The Texas Example

Today we're going to be looking at capital punishment in Texas as an example of how believing in free will completely skews your perception and your understanding of reality. Much of what I'm about to write applies equally to the Western WASP cultural concept of criminal justice, but Texas makes a good example because we can see how murder perpetuates murder leaving behind nothing but victims.

The mystical transaction

Life, no matter who you are, how you live and how you perceive it is an experience of both biology and an environment. If there is no environment life is not possible. If there is no biology once again life is not possible. Your ability to live is predicated entirely upon being relative to an environment and external reality on the one hand, and also being a biological system - brain, senses, and body - to be able to interact with an environment. The mystical transaction is the experience of a relationship between your environment and your biology.

This gives us two very important mystical principles:

• All existence is change, all existence is relationship.
• The environment creates, the individual grows.

Which brings us to the Triangular Relationship (see above image). We are all walking round with a model of reality in our minds, i.e. what we assume to be normal or reality. This model of reality is made up of different levels of reality. You have actual reality, the reality of the universe, the natural environment, Nature, biology which is coming at you constantly in a vast, multi-dimensional continuum of sensation and experience. In other words everything is happening everywhere all the time. You cannot even take it all in, let alone understand it, because everything changes way faster than you can learn or even begin to comprehend it.

Then you have conceptual or cultural reality, which is the kind of reality created from human thinking and human imagination. Society, money, time, self, God, work, marriage, and so on - these are all concepts and thus examples of conceptual or cultural reality. But see your brain, which with it's many different parts can also be seen as an environment - environment is basically many different things together coexisting in a relationship - is also constantly changing, through a process known as neural plasticity. Every thought, every sensation, everything you do, every choice you make, it all changes your brain. The mystical transaction is essentially the relationship between your constantly changing brain and your constantly changing environment.

What is it that makes sense to you?

Now please keep in mind that in order to have free will and freedom of choice you need to have an objective perspective of reality. You basically need to be omniscient. But you are not omniscient. You cannot even perceive much of what reality is, let alone understand it. This is where we get into mysticism. Mysticism is just another term for ignorance. Anything you don't understand, anything you cannot comprehend, anything you're not aware of, that is mysticism from your perspective. Much of what life and existence is all about is mysterious, it's incomprehensible, it's even beyond the narrow limitations of your mind and perception.

What this means is that the basis of your life is code - which is the basis of all information. Consciousness is information in space.

You make all your choices and decisions in life on the basis of recognition of patterns, rhythms, and figuring out code. We call this process making sense of the world. Please keep in mind that you are only as consciously aware as being able to perceive that what you can put into language. In other words, you are only as consciously aware as that what you can make sense of from what's going on around you. Your model of reality is based on everything you can make sense of, what you can remember, and what you can speak about.

There is no free will or freedom of choice whatsoever in your ability to make choices and decisions. All your choices and decisions come down to what makes sense to you at any given moment. You feel you make the right choice and decision only when you can recognize a pattern or figure out the code in what is going on around you or in what you perceive to be your options or possibilities. Half the time you're guessing. Some of the time you get it wrong, misunderstand the pattern, rhythm or fail to figure out the code. You misunderstand, get it wrong, or make a mistake.

So what about truth?

So if there is no free will, and no personal responsibility or personal agency - but simply recognition of patterns, rhythms and code - then what about truth? There is still truth, if we understand that truth is relative to individual perspective and perception.

What I'm saying here is in order to perceive truth, or something as true, or real, you need a frame or a point of reference.

On an individual level you determine truth from your individual model or perception of reality (see Triangular Relationship) which takes in truth across the different levels of reality. However on a social or cultural level we use law and the justice system to determine or ascertain truth.

This is where we come to the major difference between truth and belief. Truth requires a frame of reference to exist, whereas belief doesn't. Belief only requires your participation to exist, whereas truth does not require your participation to exist. Truth is independent of belief and remains the same independent independent of additional perspectives.

Death and bereavement

As I'm writing from an anti-death penalty perspective I feel I need to get this in and make it very clear. Death, any death, affects those left behind perceptibly more than the person who dies. We're talking about the most extreme form of trauma here and much of that trauma comes from the bereavement experienced by those left behind.

The closer and more intimate you feel in relationship to someone, the greater the sense of loss you experience through bereavement. Human beings die all the time, yet you're not constantly bereaved by everyone's death. Bereavement comes from the loss of physical presence, physical intimacy, physical relationship and also the conscious awareness you shared with that person. All this becomes a sense of loss and a sense of emptiness which inevitably leads to grief in its various forms.

