Do These Pants Make Me Look Heartless?

To the Editor:

The death penalty should be abolished in the United States. An eye for an eye? Sure it worked in Hammurabi's time, so why not now? In my opinion, no, it should not be an option.

When choosing the death penalty for a punishment, can you honestly be 100 percent sure that the accused are guilty? Then what if, years later, improved research shows that they were in fact innocent? Oops? Sorry we made a mistake? That doesn't quite cut it.

And what about making one more family grieve the loss of a loved one? If someone is sentenced to death row, chances are he/she did it for killing a number of people.

So by killing that one person everything is suddenly better? These people who are committing such crimes would probably gladly die to escape it all.

By putting these people in the correct facilities, they would be better off dead. By keeping them alive, they have to live with what they did every day. We should not reward them with death, letting them escape everything and leave what they did behind, but make them pay for what they did and who they hurt.

Amanda

Okay, I'm sure this is the entry that will lose me some of my friends on the left side of moderation. The thing is, this isn't a topic I get angry and indignant about, unlike the War on Christmas in America and our War on Self-Rule in Iraq. Reading this blog on a regular basis would probably lead one to believe I'm reliably liberal, but it just isn't the case. I'm a moderate, and one of the places I veer right is on the death penalty issue.

Why do I disagree with Amanda? Because her argument is flawed. Do I like the concept of an eye for an eye and a life for a life? No, that's not it. Is it a sense of vengeance, or that I feel it is a fitting punishment? Nope. I've heard these arguments from the anti-death penalty camp, and honestly, I completely understand them. I am uncomfortable with the concept of state-sponsored killings, and the extreme pro-death crowd always have a disturbing gleam of vengeance in their eyes that makes me think what they really want is some sort of institutionalized mob rule, a legislated lynching. Rednecks with gunracks and a barely-disguised bloodlust are not appealing to me in the least. I find them frightening and dangerous. But despite my discomfort with it, I do support capital punishment in certain cases. Why? For the same reason I support a woman's right to choose, despite my discomfort with the concept of abortion: because ultimately, it is in the spirit of justice for everyone and not imposing unfair subsidizing onto the public.

Much like asking society to raise an unwanted child is unfair to everyone, it is even more unfair to ask society to provide for a person who has, through their actions, turned against society. There are children in this country who attend schools that are grossly under funded. There are people in poverty who are critically ill, and we do not make sure they get the medical attention they require. We cannot do enough for the poor, hungry, and sick in this nation. How, then, can we ignore these responsibilities and yet spend more than $10,000 a year to keep one murderer alive for one year? How can you look a sick, hungry child in the eye and justify the expenditure we will accept for someone who has committed an atrocity? I, for one, could not.

Capital punishment is not something that should be used lightly. But can you ever be 100% sure that someone is guilty? Yes, Amanda, you can. I'll relate a local example that received extensive coverage a number of years back. A Syracuse man, in an attempt to kill his wife, doused her with undiluted acid. Although she did not die, she was horribly scarred and in constant pain. She stayed for months in the hospital, drugged and stupefied in an attempt to relieve the pain. Her stay was cut short when her husband entered the hospital, snuck into her room, and strangled her to death. He was caught on tape; he was seen leaving her room. He was guilty. There is no question of his guilt, and there is no justification for imposing on society the cost of his continued education, cable television, and three daily meals that are nicer than what would be served by volunteers in a soup kitchen.

Life in prison is not the punishment you might think it is. Like any hardship, prison eventually becomes a routine. When it's all one knows, it loses its edge. I'm not arguing that it becomes fun, but over time, when memories of freedom die, it becomes more and more tolerable. Regardless, an argument like this sounds like it has its roots in vengeance, something that capital punishment opponents claim should not be a consideration. I agree. It's not a matter of finding the worst punishment we can impose. Society does not choose to have to deal with the situation, but it is imposed on us by the criminal. The criminal is then responsible for his own fate, and people do need to be held responsible for their choices. It is not pleasant when someone kills themselves by driving while intoxicated, or overdoses on drugs, but the person responsible is the person who made the choice to engage in that activity, and it is not wrong to feel that, in a sense, the person got what was coming to them, even though we feel sorry for their death. Should we revel in the death of murderers? Certainly not. However, we also needn't relieve them of responsibility for their own situation.

I guess this might make me sound a bit cold, and maybe regarding this issue, I am a little rigid. I admit that the decision to take the life of a human being should never be taken lightly, in any circumstance. I do believe in the sanctity of life, but I believe there must be lines drawn. Justice is equally sacred to me... not justice in the sense of vengeance, but justice in the sense of fairness. For a man to take the life of another in cold blood is theft from society; Theft of person, theft of security, and theft of honor. To then allow that person to leech off the same society he has already wounded is like allowing a second crime, that being a lifetime of extortion.

It is not a matter of making everything better, Amanda. It is a matter of social justice. Until we can fully support those who are not responsible for their own misfortunes, we can not justify supporting those who are.