STATE SANCTIONED MURDER or for those with weak
stomachs THE DEATH PENALTY
I have been an opponent of the
Death Penalty for many years, before that I really didn’t
THINK too much about it. To me, It was just another LAW in the
penal system and at that time, I gave way too much respect to
people who enacted and carried out LAWS such as this, believing
they knew what they were doing.
I can remember the exact day that I gave this LAW a bit more
thought than “WELL THEY DESERVE DEATH, DON’T THEY,
AFTER WHAT THEY’VE DONE?” I was sitting in a Unitarian
Church when the minister said, “Now, let us think about the
Death Penalty and why it is wrong for states to legally murder
their citizens because no matter how they phrase it, The Death
Penalty is MURDER.”
Wow, I thought to myself, that’s a different way to look at
it. After that I couldn’t stop thinking about this topic. I
did a little research on the subject (it was the 70’s when
Personal Computers and Google were not part of everyday
‘take for granted’ living) and I physically had to go
to the library or buy magazines and newspapers that featured any
article referring to this law.
During this thumbnail investigation, I found out some startling
facts that not only did I not know but I would estimate a guess,
hardly anyone knew who supported Capital Punishment.
One jump off the page fact, believe it or not, ***it is way more
expensive to execute someone than imprison them for life without
parole.*** IT’S TRUE! So there goes that old rumor mill EYE
FOR AN EYE reason for this law from those who want people to die
for their crimes. Here’s one little (unknown) fact from old
Rick Perry’s state (THE WINNER AND STILL CHAMPION OF STATE
SANCTIONED MURDER):
A review of the literature about the death penalty shows
that no state has saved money by using it. For example, A Dallas
Morning News study of costs in Texas, the state which has
executed the most prisoners in the U.S., showed the cost of
executing a prisoner, including all expenses from trial through
appeals, and assuming the case concluded in 7.5 years, to be
$2,316,655; Imprisoning someone in a single cell at the highest
security for 40 years in Texas costs about $750,000.
Source of Texas Information: Christy Hoppe, "Executions Cost
Texas Millions," The Dallas Morning News, March 8, 1992 p.
12A. MORE HERE: http://greensboropeerpressure.blogspot.com/2006/08/economic-impact-of-death-penalty-vs_03.html
The next bit of
information I got from a Google search which clears the air about
why the Death Penalty is wrong and should be abolished:
Should the
death penalty be allowed?
1. Morality
"Ultimately, the moral question surrounding capital
punishment in America has less to do with whether those convicted
of violent crime deserve to die than with whether state and
federal governments deserve to kill those whom it has imprisoned.
The legacy of racial apartheid, racial bias, and ethnic
discrimination is unavoidably evident in the administration of
capital punishment in America. Death sentences are imposed in a
criminal justice system that treats you better if you are rich
and guilty than if you are poor and innocent. This is an immoral
condition that makes rejecting the death penalty on moral grounds
not only defensible but necessary for those who refuse to accept
unequal or unjust administration of punishment." - Bryan
Stevenson, JD
---
2. Constitutionality
"Death is... an unusually severe punishment, unusual in its
pain, in its finality, and in its enormity... The fatal
constitutional infirmity in the punishment of death is that it
treats 'members of the human race as nonhumans, as objects to be
toyed with and discarded. [It is] thus inconsistent with the
fundamental premise of the Clause that even the vilest criminal
remains a human being possessed of common human dignity.'
[quoting himself from Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 257
(1972)] As such it is a penalty that 'subjects the individual to
a fate forbidden by the principle of civilized treatment
guaranteed by the [Clause].' [quoting C.J. Warren from Trop v.
Dulles, 356 U.S. 86, 101 (1958)] I therefore would hold, on that
ground alone, that death is today a cruel and unusual punishment
prohibited by the Clause... I would set aside the death sentences
imposed... as violative of the Eighth and Fourteenth
Amendments."
William J. Brennan, JD
Justice of the US Supreme Court
Dissenting opinion in Gregg v. Georgia (347 KB) July 2, 1976
---
3. Deterrence
"There is no credible evidence that the death penalty deters
crime more effectively than long terms of imprisonment. States
that have death penalty laws do not have lower crime rates or
murder rates than states without such laws. And states that have
abolished capital punishment show no significant changes in
either crime or murder rates. The death penalty has no deterrent
effect. Claims that each execution deters a certain number of
murders have been thoroughly discredited by social science
research." - American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
"The Death Penalty: Questions and Answers," ACLU.org
Apr. 9, 2007
---
4. Retribution
"Retribution is just another word for revenge, and the
desire for revenge is one of the lowest human emotions —
perhaps sometimes understandable, but not really a rational
response to a critical situation. To kill the person who has
killed someone close to you is simply to continue the cycle of
violence which ultimately destroys the avenger as well as the
offender. That this execution somehow give 'closure' to a tragedy
is a myth. Expressing one’s violence simply reinforces the
desire to express it. Just as expressing anger simply makes us
more angry. It does not drain away. It contaminates the otherwise
good will which any human being needs to progress in love and
understanding." - Raymond A. Schroth, SJ
Jesuit Priest and Community Professor of the Humanities at St.
