Why I Oppose The Death Penalty

[Jackpine Radical]

in general and for Saddam:

As an ex-field psychologist for a state Department of Corrections, I imagine I have met more murderers, psychopaths and generally despicable lowlife scum than the average citizen, and I have very little sympathy for them as a class of people. Why, then do I oppose the death penalty for someone as brutal as Saddam? I assure you that my opposition to the death penalty has absolutely nothing to do with tender feelings for a mass murderer. Rather, I am very worried about the effects of socially sanctioned killing upon our supposed civilization.

Four arguments are commonly made in opposition to the death penalty. Let me review them before moving on to the particular concerns I want to discuss. Here, then, are the traditional arguments:

First, we have no need for a death penalty to protect ourselves from murderers, and even the likes of Saddam, because the law permits us to put them in prison for life without hope of ever being released.

Second, it is expensive to seek the death penalty. Studies in a number of states have shown that it costs more to sentence a murderer to death and then wade through the appeals process than it would have to simply imprison the criminal for life. This argument is somewhat weakened in the case of a kangaroo court such as the tribunal that tried Saddam, where there is obviously not much of an appeals process.

Third, speaking generally of the death penalty and not specifically about the Saddam case, there is always the possibility of executing an innocent person. Some people seem to think that the use of DNA evidence is an absolutely certain means of avoiding such errors, but that is simply not so. Any number of events, ranging from misbehavior on the part of police officers to errors at the crime lab, could bring about terrible miscarriages of justice.

And fourth, there is no evidence that the death penalty deters crime. Just consider for a moment—can you imagine criminals thinking to themselves, “I want to go on a killing spree, but they will put me to death if they catch me, so I won’t do it. However, I would go out and murder a bunch of people if all I had to face was life without parole.”

If you think the death penalty is somehow going to make you safer, how do you explain this?—Murder rates per 100,000 population range from a low of 1.2 in Maine to a high of 13.0 in Louisiana. Twelve states have no death penalty. The average murder rate for these states is 2.90. The remaining 38 states have the death penalty. Their murder rate per hundred thousand residents is 5.3. The probability of this being a chance result is less than one in a hundred.

Another question—Might there be something about a nation or state having a death penalty that causes it to have a higher murder rate? As a psychologist, I think there may be a connection. Let us make no bones about it. To have the death penalty is to assert that it is permissible for a large number of people—the state—to gang up and put one of its members to death. When a state authorizes executions, it is in effect saying that killing is not only permissible, but is in fact desirable, in some circumstances, including circumstances that do not involve immediate self-defense. Children learn both behaviors and attitudes by the example of their elders. From what we know of child development, there is every reason to imagine that children who grow up in a society that approves the killing of human beings will have lower inhibitions against killing than do children whose society teaches an absolute intolerance of killing.

[crispini]

1. Bravo! Very well said.

I think your last point is extremely cogent. It seems to me that groups of people, such as neighborhoods, cities, and even nations, have a shared wavelength, a certain group "karma." There are things that tie us together as a society. As a member of the American body politic, I do not wish to have anybody's blood on our collective hands.

If I could recommend your post twice, I would. You have said, far more eloquently than I could, all of the reasons why I, too, am against the death penalty.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. Excellent!

I had always used the fact that an innocent person could be killed as the reason for my opposition, and you have provided me with more. Thank you for a very thoughtful and thought provoking last paragraph.

[The Traveler]

3. Great piece of writing here

Compelling enough to cause me to further consider my own views on the subject. I am beginning to think that the limited usefulness/appropriateness of the death penality is completely outweighed by risks, costs and moral damage.

[PDJane]

4. I agree.

I live in Canada, and Canada does not have a death penalty. We haven't for some time.

We haven't seen an extraordinary rise in murderous sprees. We have, however, freed three men convicted (mostly because they were "different") and released when evidence proved that they were innocent of the crime, the men I call the 3M's ........Donald Marshall, Guy Paul Morin, and David Milgaard (the one who spent most of his life in jail for a crime he didn't commit).

I don't want anyone's blood on my hands.

[Jackpine Radical]

5. I live in Wisconsin, and we haven't had a death penalty since

the 1850's. In fact, I believe Wisconsin has managed continuously without a death penalty for longer than any other jurisdiction on earth. At this point some wingnuts are agitating for one, and this post was based on an op-ed piece I wrote for my local paper.

