Capital Punishment: The Solution

Concluding my last post, I wrote:

“For me the only question remaining is certainty. Can we be certain never to execute an innocent man?”

I know what I was thinking and where I was headed at the time. I was surely well on my way to upholding my belief that capital punishment is moral and just as long we create some sort of special court [like a FISA court] to review all capital murder cases to determine beyond “any doubt whatsoever” that the condemned deserves the punishment of death. Then, I discovered a data base of death penalty information on the Internet and came to realize that there are many other questions, many other problems with the way this country delivers justice.

Prosecutors Agree To Life Sentence For Nurse Guilty Murdering 13 Patients Charles Cullen, a former nurse, escaped the death penalty in an agreement with prosecutors in which he pled guilty to killing 13 hospital patients. (D. Kocieniewski, N.Y. Times, Apr. 30, 2004).

Man Who Admitted To 48 Murders Will Serve Life Sentence In Exchange For Cooperation In a plea agreement reached with Washington state prosecutors, Gary Ridgway, a Seattle-area man who admitted to 48 murders since 1982, will serve a sentence of life in prison without parole. Prosecutors spared Ridgway from execution in exchange for his cooperation in leading police to the remains of still-missing victims. (Associated Press, Nov. 5, 2003).

I’m sure that most life-long supporters of the death penalty assume [as I did] that the death penalty is reserved for defendants convicted of the most heinous crimes. In fact, I have discovered that capital sentencing in the United States is tragically subjective, immoral, an unfair. Whether or not somebody gets the death penalty has nothing to do with the seriousness of the crimes they have committed. In fact, geography, ethnicity, race, the race of the victim, gender, and the quality of the legal council one can afford are the factors that most often determine whether or not a convict is going to jail of to the death chamber.

I understand that because of our federal system that some of the worst offenders are not executed [murderer-cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer, for example] because they committed their crimes in states where the death penalty is illegal. But, I can’t understand how in states where the death penalty is legal, there are often specific counties or even neighborhoods where the likelihood of a death sentence is far greater than elsewhere in the state.

From 1995-2000, 42% of the federal cases submitted to the Attorney General for review came from just 5 of the 94 federal districts.

If death is a just punishment for premeditated murder, then death ought to be the punishment for all persons convicted of premeditated murder. This is an objective standard I can support. This is not even close to what we have operating here in the United States, and I’m ashamed to say before beginning this study, I had no idea. I thought of the Bill of Rights and how nearly half of the rights listed are there to protect the rights of the accused. I thought of our lengthy appeals process, of all of those lawyers and judges and governors [people much smarter than I], and I assumed injustice could not survive a process with so many checks. Today, I am disgusted to think I defended the death penalty in my classroom all of these years.

The truth about capital sentencing in the United States is a very ugly business that no one interested in justice can support.

It's hard to believe that even something as irrelevant as the race of the victim biases juries and judges in sentencing death. "In 1990, the U.S. General Accounting Office reviewed the research on this issue and found that in 82% of the studies, race of victim was found to influence the likelihood of being charged with capital murder or receiving a death sentence, i.e., those who murdered whites were found to be more likely to be sentenced to death than those who murdered blacks."

A sophisticated statistical study in Philadelphia by David Baldus found that for similar crimes committed by similar defendants, blacks received the death penalty at a 38% higher rate than all others. (Richard C. Dieter, The Death Penalty in Black and White – Death Penalty Information Center, 1998).

The problems are not limited to geography and race. Disparity exists between rich and poor convicts as well as among males and females.

The National Law Journal, after a study of death penalty representation in the South, concluded that capital trials are "more like a random flip of the coin than a delicate balancing of scales," because the defense attorney is "too often . . . ill-trained, unprepared [and] grossly underpaid." (M. Coyle, et al., Fatal Defense: Trial and Error in the Nation's Death Belt, Nat’l. L.J., June 11, 1990).