So in order to preempt any objection to my stance which usually manifests as "What about the murder victims?" death through homicide often throws up a similar bereavement and grieving process as death through suicide. It's generally harsher and deeper. Who dies and how they dies is moot for me. Every death comes with bereavement for other people and I do not value someone's life over someone else's life. Especially on the basis of moral reasoning. Coming from a humanist perspective, every single death for me is tragic to others and I refuse to make any distinction over who died and how they died.

I just wanted to make this clear before we go any further.

The capital justice system in Texas

So let us move on to the example in question, i.e. the capital justice system in Texas. As with any other state which allows for statutory capital punishment Texas has crimes or felonies (arrestable offences in the UK) which are deemed capital offences. Generally speaking the principle behind capital punishment in Texas is a murder committed in the course of committing another felony, e.g. robbery, rape, kidnapping, and so on. There are other capital crimes or felonies, such as the murder of a child under the age of 10, a murderr of a police officer or a similar uniformed officer in the course of their duties, or a murder in prison while convicted and sentenced to another murder.

Please note that there are no mandatory death sentences and capital punishment is never mandatory, either in Texas, or anywhere in the United States. Mandatory death sentences are considered unconstitutional.

Instead what you have is a bifurcated capital trial system where the trial is divided into two distinct stages. The first stage is the guilt-innocence stage which determines guilt or innocence and culpability. If the accused is deemed to be guilty or culpable according to a jury then we go onto a second stage of the trial which is the punishment stage. The punishment stage is intended to weigh up aggravating and mitigating factors and the jury is required to consider three 'special' considerations.

Special considerations in capital sentencing (Texas)

So let's take a look at the special considerations used in capital trials. Lets start with the guilt-innocence phase of the trial:

• whether the defendant actually caused the death of the deceased.
• if the defendant didn't cause the death of the deceased but intended to cause the death of the deceased or another.
• if the defendant did not cause the death of the deceased but anticipated that a human life would be taken.

If the defendant is found to be guilty by the jury on a charge of capital murder then we move onto the punishment phase of the trial where two special considerations are made:

• whether there is a probability that the defendant would commit criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing threat to society; and
• whether, taking into consideration all of the evidence, including the circumstances of the offense, the defendant’s character and background, and the personal moral culpability of the defendant, there is a sufficient mitigating circumstance or circumstances to warrant that a sentence of life imprisonment without parole rather than a death sentence be imposed.

In these above special considerations a jury has to answer 'yes' to the first and 'no' for the second for the defendant to be sentenced to death.

Please keep in mind that all these special considerations are based on a strong belief in free will, personal agency and personal responsibility, none of which exist in reality. You see in order to believe that killing someone and murdering them occurs on the basis of free will, you have to accept the premise that in some cases homicide and murder make sense and is therefore socially acceptable. For me murder is always senseless and is never acceptable. Therefore in order to make such special considerations you need to go through a significant level of mental gymnastics.

Quarantine v. prison

This is where we come to my biggest issue with the criminal justice system. If someone is murdered say during the course of a robbery, it does not matter to me - outside of accurately identifying the perpetrator - why they did what they did and what their intention was. What matters to me is the process of how someone went from being a 'normal' member of society to being a killer. What you generally find in a lot of the stories and histories of people on Death Row is that they went off the rails long before they committed the murder and often they went off the rails due to factors which were beyond their control.

Additionally what you also find, again quite often, is that many of those on Death Row had previous convictions for violent crimes but were released back into society by the State without the underyling social issues ever being thought about, let alone addressed. What I'm saying here is that there's often a level of complicity by the State in not addressing significant contributing factors which were part of the process and which ultimately led up to the murder. Please keep in mind that I'm writing here from a position of public safety.

Assuming that you have the right person or defendant, it does not matter how they murdered the victim or deceased. It doesn't even matter why. It does not change the fact that you still have a victim who was unlawfully killed and a bereaved family, loved ones and in some cases a community. There is nothing you can do which is ever going to bring that person back to life or completely negate the trauma and effects of the violent crime. Dead is dead.

The entire focus and emphasis of the criminal justice system - and not just capital punishment - is concentrated on trying to determine free will, something which does not exist in reality. The emphasis is not on that what really matters, such as victim impact, trauma, public safety, and prevention of violent crime. Furthermore generally and all too often we punish people for factors beyond their control or for things they had nothing whatsoever to do with.

Let me give you an example to make it clearer the point I'm making here.

Let's say you have a child with a cold or flu, or say an infectious disease such as measles or chickenpox. You would keep your child off school or away from nursery to prevent them from infecting other children. I'm assuming that this would make sense to you, right? But would you punish your child for becoming ill, or hold them responsible for coming down with the flue or a cold, or contracting chickenpox or the measles? Would you hold your child morally responsible for becoming ill? I would hope that you wouldn't.

