As a long-time left-leaning, tree-hugging, save-the-whales/wolves/polar bears etc screaming pinko liberal I sometimes find myself conflicted when the topic turns to the Death Penalty. It seems strange for the State to say that murder is wrong, and then, murder someone that is found guilty of committing murder. There's the whole "we're supposed to be more advanced and civilized than animals" argument, which has a point I suppose, after all we can, as a species, wipe our own bottoms, and buy our food already killed and conveniently packaged. We know about hygiene and disease-avoidance, and have wonderfully useful opposing thumbs, and we can eradicate pretty much any other species on the planet should the mood so take us. But that still doesn't make the subject of the ultimate penalty a straight-forward one. I know several folks of a highly right-wing disposition that vehemently oppose the death penalty, and also a smattering of liberals that would be more than happy to string the guilty up from the nearest tree.
I tend to fall somewhere in the middle. Mostly. Sometimes.
In the US, a country that executes more of it's own citizens than any other country on the planet save China, Iran and Saudi Arabia, an inauspicious club if ever there was one, there are simply too many ways to break the law and wind up getting the death penalty for it to be a) an efficient deterrent or b) a "just" punishment. Come to think of it, that's something else they all have in common too. But the one big difference between them is that only the US is a "democracy". That actually makes it worse though, when you consider that the rest of the top four are all a bunch of authoritarian loonies meting out the DP hither and yon whenever it suits their political purpose.
Granted, some are more creative with the way they actually do the deed than others, but that's a distinction without a difference, the end result is always the same, there are always fewer breathing people leaving the room than entered it. And therin lies the problem.
The death penalty is permanent. There are no 'do-overs' if you get the wrong guy, no way to bring them back from the dead if it turns out that the eye-witness got it wrong, or the defendants' lawyer was an idiot, or the prosecutor and Mr. John Q. Fuzz lied/withheld/coerced evidence and testimony. Too bad, so sad. "Dear surviving family members of the person we accidentally killed, we're really very very sorry, we'll try better next time. Signed, The State."
Not very comforting is it?
That is one of the reasons I am against the death penalty. Statistically it is an absolute certainty that in the United States, since the re-introduction of the DP, at least one innocent person was been wrongly sent to their death. This has been further evidenced in the moratorium that still exists against the DP in the state of Illinois as at least 16 people scheduled to be put to death, have been subsequently proven innocent. That's 16 innocent people that Illinois would have murdered for being unable to prove that point. God alone knows how many innocents George W. Bush gleefully sent to their deaths during his tenure as Governor of Texass (a strange position for an allegedly "pro-life christian" but I digress) , but the mind boggles at the thought...
But then along comes a crime so despicable I would gladly join the queue lining up to make sure the DP was swiftly and accurately applied. I refer to the case unfolding in North Carolina, where it appears that a mother of a beautiful five year-old girl prostituted her out, and the little girl has now been found dead. If this turns out to be the case, that woman can never be dead enough. The thought that this woman put her own daughter through who knows what sort of hell willingly, means that she immediately and permanently loses the right to breath the same air as the rest of us. Once she's found guilty, never mind the appeals, and the rest of the inevitable legal maneuvering that will take place, take that sick bitch out the backdoor of the courthouse and put a bullet in her head.
Make that two.
Just to make sure.
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