worst editorial ever...

i came across this editorial in the LA times this morning: shut down death row - it's basically about stanley tookie williams, founder of the crips gang, convicted of four murders (and let's face it, he's had a hand in every murder since the gang began that was in any way related to it - if anyone is guilty of murder it is this man), four time nobel peace prize nominee, shamed sporter of san quentin blues and outspoken anti-gang activist. using this case as an example was ballsy. considering the amount of blood on tookie's hands, he'd make a damned good poster guy for why to support the death penalty. but the writer of the editorial walked bravely into the murky waters of denouncing the death penalty using this case as his reason anyway. you have to respect him for that at least.

but the closest this writer came to a decent argument against the death penalty was the title.

here's how you argue the death penalty:

Common reasons in support of capital punishment

• The Bible - The Bible requires the death penalty for a wide variety of crimes, including sex before marriage, adultery, homosexual behavior, doing work on Saturday and murder. It even calls for some criminals (e.g. prostitutes who are the daughters of priests) to be tortured to death by being burned alive. Most Christians, with the exception of those in the Reconstructionist movement, feel that many of these grounds for the death penalty no longer apply to Christian societies. U.S. However, Bible passages are still used to promote the retention of capital punishment for murderers; some advocate that homosexuals also be executed.

aside from the obvious answer (we are not all Christians or Jews, and thus should not all have to live by Christian or Jewish rules) , there's also the whole 6th commandment thing, thou shalt not kill. this is not unlike most of the Bible, contradictory and skewed. now, before all the Christians reading this send me hate mail, i don't see this as a bad thing. it is the truth. but the beauty of religion is interpretation, and there are so many different interpretations of the Bible and the Torah and God knows, Islam & the Koran is more misunderstood than dubya's speeches. the bottom line is, it would be impossible to live 100% within the rules the Bible sets out for us, as a great majority of said rules, end up contradicting each other, thus cancelling each other out. there are much newer, more modern ways of applying Christian values to life and social issues. killing people for killing people (when most of the time we're not sure they killed people) is silly, cruel, unusual and inhuman.

not to mention the fact that at even the smallest anti-death penalty demonstrations, attendance is padded by Christian groups citing "Thou shalt not kill".

• Justice/Vengeance - Many people feel that killing convicted murderers will satisfy their need for justice and/or vengeance. They feel that certain crimes are so heinous that executing the criminal is the only reasonable response.

one of the more known cases of death row exonerations is izzy zimmerman. he spent 24 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. while in prison, izzy was a feared man, both by prisoners and c.o.s alike. why? because he wanted to die. he wanted so badly to die that he didn't care what kind of trouble he got into, he didn't care about being thrown in the hole or being beaten half to death. life in prison was far worse than the escape of death to izzy.

"They couldn't understand. To them, death was the most horrible thing that could happen to a person. "But," Peewee muttered to himself, "Everybody is going to die. Nobody beats death. These 'Guardians' don't really know what it is to do twenty-five or thirty years, forty-five or fifty years in the can until you die."
from The Guardians; The True Story of the Saints of Dannemora as told to the authors by izzy zimmerman.

and more recently, reece hughs, a death row inmate in south carolina has requested to bypass all of his appeals and carry out the execution. http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/12944391.htm,

so what? well, clearly these people want to die or prefer to die over life in prison. how is it revenge if you're giving them the one option out of two they themselves would have chosen?

• Deterrence - Many people feel that the death penalty will deter criminals from killing. This does not seem to be confirmed by an analysis of the available data. However, it feels intuitively correct for many people.

the countries with the smallest per capita murder rates, do not have the death penalty.

greece - per capita murder rate 0/1000 people are murdered on average. death penalty outlawed in 1993
switzerland - per capita murder rate 0/1000 people are murdered on average. death penalty outlawed in 1942
ireland - per capita murder rate 0/1000 people are murdered on average. death penalty outlawed in 1990
norway - per capita murder rate 0.01/1000 people are murdered on average. death penalty outlawed in 1905
canada - per capita murder rate 0.01/1000 people are murdered on average. death penalty outlawed in 1976
united kingdom - per capita murder rate 0.01/1000 people are murdered on average. death penalty outlawed in 1973
united states - per capita murder rate 0.04/1000 people are murdered on average. death penalty still in use.
jamaica - per capita murder rate 0.32/1000 people are murdered on average. death penalty still in use.

• Cost - Once a convicted murder is executed and buried, there are no further maintenance costs to the state.

- The investigation costs for death-sentence cases are about 3 times greater than for non-death cases.
- The trial costs for death cases are about 16 times greater than for non-death cases ($508,000 for death case; $32,000 for non-death case).
- The appeal costs for death cases are 21 times greater.
- Trials involving a death sentence average 34 days, including jury selection; non-death trials averaged about 9 days.

it is far more expensive to put a man to death than to incarcerate him for life.

countries that still have the death penalty:

Afghanistan, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belize, Botswana, Burundi, Cameroon, Chad, China (People's Republic), Comoros, Congo (Democratic Republic), Cuba, Dominica, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Guatemala, Guinea, Guyana, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Korea, North, Korea, South, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Malawi, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Palestinian Authority, Philippines, Qatar, Rwanda, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Somalia, Sudan, Swaziland, Syria, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, United States, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe

which two of these countries doesn't belong here...

of all the wealthy western "progressive" countries in the world, only japan and the US have the death penalty still. progress my asshole. seems to me the US has more in common with the third world than anything else. death penalty, dynasties, war after war after war, wars on the unarmed, wars on the innocent, wars on intangeable concepts, THE REFUSAL TO COMMIT TO THE METRIC SYSTEM. here is a country full of intelligent, beautiful people who mean well, with uber-wealth the likes of which the rest of the world has rarely seen and yet is found on so many lists consisting of only 3rd world countries.

we won't even touch the list of countries that still execute minors.

the death penalty serves no purpose. end it.

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posted by Courtney at 1:59 p.m.

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