Death Penalty

In this episode, Sam and Tayla discuss the morality and efficacy of the death penalty, in the wake of the Parkland shooter's sentence to life in prison instead of execution. We also take a surprising turn to a discussion on what society needs to prevent violent crimes from taking place. 

Transcript

Tayla (00:11):

Welcome to the babe. What do you know about podcast?

Sam (00:14):

Where your hosts husband and duo, Sam

Tayla (00:16):

And Tayla

Sam (00:17):

Air the grievances publicly for your entertainment? Yeah. So while Max, I went around the fish section again of the aquarium, <affirmative>, and got to the sharks and noticed there was a turtle not moving. He was just still <laugh>. So

Tayla (00:38):

In the water

Sam (00:39):

Or no. So he was literally in a corner away from people and he wasn't moving and he was just vertical and still. So I was like, Well, is he dead?

Tayla (00:52):

Oh

Sam (00:52):

Geez. So I went and found one of the employees. I was like, Hey, so I think one of the turtles is not okay. And he's like, What is he doing? I was like, Well, he's kind of vertical and he's stuck in a crevice. And he's like, Oh yeah. So we have two turtles and that one not, Well, he's a rescue and one of his flotation sacks or whatever is bust. So he does that from time to time.

Tayla (01:20):

He does that.

Sam (01:22):

He does that. Yeah. And then eventually he needs air, so he'll swim up. But yeah, he'll just lie there still

Tayla (01:31):

That shame. Poor thing <laugh>.

Sam (01:33):

Yeah, no, I thought I was dead and I was like, Ugh.

Tayla (01:37):

Horrible. But I'm glad he wasn't. He was just unwell. Yeah,

Sam (01:41):

Shame. The aquarium was amazing.

Tayla (01:44):

It was amazing. Yeah, I love it. Even little max five months old, just loving the fish. Speaking of dead things, <laugh>.

Sam (01:56):

Go on, go on.

Tayla (01:59):

I am gonna introduce you to our topic for the week, which has to do with death. So the question of capital punishment or the execution or death penalty has risen again as the Parkland school shooter Nicholas Cruz, who was 15 years old at the time that he shot and killed 17 people and injured many more. He was spared the death penalty this last week in favor of life in prison, due to an un unanimous jury verdict three jurors voted to spare him from the death penalty. And in US most states require a unanimous vote in order to impose an execution. So getting into some stats, more than an estimated 15,269 Americans have been executed since the inception of the death penalty, dating back to colonial times. The sanction of death for the punishment of a murder in the United States has declined obviously in recent years. In 2009, the number of new death sentences was 112, which had been the lowest level in 30 years.

(03:07):

And most countries, but most countries view capital punishment as a profound human rights violation and a frightening abuse of government power. In a study by pure research, it was found that most US adults support the death penalty for people convicted of murder. And at the same time, majorities believe that the death penalty is not applied in a racially neutral way and does not deter people from committing serious crimes and does not have enough safeguards to prevent an innocent person from being executed. So the use of the death penalty has gradually declined in the US over the last few decades. A number of states have even abolished it and death sentences and executions have become less common, but it's not a continuous decline across all levels of government. So state level executions have decreased, but federal government has put more prisoners to death under, they had done it under President Donald Trump than in any other point since the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976. And the main statistic is that six in 10 US adults strongly or somewhat favor the death penalty for convicted murderers according to a pew research survey. So currently there are 2,436 people on death row. That's as of January 1st, 2022 in the United States. So babe, what do you know about the death penalty?

Sam (04:40):

Well, I know a whole lot more now.

Tayla (04:43):

Yes. And probably we'll both know a lot more by the end.

Sam (04:47):

What I know about the death penalty. Well, I can tell you how I feel about it. My initial gut reaction feeling is when I think of a school shooting, I immediately go like, Yeah, absolutely that person deserves the death penalty. That's like my gut initial boom reaction. But I think, you know, kind of asked me this a couple days ago, Well, how do you feel about the death penalty? And I was like, Man, it's such as I kept unpacking it. There were so many things that I didn't support the death penalty for in terms of reasons for, and then there were some supportive feelings for it again. So yeah, I feel almost conflicted in my opinion of it. But I think ultimately, and we can get to it ultimately in our current world situation, I don't fully support the death penalty.

