Capital Punishment Essay, Research Paper

Good Afternoon, I am honored to be here, and I thank you for having me.

Today I would like to speak to you about a very controversial issue-

capital punishment. What do those two words mean to you? To most

people they mean a murder victims family receiving justice for their

deceased. Let me see a show of hands. How many people in the audience

believe in the death penalty? I conducted a weeklong survey of two

hundred people of all ages. The purpose was to see how many people

believed in the death penalty and how many opposed it. My results are

shown on this overhead.

As you can clearly see, 98% believe in the death penalty. 57% believe

that the death penalty is a deterrent for murder. A high of 97% of the

people favor capital punishment, where 1% think that our justice system

should not be more lenient on death row inmates. Only 89% think that

once convicted of murder, an inmate should be sentenced to death

immediately.

I would like to take this time to tell you a story. On August 15,

1997, the Reverend John Miller preached a sermon at the Martha Vineyards

Tabernacle in New Hampshire. He told his congregation, which included

the vacationing President Clinton and his wife, that capital punishment

is wrong. I invite you to look at a picture of Timothy McVeigh and to

forgive him, said Miller. If we profess to be Christians, then we are

called to love and forgive. Once the sermon ended, Rev. Miller,

Clinton, and their wives got together for brunch at the Sweet Life Cafi.

What the Rev. did not know was that 24-year-old Jeremy T Charron; an

Epsom New Hampshire police officer was gunned down in cold blood just

hours before Millers sermon on forgiving murderers. That Sunday marked

Charrons 44th day as a full time police officer, the job he dreamed of

since he was 6 years old.

Jeremy Charron leaves behind his parents, two sets of grandparents, two

sisters, two brothers, a wide circle of friends, and a girlfriend whose

engagement ring he had begun to shop for. Maybe the Reverend Miller

would advise those grieving for Charron to look at pictures of Gordon

Perry, the robber accused of pumping the bullets into Charrons heart,

and 18 year old Kevin Paul, the accomplice, and forgive.

The state of New Hampshire has opted not to forgive, but to prosecute.

Perry has been charged with capital murder. If he is convicted, the

state will seek the death penalty for the first time since 1939.

Jeanne Shepard, the democratic governor, says a capital murder

prosecution will put criminals On notice that if they kill a police

officer in New Hampshire, they will face the death penalty. What if

they kill someone other than a cop? Should criminals not be put on

notice that they will face the death penalty if they kill a cashier in

cold blood? A farmer, or a schoolteacher? They should- but the law

says otherwise. In New Hampshire as in all states with the death

penalty, murder can be punished with execution only in specific

circumstances. The murder of an officer in the line of duty is one of

them. Among others are murder combined with rape, murder for higher,

and murder in the course of kidnapping. First degree murder is not

punishable by death. One who willfully murders a cashier is no less

evil then the murderer of a police officer. Both have committed the

worst crime. Both should be subjected to the worst possible

punishment. That is justice.

Standing in the way of that justice, however, are the likes of Rev.

Miller, who brim with such pity for criminals that they have none left

over for the victims. Forgive Timothy McVeigh, he says, as if we have

that right. Absolve the man who slaughtered 168 innocent men, women,

and children in Oklahoma City. Pardon the killer of Officer Charron.

Nothing could be more sinful and indecent. How sad that Miller,

enjoying his brunch with the president at the Sweet Life Cafi, should

lack compassion for the sweet life of others.

Executions at U.S. prisons reached a 40- year high last year. There are

going to be more executions in the future as these cases are speeded up,

as a result of federal and state laws shortening the appeal process. I

would now like to direct your attention to the overhead.

The following chart shows statistics of the number of executions per

state for the 1997 year. Currently there are only 12 states without the

death penalty. Those states are Hawaii, Alaska, West Virginia,

Washington D.C., Rhode Island, Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Michigan,

Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and North Dakota.

The U.S. has over 1.5 million incarcerated in prisons, by far the

largest system in the world, and that does not include those in jail.

The tough-on-crime politicians, of course, are elected by promising

bigger and better jails for those scum bags. I once heard someone say,

Building jails to lessen crime is like building more cemeteries to

prevent AIDS. Prison building is the fastest growing industry in

America. In fact, prisons can no longer be called prisons. The

politically correct term is correction-industrial complexes.

Gene Amole is a writer for the New York Times who opposes the death

penalty. As experiences show, there is no closure, when the one who

did the killing is executed. There is a very real climate of revenge

and retribution in this country. What we need is restorative justice

and healing.

Mr. Amole comments on the sixth commandment, (it) is so simple, so easy

to understand, Thou Shalt Not Kill. There is nothing that I can see

that permits us to commit premeditated institutional murder, which is

exactly what capital punishment is.

Gene Amole is not the only one against capital punishment. In May of

1998, Newsday magazine spoke out against capital punishment, saying that

its only purpose is revenge, that it is not a deterrent to murder, and

the goal of our society should be keeping killers off the streets.

[Murder deserves Life In Jail, Not Death Penalty, May 26]. Gerald

Deutsh, of Port Washington, speaks out against the article in a letter

to the editor. I am not sure that the death penalty is a deterrent,

but if it is not, we certainly need to have some sort of deterrence

built into our criminal justice system.  Keeping killers Off the

Street is not sufficient, especially if where we put them is a place

that may (to them) be a better place then where they came from.

