Death Penalty

The recent execution of Tookie Williams set me to thinking about the utility and cost of the practice. It took 25 years to finally do away with him, at an estimated cost of $1 million/year. (It may be less in less lawyer-infested States than California -- probably goes faster, too).

It is claimed by the execution-minded that the death penalty is a deterrant to further crime. This might be true if the execution were to happen within a reasonable time of the crime -- if a murderer, for instance, could expect to hang within a month of being caught and tried. But 25 YEARS?

Tookie Williams had more entertainment and better treatment from the whole world in the last 26 years of his life, than he did in the first 26. I submit that punks with shotguns that think of Tookie's sentence are going to laugh and say: "Bring it on, man!"

The way courts operate nowadays, the deterrance value of capital punishment is nil, and the cost is exhorbitant.

On the other hand, life imprisonment without possibility of parole is a WORSE punishment than death by hanging/frying/injection. The aforementioned punk with shotgun, aged 19 or 25, might just stop and think about living behind bars and electric fences for 30, 40, 60 years.

It costs the State of California about $40,000 per year to lock up an inmate -- but that is $960,000 a year less than it costs to pay lawyers to ram through a capital punishment case. Offing murderers legally just ain't cost-effective.

There are other issues here, too -- those of Justice and Morality.

It is becoming increasingly obvious that the criminal "justice" system in the United States is heavily and unjustly biased toward the police and prosecution. The recent spate of prisoners turned loose after 20 or 40 years behind bars for crimes they did not commit, and DNA evidence exculpating convicted "rapists" -- who didn't -- point up a real social problem.

It is very probable that we have executed not one, but several totally innocent people for crimes that they were framed for -- accused unjustly, and persecuted onto Death Row. American Jurisprudence is supposed to act on the principal of "Innocent until Proven Guilty" -- in actuality, it is more like "Guilty when accused, unless proven innocent by a high-priced lawyer." (By the way, it is no coincidence that most dialects of American English pronounce the words L*A*W*Y*E*R and L*I*A*R identically.)

Every year for the last 30 years, the FBI's statistical report on Crime in the US has shown that crime is _DE_creasing steadily. This is one of the judicially unintended consequences of Roe vs. Wade -- the young men who would be committing crimes in their late teens and 20s were simply never born.

The ideas of Nazi eugenics are alive and well -- in Planned Parenthood -- successfully this time. Given another half century, African-Americans will no longer be a measurable minority in the US.

Every year, for the past 30 years, the lawyers, the cops, the courts, and the media press their relentless campaign for MORE MONEY FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT -- i.e. more tech toys to strip off what few civil liberties still exist. More money for more computers to collect data on every man, woman, and child. More money for the "War on Drugs".

It is fashionable now to hate, and to scream in public. Vengeance is mine, saith the persecuting attorney -- and the relatives of victims. The media encourages the screaming -- it makes good copy. Virtue and sobriety are boring.

It is immoral and depraved to rejoice at the death and suffering of another -- whatever the provocation.
Trumpeting over the execution of Tookie Williams is every bit the hyena's shreiking that marked the exaltation over the slaughter of David Pearl aired by al-Jazeerah. It is savagery and barbarism.

Catholic teaching supports capital punishment -- sort of. What it actually says is that it can be justified if no other way will serve to assure the safety of the public. In civilized countries (i.e. First World), one can be assured that a convicted criminal will serve his sentence, however long, and not simply be put back out in the street with an AK-47, as has been known to happen in some places. This leaves very little reason for any civilized country to continue with captial punishment.

The conscience of the Church -- notably led by the late Pope John Paul II -- is moving away from even the conditional approval which now prevails. It will move toward a complete opposition -- as it did towards slavery in the 19th Century.

So, there really remains no civilized, juridical, deterrent, or fiscal reason to continue the gruesome circus, where criminals are thrown to the ravening swine of the legal profession and the screaming jackals of the media, at taxpayer expense.

Enough, already!