Hypothetical: Would You Spare A Serial Killer?

[CharleyH]

Say in the near future, we have a guy who, over a period of about 8 years, has kidnapped, tortured, mutilated and then murdered about 46 children between the ages of 4 and 16. There is no chance he's innocent, he freely admits to having done it, and has no remorse. He's being tried in one of the states that still has the death penalty.

Sounds open and shut, right? But there's a complication. This man is quite possibly the greatest genius of the modern era, a true polymath. His work has added more to the body of scientific knowledge than every other scientist of the past 200 years combined. His inventions have and will revolutionize the world. His medical work has saved millions of lives, and will save millions more. He has created works of art that equal if not surpass the greatest artists of the Renaissance, and works of music that equal or surpass the greatest Classical composers. He is only 21 years old.

Now, his lawyers make the argument that, for all the heinousness(sp?) of his crimes, his brilliance is too valuable to be lost.

What do you think should be done with him.

Before anyone comments, I know such a thing is probably impossible, but try to take it seriously anyways.

First age has no bearing. I am not sure his status and his accomplishments have any bearing on his case, either. The argument is one of pure common sense, apart from historical atrocities. He can still contribute to society from jail given the opportunity. As a brilliant mind, he will constantly strive to follow his genius whether in society or out. Alternately, being of a striving mind, he would strive in his thoughts of murder and paedophilia, and therefore constantly strive to get out of jail.

There would be a lot of time between when he is convicted and put to death. Which means that given resources or even not, he contributes whether he is executed or not, until that time. Maybe he will die before that time like Dahmer?

You forget a number of variables. One is that there are many geniuses ie. da Vinci, and eventually the same ideas of one man come to fruition through another. The point is, and whether he has remorse or not is of no consequence in this hypothetical case .... he is guilty, he will or will not be proven so, and pays the consequence of the state where he is convicted.

Will the world feel a difference? Eventually ... they won't.

 

[sweetnpetite]

One innocent death is too many, even if it means depriving future generations of hypothetical wonders. If I am deprived of a flying car that runs on salt water because a killer was executed for his crimes, I could feel better about humanity than if he were allowed to live.

Good point.

all of his future endevers would be tainted.

Example. I can't help but like R.Kelly's songs, but I just don't feel the same about him anymore. I get an icky feeling from liking his songs, which should be a very pure pleasure. (he has an amazing voice)


Plus, we should start holding 'heroes' to a hero standard (not a perfect one). I heard somebody saying something on the radio once about soldiers raping people and that somehow there contribution was worth the sacrifice- and that it was just the flipside of all the testosterone that we appreciated in the one instance. We shouldn't be giving out the impression that if your a genious it's ok to be a sick bastard.

 

[sweetnpetite]

But as I oppose the death penalty, I consider it a different issue all together.

 

[fifty5]

Say in the near future, we have a guy who, over a period of about 8 years, has kidnapped, tortured, mutilated and then murdered about 46 children between the ages of 4 and 16. There is no chance he's innocent, he freely admits to having done it, and has no remorse. He's being tried in one of the states that still has the death penalty.

What do you think should be done with him.

First, abolish the death penalty, then we can talk sense...

 

[Kassiana]

I am not for the death penalty for anyone. Life without parole. Simple as that.

To my knowledge, there is no evidence that LWP causes "murders in prisons," either. Even if it did, though, there's a simple solution. Solitary confinement. Who you gonna murder in your cell by yourself, sweetums?

 

[elsol]

Solitary confinement for 50 years.

Isn't that a little cruel?

How about a compromise... human test subjects rather than a death sentence.

That way we don't have to use animals anymore.

Sincerely,
ElSol

 

[Kassiana]

Solitary confinement for 50 years.
--Nah. Studies show that most prisoners acclimate after a year or two and are no longer violent. I have to wonder about those who consider this cruel, however, and don't think it's cruel to kill someone. The double-standard amuses me quite a lot.

Using them for experiments? Now who's posing a cruel idea?

 

[Boxlicker101]

Solitary confinement for 50 years.
--Nah. Studies show that most prisoners acclimate after a year or two and are no longer violent. I have to wonder about those who consider this cruel, however, and don't think it's cruel to kill someone. The double-standard amuses me quite a lot.

Using them for experiments? Now who's posing a cruel idea?

Fifty years usually means about twenty so it would have to be more than that. Maybe 46 sentences of fifty years each, to be served consecutively. If some idiot parole board wanted to let him loose on one sentence, he would begin the next one. 2,300 years should be enough to make sure he dies in prison.

Prisoners do acclimate but those are more or less normal peoploe, not like this one. It would have to be in an ultra-high security type of confinement, not an ordinary maximum security type of prison.

