DEATH PENALTY REVISITED

My friend and colleague, Anne, responds to this post from yesterday in Real Art comments; it’s such a poignant statement I’d be foolish if I didn’t put it on the main page:

I am really not in favor of the death penalty. I was at one time but a certain instance we had to deal with at my job (working for a crim[inal] def[ense] attorney) really changed my mind. However, there is one crime that bothers me terribly and two of the boys involved will not be executed now because of the ruling. The Pena/Ertmann rape/sexual torture case was horrific. Those girls died a slow, horrible, painful death and a core part of me wants the ones that did that to them killed. Actually, that's not quite true - I want them sodomized brutally, forced to commit all sorts of perverse sexual acts on a large group of guys, and then I want them killed slowly like the girls were. Hell, if they would let me stomp on one of their necks until they died, as they were so quick to do, I would do it gladly.

I hate it that I am so wishy-washy on the subject - you can't really be anti-death penalty EXCEPT for just one little case - I don't think it works that way. And no, I don't think execu[cution]… solves anything. I am not sure why this case strikes such a chord with me. And I am very sorry that two of the guys are not getting executed [because] they were seventeen at the time. I want them to suffer in agony like those two very young girls did.

Yes, I am aware that this seems illogical, but it is what it is and I have a lot of hate regarding this case. Maybe it's [because] I'm a woman and would hate to be brutalized like that - I have no freakin' idea why I feel this way, but I do.

Here’s my response:

Anne, it is illogical, but it's also a very human reaction. I don't think it's so strange that your heart is deeply troubled by this particularly horrible rape-murder (as if they weren't all horrible). And I don't think it's because you're a woman, either. How can we not be overwhelmed with rage upon hearing about something like this?

The truth is that human existence is morally messy, and it's often very difficult to simply draw a line and say this over here is right, and this over here is wrong, which, ironically, is probably one of the better reasons to avoid the death penalty, because of its finality. Your deep moral anger at a heinous crime, your instinctive need to see justice done, to make the universe right, in seeming contradiction to your belief that capital punishment is wrong, is simply a manifiestation of humanity's moral messiness. As an old friend of mine, Vince, used to say, there are, indeed, people who deserve death—but should we really grant the state the power to kill its citizens?

Here’s another look at what I’m talking about. Remember Michael Dukakis stumbling on the capital punishment issue during the 1988 presidential debates? Check this out, from CNN:

CNN's Bernard Shaw opened the debate with this question to Gov. Dukakis: "Governor, if Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?" Dukakis responded, "No, I don't, Bernard. And I think you know that I've opposed the death penalty during all of my life. I don't see any evidence that it's a deterrent, and I think there are better and more effective ways to deal with violent crime. We've done so in my own state."

Click here for the rest.

What he should have said was something like, "I would probably try to rip this guy's head off and stomp it into red goo, myself, but that's not justice, and it wouldn't bring back my wife." I think that’s how I would feel in a similar situation. So-called victim's rights should not be taken lightly, and Dukakis’ cold technocratic response really screwed the pooch by doing so—this moment may have even cost him the election.

You’re not wishy-washy, Anne; you’re human, and I think it would take a real robot to not feel the way you do. The one thing that sets you apart from millions of other Americans is that you're able to see this from multiple perspectives.

That is not at all a bad thing.

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