Should we still use the death penalty?

As far back as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to see murderers die painful deaths at the hands of the government.

It was a glorious time. Reading in the papers about how this murderer or that murderer caught that lightning bolt of justice right in the groin, I felt good about the chances that this or that murderer would show up in my house. Righteousness was all around us, and a lot of times, it was contained in a hypodermic needle, stuck in the arm of some rapist. In fact, my heart swelled with so much justice that I openly wished that the line on Death Row would move just a little bit faster.

I never doubted the death penalty, because I always believed that they were always throwing the right man in the gas chamber. So sure was I that I had begun suggesting that they bring back town square beheadings or hangings, like in the olden days. I wished they had shown that American kid in Singapore getting caned on live TV. Not only was I big on the death penalty, but capital punishment as a whole.

Then, they invented this stuff called DNA, which scientists claim is a foolproof way to identify people, much like they claim that the entire universe exploded into being. Poppycock, I say, but when they started using DNA to clear a lot of convicted rapists and death row murderers of their crimes, everyone started jumping on the DNA bandwagon. Or ladder, because that’s what it looks like.

Suddenly, the infallibility of the death penalty was in question. My world was coming down all around me. Not because the death penalty was going anywhere, but more because I had talked a lot of mess about how the death penalty should be used more and I don’t like being wrong. And if I can’t look forward to killers frying like fish in the deep fryer, how was I going to feel safe?

On top of that, there had been numerous examples over the years where witnesses had recanted their statements that led to convictions of murderers, many of which wound up on Death Row. Innocent people were being sentenced to death because of people who saw the whole thing not seeing what their lying eyes told them that they saw, or because of technologies that hadn’t been invented yet. Could it be possible that the death penalty shouldn’t be used because people it could be sending the wrong person to that eternal punishment in the sky?

That answer, most likely, seems to be “yes.”

I’ve been a huge supporter of the death penalty over the years, but after reading article after article about DNA evidence clearing people of lesser crimes, or witnesses recanting their testimony, most recently in the Troy Davis case here in Georgia. He was granted a stay of execution at the last minute, due to people changing their stories and jurors never feeling right about sentencing him to death or shooting a police officer. What if it turns out he’s innocent and he went to the chair anyway? I know there were some jurors who struggled with that decision and I couldn’t imagine being in their shoes. It’s one thing for the evidence to be overwhelming and it’s a slam dunk case. It’s something else entirely for the case not to be a sure thing. And that’s what leads to situations like Troy Davis’s.

No one was ever 100% sure that he did it, and in fact, the witnesses have fingered one of the other witnesses that testified as the actual killer. And this is happening in a state where a 17 year old boy got 10 years for fooling around with his classmate. If they can’t get one right with video evidence and common sense to work with, imagine what can happen in a situation far more complex. I’ll tell you what can happen…a potentially innocent man loses about 16 years of his life before being wrongly executed. I’m not as comfortable with those odds as I once was. Life is precious, and even though the appeals process can take decades, sometimes that’s not enough time for the truth to come out. Just like there are a hundreds of people that have been cleared by DNA evidence, I’m sure there are thousands more that never had that chance.

So what exactly am I saying? I still believe in the death penalty, because I don’t like the idea of a murderer becoming a repeat murderer. I believe that if you’re out there taking innocent lives, you’ve forfeited the right to continue yours. Sure, there are lots of murderers who have turned their lives around and regret what they’ve done, but there are a lot of murderers who remain unrepentant and probably be executed before they can even get to a holding cell.

At the same time, the process isn’t infallible and there’s no way of knowing how right we are when the guillotine falls on that prisoner’s life. We think we know, but are we always 100% certain? It’s not like Minority Report, where we have a way of seeing what actually went down so we can go stop it before it happens. The system we have doesn’t allow us to see through the mists of time. All we can do is react to the evidence we have in front of us. And sometimes that just isn’t enough to tell a man that he should die.

TM