From something I read some time back, most “exonerations” are of this sort, technical get-out-of-jail-free cards on someone everyone knows to be guilty, and the evidence is overwhelming, but at the time of retrial decades later the witnesses are dead and the evidence has been lost or corrupted. I cannot defend this point, however–I’m not an expert, have never studied it, and am basing my memory of this information on one (lengthy) article I read years ago, in a source I’ve forgotten. But it did say the vast majority of overturned sentences are of this sort.
But as I’ve said all along, these are two different questions: (1) Is our standard of justice high enough, and (2) should we execute people known to be guilty of murder. To the first, I’d say an ignorant “I don’t know.” To the second, I’d say a clear yes. In my experience, many who use number one as a reason not to execute would, in fact, argue against execution no matter what. It’s not really a reason to them, but an excuse. So I’d say fix the system, but don’t make that an excuse not to execute people who’ve been clearly proven to be guilty. (I’d have no objection, for instance, to some oversight that double-checked evidence and only OK’d execution of those with clear, undeniable guilt.) But we do live in a fallen world, and as much as we’d like to have 100% certainty that no person is ever punished unfairly, we cannot have that. I think insisting on 100% certainty that no one is ever convicted unjustly before we’ll execute anyone is making excuses not to punish murderers with the justice God demands. (Also, BTW, I can’t help but think that if we are overly careful about justice, to the point, say, where we only convict 50% of actual murderers who are tried, the end result is more murderers going free, more people murdered. So while we must not convict the innocent, we also must not let the guilty go free. But I didn’t choose law because I don’t want to be “responsible” for such issues.)
And, NJ Lawyer, your last paragraph tells me you have misunderstood me. I don’t think that we should let the slim possibility of error keep us from justice (executing murderers), but I DO NOT believe it’s OK to execute the innocent. But if there is a high percentage of innocent people in jail today (which I doubt, but let’s say for the sake of argument that that is the case) might it not be true that a possible reason is that juries accept it as OK to send people to jail even if they’re innocent? In other words, would we see fewer false convictions if juries saw life in prison as a punishment as harsh as execution, as I do?
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On the vigilante question (if that’s what’s giving NJ Lawyer and Victoria the willies–you didn’t say either way): I think there’s biblical precedent for that in certain circumstances. Notice that the Old Testament cities of refuge were set up so that someone could flee from vigilante justice, as long as the killer then stayed in the city of refuge. In other words, it was legitimate for the family members to kill him, but as long as he stayed in the city of refuge (basically under house arrest), then he wasn’t killed before his trial.
Legally in American society there is little place for vigilante justice. It is still allowed (in some communities) in the case of someone who breaks into one’s own home. It’s generally illegal (but I’d argue NOT immoral) to kill someone caught in the act of raping or murdering one’s wife or daughter.
Now, in the story at question here, fellow prisoners are not in the kind of relationship to the man’s wife and children wherein vigilante justice is morally permissible. They’d basically be killing in cold blood. If they did kill him, and I were on the jury trying them, I’d have to find them guilty of some level of murder. But I would be finding them guilty reluctantly, because they would be doing what the state neglected to do. The death penalty has not been granted to individual citizens, but to the state and sometimes to the victim’s family (in the case of appropriate vigilante justice). So the fellow prisoners would be wrong to kill him–but the state is wrong (perhaps equally wrong) NOT to.
Does that make sense? That I don’t condone his fellow prisoners killing him, but I think that the state, in abdicating its authority, has opened itself up to vigilante justice?
I lived for a long time in Chicago, where it is illegal for law-abiding citizens to own guns. Yet parts of the city were dangerous enough that a responsible citizen might very well own a gun–an illegal gun. The state cannot have it both ways: It cannot refuse to do its duty (whether the duty is protecting its citizens or punishing law breakers) and also insist that the citizens not protect themselves. The Bible tells fathers not to provoke their children to wrath; I’d argue that the state can also provoke its citizens to wrath, or to taking justice into their own hands. That is bad for everyone involved.
Have I answered this clearly enough? You know me, you know that I stand in the way of mercy, and in favor of biblical justice. I find it horrific that justice probably will not be done here.
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Cheryl
YOU WRITE:…. “Have I answered this clearly enough? You know me, you know that I stand in the way of mercy, and in favor of biblical justice. I find it horrific that justice probably will not be done here.”
If this is how you truly feel, then how could you believe that “Me? I’d rather see ten innocent people executed each year than see 500 guilty people not get execution.”
The two above statements are in direct conflict with one another. There is no mercy in those who die for crimes they have not committed.
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Victoria,
If we were taking ten people off the street and executing them, you’d be right. We’re not. We’re talking about people from death row, who have already been found guilty. They aren’t guilty; I’ll grant that. But perfect justice cannot be found on this earth. Is it justice NOT to execute the 490? No, it’s not. Since the best we can do as imperfect human beings is have a trial and find people guilty, and we are required to execute the guilty, then I would say we have no choice here–we refuse to obey God by refusing to execute the guilty.
What is YOUR answer to this? Do you believe that God gave capital punishment as the appropriate punishment for murder? Do you believe it’s humanly possible to know 100% that every person who is convicted this year is guilty of the crime for which he was convicted? It seems to me we CANNOT have perfection here–we either execute the guilty (knowing, and saddened by the knowledge, that we may sometimes be executing someone who was found guilty but who in fact was innocent) or we refuse to execute the guilty, which to me is worse: It disobeys God, and it despises proper punishment, meaning more innocent people will be murdered.
I don’t think there’s a good answer here. But I would like to hear your answer.
