A controversial execution has been postponed in the state of Georgia this evening. Troy Davis has narrowly escaped death just a few minutes ago while courts consider issuing a formal stay. But his immediate fate is still in doubt, the execution could reportedly move ahead at anytime:
The last-minute decision caused confusion outside the prison in Jackson, Georgia, where family, supporters and civil rights campaigners broke into celebration as they believed the court had granted Davis a stay of execution. But it quickly emerged that the delay was only temporary, while the justices considered whether to issue a stay.
The case has become a lightning rod for capital punishment for several reasons. Eye witnesses have recanted, most of the jury which convicted Davis has since said they would not have asked for the death penalty had they known facts now in evidence.
My own opinion is there are situations where the death penalty is appropriate, or at least defensible. The idea the state would strap someone down and kill them is a little creepy, it harkens back to a more barbaric time not all that long ago, and I sympathize with those who object on purely moral grounds. Nevertheless, I could be persuaded to make exceptions. If the suspect confesses and provides information that only he or she would know, like Ted Bundy for example, I could support it. So in principle maybe I support the death penalty. But not as as its practiced in the real world. The flaws in the criminal justice system are simply too well documented, too frequent, and too great.
Eyewitnesses and police make honest mistakes, the career benefits for DAs who clear cases or the political ramifications for governors can cloud judgement. We know sometimes corruption or negligence can result in conviction of the innocent. We see this over and over again in cases big and small. The idea that it could never happen in a death penalty case because the safeguards are perfect is ridiculous. Considering the finality of death, there’s no way I could go along with capital punishment in the vast majority of cases, and given the stakes that just seems like it ought to be a no brainer for anyone.
No. Even if there were no potential for error in the criminal justice system, even if we could be 100 percent certain of an individual’s guilt, the death penalty would still be wrong in principle.
Revenge is inherently irrational. The idea that some people “deserve” to die is nonsensical; the Kantian conception of retributive justice is not something that can be justified in the context of a rational secular worldview. There is no god that must be appeased, and no transcendent moral order that must be rebalanced. The idea that a murderer must sacrifice his or her life in atonement for his or her crime, a life for a life, is a pre-rational religious idea that has no place in a properly-thought-out system of ethics. To take a human life, merely because one considers that the person one is killing no longer “deserves” to live, is both cruel and arrogant.
And I, for one, would rather live in a society in which the state doesn’t mete out brutal death to helpless unarmed prisoners. Killing someone in violent revenge for a crime isn’t “justice”; it doesn’t put anything right; it doesn’t undo the original crime or the pain associated with it. It just results in more dead bodies, more pain, and more bereaved families.
The only rational moral framework is a consequentialist one. Killing a person might be justifiable, if it were the only way to protect the lives of others (say, shooting a gunman who’s about to rampage through a classroom). But the death penalty does not serve the purpose of saving human lives. There is no evidence that jurisdictions with the death penalty experience lower crime rates than those without it. Nor is it necessary for the purpose of containment: it’s no harder (and, in fact, no less expensive) to keep someone in prison for life than to execute him or her. So I conclude that there is no possible rational argument for the death penalty. Anyone who is in favour of the death penalty must either (a) have failed to think through the issues properly, (b) be in error as to the relevant facts, or (c) be relying on a religious or crypto-religious idea of vengeance and “just deserts” that has no place in a rational setting.