My newspaper, the Dallas Morning News, is on record opposing the death penalty, and produced a special section earlier this year explaining why we changed our mind. But in today's paper, we ran an extraordinary editorial, conceived and written by my colleague Rodger Jones. Here's how it starts:
Texas' busy death chamber is scheduled to reach a milestone Wednesday, with the 400th execution since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976.We believe our readers deserve more than a sterile recitation of the facts of the case or the killer's life. Especially since this newspaper has come out in opposition to the death penalty, it's appropriate today to focus on a part of the story that's too often overlooked: the murder victim.
What follows is a portrayal of that person's life, drawing from the memories of her only child, a daughter. We did not seek the daughter out for what she might say about the death penalty. We sought her out because it's important for people on all sides of the issue to learn more about the loved one who was taken from her nine years, three months and two days ago.
Read the whole thing. You'll not be sorry.
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A couple of days ago on beliefnet.com was posted a pic of a young man smiling with a happy smile (like a sweet rabbit), it was written that he killed dozens of people in coldblooded way, after watching in their eyes, but now he changed, there was written something that now he believs in God, it is not on front page now, i don't remember what else was written there, it seems the question for voting was if his story was inspiring, and many people voted that yes, it was. So where is justice then, why one man is going to be executed and another is not
To me it is strange that that woman is numb about execution if she honestly had forgiven that man.
I'm generally against death penalty, maybe except some very rare cases
My father was a hard-core right-winger whose face turned the shade of a hyacinth at hearing the words "Franklin Delano Roosevelt." He was also a hard-core racist.
However, he opposed the death penalty. His rationale was, "They've never executed a rich man." In other words, what watsy said.
That's enough for me.
Yeah, the only way I could support the death penalty is if applying the death penalty had a threshold beyond reasonable doubt, like 100% absolute certainty of guilt.
I don't quite know if it's constitutional though to have a different standard for a punishment than conviction. Anyone know about this?
wow. just wow.
The moment we think punishment and the Constitution is about victims instead of the accused, we are in big trouble as a society. The Constitution doesn't protect victims, it protects the accused. The power of the state never robs the victim of rights and freedoms and a justice system too focused on victims loses sight of whom it should be focued on: the accused.
This focus on victims explains why the killers of white people are more likely to be sentenced to death than the killers of black and brown people. The focus on the victim is what leads us to believe that "retribution" by execution is an appropriate punishment, even if it puts us in the company of Saudi Arabian, Iran, and China. The focus on the victim is what leads us to rigged trial, phony evidence, and victim impact statements.
Arguably the focus on the victim is a product of the therapeutic society that Rod usually criticizes because it suggests we can make people feel better by allowing the state to execute its citizens.
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