Tayla (05:45):

Okay. So yes, let me back us up a little. I'm curious, this is kind of a weird question, but as I was researching for this episode, I wondered what was your first memory learning about the existence of the death penalty? Cuz I feel like as a child when I first learned this, this was a thing, whether it was through movies or whatever, it had a really strong impact on me. Just a complete fear of that situation.

Sam (06:16):

Man, I haven't thought about that, but I'm assuming. So if I try to think of my earliest memories with learning about stuff, it probably have to do something to do with watching an old war movie or historical movie and thinking about people getting executed by the guillotine or hanging or something like that, or a firing squad. That's, that's my initial childhood thoughts about

Tayla (06:39):

It. Come to think of it, I know exactly what movie it was specifically. Should I have watched this movie as young as I did? No, I should not have. I think I was 10. Brave hot.

Sam (06:53):

Yes,

Tayla (06:54):

It's very violent and it's so funny, my parents are usually very strict on what we watch, but my dad fully on for us to watch Braveheart and it's a very gruesome execution.

Sam (07:06):

Yeah, no

Tayla (07:06):

Kidding. In that. And I remember just being like, Oh my gosh, can you imagine? And because that's the good guy that's being executed, I feel like I even had even more fear of that ever happening to me. Like me being in a situation where I could be executed.

Sam (07:23):

Wow.

Tayla (07:25):

Absolute fear of being executed. Wrongfully.

Sam (07:27):

Wrongfully, which happens, right.

Tayla (07:29):

<affirmative>. Okay, so we kind of talked about your initial feelings about it. So philosophically, before we get into some nitty gritty details, do you think that returning, and this is my, let me just ask the question. So do you think that returning the ending of a life with the ending of another makes sense? Is that right? Because technically, especially when I was in high school, I would often think about that where I was like, someone killed someone else, they ended someone else's life, which was wrong. And so we're going to do the exact same thing back. I don't know, thoughts on

Sam (08:11):

That. I have a conflict of feelings about that. Part of me goes get that person completely out of society and let that be a warning to anyone thinking about committing a murder or mass murder or something. You will be ended, There's no mercy here. But yeah, maybe it doesn't make sense in terms of the whole, what's the Old Testament saying, An knife or I

Tayla (08:38):

An knife for an eye. It just kind of is like, well what makes one right and not the other one? Right. I'm sure you could maybe think of,

Sam (08:47):

Well yeah, there's definitely reasons. One's an innocent, well presumably innocent person we know and the other committed the crime. So it's a punishment rather than,

Tayla (09:00):

Yeah. I guess maybe the question is more why do we as a society have a right that we as individuals do not? That's kind of an interesting question. I think

Sam (09:12):

It is, but I mean then you start blurring the lines now when you start talking about war and conflict and other stuff, there's, there's a whole lot of gray area when it comes to that,

Tayla (09:24):

Which makes me uncomfortable and that's why I have such a hard time kind of saying, yes, capital punishment. No, not capital punishment. Cuz I think most people, and I think with, I talked about some surveys, I spoke about some surveys where most people support the death penalty. I do feel like along with me when I'm asked about it, I'm thinking of serial killers, really, really evil people that can never be in society ever again. But the majority of people that end up on death row, it's like a single murder. Not that that's okay, but it's not the same as that level of evil that I picture, I guess <affirmative>. Yeah. You know what I mean? So this is a question. So a lot of the reasoning behind having the death penalty is supposedly because it's a deterrent to criminals from murdering people or creating, sorry, not creating, committing those violent crimes is it deters them from doing it because of that fear that they could be put to death. What do you think?

Sam (10:35):

So just my gut reaction on that, and that also comes from I'm sure picking up random things on the internet over the last few decades is that it's not a deterrent that for the most part, I'm sure there's scenarios and cases where there are individuals that's having a death penalty. It does holding back. But when, you know, think about the tops of crimes that people commit, whether it's like a crime of passion, they're not thinking about anything antio, they're seeing grid and they're doing bad things and there's people that are mentally ill that are just doing horrible things, they're not thinking about the consequences. And then you think about all the mass shooting people, they're not thinking, I mean, in fact they're wanting to die. So I don't think it's a deterrent for the most part.

Tayla (11:24):

Yeah.

