Van den Haag - not opposed to CP

Constitutional Grounds:
    The 5th Amendment - depriving a person the right to life, liberty and property without due process is prohibited.
    14th Amendment - Rights to individual states
    8th Amendment - Prohibits cruel and unusual punishment

        These amendments are consistent with each other.  CP ~cruel, CP only w/due process, determined by indiv. states.
 

Evolving Standards:
    Can simple public opinion or majority opinion change Constitutional provisions?

Capriciousness:
    There are protections against that

Discrimination:
    More black and poor than white and middle class/rich - this is not an argument against CP.  Even if more black then white are executed when the victim is white rather than black, the discrimination works against minorities in the one case, but for them in the other.

Comparative Excessiveness:
    We should prefer unequal justice to equal injustice - the latter is equal for all in the negative, the former is at least justice, even if not applied equally.  It is better to have justice for some unequally than injustice for all equally.  If someone escapes punishment, does that mean that everyone should?
    If CP is inherently unjust, then arguing about discriminatory practices is at best a subsidiary issue.
    The point is that punishment should be applied when it is deserved.  A secondary point is whether it is done equally.

Deterrence:
    Even if CP does not deter other criminals in fact, or statistics don't show it, the life of an innocent victim has more value than the life of a murderer.
    Maybe CP deters people who would have been murderers otherwise.

Morality:
    Miscarriages of justice:  The death of innocents is unintended
    Vengeance:  The point is doing justice, no matter what the motive
    Charity and Justice:  Is CP uncharitable?  Maybe churches now oppose it because they have no secular power.
    Dignity:  Why should suffering be a lack of dignity?  Nobody argues for this claim.

More to come....