A few points.

1. How bizarre to see the foolishness and stupidity of the perpetrator used as an argument FOR the death penalty rather than against it. I guess clearly the foolish of the world deserve their miserable lot. I guess these people would support “being really dumb” or “getting caught too easy” as aggravating factors for the death penalty.

2. Talk of “legality” and ” legitimate legal rights” internationally is so quaintly silly. The law is a ficiton and therefore legal rights are whatever we pretend them to be. Philosophers can argue about moral relativism, but legal relativism is obvious.

3. Hans is a Free Man. Hans critics are not.

4. Mpowell asks ” Its awfully hard for me to buy that anyone actually believes this. If your values aren’t better than why do you hold them?”

Well, because I LOVE them. Do I have to believe my children are better to hold them?

Not only do I dsagree with you, I don’t quite trust people who aren’t motivated primarily by irrational love. Makes them not only arrogant but utilitarian.

5. I favor the death penalty primarily because it is perceived as justice by SOME friends and family of innocent victims. However, talk of a State having a Right to use the death penalty seems backwards. Rights are needed by the weak. The State has power. It doesn’t need rights talk too.

6. There’s a good damn reason J. H. and B. W. won’t be commenting on this thread. FEAR.

Consider someone who buys a substantial quantity of Tylenol with Codeine in Canada (because it is cheaper) and passes through Singapore on the way back to Australia. Codeine is legal without prescription in Australia and Canada(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codeine). The person never enters Singapore and never passes through Singapore customs. Does this allow Singapore to arrest and hang them if they find a bunch of pills during a routine security check?

But sadly for Mr. Nguyen, it would appear that his time is up, and this issue will recede until the next Westerner comes up for execution.

When you talk about legitimate authority, you are clearly referring to legitimate legal authority. I don’t see any reason to read it that way. It could just as easily be legitimate moral authority. Then you drop into a discussion about how consistency delivers (moral) legitimacy to a penal system. Fine. But Brian doesn’t argue that their regime is arbitrary in its administration of justice- just nonsensical in its standards. There is something extra morally objectionable for not only executing someone, but executing a foreign citizen for carrying heroin through your airport. I believe that’s the point.

Part of my problem is that lawyer-type people think that the legal question is the most important one- which is why they assume that everyone must be making legal arguments. But for most people, its not the legal question that matters.

This misrepresents the position of the ‘law and order’ guys on this thread. What is more, it also misrepresents the position they are arguing against.

If you read the post carefully you’ll notice that Brian is not just claiming that it is morally wrong for Singapore to apply the death penalty. He’s claiming, in addition, that Singapore doesn’t have the legitimate authority to punish Nguyen (in whatever way) since its actions are arbitrary and violate fundamental standards of legal fairness. This is a different and in some respects more serious charge, as is evident from the obvious fact that those who criticize Singapore probably wouldn’t get as worked up about this issue if the fact that Nguyen is going to be subjected to the death penalty were the whole problem. However, Brain rather clearly fails to substantiate this second charge.

The importance of distinguishing the two aspects of the problem should be obvious: If I had to choose between living under a system that applies punishments arbitrarily (without due process, retroactively, partially or whatever) but that doesn’t have a death penalty and a system that applies the death penalty but that is not arbitrary I wouldn’t hesitate to choose the death penalty system. This is perfectly compatible with being morally opposed to the death penalty. The point is simply that legal institutions that are non-arbitrary serve important human interests and deserve a measure of respect. They may be legitimate even if they are morally imperfect. This is not so hard to understand, is it?

It may just be a case of different people reading Brian’s argument differently, but when he talks about what Singapore has the ‘right’ to do, I still think he is talking about moral rights. There is a sense I get from his argument that Singapore should be given a certain latitude to decide how to administer the law in their own country, but their are boundaries on what we should tolerate w/o significant objection and that is a normative question not a legal one.