Talk:Capital punishment

Edit Request From Mad Bunny, 8 Jan 2010

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The sentence "Amnesty International allowed a vote on a nonbinding resolution to the UN to promote the abolition of the death penalty." is gibberish. The article linked in the sentence makes no reference to Amnesty International being involved with the resolution, so the reference to Amnesty International should be removed.

It is unclear why the sentence "Amnesty International considers it to be "the ultimate denial of Human Rights"." is relevant to the article. This is a philosophical statement by a non-governmental organization and not relevant to an objective definition of the subject. That sentence should be removed.

USA drug executions

Some parties keep deleting the US from nations that execute for drug offenses, yet at least two states (Florida and Connecticut) authorise execution for drug trafficking. (It's my understanding that in other states, 'felony murder rules' can extend to drug offenses as well.) I understand Americans might not like seeing their name on the list with Iran, Iraq, and Zimbabwe, but there you have it. Until you stop executing, please stop deleting.

--UnicornTapestry (talk) 20:07, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Before you can add such a claim to the article, you need to identify one or more reliable sources confirming the claim. This would almost certainly have to involve specific cites (references) to the specific statutes involved. Make sure the sources confirm that these states' laws prescribe the death penalty for drug-related offences even when homicide was not involved as part of the crime. Claims that a drug connection converts an otherwise non-capital homicide into capital murder via a "felony murder" rule are not sufficient to substantiate a claim that a jurisdiction imposes the death penalty for drug-related crimes (in the same sense as, say, Singapore's death penalty for drug trafficking). Anti-death-penalty blogs will generally not be considered reliable sources (see WP:SPS) — and in any event, the recently cited article simply makes an assertion without citing any specific statutes, so it's not usable as a reliable source for this purpose no matter where it might have been found. Richwales (talk) 21:01, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

References earlier provided were deleted, and to my knowledge, they made no reference to felony murder. Sorry, I didn't intend to cloud the issue by mentioning felony murder above. For example, the wiki article on your government mentions drug trafficking in the opening paragraph and does the article on Florida. It's clear that the the death penalty for drug trafficking exists in the US and and least some states, but I question if efforts are being made to keep it out of Wikipedia.

--UnicornTapestry (talk) 02:13, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't think the issue here is a conspiracy to censor information unfavourable to the US. Rather, it's a question of whether a claim is properly substantiated. Find a reliable source which clearly cites a current US federal or state statute providing for the death penalty for drug trafficking not involving homicide, and you'll have no problem keeping a reference to this practice in this article.

Be careful, BTW, to actually find a real source. I looked up one of the claims at Capital punishment by the United States federal government (and the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 mentioned there) — and as best I can tell from studying this federal statute (found here, the external link in the article doesn't seem to work), it provides for the death penalty only for intentional homicide relating to drug felonies (which would mean the drug-crime-related claims in that other Wikipedia article may be inaccurate). This sort of thing is why we're not allowed to use one Wikipedia article as a source for claims made in another article. Richwales (talk) 02:43, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

The law you need is 18 U.S.C. 3591(b) ([1]. The Court decision in Kennedy v. Louisiana specifically mentions that they are not ruling on this federal law. However, the laws have not been used in a death penalty case and have not been tested on appeal. Rmhermen (talk) 01:22, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Actually, following a ruling given by the Supreme Court of the United States of America, a death sentence can only be handed down in cases where someone has been killed. Any law on the books is, in fact, pointless as the law is illegal. Therefore, no solely drug related crimes can be punished by death. If you want to pretend that a Law is a Law and whatever, you should also add a number of the United States of America's States to articles detailing the criminalisation of homosexuality. --Île flottante (talk) 23:24, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Ile flottante is correct. To clarify: What happens is that the U.S. has a LOT of old or poorly written statutes enacted by legislators who are trying to get publicity by responding to whatever is currently perceived as a crisis. This is the disadvantage of having strong judicial review; it allows legislators and the populace to be lazy because the legislature can get away with enacting all kinds of garbage that no sane judge will actually enforce. (This is also why looking at annotated statutes is so important in the U.S., since so many statutes have been declared unconstitutional or narrowed by judicial interpretation, but all the annotated statutes are privately-prepared copyright-protected works available only in law libraries or through expensive proprietary databases like Westlaw and LexisNexis.) The UK's doctrine of parliamentary supremacy has the advantage of forcing the electorate to be more sensitive to what their legislators are doing, because the judiciary is too weak to save the people if they are dumb enough to elect MPs who form an autocratic government. Unfortunately, if the people are that crazy, they can be stuck with the resulting dictatorship or oligarchy for a long time, which actually happened in a number of British Commonwealth countries. --Coolcaesar (talk) 05:39, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I've looked at the relevant codes http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCODE-1994-title18/pdf/USCODE-1994-title18-partII-chap228.pdf has the section given as a citation but http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCODE-2008-title21/pdf/USCODE-2008-title21-chap13-subchapI-partD-sec848.pdf to which the previous code refers makes it clear that the death penalty in relation to drug offences is for when someone has been intentionally killed or caused to be killed. It's not the same as the other countries in the list where a lone drug charge with no other crime attached is enough to get you executed. Keeping the US in the list is disingenuous. If no one objects I'm taking it out of the list next week. HazelGHC (talk) 18:12, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, the US should be removed from the list. Homicide by means of drugs can warrant the death penalty, but one is not executed for possessing, manufacturing, distributing, or trafficking in drugs. Boneyard90 (talk) 18:33, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Disagree. See Kennedy v. Louisiana that I mentioned above: "Our concern here is limited to crimes against individual persons. We do not address, for example, crimes defining and punishing treason, espionage, terrorism, and drug kingpin activity, which are offenses against the State." (emphasis added). Is there more recent case law? Rmhermen (talk) 18:43, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Was there a drug kingpin that was executed? Perhaps I didn't hear bout it. Boneyard90 (talk) 19:32, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

"Drug kingpin" certainly involves drug trafficking, but the two are not synonymous. Note the context of "offenses against the State"; there's a big difference between somebody dealing drugs on the street corner, and the Pablo Escobars of the world whose organisations are powerful enough to significantly challenge the authority of the state - which is what puts them in the same sentence as treason, espionage, and terrorism. --GenericBob (talk) 06:49, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

"Per 10 M"

What does that mean, Per 10M in the execution chart? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.107.151.144 (talk) 03:28, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Buddhism not an official religion in Thailand

The article states 'Bhutan has abolished the death penalty, but Thailand still retains it, although Buddhism is the official religion in both.' This is incorrect in the case of Thailand. The Constitution requires the Head of State (King) to be a Buddhist, but makes no provision for an official religion. Alec Bamford, 24 Dec 2011 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.8.238.151 (talk) 05:16, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Undue emphasis

There is an undue emphasis on christianity here. It has too many sbheading for denominations Pass a Method talk 15:11, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Citation needed

The sentence "Mao Zedong publicly stated that "800,000" people had been executed after the Communist Party's victory in 1949." needs to be given a good citation or removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.239.157.76 (talk) 08:22, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Exemptions

Would be nice to see a section on exemptions, also by country, like which countries allow executions of pregnant women, mentally ill, etc. Zip-x (talk) 15:46, 24 February 2012 (UTC)