GREAT suggestion on the death penalty in a letter to the Economist.

[Nye Bevan]

As a former prosecutor, I found your story on the ongoing demise of the death penalty in America to be spot-on (“Who killed the death penalty?”, December 19th). The practice is barbaric, and the United States should simply not be in the small club of countries that executes its citizens. You noted the traumatic effect that imposing the death penalty can have on jurors. I have had conversations with a Swedish friend who considers it unimaginable that he would be asked to sit in a room with other Swedes to determine if a fellow Swede lives or dies.

Indeed, the European Union could hasten the demise of death row by refusing to admit Americans who are involved with the death penalty. A travel ban would extend to judges who sentence convicts to death, as well as the prosecutors who sought the sentence and even the staff in prisons where executions are carried out.

A ban of this magnitude would affect those who feel they have no role, or a limited one, in the death penalty, but who are all either active participants or enablers in the process. It would cause them to think through their role in that process, perhaps for the first time. Is a person truly more morally pure if he, as a prosecutor, files legal papers to seek and obtain the death penalty because he has nothing to do with the ultimate application of the sentence?

MICHAEL BRAUTIGAM
Cincinnati, Ohio

http://www.economist.com/news/letters/21685429-letters-editor

I love this idea!

[Warren Stupidity]

1. It should be considered a crime against humanity.