Today World Day Against the Death Penalty Day. In my younger years, I
was a proponent for the Death Penalty under very specific, rigid circumstances:
Murder with Special Circumstance (typically when the victim had been raped,
tortured, etc.); the murder of a child; Pre-meditated murder; and/or multiple
murders. In my opinion, people who committed these kinds of crimes were
irredeemable. Justice, in my opinion, could only be gotten in the moment that
the killer himself (or herself) stopped breathing.
As I’ve gotten older, I see more clearly. Don’t get me wrong. At my
core, killers as described above, as a whole, are not first in line to receive
my compassion. But I’ve also had to accept that our justice system isn’t always
so just. Innocent people are convicted of heinous crimes… including the crimes
I consider most egregious. In the
always-changing world of science and biological evidence, people who had what
was a clear cut case against them are being exonerated of terrible crimes. People who have spent years, sometimes
decades, in prison on a wrongful conviction are set free. But people who were convicted and given a
death sentence, and had that sentence carried out… well, you can release a man
or woman from prison, but you can’t unkill the dead.
Separate from the whole can’t-unkill-the-dead rationale is what I
consider a more humanistic rationale behind my current stance against the death
penalty. Statistics speak for themselves
(see http://www.statisticbrain.com/death-penalty-statistics/)
, and prove that the death penalty is a racist penalty. On its face, the death penalty appears to be
more often applied to white criminals than black (56% white as compared to 35%
black), however if you look at criminal statistics, the number of black men and
women in prison is disproportionate.
Therefore, a higher percentage of a lower number is still going to be
lower than a lower percentage of a much higher number. But the glaring statistic is that only 15% of
murder victims, whose killer receives the death penalty, are black, whereas 76%
of the victims in a death penalty case are white. This policy declares, with no uncertainty,
that a white life is more valuable than a black life… which is bullshit. ALL
LIFE HAS VALUE.
Then there are the 130 people who have been released from death row with
evidence of innocence. Evidence. Of. Innocence. My God! How many had their
evidence of innocence brought to light too late? Immediately, my mind goes to
cases such as Troy Davis, and George Stinney Jr. And regardless of race, death penalty
convictions, when delved into, are mostly assessed in cases where the person
convicted of the crime is poor and has inadequate representation. No… this
sentence is not carried out fairly or judiciously.
And all of that aside… I go
back to two of my original statements: in my opinion, these criminals were
irredeemable and all life has value. Who am I to judge, who is and is not
redeemable? People can change. We see proof of that every day. Who’s to say that even a person who is
capable of torture or murder cannot change? That he cannot repent and find God,
or Allah, or whatever saving grace speaks to him or her? And if all life has
value, doesn’t that include these people too?
The death penalty is the ultimate “eye for an eye” carriage of justice.
But it’s not an eye we’re taking. It’s a life… a human life… someone’s child,
or husband, or wife, or father, or mother, or sister, or brother. The answer
cannot be more death. We must put the energy and money currently assigned to
maintaining and expanding the death penalty, and redirect them to overhauling
the prison system and investing in real rehabilitation efforts. Hate and fear will only lead us further into
darkness. We must be the light.
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