Hi Speranza Nuova,

Interesting piece, which I will respond to as an opposer of the death penalty.

O1. Instinctively, I will want to exact the greatest possible revenge. But, that is out of emotions rather than rationale. However, when thinking about the issue logically, if it was indeed 100% true that person is the murderer, perhaps it can be justified to kill him. However, since I can never be completely sure, I will not support killing the murderer as punishment because if one day, more evidence exonerates him, then I too am guilty of murder. Will the taking of another life bring back the life that was originally taken? No. Will it make me feel better? Maybe. Will I feel guilty for the rest of my life if I ask to kill the person who supposedly 'murdered' my wife, only to find out he was innocent 10 years after his death? Definitely.

O2. The Nuremburg Trials is indeed a difficult one to answer, perhaps more so than the Michael Dukakis' test. However, I still think my answer remains the same. Killing Hitler and gang will not bring back the lives of those that had been killed. Of course, Hitler and gang ought to be punish for their cruelty towards fellow human being, but if we dercy his actions of causing death, should we follow his example? What gives us the moral authority to condemn Hitler and gang if we do exactly the same as he did?

O3. I fail to see what this has got to do with capital punishment. The topic is dealing with the use of death penalty as a means of punishment after going through the process of the judicial system. Both the case of the suicide bombers and the deaf child are inapplicable arguments in dealing with capital punishment. They should be dealt with separately.

O4. The economic cost of keeping a person alive in prison is definitely enormous. I have no good arguments about the high cost involved. I only have a suggested solution, and that is to ensure that the prisoner, if able-bodied, perform some form of productive labour in prison to partially offset the cost of imprisoning him. My only caveat is that we respect some basic human rights and not treat the prisoners like slaves. This way, we need not deprive others of tax money to improve the other aspects of the society, and at the same time, we do not seal a possibly innocent person's chance of proving his innocence.

Hi Aaron,

Thank you for taking the time to respond. Just a few thoughts on your reply:

O2: Were Hitler's actions merely a case of "causing death"? Should all killings be considered equal in moral merit / demerit? Does executing the murderer of millions put one on the same moral level?

O3: This is partly about ascertaining the death penalty abolitionist's view on when it is acceptable to take a human life. In a roundabout way, it asks: "Would you sacrifice one life to save ten? What about a hundred? Or a thousand?"

O4: If the estimated cost of life imprisonment is S$2.8 million, this will far exceed the lifetime output from any prison labour imposed upon the convicted person. The opportunity cost dilemma will still apply. Does this affect your view?

Okay, enough questions for now. I hope I am not being too kaypoh by asking. :-)

Aiyoh, don't worry about asking. The more you ask, the better for me because I think more, right? In anycase, on a side note, since I don't get upset with KTM's replies at all, I won't be upset with yours. :p

Now to answer your followup questions:

O2. Indeed I concede that the murderer of millions is more immoral than the murderer of one if you look at it statistically, without consideration of intent. If you consider intent though, then the murderer of one is probably no different from the murderer of millions, since in both cases, the same intent to forcefully take away the life of another is present. It really depends on what factors one wishes to take into account for one to decide to be pro or anti capital punishment.

O3. If you are talking about utilitarianism, it all depends on the assumptions one makes. If one assumes that executing a person will have a deterrent effect, of course capital punishment is acceptable for the greater good of society. However, if we assume that executing a person has no effect on deterrance, of course it is not acceptable because since society doesn't really benefit, we should not take a person's life against his/her will. To draw in the example of Tochi, he was merely a low level runner. Executing him does not really benefit Singapore society as a whole because he's not involved in the masterminding of the entire operation. Will his death prevent more drugs from coming into Singapore? The druglords will probably just find another willing replacement. In anycase, to add a little extra question to consider, if there is no demand for drugs, will there be supply? Should more effort be spent on curbing demand, rather than to execute people in an effort to stem supply? Are we missing the point altogether in the case of Tochi?

O4. It doesn't affect my view simply because the opportunity cost of executing an innocent person is way higher. If you can return life back to a dead person that was innocently executed, then by all means, bring on capital punishment.

Hi! Indeed, there is no "correct" answers to these questions.

Thank you for the thought-poking article. I think I have much to think about to come up with a more well-informed stand on this issue.

sorry, I meant "thought provoking" and not "thought poking" =p

in the us, death row inmates incur significant legal costs associated with numerous appeals, retrials, etc. because some of these inmates cannot afford these costs, they are borne by taxpayers (in the name of due process).

also, due to the long delay before inmates are executed, the death penalty can be as expensive as life imprisonment, because death row inmates need to be kept alive for a long time.

swift executions with minimal recourse to appeals will cost less, for sure. but if one compares life imprisonment with any reasonably just implementation of the death penalty, the costs are comparable.

I think in Freakonomics http://www.freakonomics.com/ch4.php (the book), it is argued that death penalty doesn't really deter criminal intent or has any significant impact on bringing down the crime rate. In the US, you have similar metropolitan areas that have most variables holding constant except the use of death penalty, so more date can be gathered. Not sure how you can gather the necessary data in small countries such as Singapore.

Sze Meng: Actually, the argument in Freakonomics is not about the death penalty per se but the death penalty in its present form in the US: "[G]iven the rarity with which executions are carried out in this country and the long delays in doing so, no reasonable criminal should be deterred by the threat of execution. Even though capital punishment quadrupled within a decade, there were still only 478 executions in the entire United States during the 1990s." To say the least, the empirical data is rather ambiguous; see this paper.

Indeed there is no 'correct' answer until one takes a stand for or against the death penalty.

However, for us here in Singapore now, should the debate be one of how does one get convicted of a crime punishable by death and the due process? Who bears the onus of proof? The prosecution or the defence? Do we presume person charged guilty until proven innocent or innocent until proven guilty?