I would still prefer hanging but if that is not to be the case, make sure he never, never gets released. Even if he gets to be old and sick, he would still pose a threat.

 

[rgraham666]

Hoping that we're done with hypotheticals, let's try this.

As I said, extreme hypothetical situations don't make for useful thought. Incidents like this are a better thing to build beliefs from.

 

[shereads]

Would you spare a serial killer?

I wish I could, but I barely have enough serial killers for my own needs. If I let you have one, everybody will want one.

 

[rgraham666]

I wish I could, but I barely have enough serial killers for my own needs. If I let you have one, everybody will want one.

Reminds me of a scene from Buffy, where she'd taken out some robot put together by a serial killer.

Willow: I've been studying the remains of that robot and it's brilliant!
Buffy: Why are you studying it? So you can build your own serial killer?
Xander: But they're so hard to rent these days.

That was almost as funny as Willow explaining to her werewolf boyfriend that she wasn't much fun to be around three days of the month herself.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Hoping that we're done with hypotheticals, let's try this.

As I said, extreme hypothetical situations don't make for useful thought. Incidents like this are a better thing to build beliefs from.

That case is truly reprehensible, that sloppy police work and stupid jurors would result in a conviction like that. I say sloppy police work because of the faulty diagnosis and I say stupid jurors because they convicted with no actual evidence against the accused. Even if a murder had been committd, there was no evidence that the accused did it.

If the same kind of thing were to happen in the US, and I'm sure it does, it would be less of a problem if he were sentenced to death instead of life in prison. If a death sentence is involved, the case is scrutinized much more carefully and the bogus diagnosis would have been caught. Strangulation would have left very distinctive marks on the girl's throat, and their absence would have been enough to get the case reversed, or thrown out of court in the first place.

I see certain parallels with the Scott Peterson case. The victims were unquestionably murdered but there was absolutely no evidence to prove her husband did it. Even so, the juryt apparently decided something like: "Somebody did it, and it's most likely her husband" and voted for conviction.

 

[rgraham666]

You have much more faith in your system and humanity than I do, box.

 

[Boxlicker101]

You have much more faith in your system and humanity than I do, box.

The system, okay, but what does "humanity" have to do with it.

 

[Svenskaflicka]

Math genius or mathemati illeterate, I'd spare his life. I don't believe in death penalty, not for any crime.

I may hate people enough to wish to see them ridden from the face of this planet, but I don't think we'll achieve anything by lowering ourselves to his level.

Killing people is wrong, no matter what they have done. As an old saying goes; if you can't bring back to life the dead person who should have lived, then don't take away the life of the person who should be dead.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Math genius or mathemati illeterate, I'd spare his life. I don't believe in death penalty, not for any crime.

I may hate people enough to wish to see them ridden from the face of this planet, but I don't think we'll achieve anything by lowering ourselves to his level.

Killing people is wrong, no matter what they have done. As an old saying goes; if you can't bring back to life the dead person who should have lived, then don't take away the life of the person who should be dead.

I would look on it much like I would look on the extermination of vermin. I would have no more qualms about killing somebody like the person described at the beginning of this thread than I would of killing a rat or a fly. By the way, I have no animosity toward snakes or spiders but I do hate rats and flies.

 

[Shendude]

An interesting point:

I posted this on another board, one fairly conservative and right of center. The people there were largely more supportive of the idea of keeping him alive in heavy confinement, but killing him when he stops producing.

 

[rgraham666]

An interesting point:

I posted this on another board, one fairly conservative and right of center. The people there were largely more supportive of the idea of keeping him alive in heavy confinement, but killing him when he stops producing.

I'm not. The right tends to be very heavy into the utilitarian thing.

If someone or something is useful, who cares what else it is? If they're not useful, ditto.

 

[Jagged]

I could think of 46 people who never realized their full potential. The death penalty is totally justified. During this individuals time I death row he will have plenty to contribute. Frankly I often don't think we use the death penalty enough because people make deals for things like locations of bodies, and information on other murders. Deals should be made for things like library access and what prison location not whether it is life or death.

 

[Boxlicker101]

An interesting point:

I posted this on another board, one fairly conservative and right of center. The people there were largely more supportive of the idea of keeping him alive in heavy confinement, but killing him when he stops producing.

I would find that very surprising because they should know it would be unconstitutional. The judge would, probably at the advice of the jury, prounounce sentence and set in motion the long period of appeals. I don't think the judge would be allowed to say something like "Death, but only after you stop producing valuable inventions". A governor, or series of governors, could probably keep delaying the execution but I don't believe it would work out for them either.

