[Vision2020] Another good argument for the death penalty
Joe Campbell
philosopher.joe at gmail.com
Wed Mar 17 15:09:45 PDT 2010
G,
I was not trying to be rude and dismissive. I just don't have the time
to read the post and give it the level of attention that Wayne wants
and deserves. I thought i read it carefully but i didn't and I don't
have the time to read it with more care. Besides I'm typing on my
iPhone.
Best, Joe
On Mar 17, 2010, at 5:32 PM, "the lockshop" <lockshop at pull.twcbc.com>
wrote:
> Wow, that was perhaps the rudest and most dismissive reply I think
> I've ever read on this forum and that's saying quite a bit.
>
> Bravo!
>
> I realize perfectly well that my opinion means little to those of
> you going back and forth on this topic and that my lack of formal
> instruction in seraphic pin prancing leaves me ill prepared for the
> rarified realms this topic aspires to, however I do agree with Mr.
> Fox that there is a place in the world for a death penalty even if
> we would likely disagree with its application. I would definately
> not apply such a sentance for larcenous greed no matter how extreme.
> I believe a more fitting punishment would be six months amongst the
> general population of a maximum security federal penitentiary
> followed by a parole which stipulates prompt and total restitution
> and payment of burdensome fine at a vigorous pace. ANY lollygagging
> in making said restitution being grounds for reincarceration. I
> suspect that Mr. Antonucci would be quite diligent in working to
> keep his tender backside from having to endure a return to sharing a
> cell block at Florence ADX or Tamms.
>
> On the other hand, I very much agree that Joseph Duncan IS the
> perfect justification for the existance of a death penalty. Heinous
> crime, unquestioned guilt, total lack of remorse, extreme likelyhood
> of being an ongoing danger to other prisoners, gaurds, and the
> general public, all combined with a total disregard for his own life
> should all combine to make him the modern poster child for the
> necessity of capital punishment.
>
> g
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Joe Campbell
> To: Art Deco
> Cc: Vision 2020
> Sent: Wednesday, March 17, 2010 10:55 AM
> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Another good argument for the death penalty
>
> Forget it. I don't have time to read this more carefully. Joe
>
> On Mar 17, 2010, at 1:30 PM, "Art Deco" <deco at moscow.com> wrote:
>
>> Joe,
>>
>> Before you waste time commenting on something I didn't say, please
>> take the time to read very carefully what I did say.
>>
>> W.
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: Joe Campbell
>> To: Art Deco
>> Cc: Vision 2020
>> Sent: Wednesday, March 17, 2010 5:12 AM
>> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Another good argument for the death penalty
>>
>> It might be a while before I get to this but until I do I just want
>> to point out that putting something in boldface and asserting that
>> it is a FACT and not a philosophical point does not MAKE it an
>> empirical fact. It might still be a philosophical point. In my
>> experience, most people who criticize philosophy HAVE a philosophy.
>> What they are really criticizing is OTHER philosophies than there
>> own. If you are going to dogmatically assert that empiricism is
>> true and that it can be SHOWN to be true by empirical methods all I
>> can do is laugh and note that you are begging the question.
>>
>> Consider this. I'm a rationalist, that is, I think that SOME claims
>> are established by a priori insight or something like that. Others
>> think that some knowledge is gained by faith. I'm not trying to
>> convince you of these views. I'm just noting that there are views
>> that are contrary to yours. And how do we decide which is correct?
>> Obviously if we prejudge that are method is to be
>> empiricism, your view will emerge as the victor. But I hope you can
>> see that this begs the question. Note that I didn't say you
>> couldn't tell a fancy story to support your view I only claimed in
>> the end it would beg the question.
>>
>> Now on the face of it, this looks like a philosophical dispute. You
>> claim that all knowledge comes from experience (or mathematical
>> proof), I claim some knowledge is a product of rational insight,
>> and others that some knowledge is a product of faith. And there
>> doesn't appear to be a way of settling the issue without begging
>> the question. Which was what I said.
>>
>> I'll comment on the specifics later.