[Say_What]

6. USA, IRAN, CHINA--Axis of Executioners...

While most of the planet has abolished the death penalty, the USSA is third only to Iran and China in executions. Add to that, we execute the mentally ill and retarded and give life sentences and execute those who were children when they committed the crime. All documented once again in this years Amnesty International Report.

I have always been against the death penalty. I believe it only serves to make us more animal-like.

The other thing that bothers me is the US fascination with executions--we're a nation of ghouls and barbarians. How much lower can we go?

[Disturbed]

7. Excellent writing Jack.

That is a perspective that I have thought about, as well. In my view the DP is barbaric no matter how clinicaly it is being done these days in America. Most Americans still cling to the ancient concepts of punishment and revenge in this matter. They still want the ultimate punishment. They used to have public hangings and I believe that most Americans would vote those back if they could. That is one of the reasons that I sometimes wish that I could locate to another country where most of the people were more evolved.

[many a good man]

8. DP = vengeance

Vengeance = immoral.

Do the math.

[raggedcompany]

9. it's this simple: democracy cannot exist in the presence of capital punishment

If you've got capital punishment, then you don't have a democracy. You may have something that can be sold as such to ignorant people, and it might be better than many other forms of government, but democracy it isn't.

[silverojo]

10. Children don't learn killing from the death penalty

They learn killing from their own neighborhoods, where gangs and violence are a way of life.

[Jackpine Radical]

11. Yes, but it's the duty of society to present a better model

than the killers on the streets. Every time someone is killed under color of law, we send the message that killing is an appropriate form of retribution. It's bad enough that kids see killing modelled for them by the lowlifes on the streets. It's a lot worse when the "respectable" part of society also models revenge-killing.

[Ken Burch]

32. The Death Penalty doesn't make children UNLEARN killing, either.

It doesn't deter, and in the end it probably doesn't stop any future killings. We should just do life without parole.

[Connonym]

12. Very well stated n/t

[SmokingJacket]

13. I had to discuss this with my 9 year old son today.

Damn, I SO did not want to have to tell him about the death penalty, why I oppose it, why some people are for it, and so on. I wanted him to have a fun day playing with his Christmas presents. Instead he was asking about Saddam -- we don't even HAVE TV! He read the headlines of our paper. All day I've wanted to vomit. Killing a person, even a "bad guy", does not elevate us.

The death penalty is a shame on our nation and our species.

[Say_What]

15. My mom told me that when Sacco and Venzetti were executed she

was just a little kid and that hearing about it scared the bejesus out of her. We lived in a state with no DP, but the execution formed her opinion about the DP from that day on.

Sorry your son had to read those headlines, and I agree with you that it is a shame on our nation and species.

[Nutmegger]

14. Well said. There's no excuse for it.

We need to leave the company of CHINA and IRAN. For humanity.

[Say_What]

16. Amnesty International's 2006 Report about USA and DP

<clips>

...Death penalty

In 2005, 60 people were executed, bringing to 1,005 the total number of prisoners put to death since executions resumed in the USA in 1977 following a moratorium. Two people were released from death row on grounds of innocence, bringing to 122 the total number of such cases since 1973.

On 1 March the US Supreme Court banned the execution of child offenders – those aged under 18 at the time of the crime – bringing the USA into line with international standards prohibiting such executions. Twenty-two child offenders had been executed in the USA since 1977.

Executions continued of people with mental illness and disorders, of prisoners who had been denied adequate legal representation at trial, and in cases where the reliability of evidence had been questioned.

* Troy Kunkle was executed in Texas on 25 January, despite suffering from serious mental illness, including schizophrenia, evidence of which was not presented to the jury that sentenced him to death. He was just over 18 at the time of the crime and had suffered a childhood of deprivation and abuse.
* Frances Newton was executed in Texas on 14 September, despite doubts over the reliability of her conviction. She was found guilty on the basis of circumstantial evidence, and always maintained that she was innocent.

...Other concerns

A joint study published in October by AI and Human Rights Watch, The Rest of Their Lives: Life without Parole for Child Offenders in the United States, reported that at least 2,225 child offenders under 18 at the time of the crime were serving sentences of life without parole. Such a sentence for child offenders is prohibited under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, signed but not ratified by the USA. Of the cases examined, 16 per cent of the offenders were aged between 13 and 15 at the time of the crime and 59 per cent received the sentence for their first conviction. Many were convicted of “felony murder” based on evidence of their participation in a crime during which a murder took place, but without direct evidence of their involvement in the killing. The report called on the US authorities to stop sentencing children to life without parole and to grant child offenders serving such sentences immediate access to parole procedures.

http://web.amnesty.org/report2006/usa-summary-eng#11

[BlooInBloo]

17. I think the lack of a good answer to the following question suffices...

How many wrongful deaths are acceptable?