Hello. *scratch head* Hmm, just a personal point of view; I completely oppose the mandatory death penalty (even though I do acknowledge tt a discretionary death penalty does impose sentencing dilemmas for compassionate judges). While I am a little more ambivalent about a discretionary death penalty (altho for the most part I do disagree with it), for certain cases such as the recent Canadian case about tt pig farmer who murdered a whole bunch of women in Vancouver, I can't oppose a death penalty because firstly, I don't think he can be rehabilitated, secondly, I think it's a waste of state resources to keep him incarcerated for life, and thirdly, I think tt serial killers are a danger to society (as are terrorists and so on and so forth). But this is just my personal view.

Interestingly, regarding costs, it's only more expensive to have inmates on death row in the US (or other countries). But in Singapore, I think it's actually cheaper, especially because the time of sentencing, appeal and clemency plea to the time of death is pretty short. We rarely ever allow enough time for possible exoneration.

But more importantly, I completely oppose a mandatory death penalty where the standard of proof is lowered. I do believe that Singapore may keep the death penalty for some time yet. I know tt opposition to completely abolishing the death penalty is very strong, especially among the conservatives who believe in retributive justice (even tho research shows tt the deterent effect of the death penalty is a fallacy). Moves to push for a discretionary death penalty are currently underway with some groups, lawyers and legal academics pushing for it, but whether Parliament will consider this (altho I really hope they do) is entirely up to them.

Till then, judges' hands are tied so long as they find defendants guilty of an offence, no matter how culpable (or not) they might be.

Sze Meng,

you said,
"I think in Freakonomics http://www.freakonomics.com/ch4.php (the book), it is argued that death penalty doesn't really deter criminal intent or has any significant impact on bringing down the crime rate."

Laws in place are not created nor taken down based on whether they would be 100% or less effective as deterrent. They are put in place as the moral limits of a society to discourage people from committing disapprovable crimes.

The implementation of the death penalty does not seek a quota or a number, it has nothing to do with statistics. When does the implementation of any law has? If a society has no crimes, does it mean it does not require a system of law?

The law is the democratic voice of a society to deal with immoral criminals who cross the line. Democracy of a soceity has to be respected otherwise there would be obligarchy.

If people don't wish to see criminals die from the death penalty, they can do at least do something by spreading the preventive measure by educating would-be criminals to not commit serious crimes, rather than just being the dictators of consequential actions of law.

Or, vote for another political party that would not support the death penalty. Saying anything more is just ineffective and disrespectful towards democracy.

These are good questions, but in order to answer them in any coherent fashion, one has to have a set of principles beforehand. (Alternatively, one could say that it is by answering these questions that one may discover one's own set of guiding principles).

For me, my starting position is like this: taking a life is an act that is morally very troubling. However, morally very troubling doesn't mean it is absolutely impermissible. In life, there will be situations (hopefully very rare) where one is left with no options but morally troubling ones, and one just has to choose among them. However, should a non-troubling option be available, it is morally better to choose the non-troubling option than the troubling one.

The death penalty is not just a morally troubling matter, but a VERY troubling matter. Thus -

1. If its use is to be justified by the argument of deterrence, then we have a moral responsibility to be very sure that deterrence is empirically proven, not just a theoretical model with selective anecdotal support, AND that the death penalty is the only available instrument to achieve that deterrence. In my view, we are nowhere near this double standard of proof, a standard needed to overcome the moral repugnance of taking a life.

2. If its use is justified by the argument of retribution, then we have to be very sure that the immorality of the perpetrator is way above the immorality of executing him. Conceivably, this line can be drawn somewhere in cases of murder since murder ranges from something unpremeditated (e.g. crimes of passion) to serial to genocide. In my view, a one for one is not good enough to overcome the moral difficulty of taking a person's life judicially. But if the perpetrator has committed repeated or multiple murders, and the proof of his premeditation and culpability is sound, then it may be possible to argue that the morally troubling nature of judicial execution has been overcome by the even more heinous natures of his acts.

As to the question of the cost of incarceration, it is very problematic to reduce moral questions to that of economy; if we did that we might begin to ask, should we care for our old and infirm parents suffering for slow-progressing degenerative diseases for 15 - 20 years? Or should be finish them off to save money; to pay for our children's education?

The death penalty is so divisive all because of the issue of whether the general good of the society takes precedence over the individual. I remember discussing on Zyberzitizen's blog with someone who is very strongly for the death penalty, even if it compromises the life of an innocent individual because of the subsequent effect that will ripple through society. When I posed the question to him on whether will he willingly die for the greater good of society even if he was really innocent, he maintains he would. @@

Really, how far should punishment by death be taken under the name of utilitarianism? Is it indeed for the greater good of society to kill someone rather than to try and rehabilitate him into a productive citizen of society? Perhaps our own assumption of human nature too is being called into question. Are human beings necessarily non self-correcting by nature? Once a human being is deemed 'broken', is there no other recourse? What about the opportunity cost of taking a life only to realise that it was wrongly taken in the name of justice? Does wrongfully killing someone under the name of justice mean that it's not murder? Is it really right to work on a 'balance of probabilities' in something as serious as capital punishment?

I'm just rambling away after reading all the comments. :(

Kitana: Would raising the standard of proof reduce the number of executed drug traffickers? As a thought experiment, a raised standard of proof would either:

[i] Provide a blanket defence, since any trafficker could evade conviction by claiming ignorance regarding the contents of his luggage; or

[ii] Make no difference, although I guess you would have a better idea on the case law for reasonable doubt in these circumstances. My legal knowledge is sketchy and probably full of nonsense. :-)

Can judges with conscientious objections to the death penalty decline capital cases? (The analogy is that of doctors, who may choose not to perform abortions.) If so, a discretionary death penalty may not have a big impact on the number of executions, since capital cases would only be heard by those willing to dispense the death penalty.

Aaron: I agree that curbing demand is a key part of the solution. Although some might argue that supply creates demand, in the case of addictive substances.

