Death Penalty Article

[roundhouse]

David,

You write very good poker books, but you are not cut out to write this kind of policy comment.

1) Your suggestion is for society to put an explicit price on human life (this is what your HP system is really doing). Whilst the logical minded 2+2ers will see sense in this it is an absolute political no goer. Ask yourself how likely any politician in any country is to answer questions like:
"What is worse, X murderers being set free or Y innocents wrongly executed?"
"What is worse, X of your country's soldiers being killed in battle, or Y innocent civilians from another country?"
(And it doesn't matter what numbers you substitute for X and Y.)

2) Even if you could agree a price of life and have it publically and politically accepted and somehow get this two tier conviction process to pass judicial muster you haven't solved the fundamental problem. If you have a death penalty you will kill innocent people. Those against the death penalty believe that even one innocent executed is one too many: HP=infinity if you like. Your policy suggestion is basically that America should kill slightly fewer innocent people. Why not just abolish the death penalty (some would say "join the civilised world") and have none?

3) You seem to think that there aren't those smart enough within the government machinery - and real think tanks for that matter - to consider these things. You are mistaken.

Best if you stick to the poker I think.