The Death Penalty

According to the U.S Department of Justice, 37 people were executed in the United States in 2008. Lethal injection was used in all but one of the executions. Twenty of the people executed in 2008 were white and seventeen black. All of those executed were men.

What is your opinion on the death penalty? Are you for or against the practice? Do you have a suggestion that would work just as well? This is what the Viewpoints panel members are going to talk about today. Whom do you agree with?

Do you believe in the death penalty?

Tom: Very much so

Kess: That's a tough question, and not as straightforward as it sounds. In an ideal world and with a perfect justice system, yes. In the real world and with an imperfect justice system (no system is perfect), no.

Rocky: No.

Gill: NO.

Cindy: I'm in favor of the death penalty.

What are your reasons for agreeing or disagreeing with the use of capital punishment?

Tom: The punishment should fit the crime. I have read reports from professionals working in the criminal detention field that state the lack of punishment has given rise to violent crime.

Kess: Yes - If someone is going to be locked up for the rest of their natural life because they cannot be allowed out in society (and they cannot be rehabilitated), then why should the taxpayer fund their care for that time? Criminals forfeit their right to live in society - serious criminals (murders, etc) should not remain a burden on that society.

No - If a justice system is not perfect, then innocent people will be put to death. I don't think that's a price that should be paid or a compromise I'm willing to make.

Rocky: In short, the bureaucracy of just about any civilized legal system is so inundated with appeals, re-appeals, and mistrials that a given suspect (unless adequate and unequivocal evidence is provided) could live decades on death row while taxpayer dollars are being wasted. It costs less to keep them in prison for life.

Gill: As human beings we do not have the right to take a life, be it during the course of a violent crime or during the crime of state sanctioned murder. The taking of a human life is murder no matter how many ways you dress it up with words and 'legal' rights.

As a human being, I have every understanding of the rage endured by a victim's family, of their pain and suffering. What I also have is something that is forgotten far too often - sympathy for the pain, suffering and rage of the inmate's family. They are seeing the murder of their loved one too. The cycle of violence expands with every death like ripples in a pond until we are all touched by it.

Think about that. You've all just been touched by this debate simply by reading my words. I am personally affected by the Death Penalty, you now know that and how I feel about that, and yet, I suspect that none of you ever gave it much thought before because 'It doesn't affect me'. Not so as you have just seen and remember, 'there, but for the grace of the gods, go I'. It is perfectly possible that any one of us could be affected at any moment, we could become the friend or family of a victim, and we could be that of an inmate and even be the criminal. Would you be so keen on the Death Penalty if it was your son/daughter facing lethal injection or if it was yourself?

The DP is not justice; it is revenge against a situation that leaves people feeling helpless. It is revenge that gives people back their misplaced feeling of power over a given situation. Violence creates more violence and the cycle has to be broken. Too often I have heard 'An eye for an eye' and every time I reply "makes the whole world blind'.

Cindy: Here in Illinois it has been temporarily suspended because a few enterprising journalists found evidence that may have exonerated one of the people who had already been executed. So, the governor who was about to be out of office, George Ryan (6 years ago) put a moratorium on the death penalty, commuting the sentences en masse to life without parole. I think this is a waste of taxpayer money (housing killers and worse) for all their lifetimes The simple reality is that some prisoners have it better than the working poor do. They have everything taken care of for them. That's just plain wrong.

If you do not believe in the death penalty, what alternative do you suggest to deter and punish violent criminals such as murders and child molesters?

Tom: n/a

Kess: Prison should not just be a punishment. Punishment (especially of this kind) does not work when combating crime - studies and worldwide examples have proven this.

First, proper rehabilitation. It is possible; it's just not cheap or easy. Give them something else to do when they get out.

Second, don't make prison too comfortable. Take away their TVs and three-course meals. I'm not saying they should be mistreated - far from it; prisons are our chance to show how humane we are. But I do think that many prisoners are pampered (UK, I'm looking at you). If people are committing crimes because being inside is better than being outside, you're doing something wrong.

Lastly, make 'em work for their keep inside. Make them do something productive and contribute something to society.

Rocky: The death penalty is no greater a deterrent than being imprisoned. Solitary confinement seems an adequate punishment for a murderer or a molester.

