What If: The Good Riddance plan, default sentence for great felonies is death.

There is a more suitable and reasonable way to apply Capital Punishment.

Crimes that should be punishable by Death.

1. - First Degree Murder.
2. - Murder of any Law Enforcement Officer at any level (Local, County, State and Federal).
3. - Murder of anyone under 13 years of age.
4. - Any intentional killing of Dogs (Including Service Dogs and Police Dogs) and/or Cats with the exception of Euthanasia (Terminally ill pets, Dangerous Dogs) done by Certified Veterinary Professionals, Killings of Dangerous Dogs who are or attempting to attack anyone in Self Defense.
5. - Murder of any Pregnant Woman and/or any Unborn Children.
6. - Treason.
7. - Acts of Terrorism that results in one or more Deaths.
8. - Criminals who are classified as Sexually Violent Predators.
9. - Any War Crimes against the nation.
 
4. - Any intentional killing of Dogs (Including Service Dogs and Police Dogs) and/or Cats with the exception of Euthanasia (Terminally ill pets, Dangerous Dogs) done by Certified Veterinary Professionals, Killings of Dangerous Dogs who are or attempting to attack anyone in Self Defense.
This right here... how does it even fit among the rest of the list? Why would you give the death penalty for killing dogs and cats specifically?
In the other cases you list, the death penalty is trying to punish violations of the Right to Life and to National Integrity. But the life of an animal, any animal, even with the Concordat on Animal Rights, isn't considered in any statute as worthy as a human life, even when it comes to the human-like Great Apes and the near-to-human-intelligence crows and elephants.

Punishing killing or mistreating pets and/or animals has to do with an idea of prevention of (potential) socially damgerous behaviour. With that in mind, why punish pet-killing with death penalty, if attempting any of the crimes above doesn't have death penalty as punishment?
 
This right here... how does it even fit among the rest of the list? Why would you give the death penalty for killing dogs and cats specifically?
In the other cases you list, the death penalty is trying to punish violations of the Right to Life and to National Integrity. But the life of an animal, any animal, even with the Concordat on Animal Rights, isn't considered in any statute as worthy as a human life, even when it comes to the human-like Great Apes and the near-to-human-intelligence crows and elephants.

Punishing killing or mistreating pets and/or animals has to do with an idea of prevention of (potential) socially damgerous behaviour. With that in mind, why punish pet-killing with death penalty, if attempting any of the crimes above doesn't have death penalty as punishment?

People who have either or both Dogs and Cats as pets do consider them as Family Members and would be completely heartbroken at one of the pets getting deliberately killed for no reason at all and the unlawful killing of any Cats and or Dogs is a complete act of sickness.
 
People who have either or both Dogs and Cats as pets do consider them as Family Members and would be completely heartbroken at one of the pets getting deliberately killed for no reason at all and the unlawful killing of any Cats and or Dogs is a complete act of sickness.
"People with cats and dogs consider them family members" is weak as an argument. Some people get very protective about their family funerary chapels or tombstones, but potential vandals don't get more time in prison just because the family cares more about it than usual; and, vice versa, the murder of a person that was extremely hated by all their relatives doesn't mean the murderer gets off scot-free.
Also, again, dogs and cats aren't people.

Besides, you're acting as if most cat and dog killers are out to bloodily deprive random strangers of their pets.
 

Nick P

Donor
It strikes me that the main obstruction to the death penalty in the USA is the length of time between getting the death sentence and the actual act itself. Having inmates sit in solitary cells for 10 or 15 or 30 years while lawyers get rich really just says "We don't want to execute the murderers". Might as well just automatically commute all death penalties to life imprisonment.

Making it a legal necessary for executions to take place within 3 months of sentencing, bar any new evidence coming to light, would have the effect of keeping costs and prison populations low. The UK practice was for the whole thing to be over within weeks, a legal gap of three Sundays being necessary, to allow for appeals.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-28688474

Might want to reconsider the method of execution too. Drawn out methods such as electrocutions or injections have a bad press nowadays. Why not stick with hanging or firing squad?
Could even make executions a Federal practice - once the death penalty is applied the prisoner goes to a Federal facility - take the pressure off the State.
 
As others have already mentioned, precedents like the UK's Bloody Code and the immense numbers of Americans currently incarcerated for life sentences show that harsh punishment isn't always an effective deterrence. Conviction rates for most of the crimes proposed to fall under the penalty would likely drop regardless of whether or not the actual crime rate changed - if for no other reason than judges and juries will have no choice but to acquit when they feel the death penalty isn't justified. Acquittals of that sort were very common in the UK during the 18th century.

What hasn't been considered yet is the effect that the change will have on America's international reputation, as the US would be responsible for the vast majority of the world's executions. Countries that have abolished the death penalty, which include Canada and Mexico, typically seek assurances from those US states that retain it that the death penalty won't be applied before extraditing criminals. With all options aside from death off the table for serious crimes, extraditions to America will become much less common, particularly from its neighbours. Opposition to executions on a large scale would probably have other effects on how foreigners viewed the United States, and could impact trade and tourism as well.

