A Month of Killing, More on the Way?

Today, if I stare off into the middle distance and let it happen, images of homicide victims queue up, most of them cops I knew, and children. It's been a bad month for both.

"Bam, bam, bam," begins New York Times reporter Timothy Egan's April 8 must-read blog, "The Guns of Spring." Each interjection represents a dead cop: the three Pittsburgh officers recently lured to a residence and gunned down by a man with an AK-47 and several handguns. The second of Egan's paragraph starts with four bams (the Oakland cops slain on March 21), the third with five bams (for each child murdered by their own father here in Washington State), the fourth with 13 bams (the Binghampton, N.Y., immigrants and their teachers).

Fifty-seven people gunned down in mass murders in less than a month.

I'll always have a visceral reaction to the killing of a police officer, especially in ambush; how many times during my career did I stop a car or knock on a door not knowing whether there was a bullet waiting for me? Too many of my own colleagues met precisely that fate. And I have a special, dreaded place in my memory for all the dead kids I saw in my former line of work, many of those young lives taken by a parent.

All this carnage over the past month raises once again the question of what to do with cold-blooded killers. In the logic of 36 states, the answer: kill them.

I have no trouble understanding the urge to kill a killer. He has it coming, doesn't he? Take a man, for example, who kidnaps, rapes, tortures, and kills a child -- how can we possibly justify punishment other than the death? His execution provides closure to loved ones, it sends a message to other would-be killers, right? The rationale for capital punishment is essentially reducible to these two reasons. An eye for an eye, and death as deterrent.

But pressure to end the death penalty is mounting, and reasons for it are compelling.

More and more loved ones of homicide victims are speaking out against executions. As Azim Khamisa told a reporter following the shooting death of his son, Tariq, "I know the pain of losing a child. It's like having a nuclear bomb detonate inside your body, breaking you into small pieces that can never be found. This violence scars the soul forever." But he also had this to say: "...forgiveness is a surer way to peace than an eye for an eye. The more we role-model the death penalty, the more violence and revenge there will be." A similar argument was made by Matthew Shepard's parents in Wyoming, Matthew's father adding that he wanted the men who tortured and killed their son to think each and every day, for the rest of their lives, about what they had done.

This philosophical/spiritual argument is at the heart of many abolitionists's opposition to the death penalty. But there are numerous other reasons why the movement to end executions is scoring successes and building momentum.

Obviously, if the state kills a killer that killer will kill no more, but will his or her death dissuade others? No. Murder rates in the 13 states that have rejected the death penalty (soon to be 14, thanks to Governor Richardson and the New Mexico state legislature) are consistently lower than in states that continue to embrace capital punishment. While it's hardly a representative sample, it's worth noting that three of the four states where last month's mass homicides took place are death penalty states.

Other reasons for opposition to the death penalty? It's extravagantly expensive. The California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice estimates annual costs of the death penalty system at $137 million in that state alone ($232.7 million if recommended reforms intended to assure fairness are enacted) vs. $11.5 million for a system whose maximum penalty is lifetime incarceration. By any measure, it costs far more to maintain the death penalty than to replace it with a sentence of true life imprisonment.

I shared a panel with Sam Millsap in San Jose last year. Sam's an eloquent former Texas district attorney who tours the country advocating for the abolition of the death penalty. Unlike Azim Khamisa, this former prosecutor doesn't oppose executions on moral grounds. His opposition is rooted in his conclusion that all human systems are vulnerable to mistakes. He made one such mistake himself, sixteen years ago. It led to the execution of Ruben Cantu, a man later proven to be innocent.

Capital case prosecutions based on a sole witness; jail house snitches; willful or unintentional mistakes by police investigators; compromise or destruction of key physical evidence; disregard of exculpatory evidence by prosecutors; shoddy and/or underfunded defense work; race and class discrimination (not a single rich person sits on death row) -- any of these can affect the quality of a death penalty case. And lead to the execution of the wrong person.

How in God's name can we continue to put people to death, knowing as we do that innocent people are on death row? Or have already been gassed, injected or fried to death?

Lest there be any doubt, I am an abolitionist, a member of Death Penalty Focus which, along with many other fine organizations is working to end executions. The death penalty is -- as most other civilized countries in the world have been trying to tell us for years -- barbaric.

And cowardly. Shooting an armed, hostage-holding assailant can be a life-saving act of heroism, as those extraordinary Navy seals proved off the coast of Somalia. But there's something fundamentally wrong with taking the life of someone in the state's custody.

Or in killing people to demonstrate that killing is wrong.

Comments

[Dolmance]

Most people who've had a child or loved one raped and murdered by some degenerate freak feel quite differently about the matter. But even so, it's very brave of you to step up and speak for them. After all, your sense of propriety is much more important than how they feel about it.

[AntiSocialite]

So it is your position that if a relative or friend of a victim wants someone dead they should have that, because it makes them feel better?

