Hello and good evening everybody, thank you for allowing me to take part in your discussion forum.
I have read a lot of the views here for some time now and been fascinated by the range of opinions, varying from sensible, thru moderate and all the way to the downright fascist.
I felt I should register here to contribute my own thoughts to what is far from a simple US issue and maybe work out my own undecided ideas on the death penalty.
Just a bit of background, I am a UK citizen, aged 44 years and a practising Physician. If you wish to verify my credentials my GMC number is 4413367. I am the father of four children. You will all be aware that my country and the rest of Europe abolished the Death penalty between 1965 and 1990 or so.
As a devotee of the principle of the sanctity of life but a natural staunch conservative, the death penalty provides me with massive internal conflict, despite my wish to ensure the safety of me, my family and fellow citizens from violent crime. Just as an aside I NEVER refer women for termination of pregnancy and I have no interest or belief in euthanasia.
In the UK, DP was abolished in 1965, largely as a result of two massive miscarriages of justice, in the Evans
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Evans) and Bentley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Bentley_case) cases.
Pre 1965 UK capital cases proceeded much more quickly to execution than is currently the case in the United States, which could be argued, led to these miscarriages of justice. Nonetheless, I read on this forum that the opinion is to accelerate the process of conviction to execution in order to improve the deterrent effect of the death penalty. In other words, reduce the bureaucracy and legal wrangling in capital cases to clear your death rows and show an example to others.
What I can’t reconcile myself with however, is the inevitable situation where an innocent is convicted and sentenced to death. Both the UK and US legal systems have done this and executed people who have later been exonerated. From my reading, the only reason that the current US system has not executed multiple innocent individuals since the lifting of the moratorium is that the legal process in the US is so protracted, inconsistently-applied and unpredictable that individuals have their rightful chance of being cleared during their 10-25 year period on death row. If this is the case, the argument for the death penalty becomes hugely weakened since the deterrent effect of it is diminished the longer an offender is kept alive.
The ultimate example of the deterrent effect of capital punishment in my opinion is Saudi Arabia
If we want to see a system of deterrence then I believe this is it. Public beheading. Immediate death, no botched lethal injections or electrocutions and the most visible public example of the consequences of murder. Unfortunately however, the Saudis aren’t that concerned with burden of truth, so we go back to the US system of 25 years of unbelievably costly appeals and lack of deterrence.
I really WANT to believe in the principle of paying the ultimate price for the most heinous of crimes, but the American justice system
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_of_the_State_of_California_vs._Orenthal_James_Simpson is not so much based on what is just, but money, influence and racial stereotypes. And that is dangerous. That is why the whole of the European continent has outlawed judicial execution. None of our legal systems are good enough to always be certain.
If you can show me a system in which you can guarantee the accused is 100% guilty and no person who is innocent could ever be executed; then I’d be all for the death penalty. Otherwise, if we’re willing for the occasional innocent to be executed just to keep the death penalty alive, then it seems we’re no better than the murderer.
• “It is more important that innocence should be protected, than it is, that guilt be punished; for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world, that all of them cannot be punished.... when innocence itself, is brought to the bar and condemned, especially to die, the subject will exclaim, 'it is immaterial to me whether I behave well or ill, for virtue itself is no security.' And if such a sentiment as this were to take hold in the mind of the subject that would be the end of all security whatsoever”
Sir William Blackstone 1765.