I am not sure about what Singapore's options are, regarding catching the masterminds behind drug cartels. The Americans seem to have had little success, so don't know how much our little red dot can do on this front, beyond information sharing and law enforcement co-operation across borders. :-(

Anyway it is okay to ask questions and ramble. :-) It is good for Singapore if more people think and reflect, both about the world outside, as well as about their deepest held beliefs. :-)

Whybegay: I presume that by "democracy", you mean government according to the will of the people. But are there certain laws which should never be enacted, even if an overwhelming majority of voters support the legislation?

Or returning to Question P3: If 100 men gang up and hang a person, many would call it a lynch mob. Why, then, does it become democracy when it is 1 million, not 100 people deciding that certain persons should hang?

Looking at your other point on the moral limits of a society, should a society partake of disapprovable actions in an attempt to deter them?

1) I suspect that the mandatory death penalty as imposed in Singapore is to remove the notion of "arbitrariness" in implementing death penalty, something that seems to plague the US's judicial implement of the death penalty.

For example,
James Elledge was executed in Washington State in 2001 for the murder of a woman. He had turned himself in after the crime, and pleaded guilty at the trial. He refused to allow any mitigating evidence to be presented and waived his right to appeal.

Two years later in Washington State, Gary Ridgway was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of 48 women. He avoided a death sentence in return for his cooperation with the authorities and a guilty plea. If Gary Ridgway was not subject to the death penalty, why was James Elledge executed for killing 47 fewer victims?

2) Another interesting counter-factual argument to ask is will the crime rates for the polity go down if Death penalty is abolished?

It seems that recent crime figures from abolitionist countries fail to show that abolition has harmful effects. In Canada, for example, the homicide rate per 100,000 population fell from a peak of 3.09 in 1975, the year before the abolition of the death penalty for murder, to 2.41 in 1980, and since then it has declined further. In 2003, 27 years after abolition, the homicide rate was 1.73 per 100,000 population, 44 per cent lower than in 1975 and the lowest rate in three decades.

(Reference: Roger Hood, The Death Penalty: A World-wide Perspective, Oxford, Clarendon Press, third edition, 2002, p. 214)

3) I think the most important aspect of the death penalty debate is the debate over the notion of "rights", which underpins not only the issue of death penalty in Singapore but on a host of numerous other issues. The notion of rights in Singapore seems to be debatable (Does anyone recall the time where there was a debate on whether voting in an election is a "right" or "privilege" in Singapore a few years ago? Chua Lee Hoong and Minister Wong Kan Seng raised and clarified this issue in the end, calling it a "right") rather than "inalienable." Central to human rights is that they are inalienable -- they are accorded equally to every individual regardless of their status, ethnicity, religion or origin. They may not be taken away from anyone.

On the issue of death penalty, abolitionists argue that the right to life is protected under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights where one section states that "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment".

Of course, states will argue that adopting such an approach to human rights restrict policy options and may go against the "popular opinions" on death penalty. However, if we take such a notion to rights (pick and choose which ones are "inalienable"), and take such notions to a logical conclusion, are we saying all "rights" in the end are relative then? Relative to Whom? Who decide what rights are relative at what juncture of time? Can the elected representative (President) of the United States take away the "right" of people in Guantanamo Bay even if they are "elected" by the people? Can elected representatives take and bestow rights? Do rights become privilege then? Is the right to life actually to some extent, a "privilege" then in countries that are still retentionists?

I don't have a firm answer on the questions, but a couple of comments on some things that YB and Aaron said.

Yawningbread:

As to the question of the cost of incarceration, it is very problematic to reduce moral questions to that of economy; if we did that we might begin to ask, should we care for our old and infirm parents suffering for slow-progressing degenerative diseases for 15 - 20 years? Or should be finish them off to save money; to pay for our children's education?

But ordinary people make trade offs that are not completely unlike the one you posed--all the time. Unless you are very rich, there will always be a question of how much one should spend educating one's kids--or for that matter--provide for one's parents, as opposed to going on that cruise, or buying that new computer, etc., etc. And likewise, why is it not possible for someone to be faced with the dilemma of reducing his support for his parents so as to provide for better education for his kids or vice versa? Not only is this sort of situations possible, I'd wager that they happen fairly often (albeit in less dramatic ways) for the many people in the world for whom it is not true that "money is no object".

In any case, the 'money' or 'economy' part of the issue is only a proxy for the underlying trade-offs between competing claims upon our attention, effort, resources, etc. In other words, even if we don't, so to speak, "reduce moral questions to that of economy", the same trade-offs will continue to bug us. The X amount of resources that it costs to incarcerate a criminal represents society's opportunity cost for doing something else--providing more health care, handouts for the poor, funding for medical research, etc. Or in Speranza's original formulation: "is S$85 million a year better spent on lifesaving treatment for children with cancer, or on keeping convicted murderers and drug traffickers alive in prison? Would you be willing to forego or downgrade the quality of medical treatment for your loved ones, to subsidise that life sentence?"

Aaron:

I doubt that all proponents of the death penalty need make the assumptions you are attributing to them. All parties could, in principle, agree that it is always possible to rehabilitate anyone "into a productive citizen of society", without thereby coming to consensus on the point at which it becomes worthwhile to do so, once the opportunity cost of doing so is brought into the scales. Or they might not be convinced that the present methods for rehabilitation are actually effective. I'd imagine the proponents of the death penalty saying that if society is going to forego the opportunity cost of doing many other things (many of which possibly involve life and death issues for innocents), then we have a moral responsibility to be very sure that the methods of rehabilitation are empirically proven to be workable and effective, not just theoretical models with selective anecdotal support, as one might say.

Yawning Bread: I agree with you that answering the questions coherently requires a pre-existing set of principles. Not everybody has reflected deeply on their guiding principles, however, and it is my hope that this article will stimulate self-reflection among the readers of that category. :-)

Yes, it is problematic (and I would add, soul-destroying) to reduce moral questions to economic ones. But any death penalty abolitionist should also recognise that the cost of life imprisonment (in lieu of death) is borne not just by the abolitionists.