[kgb999]

Interesting. But YOU on the other hand are in a position to speak for them?

Actually, what the author did was use quotes from people who actually suffered loss - and allowed them to speak for themselves.

[Anandas]

The reason I am against the death penalty- and WAR - and murder- and easily
obtainable lethal WEAPONS- is that killing is morally wrong, no matter how you
sit around and try to justify it. Punishment doesn't quite seem to be cutting it, either.
Anyone up for healing society , rehabilitating social wounds... or are we just too
darn barbaric and unevolved to even talk about that (without twitters and riducule?)

[SouthpawSass]

Are you pro choice? I am pro choice, but I also believe in the death penalty for certain cases.

I know those who claim to be pro life, not only against ab.or.tion, but also against the death penalty. Consistency I can respect.

[Nivekian]

IWhere I'm quite liberal in many areas, this is one I disagree with. The Death penaty is no different than putting down an attacking, wild animal. Leaving it in a cage is less humane than killing them.

[bestealth]

Animals do not kill for the same reason men do. They certainly cannot premeditate so that takes the DP off the table anyway. It is more humane to kill an animal than cage it for life. If someone killed someone I loved I would want them to be imprisoned for life, not let off with death. Let them suffer.

[SouthpawSass]

Come to think of it, while they're being held in prison, they get health, dental, vision, education... If they become ill, they get treatments and operations that have bankrupted law abiding citizens. But you say it's less expensive to keep them incarcertated. Sorry, but I'm not convinced.

[ThesagaciousOne]

Try this link.
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-death-penalty

[SouthpawSass]

The link was put out by the Death Penalty Information Center, a not for profit against the death penalty. Its executive director, posted on Huffington Post against the death penalty, and used information from his organization in his post. He went to Notre Dame (Catholic university) and teaches at the Catholic University of Law...

I thank you for the link, but I think the aim of the Mr. Deiter and the DPIC is obviously to abolish the death penalty, which is fine, but I was hoping for information from a more independent source...

[Oldsop]

Sorry Norm; the death penalty is just that : a penalty or a consequence. Period. It is not meant to deter. It is not meant to discipline. It should however be swift and just.

[SouthpawSass]

Hmmm. You make a strong case against the death penalty, but I'm not sure what we do with those who kill for the sake of killing? Okay, so we keep them locked away until they die of natural causes. Meanwhile, what do we do with them? Is there a constructive way to help them pay back society for what they've done? Sentence them to hard labor? What solution is there?

[robert234]

You write the cold, hard truth--minus one: Stopping the greatest mass murderer of all time--THE STATE! No individual killer, given free reign, could ever equal the infanticide, genocide, or the slaughter of U.S. "smart bombs" on a children's hospital in Iraq, a fighter-jet's rocket's on a wedding in afghanastan,etc. "What's that?" You say--"That's not human beings; it's collaterall damage." How ignorant of me.

[bestealth]

My tax dollars kill 1000's of people everyday:

Through our bombing of innocent people.
Our agricultural policies.
Our family planning policies that deny choice.
Our support of despot regimes who murder their own citizens.
Deposing citizens from their land to make it easier for corporations to benefit from their resources.

The list could go on and on.
Then, I turn around and purchase products from these very corporations, thus supporting the cycle with few benefiting and many, many, destroyed.
I am a killing machine. I hope I'm not held accountable.

[Shirley Fisk]

4/14/09
7:23am
Alexandria, VA

Mr. Millsap's conclusion that "all human systems are vulnerable to mistakes" is also the reason I am against the death penalty.

[JoeSchmuk]

Never mind wrong. Never mind expensive. Executing people is just plain stupid. The many ramifications and consequences of killing people make that perfectly clear, regardless of what kind of killing. In the case of 'legal' execution, there is nothing to be learned once a person is executed. No more information. In the case of incarceration (or more to the point, real treatment), there is at least some chance of understanding why people are compelled to these extreme actions. And where there is understanding, there is a chance to do something to lower the incidents of such future actions. Executions make that next to impossible.

As for closure, I also have to agree with the man who wanted the men who killed his son to think about what they had done each and every day. Executing people just ends their lives. They are no more, think no more, suffer no more. If you really want to punish someone, put them in a concrete box for the rest of their lives. That has to be the ultimate misery. I know which of the two i would choose, hypothetically, had i to make the choice, and it wouldn't be life in a concrete box.

As a society, killing begets killing. It is indeed no kind of role modeling for society to perpetrate upon our young.

[ProudAmerican23]

To argue over does the death penality dissuade others? is frankly only viewing the system thru a peephole. Ask that question in the context of whether you KNEW you would be caught, convicted and put to death would THAT dissuade people from killing? I think its pretty clear the answer would be yes. People continue to do it because they feel they can get away with it! and with the current system of lengthy appeals, shortened sentences (not because they are reformed but because the prison space is full) leads them to believe they can and actually do escape the justice they are due. Hopefully as technology progresses the ratio of crime to conviction becomes more balanced and eventually deters crime, I dont live in eutopia and pretend that crime can be eliminated but any reduction would be good.

