Tuesday, February 10, 2015
Death to the Death Penalty?
The code of Hammurabi states that we are too, "Let The Punishment Fit The Crime." Though I firmly believe that the great thinkers who criticized this ancient set of laws were right in that, "An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind", I do believe that the code was on to something. Take the death penalty for instance, the conclusion by a judge and jury that the person they found guilty has committed acts so heinous that their life should be terminated. I have no quarrel with this initially, but do find issues with the whole process in countries such as the United States. I believe that first, the death penalty should only be offered in cases of insurmountable and undeniable evidence in horrific crimes, such as the cases of serial killers, rapists, or very notable figures such Saddam Hussein. This is rather a moot point as I believe for the vast majority of all cases this is followed to the letter. A more pressing issue is that if we are going to use it, then lets do just that. It never ceases to fail whenever I change the channel to a Lockup:RAW marathon which is a television series on prisons and the life the prisoners lead In the correctional system, I do not have to wait long before each prison shows one of their more prominent criminals. It is here that the prisoner goes on to talk about his life, his bone chilling crime, and in many cases mentions that he has been on death row for almost as long as I have been alive. What are we waiting for? I understand there needs to be time for retrials and such but in sure cases what are we trying to accomplish? Lets get serious about capital punishment, or lets say Death to the Death penalty, but this in between stage we are in is just not doing it.
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I agree with Dan that this in between stage that our government is currently in when it comes to the death penalty just isn't worth it. We aren't accomplishing much of anything. Half the states have either outlawed it already or just haven't actually killed anyone in decades, while the other half of states are poorly going about capital punishment. It was brought up in class the other day how Obama sort of gave capital punishment a back hand compliment about how it was justified because it is what the people want. If it is truly what the people want then give it to them. Don't hide what we are doing and make sure it is truly done in a humane way. Not through combinations of drugs that end up causing more torture to a human who has spent the last 20 years in a cell.
ReplyDeleteGreat point about the "in between stage." It does seem like our legal system and our general attitudes about the death penalty are somewhere in between acceptance and shame at what it represents. I personally doubt that we can fully live up to what it requires to have a death penalty anymore--it seems, as I have mentioned, that we are almost too squeamish for it. Some of the most painless forms of execution are also the bloodiest, and yet we opt for supposedly "medical" processes like lethal injections because the optics of these other punishments are bad. But if we don't like the optics, as you point out, why have the penalty in the first place?
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