For example, how many abolitionists would be willing to tell the father of a child sick with cancer, "Whatever your personal stance on the death penalty, I am going to divert $2.8 million of Government money to keeping a convicted murderer alive, money that could be spent on potentially lifesaving medical treatment for your child."

If one absolutely values the sanctity of not willfully taking life, then presumably the principle must stand even in the face of it being costly, though the costs may indirectly hurt another person's chances of survival. It is not often presented in such terms, though.

Speranza Nuova,
thanks for posting this article. It captures very well the questions we indeed should be asking ourselves when considering this issue.

About finding an alternative to the death penalty as a deterrent, I think in Singapore, or maybe I should just speak for myself, I have grown up in an environment where I am made to fear what would happen if we do not have the death penalty. The picture that has been painted in my mind is that we would have an ultra decadent society with lots of crime. I think it is this fear that prevents many of us from considering possible alternatives because we fear what the alternatives might lead to if they fail.

Speranza Nuova,

The punishment of Law is always seen as unfair to the criminals or to the outside observers, this is the deterrence of the Law. What the criminal does has to be deterred with something worse than the crime, a greater evil. This is to show that crimes do not deserve a fair consequence. Therefore don't do it.

Death penalty is still not 100% effective as a deterrent, people still continue extreme crimes because they don't fear death. Death penalty is still not effective, murderers are still more evil than the death penalty.

Murderers are more evil than the death penalty itself, they don't take it into concern. They also don't take Democracy into concern. Has anyone considered this?

The Law or vote of democracy is not all out to kill people. It is the true criminals who seek their own consequences.

Democracy has the obligation to protect its citizens, even if it means killing off immediate threats to society. The voice of Democracy has already spoken, if criminals continue their threats, it will get rid of them as it has promised its citizens of their safety. There is no compromise, no negotiations because a democratic promise is a democratic promise, it will always be kept to the full of Democracy.

I hardly think the death penalty is a deterrent. death is release.

if anything for a deterrent, they could flay the flesh off the limbs of drug traffickers, and leave them as headless limbless torsos in vats, where upon subsequent tortures can be inflicted upon them with every medical attempt to keep them alive and in as much pain as possible for as long as possible.

I think the ancient chinese dynasties were rather creative on this point... how's that for asian values?

oops.. strike the headless part.....not much point in torturing a headless torso

There was no direct evidence that [Amara Tochi] knew the capsules contained diamorphine. There was nothing to suggest that Smith had told him they contained diamorhine, or that he had found that out of his own." paragraph 42 SGHC 233.

Notwithstanding, Tochi was found guilty because according to the judges "Tochi should have known and therefore he is guilty".
========

It is not about the death penalty but rather the above statement that is very chilling.

If Singaporeans are comfortable with that and continue to insist that the death penalty serves as an effective deterrant, I guess we deserve the Singapore we get. Time to get back to shopping for the CNY sale!

Hui-Chieh,

I agree totally that we need proof that it is actually viable and effective to rehabilitate an offender. Judging from the Prisons' push towards reintegrating offenders back into society, I think that there must be enough reason for Prisons to adopt such a rehabilitative approach towards people who have committed crimes.

Of course, looking beyond the issue of rehabilitation is the issue of public communication, a.k.a deterrance. Whether the individual can be rehabilitated or not seems not to be the main issue when it comes to the death penalty on certain matters, such as drugs. Even if the guilty person can be rehabilitated, there is a need to sacrifice his life for the so-called 'greater good'.

However, as Ian Timothy has pointed out, we have been living in a system where capital punishment has been imposed and we see the effects of this system. What we do not see or know is whether an alternative solution (such as harsh prison terms) is as effective as capital punishment. Capital punishment seems to be working so far, so why bother to change it? And of course, the conservative (kiasu) Singaporean attitude will come into play: what if the untested alternative is worse than the current solution? Perhaps it's better to keep the current solution afterall.

yawningbread + kelvin check out william's post in

http://theonlinecitizen.com/2007/01/27/complicity-in-the-senseless-murder-of-a-young-boy/

wild...

In the case of drug trafficking, the judge should be given the discretion to decide if the death penalty should be applied.

This is similar to the case where some landlords were cumpulsorily jailed when they rented their apartments to illegal workers. Some old ladies were jailed because they were ignorant of the law and on how to check the tenants' work permits. But sorry hor. You go to jail. The judge has no discretion but to impose a mandatory jail term.

I think today there was an article in the Straits Times about someone who got successfully rehabilitated.

Huichieh -

on the matter of trade-offs I wasn't referring to "reducing parental support", but rather to "finishing" them off, in order to pay for other things. Sorry I wasn't altogether clear.

What you are suggesting is more like the trade-off between A and B, where neither side is deeply troubling morally. Such an equation is resolvable without too deep a moral crisis, albeit different people resolve it in different ways.

The trade-off I am refer to is something between A and an exclamation mark, where one side a deep moral problem. Such equations probably cannot be resolved by cost-benefit analyses.

What you have shown is that the nub of the problem lies in whether people see the death penalty as more akin to "B" or "!". For people who do not see the death penalty as a very troubling moral question, indeed questions of cost-benefit can be used to resolve the matter. But for those who do not, no amount of cost-benefit analysis will truly answer the question.

So maybe the starting point in a discussion about the death penalty is for each person to ask himself where on the scale of moral troubleness does one put the death penalty? Because different solutions to the question of crime and punishment flow from there, making societal consensus difficult.

I do not think that societies that have abolished capital punishment did so by calculative analysis, like some are attmepting to do here. As far as I can see, the issue was "resolved" in each of these places by a perceptual shift in society, to seeing the death penalty as deeply immoral. And that's that.

Speranza Nova:

Yes. The reason why we have all these presumptions in the first place, is because it is procedurally difficult for the prosecution to prove intention for trafficking, more so than other normal crimes (procedural difficulty + the perceived need for deterrence = lowered standard of proof, so tt drug traffickers can be caught more easily).

