The Death Penalty

Those who favor the death penalty must contend with cases like Paco's in the Philippines. In the U.S., our government also behaves in an irrational manner sometimes. Mistakes are made. All governments are capable of error and their error rate is high.

Anyone who has worked to create and maintain extremely complicated systems understands the ways in which unexpected and exceptional cases, or errors, can arise. I know that errors almost certainly arise. The more complexity, the more possibility of error. Legal systems are extremely complicated. That is why expensive, highly trained lawyers are required. If a legal system is isolated from all political and social pressure, then it may crafted in such a way as to become resistant to error, but such a legal system has never existed in the history of mankind. Only a naive person would assume the legal system to be free of error. Such a person would not make a good engineer.

Death is a permanent decision that cannot be corrected, yet the possibility of error remains high. Human beings have not created a legal system that is free of error.

When there is a possibility of error, a good engineer will introduce an error-correcting mechanism. Only an incompetent and sloppy engineer would let the error wreak havoc. In the case of a legal system, an error might result in the maximum punishment assigned to an innocent person. A competent engineer will prefer a maximum punishment amenable to correction. We must be vigilant against mistakes. Mistakes can arise from corruption, simple incompetence, and other unexpected causes. It is not possible to foresee all the reasons for every error.

Life imprisonment can be partially corrected by early release. Death cannot be corrected. Indeed, the chief advantage of the death penalty accrues to the psychopathic criminals who have wormed their way into the system and misuse the law to their own ends. There are likely to be Trojan horses of one form or another in every government--in law enforcement agencies and in the judicial system. These systems are all vulnerable to Trojan horses in proportion to their size and complexity and are ill-protected from them.

Therefore I conclude the death penalty is wrong until such time that governments reduce their error rate to 0%. The death penalty may not be the greatest evil in a society. The greatest evil may be the waging of needless war or the corruption that influences our leaders to divert public funds to their rich cronies. Yet it is evil and reflects sloppy and careless design.