In Washington state, one-fifth of the 84 people who have faced execution in the past 20 years were represented by lawyers who had been, or were later, disbarred, suspended or arrested. (Overall, the state’s disbarment rate for attorneys is less than 1%.) (Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Aug. 6-8, 2001).

Death sentences and actual executions for female offenders are rare in comparison to such events for male offenders…women account for only 1 in 92 (1.1%) persons actually executed in the modern era. [Victor L. Streib, "Death Penalty For Female Offenders, January 1973 through September 30, 2004".]

Source: www.deathpenaltyinfo.org

I am a man. I have an unalienable right to my life. Therefore, all men have an unalienable right to their lives. If I take the life of an innocent man, I forfeit my right to my own life. This argument makes sense to me. It is entirely objective and rational. It is the same reasoning I use to determine the immorality of murder. This argument is perfect in a world where the criminal justice system never fails to condemn only the guilty and as long as all convicted individuals suffer the same just punishment. As long as the vast majority of death row inmates are poor, male, black and Hispanic, as long as inmates are being vindicated by technology that didn’t exist at the time of their trials, the power to condemn a man to death can be said to be just…ONLY in theory.

We are nowhere near that perfect world where the criminal justice system never fails. Capital punishment must be abolished.

Family Matters

Happy Birthday Little Sisters!
Larisa and Ivana
lovedonn

Capital Punishment: The Rationale

I have been a supporter of capital punishment for most of my adult life. My calculus was simple: I knew that if someone broke into my home and threatened the lives of my children and my wife, that I would kill the invader. I would not deliberate. I would not lose any sleep over the decision. I would kill to defend myself and my family. Because I knew this, I concluded that it would be wrong of me to deny others the justice they seek, their right to kill the destroyer of their lives, their family.

The problem with my thinking was simple enough: Killing an intruder in self-defense is not the same thing as killing an arrested, convicted, and incarcerated assailant five to twenty years after the crime. Do people have a right to retribution? I would want retribution. I would do it myself. I think I would feel better knowing the son-of-a-bitch who destroyed my life was no longer thinking. I think these things, but I don’t know.

A better rationale for support of the death penalty can be reasoned through consideration for a human being’s unalienable right to life and simple deduction. I am a man. I have an unalienable right to my life. Therefore, all men have an unalienable right to their lives. If I take the life of an innocent man, I forfeit my right to my own life. This argument makes sense to me. It is entirely objective and rational. It is the same reasoning I use to determine the immorality of murder. This argument is perfect in a world where the criminal justice system never fails to condemn only the guilty. As long as the vast majority of death row inmates are poor, black and Hispanic, as long as inmates are being vindicated by technology that didn’t exist at the time of their trials, the power to condemn a man to death can be said to be just…in theory.

I’ve probably read more from the side of the argument that opposes the death penalty. Looking for reasons to change my thinking led me to 19th Century, French novelist, dramatist, and poet Victor Hugo. The writer and freethinker was an outspoken opponent of the death penalty. In his book The Last Day of a Condemned Man Hugo places his reader in the mind of a man condemned to die for a crime the author never discloses. For Hugo, apparently, the crime is irrelevant. The death penalty in every instance is cruel and unusual punishment. For Hugo “cruel and unusual” has nothing to do with the means of execution, guillotine or lethal injection. It isn’t the killing that is cruel; it is the waiting to die. It is the knowing of the how, the when, and the where that is cruel and unusual.

Perhaps…but when I think of the horrible crimes these monsters dole out to innocents and the destruction they do to their victim’s loved ones, I can garner little sympathy for the criminal. I am human and believe in justice, so I could never participate in the wanton torture of another human, whatever their crimes; but to want the monster dead? Yes. I would want that. Hugo’s argument, that the mental anguish of the convicted murderer awaiting justice is cruel and unusual punishment, forgets the terminal horror suffered by the loved ones of the victim. I think their wish must trump any consideration for the murderer’s feelings.