Sam (11:25):

What's the studies that you found?

Tayla (11:27):

Yeah, well so my kind of gut reaction was because again I am super into true crime and so I focus a lot more on serial killers. And I have found, based on the records of them working through cases with these people that serial killers are afraid of the death penalty to the point where they will cut deals and they'll even admit that they've done it as long as they take the death penalty off the table or it's a leverage to convince them to tell the families where they've stored bodies and stuff. And so that led me to believe that, oh yeah, it's a deterrent for sure because in all these specific cases, these murderers are very much wanting to avoid the death penalty. But the, the research does kind of say otherwise. So let's see A D P I C study of over 30 years of BYU uniform crime report homicide data found that the southern states in the US have consistently had the highest by far the highest murder rate and that the south accounts for more than 80% of executions.

(12:45):

So that should be an example. If they are executing so many of the people being executed in the country, you would think that if it was a deterrent, they would experience so much less murder. But they have so much of that. And then the northeast has fewer than 0.5% of the executions has consistently had lower murder rates. And then another survey of former present presidents of the country's top academic criminology societies, 88% of these experts rejected the notion that the death penalty acts as a deterrent to murder. So most experts agree that it is not a deterrent. So I guess why do you think that's such a big, I think a part of public opinion? Why do you think that's something that a lot of us believe that it's a deterrent and that's the reason that it's okay when that's clearly not backed by research.

Sam (13:46):

Yeah, I don't know. Maybe it could be a combination of just those myths that you always grow up with. It's just one of those things that unless you researched into it or studied it, that you just think the simplest answer is the right one. Cuz you're afraid of death. I'm afraid of death, I'm afraid of the death penalty, I'm not gonna commit crimes. But is it because of the death penalty? Probably not. I do. Cause I don't wanna harm and hurts other people. So maybe that's it, how it's portrayed in media, the sense of justice that's happening. And then maybe there's just a part of our human nature that just feels like it's just, that's why I saying my gut reaction, <affirmative>, my gut reaction is just like, wow. Yeah, that feels right. And that feels just, And then as I look deeper into it, I kind of start second guessing myself and realizing that I just feel like there's better, there's a better pathway in terms of what's the best solution.

Tayla (14:52):

Yeah, I think you bring up a good point that I think the average person, it is a deterrent. The fear of death is a deterrent to inflict or to do something that would potentially end with you dying. But the average person is not a murderer. So it's not on, I don't think they're on the same scale. So maybe for normal people it is a deterrent or would be a deterrent. But for people who have that capacity to commit murder, maybe not so much. But I guess the sense of justice is another great point because with this specific parkland shooter, I mean it was horrific shooting that it was this 15 year old, or no 18 year old, I think at the time of the shooting, man, I should look this up, but Nicholas Cruz, I'm pretty sure he had just turned 18 and he went shot up Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School, 17 people died, I think 17 plus people were injured and it was pretty horrific.

(15:59):

He's one of the few mass shooters that was taken into custody and able to go through a trial cuz usually they die by their own hand or by the police. So it's been a really interesting case to follow. And that was the question, is he gonna get the death penalty or is he gonna get life in prison cuz it's one or the other. Yeah, it's definitely nothing else. And so when he was not sentenced to death, a lot of the family members were very upset by that. They didn't feel like it was just for him to be spared from the execution because I think the one mother was quoted to have said, if this doesn't worthy of the death penalty, really what is

Sam (16:41):

Yeah, yeah, no, it's absolutely horrible. And would I have felt sad and felt like things in the world are messed up if he had been shot and killed on the way out or during the shooting or even if he got the death penalty, would I have been like, Yeah, there's something wrong with our society. Absolutely not. I've been like, oh he got the death penalty. Yeah, seems just, But I mean if the death penalty is one, not a deterrent to again, this is just me trying to remember from the ether things that you read, capital punishments or the death penalty is not going to be any cheaper than life in prison.

Tayla (17:26):

And that's something we'll get

Sam (17:27):

Into. And then the third is how often, in other cases, obviously not with this particular case but with other cases, have there been mistakes in the trial? There's been mistakes and evidence and someone's gone to death row and either fortunately not been killed and executed in time, or we found out later they have been executed. How many times has that happened? So then why are we doing it that? So that's where my head goes. And if we just stop wasting time with capital punishment and just focusing on other, focusing on doing a better job with our overall criminal justice system, wouldn't that be a bit of use of our time?

