I would like to
respond to Katrine Carstens article on 22 August 2012, ‘The Death Penalty for Capital Punishment’. I respect her opposition to the death penalty but I
totally disagree with what she wrote.
Reintroducing the death penalty would serve only to fester societal hate
and create yet more victims rather than be the answer to violent crime.
Rebuttal: Reintroducing the death penalty will put more terror into the hearts of
evildoers, provide justice for the victims and their families and protect the
law abiding citizens from more harm and danger. Lord Chief Justice Rayner Goddard, Immanuel Kant, Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr, Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Alex Kozinski, Chalerm Ubumrung and Lech Aleksander Kaczyński will want to retain
the death penalty in their country.
Although
difficult to quantify in monetary terms, another facet to this is the potential
value these inmates could have to society through education of young offenders
on a possible road to serious crime and possible work with the families of
their victims in an attempt to heal through reconciliation and forgiveness.
This is called restorative justice and US organisation Journey of Hope
perform a lot of work in this area.
Rebuttal: On 25
June 2012, the SCOTUS has banned life without parole for juveniles, if someone
commits murder under the age of 18, he can be free from prison in the future. Yamaji Yukio is a great example. I know that in this world there are murdered victims’
families against the death penalty; they are only notable and rare. I respect
their decision to oppose capital punishment but I strongly denounce their
attempts to ask for a worldwide abolition of it. Although I agree with them in
being able to forgive their loved ones’ killers, which is the right thing to
do, I disagree when they say that the death penalty is nothing but revenge.
Please see more here.
On the other side of the argument, there is deep concern about the
effect this outpouring of animosity is having on society, and in particular, on
young people. Mahatma Gandhi’s wise words that: “an eye for an eye makes the
whole world go blind” resonate. At what point does the hate have to stop before
it brutalizes society, turning it into a vortex of violence? George Bernard
Shaw succinctly said: “It is the deed that teaches, not the name we give it.
Murder and capital punishment are not opposites that cancel one another, but
similars that breed their kind.”
Rebuttal: Those who often quote Mahatma Gandhi's observation that “an eye for an
eye will make the whole world blind” must tell us where it will lead us if such
criminals are left unpunished? Beheading murderers and rapists publicly serves
as a deterrent to would-be criminals, whatever may be the arguments of the
human rights activists against the capital punishment.”
As for Shaw’s quote,
I recall American science fiction writer, who once wrote, “The idea that "violence doesn't solve anything" is a
historically untrue and immoral doctrine. Violence, naked force, has settled
more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is
wishful thinking at its worst. People that forget this basic truth have always
paid for it with their lives and freedoms."
Another pro-argument is that capital punishment is a deterrent of
violent crime. Yet there is insufficient evidence to prove this claim.
In U.S. states where there is no capital punishment, crime rates are lower than
in states where the death penalty still exists.
Rebuttal: There are more than 17 studies that prove the deterrent effect of capital
punishment in the United States of America. States that had abolished the death
penalty may see an increase in the homicide rates, just look at Illinois today (even police find it
problematic too)
and at the same time, killers have chosen West Virginia to commit murders as
there is no death penalty there. The death penalty does not show an overall deterrent
effect as it is seldom used in the USA. Swift and sure executions will deter
for sure, read Tariq A. Al Maeena’s article.
That execution of the offender is a healing factor for the families of
victims is another widespread belief. Whereas this is a complex and deeply
personal matter, in many cases it makes things worse for the victim’s family
with conflicting emotions digging their grief up all over again, often many
years later by the time the execution takes place. Murder Victim’s Families for Human Rights , a
non-profit US organisation, state on their homepage: ‘The assumption that all
victims’ families favor the death penalty is so entrenched that families who
oppose the death penalty sometimes experience discrimination within the
criminal justice system.’ That the death penalty creates yet another family of
victims – that of the offender – is an additional adverse factor, often
overlooked.
Rebuttal: Please see the response to Murder Victims’ families who are against the
death penalty.
At the same time, do hear from murder victims’
families who support the death penalty. From the Pro Death Penalty Quotes website:
Ask the
following people what they have gone through:
1. Family members of Holly Carol Washa
2. Tumini
4. Roy Curry
5. Family members of Dawn Marie Garvin
8. Parents of Jennifer Cardy
9. Officer Hector Garza’s family
10. Fumiko Isogai
11. Davida Brown
13. Pam Braun
14.
Vicki Haack
15.
Kazuo Uehara
16.
Family members of Tracie Joy McBride
17. Helen Newlove
18. Anthony Sowell’s victims
19. Loved ones of Officer Mark MacPhail
20. William Petit and his family
21. Survivors of the 2012 Aurora shooting in Colorado
It is prudent to remember some of the massive miscarriages of justice in
Britain that would have ended up with innocents losing their lives, had the
death penalty not been abolished by then: The Guildford Four were convicted of
murder and other charges in 1975, sentenced to life-imprisonment. In 1989
new evidence came to light rendering their convictions “unsafe and
unsatisfactory” and they were released. The case of the Birmingham Six followed
a similar path, with their release in 1991.
Rebuttal: Misdirection! The death penalty was not available! If it had been it
maybe that the standard of proof would have been insufficient for a jury to
find them guilty! And they might not even have spent time in prison at all! You
just never know!
Given the wrongful conviction, the justice system might learn from that
mistake to prevent the wrongful conviction of another. Like Chairman Mao Zedong
once said, “One cannot advance without mistakes... It is necessary to make
mistakes. The party cannot be educated without learning from mistakes.”
The death penalty was
available under Federal law in the USA but the Buffalo Six (a group of six Yemeni-American
childhood friends who were convicted of providing material support to al-Qaeda,
based on the fact they had attended an Al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan
together in the Spring of 2001.) were not sentenced to death. I don’t think
those miscarriages of justice in the UK will result in executions.
Whereas public support for capital punishment has fallen over the last
few decades, polls such as MORI and Angus Reid still report a slight majority
of the UK public in favour of re-introducing the death penalty, especially for
the murder of infants and police officers. How much of this is due to beliefs
based on misunderstood facts and how much is genuine support for this cruel
punishment is unclear.
What is certain is that having the debate is crucial to raise public
awareness and hopefully put to rest some of the myths surrounding this issue.
Reprieve have a comprehensive information guide on their website for those who
want to learn more.
Rebuttal: Reprieve is not telling you that without the death penalty, more
innocent people will die.
I quoted two paragraphs
from Conservative British Journalist, John O’Sullivan in his article on Tuesday
27 March 2012, European Dignity, American Rights:
Outlining a debate on capital punishment.
More
recent figures from the British Home Office show that, between 1997 and 2007,
no fewer than 30 murderers committed a second murder when they were either on
parole or had served a custodial sentence and been released. That translates
into about 150 innocent victims of second-time murderers in a population of
U.S. size — and somewhat more in a population of the size of the entire EU.
These
victims go unmourned by bien pensant opinion. In the British debate on
capital punishment, we hear constantly — and rightly — about the two men
executed in the 1950s for murders of which they are now considered wholly or
partly innocent. But we do not even know the names of the 30 victims of our
abolitionist penal policy over the last 15 years.
A fitting
way to conclude is perhaps in the words of someone very close to the issue.
Britain’s last hangman, Albert Pierrepoint, who hanged 435 men and women said
at the end of his career: “I have come to the conclusion that executions solve
nothing, and are only an antiquated relic of a primitive desire for revenge.”
Rebuttal: I favor getting a Saudi Arabian executioner or a firing squad if nobody
wants to do the hangman’s job.
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