George Orwell in his 1931 essay “A Hanging” seems to concur with Hugo. In Orwell’s account, the speaker, a small contingent of soldiers, and a condemned man are making there way to the gallows one August morning, when the condemned man goes out of his way to avoid stepping in a mud puddle… “It is curious, but till that moment I had never realized what it means to destroy a healthy, conscious man. When I saw the prisoner step aside to avoid the puddle, I saw the mystery, the unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life short when it is in full tide. This man was not dying, he was alive just as we were alive. All the organs of his body were working – bowels digesting food, skin renewing itself, nails growing, tissues forming – all toiling away in solemn foolery. His nails would still be growing when he stood on the drop, when he was falling through the air with a tenth of a second to live. His eyes saw the yellow gravel and the grey walls, and his brain still remembered, foresaw, reasoned – reasoned even about puddles. He and we were a party of men walking together, seeing, hearing, feeling, understanding the same world; and in two minutes, with a sudden snap, one of us would be gone – one mind less, one world less.”

Again, since the death penalty in the United States is generally reserved for murderers, Orwell’s message is one I wish the murderer had taken into consideration before he went out to commit his crime. I wish the murderer had seen “the mystery, the unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life short when it was in full tide.” Some of these monsters kill children after doing unspeakable things to their bodies…No, I can find no cause to spare them the “cruelty” of waiting for their prescribed death.

For me the only question remaining is certainty. Can we be certain never to execute an innocent man?

Capital Punishment: The Problem

If a builder builds a house for someone, and does not construct it properly, and the house which he built falls in and kills its owner, then that builder shall be put to death. If it kills the son of the owner, then the son of that builder shall be put to death.

Don’t you just love the Law of Hammurabi? I’ll bet tobacco industry executives, Chinese toy makers, and California spinach growers are glad 4,500-year-old legal precedents are not cited here in the states even by our most strict constructionist judges. For Scalia and Thomas the law begins with Blackstone and English Common Law, not Hammurabi.

Former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore thought it fair to go back 3,200 years to the Ten Commandments for guidance in deciding 21st Century cases in secular America. He’s one of those white, “God said, man said” Southerners who believes people who lived thousands of years ago in the Middle East had a direct link into the mind of God, that God wrote the bible and the bible has all of the answers. If our laws were based in Mosaic Law, death row in this country would overflow by mid-morning. Joining the murders would be rapists and child molesters; sorcerers, witches, pagans, atheists, and homosexuals.

It doesn’t surprise me to discover that through most of recorded human history the value of a human life was seriously deflated. No government before the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights made it its business to protect the rights of individuals… especially the rights of accused murderers.

Clearly, Hammurabi and Moses got it all wrong. So, where does one go to find moral guidance on the issue of capital punishment? Did Jesus get it right? No. If our criminal justice system operated consistent with the gospels, the meek would not inherit the Earth: The Earth would be handed over to thugs and assassins. Benevolence and forgiveness do nothing to protect the public from the Sons of Sam out there. [Significantly, the death penalty doesn’t deter them either.]

Of course, Christians in this country utterly ignore the Sermon on the Mount and Jesus’ order to love your enemies and turn the other cheek. Christian conservatives vote as a block in favor of capital punishment. Their Born Again president, George Bush, put 131 inmates to death in just five years as governor of Texas. That’s a record! [According to the New York Times, Saturday, June 17, 2000, one third of those executions were questionable.] Conservative hero, Ronald Reagan, a supporter of the death penalty, put only one inmate to death in eight years as governor of California. Reagan, it appears, talked the talk of the Republican base—like he did on so many of the issues dear to Christian conservatives—but did very little walking.

Capital punishment has never been an easy issue for me. I hate criminals. I love justice. But a death sentence leaves no room for error. In fact, my original lead sentences for this post were as follows:

“I can think of only one thing worse than letting a guilty murderer, terrorist, or child molester go free. That is, to execute an innocent person.”

