The implementation of the death penalty itself is vengeful and barbaric.

Accidents in enclosed spaces lacking oxygen provide plenty of prior art for killing a human without panic nor suffering. I believe certain drugs such as morphine in high enough doses would also induce death with minimal pain.

Yet the state-sponsored murderers still use barbaric methods. Even in states where the "gas chamber" is a thing, cyanide is used instead of inert gases such as nitrogen, despite the latter surely being cheaper, easier to procure and safer to handle for the murderers and the rest of prison staff.

I don't agree or disagree with what you're saying, but isn't this the point of a "jury of your peers"? To exact a punishment befitting the crime?

That's the idea. The actual practice of it has never been near perfect.

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/02/us/02jury.html

> In North Carolina, at least 26 current death row defendants were sentenced by all-white juries. In South Carolina, a prosecutor said he struck a black potential juror because he “shucked and jived” when he walked.

There are other selection biases at play; any of those peers who oppose the death penalty are struck from the jury as a matter of course.

Note, jury doesn’t necessarily decide sentencing. Just guilt or lack thereof.

If you mention you know about jury nullification you’re going to get dismissed as a juror.

There are 3 aspects to criminal justice:

- special prevention

- general prevention (=deterrence)

- revenge

I understand it to be:

- retribution (revenge)

- deterrence

- rehabilitation

- incapacitation (they can't re-offend if they're in prison or dead)

In these sort of discussions about justice online, the first is often cast as illegitimate, the second as impossible, the third as the gold standard, and the fourth is frequently ignored completely.

Few people ever defend retribution, so I will here. Many people who are victims of crimes have a desire to see retribution done. If the government does not play at least some lip service to the desire for retribution, then more people will take it into their own hands. They'll seek vigilante justice. Vigilante justice is dangerous to society because it's often capricious and disproportionate. It is better for governments to sate the desire for retribution using official processes which can be checked with safeguards, such as trials.

> If the government does not play at least some lip service to the desire for retribution, then more people will take it into their own hands. They'll seek vigilante justice.

If that were the case, we'd see significantly higher amounts of "vigilante justice" in countries that have abolished the death penalty, right?

I think "vigilante justice" is more often than not "vigilante policing", when people believe criminals aren't being sufficiently investigated and arrested, not when people believe criminals aren't being sufficiently executed

The intensity of desire for retribution depends on the cultural context. In any case, you're conflating retribution with the death penalty, but these are not synonymous. Imprisonment is a form of retribution too, as are fines, caning, etc. Any punishment that is unpleasant has an element of retribution.

> we'd see significantly higher amounts of "vigilante justice" in countries that have abolished the death penalty, right?

No. The death penalty is not the only way to satisfy this nature.

+1 for retribution and social benefits mentioned. Should be obvious. People don't watch enough gangster movies. Or, hell, visit one of the regions of the globe with blood feuds. Not great.

The opening scene of The Godfather is about this. An otherwise law abiding man, let down by the criminal justice system, asking the mob boss to deliver vigilante justice.

You forgot one: rehabilitation, or correction

Recidivism