>>
>> Thanks! Joe
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mar 16, 2010, at 4:47 PM, "Art Deco" <deco at moscow.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Joe, (& Andreas, Sunil),
>>>
>>> I have included Joe's second post below so that I can respond to
>>> both posts at the same time. I hope that others not interested in
>>> a technical discussion will not be too bored, or if so, they will
>>> find other things to do which they will find a more productive use
>>> of their time.
>>>
>>> To avoid repeating material, here are two comments which I will
>>> refer to by names, below.
>>>
>>>
>>> Pigtails: A statement of the form "All X is Y" is refuted by
>>> finding a single X that is not Y.
>>>
>>> Example:
>>>
>>> To refute the statement: "All pigs have curly tails" all that is
>>> necessary is a single counterexample like pointing to pig whose
>>> tail sticks straight out like a certain part of the anatomy of a
>>> certain church elder does at a certain topless/bottomless
>>> bar.
>>>
>>> It doesn't matter if there are a billion pigs with curly tails and
>>> only one with a straight tail, the exception refutes the truth of
>>> the general statement.
>>>
>>>
>>> Stones: Dick and Jane are in the middle of a football field.
>>> Jane is a carrying a 100 pound stone. Jane asserts: "If I throw
>>> this stone, it will land on the football field." Dick disagrees.
>>> What method do you use to determine the truth of the knowledge
>>> claim at issue? Obviously, let Jane throw the stone, an empirical
>>> method where observation will determine if the knowledge claim is
>>> true. Also note that the probability that the stone will land in
>>> the football field is infinitesimally close to 1.00.
>>>
>>> I hope that neither Joe, Andreas, nor Sunil will be in
>>> disagreement with the above. If either are, then the argument can
>>> proceed no further.
>>>
>>>
>>> Knowledge Claims
>>>
>>> From my perspective statements of the form "X is Y" are generally
>>> knowledge claims. There are some instances of such statements in
>>> poetry, for example, that are not. However, statements like the
>>> following are knowledge claims:
>>>
>>> 1. "The Klein-4 group is an Abelian group."
>>>
>>> 2. "The current through a conductor between two points is
>>> directly proportional to the potential difference or voltage
>>> across the two points, and inversely proportional to the
>>> resistance between them, provided that the temperature remains
>>> constant."
>>>
>>> 3. "Sheep reproduce asexually."
>>>
>>> 4. "Bartok is the greatest composer ever."
>>>
>>> 5. "You should never kill another human being."
>>>
>>> 6. "Every human being is more valuable than every other animal."
>>>
>>> Given that statements of the form "X is Y" are knowledge claims,
>>> the problem then becomes what agreed upon methods can be
>>> successfully used to determine the truth of the various kinds of
>>> knowledge claims.
>>>
>>> Statement 1. above is a statement is an axiomatic system called
>>> Group Theory. It's truth is determined by logical/deductive
>>> methods. However, the axioms of the system were not chosen
>>> blindly, but were chosen to be true of certain aspects of the
>>> language that is used to describe the physical world, hence the
>>> truth of the axioms is a matter of observation.
>>>
>>> Logical methods are used to determine the truth of such
>>> mathematical statements given the truth of the axioms. This is
>>> not an infallible method, however. In the 19th Century, George
>>> Boole found an error in the up-to-that-point-thought-infallible
>>> system of Aristotelian Logic. The advent in the 19th Century of
>>> Non-Euclidean Geometry(s) and the subsequent theories of Einstein
>>> (now partially confirmed) showed that at least one of
>>> once-worshiped-as-irrevocably-true axioms of Euclidean Geometry
>>> were not true of the universe writ in large.
>>>
>>> Statements 2. and 3. are knowledge claims whose truth or falsity
>>> are determined by empirical methods -- combinations of logical and
>>> observation methods. Using such methods, humankind has sent
>>> persons to the moon and back while transmitting parts of this
>>> event in real-time to millions of people. The empirical method
>>> succeeds in part because precise definitions are required.
