[foob]

It's terrifying that an analysis from software like CacheBack can be used as an important piece of evidence in a murder trial. An error of this magnitude could easily contribute to somebody wrongly losing his or her life and that is not alright in any way. I would feel a lot more comfortable if a piece of FOSS, which could be independently vetted, was used instead of some half-baked proprietary garbage with a $500 price tag. I'm all for finding a niche market and exploiting it, but to me there is something deeply wrong about hiding the logic behind a piece of software producing courtroom evidence.

[aaronbrethorst]

Or we could just get rid of the death penalty altogether, because:

a) It's cheaper to incarcerate people than it is to kill them: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29552692/ns/us_news-crime_and_co...

b) Sometimes, our judicial system gets it wrong. Wikipedia counts about 140 exonerated death row inmates over the past forty years in the United States: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_exonerated_death_row_in...

[julian37]

Not sure if you mean it the way I read it, but that's a false dichotomy. Even if the penalty in question would have only been a single day in jail, or a $50 fine, it's still terribly wrong to rely on results produced by closed-source, non-peer reviewed software when determining a person's guilt or innocence.

EDIT: that is not to say that blindly relying on open source software is any better. From my point of view the ideal would be both the use of peer-reviewed software AND requirements to manually double- and triple check the results produced by said software.

[msluyter]

I agree with you, but I'm pretty sure the death penalty is a shining example of sort of topic to avoid on HN. (I wish there were a way of flagging entire branches of an otherwise topical discussion.)

[fragsworth]

I'm not saying we should keep killing people, but the argument that the death penalty is expensive is not valid. It presupposes that the death penalty cannot be made cheaper, which is false. It is a separate issue entirely.

[yesimahuman]

I consider having to go to jail for long periods of time "losing your life."

[yummyfajitas]

I prefer to keep the death penalty.

When we lock someone away for the rest of their life, we don't devote much effort to getting things right. When we decide to execute someone, we are very careful about making sure we got the right guy. It's likely that at least some of your 140 exonerated death row inmates would still be in jail today if they were sentenced to life in prison.

If the criminal justice system is broken, we need to fix it. Eliminating the death penalty won't fix it, it will just make the media talk about something else.

[Steko]

"we are very careful about making sure we got the right guy"

Sometimes notsomuch...

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/07/090907fa_fact_...

http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/Injustice_in_Texas_T...

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/3472872.html

[apl]

So you're saying that the death penalty is justified because it functions as an incentive for law enforcement and DAs to work a little harder? Jesus.

[yummyfajitas]

Let me clarify my position, since you seem to wish to misinterpret.

I think life imprisonment is a really bad thing to have happen to you, only marginally better than death. I'm honestly not sure I'd prefer life imprisonment to death at all, in fact. I also don't object to either one as punishment for the worst criminals.

That's my moral stance.

On to practicalities: lots of people hate the death penalty and will devote effort to making certain the wrong person is not executed. These people will not devote the same effort to preventing wrongful life imprisonment. Similarly, a wrongful execution is an outrage, whereas wrongful life imprisonment barely makes the news.

Thus, I see the choice as the following: some number of wrongful executions, or some larger number of wrongful life imprisonments. I prefer the smaller number of people who wrongfully lose their life.

[Steko]

You have a crazy idea of prosecutor priorities. They don't give a shit about the defendant.

[yummyfajitas]

I'm not referring to prosecutors, I'm referring to folks like Project Innocent, reporters, etc.

[knowtheory]

lots of people [...] and will devote effort to making certain the wrong person is not executed

That is less and less the case, given the collapse of local/regional investigative journalism, and also spectacularly unequal. The press or non-profit organizations should not be put in the position where it is responsible for providing a robust defense for people accused of capital crimes.

The fact that there is such inequity in the manner defense is provided against prosecution makes me completely against the general practice of the death penalty, given the possible injustices it may render when weighed against the possible justice it may mete out against truly heinous crimes.

[yummyfajitas]

The press or non-profit organizations should not be put in the position where it is responsible for providing a robust defense for people accused of capital crimes.

Agreed - the justice system should be doing this. They aren't. Until they do, I feel the sunlight that the death penalty attracts is highly valuable.

...inequity in the manner defense is provided against prosecution makes me completely against the general practice of the death penalty...

Is the inequity greater for the death penalty than for life imprisonment? If not, then do you also oppose life imprisonment?

[halostatue]

Canadian experience suggests you are incorrect about the energies that people will spend against injustice. Canada has had 3-4 relatively high-profile cases in the last decade where long-term prisoners have been exonerated due to the efforts of people who don't want to see injustice.

There are too many instances of prosecutorial malfeasance or justice denied to continue with the death penalty, even in cases where the guilty parties certainly deserve to die (Bernardo and probably Homolka, in Canada).

[enry_straker]

Wow. You justify the death penalty on the basis of it providing incentive to the police and the prosecutors to do a better job.

Holding their children hostage would provide a really good incentive. Would you then recommend that as well?

I understand where you come from. But providing incentive does not justify murder. Even state-sponsored murder.

[yummyfajitas]

Holding their children hostage would provide a really good incentive. Would you then recommend that as well?

This makes no sense. My moral claim is that the death penalty is morally equivalent to life imprisonment. Since the issue here is differentiating between two acts I believe to be morally equivalent, I prefer the action with the lower probability of harming innocents.

When faced with a choice between harming innocent children and not harming innocent people, I obviously recommend not harming innocent children.

If, however, the choice were between holding the children hostage until they die, or merely killing them, I can't say I'd express much preference. If I were the potential victim, I'd probably prefer getting killed.

And if my odds were 80% get killed, 20% exoneration, I'd strongly prefer that to 90% stay in jail for 60 years, 10% exoneration.

Just curious - could you explain why you believe locking a person in a cell until they die is better than killing them?

[Steko]

"My moral claim is that the death penalty is morally equivalent to life imprisonment."

There may be some moral equivalence between a person who dies in prison and one who is executed (I would argue otherwise) but there is absolutely no moral equivalence between an innocent person executed and an innocent person who spends some time in prison and is freed.

"Just curious - could you explain why you believe locking a person in a cell until they die is better than killing them?"

Because they might be innocent? Or because killing them is used disproportionately against the disadvantaged?

[yummyfajitas]

...there is absolutely no moral equivalence between an innocent person executed and an innocent person who spends some time in prison and is freed.

Now you are moving from moral questions to empirical ones.

Consider two hypothetical options - one is a 10% chance of being wrongfully convicted and being executed. The other is a a 20% chance of being wrongfully convicted and locked in jail with a 25% chance of being later exonerated, resulting in a 15% chance of being wrongfully locked in jail until one dies.

I'd suggest that morally, a 10% chance of wrongful execution is better than a 15% chance of being locked in jail until death + 5% chance of being locked in jail for years until exoneration.

In any case, this probabilistic example invalidates your absolute claim that imprisonment is better because someone might later be exonerated.

Because they might be innocent?

Apriori, I'm asking you to distinguish between:

a) imprisoning until death a guilty person or executing them.

b) imprisoning until death an innocent person or executing them.

As far as putting people into the wrong categories, that's a probabilistic matter rather than a moral one.

[bugsy]

Absolutely. This is not the only situation where expert testimony comes from professional witnesses who make a living supporting various hypothesis using confidently proclaimed but deeply flawed tools and analysis methods that the "expert" himself doesn't even understand. The response is that it's the job of the defense to bring up any problems with experts, but they don't always do that. It's a scam. That this is done on capital murder cases is an abomination, amoral, and should be criminal.