PAGE TITLE: http://www.crimeandconsequences.com/crimblog/
ARTICLE TITLE: Why the
Death Penalty Is Important
DATE: Tuesday,
October 30, 2012
AUTHOR: Bill Otis
AUTHOR
INFORMATION: William "Bill" G.
Otis
(born July 27, 1946) is a law professor and former federal prosecutor who
served as Special Counsel to President George H. W. Bush. A graduate of the
University of North Carolina (1968) and Stanford Law School (1974), Otis is
currently an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center. He also
contributes to the legal blog Crime and Consequences.
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Bill
Otis
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Why the Death
Penalty Is Important
October 30, 2012 4:33 PM | Posted by Bill Otis
| 3
Comments
Earlier today, Kent explained why
California's vote on Prop 34 will
reverberate outside the state's borders. I want to expand on that
very briefly.
Over the years, I have found that many
abolitionists genuinely do not understand the motivation of Retentionists.
Cries of "blood lust" are not always borne of bad will or the
instinct to go ad hominem (although that happens quite a bit). Those on
our side should try to understand that appeals to the dignity and value of
human life, and fears about the prospect of executing an innocent person, are
genuine in the hearts of those who do not agree with us. Any person of
normal morality must take seriously the mind-bending gravity of the state's
intentionally taking a human life.
I understand these feelings, since at
one point they made me a death penalty agnostic. But I am agnostic no
more. Here's why.
There is evil in this world. It
is not to be mistaken with lack of opportunity, a poor education, or racism.
If none of those things existed, there would still be evil. It
stands its vigil at the border of civilized life, ready to make its foray if
given the chance. Often it is concealed or disguised, which makes the
fight against it so hard. But there are times when it shows its face.
These are the child murders, the torture and sadism murders, the drawn
out killing of helpless people for the fun of it.
A society that has lost --
or, more correctly, has forfeited -- its right to set its
face against horrors like that, to recognize some acts as beyond the pale of
civilization, and to say no and mean it -- that society has fumbled
away something of ineffable value, something hard won but easily lost. It
has fumbled away that is, the moral strength without which evil will win.
A democracy can afford, and will make,
many errors. It cannot afford that one.
3 Comments
As
I tell people when they ask me why I support the death penalty: some people
simply deserve to die for their crimes.
it's
no more complicated than that.
"Any
person of normal morality must take seriously the mind-bending gravity of the
state's intentionally taking a human life."
Actually,
I disagree. The idea that some people, through their crimes, forfeit their
right to exist is really not that weighty a question at all. In my view,
executing a murderer really isn't that big a deal (putting aside innocence
issues, of course). An awful crime carries a steep price. I don't know what's
so hard about that.
Bill
Otis replied
to comment
from federalist | October
30, 2012 7:27 PM | Reply
I
am enough in sympathy with libertarianism to be suspicious of the government's
wielding power. I must say that the present administration, in which the power
of law enforcement has been wielded both selectively and politically, increases
my concern.
That
said, the fact of fallibility cannot make us stand down from our need and duty,
in the name of the basic mores of civilized life, to put a permanent end to
remorseless killers. To hesitate because of the inevitability of error is to
hesitate just long enough for evil to win. When it does, abolitionists will
live just long enough to regret what they allowed to happen.
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