Death penalty debate skirt deepe

Death penalty debate skirt deeper issues

The sky is falling! It is the end of the world as we know it! Killers will run amok now murdering innocent women and children! The justice system is in breakdown mode! And all because that liberal, soft-on-crime governor of Illinois let all 167 death row inmates avoid their deaths!

When all is said and done, after the emotional smoke is cleared, we will realize that the death penalty is a relic from the darkened past that must be purged forever. The United States is the only country among all Western democracies that still retains the death penalty. The only other countries that engage in this ghastly practice are such countries as Iran, Iraq, Yemen, China and the Congo.

Logic takes a back seat when it comes to the debate over the death penalty. Raw emotions take center stage. To see this, just watch any talk show (like Donahue on Jan. 14) or read comments from various representatives of the prosecutorial side of the court system and other Alaw and order@ people, plus many victims and their families who demand Ajustice@ and think, erroneously, that killing the killers will bring Aclosure@ and peace.

Nevada has 84 men and one woman on death row and death penalty foes now have some ammunition to fire, according to a story in the Las Vegas Review-Journal (ADeath penalty changes sought,@, January 15, 2003). Sheila Leslie (D-Reno) is quoted as saying that the 2003 Legislature will be discussing some of the problems of administering the death penalty and bringing state laws into accordance with the U.S. Supreme Court rulings against executing the mentally retarded and limiting the use of sentencing panels, plus the sensitive issue of executing those who committed their crimes while juveniles. The Legislature will also spend time trying to eliminate the obvious racial and economic (class) biases in capital cases and consider various mitigating circumstances. In other words, let=s make the administration of the death penalty Afair@ so that, apparently, everyone has an Aequal opportunity@ to be executed.

I predict that this year=s Legislature will study the issue and make some recommendations concerning the Afairness@ of the death penalty, as they always have done and as most other states have always done. However, the most important questions concerning the death penalty will probably never be mentioned, much less debated. Questions like: Does the death penalty act as a deterrent? (No.) Is the death penalty Acruel and unusual@ punishment? (Yes) Is it inherently discriminatory? (Yes) What are the financial costs of having the death penalty, as opposed to life in prison? (Sending a murdered to death row costs an average of three times the cost of keeping someone in prison for forty years.)

If we were really serious about this issue, every legislative body of states that still have the death penalty would call for a review of the research on these and other questions. But the cynic in me feels that the above questions don=t really matter. Take the question of deterrence for instance. Every serious scientific study on this question (covering more than 60 years) says that the death penalty bears no relationship to crime rates, especially homicide. In fact, some studies have suggested that it actually promotes homicide. One constant fact that under girds this question is that those states that have executed the most have always had the highest rates of homicide. And this is mostly the Southern states (especially Texas, Georgia and Florida). One might think that with all the executions in Texas during the past couple of decades especially, they=d have virtually no homicides. But they just keep executing people and people keep killing other people.

I recall watching one of the so-called Adebates@ between Bush and Gore when the moderator Jim Lehrer asked both of them if they believed the death penalty was a deterrent. Both of them answered yes to the question. Any journalist committed to his or her craft would have responded by asking them why they have such a belief in the face of overwhelming evidence that the death penalty is not a deterrent. But I guess that is too much to ask of a journalist. But the point is that both Bush and Gore must surely know something about the studies on the death penalty, as do most that support it. After all, such studies have been around for years. My guess is that whether or not it is a deterrent is irrelevant. Supporters just want revenge, period.

We live in a mean-spirited society, a society that practices Atough love@ and a society that imposes the harshest punishments in the entire world, save for some Third World countries. No other country has as many prisoners as we do. No other country imposes longer sentences, especially for drug offenses. No other country spends more taxpayer dollars on the criminal justice system. And no other country has a higher crime rate than we do. But apparently it doesn’t matter to the average citizen and the average politician. We love crime, especially murder. Why else would we have so many prime-time crime shows every night of the week? And almost every one of these shows focus on one crime - murder.

Seeking the death penalty is the easy way out. We don=t have to ask tough questions, like why do people kill in the first place. Let=s just get rid of them, sweep the problem under the rug. Out of sight, out of mind. Meanwhile, as I write this, and as you read this, in all likelihood someone in this country has been murdered (according to FBI statistics, about two people are murdered every hour).