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Lawyers arguing Marcellus Williams case at Mo. Supreme Court one day before his execution (www.stltoday.com)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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In America you can serve 24 years for a crime you didn't do, then when DNA evidence exonerates you, they'll still schedule your execution for September 24th, 2024. This is Marcellus Williams.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

People don't commit murder because they're making a careful decision and figure the penalty of life in prison is worth the risk, but death might not be.

IMO the death penalty is only useful for social murder. The CEO who signs off on the reduction of safety protocols at a baby formula plant, resulting in numerous infant deaths or the pharma exec who raises prices of a lifesaving drug on the other hand is likely to weigh risk vs reward.

[–] Fondots 1 points 2 months ago

I don't care about the death penalty as a deterrent. I care about it as a way to deal with certain people who will continue to pose a threat to others and for whom there are no other viable or humane options to rehabilitate them or otherwise render them safe to be around other people.

You can deal with a greedy pharma exec by seizing assets, injunctions against them participating in the pharmaceutical industry or serving in particular roles, stricter laws, regulations, and oversight on the pharma industry as a whole, etc.

You can't just regulate someone out of being dangerously emotionally disturbed, and if they can't be rehabilitated, what other viable options do you have left to keep them from harming others? You can lock them up in solitary, or perhaps take some drastic medical interventions like sedating them, lobotomizing them, or I guess chopping off their arms and legs, and at the point you're considering those sorts of options, the ethics of just killing them start to sound much more attractive.