Tayla (18:09):

So you bring up two really good questions. So beyond the philosophical question, it's the question of money and fairness or real actual justice. So let's kind of get into those a little bit. So the question I wanna go through is how much do you think the question of finances should even be considered in a discussion like this? Cause obviously finances does, finances do, Wow, make a difference. Especially when you talk about the millions, and I'll get into some of those details, but it kind of feels weird to be like that's a factor in whether someone should live or die. So let me get into some statistics and then I'll pull you back to the question. So Oklahoma capital cases cost on average 3.2 times more than non-capital cases. And that is typical that capital punishment or cases where prosecution is seeking the death penalty costs three times more than cases that are not defense costs For the death penalty trials in Kansas averaged about 400 grand per case compared to a hundred grand per case when the death penalty was not sought, enforcing the death penalty costs Florida 51 million a year above what it would cost to punish all first degree murders with life in prison without parole.

(19:34):

So based on the 44 executions, Florida has carried out since 1976. That amounts to the cost of 24 million for each execution. So it's clear and this, there's a lot of reasons why it is more expensive. The defense is gonna be more rigorous because the consequences are so high, the appeals processes that they have to go through the length of time to be on death row, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It ends up being way more expensive than just, you would think it would be the opposite. We're going to keep this person in prison forever for the rest of their life. You would think that would be more expensive than putting them a death row. Right?

Sam (20:20):

Yeah. I mean, again, I think it comes down to that if you haven't looked into it at all that it would seem like that. But I think that's not at all surprised by the facts I was suggesting earlier.

Tayla (20:36):

Yeah, I was kind of surprised by, cuz that's an argument I've heard a lot for the death penalty as well as a society. We shouldn't be financially responsible to let this person live their life out in prison. But as the facts say, it's a lot more expensive actually to put them on death row. So with that in mind, should this even be a part of the discussion on whether it's,

Sam (20:59):

Well, I think absolutely mean when I think about it is some is putting someone to death in a painless stress free stress low stress environment. Cause it's not like obviously you're gonna die. I mean, obviously

Tayla (21:16):

Stressful. Yeah, that's stressful.

Sam (21:17):

But there's nothing on top of that. And it's not like they're giving you, they're not gonna stab you to death and Braveheart

Tayla (21:24):

You not these days.

Sam (21:26):

No, exactly. So that's my point. Is it really a much more harsher punishment than leaving someone alive and putting them in a cell for the rest of their lives? I don't know. I genuinely don't know. So I don't feel like if it really is just more of a burden on ourselves and we're taking away the chance of executing someone that is innocent. And if it's, again, not a deterrent, why the question? Why do it it? So again, it's not that I have a problem with it. I'm totally fine if again, that parkland shooter, that guy was shot and killed during the massacre, who cares? But if again, we're just making ourselves a more complicated, expensive, unnecessary system, I say just, it's just not worth the time. And I think I genuinely do think finances should be part of it because that's a burden on all of us.

Tayla (22:34):

And it's in the millions and billions of dollars, which is shocking. That's so much money. So that you bring up the fear of accidentally executing innocent people. That I think is the biggest thing for me to be like. But do you know how sure are you that this person deserves to die? And the stats are really interesting on that. So since nineteen seventy three, a hundred and thirty eight death row prisoners have been released because they were innocent. Fortunately they were just on death row and had not actually been executed. But 138 is a lot of lives. It's a lot of lives that were completely innocent. It's scary. And then at least 10 people have been executed since 1976 that were innocent. So

Sam (23:24):

It's the last almost 50 years. Wow.

Tayla (23:27):

<affirmative> at least 10. And then the peer research survey finds that 60% of people favor the death penalty for people convicted of murder, even though 78% of them agree that there is a risk that innocent people maybe put to death. So people have that in their mind that, oh, there is a risk of innocent people being put to death, but they still favor

Sam (23:49):

It. I think that's such an ignorant answer. I really do. I think that comes from someone that says, Oh, this would never happen to me or a loved one. There's so many times that people feel that way about some sort of political thing because they're not thinking about how it affects them. They're like, Oh, that's the other people. That will never happen to my people. So that actually really trigger me and frustrate me because it really is an ignorant response.

