Subject: Re: Self defense, due process, and the DP
X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0 -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas
X-Comment: The Transnational Radical Party List
I am touched by Dorry's faith in due process for indigents charged
with serious offenses, but this is contrary to my experience (and
I daresay to that of most indigents); it is not necessary to assume
that lawyers or public defenders for indigent defendants are
incompetent, just that they are overworked. Might not the Sing
Sing warden's famous comment that those who were executed on his
watch had one thing in common--they were poor be not that surprising?
(the same is true in other fields--doctors as well as lawyers have
"$100,000 educations, but the level of medical care for uninsured
indigent patients in General Hospitals or even VA hospitals is much
poorer for the same reasons). As for the cases I know of, it was
nothing as romantic as an evil "black belt" beating up on a ninety
pound weakling over an affair of the heart, but much more pedestrian
with no witnesses--the routineness of such affairs itself contributes
to the lack of careful due process. Nor do I think the fact that
there has been no revolution is evidence that the criminal justice
system is working well for everybody, but if it is not, a dramatic
increase in executions of offenders convicted in cursory trials
can only contribute to social unrest.
Dorry's first point, however is more interesting--by counting heads,
(no pun intended) an increase in executions of innocent parties, if
the increase is in direct proportion to the increase in executions
generally, will result in a net saving of lives, given the deterrent
effect of the hundred-fold or so rise in executions. Assuming that
Dorry is right that this does result in a dramatic reduction in
the murder rate, and no widespread protest against the new policy
results, due to the salutary decrease in homicides, there is still
the problem of getting from point A (where we are now) to point B
(Dorry's Utopia). It is simply not clear that a hundred-fold
increase
in the annual execution rate will immediately result in a dramatic
reduction in murders, and no significant protest or unrest. In the
real world, it often happens that point B is more desirable than
point A, while points in between are far more undesirable than
either one. The issue of gun control may supply another example.
The advocates of gun control may have a point, that the lower
rate of violent crime in Western Europe has a lot to do with the
relative unavailability of firearms. But how is the number of
handguns in this country to be reduced from the present 200 *million*
to Western European, without trampling on important freedoms (and
BTW, I'd say that the wide availability of handguns poses a larger
threat to public safety than evil black belts bent on
_crime passionel_) [oops Western European levels]. Meanwhile, the
levels of both CP and gun control we now have are useless or worse
than useless, being at best cosmetic and not getting to the root
of the problem. Yet I see little evidence of any inclination on
the part of the public for the drastic measures Dorry has in mind.
The example of Western Europe serves as a beacon for many would-be
reformers; at least it does show that a low rate of violent crime
is possible without capital punishment at all. But people argue
interminably about the reasons for this. The fact is that nobody
really *knows*, so that arguments get nowhere but continue
I myself would be reluctant to a drastic operation whithout more
than rhetorical arguments from the prospective operation [oops
the prospective surgeon] as to the expected benefits. And I
am similarly disinclined to support drastic increases in executions
without much more knowledge than I have seen from any source so
far (nor do I think that any such drastic increase is at all likely
to happen). The public prefers token CP and the Radical Party the
abolition of it. Neither policy has real effect one way or the
other, except as a matter of symbolism.
--Craig Harrison, San Francisco