I thought my view was smart and original. I still think the view is smart; I discovered it’s not original. This view dates back to the 12th Century, to a Jewish rabbi, physician, and philosopher named Moses Maimonides, who wrote:

“It is better and more satisfactory to acquit a thousand guilty persons than to put a single innocent one to death.”

I know that the United States has executed innocent people in our past. Knowing this fact is the most difficult hurdle to overcome if one is to maintain a belief in the justice of capital punishment. If our criminal justice system is so tragically fallible, can such absolute and irrecoverable consequences ever be doled out justly?

Affirmative Action: The Solution

The first step in the recovery of the descendants of the oppressed in this country is to acknowledge that the war for equal rights has been won. The second step is for each individual to discover the value of his own life and to live it to the best of his ability. To set his own goals and to achieve them. To define himself. To achieve his self-esteem. To bury “what was” in favor of capitalizing on “what is.”

The problem of discrimination against “perceived minorities” within our society is philosophical and ethical. As chairman of the Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity, my first directive would address the cause of discrimination: collectivism-altruism.

Education in Objectivism and Individualism is the only moral, non-coercive remedy to collectivism, tribalism, racism, sexism, homophobia. Objectivists recognize only the existence of human individuals. Skin color is as irrelevant as hair color. Sexual orientation is nobody’s business. The fact that there are two genders serves the practical purpose of propagation of the species [and to make four years of high school interesting], but has nothing to do with the rights of individuals. Both men and women are free and equal individuals. Culture—i.e. language, religion, etc., is a matter of individual choice and preference. Cultures, ethnic groups don’t have rights. Cultural preferences do not determine one’s identity and in most cases [food, music, dance, festivals, and holidays] cultural differences cannot be objectively evaluated, determining one culture to be superior to another. Some aspects of culture can be objectively evaluated, and it is important to note that not all cultures are equal. For example, any culture that systematically violates the rights of individuals, like women in Muslim cultures, is immoral and need never be accepted by civilized societies.

If the goal of Executive Order 10925 is to make sure that “hiring and employment practices are free of racial bias,” to accomplish this goal each individual must accept the fact that there is no such thing as black rights, or women’s rights, Hispanic rights, gay rights, or any kind of minority rights. There are only individual rights. Blacks, women, Hispanics, and gays are all individuals with precisely the same rights.

As chairman I would begin by educating the public about the rights of individuals to qualify for and apply for jobs. I would remind those tasked with the responsibility of hiring workers that race, ethnicity, and gender neither qualify nor disqualify any individual from any job. I would consider my mandate a mandate to educate and persuade Americans to affect positive change, to take the purely rational and selfish action of hiring the most qualified applicants, accept the most qualified students.

Justice requires the categorical rejection of immoral force, affirmative action, in any quantity. Justice requires rejection of “strict scrutiny” on the basis that any quantity of immoral force is unacceptable in a just society. Justice requires rejection of racist, diversity arguments and collectivism in all of its forms.

Philosophical and ethical reform will work to end discrimination in this country, eventually. Results will take a generation or two to achieve. For many, that is simply too long to wait. Today’s remedy—affirmative action and immoral force—is worse than the disease. May I suggest an interesting experiment?

Colleges and universities across the country may opt to utilize a blind admissions process. Students fill out college applications using only their Social. Rather than submit an essay addressing one’s personal goals and qualifications, applicants would submit their ACT writing score. Even the name of the applicant’s high school can be encoded. Students would receive a rating on participation in extracurricular activities from their high schools, a rating devoid of any specific reference to the kinds of clubs and activities. Anything that might give the admissions board any hint of the applicant’s race, ethnicity, or gender, would be omitted or encoded. Admissions decisions would be made on the basis of achievement only. Universities across the country would find out on the first day of class the make-up of their student body.

Blind application and interview process for employment…hum?