(Please note the difference between *sufficiency* and *necessity*.)

[Nevernose]

18. I can answer 2, 3, and maybe 4,

I should start off by saying that I'm against the death penalty.

But I have similar arguments w/ one of my best friends, a die-hard, Rush0listening, ultra-conservative zombie. I'll give you his answers.

Second, it is expensive to seek the death penalty. Studies in a number of states have shown that it costs more to sentence a murderer to death and then wade through the appeals process than it would have to simply imprison the criminal for life. This argument is somewhat weakened in the case of a kangaroo court such as the tribunal that tried Saddam, where there is obviously not much of an appeals process.

It's only expensive because Liberals take up their cases and fight them on procedural bases, not on factual bases, i.e., not DID this person commit a crime, but whether or no not the police acted fairly. I'll mention that I DID work with this guy in the DA's office (that's how I got to know his family), and there is always something fairly disgusting about a defense lawyer not arguing that his client didn't do it, but didn't get a fair trial. 95% of the time, they really are guilty. Of course, that leaves 5% falsely accused, but the 95% number really turned me off criminal law.

Third, speaking generally of the death penalty and not specifically about the Saddam case, there is always the possibility of executing an innocent person. Some people seem to think that the use of DNA evidence is an absolutely certain means of avoiding such errors, but that is simply not so. Any number of events, ranging from misbehavior on the part of police officers to errors at the crime lab, could bring about terrible miscarriages of justice.

Well, the fact that those Northwestern students found all of those people to be factually innocent and not guilty of the crime they were accused of is PROOF that the system works. They didn't get executed, did they? This argument actually makes since at first glance, until you figure out all of the logical fallacies involved, such as "what DIDN'T they catch?"

And fourth, there is no evidence that the death penalty deters crime. Just consider for a moment—can you imagine criminals thinking to themselves, “I want to go on a killing spree, but they will put me to death if they catch me, so I won’t do it. However, I would go out and murder a bunch of people if all I had to face was life without parole.”

I never claimed it did. I don't care if it's a deterrent. I'm out for "justice." Depending on your definition of justice, killing someone convicted of murder might be just be okay.

[Jackpine Radical]

19. The cost argument is no doubt the weakest.

I would, however, argue that the appeals process does sometimes result in an innocent person going free, as when the appeal is brought due to ineffective counsel (e.g. defense attorney slept through the trial).

You answer yourself on the third point, and I would amplify it by mentioning the njumerous instances of faking of results in the FBI labs, and God knows what might go on in some of the state crime labs.

The fourth point--well, what if the death penalty is not only ineffective as a deterrent, but actually makes people more prone to kill, as I argue in the next section? There is prima facie (albeit correlational) evidence that the DP nearly doubles the murder rate.

[Nevernose]

37. And here's the irony:

My job was counseling and paperwork, so I got to look at EVERYBODY'S criminal history. And this was juvenile court, by the way, not regular court (you'll find, dishearteningly, that four out of five times juvenile histories begin with abuse/neglect; criminal behavior doesn't begin in a vacuum). Of the half dozen deputy DAs they had working juvie cases, he was the ONLY one, to my knowledge, whoever rejected a case based on bad procedure or civil rights violations.

I personally find it hardest to argue against the cost-effectiveness argument, though, because of my innate pragmatism.

I can easily come up with ten other arguments against the death penalty, though, so I usually win. You should see us when we argue evolution :evilgrin:.

[lostinacause]

20. "Justice" in your friends case is just another word for "vengence".

[Nevernose]

36. Agreed.

He's really good at compartmentalizing this stuff. As long as he doesn't have to face it in person, remaining abstract, it's all good to him.

[crispini]

24. Ah, but when the "justice" thing comes up...

that's very Old Testament, isn't it? ... my favorite rebuttal is: "an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."

Another good one is, How are we mere humans to know what justice is? as another poster in this thread has pointed out, "Vengence is mine, saith the Lord." Not ours.

[Nevernose]

35. These people are "Christians"

Not the sort of Christians found in the Bible, but the sort found in a Southern Baptist church. That's why I go to a Unitarian Universalist church these days.