Tayla (24:13):

It is. It's treating people as collateral damage. As long as it's not, it's like, well, it's just only 10 people. Yeah. Wait. You know what I

Sam (24:23):

Mean? Yeah. Wait until it's your kid that was at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Tayla (24:27):

<affirmative>, especially when it, you get into those racial inequalities with death penalties specifically. It is scary. And me and my sister-in-law, we have a true crime podcast and she,

Sam (24:44):

Oh, you might as well name drop it, what's

Tayla (24:46):

It called? It's it's Violence verdict and

Sam (24:48):

<laugh> Lincoln, the description

Tayla (24:49):

<laugh>. And one of her cases was literally all about this, where someone was in the wrong place at the wrong time. You even go through the court cases, multiple appeals, and it's just like, how did this person get convicted of this? Yeah, absolutely. And that's the problem with the court system as well is that for the most part it works well and evidence is, but you have a jury of layman that are making the decision and you can be swayed by skilled lawyers. Even if you can see evidence, your emotions could still lead you to make a wrong decision. So that for me is a huge deterrent for the death penalty is it does happen. And as you say, maybe it's not a huge percentage of people, but it's enough. Even one should be enough to bother you, I think.

Sam (25:41):

Well yeah. Again, emotionally I'm okay with the consequence of someone dying for horrible actions. But I think it's in contract saying, I'm happy with this. I'm okay with this justice system and this consequence, even if it means that we're gonna have innocent people being a percentage of innocent people being killed, that for me is a problem.

Tayla (26:04):

And I have talked quite a lot over a few episodes about the politicization of these kind of human rights issues, essentially. They're not really political to me. They seem pretty basic human level stuff. But why do you think the opinions of the death penalty are so affected by, And the two main factors that we see statistically are religion and political party.

Sam (26:31):

Why are they affected by

Tayla (26:32):

Religion? Yeah, why do you think that something, a question like this that seems to be very fundamental and philosophical is so affected by religion or political party.

Sam (26:44):

So I think on the religion, religious side of things, it's probably so affected because they don't see the government as the highest source of judgment and of justice. So they see things maybe in a more eternal perspective, <affirmative>, well, God will get 'em at the end anyways and or God will fix it. Or they see this life as just a stepping stone, a stepping stone or transitionary between this and eternity. And so for them, who cares if they die?

Tayla (27:27):

Yeah. This is something you and I have talked a bit about is our different philosophies about life because of what we believe <affirmative> after death. And that's the statistics kind of show that pretty strongly is that two thirds of Protestants in the us, which is 66%, they favor capital punishment. And atheists though oppose the death penalty as strongly as Protestants favor it.

Sam (27:58):

So they oppose it.

Tayla (28:01):

Yeah. <affirmative>, I think actually a little more, the

Sam (28:05):

Gut check passes with me. That makes a lot of sense why it would be that

Tayla (28:08):

Way. Yeah. Well for me, before obviously you and I started talking about this, that would've surprised me. I would've been like, Oh, I would've thought Christians, we literally worshiped someone who is wrongfully executed <laugh>. Yeah. I would've thought as Christians you would just maybe think more about forgiveness and that kind of thing, but it's, And that atheist would be like, Yeah, kill him because justice, I don't know, it doesn't really matter. We have to be, But I guess it makes sense if you don't believe in an afterlife, if you're an atheist and if someone is dead, that is it. They are gone. That's really high stakes compared to this life is over for them and then they can continue and make improvements in the next life maybe.

Sam (28:56):

Sure. Or eternal domination.

Tayla (28:59):

Right. But the interesting thing for me is the political side where it's so clear Republican, Democrat or liberal conservative, there's a huge shift in that too. So obviously Republicans and Republican leaning independence are much more likely than Democrats or Democrat leaning to favor the death penalty for murderers.

Sam (29:23):

I'm just assuming that just follows the religion, religious lines because of the Republicans have far more religious people in it and the Democrats. So I'm just assuming on this topic, that's how it would correlate.

