Essay:Things that would make me more accepting of the death penalty

I reject the death penalty pretty much absolutely. But I do split my opposition to it into two distinct arguments. The first reason being that it's not morally justifiable – this is philosophical, complicated, and overall fundamentally boring. The second reason is far more interesting: that the modern implementation of it is, to put it kindly, Absolute Bullshit. Importantly, there's something people can actually do about the second one; namely, strip away all said bullshit. If the following were implemented, I'd become far more accepting of the idea of state-sanctioned killing in controlled circumstances.

Am I a Sick Fuck for suggesting most of this? Very probably, but its all based on following through to the logical conclusions resulting from eliminating the hypocrisy present in most death penalty enthusiasts. This is basically a polite way of saying "I'm right, as always".

No euphemisms
Exactly what it says on the tin. No "capital punishment". No "ultimate justice". Not even "death penalty" or "execution". Well, maybe "execution", but only if accompanied by a dictionary definition. We need to strip it of any and all emotion. You can't go wrong with "state-sanctioned killing in controlled circumstances" because that's precisely what it is. It's killing, yes, obviously. It's state-sanctioned, yes, that's the very point. And finally it's under controlled circumstances – that is, the person you're killing isn't an immediate threat to the life and well being of another when you do it. Hell, most of the time they're strapped down and surrounded by armed guards (actually, anyone else bothered by the fact that in the case of a botched execution, said armed guards aren't allowed to simply shoot them in the head?). This puts execution in a different category to, say, CO19 putting a bullet in the head of someone brandishing a shotgun at a bunch of civilians.

There's a concept called “killology” (it's a real word, look it up) that concerns the psychology of killing. It's been widely used by the military to get soldiers to pull the trigger when their instincts say not to – again, another well researched concept. Traditionally, this has been done through exploiting inherent collectivism and in/out-group mentality (stick with me through these boring bits, please) in the soldiers themselves. Hence the uniforms, the drills and blind obedience and so on and so forth to help emphasise unit cohesion and the objective above individual psychological reservations. But primarily and more simply, it's done by getting them to hate their enemy. It's a powerful emotion and without it war just wouldn't exist. But, increasingly, the killology concept is being applied to civilians. You're not just killing a man in this execution, you're killing a murderous, violent, unrepentant psychotic killer! Think of their victims (as much of a red herring as they are) and what they want! And so on, ad nauseum. Of course people will support it if phrased like that, that's killology and it just plain cheapens the entire thing. Stripping the killology from the death penalty would go a long way to making it more acceptable and less hypocritical. We should show baby pictures of the accused while they’re (publically, see below) killed, show quotes from their parents, their partners (bad and good) and let everyone know that THIS is the life we're ending.

In short: there should be no escaping the sheer gravity and severity of what is going on here, so trying to do anything to mask that should be outright banned.

Proper deterrence
Embedded in that first set of objections (that boring half that I mentioned before) is the idea that deterrence is fundamentally useless from a psychological perspective so is a piss-poor reason for advocating state-sanctioned killing. But in addition to that, what sort of deterrent is it, really? I mean, really, how exactly does it deter people? Executions are now invariably carried out behind closed doors. The last public hanging in the UK was 1868, ushering in what enthusiasts refer to as “the modern era” and in the US there was a massive storm over the fact that Timothy McVeigh’s death was screened to a small audience. Come on, we have reality television these days, our society is set up perfectly for it. Back in the day, this was all public. Hanging: public. Beheading: so public you got splashed with blood if you got to close. Crucifixion: so gods dammed public you got splashed with blood and shit if you got too close. This is real, proper deterrence. If people can’t see what’s happening, how can they ever relate to it in a salient way in order to be deterred by it? So long as execution remains closed off and private, it cannot possibly act as a deterrent because people can’t see it ever happening to them – it remains something that happens to Other People. So, if you cite deterrence as a reason for supporting execution, you must accept that heads-on-spikes is the only way that this can be fully achieved – i.e., fucking well do it properly. To say otherwise is purely hypocritical.

