Well, on an immediate upside, the death penalty is something I certainly understand far better than the financial crisis. I was really intrigued and fascinated by the author's comparison of lynching to modern-day capital punishment, and I can certainly see where he is coming from with that. Whether we like to admit it or not in our 21st Century, civil-rights-movement-was-fifty-years-ago world, race is still is a complex issue that continues to skew the way we look at things as a society. However, what this book made me think about more is my own feelings on the death penalty, the response to that being that I don't really know. I've gone back and forth on it, mostly because I can see both sides of the argument, at least in most cases. As a teacher, I'm wondering if that would be a bad thing if the subject ever came up--I wouldn't really have much of a say since I'm unsure--or if it would be a positive, since I would be able to argue both sides and play devil's advocate to the students with their own opinions. Controversial issues are tough in a classroom; I am of the opinion that they certainly need to be talked about, but there's always that slight, egging fear that something is going to go drastically wrong and I would have to be prepared to fix things if the subject got out of hand. Still, I don't think that fear will ever be enough to keep be away from a topic. Kids will hear about them at home and elsewhere in the world, so why bar them from it in an academic environment?
For the discussion question, I chose this one: If more inmates are on death row than are being executed, is the sense of retributive justice being satisfied?
As someone viewing the issue from the outside, I'm definitely starting to feel like no, the justice that would be served by ending this person's life isn't really truly being served when you have to wait years, maybe even decades, for it to actually occur, if it ever does. Not everybody is Charles Manson, who hasn't really changed much since he was originally arrested--he's pretty much still a raving psychopath. People can change, at least in some degree, over the years. Now, does that excuse the crime? Certainly not, but I feel it takes some of the satisfaction away when it comes to actually killing them, not to mention the waning interest simply due to how much time has passed. Now, I have to admit, I don't know how I would feel if I were close to a victim of a murder. Maybe then killing the person at all would bring about my sense of justice, no matter how long it took. If someone killed Clinton, my husband, I can almost see myself wanting revenge no matter how long I had to wait; if someone is willing to rob me of the love of my life, then I would probably be willing to wait if it meant their death would eventually come. I can speculate all day, but I can't really know until I'm put in the position, and I hope to any deity imaginable that I never have to experience that.
I definitely agree with you. If someone hurt my girlfriend or wife or a beloved family member, I would want revenge now, at that moment. The American legal system is pretty much designed to prevent that in order to give the accused a fair trial, something that, while not comforting to the families who lost their victims, is certainly desirable if we are to have a functional justice system. As years pass old grievances, even the worst of them, tend to fade from our memories, or at least, the rage they once evoked seems less. In that sense, the death penalty, which puts the convicted through a lengthy appeals process, could satisfy only the most hardened of hearts. (On a side note, I find it funny when prosecutors talk about satisfying 'the people's' desire for vengeance, as if Joe Schmo 2500 miles away has the same stake in the case as the mother whose son was murdered.) Maybe there is something to be said for that, and of course retribution is only possible argument for the death penalty, but to me, in its current form at least, the death penalty fails to satisfy anything but the most abstract sense of retribution.
ReplyDelete*only one possible argument for the death penalty. I should really proofread these before posting them.
DeleteProjecting myself into a situation that I can't really hope to comprehend without having lived through it, I would hope that I would have moved on with my life enough 20 years after the fact not to take much satisfaction from the execution of the convicted. Of course, this comes with the provision that I would have to know that they would never have any hope of being released from prison, short of new evidence that proves them innocent. One could certainly make the argument that I simply wouldn't understand retributive justice on that level because I've never lost a loved one to heinous premeditated murder before. Nonetheless, I think it's time to start fazing out this antiquated practice. To my mind, living in prison for the rest of your life is already punishment enough for essentially any crime short of large-scale terrorism. That's a pretty radical denial of basic freedom to begin with, and federal prison is a pretty rough place to live out the rest of your life, based on what I've heard. Also, once you've gone to murder as a serious option in your life, you're probably so deeply disturbed that being kept alive in prison for another 60-some years may actually prove to be a worse punishment. I know that when I was working at the North Florida Evaluation and Treatment Center, half of my job was simply keeping these guys from trying to hang themselves with their underwear when nobody was looking. These guys were treated much better than any federal prisoner, and most of the 'lifers' would have certainly preferred to take the suicide route had they been allowed to do so.
ReplyDeleteAgreed, Beth. As I mentioned on Louis' blog, your comment about the retributive argument makes a lot of sense to me. I wonder (and of course I can't possibly know at this point) if it would be more cathartic to see the murderer locked up and the key thrown away as an act of finality, rather than waiting and waiting and having the wound reopened every time there's some new drama in the death penalty odyssey. Look at what the families of Ted Bundy's and Danny Rolling's victims had to endure every time those two sickos got an opportunity to flap their gums and get more attention. As to your classroom stance, I think that what you suggest is totally legitimate: instead of keeping silent because you're not sure, you can be a very effective model of someone who is deeply thoughtful about a painful topic, and willing to listen to reasoned arguments on both sides.
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