Defending Capital Punishment
Opponents of executing degenerate criminals convicted of depraved acts against their fellow human beings, acts which by their heinous nature are committed against their communities and civilized society itself, defend their opposition on four bases: the inhumanity of capital punishment, its discriminatory use against minorities, its irreversibility, and the fact the only other nations that still impose death penalties are Third World, often dictatorial, countries.
None of those objections hold any water.
The following represents not as much a defense of capital punishment, an issue on which I happen to be personally ambivalent, but rather a cursory review of the arguments on both sides of that contentious topic.
Admittedly, I've lately been leaning in favor of permanently removing murderous creatures from the face of the Earth if for no other reason than that their removal would effectively make them unable to repeat their mayhem.
INHUMANITY. Granted, whether conducted publicly or stealthily, executions can be grotesque affairs as evidenced by the recent botched, non-lethal injection last month of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma, which caused Lockett to endure a gruesome death lasting 43 minutes - after he was convicted of kidnapping, raping, beating, trying to bury alive, and then using a shotgun to finish off 19-year-old Stephanie Neiman in 2000.
That particular execution would seem cruel and inhumane until one considers the extremely cruel and viciously inhumane offenses Lockett inflicted on an innocent, defenseless teenager.
America's justice system does not operate on the ancient Code of Hammurabi's principle of €an eye for an eye€ and accords capital defendants every conceivable right of defense, appeal, and extended time to seek re-trial. (Lockett was on death row for fourteen years, the average duration for convicted murderers in American prisons.)
However, most Americans do believe that criminals deserve punishment in accordance with the law and commensurate with the barbarity of their crimes.
Despite the major execution screw-up by the Oklahoma Department of Corrections mainly caused by an insufficient supply of lethal drugs to administer to Lockett and their inability to locate a viable vein, his death was not the consequence of state-sanctioned inhumanity but rather the end result of his heinous crimes.
As it was, he eventually died of a heart attack, a much more comfortable death than he visited upon Stephanie Neiman.
Lockett's execution, however prolonged, was merited and just. Oklahoma made an honest mistake but animals should be put out of their and our misery, not as eye for an eye justice but as insurance.
DISCRIMINATION. It's indisputable that a somewhat disproportionate number of incarcerations and executions in the United States involve minorities.
According to DeathPenaltyInfo.org, since 1976 when the death penalty was restored as a constitutional punishment for miscreants, 474 blacks have been executed (34%), 110 Latinos (8%), 771 Whites (56%), and 24 €Other€ (2%).
Since blacks comprise 13% of America's population (and Latino-hispanics 16.7%), it would seem death penalties were meted out far more disproportionately to blacks than to Whites who comprise 79.8%.
What the handwringing opponents of capital punishment at such liberal-leftist publications as the New York Times consistently and consciously ignore are the realities that blacks also account for 39.4% of the convicted criminals incarcerated in our prisons and jails as opposed to whites' 34.2% and Hispanics 20.6%.
They prefer to focus on the issue of black-on-black murders, which are rampant and horrendous, in lieu of citing the equally horrendous number of black's murdering whites; reporting on the former sells more newspapers and is politically correct whereas reporting the truth would tar them as racists.
The bottom line is that America doesn't discriminate against anyone but certain minorities commit a disproportionate number of crimes, including capital offenses, and therefore represent a larger percentage of those imprisoned and condemned to death.
Based on the above figures, it would seem that Hispanics for the most part also commit an inordinate number of crimes yet draw the line at taking someone's life. Likewise, those same figures clearly show that blacks are more prone to break our laws and have less respect for life. It's only logical they inhabit more of our jail cells and our death chambers.
IRREVERSIBILITY. It's pretty obvious that when people are executed for capital crimes they can no longer appeal their sentences, just as it is obvious the people they killed are permanently dead, forever deprived of their lives and futures by their murderers.
It's also true that relatively few may have been imprisoned for crimes they didn't commit and even fewer have been executed for murders for which they were innocent.
Condemning an accused criminal to death has to be an extraordinary burden on both judges and jurors who must take into account the background and criminal history of the accused.
According to €Blackstone's formulation,€ an eighteenth century opinion of a British jurist widely adopted by Americans opposed to capital punishment, €It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.€
That should depend on the €ten guilty persons,€ no?
Are those guilty ten fine, upright, upstanding members of their communities or reprobates with violent criminal histories likely to repeat the past? And, is the one innocent truly €innocent€ or does he have a comparable background and may not have committed the particular offense in question but is guilty of similar offenses?
In America, rarely if ever do judges and juries not consider the defendant's character and background in a capital case before condemning him to the gallows or, much more commonly, to drift off peacefully into eternal sleep with the proper dosage of lethal drugs.
Yes, we are a nation of laws and it is an abomination of justice and contrary to all our country stands for to execute €the wrong man.€ More abominable is the thought of unleashing Mr. Blackstone's €ten guilty persons€ to wreak havoc on society. In any event in all probability, his hypothetical €innocent€ would get what he deserved.
THIRD WORLD COMPARISONS. This is easily the least compelling argument from those opposed to the imposition of capital punishment.
Almost sixty nations, including Afghanistan, China, Cuba, Congo, Iran, Iraq, and North Korea allow for legal executions, which doesn't put the United States in very good international company. However, so, too, do Bahamas, Dominica, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand, which fact doesn't give us an imprimatur, either.
None of that matters.