Personal involvement
Consider my new most favourite quote ever:

The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. If you would take a man's life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die.

Too often, the buck for actually carrying out the deed is passed to someone else. As far as I'm concerned, that's unacceptable. All that a death penalty supporter has to do is sign their name on a petition, or if you're actually in charge pick up a pen and sign your name. What utter crap. The governor or head of state sanctioning an execution shouldn't just sign their name, they should pull the lever, flick the switch, tie the noose, squeeze the trigger and dispose of the bloody body afterwards. If it wasn't for the lack of efficiency, I'd actually suggest they should do it with their bare hands only, no devices.

If a death penalty enthusiast can't bring themselves to deal with that sort of thing then they have no right in calling for it just for some other poor sap to do the hard work for them. None of this sipping wine to celebrate while waiting for the result. None of this calling up the prison and telling them to get on with it. None of this bullshit. They should get out there and get literal, not just metaphorical, blood on their hands.

A more practical application of this is to have anyone who votes in favour of "bringing back hanging" put on a register that's called at random to act as executioner. Hey, we'll even compromise and make sure it's all anonymous! Can't say fairer than that. This is already done with jury service, so why not extend it to execution service? If you're pro something, you should be willing to see it through. No excuses.

Make it meaningful
Heads-on-spikes is all very well, but come on, we have the opportunity here to legally, and with moral justification, take a human life. Why waste that chance? The Nazis didn't (pardon my Godwin) and we learned some fascinating facts about biology and human endurance from them.

The obvious thing would be medical experiments. Indeed, this would please the animal rights activists a lot (the people who think a mouse is more important than my life, fuck them). We could even extend this to all prisoners – “hey, do you want 10 years inside, or take this drug in a trial”. I mean, people are so happy to dehumanise their fellow humans but are so hypocritically squick about it when you take it to the logical conclusion of using them in a dehumanised way. Come on, they killed someone and are going to die for it; at least let them give something back to society! Perhaps stop short of going all Soylent Green on it, though.

But as an optional extra, think back to the “controlled conditions” definition espoused above. I have no personal objection to killing someone if they're a threat and can defend themselves – really, I doubt anyone would, especially those who advocate killing when they aren't a threat and can't defend themselves. Certainly if the state is going to kill me, I would make them fucking work for it – I have no fear of being shot by the police in a standoff, but strapped to a gurney with a needle in my arm? You can fuck right off. So, let's take a leaf out of the 80s dystopian sci-fi book and find an old abandoned village or two, build a 30 ft high concrete wall around it (with guard towers and spotlights, of course, and this would only ever be at night) and then stick all convicted prisoners inside. Give them ample weapons and ammunition (well, not too ample) and – now this is the genius part – have our Special Forces raid the place and shoot them all. Think about it; there are enemies of the state that need killing and people who need trained to do so, then we have citizens of the state that are sentenced to die. Combine the two together and presto, we have a supply of intelligent and thinking targets for the SAS to train against – certainly beats cardboard cut-outs and empty “killing houses”.

Actually, I on occasion bring this up elsewhere on the internet to general horrified responses all round, many from death penalty advocates and enthusiasts, no less. The interesting (by which I mean, "closest to being even remotely valid") objection being "isn't it unfair on soldiers who might get shot and killed in such exercises?" Fair enough, indeed, but isn't it also unfair on soldiers who might get shot and killed in actual action without such training in the first place. I mean, come on, people are amazingly selective in how squeamish they feel about killing people. Unarmed and restrained civilians: fine. The people whom we technically pay to die and kill on our behalf: hell no.

