Applause for the Death Penalty

For a long time there were two things that I couldn't make up my mind about:   legalized abortion and the death penalty.   I couldn't make up my mind because I didn't really have to make up my mind.    Neither abortion nor the death penalty had directly touched my own life.   A few years ago, the governor of Illinois suspended the death penalty in Illinois when more or less half of the prisoners on death row had been proven to be innocent by DNA testing or otherwise.    That event made up my mind for me.

As a practicing lawyer for almost 40 years, I well understand that while our justice system is a good system, it is not an infallible system.    Judges and juries are human beings and human beings make mistakes.    Prosecutors sometimes overreach.    Defense lawyers sometimes don't do a thorough and effective job.    Poor people and minorities do not get the same treatment as middle class white people get.    I could quote statistics and authorities but I have repeatedly seen the evidence with my own eyes.    In my career I have handled all types of criminal cases, state and federal, military courts-martial and civilian cases.    I have even defended a few murder and rape cases over the years.  

I personally have no qualms about the death penalty from a moral point of view.   However, I do believe based on my experience that our justice system is simply too inconsistent and too unreliable to justify putting a defendant to death.   For one thing, an execution forecloses the possibility of the discovery of later-developing evidence such as a change of heart by a perjuring witness or the development of new scientific methodology like DNA testing.   What could be worse than an innocent person being put to death for a crime they did not commit?   On a practical level, the death penalty takes too long, uses up too many court resources, and costs too much.   Virtually every civilized nation in the modern world has abandoned the death penalty for these reasons.

Although I am a registered, card-carrying Democrat, I tuned in to the Republican debate last night.    I am certainly not unsympathetic to some of the views expressed.    I have been trying the past couple of years to listen to the Republican/conservative point of view with an open mind.    Last night the biggest round of applause from the crowd came when one of the moderators asked Texas Governor Rick Perry about his views on the death penalty and mentioned that some 234 people had been executed in Texas on his watch.    As soon as the question was out, spontaneous loud applause broke out.   That people would actually applaud the fact that 234 people had been executed truly shocked me.   Is this really something to be enthusiastic about?   I don't see how an execution could ever been viewed as a happy event.    An execution represents a tragedy for at least two people and at least two families.     Over the years, one way I have learned to tell if a criminal jury is going to convict or acquit the accused is from the looks on the faces of the jurors as they return to the jury box to deliver their verdict.    I have never, ever seen a smile or relief on the face of a juror who has voted to convict someone of a crime.    If some of them look relieved or are smiling, they have invariably acquitted the defendant.   Although one's civic duty may well require a vote to convict another citizen of a crime, it certainly is not generally perceived as a pleasant thing to do.   An execution by the state simply cannot be viewed as something to cheer about by any reasonable and thoughtful person.   People of good will don't celebrate the fact that states are required to execute-- intentionally kill--other people.

My conclusion is that the audience at the Republican debate last night was a pretty hard, cold bunch of people.   I think at most the death penalty could be viewed as a necessary evil.   If they actually take pleasure in the fact that Texas is executing a lot of people, I think that tells us a lot about the character of the Republican faithful in general and Rick Perry supporters in particular.