Post by CCADP on May 5, 2005 12:56:01 GMT -5
The Libertarian Case Against the Death Penalty
By Brian Carnell
Monday, May 24, 1999
It happened again. Last week another prisoner on Illinois' death row was exonerated after new evidence (DNA tests in this case) proved someone else committed the crime. This is getting to be a habit in Illinois. Since 1987, an average of one death row inmate every year has been cleared of the crime for which they were sentenced to die in Illinois.
In the current case Ronald Jones, 49, had been sentenced to death for the brutal rape and murder of Debra Smith, 28, in March of 1985. Blood tests introduced during Jones' trial demonstrated he might have been the killer, but what really cooked Jones' goose was a confession he gave police admitting he raped and murdered Smith.
During his trial and numerous times during his 12 years of incarceration, Jones maintained he signed the confession only to stop the beating he received from the police assigned to interrogate him. Of course now that this "confession" has been proved to be false, Illinois prosecutors quickly announced they weren't going to bother to investigate Jones' charges that he was assaulted by police officers.
In fact, even though Cook County prosecutors announced on May 18, 1999 that they wold drop all charges against Jones and not retry him, the test results on sperm taken from Smith that proved someone other than Jones raped her was completed in 1997. Prosecutors kept Jones sitting in an Illinois jail for two years while "investigating" whether or not they wanted to retry Jones for Smith's murder after the Illinois Supreme Court threw out the conviction in July 1997.
There's nothing like speedy justice.
Jones is certainly no choir boy. Rather than being released from prison, he will be extradited to Tennessee where in 1980 he walked off a prison work release program while serving a sentence for armed robbery. But at the same time neither was he a murderer, and without innovations in DNA testing and the numerous delays in carrying out capital sentences that law and order types despise so much, he almost certainly would have died for a crime he didn't commit.
This outcome should be no surprise to libertarians -- the state is just as inefficient at ensuring the people it sends to their deaths are truly guilty as it is in delivering any other good or service. In other words, barely one step above what well trained chimpanzees could do. Should it really come as any surprise that the same government that can't provide decent schools for children or properly maintain roads can't be bothered to make sure people on death row are really guilty?
Certainly most people who consider themselves libertarians wouldn't hesitate to point out the abuses of the police power that the modern Leviathan state makes all but inevitable. The drug war tends to create and reinforce racial stereotypes among police as well as alienate officers from the people they are supposed to protect, creating a strong us vs. them culture in many jurisdictions. Police officers and chiefs often turn around and become the primary advocates for banning all sorts of consensual activities from pushing for stronger drug legislation and more resources to go after drug users to strong opposition to citizens arming themselves with concealed weapons. It is no secret that significant numbers of police officers see themselves as above the very law they enforce.
But would simply eliminating the corrupt laws, police officers, prosecutors and judges be enough to prevent miscarriages of justice as almost happened with Robert Jones? Perhaps if we lived in a libertarian paradise where government was minimal, billions of dollars wasn't wasted on the drug war, and the state respected people's Constitutional rights, the justice system would get it right and the odds of an innocent person going to jail would be almost nil.
Perhaps. And perhaps in this world of minimal government things would also be so wonderful that nobody would really need to own a handgun for personal protection, thereby making gun control a viable proposition (since the state is minimal, after all, what harm can it do to the gun owner or innocent man?)
Just as most libertarians would object to the claim that a truly just government would obviate the need for gun ownership, so they should reject the notion that the state should have the right to kill its citizens as an officially sanctioned penalty for crimes such as murder.
This should not be taken to mean that the right of individuals or agents of individuals, including the state, lack a right to defend themselves against an imminent danger. People certainly have the right to kill other people who pose a direct and immediate threat to their own safety, but once a criminal, even a murderer, is in custody and placed on trial he or she rarely poses such a direct and immediate threat. Killing him or there, therefore, is more akin to cold blooded murder than an act of self-defense.
Similarly, this should not be taken as a call for the sort of coddling of serious criminals advocated by some misguided activists (usually of Leftist persuasions). A prison system that wasn't bogged down with the overwhelming number of drug and other consensual crimes could easily handle the permanent, lifetime incarceration of those who intentionally commit murder. Those falsely accused of such crimes could be released and compensated by the state when the error is brought to light -- an option unavailable to those killed by the state.
The historical record of the 20<sup>th</sup> century is quite clear that giving any group of people the power to kill those who don't pose an immediate and direct threat inevitably leads that group to apply its power against the innocent, whether intentionally or not. The power to kill those who don't pose a direct and immediate threat should be one firmly opposed by libertarians.