You're right about the first scenario. If we use a subjective standard of actual knowledge and the defendant pleads ignorance to what he is carrying, there is little tt can be done to prove otherwise, which will make it easier for him to escape the charge. The presumption of knowledge tips the balance in an otherwise catch-22 situation - if we place the burden on the prosecution to prove intention beyond a reasonable doubt, a lot of traffickers may be able to escape the charge much more easily, because if they plead no actual knowledge, it is difficult for the prosecution to show otherwise. Hence, we have decided to impose a presumption of knowledge and reverse this burden, to make it easier for the prosecution (and make it more difficult for probably culpable traffickers to escape the charge). However, the result is tt it is much easier to convict people of trafficking, because just as it is difficult to prove knowledge, it is also extremely difficult to disprove knowledge. I am unaware of any case where someone caught in possession of drugs has managed to disprove knowledge. I'm sure tt such cases must exist, but I haven't come across yet. For most of what I know, most people are unable to rebut the presumption once they are found in possession of drugs. And this is regardless of level of culpability.

Considering the amount of harm and damage tt drugs can cost society - or at least, drugs of the nature of heroin, I do believe tt the law is needed to protect society from such drugs. Hence, I can understand the need for the law to be tough on traffickers by lowering the standard of proof and reversing the burden. However, considering the fact tt the not-so-culpable will thus be as easily caught as the more-culpable, the fact tt this lowered standard is coupled with a mandatory death penalty is the thing I cannot agree with.

For other crimes tt attract the death penalty, such as murder, the prosecution has to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt. For the murder trials (the very few) tt I'd attended, the judges I watched in action were exceedingly careful in reviewing the evidence, and were more in favour of reducing the charge to a lesser one (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) tt would not attract the death penalty. While there are judges who might be inclined to rule for the death penalty in capital cases, from what I've seen so far, especially of the newer (and younger) judges, this trend is being fazed out. The newer and younger judges seem to exhibit inclinations towards gentler sentences, and are less quick to use the death penalty (at least for murder cases).

The problem is tt for drug trafficking, there is almost no room to manoeuvre. Once you are found in possession of this quantity of drugs (i.e. over 15 g of heroin), all the presumptions kick in, you are found guilty of trafficking easily, and you are sentenced to death. The judges can't do tt much. This is why I think tt a discretionary death penalty is a much better idea. I'm not sure what the official statistics are, but in the US where the death penalty is discretionary, if I'm not wrong, judges don't apply it very often at all. And I think tt in Singapore, at least if the death penalty were discretionary, even if someone like Tochi were found guilty of trafficking (which, considering the amount of heroin he was caught with, he probably would have been), the judge could have had more say in what punishment would be fitting for his crime.

This is just my personal view.

Yawningbread:

The trade-off I am refer to is something between A and an exclamation mark, where one side a deep moral problem. Such equations probably cannot be resolved by cost-benefit analyses.

A couple of points:

1. What happens if the choice is not "A vs. !" but "!(a) vs. !(b)"? For instance, spending $85 million to incarcerate one vs. using that same money (i.e., the resources, man-hours, etc. that it represent) to save innocent lives from pestilence, from lack of drinking water, etc. Or are we saying that such dilemmas just cannot occur?

2. The important thing to me is not that the calculus goes one way or the other--I've not really made up my mind yet. And I am open to persuasion, on a category by category basis too. Rather, my worry is that by putting *anything* (and the point applies to the pro-death penalty position as well) on some sort of absolute moral scale basically removes it from the possibility of discussion and compromise.

That might be what is called for in the realm of personal morality, but unless we want to live with a moralized politics without the possibility of ambiguity or grayness, it doesn't seem appropriate for the politics of any group of people with diverse values. Politics is about compromise (which, by the way, is also why I am ultimately not hot about it).

I do not think that societies that have abolished capital punishment did so by calculative analysis, like some are attmepting to do here. As far as I can see, the issue was "resolved" in each of these places by a perceptual shift in society, to seeing the death penalty as deeply immoral. And that's that.

1. Just because these societies abolished capital punishment without any "calculative analysis" doesn't mean that there wasn't a trade-off. It merely meant that they opted for one set of trade-offs, at worse without thinking much about it. It is entirely arguable (though not proven per se--I wouldn't know) that the millions of dollars spent in incarcerating each prisoner for life, etc., represent lost opportunity cost for saving many innocent lives.

2. In any case, the issue is not about how societies come to abolish capital punishment but whether a society should. As far as I can tell, the jury is still out on whether these societies made the right move. I'm open to both possibilities.

I would just like to point out that the mandatory death penalty can be over-ride by the presidential pardon. Whether or not that is comforting to know.

Huichieh - thanks for clarifying. I assume you are stating that because so few people in the US are actually subjected to the death penalty that it is not an effective deterrent to the serious crimes it aims to deter.

Whybegay - Thanks for sharing another perspective. I think you meant that the death penalty is a moral limit of the society, and that the majority of our population agrees to the death penalty because of our democratic elected government imposes the law. Whether it is an effective deterrent to crime is not as important to you.

I am trying to bring a different perspective in terms of whether the death penalty is really effective in deterring the criminal behaviors it wants to do so. A question is whether there is a better "punishment" than the death penalty to bring down the crimes that only the death penalty purports to do so? I honestly don't know, and don't have time to investigate.

For example, in the US, it is argued that the death penalty do not deter the criminal behaviors it meant to do so because not sufficient number of people are subjected to it.

However, in terms of drug trafficking in Singapore, the death penalty seems to be effective because sufficient numbers of people are subjected to death penalty to make it an effective deterrent (i.e. Singapore is not the most ideal place to traffic drugs)

That said, whether death penalty is present in the society does reflect the general population view of it (assuming a democratically elected government). For examples, some US states have NO death penalty because the state legislation/governor will be voted out if it recommend and enforce it, while some US states (i.e. Texas) have the death penalty for a long time because it has a majority support of the populace.

