The Death Penalty and the Strange Paradox of Innocence

The fact that we execute innocent people is a major problem for the death penalty. But it's not as straight forward a problem as it might seem.

ProfMTH's Vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDveAmgSa6k

Samuel Gross, et al., "Exonerations in the United States: 1989-2003": http://www.truthinjustice.org/exonerations-in-us.pdf

Ernest van den Haag's "The Ultimate Punishment": http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/angel/procon/haagarticle.html

The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts . (n.d.). Recommendations Concerning the Cost and Quality of Defense Representation: http://www.uscourts.gov/dpenalty/4REPORT.htm#N_3_

Brian Palmer's "A Life Sentence on Death Row": http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2011/09/a_life_sent...

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Death penalty
• Troy Davis
• innocence project
• execution
• capital punishment
• Ernest van den Haag
• Samuel Gross

[BigLundi]

@baldurus1 In short, you're really sucking in this argument.

[BigLundi]

@baldurus1 "What you fail to see is that it's you that made this fallacy, not me." You're the one that said if you adopted my argument then you believed it logically followed we ought to have capital punishment for all crimes. I pointed out that this is logically fallacious as it does not take into account other mitigating factors with lesser crimes.

So far you've made a slippery slope fallacy, you don't know the difference between parole and exoneration, and you shifted the goalpost.

[baldurus1]

@BigLundi "as well as demonstrates a lack of other mitigating factors." Hey what do you know, you finally got it. Well almost. What you failed to see is that it was you who made this fallacy, not me.

[BigLundi]

@baldurus1 "The slippery slope is yours, your premise was that exoneration rates in death penalty sentences are higher" *facepalm* You don't even understand what the slippery slope is.

When you ask the question, "Shouldn't the same privileges be extended to people who have been sentenced for "lesser" crimes?" That's a slippery slope. That's making an application of an argument where it's irrelevant, as well as demonstrates a lack of other mitigating factors. Your fallacy. Your problem.

[baldurus1]

@BigLundi The slippery slope is yours, your premise was that exoneration rates in death penalty sentences are higher. So according to you that must be a positive thing. Shouldn't the same privileges be extended to people who have been sentenced for "lesser" crimes? Why should the worst of the worst get this opportunity?

[BigLundi]

@baldurus1 Nope. They're not. Saying we ought to apply the death penalty in all cases because of its exoneration rate in contrast to life sentence cases was YOUR attempt at an argumentum ad absurdum, and a failure, as it resulted in a slippery slope fallacy.

[baldurus1]

@BigLundi That's your words not mine.

[BigLundi]

@baldurus1 "I actually used yourgic here.":No you didn't You used a slippery slope fallacy to say hat if exoneration rate is a bit better in capital punishment cases than life sentences, we should apply capital punishment to everything. That's a slippery slope, that's fallacy. You're wrong. :)

[baldurus1]

@BigLundi I actually used your logic here. So if you want to point fingers, point them towards yourself. This was your original premise, that your chances of getting out alive is greater than if sentenced to life. Which is clearly not the case.

But this is seriously not getting either of us anywhere, so maybe we should end it here.

"Revenge is great. It's phenomenal! It's the only thing that separates us from the animals." Al Bundy

[BigLundi]

@baldurus1 *yawn* slippery slope fallacy. Good one.

"First off a life sentence is rarely a life sentence, life without parole is under 20% of all convictions." Wonderful, you don't understand the difference between exoneration, and parole. Seriously, if you really are a physicist, stick to equations, because this argument isn't your strong suit.