At 18:05 5/12/96 -0400, David wrote:

    You see, Shampoo, the United States Constitution, in its goal to
protect the citizen from encroachment by the government, uses a judicial
system of the accused's peers (fellow citizens, as opposed to the
government). This system
is inclined to make mistakes, and the US court system averages a 10%
innocent conviction rate (this rate is higher for blacks and males than it
is for
whites and females) as well as a 10-15% guilty release rate (which is higher
for whites and females than blacks and males). The framers of the Bill of
Rights wrote the 8th amendment to protect those innocent people who were
convicted from being damaged to the point they couldn't properly re-enter

Actually, one of the goals of the 8th was to prevent cruel and unusual 
punishment for non-cruel-and-unusual crimes (for example, putting someone in 
the stocks and throwing garbage at him or her if that person worked on 
Sunday instead of observing the Sabbath).  Remember, it was ratified in 
1791.

their life. You see, there are approximately 10% of the convicted rapists in
prison right now who are INNOCENT, and you would painfully castrate them to
REVENGE the victim. This doesn't help the victim, but rather instills a desire
for revenge in the convicted, which may lead to a formerly innocent person now
going out to seek revenge for having their life shattered by someone.

Good point.  That's why punishment needs to be reversible, no matter how 
much rapists deserve torture (such as the castration, arm removal, etc. 
suggested earlier).  The rest of us can't be sure who those deserving 
rapists are.

If a convict is thrown in prison for life without parole, and then later 
proven innocent by evidence unavailable at the original trial, that person 
can be released.  If the convict's arms are removed, it's kind of hard to 
put them back.  You can only justify eye-for-eye style punishment when you 
can be *absolutely* sure that the person you're applying it to is guilty.

The courts here don't recognize the difference between being almost certain 
and completely certain of someone's guilt.  That means we have to treat all 
cases as if the conviction may later be reversed (even when we are 
completely sure it won't); it's better than acting as though no convictions 
will be reversed (and finding out ten years later that an innocent person 
has been executed; it's happened before).  

It's also why the death penalty isn't much good; establishing enough
certainty costs the state millions for appeals and we *still* kill innocents 
sometimes.  It's cheaper and safer to just let convicted killers rot in jail 
with no chance of parole (mistaken convictions can be corrected).

Ken DeSoto said:

I totally agree with you on the subject, in regards to the 8th
amendment.....As for Jeanne implying that rapists should be tortured and
suffer as much as the victim, is also wrong thinking...two wrongs don't make
a right, no matter what the law says.

    This is so true.

Wrong!  By your reasoning, *no* punishment should ever occur.  The 
difference between life imprisonment and mutilation is that imprisonment is 
reversible, *not* that one is a "wrong" and the other is not.  Both hurt the 
person to whom the punishment is done.