The victim, Sam Nordquist, a 24-year-old transgender man originally from Minnesota, was reported missing on Feb. 9. Police said he arrived in New York in September and had lost contact with loved ones.
Major Kevin Sucher, commander of the state police troop that includes the Finger Lakes region, said the facts and circumstances of the case were “beyond depraved” and “by far the worst” homicide investigation the office has ever been part of.
“No human being should have to endure what Sam endured,” he said, during televised news conference. Police did not share many details of the case, noting it remained under active investigation.
I don’t want it as a deterrent and I’m very aware there have been cases where convictions have turned out to be false. Obviously, the standards for evidence need to be very high. But some people do not deserve to live. And I’m not so certain about it not bringing some degree of closure to families; it certainly isn’t an antidote to grief and loss, but knowing the person who tortured and killed your loved one gets to keep living out their own life, even if behind bars can certainly haunt you as an injustice.
I’m aware of all the arguments against it, and I’ve changed my mind about this issue a couple times. It’s not something I take lightly at all. Still, I think in exceptionally vile and clear cases, it should be allowed.
As you said, the standard for evidence needs to be very high. That means long and protracted trials, multiple rounds of appeals, etc. You’re condemning the loved ones to years upon years of proceedings, having to face the perpetrator again and again. This is not a gut feeling, there’s empirical studies about this.
Reduce that time and barrier of proof, more innocents die. What percentage is acceptable?
There is no rational reason to use the death penalty over life without parole. The only reason is the base, if very understandable, instinct to have people that did unspeakable things suffer. But if suffering is the point, why stop at executions? Why not first torture them for what they did?
I firmly believe that the carceral system should serve to rehabilitate those that can be rehabilitated, and for the worst offenders, isolate and protect victims, their families and wider society from them. Putting punishment over the well-being of victims and co-victims, and over the risk to innocents, is not something we should want from a civilized society.
You neglected to answer what would be an acceptable number of innocent people to be put to death on bad evidence.
For me I would rather have guilty people walking free than innocent people in jail or on death row.
No number of innocent people incarcerated on bad evidence is acceptable, much less executed. That’s why I’m saying the standard of evidence would need to be extremely high. Your argument is that there would inevitably be people executed who were innocent, but I don’t believe that needs to be the case. Standards could be such that having the crime on video is required or direct witnessing from multiple unimpeachable sources.
Is the standard of evidence and possibility of false convictions really your main concern here or do you just not think the State should ever execute people on moral grounds? Because I believe I’ve provided an acceptable answer to the former argument; if your issue is actually the latter then I believe we simply have a difference in ethical beliefs.
I don’t believe we could ever get to a point where the standard of evidence is so high that it removes all possibility of killing an innocent person.
That isn’t my only objection. I firmly believe that punishment as a deterrent for crime doesn’t work and it’s just used to satiate people’s desire for vengeance. You only have to look at recidivism rates to see that it’s pot luck whether someone will reoffend or not. For most crimes we should have a rehabilitation approach, if the aim is to lower the number of victims of crime and not just revenge.
For the most heinous of crimes. Life in jail is my preferred approach. As perhaps we can learn more from those individuals to try and spot signs earlier and potentially help have less victims in the future.
I want to stress that my goal would be to lower the number of victims of crime, by whatever means is best to do this. Punishment is just to satisfy the victims or general population rather than to lower the number of potential future victims.