>>>
>>> Empirical methods are not infallible either. Mistakes can be made
>>> -- many of which are self-correcting in time; some problems at
>>> present are not completely amenable to empirical methods because
>>> of their practical complexity -- issues in the social sciences,
>>> for example. The best that can be said that knowledge claims that
>>> can be tested empirically is that they have truth that is at best
>>> probable, not absolute. Some of the probabilities are
>>> infinitesimally close to 1.00 such as Ohm's Law, at least in the
>>> terrestrial environment, but there is always that possibility of a
>>> counterexample being discovered.
>>>
>>> It is a fact, not a philosophical position, that certain kinds of
>>> knowledge claims are successfully resolved by empirical methods,
>>> notwithstanding the problem of induction.
>>>
>>> Statements 4., 5., and 6. are commonly called value statements.
>>>
>>> The three that were chosen each illustrate that in our present
>>> state of knowledge there is not a generally accepted method to
>>> establish their truth. It is not a simple matter like the stones
>>> example above. The phrase "in our present state of knowledge" is
>>> included so as to not preclude the discovery of such a method in
>>> the future.
>>>
>>> Musicians, musicologists, ordinary people argue, so far without
>>> resolution, about who is the greatest composer. Even expertly
>>> trained musicians who are thoroughly knowledgeable about all
>>> factual matters with respect to a composition's structure and live
>>> sound, and agree upon such, will still disagree about who is the
>>> greatest composer.
>>>
>>> There are many who assert quite apodictically that it is never
>>> justified to kill another human being even in self-defense. The
>>> truth of these kind of assertions are not demonstrable by
>>> empirical methods like the in stones example. One cannot produce
>>> observations that demonstrate the truth of such a knowledge claim.
>>>
>>> That is not to say that facts or probabilities established by
>>> empirical methods are not useful or necessary in resolving certain
>>> value or ethical disputes. They are very important; but not
>>> completely definitive. Further, many of us reject as fanciful,
>>> unsupported speculation the use of alleged supernatural beings and
>>> their alleged dicta as relevant in such resolutions.
>>>
>>> In a nutshell, if we want to establish the truth of a knowledge
>>> claim then first we must define the terms of that claim
>>> unambiguously; then we must agree upon a method to test its
>>> truth. So far, in our present state of Knowledge we have not
>>> established a generally agreed upon method to establish the truth
>>> of knowledge claims which are value statements of the kind given
>>> as examples (4. - 6.) above.
>>>
>>>
>>> Applications
>>>
>>> Restating the argument against capital punishment given by Andreas/
>>> Joe:
>>>
>>> 1. There is no situation where the judicially-sanctioned murder
>>> of an innocent person is justified.
>>> 2. Regimes which allow the death penalty result in the
>>> execution of innocent people.
>>> __________________________________________________________________________________
>>> 3. Therefore, the death penalty is never justified.
>>>
>>> Premise 2. is highly likely true at this time. There probably
>>> isn't a regime with the death penalty the result of whose judicial
>>> system hasn't caused the execution of an innocent person. This
>>> premise is not a value knowledge claim, but a matter that can be
>>> determined to be true by empirical methods.
>>>
>>>
>>> However, premise 1. is a knowledge claim about values. Notice
>>> that it is a "all X is Y" statement. Hence, referring to the
>>> pigtails example above, it is only necessary to find one
>>> counterexample that at least some observers might cite.
>>>
>>> During WWI and WWII when very strategic ground battles were to be
>>> fought with the expectation of very high casualties and there were
>>> the probabilities of massive troop desertions, the following has
>>> been alleged: An officer would chose a particularly inept
>>> soldier, one whose ineptness threatened harm to the unit, and
>>> accuse him of being caught deserting. A summary court-martial
>>> would held, the accused though innocent would be convicted, and
>>> then executed.
>>>
>>> The argument of the upper command was this: executing what the
>>> other troops saw as a deserter would prevent some of the other
>>> potential deserters from deserting and thus increase the
>>> probability of a military victory of sorts in the oncoming
>>> battle. The argument was that by killing one innocent person,
>>> many other lives would be saved in battle, and perhaps the course
>>> of the war changed so that millions of lives would be saved.