Peter's College
Email to ProCon.org
Sep. 5, 2008
---
5. Irrevocable Mistakes
"...Since the reinstatement of the modern death penalty, 87
people have been freed from death row because they were later
proven innocent. That is a demonstrated error rate of 1 innocent
person for every 7 persons executed. When the consequences are
life and death, we need to demand the same standard for our
system of justice as we would for our airlines... It is a central
pillar of our criminal justice system that it is better that many
guilty people go free than that one innocent should suffer... Let
us reflect to ensure that we are being just. Let us pause to be
certain we do not kill a single innocent person. This is really
not too much to ask for a civilized society." - Russ
Feingold, JD
US Senator (D-WI)
introducing the "National Death Penalty Moratorium Act of
2000"
April 26, 2000
---
6. Cost of Death vs. Life in Prison
"In the course of my work, I believe I have reviewed every
state and federal study of the costs of the death penalty in the
past 25 years. One element is common to all of these studies:
They all concluded that the cost of the death penalty amounts to
a net expense to the state and the taxpayers. Or to put it
differently,the death penalty is clearly more expensive than a
system handling similar cases with a lesser punishment. [It]
combines the costliest parts of both punishments: lengthy and
complicated death penalty trials, followed by incarceration for
life... Everything that is needed for an ordinary trial is needed
for a death penalty case, only more so:
• More pre-trial time...
• More experts...
• Twice as many attorneys...
• Two trials instead of one will be conducted: one for guilt
and one for punishment.
• And then will come a series of appeals during which the
inmates are held in the high security of death row." -
Richard C. Dieter, MS, JD
Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center
Testimony to the Judiciary Committee of the Colorado State House
of Representatives regarding "House Bill 1094 - Costs of the
Death Penalty and Related Issues"
Feb. 7, 2007
----
7. Race
"Despite the fact that African Americans make up only 13
percent of the nation’s population, almost 50 percent of
those currently on the federal death row are African American.
And even though only three people have been executed under the
federal death penalty in the modern era, two of them have been
racial minorities. Furthermore, all six of the next scheduled
executions are African Americans. The U.S. Department of
Justice’s own figures reveal that between 2001 and 2006, 48
percent of defendants in federal cases in which the death penalty
was sought were African Americans… the biggest argument
against the death penalty is that it is handed out in a biased,
racially disparate manner." - National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
"NAACP Remains Steadfast in Ending Death Penalty &
Fighting Injustice in America's Justice System,” NAACP
website
June 28, 2007
---
8. Income Level
"Who pays the ultimate penalty for crimes? The poor. Who
gets the death penalty? The poor. After all the rhetoric that
goes on in legislative assemblies, in the end, when the net is
cast out, it is the poor who are selected to die in this country.
And why do poor people get the death penalty? It has everything
to do with the kind of defense they get. Money gets you good
defense. That's why you'll never see an O.J. Simpson on death
row. As the saying goes: 'Capital punishment means them without
the capital get the punishment.'" - Helen Prejean, MA
Anti-death penalty activist and author of Dead Man Walking
"Would Jesus Pull the Switch?,” Salt of the Earth
1997
---
9. Attorney Quality
"[A] shocking two out of three death penalty convictions
have been overturned on appeal because of police and
prosecutorial misconduct, as well as serious errors by
incompetent court-appointed defense attorneys with little
experience in trying capital cases. How can we contend that we
provide equal justice under the law when we do not provide
adequate representation to the poor in cases where a life hangs
in the balance? We, the Congress, must bear our share of
responsibility for this deplorable situation. In short, while
others, like Governor Ryan in Illinois, have recognized the flaws
in the death penalty, the Congress still just doesn't get it.
This system is broken." - John Conyers, Jr., JD
US Congressman (D-MI)
Hearing for the Innocence Protection Act of 2000 before the
Subcommittee on Crime of the Committee on the Judiciary of the
House of Representatives
June 20, 2000
---
10. Physicians at Executions
"The American Medical Association's policy is clear and
unambiguous... requiring physicians to participate in executions
violates their oath to protect lives and erodes public confidence
in the medical profession. A physician is a member of a
profession dedicated to preserving life... The use of a
physician's clinical skill and judgment for purposes other than
promoting an individual's health and welfare undermines a basic
ethical foundation of medicine — first, do no harm. The
guidelines in the AMA Code of Medical Ethics address physician
participation in executions involving lethal injection. The
ethical opinion explicitly prohibits selecting injection sites
for executions by lethal injection, starting intravenous lines,
prescribing, administering, or supervising the use of lethal
drugs, monitoring vital signs, on site or remotely, and declaring
death." - American Medical Association (AMA)
"AMA: Physician Participation in Lethal Injection Violates
Medical Ethics," press release from the AMA website
July 17, 2006
---
The list above contains the ten Con’s to see the PRO’s
Click this link: http://deathpenalty.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=002000
Now to continue with the
reason for today's blog. Below, read the thoughts of a man who
was right in the middle of the State Sanctioned Murder Machine.