Of course, the above assumes that the circumstances that could lead to such an aggressive system of capital punishment in the US weren't also influencing policymakers of other countries. Without major changes it's hard to see how the American public could be led to support a vast expansion of the death penalty during the same decades when capital punishment was being limited and abolished elsewhere in the world. If nothing else, the sheer expense of the system is sure to be criticized. The process could no doubt be cheapened by limiting the appeals and the delays before execution, but that would correspondingly lead to a greater number of innocent people being put to death, which would itself (hopefully) erode public support.
 
The process could no doubt be cheapened by limiting the appeals and the delays before execution, but that would correspondingly lead to a greater number of innocent people being put to death, which would itself (hopefully) erode public support.
Well in the UK three Sundays had to pass after sentencing to allow for the automatic appeals and then on the appointed day at 8am the executioner enters the condemned cell and less than 20 seconds later it's all over. No time for the poor sod to process what's happening and get scared or fight back.
 
People who have either or both Dogs and Cats as pets do consider them as Family Members and would be completely heartbroken at one of the pets getting deliberately killed for no reason at all and the unlawful killing of any Cats and or Dogs is a complete act of sickness.

I can't believe this is even a debatable question. A cat isn't equal to the life of a human being. But why limit your principle to Dogs & Cats, some people have Pigs for pets, some Horses, Birds, or Lizards. In some country's they eat dogs, are they committing genocide? The whole idea is ludicrous.
 
Children who kill pets are more likely to turn into juvenile delinquents, who are more likely to murder as adults.
 
I can't believe this is even a debatable question. A cat isn't equal to the life of a human being. But why limit your principle to Dogs & Cats, some people have Pigs for pets, some Horses, Birds, or Lizards. In some country's they eat dogs, are they committing genocide? The whole idea is ludicrous.
I seriously doubt any jury would convict someone of killing a cat or a dog, even if there's videotape of them doing it, if it led to an automatic death sentence.
 
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Well in the UK three Sundays had to pass after sentencing to allow for the automatic appeals and then on the appointed day at 8am the executioner enters the condemned cell and less than 20 seconds later it's all over. No time for the poor sod to process what's happening and get scared or fight back.

Sure it's quick and there was an appeal, but the UK executed relatively few people in the 20th century, and even still managed to produce a number of high-profile wrongful executions. Those handful of cases played a not insignificant part in building opposition to the death penalty, which helped lead to the suspension and later abolition of capital punishment. In the USA, well over a hundred people facing the death penalty have been exonerated while on death row, some of them by evidence that wasn't available until years after their death. Some studies have estimated that around 4% of the people currently on death row in the US were wrongfully convicted, and if every single case of homicide, rape, grand larceny and grand theft case was punishable by death, I'd expect that statistic to become even higher.

The problem isn't unique to the US. The UK was executing around 17 people a year between 1950 and 1953, and the Criminal Cases Review Commission has since posthumously exonerated or pardoned four of the men executed during those four years. That suggests that at least 5-6% of the men being hung by the UK at that time hadn't committed the capital crime they'd been convicted of. And this hypothetical America would be executing thousands or more likely tens of thousands of people every year, not 15-20, which suggests a vastly higher number of wrongful executions.

Now, the cynical argument is that the pressure on lawyers, family and police to look for exonerating evidence is greatly reduced after the execution happens, so with a three Sunday system our hypothetical America will never know the total number of innocent people that it killed. Of course, that was also true for the UK in the 50s, which didn't prevent some of these cases from being reopened and reviewed decades later. Of the hundreds of innocent people that would be executed each year under this system, many of them will later be exonerated by new evidence, by the revelation of improper conduct by the police or prosecutors, or by evidence of prejudice on the part of the judge or jury. Their surviving families are going to demand compensation, to say nothing of the public's reaction to so many innocent people being killed.
 
Whether a country hangs or imprisons criminals is largely a function of the country's wealth. Rich countries (e.g. NATO) can afford to house criminals indefinitely.
Poor countries cannot afford to house criminals for the rest of their lives, so execute more murderers.

One scary new development is American for-profit prisons releasing convicts when they turn 65 ... to avoid the increasing medical costs of elderly inmates.

Lawyers are the only people to profit from decades-long appeal processes.

I disagree with your characterization of the countries with, or without the death penalty. Nations such as the EU members that bane the DP are less violent, those with it are more so. For many cultural, and historic reasons the USA is the most violent developed country in the world. For profit prisons have been a disaster for criminal justice. Mass incarceration has become a money making industry, that no other developed country has. We have 4 times as many people in prison then we did 35 years ago, with most of them locked up for low level none violent beefs. We also have a probation systems designed to keep throwing people back in, not help them stay out.

