The Death Penalty

Oh no. I saved this for today, and now it's private. :( When do you expect the final version to be out?

At some point I realised the skull doesn't have any molars and that fucked me up

me at 4:45 : "huh I wonder if shaun is gonna bring up the anarchist position that the state simply should not have the authority to kill. it'd be a radical but nonetheless important position to include. Anyway back to the video while I take this long sip of coffee."

The moustache was a nice touch--introduced a bit of levity to a dark topic. I dig it.

Your skull should wink when you say "Wink". Or maybe don't even say it.

during the dialogue part, when comparing deaths from accidents on highways, or accidents from a firetruck to the death penalty, there is a difference between unintentional, accidental deaths, and intentional deaths that doesn't get mentioned. The part that follows is great, but I wonder if it might be too late to address that difference before finalizing the video?

My first patron video, feeling like a member of an elite club right now. Gonna start wearing a tux whenever I listen to these. Need to buy a tux.

This was beautifully stated. Also I hope you are doing well with whatever your pandemic situation is!

I always go back to the the play “The Exonerated” when thinking about this subject. If anyone’s interested in more stories of wrongful convictions on death row and how they were overturned, the movie version is on amazon prime I know. There are many examples similar to what Shaun discusses here- police coercion of confessions, manipulation and lies about physical evidence, racism and classist bias leading over evidence...

Very sad that that ending won’t make it into the final version tbh

I've never liked the anti-death-penalty argument on how death penalties cost more than life in prison. All that shows is that we're willing to go to a much higher degree of oversight over death penalty cases because of the special place they hold in our culture. But then the obvious next question should be that shouldn't our life in prison cases deserve an equivalent level of oversight and, if they were provided that, would they necessarily cost any less than death penalty cases? To me, it's incredibly hard to find a consistent position that's both anti-death penalty and pro-life in prison. Yes, there's the slim chance in theory that evidence will arrive that will overturn your conviction but that's outweighed by the massive empirical real life evidence that we don't devote the same amount of resources to life without parole cases and many of them do eventually die as someone who was the victim of a miscarriage of justice.

The new background is great! Love the jokes and the well-made argument. Something I heard about but wasn't mentioned that the actual injection (the drugs and the procedure) is also quite expensive and sometimes hard to find as companies don't make them anymore?

It's good, don't get me wrong... I'm a bit troubled by the apparent poo-pooing of "emotional arguments", AKA, arguments that actually reach people. I feel like you had an opportunity at the end, with the Texas vs. Minnesota study, to bite into some emotional meat on this subject, and instead you spent all of 30 seconds on it. Too much of this is the reason argument, which has been worked over ad nauseum already. I'm a big believer in the Russell argument: love plus reason. Emotional and logical arguments.

This is a super interesting video on a topic I used to feel really conflicted about — I love how you always manage to find a fresh perspective on stuff. I really hope you leave in the joke at the end of the video about writing down your pro death penalty arguments on a piece of paper and eating it, because it made me laugh out loud. :)

I genuinely enjoyed this video! Please keep the ending in, I genuinely laughed out loud. Also, I don't think the new background is too light-hearted looking for the topic, it's a nice pic & a nice change.

I really liked the part at about 32 minutes, about how expanding the death penalty to other crimes would in fact encourage the hypothetical rational criminal to escalate to murder.

Hi, I just wanted to say, I agreed with the death penalty until I saw this video. Keep up the good work.

Excellent work as always, but I just wanna call attention to the "sequelae" bit. It made me genuinely laugh out loud and was a much-needed moment of levity in a dark and serious video.

The West Memphis Three case in America is a phenomenal example of when law enforcement and the judicial system have an vendetta against the defendants being tried for a crime that has been proven they did not commit. Damien wasn't executed and him and Jason and Jesse were released only because of the Alford plea and the judge who was determined to keep them locked up and Damien executed could no longer interfere. They lost almost twenty years of their lives just for being outcast teenagers who law enforcement were convinced were murdering satanists because of a course they took on occultism.

Great vid, about to take these arguments directly to the PragerU group I love arguing in on facebook.

Hello Shaun! I feel very strongly about the death penalty, and I enjoyed your video a lot. I was wondering if you've heard of Cameron Todd Willingham - he was executed in 2004 after being convicted of killing his children by burning down his own house. Some of the evidence he was convicted on was eyewitness or circumstantial. After reexamining the case, many experts believe he was innocent. While evidence of his innocence was presented to the courts, he was still executed. I mention this case because I think it provides a great counterargument to Prager's claims that forensic science/DNA evidence reduces executions of innocent people, as: A) there is not always DNA evidence available in cases B) forensic science isn't eternal and unquestionable - various types of forensic evidence (arson, bite mark, hair) have been accepted to prove guilt but later challenged for lack of scientific accuracy C) even if there is forensic evidence, that does not automatically guarantee that a person will be exonerated - even if the evidence is objective, it is assessed by legal actors who may misunderstand or just flat out reject it. This is a great (and very long) article about Willingham's case - https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/09/07/trial-by-fire - it also discusses some other examples of flawed death penalty proceedings. At this point it might be too late to incorporate an entire additional case into your video, but I thought it could be worth mentioning!

Hey Shaun, great vid! One thing I’d like to comment on, from conversations I’ve had with anti-death penalty people— if you make a point about how death penalty appeals will continually retraumatize family members/loved ones, the point could be made that, subsequently, the relative lack of appeals for ‘life without the possibility of parole’ cases could make those convictions less certain. Something to keep in mind and to make note of if you engage in those conversations.

I really like the video, especially the general setup of it is really strong imo. Putting the burden of proof that the death penalty is a good thing on the shoulders of pro-death penalty advocates really solidifies your case. The one nitpick I have would be that when you present the John Oliver (around 3:00), you basicly say that it is an emotional argument, because it would be unconvincing to a pro-death penalty person. This doesn't follow, because plenty of non-emotional arguments might also be unconvincing to them. Other than that, it is great as always ❤️

The background works fine with this topic, some might even find it funny hearing about forensic analysis while staring at a skull. The length of this video is great, it's long enough to be thorough without being a Bell Curve part 2.

You know...I was actually a little bit tempted by the death penalty when they brought up the idea of executing white collar crime. But you pointed out a pretty good counter-argument, thanks!

I think that the first example you present muddies the argument. You present it as a clear case of a murder that was flawed. However, you then proceed to explain how the whole process is long and includes many steps to ensure that no innocent people are executed, which is exactly why that case wouldn't have ended in a death sentence. The second example you present is really good for your position, but it's old. People would claim that those things don't happen anymore. I think it would be better to replace the first case with one that actually ended in an innocent being executed that is more recent or to only mention the old case and lead into the reports claiming that these things still happen. I enjoyed the part where you point out the contradiction in Prager's position about the size of the state, but it felt a bit long for a tangent

Excellent video as always! Kinda the perfect length for a yt video in my opinion, long enough that you can properly examine the issue but not so long that you feel like you should watch it in parts.