One reason that executing Paul Hill was a mistake is that in the view of his supporters, this makes him a martyr. Another reason is that if he were moldering away in a cell someplace, many of those same supporters would spend some of their time picketing the slammer and/or various government offices, thereby drawing at least some of them away from the women's health clinics.

…mistakes are gonna happen, and I don't agree that one is too many... I suppose it's a matter of acceptable errors...

All well and good, Clinton, but what if strange circumstances conspire and you turn out to be one of the "acceptable errors?" Would that really be "acceptable" to you?

Some random contemplations on what a moral society can do with extreme criminals:—

When a person like Paul Hill does what he does, he gives notice that he is resigning from humanity. He has proved by his actions that he is no longer fit to live among humans. To execute him for his crimes does indeed get rid of him, and it may bring a certain kind of primitive satisfaction, but it puts that society on the same moral plain as the murderer. Murder for murder, an eye for an eye. Subject to irreversible mistakes and subject to all kinds of possible abuse. Not the mark of a moral society. And to a truly moral society, no such errors are "acceptable."

Everyone has the right of self-defense. If someone attacks me, I have the same right as any living creature to do whatever is necessary to defend myself: physically restrain the attacker if that will suffice, or even go so far as to kill the attacker if that's the only way I can protect myself. I also have the obligation as a human being similarly to do all in my power to attempt to protect someone else who is under attack.

[By the way, the same holds true for entire nations. If a nation is attacked, it has the right (indeed the obligation) to defend itself and its people. But—against the immediate attack. And I would say that depending on specific circumstances, it has the right to launch an immediate retaliatory strike, not out of vengeance, but with the object of forestalling further such attacks from that aggressor. This does not include acts of foreign policy fobbed off as defensive actions months or years later, and certainly not against a different country. Pre-emptive war is murder on a national scale. But so much for that! I'm speculating about a hypothetical moral society here.]

In times past, as an alternative to killing the offender (someone who disobeys the mores of the tribe), the offender could be exiled. In a way, transportation was a form of this. Unfortunately, until we can establish a penal colony on Pluto, the only way we can do this is relatively local incarceration. This, I am told, is expensive—an expense to society as a whole that some feel is too high, and can be avoided if we simply off the offender. But in the long run, because of the appeals system, especially in capital cases, this turns out to be even more expensive. Larry Niven's system of using convicts as organ donors has a certain appeal for the vengeance-minded, and one can see the possible medical benefits to those in need, but it does seem somehow rather grotesque—a sort of "piecemeal" execution—and ethicists could argue 'til Sunday breakfast over this question!*

Perhaps our current prison system attempts to be a bit too humane toward unrepentant murderers and those who commit other heinous crimes. My thought still leans to the idea of exile. Let them live, but separate them from the rest of humanity. Maximum security, minimum perks. Spend no money on anything except the upkeep of the physical building, food, sanitary considerations, medical necessities, and the minimal personnel necessary to run such a place. I have visions of a dungeon, or someplace like the Chateau d'If, or Devil's Island, or Alcatraz. Lock them in a cell and, to all intents and purposes, throw away the key. Complete isolation. No books, no television, nothing. No form of human contact except when a silent jailer opens the slot at the bottom of the door and slides in a tray of life-sustaining but bland food. Nothing to occupy their mind accept their own thoughts and whatever mental resources they might have.

Some would go mad. Some would spend the rest of their lives in contemplation and meditation, and possibly become better persons. But no matter. The point is, they would be removed from the rest of society (or any society at all) and could no longer do harm. To all intents and purposes, they no longer exist, but society would not have their blood in its hands.

AND—should new evidence turn up establishing the person's innocence, they are still alive and can be "resurrected" and released. And, under such circumstances, they should be given whatever reparations might be deemed appropriate (not just twenty bucks walking money and a new suit; something fairly lavish; an honest and apologetic attempt to compensate them for the injustice done to them).

Don Firth

P.S:— On the matter of expense, when you consider the huge percentage of prison inmates who are serving ridiculously long sentences for relatively innocuous drug crimes, if we were to embrace the kind of civilized behavior that many European countries do regarding drug laws and such, we could cut costs drastically and at the same time, free up a lot of cell space for some real baddies.

*Footnote: by the way, in Larry Niven's stories of "organlegging," a condemned criminal's organs being parceled out to those in need of transplants was considered capital punishment (death of a thousand cuts, perhaps?). I remember reading one of the Gil "the ARM" Hamilton novels about twenty years ago, entitled The Patchwork Girl, in which a young woman who was convicted was later released—after she'd had some of her body parts "harvested." They had to put her back together, and once reassembled, not all of her parts (her legs, for example) matched. Nice thought, eh? No matter how good the judicial system gets in the future, don't be too sure that mistakes or nobbling will be a thing of the past.