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By Brian Carnell
Monday, May 24, 1999
It happened again. Last week another prisoner on Illinois' death row was exonerated after new evidence (DNA tests in this case) proved someone else committed the crime. This is getting to be a habit in Illinois. Since 1987, an average of one death row inmate every year has been cleared of the crime for which they were sentenced to die in Illinois.
In the current case Ronald Jones, 49, had been sentenced to death for the brutal rape and murder of Debra Smith, 28, in March of 1985. Blood tests introduced during Jones' trial demonstrated he might have been the killer, but what really cooked Jones' goose was a confession he gave police admitting he raped and murdered Smith.
During his trial and numerous times during his 12 years of incarceration, Jones maintained he signed the confession only to stop the beating he received from the police assigned to interrogate him. Of course now that this "confession" has been proved to be false, Illinois prosecutors quickly announced they weren't going to bother to investigate Jones' charges that he was assaulted by police officers.
In fact, even though Cook County prosecutors announced on May 18, 1999 that they wold drop all charges against Jones and not retry him, the test results on sperm taken from Smith that proved someone other than Jones raped her was completed in 1997. Prosecutors kept Jones sitting in an Illinois jail for two years while "investigating" whether or not they wanted to retry Jones for Smith's murder after the Illinois Supreme Court threw out the conviction in July 1997.
There's nothing like speedy justice.
Jones is certainly no choir boy. Rather than being released from prison, he will be extradited to Tennessee where in 1980 he walked off a prison work release program while serving a sentence for armed robbery. But at the same time neither was he a murderer, and without innovations in DNA testing and the numerous delays in carrying out capital sentences that law and order types despise so much, he almost certainly would have died for a crime he didn't commit.
This outcome should be no surprise to libertarians -- the state is just as inefficient at ensuring the people it sends to their deaths are truly guilty as it is in delivering any other good or service. In other words, barely one step above what well trained chimpanzees could do. Should it really come as any surprise that the same government that can't provide decent schools for children or properly maintain roads can't be bothered to make sure people on death row are really guilty?
Certainly most people who consider themselves libertarians wouldn't hesitate to point out the abuses of the police power that the modern Leviathan state makes all but inevitable. The drug war tends to create and reinforce racial stereotypes among police as well as alienate officers from the people they are supposed to protect, creating a strong us vs. them culture in many jurisdictions. Police officers and chiefs often turn around and become the primary advocates for banning all sorts of consensual activities from pushing for stronger drug legislation and more resources to go after drug users to strong opposition to citizens arming themselves with concealed weapons. It is no secret that significant numbers of police officers see themselves as above the very law they enforce.
But would simply eliminating the corrupt laws, police officers, prosecutors and judges be enough to prevent miscarriages of justice as almost happened with Robert Jones? Perhaps if we lived in a libertarian paradise where government was minimal, billions of dollars wasn't wasted on the drug war, and the state respected people's Constitutional rights, the justice system would get it right and the odds of an innocent person going to jail would be almost nil.
Perhaps. And perhaps in this world of minimal government things would also be so wonderful that nobody would really need to own a handgun for personal protection, thereby making gun control a viable proposition (since the state is minimal, after all, what harm can it do to the gun owner or innocent man?)
Just as most libertarians would object to the claim that a truly just government would obviate the need for gun ownership, so they should reject the notion that the state should have the right to kill its citizens as an officially sanctioned penalty for crimes such as murder.
This should not be taken to mean that the right of individuals or agents of individuals, including the state, lack a right to defend themselves against an imminent danger. People certainly have the right to kill other people who pose a direct and immediate threat to their own safety, but once a criminal, even a murderer, is in custody and placed on trial he or she rarely poses such a direct and immediate threat. Killing him or there, therefore, is more akin to cold blooded murder than an act of self-defense.
Similarly, this should not be taken as a call for the sort of coddling of serious criminals advocated by some misguided activists (usually of Leftist persuasions). A prison system that wasn't bogged down with the overwhelming number of drug and other consensual crimes could easily handle the permanent, lifetime incarceration of those who intentionally commit murder. Those falsely accused of such crimes could be released and compensated by the state when the error is brought to light -- an option unavailable to those killed by the state.
The historical record of the 20<sup>th</sup> century is quite clear that giving any group of people the power to kill those who don't pose an immediate and direct threat inevitably leads that group to apply its power against the innocent, whether intentionally or not. The power to kill those who don't pose a direct and immediate threat should be one firmly opposed by libertarians.
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