Ride the Lightning

Throughout recorded history, individuals have existed whose crimes transcended imagination, whose brutality has shocked nations, whose spectral terror has haunted generations. Their names resound through our collective consciousness: John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, the Harps, Gille de Rais, the Boston Strangler, Jack the Ripper, Muhammed and Malvo. They prey upon the weak, the unsuspecting, the convenient.

They are the inter-species predators that live among us, at once a part of us and apart from us. The question arises with what to do with them when we catch them. Certainly it would smack of a suppressed survival instinct to let them go, to let them continue because it is the natural order of things, so the question becomes, “What do we do with them?”

A common trend has been execution. Throughout recorded history, executions have taken place for a variety of offenses ranging from burglary to treason. Cultural trends play a part in the crimes so punished and the methods used to carry out the sentence. Some methods used are and have been: burning, crucifixion, decapitation, drowning, electrocution, firing squad, gassing, hanging, impaling, lethal injection, stoning and the use of animals. Other methods of varied cruelty or humanity have also been employed.

During the years of 747 and 759, China banned the death penalty, and is the first recorded nation to do so. They did, however, reinstate it as can be seen in present-day China. China is also credited with the second-highest rate of executions per capita, based on Amnesty International’s numbers. Some claim those numbers are low.

The Grand Duchy of Tuscany was the first nation to permanently abolish capital punishment in late 1786. The Duke was inspired by a book called On Crimes and Punishments that questioned the value of torture and execution to society at large. To this day, the region of Tuscany celebrates November 30th as a holiday.

Later, even more drastic steps would be taken in the legal arena concerning capital punishment. In 1949, West Germany and Costa Rica both took the step of banning capital punishment in their constitutions, laying the precedent in the framework of their legal and political systems.

Other countries, such as the United States, much of Asia and the Middle East still maintain the option of execution with regard to what are deemed the worst of criminals. In the United States, individual states are allowed to handle the legality of capital punishment and hence, some parts of the United States practice capital punishment while other parts do not. The Federal government retains the ability to employ it, however it is rarely utilized.

Some countries such as Brazil and Argentina maintain the death penalty in only very specific and rare circumstances.

In countries where the death penalty is employed, some countries allow the execution of minors, while others do not. The definition of a minor also varies. In the United States, it is individuals under the age of 18 while in Japan it is individuals under the age of 20.

But the question is not about whether or not it has been done, to whom, and how. The question to us today is: should we?

Suppose we assume we shouldn't. The simplest and most straightforward argument put forth is that killing is inherently wrong. Since executions are a form of killing, the logic goes, they are also wrong. Fingers are pointed to such works as the Bible and its Ten Commandments, Jesus' law of love and the seminal work of Cesare Beccaria, also said to have influenced the development of Utilitarianism.

Many of the methods used in the execution of criminals and prisoners have also been widely criticized as inhumane. At its simplest, the denial of life to anyone is often said to be inhumane, but many of the methods used (including modern methods such as lethal injection) are and have been tortuous and imprecise. Those bringing this argument ask us to consider the ramifications of a botched beheading, lethal injection, or the prospect of being picked apart with tools or animals. The very Constitution of the United States along with the writings of John Locke[1] (who can be said to have inspired parts of the Constitution) make clear references to the inhumane treatment of criminals and prisoners and that we, as a people, should eschew such things.

Human elements are also commonly cited as a reason the death penalty should be abolished.
People have been wrongly executed, with evidence clearing them coming to light only after their deaths, while still others have been exonerated sometimes only minutes before their appointed time of execution. Anecdotally, the numbers could be very high, given the number of exonerations and convictions that have arisen from the advent of DNA testing and other advanced forensics.

Public defense is often used in the case of defendants who cannot afford their own attorneys. These attorneys are often seen as simply mediocre and unsuited to compete with those who are handling the prosecution, leading to a skewed rate of conviction.