>>>
>>> The ethical principle invoked was that saving many lives justified
>>> killing one innocent person. Notice the context is a judicial
>>> system, albeit a military one.
>>>
>>> Obviously, many would find this alleged principle repugnant;
>>> others would agree with the principle. By what generally accepted
>>> method would you resolve this dispute? I do not know of one.
>>> Hence, this example certainly seems to raise a legitimate question
>>> about the truth of premise 1. above.
>>>
>>>
>>> If the knowledge claim is that there is not a single case where
>>> capital punishment is justified, therefore capital punishment
>>> ought be abolished, then referring to the pigtails example above
>>> there is another counterexample, as mentioned earlier: The cases
>>> where the evidence is overwhelming, a confession is made and is
>>> overwhelmingly supported by evidence, and the convicted demands to
>>> be executed. The issue of executing an innocent man does not
>>> arise here.
>>>
>>> I chose statement 6. ("Every human being is more valuable than
>>> every other animal.") above for a purpose. I have a good friend
>>> who is vehemently against capital punishment when we discuss it as
>>> a subject per se. However, when we discuss people who poison pets
>>> or off-roaders who chase/harass wildlife, this friend asserts that
>>> they would have no hesitation in shooting these offenders, dead.
>>>
>>> Joe argues that convictions are only probabilities.
>>> Almost all knowledge claims are only probabilities, even Ohm's
>>> Law, for example. It is the strength of the probability that
>>> counts. The very, very high probability of the guilt and the
>>> enormity of the crime of Joseph Duncan justify his execution for
>>> me; obviously it does not for Sunil, Andreas, and Joe. I
>>> am always open to advances in methods of determining the truth of
>>> value knowledge claims and open to hearing persuasive arguments on
>>> ethical matters. At one time I too was against the death
>>> penalty. But facts learned and very serious consideration changed
>>> my mind, as it has, and continues to do on an assortment of
>>> ethical issues.
>>>
>>> This whole dispute is about determining the truth of knowledge
>>> claims. If there is a generally accepted method of determining
>>> the truth of knowledge claims about values with the same degree of
>>> certainty in the stones example above, it has escaped the notice
>>> of most of the world's population so far. If either Joe or
>>> Andreas is claiming that there is such a method, perhaps they
>>> could submit persuasive evidence of such. The problem as has been
>>> discussed ad nauseam by philosophers is that value knowledge
>>> claims include an emotive element which depends on an individual's
>>> inner mental/physical sate, not just on exterior reality.
>>>
>>> There is hardly an ethical principle that is agreed upon
>>> universally. If there were presently such a method of determining
>>> the truth of value knowledge claims, one would expect
>>> substantial agreement on many such principles.
>>>
>>> Joe claims that he knows that slavery is always wrong. Some
>>> people disagree. For example, they cite the results of some slave
>>> efforts to justify the slavery that produced them -- the seven
>>> wonders of the world, for example.
>>>
>>> In the early to middle part of the 20th century in some areas of
>>> the west able-bodied men were forced at gunpoint, threat of great
>>> bodily harm, or imprisonment to help fight a flood or forest fire
>>> threatening a town. This was involuntary servitude or slavery.
>>> The authorities invoked the principle that the short sentence of
>>> slavery (they called it helping your neighbors) was justified by
>>> the circumstances -- saving the town. What generally accepted
>>> method is there to resolve the truth of the value knowledge claims
>>> here?
>>>
>>> If you have an adventurous/curious/not-easily-shocked mind venture
>>> onto www.collarme.com. You will find that slavery is alive and
>>> well today, even in Idaho, and that there are slaves that appear
>>> to thrive in that environment, and are at least as happy or
>>> happier in that environment as any other.
>>>
>>> As Joe is a professional philosopher who has studied ethics and
>>> probably taught it, he knows in his heart-of-hearts that there is
>>> no agreement today among all professional philosophers of a single
>>> non-metalinguistic ethical principle, or of a system/method to
>>> produce such.
>>>
>>>
>>> Some may rue this situation. It would be nice to have ethical
>>> principles clearly and irrevocably established whose truth could
>>> be demonstrated in a manner like in the stones example above.
