There is a lot of noise being made about the botched execution in Oklahoma last week. William Boardman give it a whole column in Reader Supported News, accusing the state of committing an atrocity and talking about how they have created chaos and basically getting all bent out of shape. But all of the breast beating is really about the wrong problem. Sure the Oklahoma officials made a total mess out of something that should be as simple as giving a guy a shot, but this guy was, realistically speaking, a piece of garbage who deserved whatever he go, especially the condemnedt so what were they all carrying on about?
The system gave a man who openly confessed a gruesome murder, all the chances possible and he failed them all. Then they killed him. Sure they did a bad job of it but considering what he did, he really didn’t have a squawk coming. What we should be worrying about are the guys who are on death row for stuff they didn’t actually do. That’s the real atrocity.
The real debate about capital punishment should not be anecdotal, as it is in this case. It should be conceptual and should deal with why we have it, who is susceptible to it and generally how we make sure we’re right, because killing fifty guilty guys the wrong way isn’t as bad as killing one innocent guy the right way.
How we kill guilty people isn’t the issue. Does anyone with a logical mind really think that it makes a difference whether you hang a man, shoot him or give him a lethal injection? Why would anyone care, especially the condemned? Dead is dead. This kind of useless do-goodism is why moderates and conservatives dismiss liberal thought as beneath contempt., The only person who should really care is the janitor who has to clean up afterward.
The real problem is two fold; who should be executed and should we be doing it at all.
On the, who should be executed front, most of those with an opinion are of a mind to execute child killers and those who kill cops and many states that still hold with execution have already honed it down to these criteria. I personally don’t see what makes those who kill kids and cops any more horrendous than anyone else who kills. I mean, I understand that there are many people out there who deserve to die but that’s another category. I think it’s kind of ingenuous to say a guy who kills a cop is worse than a guy who rapes and murders a woman. I just don’t think so. What I do think should be the criteria on which those decisions are made, is certainty.
We have a hell of a lot of checks and balances in place on this problem but we still kill innocent people. That’s what has to stop. In order to do that, we have to make the rules so stringent that a lot of people who actually did murder others and who really deserve to die, will not be executed but will spend the rest of their lives in jail. Yes we have set up many safeguards but none of them are 100% certain and the reason they aren’t, is that we are dealing with people and bureaucracy, two of the most flawed inventions of a very uninvolved God.
The state has a stake in the apprehension, trial and conviction of every killer. In a perfect world, that involvement means that they try very hard to do their jobs. But it’s not a perfect world and sometimes they don’t try as hard as they should, especially considering the importance of what is going on. Sometimes they try too hard and the result is injustice. It’s bad enough if a guy goes to jail because of one of these flaws in the system, it’s horrifying if he dies because of them. What are they? Well, there are cops looking to make their bones for a promotion and DA’s looking to do the same thing. There are also cops who are too lazy to do all the work and court appointed lawyers who have a case load that would stagger an elephant. The bottom line is, that unless you have it on tape or a dozen eyewitnesses, it probably should never go to a death penalty. Yeah, a lot of people who deserve to die won’t, but at least no one who is innocent, will.
Then there is the question of whether nor not we should be executing people at all. I know that there is a huge liberal contingent that is against any executions at all. I just don’t see it that way. I always think of it as, if this guy killed my kid, how would I feel about the death penalty for him. Those of you who know me, already know the answer to that one. For those of you who don’t, I’d want to pull the trigger myself. You may think of that as barbarian, I like to see it as justice.
Do we have the right to execute someone or is this somehow a violation of his civil rights? There are many who believe the civil rights argument to be valid but there are just as many others who believe that once you have committed a capital crime you have given up your civil rights. The state is still obligated to do their job and provide a fair trial, but if you are convicted you are fair game.
My personal opinion is that if you kill someone, you deserve to die but that the state has the obligation to prove absolutely, not just beyond a doubt, that you did it and that this would eliminate all circumstantial evidence. I also believe that the years of appeals should be drastically limited, that if the trial is accomplished with the needed sense of responsibility that such appeals are more in the realm of punishment than of mercy. Of course trials do not currently come close to providing the gravitas that is necessary to providing a fair case for execution and that must change, even if nothing else does, but especially if we are to continue to execute convicted murderers.