Defending Capital Punishment

Defending Capital Punishment

 

Opponents of executing degenerate criminals convicted of depraved acts against their fellow human beings, acts which by their heinous nature are committed against their communities and civilized society itself, defend their opposition on four bases: the inhumanity of capital punishment, its discriminatory use against minorities, its irreversibility, and the fact the only other nations that still impose death penalties are Third World, often dictatorial, countries.

None of those objections hold any water.

The following represents not as much a defense of capital punishment, an issue on which I happen to be personally ambivalent, but rather a cursory review of the arguments on both sides of that contentious topic. 

Admittedly, I’ve lately been leaning in favor of permanently removing murderous  creatures from the face of the Earth if for no other reason than that their removal would effectively make them unable to repeat their mayhem.

INHUMANITY. Granted, whether conducted publicly or stealthily, executions can be grotesque affairs as evidenced by the recent botched, non-lethal injection last month of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma, which caused Lockett to endure a gruesome death lasting 43 minutes–after he was convicted of kidnapping, raping, beating, trying to bury alive, and then using a shotgun to finish off 19-year-old Stephanie Neiman in 2000.

That particular execution would seem cruel and inhumane until one considers the extremely cruel and viciously inhumane offenses Lockett inflicted on an innocent, defenseless teenager.

America’s justice system does not operate on the ancient Code of Hammurabi’s principle of “an eye for an eye” and accords capital defendants every conceivable right of defense, appeal, and extended time to seek re-trial.  (Lockett was on death row for fourteen years, the average duration for convicted murderers in American prisons.) 

However, most Americans do believe that criminals deserve punishment in accordance with the law and commensurate with the barbarity of their crimes. . . (Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=37326.)