In some places, execution is used punitively. The PRC is said to utilize capital punishment for this reason rather liberally, as are many Middle Eastern countries. Reasoning follows that if it occurs there, it could be done here such as in the case of Randall Adams where the police framed him knowing the difficulty of convicting and executing a minor.

The cost of keeping a prisoner on death row is also cited. Simply listing the cost of the initial trial in Kansas gives us a number of approximately $508,000, 16 times the cost of a non-capital case. Appeals are said to reach 21 times the cost of other appeals. Indiana’s Criminal Law Study Commission has discovered that a death sentence is 38% more costly overall than a life sentence. Additionally, supporting earlier arguments, 20% of all capital convictions are overturned and given life sentences.

Several Supreme Court justices have come, over the life of their appointments, to see the death penalty as ineffective and possibly flawed. Harry Blackmun and Lewis Powell are two such examples. More recently, Sandra Day O’Connor stated, “If statistics are any indication, the system may well be allowing some innocent defendants to be executed…”

Contrarily, there are also many arguments in favor of capital punishment.

Execution is an efficient way of dealing certain types of criminals. The punishment is, after all, permanent and that offender can never again commit the crimes that incurred the wrath of society. In areas where it is still practiced, it enjoys democratic (though not always popular) support.

Capital punishment is a statement of how the society in question views the severity of the crimes in question. Crimes a people are willing to execute for are obviously the most heinous and severe (or should be). In some ways, it demonstrates the state’s willingness to protect its citizenry from criminal elements. By showing that the state is willing and able to take the life of an offender for doing so to other citizens, the state assures its citizens that it cares for them and tries to protect them.

The pursuit of justice is, perhaps, the most cited reason for the implementation or retention of the death penalty. While there is no way to restore what was lost in the commission of a crime that leads to a death penalty conviction, the closest approximation is the retribution of death. Since the United States doesn’t allow for torture (implied in the adage of the punishment fitting the crime in many capital cases), the only reasonable alternative allowed to victims and states is execution.

Deterrence is cited as well. If a crime may land you in the electric chair, you are far less likely to commit the crime in question. Further murders of other innocents are also prevented by the assurance that the individual to be executed is never released or escapes.

If the death penalty were abolished, it is said we could reasonably expect the following behaviors:

First, inmates sentenced to life in prison would feel no compelling reason to avoid killing one another. Prison is a violent place and murders are already more common than they ought to be, but by denying the authorities the ability to take them permanently out of circulation, the state enables inmates to perpetuate violence upon each other with little to no impediment.

Secondly, the rule of law loses much of its authority when capital punishment is not an option. People become more likely to take upon themselves the burden of retribution and justice for the most heinous of crimes. Vigilantism and other escalating and violent methods of exacting personal justice may rise as a result.

Our decisions about capital punishment reflect how we feel about the basic nature and value of human life. At some point we must step back and examine the innate hypocrisy of the support of the death penalty. If - as so many of us assert - we place inherent value on human life, why do we feel it is appropriate to value one life differently than another?

Certainly scripture of all stripes values life based on belief and unbelief so in many cultures people are already conditioned to see some lives as worth more than others. Murder and other sins that lead to the legal end of capital punishment serve as a method by which people are comfortable devaluing the lives of those they wish to see executed.

We can look close to home in most cases and find a situation where we'd love to see someone die for their crimes, crimes so heinous as to tacitly amount to a willful surrender of the right to life.

There was a man who once worked for me named Britt Ripkowski. He was weird and he was a bit maladjusted socially, but never once did I consider him to be dangerous. Yet, shortly after he moved on in the company, the sordid details of his crime surfaced. Here is a man who wantonly and wilfully murdered a young woman and a very small child. Every fibre of my being wants him to pay in blood for that.

The question I must ask myself is if I am willing to support a system where I will get my wish, the price for which is the risk of executing the innocent. People in prison have been exonerated repeatedly based on new evidence. How many have wrongfully made it to the executioner?

If the answer is even one, it is too many.


Read more:

Wikipedia

Death Penalty Information Center

The New American

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy


[1] Interestingly, John Locke was a supporter of capital punishment.