Month: September 2011

Steel yourself for a heavy one here… Capital punishment is a highly debated and debatable subject, the likes of which I usually prefer to steer clear. But with the 2 executions earlier this week, it’s been on my mind. Specifically, do I agree with the death penalty or not?

And the more I think about it, the more my honest answer becomes “I don’t know.” See here’s the sitch: Say someone murdered one of my loved ones. Would I want them dead? Absolutely. Yes, I know how horrible that sounds, to say I would want another human dead, but I’m being brutally honest here. If someone killed R or D or any one of my family members, I might even want to go kill them myself. Screw waiting around for a death sentence.

However… (there’s always a however, isn’t there?)

Say it was one of my loved ones who did the murdering (or whatever other heinous crime would have to be committed to warrant the death penalty). Would I want them dead? Absolutely not. I would much rather have them sentenced to life in prison so I could at least go see them and call them and write to them and just know that they were still alive. Is that fair? Would they rather spend the rest of their days confined to a cell knowing there’s probably no hope whatsoever of ever seeing the free world again than be put to death? I can’t say for sure, but I’m selfish and assuming the answer would be yes. If it were me I would definitely prefer a remainder of a lifetime of imprisonment over dying, so I’m just going to simplify things and say someone I love would too.

So what’s my answer? See, herein lies my dilemma. In one circumstance I’m for it, and in another I’m adamantly against it. And I’ve tried to put the shoe on the other foot in my first scenario, where someone I love has been murdered, and see how the accused’s family would not want him/her to die just as I wouldn’t one of my own to die in my second scenario, but the seething black hole of loss in which I imagine I would be suffering usually takes over and makes my decision for me. They must die! God, that’s an awful thought to have even hypothetically. It kind of makes me ashamed knowing I’ve thought it at all. And I definitely don’t want to be teaching D that an-eye-for-an-eye is the rule by which to live, perpetuating violence and all, but really, if someone killed part of my family I would unequivocally want revenge. I’m sorry, I would. Call it a character flaw, call me barbaric and savage, call me a beast, but when I picture something that horrific happening in my life, I just can’t see it as a wound that would ever heal. Do I forgive easily? Unfortunately, no. Maybe that’s something I need to work on (actually i’m sure that’s something i need to work on, but that’s beside the point here). Maybe if this unbearable scenario did play out in my life someday (and dear god i hope it never does) I would be able to find the strength to not want to enact revenge and rip the accused’s head off with my bare hands as his/her death sentence. But I really just don’t know.

Then when you bring all the exogenous factors into a death penalty case, the decision can become even more complicated. Take the 2 executions this week, for instance. Troy Davis – a black man accused of killing an off-duty police officer in Georgia over 20 years ago; a case that lacked physical evidence linking him to the crime; eye witnesses recanting their claims that Davis was the perpetrator; a confession by another man; Davis’s own offer to submit to a lie detector test to prove his innocence; an enormous outpouring of support for Davis and outrage at this seeming miscarriage of justice that there was no stay of execution. And then there was Lawrence Brewer – 1 of 3 white men found guilty of the dragging death of a black man 13 years ago in Texas; they chained the man to the back of a pickup and dragged him by the ankles until he was decapitated when he hit a culvert; the crime was intended to promote Brewer’s white supremacist organization; odd, but there wasn’t much public outcry for this one; did you even hear about it?

I’d like to think that the gumption with which I stand behind my resolution that I would absolutely 100% never want the death penalty enacted against someone I love is stronger than my desire to have it enacted against one who would take someone I love from me, so therefore means I’m against capital punishment, but does that count? Or am I allowed to say “I don’t know”? Can the answer to such a weighty question be “well, it depends”?

What say you?

Continue reading “Dead man walking”