Off With Their Heads!
I’m a strong believer in the death penalty.
By Lisa Buckner
Published January 15, 2010
I live in a Democratic city, and being primarily right-winged, I find it almost painful to express how I really feel about political subjects. It seems that every time I log on Facebook, my live feed tells me that yet another one of my friends has become a fan of a referendum that I don’t agree with or a political candidate that I despise. I’ve learned my lesson in keeping my mouth shut at school when presidential voting season comes around and ignore people when they tell me I should move to Bellevue or that I’m “so Republican.”
I hear that phrase a lot, especially when I express my views on the death penalty. I’m “so Republican” because I’m a pessimist about giving rapists a second chance. I’m “so Republican” because I think Nidal Malik Hasan, the Fort Hood murderer, should die.
I agree with the death penalty, though I like to leave politics out of my arguments. When it comes to the death penalty, I’m a realist, not a Republican.
My opinion in this article doesn’t take voluntary or involuntary manslaughter into account, (voluntary being intentionally killing after provocation, involuntary being due to criminal negligence) which are completely different from murder. I don’t believe manslaughter, in any form, deserves the death penalty.
I know it’s a hard subject to discuss. There are so many factors to determine whether someone deserves death or not. What did they do? Do they have a mental condition? Were they getting revenge for a terrible crime committed upon them first? Have they committed a crime before? That last question is what mainly guides my belief.
Statistics from Washington State Sentencing Guidelines Commission surveys in 2007 showed that murder had a 52 percent recidivism rate, meaning 52 percent of the people convicted for murder are repeat offenders. Doesn’t this virtually mean that if every person convicted for murder is given the death penalty, crime decreases by 52 percent?
I don’t agree with the thought that if a murderer gets the death penalty, then we’re just as bad as them. No, we aren’t. We didn’t kill anyone first. We aren’t teaching killing is good by killing; I’d call it more like teaching justice. Whatever happened to an eye for an eye? Shouldn’t that saying be taken even more seriously when it involves murder?
I know I’ll sound bad disagreeing with Amnesty International, a worldwide movement dedicated to the protection of human rights, but I do. The group has been quoted saying “The death penalty is the ultimate denial of human rights. It is the premeditated and cold-blooded killing of a human … it violates the right to life … it is the ultimate cruel, inhuman, and degrading punishment.” Well, if human rights are what guide your opinion on the death penalty, consider this: I think a lot of people would rather have a quick death than to be locked up in a cage for the rest of their life. In prison there is an 80.4 percent chance of dying from an illness, a 5.8 percent chance of committing suicide, and a 1.5 percent chance of being killed by another inmate according to the Bureau of Justice (as of 2002). Life imprisonment is much more inhuman and degrading than the death penalty. How can the death penalty take away the value of life any more than life imprisonment does?
I believe in second chances when a 10-year-old boy beats up his classmate. Fight hate with love, and the 10-year-old boy most likely will grow up to be a nice young man. I don’t, however, believe in fighting hate with love when it comes to a murderer. We all get one chance at life, and if someone has taken that chance away from a victim, then their chance, too, should be taken away. Our justice system is way too relaxed for our own good, and it doesn’t seem like anyone notices. Soon enough, it’ll result in this country falling through the cracks, if it hasn’t already started to.
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Lisa, I sympathize with you. I have beliefs that few people in my area share, and I find West Coast Democrats to be obnoxious, screeching liberal-for-the-sake-of-liberal harpies.
However, you’re really oversimplifying the issue, as a white kid with (I’m assuming) rich parents is wont to do. The death penalty is barbaric and expensive, and the way our legal system handles it favors the wealthy. Ever seen a rich guy on death row? No? Well, that’s because he can afford high-priced lawyers, and appeal after appeal.
The way you see it, if someone takes another person’s chance at life, they should have theirs taken, too. Well, Reagan bombed Libya, taking the chances of countless innocent people. Should he have had his chance taken? Clinton bombed Afghanistan. How about him? I’m getting off-track here, but my point is, murder is wrong, regardless of circumstance.
And then there’s the “eye for an eye” argument. Two things wrong with that: the first is Biblical. Matthew 5:38 – 9 reads, “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person.” There you go, Jesus disagrees with you. The second is the fact that we live in America, where “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” according to the First Amendment. Since that’s the first thing the Founding Fathers put in the Bill of Rights, I’m thinkin’ it’s pretty important. So, bottom-line, if you’re going to support the death penalty based on an Old Testament lesson, you’re violating laws in the New Testament and in the Constitution.
I agree, though, that our country is falling through the cracks. But if/when America collapses, I’m willing to bet that it won’t be because we *stopped* killing people.
@Asher: You make some very legitimate arguments, but I’m going to have to focus on the part about the First AmendmentI think that you’re being overly picky (and thus missing the big picture) about where Lisa is taking her moral basis from, which might not even be the Bible or religious at all (after all, it may just be the easiest to quote). “An eye for an eye” and all variatons, even ones that change the meaning, have been integrated into common usage. I don’t actually think Lisa referenced the Bible in her entire article.
I for one wholeheartedly agree with the death penalty. A while ago, a guy here in Seattle shot four police officers. In a chase, he was shot by policemen. This spared him what would surely be a lifetime without parole in jail and millions or billions of dollars spent by the government to keep him alive. To prove my point, the culprit of the Halloween shooting (also of a police officer) has spent at least some time in jail and wasted so much of our money. Keeping someone in jail means feeding them and supplying them with necessities; they also have a risk of dying other ways. Some people will argue that if the culprit is mentally ill, they should be kept in an asylum and learn to “correct their ways”. However, if Lisa’s statistics are correct, there’s no proved reason that that theory is plausible. This is where morals come into play, and where there is no definite black or white area. But if someone is mentally ill and commits a crime to the degree of murder, is it their fault or the illness’ fault? More importantly, can you separate the two? Even if it is the illness to blame, the culprit is saddled with that illness for life — you can’t just excuse him, put him into an asylum and hope that he’ll turn out for the better.
It’s all very well as a bystander to lament the death penalty and to grant these people second chances, but put yourself in the shoes of the victim’s loved ones. If my father was killed, I don’t think I would feel justified if the culprit was simply put in jail, using my (future) tax money to support himself.
Another thing I find should be fixed is the lenience of policies here in the United States. In other countries, some acts have very severe punishments: in Malaysia, possession of a certain amount of marijuana means death. In China, intentional homicide means the death penalty. This significantly reduces crime, at least crimes of that nature. If the punishment isn’t severe enough, people won’t learn their lesson.
Angela, you, too, are missing the point.
People on death row are sometimes proven not guilty.
People who have been murdered by our government are sometimes proven not guilty.
The cost of housing a single inmate is far from the “millions or billions” of dollars per person that you suggest. The cost of execution, as well, is far from free. The example you used was a man killed in a police chase — this is different. This is not the death penalty. The ability of a police officer to have an use a gun has virtually nothing to do with the death penalty. This man did not go through the legal system the way Lisa is referencing.
Virginia spent about $25k/prisoner in 2008. On the other hand, according the the NY Times, North Carolina pays $2.7 million per execution. California pays an estimated $250 million per execution. Here’s a link you may want to look at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/28/opinion/28mon3.html