Tayla (29:38):

They correlate. Yeah. That's interesting. I do think also sometimes those above in each political party, they decide probably based on either their religion or whatever and that's just what they will talk about and that's the side they pick. And it's so easy to just be like, this is my side, so therefore I also feel this way about this

Sam (30:01):

Same thing. No, yeah. I'm sure that happens all the time.

Tayla (30:04):

Yeah. Well what do you think should be the main factor in which someone decides whether they do support or do not support capital punishment, be it philosophical, fiscal, legal, preventative, moral. What do you think should be the top reason that someone does or does not

Sam (30:26):

Support it? I mean, it's obviously hard to tell someone that what is their most valued ideals or what their top values are. I can't go up to someone that's religious and tell them, I know that eternity is super important to you, but I want you to make a decision about whether someone has a death, gets a death penalty or not, or we should have the death penalty or not based on these temporal, earthly imperfect justice system. It's hard for me to convince someone like that. But in terms of what I would love for them to see is just try view it in the scope of what reality is right now. Try view this life as within its own paradigm out outside of the whole eternal perspective <affirmative> and really see the consequences for its inside that paradigm. So it's kind of like you're playing a game of monopoly and someone does something wrong in the game of monopoly. You don't give them bigger punishments outside of it so you don't change rules outside of it. So I'm just trying to

Tayla (31:38):

Yeah, that's a great analogy.

Sam (31:40):

Life is monopoly in this scenario. So yeah, I guess I'm trying to say is quote of the episode <laugh>. Yeah. So what do I think should with that paradigm, cause I wanna start off with that paradigm. Yeah, the rules. I really think that you have to take everything into account again, which is one, it's not a deterrent. Two I don't think it's more punishing to the person, in my opinion, in terms of the pain it causes someone like is it really more painful to end their life or is it versus life imprisonments, I don't know that mean, but

Tayla (32:19):

It seems comparable. Maybe

Sam (32:20):

It seems comparable. So why go a step further and say, let's not end your life in a peaceful manner as a punishment,

Tayla (32:27):

A costly piece.

Sam (32:28):

Yeah. And then third, exactly, it's more costly and then the chance of us being wrong about it is there's definitely a significant percentage, which means that it's not worth killing more innocent lamps in the name Ofo justice.

Tayla (32:50):

So I'm gonna do what you did to me in the abortion episode. I'm gonna kind of push you on maybe some exceptional cases. So what about when someone is purely a danger to society and will always be, not only are they danger to society, but then imprisoning them for their whole life causes them to be a danger to inmates, prison guards, regular people, et cetera, people really crazy serial killers. Do you think there should be an exception to, okay, I don't support the death penalty except

Sam (33:31):

I am open to an exception. But if it comes with all the long appeals processes and the just additional judgment processes to that were very costly, I don't think it's worth it in that sense. And is there not another alternative, whether it's what are the other ones that we know already? Prisoners can be in isolation, they can be medicated. There's multiple layers to this. So I mean I'm open to it if, I mean I'm not a governor or <affirmative> someone that has all the facts in front of me, I'm open to it. But as a general thought, as a general ideal, I don't think it's necessary to have the exception.

Tayla (34:23):

Okay. I can see that. So I'm gonna push you on it a little bit. Sure. So someone is sentenced, a serial killer, sentenced to life without parole and repeatedly attacks prison guards has maybe shanked a couple inmates, just more murders that he just gets sentenced to life in prison for because that's the highest you can go and continues that potentially up to 50 years till they just die naturally. Is that, I don't know.

Sam (35:00):

So I'm not educated enough on the prison system, but my assumption is because this is not an uncommon thing where there's prison violence <affirmative> and there's uncooperative prisoners that they don't really have policies and procedures in place for this that in terms of how to manage those people. But again, if I could be more educated on how the prison system works and see just how flawed maybe it is, then 100% that should be an option. So again, I'm not a opposed to it it morally in terms of

Tayla (35:39):

Whether someone who has done something like that should

Sam (35:42):

Die or not. Yeah. I'm almost on a practicality. It just doesn't seem wise.

Tayla (35:47):

It, yeah. And I think that's kind of where I'm landing as well as it's just not pragmatic. I would say maybe in a perfect world then that maybe seems just, but as we went over those statistics that just the flaws and the opportunity to be wrong is just too high stakes. But with cases like that, I have a really hard time cuz there are really horrible, evil, disgusting people who've done and would continue to do until they can't anymore. Horrible, horrible things. And I do think it depends on the city and county and state you happen to live in, how well they're able to protect prison guards and other inmates from people like this. And that's the hard thing too, is it's almost like Russian roulette if you're in a prison that you can be protected from other people in or not.

