Editorial from Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper. I don't agree with it BTW.
A slow march to end the U.S. death penalty
Capital punishment in the United States is dying a prolonged and ghastly death. It may take another generation yet. But dying it is.
Of late, the machinery of death has been implicated in some gruesome episodes, including Angel Diaz's 34-minute death in a Florida chamber that required not one but two lethal injections, during which the 55-year-old grimaced and seemed to mouth words. In the last two weeks, death-penalty moratoriums have been declared in Florida, Maryland and California because of lethal-injection problems. Separately, the most archaic aspects of the death-penalty architecture -- executions of the mentally retarded, and of those who killed at age 16 or 17 -- have been stripped away. The public consensus, though still strong, is softening. For the first time, a narrow majority supports life without parole as an alternative. A jury objected to executing Zacarias Moussaoui, implicated in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The numbers of executions and death sentences are dropping.
The United States stands nearly alone in the developed world. Only Japan also continues executions. China is the world's biggest death-penalty state. The next three are Iran, Saudi Arabia and the U.S. That is a shameful axis to be part of. Iraq has just executed Saddam Hussein, but Turkey has dropped its death penalty in hopes of being permitted to join the European Union. In Europe, legislators liken the death penalty to forms of barbarism such as slavery. South Africa dropped it after apartheid fell. The Russian Federation maintains the death penalty on the books, but hasn't used it in at least 10 years. Canada's Supreme Court has made it almost impossible even to extradite accused multiple killers to the United States or other death-penalty states without a promise they won't face execution.
U.S. politicians need to challenge the public consensus. That is what happened in Europe and in Canada. In 1976, when Canada abolished the death penalty, Liberal prime minister Pierre Trudeau said, "I must confess I cannot understand why anyone would agree to kill a man without the least shred of assurance that his death would accomplish any worthwhile social purpose." The country's homicide rate was 3.08 per 100,000 at that point. Today it is 2.04 per 100,000. In 1987, when the Conservative government held a free vote on the restoration of the death penalty, prime minister Brian Mulroney said that "in the final analysis the most demanding constituency of all remains that of our consciences."
Such leadership has been rare in the capital-punishment debate south of the border. Just three years ago, law professor Thomas Geraghty wrote: "Perhaps the best proof of the strength of support for the death penalty is the fact that no candidate for statewide or national office could win an election after announcing opposition to the death penalty." But that may be changing. In 2006, an abolitionist was elected governor of Maryland, replacing a death-penalty proponent. Massachusetts, too, replaced a pro-death-penalty governor with an abolitionist. Andrew Cuomo, another abolitionist, was chosen Attorney-General of New York.
Why does the U.S. persist in executing convicted killers? The vast majority of executions occur in the South, in the states that once had the highest numbers of lynchings, according to Franklin Zimring, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley. He says the executions reflect a culture of vigilantism and direct local controls. In the first 25 years after a U.S. moratorium on the death penalty ended in 1977, there were 160 executions in the South for every one in the northeastern states.
Scott Turow, a lawyer and bestselling author, puts a more benevolent face on the U.S. attachment to capital punishment. "These days, you can get life in California for your third felony, even if it's swiping a few videotapes from a Kmart. Does it vindicate our shared values if the most immoral act imaginable, the unjustified killing of another human being, is treated the same way? The issue is not revenge or retribution, exactly, so much as moral order. When everything is said and done, I suspect that this notion of moral proportion -- ultimate punishment for ultimate evil -- is the reason most Americans continue to support capital punishment."
The first argument is nonsensical. Imposing inhumane penalties for minor crimes does not justify ratcheting up the inhumanity for major crimes. The second argument is an attempt to sanctify retribution. (Retribution, along with deterrence, is how the U.S. Supreme Court justifies the death penalty.) Ultimate punishment for ultimate evil is a position that will not be defeated by logic. It is the same argument offered by religious states such as Saudi Arabia and Iran. It is a view that most of the world has left behind. Vengeance all dressed up is still vengeance.
"Around the world," writes Prof. Zimring, "the abolition of the death penalty is a two-step process. First, executions cease to be of any practical importance in crime control. Then, some decades later, the now unnecessary executioner gets his retirement papers." The United States is still arguing about whether to execute mentally ill prisoners, and what role innocence should play if appeal papers are filed late. Like the final moments of Angel Diaz, the death penalty's demise will be painful and prolonged; but it will happen.
There is only one reason for a death penalty, and that is to stop the killer from ever being able to kill again and in my mind that is reason enough to keep the death penalty. As for these lethal injections going awry why not use a nice simple hanging using a trap door gallows, just as was used on Saddam. Let's eliminate the electric chair too. |