 

[R. Richard]

All right, you have this transcendental genius who is a serial killer of children. Because of the supposed benefit to humanity, a deal is made to let said transcendental genius live instead of suffering the death penalty.

Now it gets complicated. Law in the United States is based upon precedent. Another genius, not quite so high a level as the first guy but still a super genius comes to trial. Since the guy is a super genius, he has the money to hire Expensive Legal Eagle. ELE argues that, since you gave first super genius life, instead of death, you also have to give my client life, instead of death because my client is also a super genius. There is not really a great deal of legal debate here, ELE will almost certainly get his client off. The victory for ELE then leads to another case of, again, a slightly lower level genius. There is not really a great deal of legal debate here, ELE will almost certainly get his second [third?] client off.

As you can see, the process goes downhill until a guy who can read without moving his lips [a small and steadily declining percentage of the population] gets life instead of death. [If you doubt this, in medieval England a priest had legal privileges that the ordinary man did not. Over the course of time the priestly privileges expanded to the point that anyone who knew a little Latin got the priestly privileges.]

 

[Huckleman2000]

In the UK we have abolished the death penalty so the question is irrelevant.

We wouldn't extradite him to a place that might impose the death penalty without an assurance that, whatever he was found guilty of, he would NOT be executed.

Og

Civilised.
At least, I think that's the word for it. (It's been so long.)

 

[Boxlicker101]

Quote:
Originally Posted by oggbashan
In the UK we have abolished the death penalty so the question is irrelevant.

We wouldn't extradite him to a place that might impose the death penalty without an assurance that, whatever he was found guilty of, he would NOT be executed.

Og

Civilised.
At least, I think that's the word for it. (It's been so long.)

Undemocratic, I would call it. What do the people of the UK think about the abolition of the death penalty? I don't know about there but in California, about 80% of the voters favor it. They have said so, and to get tough generally on criminals, in initiative elections. They, including I, even kicked out the chief justice of the state supreme court when we had the chance.

 

[Huckleman2000]

Undemocratic, I would call it. What do the people of the UK think about the abolition of the death penalty? I don't know about there but in California, about 80% of the voters favor it. They have said so, and to get tough generally on criminals, in initiative elections. They, including I, even kicked out the chief justice of the state supreme court when we had the chance.

Left to the passions of the people, lots of stupid legislation would be passed. [Three-Strikes comes to mind] Unfortunately, we have referendum measures in WA too. In terms of reasonable lawmaking, they usually rate just slightly above the mentality of lynch-mobs.

The state should dispense justice, not vengeance. In practice, the courts aren't perfect in criminal prosecution, and if you think that we've never executed an innocent man, you're delulsional. We've certainly convicted a fair share of them, as evidenced by advances in DNA testing.

I don't have surveys at hand, but I'm sure the majority of people of the UK, after centuries of arbitrary torture and death at the hands of despotic monarchs, find capital punishment as repulsive and barbaric as does the rest of the developed world. The incredible hubris that the American system of justice is superior enough to justify irreversible punishment is a uniquely American phenomena. {edit} Not uniquely American - China, Saudi Arabia and other dictatorships also find their justice systems infallible.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Left to the passions of the people, lots of stupid legislation would be passed. [Three-Strikes comes to mind] Unfortunately, we have referendum measures in WA too. In terms of reasonable lawmaking, they usually rate just slightly above the mentality of lynch-mobs.

The state should dispense justice, not vengeance. In practice, the courts aren't perfect in criminal prosecution, and if you think that we've never executed an innocent man, you're delulsional. We've certainly convicted a fair share of them, as evidenced by advances in DNA testing.

I don't have surveys at hand, but I'm sure the majority of people of the UK, after centuries of arbitrary torture and death at the hands of despotic monarchs, find capital punishment as repulsive and barbaric as does the rest of the developed world. The incredible hubris that the American system of justice is superior enough to justify irreversible punishment is a uniquely American phenomena. {edit} Not uniquely American - China, Saudi Arabia and other dictatorships also find their justice systems infallible.

Measures that are passed through initiative are generally proposed and passed because the politicians in Sacramento are too cowardly or too dishonest to risk voting for them. Some of them are non-PC and the pols will not pass them because they know they will lose votes if they do. Others are against the interests of fat cats and the pols know it they vote for them, the flow of bribes (in the form of campaign contributions) will be cut off. Others are against the personal interests of the politicians such as the term limitation initiative of a few years ago or the change in drawing district boundaries that should be on the ballot in November.

Out of curiosity, do you speak for the citizens of the UK? I don't but I don't claim to; I just wondered if the majority oppose the death penalty.