Cartoon by Clint FultnerEditor’s note: At times, our staff is split on our opinion of the issue. In those circumstances, we choose two members with conflicting opinions to portray their reasoning and points-of-view.
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YES
Abolishing the death penalty is a matter of respect for human life and potential.
We, as humans, believe wholeheartedly in the concept of justice. The groupthink about death penalty, at least in the U.S., seems to go something like this: If you kill, you should be killed. To us, this seems, for lack of a better word, “equal” and “fair.” This is where we go wrong.
You see, humans exist on the same plane, though we’ve managed to delegate who is “higher” and who is “lower.” The elected and the citizen, the clergy and the laity, the bourgeois and the proletariat; the world, to the civilized man, is composed of these rigid hierarchies. But who was the statesman before he was elected? Who was the judge before he was appointed?
We respond naturally to the illusory “fairness” of the justice system without realizing that the judges are only creatures like us, given power by us, to orchestrate a judicial system composed of our logical processes. You might ask for three words to describe the human race and the most optimistic of us would rattle off in quick succession: flawed, corrupted, debased.
Where is true authority in the world of men?
That is not to say our judicial processes are entirely pointless. To us, they make sense, and if the general equanimity of society is our aim, it’s perfectly logical to jail the convicted until we’ve deemed they’ve “paid their due” (who decides how long until justice is served?).
But let’s not believe that we can understand much less approve of the human race bonding together to kill one of our own. Surely there is enough violence and bloodshed in the world that we don’t need to legislate more.
I believe firmly in a Higher power and an Authority that our kind has tried to mimic from the beginning. The death penalty is not dispensing justice, but a mere illusion of justice, perhaps the best and “most fitting” system we can devise (so we think.) But I say leave this justice to one with true authority.
-Taylor Cammack
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NO
I always find it amusing when the first objection people raise to the death penalty is that innocent people are put to death. It’s true that this horrific mistake has been made, but it’s hardly a common occurrence, especially when compared to the number of guilty criminals who are convicted in courts of law.
The most ironic thing about this argument is that the very tool used to exonerate wrongly accused persons — DNA evidence — can also be used to give a concrete conviction to those who deserve it.
And, yes, some people deserve the death penalty.
I’m not suggesting that we send people to the death chamber based on flimsy witnesses or circumstantial evidence. What I am suggesting is that a person who has undeniably, irrefutably committed murder deserves to face a just punishment fitting to the crime.
This debate meets with more irony when many people cite human rights as a reason for not killing another human being intentionally. In response to this charge, I think Edward Koch said it best: “It is by exacting the highest penalty for the taking of human life that we affirm the highest value of human life.”
Like it or not, having the death penalty available does place a higher value on human life.
Last month Gallup released its regular findings on Americans’ opinions about the death penalty. As has been the case for the past three decades, about two-thirds of United States citizens (65 percent) said they believe a person convicted of murder should be executed. On top of that, 49 percent of Americans believe the death penalty is not used enough, while just 20 percent think it’s used too often.
So whether you want to talk about popular opinion, fairness or the value of human life, the death penalty is a useful instrument in the toolbox of justice.
- J.C. Derrick