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  #1  
Old 11-01-2005, 05:13 PM
bigjohnn bigjohnn is offline
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Default Death Penalty Article

Can people confirm that I'm not seeing things? Have a really just read an article about refinements to the death penalty in a POKER magazine.

I'm not objecting to this on the merits of David's argument, but that it just doesn't belong in such a magazine. Mason has indicated on a number of occasions that this magazine was going to be of far higher quality (in terms of advice and strategy) than other poker mags out there. Granted, the advice in other publications is often second-rate or poorly-explained, but not once have I seen them veer so off topic with an article as in this case.

Ed arguments in defense of Barron's article last month eventually had me on his side. In this case, I very much doubt this will happen.

I still think that the content of most articles is top-notch. It's just a shame to see something so irrelevant included in the issue.

What do others think about it?

John
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  #2  
Old 11-01-2005, 05:48 PM
BluffTHIS! BluffTHIS! is offline
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Default Re: Death Penalty Article

I have somewhat of a problem with the article because it starts out advocating a higher bar for imposing the death penalty on a convicted murderer, and then also advocates lowering the bar for standards of conviction in the first place. To my mind these are two separate issues.

Regarding the second and more important one as far as releasing possbile guilty perpertrators, we already have a jury system where all 12 jurors must agree that a conviction is justified beyond a reasonable doubt. A far higher standard than that used in civil suits. Plus there is the practical issue of the average intelligence and logical reasoning ability of jurors, which the OJ trial showed isn't very high (this of course cuts both ways).

So I probably am unwilling to change the conviction standard. However, I am more than willing to change the standard for imposing the death penalty so that it is seen to be used only in cases where there is virtual certainty that the conviction was correct. Such a standard might be either the testimony of 2 or more disinterested witnessess (or video evidence) or conclusive DNA evidence (micro-fibers now won't cut it).

Another approach is simply to narrow sharply the cases in which the penalty can be used, such as with those convicted of 2+ separate occasion murders, terroristic mass murder, espionage which leads to the death of government operatives, murder of witnesses, and posssibly for political reasons, the murder of law enforcement officers but which meets the above higher death penalty standards of DNA evidence or multiple witnesses/video evidence.

I think that it would well nigh impossible to convince our citizens to agree to a tougher conviction standard since the unanimous jury reasonable doubt standard has been followed to my knowledge for the entire history of the US, and is also partially enshrined in English common law from which our legal system derives a great deal.

On the subject of such initiatives originating here, I think that is a great idea, because the collective logical thinking of poker players here who have diverse backgrounds can be no worse than the position papers of supposedly elite think tanks of the left or right. And it would show that poker players do in fact contribute to society beyond simply making money and paying taxes.
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  #3  
Old 11-01-2005, 07:19 PM
David Sklansky David Sklansky is offline
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Default Re: Death Penalty Article

"and then also advocates lowering the bar for standards of conviction in the first place."

No it doesn't. What did you read to make you think that?
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  #4  
Old 11-01-2005, 07:27 PM
BluffTHIS! BluffTHIS! is offline
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Default Re: Death Penalty Article

It is implied when you talk about guilty murderers being set free as a result of a different standard, rather than it merely causing not as many convicted guilty murderers to be executed rather than incarcerated.
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  #5  
Old 11-01-2005, 07:33 PM
catlover catlover is offline
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Default Re: Death Penalty Article

David's initiative is already part of our legal system, at least in some jurisdictions. For instance in the Scott Peterson trial, the jury was instructed that it must give a sentence of life in prison if it had any "lingering doubt" about his guilt. Apparently it didn't.

A related issue will soon be before the Supreme Court in Oregon v. Mazek -- whether or not the court is required to allow the defense to present evidence of innocence in the penalty phase. The purpose of this would be so that the defense can try to create lingering doubt in the minds of the jury.
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  #6  
Old 11-01-2005, 08:13 PM
David Sklansky David Sklansky is offline
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Default Re: Death Penalty Article

No it's not. Read it again.
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  #7  
Old 11-01-2005, 08:40 PM
BluffTHIS! BluffTHIS! is offline
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Default Re: Death Penalty Article

[ QUOTE ]
To meet the objection that too many murderers will be set free, I am going to do a little math. How horrible is it to send a murderer back on the street?

Now let's guess that in the next year, given the standards of proof we presently employ, 100 innocent dependents will be convicted of capital murder in this country. If we tightened those standards to avoid those convictions, how many guilty persons would also be acquitted? Many more than 1,000 I'd say. Let's use 1,200.

[/ QUOTE ]
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  #8  
Old 11-01-2005, 08:55 PM
LearnedfromTV LearnedfromTV is offline
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Default Re: Death Penalty Article

This clearly doesn't belong in a poker magazine. And the idea of galvanizing a forum of poker players to support a specific political cause with one voice is absurd. Do you see why?
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  #9  
Old 11-01-2005, 09:28 PM
David Sklansky David Sklansky is offline
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Default Re: Death Penalty Article

You misread my point.
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  #10  
Old 11-01-2005, 09:29 PM
ZenMusician ZenMusician is offline
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Default Re: Death Penalty Article

[ QUOTE ]
This clearly doesn't belong in a poker magazine. And the idea of galvanizing a forum of poker players to support a specific political cause with one voice is absurd. Do you see why?

[/ QUOTE ]

Great...a poker PAC! (so that's why we love polls so much)

I'm not sure I am going to bite on this one. My read on David
is that he enjoys posting topics with especially inflammatory
subject matter, (see Psychology forum "God" posts et al.)

Whether it is to leverage his position of power–albeit in a
somewhat exclusive community–to promote his personal
philosophical viewpoints or to harvest the inevitable and
predictable debate to color the website is my question.

Whatever the reason and intention, the end result seems to
do little more than detract from the potential well of gaming
knowledge that is David Sklansky...are you getting bored with
monotone subject matter?

I own almost all of your books and the only problem I usually
find is the horrid scans of those cards (I work in publishing, ha!)
Other than that I treasure the knowledge.

If I would like deviation from a stream of poker theory and discussion,
I can download the latest Bill Fillmaff video.

Your (devoted, seriously) fan,

- ZEN
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