These days I take just as much stock on Tolkein: Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement.

[lostinacause]

21. I have believed for some time that the death penalty justifying murder in some circumstances

is the primary reason not to implement the death penalty.

[AlienAvatar]

22. You're whole post is just

great, but that last sentence stand out for me. I think that idea is essential for us to, ever so slowly, move toward a more civilized future.

[Jackpine Radical]

23. Amen to that.

And thanks to you and various others for the kind words.

I am reminded of once when Gandhi was asked what he thought of western civilization. He replied, "That would be nice."

[electron_blue]

25. I agree - these are all reasons why I oppose it, and especially the last reason

[MsLeopard]

26. Another reason to be against it

Is because it is exclusively a poor person's penalty. The rich never, ever, get the death penalty. I'm thinking about Peter DuPont - the guy who shot the wrestler in his driveway, in front of his wife.... What happened to him? Does anyone know? His case just dropped off the radar screen and I have always thought it was because of his wealth. The rules are different for the wealthy, they do not live by the same rules as the rest of us. I will always be against the death penalty, but if it was distributed equally I might feel differently in certain cases. Just my two cents....

[Ken Burch]

33. John E. DuPont, not Pete

John E. DuPont was convicted of third degree murder but found insane.

Pete DuPont just had an insane tax policy.

[Hamlette]

27. very few cases involve DNA at all

the argument that DNA proves guilt doesn't work, for the reasons you suggest and because many (most?) murders don't involve DNA at all as the murderer doesn't leave any DNA.

If you read the facts in Furman v GA (the case that outlawed in as administered then in the 70s) its pretty shocking. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furman_v._Georgia

He was black. No way a white would have gotten the DP with those facts.

[aikoaiko]

28. I agree there are good reasons to be opposed to DP, but still I am for it.

Not for nothing, but vengeance is not to be dismissed. When people feel that their pain and suffering (from a wrongful death of a loved one)are not being addressed, they will take matters into their own hands. I stand with the people who say they pain demands the life of the murderer because I know I would be one of them if someone murdered my wife or child.

You statistical analysis uses a correlation to prove causation. It could be argued that higher murder rates prompt local citizenry to vote for death penalty laws or DP supportive representatives. Lets face it, the DP has a lot of support from its citizenry and that makes the laws. Its not the other way around.

One of my beefs against eliminating the DP is that it will lead to murderers getting out of prison on parole. One of the ways that murderers find their way into prison for life is that they cop a plea of life in prison to avoid the death penalty. If life in prison is the harshest, then plea bargain sentences will be less than life in prison and they will get out.

[pberq]

29. Kick & Nominated

I heard a lecture last year by Sister Helen Prejean (author of "Dead Man Walking"). Many people in the audience were in tears by the end of her talk.

If anyone has doubts about the death penalty, I highly recommend her second book, "The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions".

Here is her website: http://www.prejean.org/

Sister Helen was partly responsible for the change in position regarding the death penalty by the Catholic Church.

[cat starbuck]

31. Me too.

Sister Helen is the reason I changed my mind about the Death Penalty. I didn't see "Dead Man Walking", but I heard her interviewed on NPR many years ago.

I'm the mother of two young women. I'd always felt that if someone murdered them, the perpetrator would deserve to be executed. After hearing Sister Helen, I woke up to the understanding that there's nothing you can do to someone to make the pain go away.

I am not of the opinion that God will justify all in the end, so let Him take the vengeance. I don't believe in God. But I do think it would reflect badly on my soul, or spirit, or whatever, to need to see a murderer killed.

[Ratty]

30. Thanks!

You expressed my own feelings exactly plus a few new ones that didn't occur to me. I finally made up my mind about the death penalty when I simply decided it was fundamentally barbaric and not something a civilized society does. You can tell a lot about a culture by whether it executes its own citizens. I don't typically make up my mind on complex issues like this this one based on my own gut feelings but on this one I am forced to. As for Saddam, it's pointless to make excuses about how much more despicable one human being is than another. Why does he warrant execution more than the murderer of some mother's child? Explain that to the mother some time.

[Jackpine Radical]

34. Why does he warrant execution more than someone

who told deliberate lies and gave orders based on those lies that led to the deaths of 650,000 Iraqis and 3,000 Americans? Someone who finances that criminal war enterprise by impoverishing the future of his own nation?