Sam (36:43):

But I mean, okay, so it does open some complexities. We need to watch a movie called Judge Dread. It's Judge

Tayla (36:51):

Dread.

Sam (36:52):

Judge Dread with Sylvester Stallone.

Tayla (36:54):

Okay. This

Sam (36:55):

Is late nineties action movie. There was

Tayla (36:59):

The best

Sam (37:00):

Remake fairly recently I think called Dread or something, probably garbage. I didn't watch it <laugh>. But basically cops are judge, jury and executioner. So in fact I kind of wanna watch it tonight now that I'm thinking about it. Okay. Maybe we should wash it in preparation for this. We should have, but as assume, but basically they've given cops the entire

Tayla (37:25):

In this world.

Sam (37:26):

In

Tayla (37:27):

This world. Yeah. Okay. So it's

Sam (37:27):

A futuristic, dystopian future.

Tayla (37:32):

Interesting.

Sam (37:32):

And they've given the cops that those full they

Tayla (37:35):

Just have no Exactly.

Sam (37:37):

So judge your execution so they can determine whether someone is guilty or not and then execute the punishment.

Tayla (37:44):

Wow, that's scary, right?

Sam (37:46):

That's really scary. But could you imagine in a futuristic world where you absolutely 100% know that that person did something bad and that the likelihood of them doing it again is a hundred percent, they'll do something else, then would it be more located in that person's life than sure why not? But I'm just trying to say that world doesn't exist. Doesn't exist. We list, we live in a very imperfect, we watch that movie Everything Everywhere, All at once.

Tayla (38:19):

Yeah, we did watch that

Sam (38:20):

Last night. And one of the thing, it's my favorite scenes in the whole movie, if you, what I'm talking about is the rock scene. The rock scene. The rock scene. Amazing. Because basically it all summas back to we have to be a bit more forgiving on cuz we're just stupid people. We're so small in the infinite universe, we're just stupid people. So again, can we have a perfectly executed judicial? Judicial, wow.

Tayla (38:46):

<laugh>,

Sam (38:48):

Can you just bleep that out? <laugh> judicial soul system. We just can't.

Tayla (38:58):

Yeah, it's hard. I think again, when you go back to the philosophical level of do we legislate based on what should be or what is, Yeah. And that's I think a hard balance. Balance to strike.

Sam (39:12):

Yes. I 100% agree.

Tayla (39:15):

Okay, so I think to wrap up a little bit, I do wanna talk about what is a better preventative or deterrent for violent crime. Cuz I think that's similar again to our abortion episode. I think it's missing the Mark A. Little bit to just talk about capital punishment when ultimately what we want is to have prevented something horrible from happening in the first place. So if the threat of death or execution is not a deterrent, what do you think would be better deterrent or preventative for violent crime?

Sam (39:51):

Man. So I just don't think we can have more deterrents if you already have capital punishment and you already have life in prison. Those, I mean, what more deterrence is there? I just don't think that's entirely, I think that you have to have more, what are the motivations for being better people is really, I think you'd have to start. And then also, I don't wanna get into a whole gun debate, but I do think that there has to also be some better preventative measures to make sure that weapons are not getting into the hands of people that have a propensity for violence. Now obviously that's virtually impossible to figure out, but I just want that idea to, we could get closer. I like to throw that idea out there that we need some sort of steps. I don't know what those steps are but that would be one. I just think that less weapons means it's harder to kill people and it's harder to,

Tayla (40:47):

Especially

Sam (40:48):

That many. And it's harder to have accidents, which just means I think there'd be less murder. Also, I just think politically, if there's less extremism in our political environment, that'd be good. Right now it just seems to be getting worse and interesting stats. And you're just gonna have to trust me on this cause I'm not gonna be reading it. But the actual crime rates of murder rates have been going down for the last couple decades up until the last few years. And now they're coming back a little well and not dramatically, but been the trend has stopped and has started to move the other direction just the last few years. And that could just be a whole lot of causes we don't really know fully yet. Yeah. Why, I'm sure everyone can point fingers at everything that they don't like but just things have been going in the right direction and so we gotta go back to going that right