I'm a conservative white middle class American, who supports the death penalty. However I can see the system is discriminatory, and counter productive. Being harsh for the sake of being harsh isn't what a justice system supposed be about, and it's sure not for making money. Constantly using fear to sustain public support for a punitive system doesn't help us become a better society ether. The whole system needs a thorough review, and extensive reforms, so we can have a system Americans can be proud of.
 
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As the title says, starting after WW2 all felons guilty of the following crimes are automatically sentenced to death, no life imprisonment, no parole, simply death.

Those crimes include...
  • Pedophilia, Child Pornography,
Your POD would have to add to it that Pedophilia and Child Pornography were considered to be serious felonies in the US post WW2 in your ATL. They were not ITTL. These are 21st Century concerns.
 
It strikes me that the main obstruction to the death penalty in the USA is the length of time between getting the death sentence and the actual act itself. Having inmates sit in solitary cells for 10 or 15 or 30 years while lawyers get rich really just says "We don't want to execute the murderers". Might as well just automatically commute all death penalties to life imprisonment.

Making it a legal necessary for executions to take place within 3 months of sentencing, bar any new evidence coming to light, would have the effect of keeping costs and prison populations low. The UK practice was for the whole thing to be over within weeks, a legal gap of three Sundays being necessary, to allow for appeals.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-28688474

Might want to reconsider the method of execution too. Drawn out methods such as electrocutions or injections have a bad press nowadays. Why not stick with hanging or firing squad?
Could even make executions a Federal practice - once the death penalty is applied the prisoner goes to a Federal facility - take the pressure off the State.

Most lawyers work death penalty appeals pro-bono. There's not many rich people on death row. It often takes years to discover legal errors. Quick executions mean lots of innocent deaths. Other then emotional satisfaction what's the rush? We're talking about an irreversible act. Even sending an innocent person to prison for years is a tragedy. If your worried about law suits, imagine the wrongful death actions.
 
What is this Minority Report?
It's based off reports that serial killers tend to show sociopathic tendencies as children, starting off with killing and mutilating small animals and working their way up. Granted, it's paraphrased. For one thing, Serial killers tend to try to avoid getting caught, so few become juvenile delinquents.
 
The amount of rape victims murdered by their rapists in order to eliminate witnesses drastically rises since rapists have nothing to lose by doing so. Thieves decide to just to kill the people they rob. Criminals always decide go down fighting when caught instead of surrendering to cops. If a criminal is caught they never tell the police anything.
reminds me of the Chinese situation. 2 courtiers are late to a meeting with the Emperor, one says what's the penalty for treason the other says death. then the first says what's the penalty for being late? death replies the second. As they look at each other the inevitable conclusion is reached.......
 
There is a more suitable and reasonable way to apply Capital Punishment.

Crimes that should be punishable by Death.

1. - First Degree Murder.
2. - Murder of any Law Enforcement Officer at any level (Local, County, State and Federal).
3. - Murder of anyone under 13 years of age.
4. - Any intentional killing of Dogs (Including Service Dogs and Police Dogs) and/or Cats with the exception of Euthanasia (Terminally ill pets, Dangerous Dogs) done by Certified Veterinary Professionals, Killings of Dangerous Dogs who are or attempting to attack anyone in Self Defense.
5. - Murder of any Pregnant Woman and/or any Unborn Children.
6. - Treason.
7. - Acts of Terrorism that results in one or more Deaths.
8. - Criminals who are classified as Sexually Violent Predators.
9. - Any War Crimes against the nation.
If one does do this then there needs to be a few more offences including tampering with evidence, knowingly bringing a false prosecution, deliberately withholding disclosure,
in a capital case, reaching a jury verdict based on the racial sexual or other characteristic of the accused, coercing a confession, failing to properly represent a defendant, pretending expert knowledge in say forensics, and improperly exhibiting bias whilst presiding in a trial. Do all that and end Elections for judges and District attorneys etc and maybe there is some chance of being sure of convictions. Without it there will continue to be the massive errors there are now, in many places the only difference will be more dead victims of injustice, or a loss of confidence that will lead acquittal rates to go up and genuine offenders going free or both..
 
Your POD would have to add to it that Pedophilia and Child Pornography were considered to be serious felonies in the US post WW2 in your ATL. They were not ITTL. These are 21st Century concerns.

There's also the problem that the age of consent doesn't always match the age of 'adulthood' - for example in the UK the age of consent is 16, meaning that I could be having regular, perfectly legal (albeit very creepy since I'm a lot older than 16) sex with a 16 year old girl but as soon as she sends me a topless photo we're both guilty of child pornography offences (me for owning child porn, her for producing it) because she's under 18. That's an instant death penalty for both of us under the suggested laws.

If you happen to have a large number of older copies of the Sun, Star or Sport newspapers back from when they regularly had 16 - 18 year olds on Page 3 (or throughout the paper in the Sport's case) lying around in your garage you're also in the queue for the rope.
 
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