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`The death penalty: widely discussed, always controversial.
The question always arises should it have a place in modern society?
This article will call for an uncompromised abolition of such an institution that, according to Amnesty Intl., took the lives of 40 people in America and over 2300 people worldwide in 2008.
Horrible crimes such as murder and rape are not condoned by any stretch.
Socrates once said, “one who is injured ought not to return the injury, for on no account can it be right to do an injustice; and it is not right to return an injury, or to do evil to any man, however much we have suffered from him.”
Innocent people are serving time on death row for reasons of spotty evidence, incompetent witnesses, inadequate public defense, or vindictive prosecution who, to advance in their careers, need to be seen as tough on crime. However, too many innocent people have been sentenced to time in prison for murders they did not commit. In 2002, Ray Krone, after serving 10-years in Maricopa County, Arizona, became the 100th person to be exonerated from death row.
Since Krone, the number of people exonerated from death row between the 1973-78 moratorium and 2008 is around 123. Others have not been exonerated.
In 1993, The State of Texas took the life of Ruben Cantu for the murder of a man named Pedro Gomez. In 2005, the Houston Chronicle published, “Cantu Case: Death and Doubt.”
Showing a witness lied under oath and that Cantu’s claims of innocence should not have been in doubt.
Most murders are not committed by being planned and premeditated. Instead, many are done out of impulse.
The death penalty, no matter what part of the world it is carried out in, is always carried out with the full rationalization and justification of the state to punish someone for a crime.
There is nothing compassionate about the death penalty. As devastating as it is for those who have suffered the loss of a friend or family member, using the resources of the state to legally justify the death of a person at the hands of the state helps no one and only creates further heartache for those who will now lose a loved one at the hands of the state.
The death penalty is society’s way of disposing of unwanted people.
It is not a way to help those who once did terrible things work to become better people.
In the long run, even if difficult and expensive, is always the more compassionate thing to do.
To conclude: a bumper sticker, so ubiquitous, almost a cliché, that reads, “Why do we kill people to show that killing people is wrong?”
Like most of us you see it, ignore it and move on, but have you ever thought about it?