Why Death Penalty Opponents Can't Win

Townhall.com ^ | September 24, 2011 | Jonah Goldberg

[Kaslin]

On Wednesday, two men were lawfully executed. Both insisted they were innocent. If you've been watching the news or following Kim Kardashian's tweets, you've likely heard of one of these men, Troy Davis.

The other death penalty "victim," Lawrence Russell Brewer, was until this week the more significant convicted murderer. Brewer was one of the racist goons who infamously tied James Byrd to the back of their truck and dragged him to death in Texas.

The case became a touchstone in the 2000 presidential race because then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush had refused to sign a "hate crimes" law. The NAACP ran a reprehensible ad during the presidential election trying to insinuate that Bush somehow shared responsibility for the act.

Regardless, Brewer claimed that he was "innocent" because one of his buddies had cut Byrd's throat before they dragged his body around. Forensic evidence directly contradicted this.

Brewer's own statements didn't help either. Such as, "As far as any regrets, no, I have no regrets. ... I'd do it all over again, to tell you the truth."

Brewer, festooned with tattoos depicting KKK symbols and burning crosses, was "not a sympathetic person" in the words of Gloria Rubac of the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement.

Which is why we didn't hear much about him this week. Instead, we heard a great deal about Davis. Many people insist Davis was innocent or that there was "too much doubt" about his guilt to proceed with the execution. Many judges and public officials disagreed, including all nine members of the Supreme Court, who briefly stayed the execution Wednesday night, only to let it proceed hours later.

There are many sincere and decent people -- on both sides of the ideological spectrum -- who are opposed to the death penalty. I consider it an honorable position, even though I disagree with it. I am 100 percent in favor of lawfully executing people who deserve the death penalty and 100 percent opposed to killing people who do not deserve it.

When I say that, many death penalty opponents angrily respond that I'm missing the point. You can never be certain! Troy Davis proves that!

But he proves no such thing. At best, his case proves that you can't be certain about Davis. You most certainly can be certain about other murderers. If the horrible happens and we learn that Davis really was not guilty, that will be a heart-wrenching revelation. It will cast a negative light on the death penalty, on the Georgia criminal justice system and on America.

But you know what it won't do? It won't render Lawrence Russell Brewer one iota less guilty or less deserving of the death penalty. Opponents of capital punishment are extremely selective about the cases they make into public crusades. Strategically that's smart; you don't want to lead your argument with "unsympathetic persons." But logically it's problematic. There is no transitive property that renders one heinous murderer less deserving of punishment simply because some other person was exonerated of murder.

Timothy McVeigh killed 168 people including 19 children. He admitted it. How does doubt in Troy Davis' case make McVeigh less deserving of death?

We hear so much about the innocent people who've gotten off death row -- thank God -- because of new DNA techniques. We hear very little about the criminals who've had their guilt confirmed by the same techniques (or who've declined DNA testing because they know it will remove all doubt). Death penalty opponents are less eager to debate such cases because they want to delegitimize "the system."

And to be fair, I think this logic cuts against one of the death penalty's greatest rationalizations as well: deterrence. I do believe there's a deterrence effect from the death penalty. But I don't think that's anything more than an ancillary benefit of capital punishment. It's unjust to kill a person simply to send a message to other people who've yet to commit a crime. It is just to execute a person who deserves to be executed.

Opponents of the death penalty believe that no one deserves to be executed. Again, it's an honorable position, but a difficult one to defend politically in a country where the death penalty is popular. So they spend all of their energy cherry-picking cases, gumming-up the legal system and talking about "uncertainty."

That's fine. But until they can explain why we shouldn't have a death penalty when uncertainty isn't an issue -- i.e. why McVeigh and Brewer should live -- they'll never win the real argument.

[central_va]

I think the condemned and lifers should be allowed to participate in gladiatorial sports. Hell PPV profits could go to the victims.

[PapaBear3625]

I tend to prefer that criminals meet their ends at the hands of armed victims. Currently, more criminals are killed by their victims than by government execution, and it sends a more powerful message to the criminal community, since the death is immediate, rather than happening years after the criminal’s associates have forgotten him.

[vbmoneyspender]

I do not believe that the death penalty is a deterrent

Here's a thought experiment I once heard on whether the death penalty is a deterrent.

If you announced tomorrow that people who murdered people on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays would not be eligible for the death penalty but people who murdered people on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays would - do you think there would go up or down on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays?

[chesley]

I’m not good at acronyms. What is “AFAIK”?

Thanks

[RoadTest]

Genesis 9:6: “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.”

Numbers 35:30: “ Whoso killeth any person, the murderer shall be put to death by the mouth of witnesses: but one witness shall not testify against any person to cause him to die.”

You could argue that’s that’s the Old Testament law and not for today, but I think it’s applicable today. The Manufacturer wrote this Owner’s Manual and man does not change.

[Alberta's Child]

I agree with you. I am really ambivalent about the issue because of two conflicting principles that make it a non-issue in my mind. These are: (1) that our radically secular State does not have the legal credibility or moral authority to put people in jail, let alone execute them; and (2) that the emotional/political “energy” spent these days on a very small number of high-profile cases is dwarfed by the millions of unborn children we have slaughtered in recent decades in the name of “choice” or “convenience.”

[vbmoneyspender]

oops - meant to say:

do you think murders would go up or down on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays?

[Alberta's Child]

Because they're not arguing on principle. They're arguing on politics.

The left has no qualms about killing people by the millions, as history has shown us repeatedly. To them, it's just a matter of killing "the right kind" of people.