Gill: It is a proven fact that the Death Penalty is far more expensive than LWOP (Life without parole). Go look it up. The facts and figures are there for anyone who wants to read them. LWOP breaks the cycle of violence. It allows the inmate to make themselves useful, to earn their keep, if you will, and to make a useful contribution to the society they have wronged. It halts the growing list of murder victims and family victims.

I am not a stupid person, no matter what people think when I tell them I have someone I care about on DR. I don't think that everyone who protests his innocence is telling the truth. Most of the people who are on DR deserve to be locked away because they are a danger to themselves and to others. However, there are proven cases of innocents on DR, some get out but others (and even one is too many) have been murdered by the state and then proven innocent. How can any human being justify that? How can you go to a mother and say, "Sorry, we made a mistake and killed your child before realizing the fact of innocence? "

LWOP means no one dies who is innocent. LWOP gives the inmates a chance to earn back some of their self-respect and to make reparation to society via work programs. LWOP stops the violence and the ripple effect. Have you considered some of the other victims? The prison guards stressed by shuttling a man to his death gurney? The person who pushes the plunger and starts the death process? The man of religion who knows that murder is a sin and has to find a way to sit that thought beside that of being there when a man is 'legally' killed.

LWOP stops all of the expense, stops the killing and leaves no one with the memory of having killed in the name of the state. People who are a danger cannot be allowed to roam the streets but they equally cannot be murdered because they show a side of humanity we do not like and would rather wipe out than face. They are human beings and people forget that in the face of media labels about 'monsters' and 'psychopaths'.

Cindy: Some crimes are worthy of death and it keeps the crime from being repeated. There's so much more I could say, but the reality is it's all been said.

Has anyone you are close to suffered from a violent crime? If so, what punishment did the criminal receive, and did you agree with it?

Tom: Yes, A friend lost his cousin to a rape/ murder. Not nearly enough as he was paroled.

Kess: Not that I know of.

Rocky: No, fortunately not.

Gill: Yes. I'm a private person when it comes to my family so there will not be a list of details but the jail term was sufficient. Had I been in a country where the DP was available for the crime I would have fought not to have it imposed.

Cindy: No one close to me has been the victim of a capital crime, but you can bet that if it were my family, I'd be damned tempted to take the law into my own hands.

For the parents in the group: Do you think your opinion would change were a violent crime to happen to your child?

Tom: Child molesters should be taken out to the great barrier reef, have an artery slashed, and thrown overboard. Let mother nature decide their fate.

Kess: I'm not a parent, but no. The justice systems are not great and that's frustrating. But revenge should not be confused with punishment or justice.

Rocky: I don't like to believe so; but logic and parental instinct aren't always in sync with one another.

Gill: No, my opinion would not change. Life happens: good, bad, and we have to learn to live with that. I was a child when crimes that would have merited the DP happened to me but I still grew up to hold the anti-DP views that I have. Taking a life is wrong. I will not have a 'legal' body tell me that they will do it in my name. I speak for myself, no one else can speak for me and I will not have anyone murdered in my name.

I do not pretend that I would not be inconsolable and raging should anything happen to any of my children but I also know that I would still not see someone else's child taken from them. It wouldn't change what has happened to my child and would not ease that pain. It would only add to it by knowing that another death was added to the cycle.

Yes, lock the criminals up and never let them out if they are going to continue to be a threat but don't kill them for me. Each time one of these inmates is murdered that stain transfers to every one of us who allows it to continue. We are one species and what affects one of our own affects us all.

__

There you have it. Whom do you agree with? For myself, I agree with the others as far as innocent people have died because the justice system is sometimes flawed. For this reason, I don't like the death penalty either. I can't imagine what a person on the jury that convicted an innocent person who was later put to death feels. But for repeat offenders whose victims positively identify them, I see no problem with the death penalty. I guess it's possible more than one person would mistake the identity of the same assailant, but it seems less likely.

I don't have the answer for prison overcrowding that is sometimes stated as the reason the death penalty is needed. I realize it is a problem that would have to be solved.

However, I do not agree with Gill about killing someone in the commission of a violent crime. If someone comes at my son, my husband or me with a deadly weapon, I WILL shoot them. After all, I know they are guilty because it's happening to me, so there's no doubt of innocence, and I'm not willing to spare another person's child at the expense of my own. If that makes me a bad person, so be it. I'm the one who will have to answer for it in the end if it ever happens.

http://www.ojp.gov/bjs/cp.htm

U.S. Dept. of Justice