Weekend Engagement: The Death Penalty

My response to the Weekend-Engagement topics: WEEK 206 prompt, "Capital punishment (the death sentence) - Are you for or against?"

I am absolutely against the death penalty. I am open to the use of lethal force in self-defense against man or beast when there is reason to believe imminent death or grievous bodily harm is about to be inflicted. However, absent that kind of immediate lethal threat, killing another human being is becoming that lethal threat.

I know there will be resistance to drawing a moral equivalence between executioner and murderer, but what is execution if not premeditated murder at the behest of government? Even if we grant the assumption that police investigators, prosecution, court procedures, and the rest of the so-called "justice system" work perfectly and can be guaranteed to only convict the guilty, the executioner must deliberately take the life of another human being who does not present an immediate threat. This is not in any way, shape, or form self-defense or defense of others.

Then we must address the problem of courts, because they do not guarantee protection from wrongful accusations. It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer. Many convictions are being overturned using modern forensic evidence after coerced confessions, prosecutorial misconduct, jury bias, and other systemic failures of the "justice system." The risk of miscarriage of justice is compounded when police and prosecutors are rewarded based on capture and conviction, but immune from accountability should they err or be corrupt.

If justice could allow for death penalty, it would differ greatly from our present system. If a murder victim's family were to take responsibility for the execution and reciprocal equal consequences for wrongful execution, there could be an argument for it. The victim's heirs name the price to balance the scales of justice. Historically, there was the concept of murderers paying a weregild to dissuade vengeance in many cultures. Biblically, those who committed accidental manslaughter could seek refuge. I'm not convinced this would always be just, but it is far less unjust than the government simply declaring people must die. There is a built-in mechanism for accountability. There is a path to redemption.

Our entire concept of courts and prison requires an overhaul. Right now, prisons around the world, and in the US in particular, are flooded with nonviolent "offenders." Byzantine laws make "criminals" out of people for victimless crimes. Vices are not crimes. Protesting is not a crime. Failure to comply with government's myriad bureaucratic mandates is not a crime. Where there is a crime, restitution is owed, but the courts rarely address this key component of true justice. Prison could be a place where criminals who have trespassed against the life, liberty, or property of others can earn a living and provide restitution while gaining marketable skills so they can return to society as productive members if possible. Today, they are warehoused like livestock at taxpayer expense in inhumane conditions.

But what do we do with truly violent criminals? For those who cannot conceivably be released due to egregious crimes like premeditated murder, prison can still offer a place where the guilty could earn their keep, and if prisoners are treated with a modicum of humanity through the understanding that courts can fail, this means the wrongfully-convicted will not have suffered as much as they do now on death row awaiting a final punishment they know they did not earn.

Is any of this feasible in this day and age? I don't know. But is it really feasible to entrust the government with the power to kill? Certainly not. We have the long record of history as proof.