Lets start the killing !

The other day, I was talking to someone who identified himself as a police officer. We started discussing the death penalty and he opined that it was a waste of time and money to have prisoners on death row and filling up our prisons. He thought that all these expensive trials and prisons should be done away with by letting the police just carry out justice on the spot by killing those they suspected were guilty. It was all a conspiracy by lawyers and judges and people who build prisons to steal tax money, after all.

I pointed out to him that under his scheme, some people might be falsely accused and that innocent people might be executed. He rejected this, and said that people were never falsely accused. Ever.

I pointed out that the introduction of DNA evidence had lead to large numbers of people on death row being proven innocent and released. He ignored this.

I pointed out that there is corruption among the police and that is why there are internal affairs departments. He ignored this.

I asked about the Blackstone ratio, which is the well known principle in jurisprudence that in our society, we want to have a legal system that falsely convicts fewer innocent people than criminals that the legal system permits to avoid punishment. He denied that the Blackstone ratio existed. I tried to explain it again, and all that it did was anger him.

He stated over and over that the police be allowed to do what they should do. He demanded that the police should be allowed to just kill whoever they wanted, whenever and wherever they wanted, no questions asked.

As I contemplate this conversation, it reminds me of another conversation I had with the Head of the Police Department of the City of Chicago. I met him in a restaurant near the US Naval Academy where his son had been admitted to go to college. I asked him what was the hardest thing about his job. He told me that the toughest thing about being the head of a large police department was ferreting out those who are psychologically unsuited to be police officers. He told me that he has to deal with a never ending stream of officers who only want to use their position to attack the citizens, and be as brutal as possible, to get "even" for some imagined slights, etc.

I guess I can believe the Chief, after what I heard in my conversation with the police officer. But what is amazing to me is, how certain this police officer was that he was correct. He was so sure that he was correct, he probably would have killed me if he could have. After all, that would have proven that he was correct, right?