[emncaity]

Response, part 1:

The "deterrence" argument you make is too simplistic and too much based on the assumption that people who kill, particularly serial killers and the like, are like us in assessing the consequences of future actions and so forth. I'm not saying it wouldn't ever deter even one murderer; it probably would. But many potential killers, like many petty criminals, simply aren't wired the way normal people are. Many of them have a psychological operating system more like the adolescent with his "personal myth," the idea that the rules, even physical laws and societal certainties (like the certainty of punishment), just don't apply to them. You could make it unequivocally, absolutely, drop-dead certain that they'd face a painful death in a month if they commit a murder, and they'd commit it anyway, because 1) they're not gonna get caught, and 2) if they do get caught, some other unnamed event will happen to get them off the hook. Add to this the fact that a killer usually spends several years in jail before exhausting all appeals--a process that no civilized person would want to circumvent--and to many criminals, the death penalty might as well be a thousand years away.

[emncaity]

Response, part 2 (I'm numbering because sometimes sequential responses get reversed when they're approved and posted):

I really have zero problem, none whatsoever, with the execution of a first-degree murderer, a child killer, etc. And the abolitionists--like this writer--completely miss the fact that almost all of their arguments are invalid with almost everyone who doesn't already agree with them. Someone who believes execution is a proper and just response to a child killer is not going to care that the DP is more expensive than incarceration. He's also not going to care that it doesn't deter any other killers. I don't really, either. And sorry, I guess I'm just not a big enough person to forgive someone who kills my child.

What makes me come down against the DP is only one thing: The absolute certainty that our justice system is imperfect, and that inevitably some innocent people will be executed. That is not something that can be waved away with a "nobody's perfect" defense. It's intolerable in a civilized society. It has nothing to do with sympathy for killers, or fru-fruey hopes for rehabilitation of mass murderers and so forth. It's the certainty that we will kill innocent people. That's the only argument that persuades me.

[avraamjack]

All good points.

It is interesting which deaths make the news.

There are about 1500 murders , ( that we know of ) every month. You will not hear about them unless they involve a famous person, a young white girl's death, several police officer's deaths or a dozen average citizen's deaths.

You will also not hear much about them unless the perpetrator can be painted as a fringe figure. Creepy single guy loner perpetrator will get lots of print. A nice family man/woman perpetrator will quickly disappear from print because we cannot promote hysteria with perpetrators "just like us".

It seems certain lives are more valuable than others.

.

[jhamm1]

"A similar argument was made by Matthew Shepard's parents in Wyoming, Matthew's father adding that he wanted the men who tortured and killed their son to think each and every day, for the rest of their lives, about what they had done."

Given the bible-thumping background of those savages, the only thing they'll be thinking about is how they were "wrongfully inprisoned" for doing the "Lord's bidding."

[zizyphus]

Once again, Norm Stamper is on the right side of the issue. Thank you, Mr. Stamper.

[PlaceboStudman]

how do we prevent more of these heinous murders from occurring in the first place? We can not always blame the perpetrators of these crimes for their actions. There are times when we must legitimately reform the system that does little or nothing to stem the root causes of these actions. We must address issues such as poverty, an ineffective health care system, and a government who cares more about deficits and surplus (which is really nothing more than Capitalistic ideals of debt and profit) than they do about correcting what ails society.

When we address root causes of that which ails us, including the improvement of our mental health system, we will reduce violent crime and the heinous immoral murders committed by desperate, mentally ill people who feel they have no other recourse to have their voice heard than to resort to these violent acts.

if we reduce the causes, we reduce the violence, and we will reduce any need for this discussion, because fewer people will commit crimes that anyone would consider punishable by death penalty

[cylindar]

Yes, this is very important.

[dudleysharp]

Chief, you need to fact check.

There is certainly no proof of Cantu's innocence. Read
http://www.bexar.org/da2/body_pages/morenocantuinvestigation.pdf

You wrongly believe that deterrence is measured by murder rates. It's not. Read:
Death Penalty, Deterrence & Murder Rates: Let's Be Clear
http://www.postchronicle.com/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi?archive=128&num=217819

Regarding that minute percentage of loved ones of murder victims opposed to the death penalty,:
About 80% of Americans support the death penalty for true capital crimes. If we could do a random poll, only of parents of murdered children, what do you think it would show, 90% support?

On the cost issue, Chief, you used the worste possible example, when you should have used the best. Virginia executes in 5-7 years. 65% of those sentenced to death have been executed. Only 15% of their death penalty cases are overturned. The national averages are 11 years, 14% and 36%, respectively.

With the high costs of long term imprisonment, a true life sentence will be more expensive than such a death penalty protocol.