A Quiet "Yea!"

[fabrisse]

New Jersey abolished the death penalty.

I have a visceral aversion to the punishment. I've had it since the announcement of the last executions in France in the 1970s. They still used the guillotine.

In fairness to the French, a sharp blade may be the most "humane" (and my gorge is rising as I type that) way to end the life of a human being. Certainly, no other solution is better.

My father encouraged me to find the logical reasons to defend my arguments. It was my first intellectual exercise of that sort, and the lesson has stood me in good stead through years of schooling.

Side note: siderea has me pegged as an INFJ. The F (and J, to a lesser extent) explains the visceral reaction. Learning to defend my reaction with sound critical thinking helps me in the academic world of Ts.

I have always been shocked, even when I was a practicing Christian, at how many Christians defend the practice. Too many people seem to think it can never be mistaken. Yet, the whole point of Jesus on the cross was that an innocent was subjected to capital punishment.

Massachusetts never reinstated the death penalty that I know of. Does that leave 48 more states to convert? Or are there others that never reinstated?

Edited to add that I found the answers to these questions. This comes from a website for Clark County, Indiana.

As of July 1, 2006, the Death Penalty was authorized by 38 states, the Federal Government, and the U.S. Military. Those jurisdictions without the Death Penalty include 12 states and the District of Columbia. (Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wisconsin).

U. S. EXECUTIONS SINCE 1976: 1,029 (as of July 1, 2006)

ON DEATH ROW IN THE U. S.: 3,370 (as of April 1, 2006)

Comments

[wadjet-theperv.livejournal.com]

ITA. It's my opinion that a million guilty men put to death isn't worth one innocent one being sent there by mistake and humans just aren't that good.

Good for them :)

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

Yes. Thomas Jefferson said something similar.

Even with DNA evidence, I don't see how we have the right to say "you can't kill your fellow citizens, but we can kill you."

[lauradi7.livejournal.com]

Also Illinois has suspended executions for some vague "time being" kind of time
after some people who had been on death row were released because of DNA evidence. I don't know whether they're planning to go over all the cases or just give up executions.

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

Yes, the governor commuted all death penalty sentences and declared a moratorium (which word has some ironic resonance here) on future instances until the application of the sentence (and its inequities) could be studied in greater depth.

Essentially, it was an executive end run around the legislature. I think it was wonderful that he did it as his last official act before leaving office. I hope the legislature or courts will find a way to make it permanent, but right now, Illinois is still officially a state with the death penalty.

[gileswench.livejournal.com]

Hurrah for New Jersey!

(settles in to wait for own state to get cranium out of rectum)

As long as justice is being determined by fallible human beings, mistakes will be made. Emotions will be played on to the detriment of logic, witnesses will point the finger at someone who looks a lot like the guilty party whether it's truly the culprit or not, defense lawyers will mount poor defenses and prosecutors will play on fear to get convictions, judges will fail to take mitigating circumstances into account in setting sentences.

As long as that is the case, it's more than likely that innocent people will be imprisoned and executed. As long as that's the case, I will stand firm against the death penalty. A man who has been unjustly imprisoned may at least be set free and given some form of compensation for his travails; a man who has already been executed cannot.

If more people understood that, I think support for the death penalty would dissipate significantly.

I've known someone unjustly tried and sentenced to prison. He spent seven years of his life behind bars despite the fact that he could prove he was several hundred miles away from the scene of the crime, and despite the fact that every shred of evidence in any way connecting him with the crime came from a man who had a long prison record, a reputation for not wearing out the truth through overuse, and a much better reason to commit the crime.

The good news is my friend wasn't convicted of a capital offense. He did his time, he kept his nose clean, and he was released at the earliest opportunity. He will probably never get justice for what he went through, but at least he's alive to put his life back together again as best he can.

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

I can't imagine what your friend went through. It's a wonder that he came out sane.

My stance is even more basic than the fallibility of human juries. If the state (or State of...) has a law against killing people, then it shouldn't be in the business of systematically killing people.

I wish I could bring myself to see the film The Last Hangman. Albert Pierrepoint was an executioner in Britain. He came from a family of executioners, but by the time the referendum came, he no longer believed the death penalty was right.

[thorbol.livejournal.com]

Maybe I'm missing something here, but the most basic truth about government is that it has the legal right to do things that the governed are not allowed to do. It can force us to give it money, throw us in prison for violating its many and often nefarious rules of conduct, force us to sell our homes for a pittance in order to serve its public or supposedly public purposes, or require us to serve in the military (at risk of life). The essence of government is legal force. As far as I know, the least dispute justification for having that legalized force is to protect the governed against at least unprovoked force, whether inflicted by each other or from the outside. I oppose the death penalty on principle, though I often find myself viscerally for it. I do not think I can oppose it on the ground that we've outlawed murder, however, any more than I can oppose taxes because we've outlawed theft. (It would be different if I were an anarchist, of course, but that route has its own problems.

Again, maybe I'm missing something, or maybe I have the parts but am screwing up the reasoning. Tell me either way.

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

In the case of taxes, we supposedly get compensation which prevents it from being theft. Your property taxes pay for the roads and schools; our income tax pays for the justice system (and the legislature, but that could be considered theft *G*).

And as far as being forced to serve in the Armed Forces, in this country that's also not the case. My cousin Madison spent World War II working as an orderly in a military facility (and his nights in a prison cell) for conscientiously objecting. It wasn't the most enjoyable time in his life, but, and this is what was important to him, he never had to take another human being's life. The state did not require it.

With capital punishment, no compensation can be made for a mistake. If you're overtaxed, someone can send you a check.

My point is that government should lead by example.

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

Yet, the whole point of Jesus on the cross was that an innocent was subjected to capital punishment.

One could take the tack that this was a Good Thing, as part of God's Plan. Granted, that way madness lies, but some people do go there.

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I always quietly back away from that crowd. *G*

[riverfox.livejournal.com]

I could've sworn that California repealed the DP, but I could be wrong on that.

There was a fictional character, who I can't remember unfortunately, who said something along the lines of, "What kind of screwed up government advocates the death penalty while making suicide a crime?" I think it was a Star Trek character, which would figure. ;)

Yay NJ though. :)

PS

[riverfox.livejournal.com]

Yes, I remember. It was Tuvok, on Star Trek Voyager, who was defending a Q for his right to suicide.

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

Nope. The son of my mother's best friend in high school works for the State Attorney General's office in California. He is considered one of the leading death penalty advocates in the country and fights hard to keep it on the books.

I can respect his point of view. Unlike the rest of us, he has actually met serial killers and seen first hand the consequences their acts have on families, the community, and, most importantly, the victims themselves.

My argument is if we keep them alive they can be studied. Perhaps we can figure out what in our society creates these aberrant individuals and prevent new victims that way.

Suicide is a complicated issue for me. But yes, that particular juxtaposition is a sign of advanced screwed upness.

[riverfox.livejournal.com]

Shit.

Serial Killers' debts to society are as a bug under a microscope. We study them to find out how parents and society have fucked up so enormously. I've read John Douglas and so I know what kind of monsters they are. Putting them to death, however, is--like all other CP--nothing more than an act of vengeance.

I find the idea of making suicide a crime offensive. No matter what a person's religious beliefs, it's no one else's decision to override the taking of their lives. It's our business to help, not make it worse.