Cheers - Sze-meng

Sze-meng: actually, I have no idea. My point was rather that because of the peculiar way in which they go about the death penalty, it's hard to get a real grip on whether the data really shows anything about the deterrent effects of capital punishment per se, as opposed to capital punishment as it is practiced in the US.

Speranza Nuova, very nice primer for discussion. But here are some questions to disorient/reorient the questions. Two things seem to be missing in the balanced questioning, and other than morality and the personal-emotive, these two things are essential to the discussion of the death penalty: justice and the state.

The death penalty, or any penalty for the matter, is a question of justice. The questions to ask are whether the defendant is accorded justice and whether the judicial system is effectively judicial in its practices and discourse. For a long time, our judicial system was primed for efficiency, thus questions of deterrence dominated. But it is necessary to ask, to shift the 'effectiveness' that Sze Meng raises to the domain of justice, not whether the death penalty is an effective deterrent but whether there is effective justice being adjudicated/exercised. Thus, our current chief justice, when he took office, noted that since efficiency has now been effectively institutionalized by the previous chief justice, it is time to focus on justice. The Dukakis question (O1) is really irrelevant, since justice is not revenge, whether personal or social. It was a Republican red herring, and still is.

On this note, I take the reverse opinion of Kitana's last point, it is precisely because the death penalty is mandatory that discretion is shifted unto the hands of the police and state prosecutors, where they often negotiate the 'actual' amounts of drugs that the defendant is charged with. Sometimes, 'discounts' are given to defendants whose lawyers know how to negotiate the technicality of 'possession', so that they would escape the death penalty. In this situation, those who cannot afford good lawyers, usually the mules and not the upper echelons of the drug ring or the middle/upper-class consumers, would suffer death. Now, death is irreversible, and given the efficiency of our judicial and police system, have we been hanging people before they are allowed to run the full course of justice? Thus, P1 and P2 are good questions, but should be couched not in personal terms but whether the justice system tackles these questions and maximizes the safeguards of justice for defendants.

Next question is the state, which implements the death penalty on the grounds of legitimacy given by the people. The state, contra to Sze Meng, is not simply representative of society's views. The state is not a neutral arbiter nor objective executioner of the will of society. The question is what is the state, what do we want the state to be? Do we want to give this near-absolute power of taking lives to the state? The questions on genocide and war (O2 and O3) concern the legality and legitimacy of state and supra-state institutions. The question is under which conditions and with what safeguards can, say, an international tribunal hang a mass murderer, and under which conditions and with what safeguards can a state asks for the sacrifice of its citizens to murder and risk being murdered? Similarly, we should ask, under which conditions and with what safeguards can a state be given the power to decide on questions of life and death?

Dansong - I think the view that the state is a reflection of society view if the government is fully democratically elected comes from whybegay. I was more interested in the effectiveness point of view.

That said, in the US, whether a state has a death penalty is really driven by the populace because it is such a hot issue, and some states are definitely more liberal than others.

Sze Meng,

you ask of the effectiveness of the death penalty's deterrence on its related crimes such as murder or drug trafficking, and whether there is a more effective one. Many people have said that there is no clear statistics on its effectiveness because it is impossible to truly know.

Let me refer the death penalty for drug trafficking.

In my view, the implementation of the death penalty is based on protecting the interests of the recipient countries of drug-trafficking.

For the case of the death penalty as a deterrent effect on future drug trafficking, it could be based on related social issues of drug trafficking, the main of which is drug abuse.

I believe PM Lee once made a statement that Singapore cannot be used as a drug trafficking hub, as he sees Singapore as having this huge role and responsibility to protect the interests of other nations related to Singapore by its well-connected air-routes.

Singapore would thus play a huge role in regulating the drug culture internationally. This is evident in the international responses to Singapore's dealings of its captured international drug traffickers. People and government from internation countries would show their support or discouragement of our response to their captured drug trafficking citizens.

So to actually analyse the deterrence effect of the death penalty on drug trafficking in Singapore, it could be more complex than countries that are less strategically positioned as Singapore is.

Maybe for nations that are not as strategically positioned as Singapore to be a drug-trafficking hub, they could feel that their laws would serve mainly the interests of their own people. Therefore they have more flexibility in opting or revising the death penalty based on local consensus. For Singapore's case as a strategically positioned country, I think it would have less flexibility as it sees itself as hugely responsible not just for its own social well-being but for other countries as well.

On the Nguyen drug trafficking case, Nguyen was to traffick drugs to his home country of Australia. I remember reading news reports of a statistics of its people being halve divided on supporting the death penalty of Singapore. One half supports it, the other half does not support it. Their support for the death penalty on drug trafficking could be based on their local drug problems, on how it affects the social community.

Therefore an accurate statistics of the death penalty's deterrence could be directly linked to how the people of a country feel they are affected by the crimes related to the penalty, as in a cause and effect sequence.

How people feel when the death penalty related crimes are up versus how they feel when the crimes are down. Isn't how a person feels of his social environment, related to the answers one provides when interviewed in a statistics survey of it? This statistics later could spur a nation to support or denounce the death penalty.

I think having a better deterrent as of the death penalty may not be easy to implement even if found. Because in order to try out an alternative deterrent, the present deterrent has to be given up. The public out of fear, may not want to risk being subjected to possibly more crimes affecting them simply by trying out a social experiment that could escalate into a worst case scenario. The public may feel that their experience of their own worse fears which is death as in being murdered(murder as one of the crimes of the death penalty), that terminates their freedom in life, should also be the most effective fear that can deter other people such as criminals. It is a "what works for me should work for others" scenario. The fear that the death penalty can exert on possible criminals is therefore very related to the fear that the people have on it losing its fearful grip. To convince the people of a better deterrent as to the death penalty, one has to break this fearful cycle, and this can be extraordinary difficult.

