And anybody who knows me will tell you that’s a rare occasion, indeed. I’m usually pretty set in my opinions, because before I settle on one I research it, think about it, see both the pros and cons of it, and only then will I settle on it. Such was the case about the opinion I just recently changed; I did all of this a very long time ago when I formed this opinion, but I heard something – a different something I’d never really considered before – that caused me to re-evaluate my opinion, and then change it.
So what is it that I’ve changed my opinion on, you ask? Simple.
The death penalty, also known as capital punishment.
Up until a few days ago my life-long opinion on this was that I supported it, period. I fully believed that anyone who was convicted of an offense for which the death penalty was warranted absolutely deserved it. Hanging, firing squad, electric chair, lethal injection, whatever – if you were convicted you deserved to swing, get shot, be fried, or get dosed. End of story.
And then, about a week ago, I heard something which I’m sure I’d heard before, but for some unknown reason this time it struck a chord with me and got me to thinking. And I thought about it – hard. And I thought about it for several days, and the more I thought about it the more I thought what I was thinking was right, and the more I felt like that the more I knew I was about to change my opinion on the death penalty. And when I found myself saying to myself that of course this is right, how could I have NOT seen that, I knew then that I had changed my opinion about the death penalty.
I no longer support it or believe it should be applied.
Not because I don’t consider it constitutional. I see absolutely nothing in the Constitution, including the part about “cruel and unusual punishment, which indicates to me that the death penalty is unconstitutional.
Not because it’s against my religion. I was raised Episcopalian, and nowhere in my religious teaching do I recall anybody telling me that the death penalty was wrong. Sure, I know one of the Ten Commandments is “Thou Shalt Not Kill,” but I also know that soldiers kill in warfare all the time and that no religion says anything bad about it.
Not because I’m “pro life” or anything like that, and think that killing is wrong under any circumstances. (I’m still pro-choice, and that’s that.)
And not because I don’t think people who murder other people don’t deserve to die. I believe they do.
It’s not for any of those reasons. The reason I changed my mind is simple, when you get right down to it. It goes like this:
What if someone is wrongly convicted? What if the jury gets it wrong, and sends an innocent man to Death Row? Once the penalty is carried out, that’s it. It’s final. No chance for a reprieve, no chance for a “do-over;” an innocent man is dead, and that’s final. If you make a mistake, if the jury gets it wrong, if they execute an innocent man, you can’t take it back.
You can’t fix it. You can’t make it right. Ever.
I just don’t think you can take that chance. Sure, I know that 99% of the juries in America get it right when it comes to the death penalty, but I also know that more and more you’re hearing in the news where someone convicted of rape or some other violent crime has been found innocent through DNA or other evidence that wasn’t available when they were convicted.
Such is true with the death penalty. If you get convicted of murder and are sent to prison for life, and if it’s found out later that the jury made a boo-boo and sent an innocent man up the river, you can set him free. Sure, he’s lost some years out of his life, but at least he’s still around to make the best of the rest of his life.
You can’t do that if you execute someone. If you wrongly execute an innocent man, he’s dead – and there’s NOTHING you can do to change or fix it.
Period.
And trust me, juries don’t always get it right. You have to keep in mind that most juries are made up of average citizens whose sum total of legal knowledge is what they’ve seen on reruns of “Law and Order,” and that scares the crap out of me. That’s the last group of people I’d want to put in charge of deciding whether I live or die.
So I just don’t think it’s worth it. I just don’t think I’d be willing to take the chance of getting it wrong and having an innocent man get executed. Life in prison with no chance of parole, absolutely. That way an innocent man has a chance of getting out if he’s later found to be innocent, and the guilty will spend the rest of their lives behind bars. But to take away any opportunity to right a wrong? Nah, I don’t think so.
Like I said, I’m all for life without parole. Sure, I know some of you will say that’s no punishment, that the guilty is still alive and the dead person is still dead, and you’re not wrong. But a life in prison is no life; having someone else tell you when to sleep, when to wake up, when to eat, when to shower, controlling every single facet of your life, is not the way I’d like to live. And on top of that, there is NO privacy in prison. None. Zip. Nada. From all that I’ve read, the one single thing that most convicts miss the most while in prison is their privacy.
So life in prison without possibility of parole, absolutely. Lock ‘em away for life, no matter how much it costs to house, clothe and feed them. As long as they’re alive and suffering through a miserable existence every single day of their life, I’m fine with that. Bu take a chance on executing an innocent man?
Nope, sorry. Not anymore.
IHC
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