>>> Such is not the case. If, or until such a method is discovered,
>>> we will have inevitable conflict like we have had since the
>>> beginning of humankind over these matters.
>>>
>>> W.
>>>
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> From: Joe Campbell
>>> To: Art Deco
>>> Cc: Vision 2020
>>> Sent: Monday, March 15, 2010 11:05 PM
>>> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Another good argument for the
>>> death penalty
>>>
>>> I won't comment on the death penalty, Art, BUT the argument about
>>> ethics below is a BAD argument.
>>>
>>> First, the view that knowledge is possible only through empirical
>>> test is itself a philosophical view. Thus, it should be just as
>>> unprovable as you claim ethical principles to be. The view is self-
>>> refuting.
>>>
>>> Second, some ethical principles are just as knowable as empirical
>>> claims. I am as certain that slavery is wrong as I am that my hand
>>> exists. Certainly people might dispute that slavery is wrong but
>>> it can't follow from that that "slavery is wrong" is unknowable.
>>> It is a consequence of the Duheim-Quine thesis that ANY evidence
>>> can be rejected if one is willing to accept the consequences and
>>> revise enough of their beliefs. If you think that dispute means
>>> lack of knowledge it is easy to show that no one knows anything.
>>>
>>> Third, and related to the above, you can't give a non-question
>>> begging proof of the existence of anything, even your hand. What
>>> you can do is show that our actions convey that we all believe it
>>> (given it is true). But the same can be shown about ethical
>>> claims. Or so I think.
>>>
>>> Obviously this is controversial but the point is that your
>>> argument asumes all knowledge is gained by empirical proof. But
>>> this won't even work for your belief that you have a hand. Once
>>> you show me why it is that you are entitled to believe that you
>>> have a hand, I'm pretty confident I can duplicate the story for at
>>> least one moral claim. Again, if you push the view you are
>>> holding, skepticism follows. But then ethical principles are no
>>> longer unique.
>>>
>>> Lastly, often what seems to be an ethical disagreement is really
>>> something else, say, a metaphysical dispute. Take the abortion
>>> issue. Both sides AGREE that it is wrong to kill innocent persons.
>>> They disagree about the metaphysical issue, e.g., what is a
>>> person? (This is a simplification but hopefully you get the point.)
>>>
>>> Now it might turn out that metaphysically issues are irresolveable
>>> and, for that reason there will always be disagreement about
>>> abortion. But you should be careful about drawing similar
>>> conclusions about ethics.
>>>
>>> Dispute is part of the human condition. It is more common in
>>> philosophy and ethics but it exists even in math (think about
>>> Euclidean vs. non-Euclidean geometry). Absolutely NO broad
>>> conclusions about the impossibility of resolution can be drawn
>>> from this fact. So please keep talking about ethics!
>>>
>>> Best, Joe
>>>
>>> I won't comment on the death penalty, Art, BUT the argument about
>>> ethics below is a BAD argument.
>>>
>>> First, the view that knowledge is possible only through empirical
>>> test is itself a philosophical view. Thus, it should be just as
>>> unprovable as you claim ethical principles to be. The view is self-
>>> refuting.
>>>
>>> Second, some ethical principles are just as knowable as empirical
>>> claims. I am as certain that slavery is wrong as I am that my hand
>>> exists. Certainly people might dispute that slavery is wrong but
>>> it can't follow from that that "slavery is wrong" is unknowable.
>>> It is a consequence of the Duheim-Quine thesis that ANY evidence
>>> can be rejected if one is willing to accept the consequences and
>>> revise enough of their beliefs. If you think that dispute means
>>> lack of knowledge it is easy to show that no one knows anything.
>>>
>>> Third, and related to the above, you can't give a non-question
>>> begging proof of the existence of anything, even your hand. What
>>> you can do is show that our actions convey that we all believe it
>>> (given it is true). But the same can be shown about ethical
>>> claims. Or so I think.