See one of the biggest issues with prison we have is the sense of righteousness we have over having people in prison because they've committed crimes and done 'bad' things. We're getting a serious dopamine hit out of the concept of punishment. We need to completely rethink the whole purpose of prison and find a way of getting from the whole notion of free will and the idea that we live in a society which is fair, just and equal.

None of this is necessary and it doesn't do much for public safety. You see even with prison and in the US capital punishment people still commit violent crimes. Am I suggesting we should abolish prisons and simply let all violent criminals back out into society? Of course not. But perhaps if we followed a model which is focussed much more on quarantine, public safety and public health where we address the social dysfunction, the abuse, the neglect, mental health and other issues we would make much more progress than we do now.

Capital punishment makes no sense whatsoever

Let's say you have a car, and the car develops a fault with one of its headlights or with its braking system. What would you do? Would you take your car to a mechanic or garage to be service and have the issue fixed, or would you have your car scrapped and simply buy a new car? You see capital punishment makes about as much rational sense as scrapping your entire car because a rear light developed a fault or the car battery was flat.

It's only the moral reasoning and sense of righteousness that provides the sense of justification for murdering that individual with total premeditation and after - if we're taking the Texas example as a model - mistreating and abusing the prisoner for anything up to 35 years in a special section of prison known as Death Row.

Given the fact that not all murders occurring in Texas occur with what we can safely call premeditation, as many are simply acts of violence which got out of hand and it's impossible to distinguish between capital murder and non-capital murder, capital punishment itself takes us to a whole new level of depravity. capital punishment isn't just unacceptable in the context of rational thinking, it is offensive to such a concept.

It's important here to understand that capital punishment is not a deterrent to violent crimes such as murder, if anything it encourages violent crimes because it sends out a message that it'a okay to kill someone if you have a good enough reason or moral justification.

Furthermore it's on the same level of social thinking as believing elderly toothless women are responsible for hurricanes and tornados, that people with mental health issues are possessed by demons or the Devil, and that there really is an elderly man in the sky called God who controls the universe. In other words it's socially backward, medieval, senseless, irrational....uncivilized.

How about we do something meaningful and significant about violent crime?

You see when we get rid of our notions of free will, personal responsibility, personal agency, moral reasoning and attachment to blame, guilt, culpability and punishment we might actually find ourselves in a position to actually do something constructive and meaningful about violent crime. It's a completely different mindset to say to someone "You've just committed a violent crime and need to go to prison because you're dangerous to others and yourself and we need to resolve some issues.." rather than you're bad, you're wrong, you deserve to be punished and don't deserve to live.

Therefore the 'future dangerousness' special consideration, the one which is the most heavily criticized in anti-death penalty circles, is actually the special consideration I'm most comfortable with. Instead of holding someone responsible for 35 years of their life for an act of homicide before putting them down like some rabid animal, spending millions of dollars of public funds to do so, I feel that this special consideration is actually the key to redesigning the criminal justice system in a way which actually addresses the widespread social issue of violent crime in a way which is meaningful and effective.

The only thing that matters in the case of a violent crime is the story, the narrative, the process of how someone went from John H. Citizen to John P. Murderer. This is something that can be examined in prison rather than the court room. You see in prison resources could be used to address all the contributing factors beyond the individual's control, and their conscious perception of the process, which led up to the event. Information from the examination from such a process could be used to modify and change efforts centred around preventing violent crime.

The point I'm making here of course is that there is no social value whatsoever in locking someone up for 30 years because they let an argument get way out of hand or chose to commit a violent crime so many years ago. It does nothing for the violent crime which is happening today being perpetrated by other people. There's no rational or logical relationship between past crime and actual crime as it's being committed today on the streets. It's not doing anything to prevent further crimes from taking place. At some point we as a society have to start joining the dots and making the connections.

Please pay attention to what I'm suggesting here in transforming prisons from a place of punishment and abuse to a whole new social resource centred around crime prevention and education. I'm not suggesting we should let murderers roam free on the streets or take no action because they're not responsible for their actions. That's not what I'm suggesting. But if we're taking actual preventative action through measures to address crime in general, gang membership, domestic violence, domestic and child abuse, without the moralizing and the judgment, what you should find is that murder rates should plummet and even those who are likely to commit such violent crimes are far more likely to be cooperative and willing to participate in the process, and therefore cooperate, if they know that they're not going to be judged, or blamed, or stigmatized as a result.

But even more than this there is a tremendous social benefit to being able to live in communities and societies when there is little or no violent crime taking place and far less trauma, suffering, bereavement suffered by people as a result of being a victim of violent crime. But to reach that stage we need to think about this differently and come up with a completely different approach to violent crime.