The Two Sides of Capital Punishment

The concept of a society that sanctions and condemns a criminal to death has long been among our most divisive. Even among its supporters, priorities vary - should all murderers be killed? Or should there be a points system to reach further thresholds to cross, elevating some murders up to capital crimes? Aggravating factors like silencing witnesses, threats of recidivism, racial motivation, juvenile victims, the depraved nature of the crime, or multiple victims would be considered.

Priorities vary among those who reject it as well. Many cite the death penalty as being a form of cruel and unusual punishment as described in the 8th Amendment. Others call out racial disparities in its application, question its use as a deterrent to future perpetrators, or consider it a barbaric activity in general that lowers us to the level of the killer we’re punishing.

There are two sides to every story, and we do ourselves an injustice when we ignore one to support our personal views.

In the United States alone, there have been over a hundred people on death row who have been set free after being completely exonerated from having committed any crime. That’s over a hundred innocent people who, if the system had moved a bit faster, would be dead by our hands - and many others were not so lucky. This is a significant part of the problem, even for those who believe that capital punishment is justified. Our system is enormous, and with that comes abundant human error, bias, and incompetence. No apologies can be bestowed upon the dead.

The issue of racial inequality as it applies to capital punishment has been discussed ad nauseum… or has it? Tiring of an uncomfortable subject should not be considered an acceptable reason to let it go unresolved. We know that blacks comprise about 12% of our country’s overall population, but over 40% of that on death row, and over 30% of those actually executed. Amnesty International has reported that while the two races are represented in roughly equal numbers as murder victims, four out of five of the cases resulting in the death penalty involved victims who were white.

So what is our nation telling us? Not only does the practice discriminate against perpetrators of color, as if their crimes are somehow worse for having been committed by “them”, the distribution of its application implies a lesser value to the lives of victims of color as well. Conversely, however, we must acknowledge the fact that despite being only 12% of the population, blacks commit over 50% of all murders, which certainly affects the apparent racial discrepancies.

Additionally, people have a misconceived notion that when a murderer goes to prison, we're all safe. Do you know how many convicted killers have been released, only to kill again? Jimmy Lee Gray was convicted of murder in Arizona for cutting a 16-year-old's throat. He got 20 years, was paroled in six, and then raped and murdered a three-year old child. A three-year-old. That baby would still be alive, but some people were more concerned about the butcher who killed her. John McRae slashed and mutilated an eight-year-old boy in Michigan and was sentenced to life, but had it commuted by the governor and was paroled after 20 years or so. He proceeded to torture and murder four other boys before he was caught again. Timothy Buss was paroled, for the sexual abuse and murder of a five-year-old girl in Illinois, after twelve years. He showed he'd learned his lesson by raping, mutilating, and murdering a ten-year-old boy, and he's still alive trying to get his new sentence reduced.

You can't make this stuff up. Seriously, look up Arthur Shawcross, Dwaine Little, Andrew Dawson, John Miller, Howard Allen, Desmond Lee... The list goes on and on, all killers who were caught and allowed by society to live, and who embraced that gift by killing again. Correction officers and other prisoners are killed in prison. Killers escape, are paroled, or have their sentences commuted. Laws change, and suddenly security is ripped out from under us.

David Port killed a 23-year-old postal worker while robbing her and got 75 years. But because Texas enacted what's called a Mandatory Supervision Law in 1977, all convicted criminals were to be automatically released the moment their real-time served plus their 'good conduct days' equaled 1/3 of their original sentence. He was a free man at the ripe age of 49. Hundreds of others qualified for that early release loophole, which was thankfully closed to violent offenders ten years later in 1987, but everyone convicted during that decade is grandfathered, still qualifies, and can't be denied.

The Palm Sunday Massacre was big enough to get its own tagline. Christopher Thomas, who already had multiple violent felony convictions, executed two women - one of whom was pregnant - and eight children. Ten innocent people, plus the unborn child; but of course, capital punishment isn't an option in New York, so all jurors were left to decide was if he murdered them all under duress (his 'duress' being his choice of fanatical cocaine abuse). The reduced manslaughter convictions resulted in a state-enforced cap on his sentence to 50 years total, of which he only served two-thirds, about 32 years. For those of you counting at home, that's roughly three years for each child murdered, and their known killer walked free while still in his 60s.

Clearly, our society needs to take measures to correct issues with imbalanced application and trial errors. But we also must recognize that excessive mercy in sentencing disrespects victims and their loved ones, extending their victimhood indefinitely and turning their nightmare into a perpetual state of limbo. Lighter sentencing guidelines only inspire stronger calls for Capital Punishment in response, as many feel that real justice can’t be guaranteed otherwise.

Zephareth Ledbetter is the author of “A White Man’s Perspectives on Race and Racism”, available as an ebook at smashwords.com/books/view/1184004, and can be reached on Facebook and Twitter