A Humane End?
December 13th, 2005 | by Tony Steidler-Dennison |It’s impossible to imagine the final twelve minutes.
Ex-Crips leader Williams executed - Yahoo! News
Witnesses said guards struggled for about 12 minutes to place the needle in a vein in his left arm, frustrating Williams who occasionally spoke with the guards preparing his death, asking at one point: “Still can’t find it?”
It’s hard enough to justify the death penalty in a culture that professes to value life. It’s made tougher by the world company we keep in preserving execution: Afghanistan, Cuba, Libya, Nigeria, North Korea, Rwanda, Sudan, Syria, among other despotish countries. But to then prolong what the prisoner knows will be his final moments by the sheer ineptitude of prison personnel is, in a word, apalling.
It was no surprise that Governor Schwarzenegger denied clemency for Tookie Williams. What surprised me was the logic:
“Stanley Williams insists he is innocent, and that he will not and should not apologize or otherwise atone for the murders of the four victims in this case,” Schwarzenegger wrote on Monday in denying clemency.
“Without an apology and atonement for these senseless and brutal killings there can be no redemption.”
Stanley Williams had the right to claim his innocence. It’s not a right any defendant gives up, even on conviction. The state does, however, have the responsibility to consider every element of evidence that might exonerate that defendant - that might support the claim of innocence - before carrying out the death sentence. Denying clemency because the defendant has continued to claim his innocence falls far, far short of that standard.
I’m glad to live in a state that doesn’t have the death penalty. I can only hope that the rising sentiment against it nationally will eventually move us out of the rogue’s gallery of countries who insist on useless and counterproductive retribution.
4 Responses to “A Humane End?”
By Josiah Ritchie on Dec 15, 2005 | Reply
Unintentionally perhaps, you baited me with this comment.
“It’s hard enough to justify the death penalty in a culture that professes to value life.”
I’d contend that the loss of value placed on the death penalty coorelates with the loss of justice in our country. It seems the punishment rarely fits the crime. Also, I consider the value of life to add significant weight to the death penalty. It may also be helpful to consider that I do not see the statistics that show the death penalt not having a deterrent effect to have any weight on the importance of justice.
I do think that the element of justice needs to be balanced with mercy, but our country doesn’t exactly hold that as a characteristic of progress. The merciful are usually considered weak.
By Tony Steidler-Dennison on Dec 15, 2005 | Reply
The baiting was unintentional, Josiah … just really comments out in the ether.
> It may also be helpful to consider that I do not see the statistics that show the death penalt not having a deterrent effect to have any weight on the importance of justice.
That’s an interesting argument and, I think, one that reflects the general mood.
We’ve always been able to break down the death penalty argument into two pretty distinct camps: the retributivists who take “an eye for an eye” quite literally, seeking retrubution for an injustice, and the utilitarians who take the bigger view of what best suits the interests of society as a whole.
Both philosophical views have compelling and interesting arguments. If your goal is retribution, for example, then it’s imperative that you have the right criminal. If your goal is to deter further such crimes for the good of society, then (surprisingly), it really means less to have the right criminal than to make a strong impression by his/her execution.
Which is directly to my point. I’m not really sure where we stand as a country anymore in relation to these two planes of thinking. We seem to have some blending of the two philosophies. The retibutivists clamor for reducing the appeals process and getting to “justice” more quickly, even if that risks executing an innocent. Utilitarians have all but given up on the deterrent effect argument, relying heavily on the statistical racial/economic imbalance in the imposition of the death penalty. It seems to me to be an odd blending of philosophies.
And mercy, as you’ve subtly pointed out, seems to have been abandoned for now. In this particular case, Tookie Williams had much to offer the world in the way of shared experience. I think mercy *and* utilitarianism would have been best served by sparing his life and allowing him to continue speaking out against gangs and gang life.
By Josiah Ritchie on Dec 15, 2005 | Reply
I didn’t figure you were baiting me, but thought you might find it interesting what hooked me. It seems I worded that sentence poorly.
Allow me to take a detour, Merry Christmas! Back to the discussion . . .
It would be curious to know how exactly the decision not to grant a pardon for Mr. Williams was come to. What little I know of his last days, as presented by the media, would suggest that mercy of some type would have been appropriate. If not a full-pardon, a weakening of the punishment perhaps would have been appropriate.
I think one of the major issues that we have with the death penalty is confusion. The government is often equated to an individual. In reality, the government is not an individual, but a function of society. I’d further agrue that it is one of the 3 institutions put in place by God, which is key to my argument for it is key to making government more than simply an institution of individuals.
I struggled with the death penalty long and hard, and my wife continues to disagree with me. Perhaps this is because it is hard to discuss without the emotional attachments that cloud judgement. Our government is far from upholding biblical values, but God gave the responsibility of justice to the government without any caveats. If God had provided a loophole against a wobbly judicial system, I’d not be comfortable with the death penalty being in use by our government either, but He didn’t. I tried to find them because I, like any sane person, don’t want someone to die that didn’t earn this punishment. In reality, every government in history has been questionable so no government was pure enough to humanly be without fault in implementing the death penalty.
Additionally, in the same way that Williams needed the mercy of the government to overcome the just punishment for his actions, I need the mercy of God to overcome the wrong I’ve done againts God. The thing is, everyone has this problem of not being right before God so no one else could take it for me. That’s why it is important that Christ was without sin and that is why it is important that he died in my place so I could be acceptable to God again, no longer worthy of spiritual death because my sin was wiped out.
In the end, the death penalty is symbolic of God’s judgement. God’s mercy is symbolized in many ways, but recently I’ve been contemplating this symbolism in another of the three institutions he set up, marriage. Again, we’ve messed it up pretty bad, but the fulfillment of a sound marriage is often described as symbolic of the relationship between us and God.
By joseph on Dec 25, 2005 | Reply
12 people said he was guilty. Were they wrong? They did sit through the trial. 20+ years of the best legal minds, working in his behalf, didn’t prove his innocence.
I noticed that no one addressed the problem of the four dead people left by this choir boy.
Do their lives count?
Why not consider these people committing suicide when they kill innocent people?
“People who claim that sentencing a murderer to “life without the possibility of parole” protects society just as well as the death penalty ignore three things: (1) life without the possibility of parole does not mean life without the possibility of escape or (2) life without the possibility of killing while in prison or (3) life without the possibility of a liberal governor being elected and issuing a pardon.”
Thomas Sowell quotes (American Writer and Economist, b.1930)