>>>
>>> Obviously this is controversial but the point is that your
>>> argument asumes all knowledge is gained by empirical proof. But
>>> this won't even work for your belief that you have a hand. Once
>>> you show me why it is that you are entitled to believe that you
>>> have a hand, I'm pretty confident I can duplicate the story for at
>>> least one moral claim. Again, if you push the view you are
>>> holding, skepticism follows. But then ethical principles are no
>>> longer unique.
>>>
>>> Lastly, often what seems to be an ethical disagreement is really
>>> something else, say, a metaphysical dispute. Take the abortion
>>> issue. Both sides AGREE that it is wrong to kill innocent persons.
>>> They disagree about the metaphysical issue, e.g., what is a
>>> person? (This is a simplification but hopefully you get the point.)
>>>
>>> Now it might turn out that metaphysically issues are irresolveable
>>> and, for that reason there will always be disagreement about
>>> abortion. But you should be careful about drawing similar
>>> conclusions about ethics.
>>>
>>> Dispute is part of the human condition. It is more common in
>>> philosophy and ethics but it exists even in math (think about
>>> Euclidean vs. non-Euclidean geometry). Absolutely NO broad
>>> conclusions about the impossibility of resolution can be drawn
>>> from this fact. So please keep talking about ethics!
>>>
>>> Best, Joe
>>>
>>> On Mar 15, 2010, at 11:22 PM, "Art Deco" <deco at moscow.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Here's why arguments like we are engaged in cannot be resolved
>>>> given our current state of knowledge:
>>>>
>>>> Ethical principles are not completely amenable to resolution by
>>>> evidence or testing. If they were, we wouldn't have such a wide
>>>> diversity of opinion on ethical matters held by decent,
>>>> reasonable people. It's not like establishing Ohm's law or the
>>>> Theory of Conditioned Reflexes. Facts count, but even when
>>>> people agree on the facts, they may not agree on an underlying
>>>> ethical principle.
>>>>
>>>> It appears you are arguing for the principle that capital is
>>>> never justified, or equivalently there is not a single case where
>>>> capital punishment is justified.
>>>>
>>>> How would you empirically establish the truth of such a broad
>>>> statement? What observations would render the probability of
>>>> such a statement being 1.00?
>>>>
>>>> The best we can do in our current state of knowledge (the absence
>>>> of an agreed method to establish ethical principles without
>>>> doubt) is to attempt to persuade others by citing facts or other
>>>> ethical principles which they may agree upon.
>>>>
>>>> In order to refute the statement "There is not a single case
>>>> where capital punishment is justified." only a single case need
>>>> be shown.
>>>>
>>>> I offered Joseph E. Duncan III as a counter-example (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_E._Duncan_III
>>>> )
>>>>
>>>> "Joseph Edward Duncan (born February 25, 1963) is an American
>>>> convicted serial killer and sex offender who received national
>>>> attention after being arrested in connection with the kidnapping
>>>> of Shasta Groene,[1] aged 8, and her brother Dylan,[2] 9, and
>>>> being featured on America's Most Wanted.[3] He pled guilty in
>>>> December 2007 to 10 federal counts involving the kidnapping and
>>>> torture of the children and the murder of Dylan at a remote
>>>> campsite west of the Rocky Mountain Front, and was sentenced to
>>>> death under federal laws for kidnapping resulting in death (he
>>>> had already pleaded guilty in state court) on August 27, 2008. As
>>>> of October 27, 2009, Duncan was being tried in Riverside County,
>>>> California for the 1997 murder of Anthony Michael Martinez."
>>>>
>>>> There is a lot more, a horrifyingly graphic, sickening more.
>>>>
>>>> I could have also cited a number of confessed serial murderers or
>>>> used those old favorites Hitler and Saddam Hussein.
>>>>
>>>> Given your belief in the statement "There is not a single case
>>>> where capital punishment is justified." such counterexamples
>>>> would not be persuasive to you. You would still hold the above
>>>> ethical principle to be true despite the lack of a method to
>>>> demonstrate it's truth. However, some people might be persuaded
>>>> that Duncan should be executed and make his case an exception to
>>>> their general opposition to capital punishment. In fact, I know
>>>> of at least one such person.
