dead man predicting

A computer can predict executions with 90% accuracy. How? [sub. req.]

To find out which factors might be linked to executions, the researchers first "trained" their [Artificial Neural Network] by entering the profiles of 1000 death row inmates between 1973 and 2000. Half of this sample of prisoners had been executed and the other half had survived. Each profile contained 18 factors, including the inmate's sex, age, race, marital status, educational level and information on their capital offences.

They then fed in profiles for 300 more inmates from the same period and asked the ANN to predict what had happened to them. To their astonishment, it correctly predicted the fates of more than 90 per cent of those inmates.

The researchers then tried to determine which factors were most salient: gender (virtually no female prisoners are executed) and education--or, more precisely, "the number of years the inmate had spent in high school." It's suggested that prisoners without much education are worse at working on appeals.

popular attitudes toward the death penalty

Yes, because of the current resolution, I'm going to take this Onion article quite seriously. Each satirical response to Texas's 400th execution since 1976 illustrates a painful truth about the death penalty and the victims'* search for justice.

"I commend Rick Perry for having the courage to protect his constituents. Well done, Governor, and please don't kill me."

It is probable that the State executes an innocent, from time to time. This probability, some abolitionists claim, makes all of us, even the good, live in mortal terror of the State, coerced into proper behavior at the point of a slow-firing gun.

Even if the death penalty could be applied without error, it would still inspire dread enough to limit human freedom. Ironically, this perspective is adopted both by libertarian abolitionists, who view it as immoral, and proponents, who view it as effective in reducing crime.

"I hope that once the prisoner was brought into the death chamber, the guards surprised him with confetti, balloons, and an oversized syringe."

As a ritual of personal justice, the death penalty is absurd. The average federal capital case languishes over 3 years in court. The condemned exhaust every appeal opportunity--and why shouldn't they?

In the intervening years, some victims will forgive the offender, even to the point of wishing them to remain alive, if imprisoned. Others will grow frustrated and bitter with the tardy arrival of justice. Dr. King once said, "Justice delayed is justice denied," and the death penalty is certainly delayed justice.

"I'm really conflicted about this. While I'm against the death penalty, I'm a huge sucker for milestones."

Some abolitionists argue that capital punishment persists not because it is an effective deterrent, but because it is enormously popular. Politicians tout it (along with "3 strikes laws") as a way to "get tough on crime," using fear as a powerful political weapon. Though Immanuel Kant famously argued that the death penalty is a categorical imperative, a modern-day Kantian could claim that this sort of scapegoating uses criminals as means to an end, a violation of their inherent dignity.

Also, just so you know, recently Governor Perry commuted the sentence of Kenneth Foster. He was accused of caving to political pressure.




*Obviously "victims" does not refer to the immediate victim in non-fatal cases. I figured I'd pre-empt any snark on this one.

justice, morality, and the death penalty debate

Regarding one potential interpretation of the current LD resolution, reader Josh writes,

Common definitions of justice often include a degree of moral behavior. So I guess I am wondering what sort of moral behavior democracy offers that no other body can or does.

I'm not so much interested in the question--the answer, I would think, involves a respect for human dignity, as evidenced by the notions of popular sovereignty and equal rights, among other things--but in the complex interplay of morality and justice. Again, the resolution:

Resolved: A just society ought not use the death penalty as a form of punishment.

Because the resolution focuses on social justice, we should look to a legal framework where rights violations are settled in courts instead of on the street, by juries and judges instead of victims. A man is shot in a robbery. His brother might have an immediate moral claim on the life of the perpetrator, but, because of his respect for due process and the rule of law, refuses to take revenge, trusting in the machinations of justice.

Thus, even where fundamental moral and legal concerns intersect, legality must take precedence. Punishment may cause shame and express moral censure, and moral considerations might form the foundation of law, but both sides can argue that the primary purpose of punishment is to uphold the rule of law, both as an act of retribution and of communication. The death penalty's success or failure in this regard is up for debate.

the death penalty undermines democracy

The current resolution states:

Resolved: A just society ought not use the death penalty as a form of punishment.

Let us assume, for discussion, the following line of argument:

[1]. A democracy is the only just form of society. (Or, to paraphrase a more famous aphorism, it is the least unjust form.)
[2]. The death penalty undermines democracy.
[3]. A just society / democracy values its preservation, both in existence and in character.
[4]. Therefore, in order to preserve its existence and character, a just society / democracy ought not use the death penalty as a form of punishment.

[1] is arguable, but defensible, with reference to human rights, the rule of law, representation, pluralism, and the like. [3] is intuitively strong, and [4] would follow from [2] and [3]. But can [2] be warranted?

