The Death Penalty (standard:Editorials, 627 words)
Author: J P St. Jullian	Added: Nov 08 2002	Views/Reads: 4186/4	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Is it right for a nation to punish a murderer by committing murder?

The Death Penalty 

by J P St. Jullian 

Thou Shalt Not Kill . . . 

So says the Bible. 

In the past we've witnessed prayer vigils and last minute pleas by
protestors for inmates on death row.  It has to do with that age old 
issue, the death penalty.  But none of this would be complete without 
the presence of the media. 

The weakness of all those passionate last minute pleas and appeals for
clemency played up by the media is that they tend to focus too much on 
the special circumstances of the individual case.  A murderer was the 
victim of child abuse, or, a rapist suffered brain damage as a 
teenager.  By focusing on the individual histories of those waiting on 
death row, we run the danger of losing sight of the basic principles at 
stake when a civilized society reinstitutes capital punishment.  But, 
that's the media for you.  Always seeking to sensationalize. 

We know that there are some strong arguments currently favoring the
death penalty.  In spite of this, capital punishment still violates 
basic principles underlying the American system of justice.  Most basic 
to our legal system is the commitment to even-handed justice for all.  
As a people we believe, or at least, we say we believe, that equal 
crimes should receive equal punishment under the law.  However, the 
death penalty has always been notorious for its  “freakish unfairness.” 
 For instance, some murderers are walking the streets again after 
three, five and seven years, whereas others-----because of  ineffectual 
and incompetent legal counsel  or a vindictive prosecutor, or a harsh 
judge-----join the inmates waiting out their appeals on death row.  In 
one celebrated case, two criminal partners were convicted on the same 
capital crime on identical charges.  One was executed while the other 
simply got a prison sentence and remained eligible for parole.  Was 
this equal punishment for an equal crime? Go figure.  What it really 
boils down to is that improper safeguards are in place to prevent this 
sort of thing.  They are not working.  Judges and juries are applying 
widely differing standards. 

In our society we say we believe that all citizens are equal before the
law.  We say we believe that justice should be totally blind to wealth, 
race, or ethnic origin.  However, poor defendants are many times more 
likely to receive the death penalty than wealthy ones who are protected 
by highly paid teams of lawyers whose maneuvers stymie the prosecution 
and baffle the jury.  Minority defendants convicted of capital crimes 
have a much higher statistical chance of being executed than white 
defendants.  A black person killing a white person is more likely to 
receive the death penalty than a white person killing a black person. 

Fairness demands that our judicial system make proper provisions for
correcting its own mistakes.  If someone has been unjustly convicted, 
there should be a mechanism for reversing the verdict and setting the 
person free.  No one doubts that there are miscarriages of justice.  
Citizens of Northern Ireland convicted as terrorists are set free after 
many years because of evidence that they were framed and their 
confessions were beaten out of them by British police.  “Victims” have 
withdrawn rape charges,  witnesses have admitted to mistaken identity 
of suspects.  Convicts have confessed on their deathbeds to crimes that 
other people were convicted of. 

However, in the case of the death penalty, any such correction of error
is aborted.  We are left with “futile regrets,” like the prosecutor who 
said, “Horrible as it is to contemplate, we may have executed the wrong 
man.” 

The question that has never been answered to my satisfaction is this: 
Is not the act of administering justice by murdering a man for the 
crime of murder pretty much the same as committing murder? 


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