JOHN PHILIPS: THE MORALITY OF PRESERVING THE DEATH PENALTY

  

"Contemplate that if Hitler falls into our hands we shall certainly put him to death. Not a Sovereign who could be said to be in hands of Ministers, like Kaiser. This man is the mainspring of evil. Instrument - electric chair, for gangsters no doubt available on lend-lease."

- Winston Churchill, 6 July 1942

INTERNET SOURCE: http://www.ocregister.com/articles/death-732687-penalty-life.html

The morality of preserving the death penalty

Oct. 20, 2016

Updated 12:00 a.m.

On election day, California voters will decide whether or not the death penalty stays or goes as the ultimate form of punishment for the state’s most heinous killers.

Capital punishment abolitionists are heralding Proposition 62, which would replace the death penalty with life in prison without the possibility of parole, as the rightful sunset of a barbaric practice. To them, it’s a waste of taxpayer money and an immoral practice.

I couldn’t disagree more. Not only do I think it’s a good use of public resources, I believe it’s the moral answer to society’s most immoral people.

On October 1, 1993, 12-year-old Polly Klaas was kidnapped at knife point from her Petaluma home and was subsequently sexually molested and strangled to death. Her killer, Richard Allen Davis, was convicted of first-degree murder and four special circumstances – robbery, burglary, kidnapping and a lewd act on a child. He was subsequently sentenced to death.

Davis, who admitted to the murder, remains on death row at San Quentin State Prison while his attorneys continue to appeal his conviction.

Marc Klaas, Polly’s father and the founder of the Klaas Kids Foundation, told me that if Prop. 62 passes, he and his family will continue to be victimized by Davis. “The killer [Davis] told psychiatrist Llewelen Jones that he ‘Masturbates twice daily and thinks of tying up female victims of past crimes.’ From my perspective that means that he not only sits in his cell on death row violating my daughter twice a day, but he will continue to do that until the day that he is put down. Polly deserves better than that. She, or her memory, will never truly have peace until the killer’s vile thoughts and deeds cease to exist,” he said.

Supporters of Prop. 62 have also admitted that if this initiative were to pass, banning life in prison without the possibility of parole would be next on their list.

Kent Scheidegger, the legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, told the Sacramento Bee, “If the death penalty is abolished on Tuesday, the drive to abolish life without parole begins on Wednesday.”

This would mean that the family members of murdered people would be forced to relive their trauma every time their loved one’s killer comes up for a parole hearing.

That’s exactly what has happened to Debra Tate, whose sister Sharon and her unborn child were brutally murdered by the Manson Family in 1969.

Manson, and other members of his “family” were sentenced to death for these brutal murders. However, their sentence was reduced to life in prison because the death penalty was abolished by the state Supreme Court in the early 1970s.

Now, Tate spends her life trying to keep the Manson killers behind bars. Tate told me, “There must be penalties for taking a life. If you’re willing to take a life you should be willing to forfeit your own. ... The ever changing legal system has made it a monumental task to keep up with the amount of parole hearings and subsequent appeals by these predatory killers. Parole hearings are falling only a few months apart, followed by subsequent appeals.”

There are also two stats that are important to the conversation and are completely irrefutable – the state of California has never executed an innocent person and the recidivism rate among those executed is zero.

In other words, the death penalty works. We are executing the right people and are preventing them from ever hurting anyone else again.

Marc Klaas believes it’s incumbent on those of us who support the death penalty to make sure the process works. “Death penalty abolitionists crave the execution of an innocent man so that their indignation can run amok, while those who favor the death penalty pray that an innocent is never executed so that the fragile system of ultimate justice can be preserved,” he said.

I’m voting no on Prop. 62 and I’m doing it because the death penalty is moral.

John Phillips is a CNN political commentator and can be heard weekdays at 3 p.m. on “The Drive Home with Jillian Barberie and John Phillips” on KABC/AM 790.