Missing staple lets murderers appeal

[Iron Greasel]

Originally posted by johnny: Some people shouldn't be allowed to appeal to anything. Just feed them to the sharks, it's in everyone's best interrest.

I don't have any numbers, but I think the unnecessary bureaucracy caused by not just feeding evil people to the sharks is less inconvenient than the unnecessary bureaucracy caused by determining whether a person is evil enough to be thrown to the sharks.

[robertthebard]

Throw the bureaucrats in with them...

[Iron Greasel]

Nah. Bureaucracy might be irritating but it's quite a bit better than barbarism. If I have to choose between, say, a lawyer taking all my money and having a confession tortured out of me in a medieval dungeon, I'll take the former. Maybe guilty people go free occasionally, but it's not that frequent, and they usually reoffend and get caught again.

Whenever the current legal system gets you down, remember that the alternative is someone prodding you with a red-hot poker and cutting all your extremities off.

[robertthebard]

Yeah, but you wouldn't have to feed all of them to the sharks, just like 5 out of 100. After that, the rest would know you were serious.

[Aerich]

If executions by whatever means were an effective deterrent, wouldn't we have noticed by now? I don't care to get into a(nother) death penalty debate, btw. I just think that the death penalty is overrated as a crime prevention mechanism. Most people who commit crimes that carry sentences of capital punishment don't think about the consequences of getting caught, don't care, or don't believe they will be caught.

Edit: and yes, this principle applies to bureaucrats, too. China just executed one of its former (and corrupt) top bureaucrats connected to the various health and product-related scandals (toothpaste, pet food, etc). I'm pretty sure he knew the penalties for what he was doing, but the temptation was too much and he didn't think he'd get busted.

[ 07-12-2007, 02:15 PM: Message edited by: Aerich ]