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<div>In my previous post today at the bottom I offered info on the use of "confessions" in Saudi Arabia, based on the real life story of William Sampson, who was tortured for years in Saudi jails for crimes he did not commit. I am re-posting the same post under a different subject heading, to emphasize the info on William Sampson's story, which can be read by scanning to the bottom of this post.
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<div>Bruce et. al.</div>
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<div>I am not bored by your post, nor do I think the subject improper for the list. I don't buy the distinction some make about how to define a "local" as opposed to "non-local" issue, when fundamental moral and political issues are involved that should be of vital concern to everyone. Debate on the issues surrounding the death penalty are of particular importance at this point in time, given that basic principles of political rights that are fundamental to the death penalty debate, are now under attack in pursuing the "war on terror," habeas corpus especially. Habeas corpus was just suspended by our government when Bush signed the Military Tribunal legislation.
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<div>You touched many of the main points of argument in the death penalty debate, and rather diplomatically, I thought, as you illuminated why many of the pro-death penalty arguments are flawed or morally suspect.</div>
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<div>I would like to add another argument to the debate on deterrence, which turns the debate on the deterrent effect of life without parole vs. death on its head, though I think the deterrence arguments for the death penalty to be moot, considering the fundamental reason I think the death penalty should not be law, which I will explain later.
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<div>A significant percentage of those committing the heinous crimes that result in the death penalty care very little about anyones life, including their own. Witness the cold blooded killing of innocents at Columbine High School in Colorado, or the recent killings in the Amish school, where the killer(s) killed themselves before they could be apprehended by law enforcement. I could list many such cases of cold blooded murder followed by the suicide of the murderer(s) to bolster this point, but the evidence is rather obvious. The killers self imposed their own "death penalty!"
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<div>Which offers the most deterrent effect for murderers of this mentality, life imprisonment or death? <span></span> </div>
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<div>I am suggesting that in a significant number of cases, guaranteed life imprisonment on suicide watch, might be more of a deterrent than the death penalty. The self imposed "death penalty" of many killers bolsters this conclusion. They obviously would rather die.
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<div>But I really don't care if the death penalty is a deterrent, in the final analysis of this issue. If we want to construct a society where the State has the maximum power over its citizens to maximize deterrence for the commission of crimes, there are numerous measures that could be instituted. I won't make a list of these measures, but only say they fall under the category of instituting a police State, or fascist State. I don't think there is any way around the fact that a State that offers significant freedom from government interference and regulation of individuals lives, and protections against extreme abuses of State power, will allow a degree of freedom where certain crimes may occur with more frequency, than in an authoritarian State of one form or another. And granting the State the power to execute its own citizens is certainly one of the most, if not the most, extreme powers.
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<div>Perhaps Ben Franklin's famous truism applies here? "Those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither."</div>
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<div>I do not trust giving the State the power to execute its own citizens based on the fundamental principle of limiting State power to the minimum necessary to carry out its critical functions, even if the death penalty has a deterrent effect, or can be ethically or morally justified as "justice." Life imprisonment without parole can protect the public from monsters without the further extension of State power of the death penalty.
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<div>What I find astonishing is that many of those who are pro death penalty are also those who harp on about the corruption of government, limiting government power, reducing taxes, the inefficiency of government, the overall bungling of public sector bureaucracies, the lack of wisdom in general of allowing the government to sensibly regulate business or run peoples lives...Then they turn around and insist that this same bungling government of corruption, waste and fraud, should be empowered to justly decide who lives or dies in the death chamber! An amazing contradiction of reasoning!
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<div>Again, I don't trust the State with the power to execute (State sanctioned murder, to my mind) its own citizens when they are jailed in secure custody, even if it appears at a certain point in time that these executions are only being applied without error to those most heinous criminals who deserve the death penalty.
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<div>Need I list the examples from history where the death penalty has been abused horribly by the State? Make your own list. The examples are numerous and glaring. And need I point out that the moral and legal justifications for the death penalty in the USA create a moral and legal climate that is part of the reason we now see prisoners in US administered or supervised custody being tortured to death as we prosecute the "war on terror?"
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<div>Bruce's illumination of the errors of false confessions in enforcing the death penalty clearly demonstrates the potential for abuse of the death penalty by the State. And the "war on terror" has increased the potential for this abuse. Our so called ally, Saudi Arabia, has an interesting approach to confessions as they apply their death penalty. I heard an interview, on KGO AM 810 khz radio, with William Sampson, who was jailed and tortured by the Saudi's for years for crimes he did not commit. He was handed pre-written confessions and tortured till he signed them. This poor soul tried to figure out what to say or sign to get the torture to stop, but it continued. Finally, in desperation to end his life of misery, he decided to act in a manner that he thought would result in a swift execution, by damming and insulting Islam, a capitol offence in Saudi Arabia. He was released eventually, of course, but it seems a miracle he survived his ordeal.
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<div>Link to his book on his ordeal:</div>
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<div><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=61-0771079052-0" target="_blank">http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin<span></span> /biblio?inkey=61-0771079052-0</a>
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<h3>Synopses & Reviews</h3>
<h4><em></em>Publisher Comments:</h4>
<div>What was it that I did to survive? Where did those ideas come from? Where did I find the resolve to enact them? At the time of my release, I had no ready answers beyond that I did what seemed natural and necessary. In looking back, I realize that the peculiarities of my personality helped me to adopt strategies that allowed for the reclamation of my identity and my integrity while in the hands of barbarians. Yet what I did is neither remarkable nor courageous nor beyond the capabilities of any person that finds himself in similar circumstances. What I have come to believe is that there exists in all of us the potential to stand and fight and reclaim.
<p>-- William Sampson </p>
<p>On Sunday, December 17, 2000, Canadian engineer William Sampson stepped outside his house in Riyadh only to be hauled into a car and beaten by two Saudi men he didn't know. Within an hour, he was incarcerated in one of the city's most notorious jails. Within two months, he was tortured into a confession of responsibility for a wave of car bombings he did not commit. Sometime in that first year, he was sentenced to death in a secret trial. For two and a half years, Sampson was continually subjected to beatings and torture, convinced his death was just around the corner. Inept diplomacy failed him but human rights groups took up his cause and on August 8, 2003, he was finally freed in a controversial prisoner exchange. It wasn't until February 2005 that Sampson's name was officially cleared when a British inquest exonerated him of the crimes.
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<p>Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett</p></div></div></div>