Ian Timothy said in comment,
"About finding an alternative to the death penalty as a deterrent, I think in Singapore, or maybe I should just speak for myself, I have grown up in an environment where I am made to fear what would happen if we do not have the death penalty. The picture that has been painted in my mind is that we would have an ultra decadent society with lots of crime. I think it is this fear that prevents many of us from considering possible alternatives because we fear what the alternatives might lead to if they fail."

It's been a long while since i jumped into a fray at the SingaporeAngle.
Hi everyone.

Just a couple of comments.

It's seems a dominant assumption that the death penalty is either purely utilitarian or retributionistic. However it can both utilitarian and retributionistic roots. Depending on your views on punishment, you might draw the line differently on where utilitarian concerns fade out and where retributive elements dominate the fray; or only one of it is relevant.

Mandatory death sentence.
Perhaps there's a fair bit of confusion on the 'mandatory' part. Whilst it means that the Judge has not leeway when it comes to sentencing, it also means certainty. And many forget that this harshness is mitigated by the discretionary power given to the presiding judge to acquit based on the current charge then convict on a lesser charge. Sure there will be cases like Tochi (though to be apart from his age there's nothing 'hard' about this case), but don't forget that these are the hard cases (Hart) which test the limits of the system. If we lift the mandatory death penalty, are we not changing the system for rare instances, risking uncertainty in majority of the cases. Also, wouldn't a proponent for lifting the 'mandatory' in death sentences be in effect be abolishing it? Wouldn't lies be easier sold to unsuspecting traffickers that they would not be hanged if they are caught.

Reading the Judgement.
ST and most other papers (BBC included) are known not to quote judges correctly. There are alot of quotes taken out of context. Further if you read both judgements, it would be a long shot if you found Tochi's sob story convincing.

On a side note, i believe one's stance on the death penalty is dependent on personal morality. Even if both has got identical philosophies.

YB:
Do you think the abolishment of the death penalty in countries is due to a shift in the populace's morality or the morality of the leaders (intellectual, political, trade)?
Note that the death penalty was only abolished in the UK in 98/99. And the abolishment of death for murder provoked a major discussion in the commons and lords as well as among the public.
Do you think it s possible for a morality shift away from life imprisonment (and of course this assuming the death penalty is already a relic of the past)? There's a gathering human rights argument that life imprison is degrading and inhumane.

Interesting discussion going on.

Advocates for death penalty point out that it is a deterrence against drug trafficking. I was just wondering, what if some of the drug traffickers are not even aware that Singapore has such a law? The drug lords might be aware of it, but their pawns might not and hence they would still come to Singapore. In this light, how effective is the death penalty in Singapore in deterring drug trafficking?

Charissa

As highlighted even by those who are against it the death penalty, there is warnings both written and verbally given. Please note that it is also highlighted in the immigration cards, so there is no excuse or ignorance possible

In this particular topic of discussion, I agree with Dansong that the initial questioning of our very own morality had been a good primer, a starter for this discussion. But like him, I feel that there is something missing from those questions.

From the start of your topic, I suppose that most of us would agree with your supposition that no criminal justice system is perfect. But I would like to push the line of thought to beyond proponent/opponent of the mandatory death penalty, but to ask, how do we make or improve on the current justice system more effective in dispensing justice.

Note that the keyword is justice.

That is when we start to define moral justice into institutionalized justice by the society in the form of legislation by our appointed representatives within our parliament. We would go on to ask what is the definition of justice within the societal context, within the global context? How do we compare to other societies and as a morally responsible human being to another?

And on the pretext of dispensing of justice, I am throwing the complications of using law as a deterrent out of the picture from any proponent/opponent of the mandatory death penalty. Some might ask me why or might perhaps propose that deterrence of crime is just as important as dispensing justice in any society, and should be part of the framework of the judiciary system.

So we ask ourselves, do all human beings deserve an equal right to life? Should all human beings be equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law? And has the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty? Yes, in case anyone finds that familiar, these questions were asked in accordance of articles 3, 7 and 11 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Yet, when we ask ourselves, that if the factor of crime deterrence were to factor into the determination and judgment of any trial, to put weight and leverage on the side of prosecution in the form of lowered standard of proof, or placed that burden of disproving guilt on the accused. How could anyone term that as a fair dispensation of justice? Wouldn't we be removing that right from a human being of being presumed innocent until proven guilty? Wouldn't we be discriminating the accused with the present justice system by the lowered standard of proof? And ultimately, should accused be judged guilty and the death sentence be placed upon him under this justice system, aren't we taking away his/her right to life?

In case anyone is mistaken, I am asking these questions not just in reference to the recent Tochi case of drug trafficking, but in the context of all capital cases with the mandatory death penalty.

While it may be difficult in most cases, to prove beyond all reasonable doubt in any capital trial. Yet, shouldn't that the least we could do before we even begin to make the decision to take away the most important thing that a man have and that is his life? Such could only be in the justice system's best interest to be sure that no man's life is taken away from him for the sake of efficiency, deterrence, or factors that had no relation to the fair dispensation of justice.

And perhaps quoting off one of Shianux's comment in his blog, "Apart from death, there is no such thing in life as an unrecoverable failure." And if we are were to realise that on hindsight, we've failed in fair dispensation of justice due to the factors I've mentioned above. That is something which we, a society as a whole, had made an unrecoverable failure to that person, his family, friends, and ultimately, ourselves.

Why ourselves you might ask?

So I ask you in return, what If you are on the stands of the accuse?

I rest my case.

Azmodeus: Thank you for your thoughtful comment. I don't know if this will address your many questions -- but here goes:

Defining moral justice into institutionalised justice is not straightforward -- for example, not all individuals in society will agree upon what is moral, and upon what is justice done in accordance with those morals.

Furthermore, so long as a society contains more than one person, there will be a conflict of rights. Does my right of freedom of movement trump your right of home privacy against trespass? Does my right of physical autonomy trump your right not to be injured?