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Cheryl, I get the feeling that perhaps it is the way you’re expressing your view that is distressing me, and it may be that you jolt me with your lay version of our standards of proof. When you say “he probably did this one as well,…” — that’s what gives me the willies. PROBABLY doesn’t cut it. You need evidence to convict someone! I mean, it is the accused’s liberty at stake. Just because he often walks down the street at X hour doesn’t mean he walked down the street at X hour on the day of the murder, so you can’t say he “probably” did it, if you get my drift. Our system does not require 100% proof; the standard is “beyond a reasonable doubt.” DNA evidence can provide that doubt, even years later, but this is ruled on by a judge. No one just walks out of prison. Again, there is due process.
I don’t believe juries “accept it as OK to send people to jail even if they’re innocent.” I’ll grant you back in the day in certain race cases that did happen, but by and large, I do not believe that about juries today. My experience is that people are very careful about the decision to convict.
Since I’m not the only one who “took offense” at your willingness to execute ten innocents, I will conclude that it is the way you structured your original sentence in light of your subsequent words –”but I DO NOT believe it’s OK to execute the innocent.” You explained to Victoria that you meant innocents who have been convicted. They did have their due process, so I think I know what you mean now. I think your original comment needed to be rephrased, because what Victoria quoted back to you, if you reread it, there is no element of due process in that statement. On its face you were saying you would execute ten innocents. You never said after a proper conviction. That’s what’s scaring everybody!
It is not vigilante justice to defend yourself in your home. Vigilante justice is when a group of people bypass due process and take matters into their own hands. They are not defending themselves. They are being judge, jury and executioner.
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Somehow despite all evidence to the contrary, socialist are to blame for the lack of sufficient punishment. Two things need to taken into consideration; first Austrian society is divided into two opposing but equal camps, conservative and socialist. The socialist control the urban centers and the conservatives the country. The rural areas of Austria are social conservative and Catholic and many social conservatives here would have much in common with them. To pass any legislation in the parliament, consent of both sides is often needed — a grand coalition has often governed Austria — hence both sides are responsible.
Second, Austrian law is governed by the traditions of Roman civil law and the Napoleonic Code not the Anglo common law. Given the vastly different legal system I doubt any of us here include the lawyers amongst us could accurately assess the 15 year sentence and its origin. As we are well aware, common law allows for the piling on of indictments which serves to increase the sentence. This is true in conservative jurisdictions as well as English speaking districts Llama and others would term socialist and socially liberal, ie my own jurisdiction. Canadian law even has a clause which allows the courts to assign the label “persistent or dangerous offender” and thus lock him up and throw away the key. Not what one would expect in a so-called “liberal” jurisdiction.
The false assumption made here is the legal system is reflective of the social culture. Legal systems and sentencing reflect tradition, legal history, and political compromise. Whether Austria is socially liberal or conservative is a matter of debate as is its role in the sentencing guidelines of Austria.
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No, I definitely meant after due process, and sorry if I left that out originally!
The argument as I’ve always heard it is “Because innocent people sometimes get convicted, the death penalty is wrong,” and that is the point I was disputing, and thinking that prison itself might as well be considered wrong with that reasoning!
I don’t think we need to second-guess juries, and refuse to carry out punishments, unless there’s good reason (another person confesses, new evidence shows up, a pattern of framing by the arresting officers, etc.). I was living in Illinois when all death penalties were commuted, and believe me it made a lot of people angry! It’s one thing to say let’s look at these cases again, but it was political posturing of the worst sort to suddenly decide not to execute anyone, no matter how heinous the crime or how damning the evidence.
And yes, I definitely think that “probably” isn’t good enough for a conviction. I’m simply thinking of the cases where throwing out one piece of evidence is considered enough to throw out the whole case–the glove in O.J. Simpson’s trial, for instance. Now, I think I was the only person in America who didn’t watch that trial (I did see the verdict live), but I understand that O.J. puffed out his hand to make it seem not to fit. But even if somehow the glove was thrown out as evidence, that shouldn’t have overcome all the other evidence. That’s the sort of thing I’m thinking of–disputing one piece of evidence and leading a jury to believe that all the evidence has been thereby tainted even though, in fact, the rest of the evidence says, “We’ve got our man.” (O.J. is legally innocent, but, speaking as a lay person, I’d say he’s “probably” guilty. That’s what I meant.)
Thanks for the clarification on vigilante justice. If I’d thought it through, I’d have known that, but obviously I didn’t really think it through.
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This has been an interesting discussion. I certainly appreciate Cheryl D’s passion for justice in the sense of not wanting to see the guilty “get away with murder.” NJ Lawyer and others have an equal passion for justice in the sense of not wanting to see the innocent punished for something they didn’t do. It was good also to see the mutual understanding that seemed to work itself out between the opposing sides.
I see the desire for justice, whichever way it leans, as a flawed remainder left over from the fact that we were originally created in the image of God. God is absolutely and perfectly just. Once upon a time man also had a perfect sense of justice. Now our sense of that is flawed, but it still grates on most of us and inflames us when we see injustices. To me this is an additional bit of proof of the existence of our Christian God and of our relationship to Him as described in the Bible.
Then when we can work out our different perceptions and leanings of how justice is to be carried out (as the two sides have sort of done here), maybe we can collectively get a little closer to the perfect sense of justice that God originally imparted to us.
Good discussion Cheryl, NJ Lawyer, et al. Thanks.
P.S. I just finished reading the recently published book by Mickey Sherman, How Can You Defend Those People? He offers the interesting perspective of a criminal defense attorney on the way our legal system works. It is a good read for the non-professional like myself. His views served to broaden my perspective anyway.
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