Death penalty functions to preserve just society

Jones is a second-year political science student.

By Andrew Jones

It is no triumph that death sentences are routinely carried out,
or even that such a device is necessary within our society. Yet the
fact remains that society does require a death penalty, and to
believe that the topic is one-sided or easily answered would be a
fatal mistake. It is best to note the absolutes of the death
penalty ““ first, that once it is carried out, there is no
reversing the outcome. It seems an obvious point, but it is worth
remembering, as it warns us that state-sanctioned executions must
never be taken lightly.

Just as firm is the fact that in most cases, the death penalty
is a matter of justice and equality. With most crimes, the purposes
of the punishment are to rehabilitate the convict and to send a
warning to others who would commit similar crimes. In contrast, the
death penalty intends neither to rehabilitate nor dissuade others
from capital crimes.

Certainly, the threat of the ultimate penalty may give pause to
a small percentage, but most capital cases involve a defendant who
is far from rational enough to weigh the costs and benefits of his
action.

Still, this misconception of the death penalty as a deterrent is
one limp argument constantly trotted out against capital
punishment. Many people ask, “If the death penalty is
working, why isn’t the murder rate falling?”

The answer is that the death penalty is a matter of justice and
societal preservation. Some crimes so abhorrent, the convict does
not deserve to continue living. We do not live completely in the
days of Hammurabi’s “eye for an eye,” but neither
have we come close to a crime-free utopia which would allow the end
of the death penalty. Instead, we compromise, reserving execution
for the most serious crimes and filtering the decision through a
jury of 12 peers and a presiding judge.

  Illustration by JARRETT QUON/Daily Bruin It cannot be
denied that in many states, capital punishment is completely broken
or barely functioning. The Illinois death penalty moratorium
enacted in 1999 was an intelligent response to one state’s
miserable record in the application of justice. The student
journalists who worked to free a number of wrongly convicted men on
the state’s death row may have been sharp, but they were far
from young Alan Dershowitzes.

This raises the question: how did these poor slobs slip through
the cracks for all these years? The evidence which originally
“convicted” them was in several cases extremely thin,
based merely on eyewitness accounts from unreliable witnesses who
had other motives. Thus, it may be a wise move for each state to
emphasize extreme caution in imposing the death penalty.

Certainly it is within their rights for a state or municipality
to focus their prosecution exclusively on the aspects of a case
which will prove most likely to convict a defendant. This is all
well and good for non-capital cases, where, if a wrongful
conviction results, the innocent may rot unjustly in jail for many
years ““ but at least no one is executed.

But when a prosecutor in a capital case intentionally ignores
strong evidence that could exonerate a defendant or presses ahead
despite gaping holes in his case, leading to a questionable
conviction, the result is negative public perception of an integral
part of the justice system.

The mere fact, however, that some states are under moratoriums
does not mean that the system is broken nationwide. Take the
example of Texas: every liberal within shouting distance certainly
does. Texas, so it seems, is a blood-thirsty, crude and inhuman
sort of state.

Liberals know this because they read sad stories about the
people on death row, such as Karla Fay Tucker. She claimed to find
religion while on death row and proceeded to
“rehabilitate” herself, at least as judged by her
fellow inmates and prison guards. In these teary tales, little
mention was made of the brutal crime which landed Tucker on death
row in the first place. Namely, she was convicted of murdering two
innocents with a pick-axe.

To conclude that because Texas executes more people than any
other state, it is doing something wrong, would ignore the
circumstances in Texas relative to the rest of the nation. Texas
puts more people to death because of many factors: it has the
second-largest population in the Union, has a high crime rate
compared to other states, and most saliently, has a justice system
which does not drag its feet in carrying out sentences.

It is assumed, and rightly so, that people on death row are
there to be executed for their heinous crimes right away without
having to spend decades waiting for a resolution. In reality, Texas
is not rushing convicts through the process. A fact-based
comparison reveals that the average time for convicts on death row
is quite similar in Texas and the largest state in the nation.

In the period since the 1978 Supreme Court reversal of its
previous death penalty ban, the average time for convicts on death
row in California has been 14 years, 10 months (www.cdc.state.ca.us/issues/capital/capital5.htm).
Texas, supposedly a veritable charnel-house, averages a wait of
10.61 years. (www.tdcj.state.tx.us/stat/execstats.htm).
Now the obvious difference: in the post-1978 period, California,
the nation’s most populous state, has executed all of 9 men,
while 591 are waiting on death row. In Texas, 242 men and women
have been put to death, with 446 awaiting their fate. What should
we make of this?

It is evident, by average time served, that Texas is giving
convicts more than enough time in which to exhaust every possible
legal avenue, just as in California. The main difference seems to
be that when convicts have used all their legal channels, the state
carries out the sentence. So apparently, Texas’ crime is
this: following procedure in carrying out death sentences.

Another rather obvious argument used by opponents is a stilted
portrayal of death penalty supporters. An image is presented of
Bible-thumping evangelical Christians, “attacking” a
“woman’s right to choose” while simultaneously
howling for criminals to be put to death. This is rich hypocrisy,
right? These crazy right-wing zealots want some people to live, but
other people to die!

Well, if such a thing is hypocrisy, then pro-choice/anti-death
penalty supporters are simply hypocrites in reverse. But consider
this: who’s most innocent? The unborn child, or a merciless
killer? Speaking relatively, of which the secular left is so fond,
those right-wing zealots do seem to have reason and logic on their
side. The fetal child we know is innocent; conversely, we can be
certain that death row convicts have done something to get
themselves into their current situation. Therefore, if someone has
to die, it would seem that we would choose the guiltiest
person.

While no advocate of the death penalty enjoys the idea or
triumphs in the latest execution, simply shrugging at the horror of
some crimes makes a mockery of equal protection under the law, and
more importantly, the primacy of justice within our community. The
death penalty enjoys such strong support ““ 66 percent even
after the recent stumbles in some states (www.gallup.com/poll/indicators/inddeath_pen.asp)
““ because most people recognize its important role.