As of now, we are a free and independent nation with a diverse, often lawless population, a diversity that has bred unique law enforcement challenges and the necessity for requisite punishment for anyone convicted of serious violations of our laws. If that punishment involves execution then so be it and may God have mercy on the souls of those worthy of His mercy.
None of those objections hold any water.
The following represents not as much a defense of capital punishment, an issue on which I happen to be personally ambivalent, but rather a cursory review of the arguments on both sides of that contentious topic.
Admittedly, I've lately been leaning in favor of permanently removing murderous creatures from the face of the Earth if for no other reason than that their removal would effectively make them unable to repeat their mayhem.
INHUMANITY. Granted, whether conducted publicly or stealthily, executions can be grotesque affairs as evidenced by the recent botched, non-lethal injection last month of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma, which caused Lockett to endure a gruesome death lasting 43 minutes - after he was convicted of kidnapping, raping, beating, trying to bury alive, and then using a shotgun to finish off 19-year-old Stephanie Neiman in 2000.
That particular execution would seem cruel and inhumane until one considers the extremely cruel and viciously inhumane offenses Lockett inflicted on an innocent, defenseless teenager.
America's justice system does not operate on the ancient Code of Hammurabi's principle of €an eye for an eye€ and accords capital defendants every conceivable right of defense, appeal, and extended time to seek re-trial. (Lockett was on death row for fourteen years, the average duration for convicted murderers in American prisons.)
However, most Americans do believe that criminals deserve punishment in accordance with the law and commensurate with the barbarity of their crimes.
Despite the major execution screw-up by the Oklahoma Department of Corrections mainly caused by an insufficient supply of lethal drugs to administer to Lockett and their inability to locate a viable vein, his death was not the consequence of state-sanctioned inhumanity but rather the end result of his heinous crimes.
As it was, he eventually died of a heart attack, a much more comfortable death than he visited upon Stephanie Neiman.
Lockett's execution, however prolonged, was merited and just. Oklahoma made an honest mistake but animals should be put out of their and our misery, not as eye for an eye justice but as insurance.
DISCRIMINATION. It's indisputable that a somewhat disproportionate number of incarcerations and executions in the United States involve minorities.
According to DeathPenaltyInfo.org, since 1976 when the death penalty was restored as a constitutional punishment for miscreants, 474 blacks have been executed (34%), 110 Latinos (8%), 771 Whites (56%), and 24 €Other€ (2%).
Since blacks comprise 13% of America's population (and Latino-hispanics 16.7%), it would seem death penalties were meted out far more disproportionately to blacks than to Whites who comprise 79.8%.
What the handwringing opponents of capital punishment at such liberal-leftist publications as the New York Times consistently and consciously ignore are the realities that blacks also account for 39.4% of the convicted criminals incarcerated in our prisons and jails as opposed to whites' 34.2% and Hispanics 20.6%.
They prefer to focus on the issue of black-on-black murders, which are rampant and horrendous, in lieu of citing the equally horrendous number of black's murdering whites; reporting on the former sells more newspapers and is politically correct whereas reporting the truth would tar them as racists.
The bottom line is that America doesn't discriminate against anyone but certain minorities commit a disproportionate number of crimes, including capital offenses, and therefore represent a larger percentage of those imprisoned and condemned to death.
Based on the above figures, it would seem that Hispanics for the most part also commit an inordinate number of crimes yet draw the line at taking someone's life. Likewise, those same figures clearly show that blacks are more prone to break our laws and have less respect for life. It's only logical they inhabit more of our jail cells and our death chambers.
IRREVERSIBILITY. It's pretty obvious that when people are executed for capital crimes they can no longer appeal their sentences, just as it is obvious the people they killed are permanently dead, forever deprived of their lives and futures by their murderers.
It's also true that relatively few may have been imprisoned for crimes they didn't commit and even fewer have been executed for murders for which they were innocent.
Condemning an accused criminal to death has to be an extraordinary burden on both judges and jurors who must take into account the background and criminal history of the accused.
According to €Blackstone's formulation,€ an eighteenth century opinion of a British jurist widely adopted by Americans opposed to capital punishment, €It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.€
That should depend on the €ten guilty persons,€ no?
Are those guilty ten fine, upright, upstanding members of their communities or reprobates with violent criminal histories likely to repeat the past? And, is the one innocent truly €innocent€ or does he have a comparable background and may not have committed the particular offense in question but is guilty of similar offenses?
In America, rarely if ever do judges and juries not consider the defendant's character and background in a capital case before condemning him to the gallows or, much more commonly, to drift off peacefully into eternal sleep with the proper dosage of lethal drugs.
Yes, we are a nation of laws and it is an abomination of justice and contrary to all our country stands for to execute €the wrong man.€ More abominable is the thought of unleashing Mr. Blackstone's €ten guilty persons€ to wreak havoc on society. In any event in all probability, his hypothetical €innocent€ would get what he deserved.
THIRD WORLD COMPARISONS. This is easily the least compelling argument from those opposed to the imposition of capital punishment.
Almost sixty nations, including Afghanistan, China, Cuba, Congo, Iran, Iraq, and North Korea allow for legal executions, which doesn't put the United States in very good international company. However, so, too, do Bahamas, Dominica, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand, which fact doesn't give us an imprimatur, either.
None of that matters.
As of now, we are a free and independent nation with a diverse, often lawless population, a diversity that has bred unique law enforcement challenges and the necessity for requisite punishment for anyone convicted of serious violations of our laws. If that punishment involves execution then so be it and may God have mercy on the souls of those worthy of His mercy.