No appeals
Death row in the U.S. is not so much a physical space as it is a period of time because of appeals processes that can last decades. Indeed, the life expectancy of peasants in the U.S. can actually go up if they're sentenced to death because of this. But consider this: if a conviction for someone to die is "beyond all reasonable doubt" then why are appeals even necessary? Obviously, they're there to make sure the conviction is sound. Sure, it's a fail-safe against convicting innocent people. I get that, but if there was even a remote chance of them being innocent (i.e., there's a chance that an appeal would be successful) then the "beyond all reasonable doubt" clause WAS NOT MET IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Are people so blinded to this obvious leap in legal logic? If you convict and sentence someone to death with enough certainty to convict and sentence someone to death, then you're pretty damn sure – aren't you? I mean, you wouldn't actually convict and sentence someone to death if you weren't sure – would you? Well, yes, they would – and they do, but that's another point entirely. But if the criteria of "beyond all reasonable doubt" has been met, then what is the frickin’ hold up? Putting a gun to the back of someone's head and pulling the trigger takes all of a 5 seconds, not 25 years. If you're sure enough to do it, you're sure enough to do it immediately.

Proper reparations
Now, the rate that innocent people are convicted is a major part of that aforementioned boring side of my reasoning for calling bullshit on the whole state-sanction... oh, you get the point by now, surely. But it plays a far more curious role here. A parable by Nassim Taleb goes as follows:

Never get on an aeroplane unless the pilot is also on board.

"Well duh!" cries the idiot in the front row, completely missing the point. "How can it take off if there's no pilot, stupid!" – well, it can. Look at Predator and Reaper drones. Look at auto-pilot systems. Hell, the Buran space shuttle made history as the first (and so far, practically only) space vehicle to take off, orbit, de-orbit and land completely under computer control. But what is the point of this excessive and laborious exposition of this parable? Simple: never put your life in the hands of someone who doesn't have something to lose. In the first instance, this would mean shooting the defence lawyer if their client is convicted, but as prosecution is inevitable following actual guilt (obviously, this is the point) such a thing would be a needless waste and you'd quickly run out of defence lawyers. Or there would be an inevitable form of natural selection and everyone would remarkably be found innocent. Either way, that's a little on the silly side.

No, I'm talking about what happens when you execute an innocent person. Posthumous innocence is far more common than anyone really wants to admit but what happens when we do spot such a mistake? “Oh, you're innocent, ah well, no hard feelings, sorry we kill... oh...” At least in the case of wrongful imprisonment someone has a life to rebuild upon release. So here's what makes the thing a lot less full of bullshit: in the event of posthumous innocence, execute the judge, jury and prosecuting lawyer. "Wait, but you just said killing the defence lawyer wasn't right!" comes the objection as the idiot in the front row pipes up yet again. "Isn't that a little harsh?" No, not really. The entire point of execution is to punish the guilty, and so by logical conclusion it's not execution if they're innocent, but murder. Okay, the usual objection to this is that there's state-sanctioned justification, but the argument can be made that such a justification exists only in the case of guilt, so there. And in this proposed Utopia, where we have bullshit-free capital punishment, what is the punishment for murder? Exactly. And it's definitely "beyond reasonable doubt" because we have the court records to prove it.

But coming back to the Nassim Taleb quote, you'll find in the U.S. "justice" system that it's actually the prosecution that calls for the accused to be killed. And undoubtedly if it was brought back to the U.K. we'd end up following that same clusterfuck of a system. Arbitrary, no? Well, it's arbitrary nature and the racist, classist and sexist implications of this can be statistically proven (but now we're slowly drifting into that first, boring, set of reasoning yet again) but surely the concept of justice is much better served if the prosecution proposing killing their accused also has something to lose. No one is going to convict someone they know is innocent (yes, they do actually do that, didn't you know?) if it turns out they would also be for the chop if found out. This brings us back full circle to the first point about making sure everyone is fully aware of what they're doing. No one is going to spuriously call for an execution if their neck is also on the line, so if they do they must really fucking well mean for it.

Of course, if innocence is found after conviction but before sentence, we'd reduce this to “attempted murder”. It's only fair, after all.