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With the execution of Gary Davis scheduled for next week, the debate over the death penalty has overwhelmed the normal topics -- mild fall weather, El Nino, Marv Albert jokes -- in Colorado cafes, diners and saloons.
As a fair-minded person, I listen to both sides of the capital-punishment debate, but find neither persuasive.
The antis often argue that the death penalty is
unconstitutional, which is preposterous. The federal
constitution indeed prohibits cruel and unusual
punishment,
but it also states that nor shall any
person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in
jeopardy of life or limb.
It seems quite clear that the double-jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment thus sanctions the death penalty (as well as amputation, like cutting off a thief's arm).
Antis also argue from a religious angle. But search the Bible as I might, Old Testament or New, I find not a word against capital punishment (nor, I note, any opposition to polygamy or slavery -- it will be interesting to see what the Promise Keepers will propose next in their effort to return America to biblical principles). Even Jesus, when facing capital punishment himself, said nothing against it.
The antis often provide a moral argument -- that the state, if it aims to protect its citizens' lives, should set a good example by not taking lives.
This seems more solid, but it shatters upon examination. No American government, state or federal, functions as an extension of our moral impulses.
For instance, few if any citizens support the instant incineration of humans by the thousand, yet the federal government maintains thousands of thermonuclear warheads for that very purpose. Few people care what other people grow in their gardens, but our governments maintain thousands of snoops and spies for that purpose. Most of us refrain from shooting down civilian airliners or developing nerve gas, but government somehow manages to do both.
In short, if you really think it is a duty of government to respect human life, capital punishment is a curious place to start.
Then there are the death-penalty advocates, and their arguments tend to fall apart, too.
The death penalty isn't a deterrent and never has been -- back when England treated convicted pickpockets to public hangings, pickpockets worked the crowd, plying their trade among those whose attention was focused on the gallows.
Nor is it cost-effective. The appeals and hearings consume more from the treasury than a life sentence does, and while the process might be shortened, I doubt that anyone has so much faith in our judicial system that he would support eliminating all appeals.
Perhaps the worst reason to support capital punishment is that it provides vengeance for the friends and relatives of the victims.
The Bible is clear on that: Vegeance is mine, saith
the Lord.
Our judicial philosophy holds that crimes are
committed against society, not individuals, and sentences
are a punishment from the people of the state of
Colorado,
not a form of private restitution.
The best argument I ever heard for capital punishment came from Huck Henderson, then sheriff of Grand County. Consider a kidnapping, a capital offense. If the kidnapper is going to get life without parole either way, he has no incentive to keep his hostage alive. With the death penalty, the cops have some negotiating leverage.
And a prison guard pointed out that the death penalty makes life safer for his colleages in maximum security -- if a lifer kills a guard and there's no death penalty, what's he got to lose?
All things considered, the current system seems to work pretty well. Capital punishment is imposed rarely -- about 50 times a year in the U.S., even though there are 20,000 murders each year.
That's just often enough to enable politicians to sound plenty tough at campaign time, promising to execute drug smugglers or car jackers or whatever else has appeared in recent headlines. And its presence supplies ample employment for attorneys.
Without capital punishment, think what mischief they might cause if their attention turned elsewhere.
Fifty lives a year may seem like a high price to pay for this benefit, but it's really not. In 1993, 6,558 Americans were killed in their workplaces; 40,150 died on the highways; firearms accidents killed 1,521; and 2,724 of our fellow citizens succumbed to the complications of modern medicine.
Nobody gets very excited by those deaths, so why all the furror about the death penalty, one way or the other?
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