Posted on 09/24/2011 7:15:03 AM PDT by 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.
That, and getting caught with an old Republican voter-registration card.
Then there's the longtime Harris County district attorney Johnny Holmes, who once said of self-defense shootings, "I'd rather face a grand jury five times a day than go before the medical examiner once."
Texas has some great takes on "Lawn Order" ..... and the language Texans use has a simple rude majesty, like the Old Latin of the Roman Law of the Twelve Tables, and the Shakespearean English of the King James Version.
Indeed. Thank you for sharing your insights, dear TEXOKIE!
It isn’t about numbers, it is about first hand knowledge of unfixable problems. I don’t see a solution to juries stacked with morons, prosecutors who are politicians first and shoddy police work that would restore my faith sufficiently to give the state that power.
:-D
Well, it most certainly isn’t about your personal anecdotes.
I expressed only how I arrived at my personal beliefs, i’m not expecting to build a national movement on them. I am certainly no less entitled to an opinion than those who want to bring scripture into the debate.
Nobody’s stopping you from expressing your opinion. But why express your opinion if not in an attempt to persuade and convince. I expressed my mine - with facts - not personal feelings. The death penalty is exercised in less than half of one percent of total homicides in a year. That is not a rampant call for 1st degree punishment.
As for the lack of intelligence on the part of jurors, I see it lead to letting murderers get off scot-free more than lead to more harsher punishments.
When a jury is stupid a trial is essentially reduced to a high school debate being judged by retarded children.
You injected your opinion of juries on a death penalty thread. I presented the numbers that capital punishment is rarely used regardless of your fears.
Seems you have a problem with the jury system in general. Too bad your “peers” aren’t as intelligent as you.
I think of people like Aimee Willard was murdered by Arthur Bomar in 1996.
Bomar was on parole for a murder he committed in 1978.
If he had gotten the death penalty in the 1978 case Aimee Willard would still be alive.
Amnestry International is worse than useless.
It’s common for murderers to not get the death penalty, get released from prison and murder again. The liberals don’t like to talk about it when I bring it up. They care more about the rights of criminals than innocent victims.
The death penalty should be used more. Not less. Less murderers on parole from life sentences could save thousands of innocent lives.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.