Death penalty or Life Without Parole – Will someone please be kind enough to tell me which of two evils is the “lesser” one? Maybe then I’ll know if I handled my moral dilemma morally, when I voted on Prop 34.
It’s seems strange now that when Proposition 34 first appeared on the horizon, over a year ago, it was greeted by us abolitionists with the big rah-rah of “Oh, Goody, now we’re going to get rid of the death penalty.” I even wisecracked, “Gee, then I’ll be out of a job.” None of us, many of whom, like me, had dedicated their lives to eliminating this barbaric practice, didn’t consider what the alternative would be. In our naivety, we just assumed that all the condemned prisoners would be jumping with joy when given LWOP. Well, we were wrong.
DEATH ROW
Some residents of Death Row here at San Quentin hastened to set us straight. They told us that, in their opinions, LWOP was worse than death. They, who are facing the executioner, said they’d rather die than face LWOP in the General Population. “The other death penalty,” they call it.
My conscience didn’t want me vote for LWOP, but what other choice did I have? I voted YES on Prop 34, because my conscience wouldn’t allow me to vote NO, which would have amounted to YES on DEATH.
Killing people who have (allegedly, at least) killed people to prove that it’s wrong to kill people serves no purpose. It’s not a deterrent, and it wastes a heap of money that could better be spent on education, medical care and other needs that would benefit society. Not to mention it’s morally wrong to kill people, regardless of what they have done.
Of course, an execution may assuage the desire of some people for revenge. Some prosecutors may tell families of homicide victims that executions will help bring closure, but family members I’ve spoken to say it didn’t happen that way; apparently the desired revenge and happiness aren’t attained by execution.
So the first question is: Why do we do it? Why is our country the only Westernized, Industrialized Democracy that still kills people for retaliation?
No European country has the death penalty, and their homicide rates are lower than ours. My Irish grandmother always said, “You’re known by the company you keep.” We are in the good company of Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Rwanda and China. Many Americans criticize the legal systems of those countries, yet imitate them in use of the death penalty. Where’s the logic?
EXECUTIONS
Yet there’s no doubt that the death penalty is on its death bed. The number of executions nationwide has dwindled to where Texas executed “only” 13 in 2011 and 15 in 2012. California hasn’t had an execution since 2006, a total of 13 since 1976. So, if we’re determined to have a death penalty, then why aren’t we actually utilizing it? We, as a nation, still condemn people to death, though fewer each year. Yet we persist in the notion that we must retain it. It makes no sense to me.
Why are many Americans so steadfastly devoted to capital punishment? Why does our system convey the concept that “justice” is spelled “r-e-v-e-n-g-e”? What do we expect to accomplish? Why do we seem to have a cultural love affair with the hangman?
It saddens me to say that I don’t believe we will ever find a way to eliminate capital punishment once and for all until we can thoughtfully answer the foregoing questions and figure out why we think killing people is a solution to crime. I won’t hold my breath.
Maria Telesco is a retired registered nurse, teacher, forensic investigator and free lance writer who has dedicated her adult life to ending the death penalty, thus far unsuccessfully.