Tayla (41:42):

Direction, try to figure out what was going well. Yeah, and I do think I agree with the, it's not just about

(41:53):

Even the way to legally acquire a gun is flawed. So this Parkland shooter acquired his automatic weapon legally unlawfully. Yeah, exactly. Even though he had a history of violent behaviors and issues, it is still happening. I don't think that that should be the case. And then I do think a primary societal emotion right now, at least in the United States, is anger. It's anger, which leads to acting out in violence. I mean, Nancy Pelosi's husband being attacked in his own home at 82 years old for political reasons, just madness. And it's because people are just so angry about everything because of the extremism. So how to pull back

Sam (42:47):

Yeah, I think back to our time in South Africa and what was the cause of so much violence there. And I just feel like at least there, and I feel like there's some correlation here too, is that, I mean, besides the political violence, I'm just talking about regular old violence,

Tayla (43:06):

<affirmative>, regular old violence

Sam (43:09):

Is that people start, don't value life as high when they don't have enough food, when they don't have enough things and they don't have hope for a better future. And I think last for years, I think the country has been feeling that. It has been feeling like, wow, things are just garbage. Things are just bad and I don't have a hope for a better life and I don't have a hope for a better United States

Tayla (43:38):

And I'm gonna blame

Sam (43:40):

Sure. These

Tayla (43:41):

People for it.

Sam (43:42):

Sure. And so I think that's means that you start valuing your neighbor's life less or the other team's life less. And because you're starting to agree might as well that you just starts. People mean in South Africa, people would kill you for literally your shoes for absolutely nothing just because they didn't have shoes. And you know, were a target and that's an extreme example, but as you kind of extrapolate that up to the environment here in the United States, you're starting to get people that are feeling that I feel like a lot more than there has previously.

Tayla (44:19):

I think it all comes back to just empathy. Yeah. Just trying not to view different kinds of humans with different kinds of opinions as on another team and rather viewing humankind as a team regardless of the diversity within it. And that makes a difference because then when you consider, oh, well that this specific case wouldn't affect me, so therefore I'm fine with it for someone else, wouldn't really happen because you'd be like, But it, let me throw some empathy in there. If it was me, how would I feel about it? How would I react to it? And it becomes important to be more careful and about other people's lives that maybe don't look the same as yours.

Sam (45:04):

Yeah. So I mean, hope is a super powerful thing. If when you're going through a really hard tom and you don't have hope, it gets better even more. It feels like an even worse time. And it's even harder to change. It's even harder to get things better. So when you have hope though, you keep going when you're going through a tough time, whether it's in a relationship or it's financially or if it's just bigger world issues, if you have that hope, you're able to really keep fighting and keep taking actions to have a better life. And then as you start to see better things happen, that hope kind of grows and you start having a whole lot more like confidence and happiness in your life. And I think those things, I mean, are definitely preventative things from you being becoming a violent human being in my opinion.

Tayla (45:56):

Yeah. This, this conversation took a turn I didn't expect, but I really

Sam (45:59):

Like it 100% just solved the entire

Tayla (46:03):

<laugh>

Sam (46:04):

Lives problems right out, because that's where what you were asking for is what do we do? What's a better preventative to capital punishment? And it is hope

Tayla (46:13):

Being better people. Yeah, I love it. Exactly. And I actually do, That sounds very kumbaya, but I actually do agree that if we focus more on being good people and seeing good in other people, that I think there is a clear net positive. I mean, you see that in smaller societies. You can just see it so clearly that when you're focused on each other's wellbeing, there just isn't this level of violence and anger.

Sam (46:40):

Yeah, absolutely.

Tayla (46:41):

Wow. I just feel like I should start breaking out into a like, love is all you need <laugh>.

Sam (46:47):

Okay, that's gonna be the outro song.

Tayla (46:49):

<laugh> onto, what was the movie,

Sam (46:54):

Judge Dread. Judge. Dread the original

Tayla (46:56):

One. Judge Dread time. Let's go get some popcorn. Do it. All right.

Sam (47:05):

Thank you for listening to

Tayla (47:07):

Babe. What do you know about,

Sam (47:09):

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