A system of law may exist purely to adjudicate on past matters, in which case deterrence does not enter the equation (as you say). But what if the system also exists to prevent future inequities? If so, then some measure of deterrence must enter the picture, so long as there are wrongs for which adequate restitution can never be made after the fact.

I notice you cite the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and its:

- Article 3 (on right to life, liberty and security of person);
- Article 7 (all are equal before the law...)
- Article 11 (presumption of innocence until proven guilty according to law in a public trial; also that retroactivity shall not apply)

But it is no coincidence that ahead of Article 3 comes Article 1: "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."

In the UDHR, even as the most fundamental of rights is declared, it also comes with a reminder that humanity is endowed with precious gifts of "reason and conscience", and an exhortation of the responsibility that human beings "should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood".

An alternative perspective is to consider -- how should we deal with actions taken contrary to all spirit of brotherhood, where free born men and women may be stripped of their will, their reason and conscience, and placed into slavery or servitude (Article 4).

Because some would say that is what drug traffickers do: their drugs make men and women into addicts, hijacking their will and reason more effectively than any propaganda or censorship can. Addiction may even take away that final freedom which no totalitarian state has yet succeeded at depriving: freedom of thought, enslaving the mind with a single unminded desire for that next drug fix.

It may have been a Singaporean hangman who opened the trapdoor, allowing the noose to snap poor Tochi's neck and end his life. But the thread of Tochi's life was cut far earlier, in a faraway land, when some cynical mastermind thought up a clever idea -- to send an aspiring footballer with a shipment of drugs to Singapore, despite all public warnings on all incoming flights, and all pre-existing adverse publicity about Singapore's death penalty.

Speranza Nova,

No, I do not refute your case that in a society, or in any society for that matter, as long as there exist different individuals in the form of intelligent thinking beings such as humans. There are bound to be conflicts of interests, and that includes the conflict of rights. Therefore, the requirement in any civilized society to draft a widely accepted legislature by the most amount of people within that same society. Which would have to derive from the society's accepted norms of moral justice.

In most cases, dependent on the era and of the development of the human psyche, our propensity for change constantly alters our views, moral landscape and our standards of justice, which explains the constant changes to the legislature after its original drafting. Most articles of the common law are perhaps self-intuitive. What I mean by self intuitive could perhaps be as simple as humans do not wish to get hurt, which would be evident in Chapter XVI of our penal code; on offenses relating to voluntary causing hurt to another or of using criminal force against another. Such is the case when laws are drafted by our common desires and the morality of the action.

Thus to explain off your examples of conflicting rights, which action bears the stronger moral stigma or stipulation would triumph in whose rights should be respected in the conflict. Given the right of freedom against the right of home privacy as you've mentioned, does your desire for the right of freedom exceed other human desire for home privacy? More to the point, does the right to home privacy's weigh heavier than another's right to freedom of movement. Especially when that freedom would infringe upon another's personal space, his/her personal modesty to intimate acts with their spouse, or to prevent possible harm against strangers bearing ill-will against another. It would then be simple to judge and determine that the right to home privacy is more important. As for your other statement of conflict of rights of physical autonomy and personal protection, that is as I have stated in my previous paragraph of humans' desire to not be harmed or hurt, is of stronger moral stipulation than your freedom of physical autonomy.

Yes, humans are complicated creatures, made more so when we so decide which or what actions are more hurtful, or morally disturbing before we decide against them. And what made it worse is that through human evolution of thought, of cultural, technological advances in the society, could make long held views obsolete, requiring constant revisions to our legislature, redefining on what we view as inalienable rights, privileges, and or entitlements.

And that is why, prevention of future equities against the current set of laws should not be factored into the judgment of any trial. As I've mentioned in my previous comment, not only would this alter the dispensation of justice under the current set of laws against the accused, undermining his now recognised rights. Thus forwarding this into the future context, if drugs were to be widely accepted in the society of the future, would we thus been unfair to the victims of the gallows of the past? Rendering the additional clauses of our legislated deterrence irrelevant?

No, no one can predict the future nor could attempts at being the next Nostradamus bear any fruit of prescience. We try to be as reasonable a human being we can and ask of ourselves if such actions deserved thus an expected reaction in the context of his actual actions; not the future possibility of deterrence; which should bear no actual consequence in the administration of justice. That is in conjunction with the 1st article of the UDHR, of reason and conscience to act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

As for your last point, of actions taken against that brotherhood, indeed, we should act accordingly against those, with a heavy heart perhaps to render those whom should be capable of such actions incapacitated. Traffickers are to be blamed for their premeditated actions to bring harm to another human being. Yes, and its also of human responsibility acting out of conscience to inform his fellow human beings of the harm that could come about of such drugs, knowledge of such information to prevent such harm. Should one person chose his lot to bring about such harm upon his body, his resulting actions stemming from the desire to obtain more of such corrupting substances, should they be unlawful, should only result in his self-destruction. That is of my view, that ultimately, the will to partake or not of such substances is in each individual's hands.

No one should be responsible for knowing culmination of self-destruction.

Do you agree?

Tochi's case is indeed a sad example of how your innocence can be raped by heartless criminals. This case is a serious food for thought for those of us with children. I am 50 years old, with some good education, live in US, has worked all kind of jobs including security but l never heard about this drug in question. Even the popular one like cocaine and heroin l have never seen with my naked eyes. I have six boys three of whom are of Tochi's age growing up in United States - l asked them if they have ever heard of this drug. The answers were in the negative. The preponderance of doubt should have weighed heavily on the side of
Tochi. I believe Singaporean legal system was used to stage a vendetta against a growing number of genuine cases of drug trafficking and Nigeria's notoriety as a major player in this traffic. this is why l will never support death penalty. History is my witness - it has never deterred traffickers rather it makes them more creative in their art. As for me l have no business in Singapore, Thailand, Saudi Arabia or any of these islamic countries with Sharia-like laws. I have warned my children never to have anything to do with these countries even though l know there are good people living there who share my sentiment about death penalty. If something goes wrong, like Tochi, they will never get justice.