Deutsh has an important point. Suppose to a killer, prison is not so

terrible. Suppose the killer is used to a prison environment where all

of his needs are taken care of, and suppose, further, that he is able to

command respect from his fellow inmates. Is it not possible that such a

person can prefer a life in prison rather than having to go out into our

world to earn a living? To such a person it is conceivable that a

prison sentence maybe more of a reward than a punishment.

Deutsh said whether the death penalty is a deterrent, I think we must

philosophically consider suitable punishments to incorporate into our

criminal justice system that will serve as a deterrent for violent

crimes, not only those crimes that now provide for the death penalty.

Denver Archbishop Charles Chadput placed a statement on his Internet

site last year, condemning capital punishment. Killing our guilty is

still wrong. It does not honor the dead. It does not ennoble the

living, said Chadput.

Frank Keating counteracted the Bishops statement by saying (he) hopes

that I dont get driven into the sea because I am a catholic, for

supporting the death penalty. Most Catholics would agree that murderers

should die. How many people do we have to see killed before it is

justified? he asked.

The Reverend Jesse Jackson spoke on CBS Face The Nation on June 9

1997. The concept of an eye for an eye ultimately leaves us blind and

disfigured.

Psychiatrist James Gilligan has studied societys most violent people.

The experience has left Gilligan discounting what he describes as the

underlying theory pervading our criminal justice system. The theory of

rational self-interest. This theory assumes that violent people act

out of common sense, do not want to go to prison, and do not wish to

die. According to this premise, Gilligan writes, All we have to do to

prevent violent crime is threaten violent people with capital

punishment.

There are four things wrong with this theory, said Gilligan. It is

totally incorrect, hopelessly naove, dangerously misleading, and based

on complete and utter ignorance of what violent people are really like.

Gilligans theories are based on his experiences as Director of Mental

Health for the Massachusetts prison system, Medical Director of the

Bridgewater (Mass.) State Hospital for the Criminally Insane and

Director of the Center for the Study of Violence at Harvard University

Medical School.

A heinous crime occurs and most people ask the inevitable question: Who

are these people capable of such inhuman acts? According to Gilligan,

they generally are ordinary people who often describe themselves as

robots, zombies, nonentities, and even vampires. In a 1977 courtroom,

convicted serial killer Ted Bundy said many things about himself. Among

those descriptions were; Sometimes I feel like a vampire, and Im the

most cold blooded son of a bitch youll ever meet. Murderers

frequently mutilate themselves in prison, cutting their arms, swallowing

razor blades, blinding or castrating themselves- because feeling

something, even pain, is better than feeling nothing. People who wind

up committing murder are often the survivors of attempted murder

themselves, or of a child abuse that is so severe, that if they were not

strong, they would not have survived. David Berkowitz was the Son of

Sam serial killer. The press at one time asked him why he killed so

many people. He replied, I always had a certain fetish for murder and

death. Berkowitz was jolted to kill when he found out a family

secret. He was an accident, a mistake, never meant to be born. He had

always been told that his birth mother had been killed during labor.

What he found out was it was just a lie to cover up the fact that his

real mother did not even care about him. Once he discovered the truth,

he vowed to find the woman that cast him aside. When asked by a friend

what he would do when he found her, he said, Im not going to rob her.

Im not going to touch her or rape her. All I want to do is kill her.

Gilligans hypothesis is that the common underlying cause of violence

is shame. Violent behavior only results when three other conditions

occur: 1) The individual does not see himself as having any nonviolent

means to gain respect or find justice. 2) The shame and humiliation are

so overwhelming they threaten to destroy the persons sense of self. 3)

The violent impulses stimulated in all of us by feelings of humiliation

are not inhibited by guilt, remorse, empathy, or love. The character

Hannible Lechter, as shown in this clip from the movie Silence of the

Lambs explains it best.

Rather than punishment, Gilligan said, one proven approach to reducing

violence is education, especially a college degree. Several years ago,

Gilligan conducted a study in the Massachusetts Prison system in which

more than two hundred inmates, including those that were convicted

murderers, earned degrees and were released from prison. So far, not

one repeat offender has been found.

Gilligan said We know that the single most effective factor which

reduces the rate of recidivism in the prison population is education,

and yet education in the prisons is the first item to be cut when an

administration gets tough on crime. If our goal is to reduce crime

and violence, we would benefit all law abiding members of society if we

made college education available in the prisons. Gilligan said he is

amazed by how inarticulate and incoherent many violent prisoners are.

They have never learned to express themselves. They have never had

anyone to listen to them and take their thoughts seriously. If we can

get them to talk about their life experiences, we immediately give them

an alternative. If we can provide these men with an alternative to

violent behavior, they will use it. The best way to get people to act

like human beings is to treat them like human beings.

Gilligan acknowledges that some violent criminals are so severely

damaged and dangerous they simply can never live out in society again.

But the emphasis, he said, must be on restraining and quarantining,

rather than punishment. Over time, even the most deeply damaged people

can recover a great deal of the humanity that they have lost; even the

deadest could be restored to some semblance of humanity if given a

humane enough environment, said Gilligan.

I now leave the decision up to you. I have given you both the pros and

cons on the issue of capital punishment. If you choose to remember only

one point of my speech tonight let it be this quote of human beings by

Henry Ford. None are good but all are scared. Even the most

horrendous criminal is a human being with a soul, and that soul is

scared.