Austin Sarat, a leading capital punishment scholar, describes the cultural, legal, and social effects of the death penalty in When the State Kills: Capital Punishment and the American Condition in order to argue just that. He writes,

Capital punishment is the ultimate assertion of righteous indignation, of power pretending to its own infallibility. By definition it leaves no room for reversibility. It expresses either a "we don't care" anger or an unjustified confidence in our capacity to recognize and respond to evil with wisdom and propriety. Democracy cannot well coexist with either such anger or such confidence. For it to thrive it demands a different context, one marked by a spirit of openness, of reversibility, of revision quite at odds with the confidence and commitment necessary to dispose of human life in a cold and deliberate way. Moreover, democratically administered capital punishment, that is, punishment in which citizens act in an official capacity to approve the deliberate killing of other citizens, contradicts and diminishes the respect for the worth or dignity of all persons that is the enlivening value of democratic politics. A death penalty democratically administered implicates us all as agents of state killing.

"Capital punishments," Benjamin Rush once observed, "are the natural offspring of monarchical governments.... An execution in a republic is like a human sacrifice in a religion." Along with the right to make war, the death penalty is the ultimate measure of sovereignty and the ultimate test of political power. With the transition from monarchical to democratic regimes, one might have thought that such a vestige of monarchical power would have no place and, as a result, would wither away. Yet, at least in the United States, which purports to be the most democratic of democratic nations, it persists with a vengeance. How are we to explain this?

Sarat takes the rest of the book to explain the death penalty's persistence. Readable, even for novices, the book is a great resource for understanding the peculiarly American approach to capital punishment.

You can probably see a potential case structure unfolding. You might also see potential weaknesses with such a case. Feel free to point them out and discuss them in the comments.

Oh, and a question: is this reformulation of the argument stronger or weaker?

[1]. A just society requires democracy.
[2]. The death penalty undermines democracy.
[3]. Therefore, in order to preserve its existence and character, a just society ought not use the death penalty as a form of punishment.

parsing the death penalty resolution

Let's take a closer look at the current LD resolution:

Resolved: A just society ought not use the death penalty as a form of punishment.

First, "a just society." This phrase gives the Affirmative a task and a burden to levy on the Neg. The task: defining justice in a societal framework. More to the point, the harms of the death penalty must be harms against society, or harms incurred through societal mechanisms. If the death penalty, for example, is racially unbalanced in application, the Aff can't just say "the death penalty is racist." The Aff must show why this is opposite the values of a just society--and the word "ought" will become important here, too, since it establishes the criterion for a just society. Is it an ought of utility? An ought of constitutionalism? An ought of democracy?

Secondly, the Aff must remember to place a specific burden: whatever goods the Neg claims about the death penalty, they must be linked to justice in a societal framework. The Aff can't allow the Neg to say "but the death penalty is an effective deterrent!" without concurrently showing why deterrence is a valid and sufficient aim of punishment in a just society. This goes double for any arguments based on individual liberties, no matter which side proffers them. What is the connection between individual liberty and a just society? It must be made explicit.

The overarching point is that all arguments must link back to a vision of the just society, and any argument that strays beyond can be dismissed as nonresolutional (or, to sound a little less debaterish, irrelevant).

I haven't worked out in my own mind exactly how "as a form of punishment" affects either side of the resolution, other than to note that punishment's effects go beyond the punished. Punishment can be retributive, torturous, instructive, deterrent, preventive, excessive, slight, fitting, cruel, unusual. It can be examined empirically and philosophically. The ultimate question in the background, as alluded to before, is, "What is the role of punishment in a just society?" This essay might point you toward some initial answers.

acceptable errors: innocence, guilt, and the death penalty

A little moral calculus for the current LD resolution, which concerns the justice of the death penalty.

1. Assume that, at some point, the state has erred and condemned an innocent to die.

2. Assume that this has occurred in 1% of cases. (Given the work of The Innocence Project, which, using DNA technology, has exonerated 15 death row inmates in 15 years, and given an average of 50 executions per year in the United States since 1976, this assumption has a high degree of plausibility--and may even be too conservative.)

3. Is a 1% error rate acceptable?

4. Regardless, what is the maximum or minimum error rate for the death penalty to be considered just or unjust?

5. Is an extremist anti-death-penalty stance morally defensible? In other words, does the potential execution of even one innocent render the death penalty unjust?

A just society ought not use the death penalty as a form of punishment: the September-October LD topic

Thanks to a tip from blog neighbor Okie Debater, I've been pulled out of summer LD lethargy to report that the new NFL September-October LD topic is in:

Resolved: A just society ought not use the death penalty as a form of punishment.

Obviously, the overwhelmingly important definition in this (lovely, philosophical, non-policyesque for once) resolution is the meaning of "just."

Get your brain back in gear with a trip to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's article on Legal Punishment.

Some terms to consider: retribution, restoration, prevention, deterrence, desert, consequentialism.

More coming soon.

Update 8/17: I ask some mathematical questions about executing innocents.

Update 8/20: I parse the resolution.

Update 8/26: What's the relationship among capital punishment, democracy, and a just society?

Update 8/29: I tentatively delineate the distinction between private morality and public justice.

Update 9/1: How can a satirical newspaper illuminate our understanding of the death penalty?