>>>>
>>>> Until there is a method to establish the truth of general ethical
>>>> principles differences of opinion like ours are not likely to be
>>>> resolved. We may persuade each other about certain cases or
>>>> classes of cases (like those where guilt is questionable), but in
>>>> general we have no way to come to agreement like we might if we
>>>> were arguing about the cause of diabetes or whether syphilis is
>>>> caused by urinating in the moonlight.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> W.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>>> From: Sunil Ramalingam
>>>> To: Art Deco ; Vision 2020
>>>> Sent: Monday, March 15, 2010 7:15 PM
>>>> Subject: RE: [Vision2020] Another good argument for the death
>>>> penalty
>>>>
>>>> Not even him, and you want to kill for less than that.
>>>>
>>>> From: deco at moscow.com
>>>> To: vision2020 at moscow.com
>>>> Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:10:12 -0700
>>>> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Another good argument for the death
>>>> penalty
>>>>
>>>> Joseph E. Duncan III
>>>>
>>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>>> From: Sunil Ramalingam
>>>> To: Art Deco ; Vision 2020
>>>> Sent: Monday, March 15, 2010 6:41 PM
>>>> Subject: RE: [Vision2020] Another good argument for the death
>>>> penalty
>>>>
>>>> I've never seen a good argument for the death penalty from you,
>>>> Wayne.
>>>>
>>>> Sunil
>>>>
>>>> From: deco at moscow.com
>>>> To: vision2020 at moscow.com
>>>> Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 16:15:37 -0700
>>>> Subject: [Vision2020] Another good argument for the death penalty
>>>>
>>>> Another good argument for the death penalty:
>>>>
>>>> Updated March 15, 2010
>>>>
>>>> Ex-Bank President Arrested for Allegedly Lying to Get TARP Money
>>>>
>>>> AP
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> The former president of a small community bank was arrested on
>>>> charges that he lied to the federal government to get a piece of
>>>> the bailout program, authorities said Monday.
>>>> NEW YORK -- The former president of a small community bank was
>>>> arrested on charges that he lied to the federal government to get
>>>> a piece of the bailout program, authorities said Monday.
>>>> Charles Antonucci Sr. was charged in a criminal complaint filed
>>>> in U.S. District Court in Manhattan with self-dealing, bank
>>>> bribery, embezzlement and fraud.
>>>> Authorities said the rip-off targeted the New York State Banking
>>>> Department, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Troubled
>>>> Asset Relief Program.
>>>> Antonucci resigned last year as president of The Park Avenue
>>>> Bank, which is headquartered in Manhattan with four retail
>>>> branches in Manhattan and Brooklyn.
>>>> Among other allegations, Antonucci was accused of using false
>>>> information to request $11 million from the
>>>> federal government's TARP bank bailout program.
>>>> The complaint accused him of lying to banking authorities in late
>>>> 2008 and early 2009 to make them believe he had invested $6.5
>>>> million of his own money in the bank when the money actually
>>>> belonged to the bank.
>>>> After the application for TARP money was rejected, Antonucci did
>>>> a media interview in which he said the bank withdrew its
>>>> application because of "issues" with the TARP program and a
>>>> desire to avoid "market perception" that bad banks take TARP
>>>> money, the complaint said.
>>>> Federal authorities say Antonucci actually wanted to obtain
>>>> millions of dollars for his own use, in part so he could obtain a
>>>> controlling interest in the bank.
>>>> They said he also permitted a former administrative assistant to
>>>> obtain $400,000 of loans the assistant was not qualified for. The
>>>> complaint said the former assistant is now cooperating.
>>>> The complaint alleged that Antonucci later used the former bank
>>>> employee's private plane on 10 or more occasions, including trips
>>>> to Phoenix to attend the Super Bowl, to Augusta, Ga., to watch
>>>> the Master's golf tournament, a flight to Florida to visit a
>>>> relative and a flight to Panama.
>>>> Antonucci's lawyer, Charles Stillman, said he had just gotten a
>>>> copy of the charges. He declined immediate comment.
>>>
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