It will surprise you that many who are caught up in the injustice
of this law, do not like it but have to go through the motions of
carrying it out. The main motivation is earning a paycheck. It is
just too morbid and too sad. thinkingblue
I Ordered Death in Georgia
By Allen Ault, The Daily Beast
25 September 11
The state's former DOC commissioner on 'rehearsed murder.'
I can't always remember their names, but in my nightmares I can
see their faces. As the commissioner of the Georgia Department of
Corrections from 1992 until 1995, I oversaw five executions. The
first two were Thomas Dean Stevens and Christopher Burger,
accomplices in a monstrous crime: as teenagers in 1977, they
robbed and raped a cabdriver, put him in the trunk of a car, and
pushed the vehicle into a pond. I had no doubt that they were
guilty: they admitted it to me. But now it was 1993 and they were
in their 30s. All these years later, after a little frontal-lobe
development, they were entirely different people.
On execution days, I always drove from Atlanta to the Georgia
Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson. I knew death row
well: 20 years earlier, I had built it. The state had hired me as
the warden of Georgia Diagnostic in 1971, where I renovated a
special cell block for especially violent offenders. After I left
Georgia in 1977, the state reinstated the death penalty and
turned the cell block I had developed into death row.
The state executed Stevens first, in June 1993, and then Burger
in December. In both instances, I visited them in a cell next to
the electric-chair chamber, where they counted down the hours
until they died. They were calm, mature, and remorseful. When the
time came, I went to a small room directly behind the death
chamber where the attorney general worked the phones, checking
with the courts to make sure that the executions were not stayed.
Then we asked the prisoners for their final words. Stevens said
nothing, and Burger apologized, saying, "Please forgive
me." I looked to the prison electrician and ordered him to
pull the switch. Last Wednesday, as the state of Georgia prepared
to execute Troy Davis despite concerns about his guilt, I wrote a
letter with five former death-row wardens and directors urging
Georgia prison officials to commute his sentence. I feared not
only the risk of Georgia killing an innocent man, but also the
psychological toll it would exact on the prison workers who
performed his execution. "No one has the right to ask a
public servant to take on a lifelong sentence of nagging doubt,
and for some of us, shame and guilt," we wrote in our
letter.
The men and women who assist in executions are not psychopaths or
sadists. They do their best to perform the impossible and
inhumane job with which the state has charged them. Those of us
who have participated in executions often suffer something very
much like posttraumatic stress. Many turn to alcohol and drugs.
For me, those nights that weren't sleepless were plagued by
nightmares. My mother and wife worried about me. I tried not to
share with them that I was struggling, but they knew I was.
I didn't grow up saying, "I want to work in prisons." I
had never even been in a prison or a jail before I became warden
of the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison. The
commissioner at the time hired me to revamp the system, to
implement case management, and work with inmates to make them
safer. I had always worked in helping professions, and my main
goal in corrections was always to reduce recidivism, so that
inmates would leave prison better than they arrived. Over this
course of time, the death penalty figured larger and larger into
my work. I never supported it, but I also did not want to let it
distract me from improving overall prison conditions. Death-row
inmates are, after all, only a tiny fraction of the prison
population.
When I was required to supervise an execution, I tried to
rationalize my work by thinking, if I just save one future
victim, maybe it is worth it. But I was very aware of the
research showing that the death penalty wasn't a deterrent. I
left my job as corrections commissioner in Georgia in 1995
partially because I had had enough: I didn't want to supervise
the executions anymore. My focus changed to national crime policy
and then to academia, where I could work to improve the
criminal-justice system without participating in its worst parts.
Today, I am the dean of the College of Justice & Safety at
Eastern Kentucky University.
Having witnessed executions firsthand, I have no doubts: capital
punishment is a very scripted and rehearsed murder. It's the most
premeditated murder possible. As Troy Davis's execution
approached - and then passed its set hour, as the Supreme Court
considered a stay - I thought of the terrible tension we all
experienced as executions dragged into the late hours of the
night. No one wanted to go ahead with the execution, but then a
court stay offered little relief: you knew you were going to
repeat the whole process and execute him sometime in the future.
I will always live with these images - with "nagging
doubt," even though I do not believe that any of the
executions carried out under my watch were mistaken. I hope that,
in the future, men and women will not die for their crimes, and
other men and women will not have to kill them. The United States
should be like every other civilized country in the Western world
and abolish the death penalty. MORE HERE