[Sherman Logan]

John William King, presently on death row for this awful murder, claims he was repeatedly gang-raped by black inmates while in prison.

This is, of course, no excuse for the crime, and I have zero problem with executing these guys.

Here’s my question. Past abuse of blacks by whites is often used to mitigate black-on-white crimes, often when the abuse wasn’t even against the criminal personally, but only against ancestors or relatives or just members of his “group.” His rage against whites is portrayed as partially or fully justified, and by implication a crime in revenge against a random member of the victimizing group is therefore also partially or fully justified.

So why isn’t a person who was personally and repeatedly victimized in the most egregious way by members of a particular group not justified in feeling similar rage and taking similar action to revenge himself on a random member of the group that victimized him?

I don’t myself agree with either position, of course, but I don’t see how one can logically hold position A while utterly rejecting position B.

[Johnny B.]

I believe each of those people was exonerated while on death row. IOW, they weren’t executed, so the system actually worked.

AFAIK, nobody has conclusively demonstrated an “actually innocent” person has been executed in this country in the modern era. And I’m sure we’d all have heard about it if someone had.

AFAIK, they have carefully avoided investigating the cases after the executions have occurred.

[Sherman Logan]

As Far As I Know. Sorry.

[cripplecreek]

I know that if I committed murder and was given the choice of life in prison and the death penalty, I’d choose a speedy death.

[beef]

I support the death penalty in part because it keeps all the death penalty lawyers tied up keeping their clients alive, which BTW is why executing someone is so expensive. If capital punishment were to be abolished today, these lawyers would not be going into real estate and wills. They will just move down to the next layer and start fighting life imprisonment. Having capital punishment makes life in prison a serious and certain sentence.

[Sherman Logan]

AFAIK, they have carefully avoided investigating the cases after the executions have occurred.

I seriously doubt that. Finding an actually innocent person who was unfairly executed is the Holy Grail of the anti-death penalty movement. I'm pretty sure they really want to find one, as it would immediately and drastically change the climate in their favor.

IMO

[Johnny B.]

What is “AFAIK”?

As Far As I Know

[Yardstick]

I don’t have stats but I would guess that is very rare. In most cases the innocent person spends the rest of their life in prison. They are alive but the government has in a very substantial way taken their life from them. I don’t see how this is acceptable under the “no errors allowed” principle.

[Tex-Con-Man]

What rarely gets addressed in these discussions is the difference between “innocent” and “not guilty”.

The anti-death penalty activists can create doubt about the “guilt” of a death row inmate in the commission of the crime he has been convicted of, however, that does not make him “innocent” of committing the crime, nor does it absolve him of his criminal past. Try to find someone on death row who doesn't have an extensive criminal history. I've done it before, and it's difficult. And their record only reflects the times they were caught. As a general rule, you don't find first time offenders and petty thieves on death row.

There is a big difference between executing a person “not guilty” of the crime they were accused of, and executing an “innocent” man.

[Alberta's Child]

That's an excellent point, and it reminds me of a "self-argument" I once heard on the radio years ago by a somewhat liberal (though surprisingly conservative on some issues) talk show host who dedicated an entire segment of his show one evening to analyzing the conflicting arguments on both sides of this issue. It was one of the most objective and illuminating radio shows I've ever heard. His own stated position on the issue was that he did not oppose the death penalty on principle, but was uncomfortable with the idea of giving a seriously flawed justice system the power to carry out a sentence that by its very nature could not be corrected if it was ever applied incorrectly.

One of the points he made was that even a pragmatic analysis of mathematical odds would weigh heavily against the likelihood that innocent people are ever executed in this day and age (especially in light of advances in criminology such as DNA testing). He pointed out how many people are arrested for serious felonies in the United States in any given year, how few of those cases ever even get to trial, how few end up with a jury convicting the defendant, how few of THOSE cases end up with a lengthy prison sentence or death sentence, and how lengthy and multi-layered the appeals process is for death sentences.

His point was well taken, in that the sheer number of different steps in the U.S. legal process by itself offers a substantial degree of "self-correction" in capital cases.

[Cracker Jack]

Kenneth McDuff should be mentioned in these discussions. In 1966, he murdered three people in Texas. He was convicted of all three and sentenced to three death sentences. However, McDuff's death sentences were commuted to a life sentence, which required a minimum of 10 years before parole. He was paroled in 1988 as a result of a court decision involving overcrowding.

After release, he continued murdering women almost immediately. At least seven murders were attributed to him, but he is a suspect in at least 10 more unsolved murders. He was finally arrested and convicted of one of the new murders in 1993. After all reviews and appeals were completed, he was finally executed in 1998.

It is an awful tragedy if an innocent is mistakenly executed. It an arguably a worse tragedy when a convicted murderer is released to murder one more innocent. McDuff murdered somewhere between 7 and 20 innocents after he had been sentenced to death in 1966.

Death penalty opponents should consider this situation before they worry about the morality of executing those found guilty after long review processes.

[Dilbert San Diego]

It did NOT escape my notice that the left did NOT say anything about the execution on the same day of the guy who dragged James Byrd behind a truck.

To be consistent, the left should protest ALL executions, not just those who they want to make the latest cause celebre.

But then, is the left ever consistent about their beliefs and issues they force on us?????

If the issue really is the death penalty, then why nothing to say about the execution of the killer of James Byrd? Or is it because that guy was a white supremacist, while Troy Davis was black?

Then again, Davis was convicted by a jury of 7 blacks and 5 whites, so how was it a racist conviction????

And how is it racist when we see both black and white convicts being executed?

Or do we just have to live with the fact that the left is inconsistent in how they apply a standard to a case at hand????