death penalty in star trek
- Thread starter Faria
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In the 23rd century, violating General Order 7 is the only crime punishable by death in the Federation. Stated so in The Menagerie.
Indeed, General Order 7 forbids travel to Talos IV.
Lt. Cheka Wey
Commander
I would imagine some thrillseekers tempted fate just for the heck of it.
100 years later, Picard states that Capital punishment is no longer considered a justifiable deterrent.
At a guess, I would say that the Denebians are Federation members, otherwise they would not care about the Vulcan patent. However, that death penalty for fraud is probably a local law, unrelated to the interstellar law of the Federation. Would the Federation extradite Mudd to Deneb 5?
Meh. From reviewing the dialog, it sounds like Deneb V's biggest concern was simply that they didn't have the exclusivity that Mudd led them to believe they would have. That lack of exclusivity would matter if they had intended to leverage it by doing business in Federation space. There's no evidence that they were acting on behalf of Vulcan. Besides, even if they were, it could simply be because of treaty.
No need at all for Deneb V to be in the Federation from that.
From http://www.chakoteya.net/StarTrek/41.htm:
I. Mudd said:
From "Turnabout Intruder"
KIRK: Enough to convict you of conspiracy with mutineers. And you're so charged. The sentence, death. Mister Lemli.
CHEKOV: Starfleet expressly forbids the death penalty.
KIRK: All my senior officers turning against me?
SULU: The death penalty is forbidden. There's only one exception.
CHEKOV: General Order Four. It has not been violated by any officer on the Enterprise.
KIRK: I am responsible. The execution will be immediate. Go to your posts. Go to your posts.
This is an interesting riddle:
Has General Order 7 been abolished? Since Spock did violate General Order 7 in "The Menagerie" it appears Chekov did not confuse the two.
I may have made in error in judgement when I signed General Order 7 thirteen years prior to events of Stardate 3012.4 and following these events General Order 7 was abolished, if I recall correctly.
Bob
KIRK: Enough to convict you of conspiracy with mutineers. And you're so charged. The sentence, death. Mister Lemli.
CHEKOV: Starfleet expressly forbids the death penalty.
KIRK: All my senior officers turning against me?
SULU: The death penalty is forbidden. There's only one exception.
CHEKOV: General Order Four. It has not been violated by any officer on the Enterprise.
KIRK: I am responsible. The execution will be immediate. Go to your posts. Go to your posts.
This is an interesting riddle:
Has General Order 7 been abolished? Since Spock did violate General Order 7 in "The Menagerie" it appears Chekov did not confuse the two.
I may have made in error in judgement when I signed General Order 7 thirteen years prior to events of Stardate 3012.4 and following these events General Order 7 was abolished, if I recall correctly.
Bob
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Death by old age for me, please!
In the episode The Conscience Of The King, the governor of a colony world imposed the death penalty on half the population. It sounds on the surface like it was a Earth colony.
MENDEZ: And to do so is the only death penalty left on our books. Only Fleet Command knows why.
That to me sound like it's the only death penalty on Starfleet book's from the way Mendez says it. The Federation might have no civilian death penalty, or that could be the penalty for a number of civilian crimes. Also the various Federation Members could have the death penalty within their own legal codes.
We have the death penalty here in Washington State, but we only use it about once a decade.
A General Order is an odd place to have such a specific death penalty in. If they use up the low number GO7 for the extremely specific case of Talos IV, how petty does GO16 get? "A Starfleet Officer shall not address Mr. Scott as 'Scotty' unless close familiarity spans 12 months or longer"?
It sounds more as if every GO carries the potential of death penalty in the "consequences for failure to observe" section, and GO7 is a general (!) order about planetary quarantine, with the specific case of Talos IV being the only one where the death penalty clause is active at the time of "The Menagerie". GO4 then probably concerns something equally general, such as rules of engagement, and some unseen adventure by some unseen captain and ship has resulted in that order's special death penalty clause having been activated for some specific offense after the GO7 thing got completely outdated by the events. Probably happens every six months or so in Starfleet anyway.
Of interest here is that our heroic officers have broad powers of use of lethal force, in all the eras and spinoff shows. They also appear to be the de facto law enforcers of the Federation, facing no competition from any civilian organization. Basically, then, death penalty can befall any perpetrator if the officer on the field deems this appropriate. This in no way contradicts Picard's statement that death penalty has ceased to be viewed as being a effective deterrent - it's merely a convenient way to stop the perpetration and especially perpetuation of a crime for good.
Timo Saloniemi
It sounds more as if every GO carries the potential of death penalty in the "consequences for failure to observe" section, and GO7 is a general (!) order about planetary quarantine, with the specific case of Talos IV being the only one where the death penalty clause is active at the time of "The Menagerie". GO4 then probably concerns something equally general, such as rules of engagement, and some unseen adventure by some unseen captain and ship has resulted in that order's special death penalty clause having been activated for some specific offense after the GO7 thing got completely outdated by the events. Probably happens every six months or so in Starfleet anyway.
Of interest here is that our heroic officers have broad powers of use of lethal force, in all the eras and spinoff shows. They also appear to be the de facto law enforcers of the Federation, facing no competition from any civilian organization. Basically, then, death penalty can befall any perpetrator if the officer on the field deems this appropriate. This in no way contradicts Picard's statement that death penalty has ceased to be viewed as being a effective deterrent - it's merely a convenient way to stop the perpetration and especially perpetuation of a crime for good.
Timo Saloniemi
That's a good one. I had similar thoughts today.But "Turnabout Intruder" is specific that for TOS General Order 4 carries a death sentence.
I imagine it has to do something with high treason, like turning a starship over to the Romulans or Klingons.
Considering Captain Ron Tracey's greed for profit in "The Omega Glory" I'd say General Order 4 might have been a good deterrent to prevent him from just doing such a thing.
Bob
Which was, in the 60's probably meant to show how far we had come by banning execution for most crimes.
Unfortunately, in this day and age looks rather it looks bizarre that there would be the death penalty for ANY crime in the 23rd century...
Wouldn't something like that have carried the death penalty all along, though? Yet back in "The Menagerie", GO 4 carried no death penalty. So it's probably something less universal that GO 4 regulates, something that only becomes an issue in special circumstances such as those Pike got tangled in.
Tracey was greedy? His defense of the last Kohm community wasn't motivated by greed, but by simple survival issues - self- and altruist. That this created a situation where Kirk was forced to arrest him then drove him deeper into a corner; using longevity as a bargaining chip was probably just another survival strategy...
How so? An ever-larger percentage of humanity is supporting it nowadays... And in absolute terms, it has more supporters than at any other point in history.
Timo Saloniemi
I took the line stating that "Only Fleet Command knows why" there's a death penalty for visiting Talos IV to mean that there was something else that happened that we aren't made aware of.
Perhaps the Talosians made another, more serious attempt to capture humans, which Starfleet judged to be a clear and present danger to the Federation.
Their power was staggering. They could reach out to a starbase light-years away and project a perfect illusion there.
Perhaps the Talosians made another, more serious attempt to capture humans, which Starfleet judged to be a clear and present danger to the Federation.
Their power was staggering. They could reach out to a starbase light-years away and project a perfect illusion there.
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