Death Where Is Thy Sting?

I was recently asked why I spend so much time and ink in my writing covering the death penalty. I have a very straightforward answer for that. Texas is known to have killed at least two innocent men on death row.  We are afraid the number is even higher.

So what? This person replied and I said the so what is that when a state becomes involved with capital punishment, it is taking on the ultimate sentence for a crime or crimes committed.  It is the FINAL act.  There is no turning back. There is no review after the fact. Once the injection is given and the prisoner goes to sleep (the state’s words for the act of killing a human being) there is no next steps for that person.

That means if we are going to have the death penalty, it had better be right. !00% right.  All the time.  And unlike Justice Scalia’s remark, that we can’t be certain we got the right person every time but in most cases we know the deed deserves the punishment, if we are going to administer a life and death sentence, then it is our obligation as a society to make sure we got the right person. And in recent days, it has been made painfully clear that the State of Texas isn’t real good at this. Forget the innocent ones we killed. That is macabre enough. The ones we let get to the very last round after twenty or more years of living on death row, only to find out they are innocent, is enough to make you sick.

Here is why this matters so. As a society whose principles are based on the rule of law, if we as a people violate our own laws in the name of justice, then we have no justice. And if, during the violation of our justice we put a man or woman to death, then we as a society are murderers, for we allowed it to happen on our watch.

Think about that. How would you like it if someone called you a murderer?  I wouldn’t.  But that is what we are corporately, as citizens of a state who has discovered the most mechanized approach to ending life – Death Row.

If a prisoner doesn’t get a fair trial, isn’t represented properly, doesn’t get a complete hearing in appeals and is summarily dismissed by court after court on technicalities (Sorry we close our doors at 5pm), and that prisoner is then executed; only for us to discover post act that the prisoner was in fact, innocent of the charges; then we as a people- our government representing us- we the people have committed an act outside of justice in taking the life of an innocent man and that is murder.

It is a slippery slope, this death penalty business. One bad apple in the DA office (Dallas County alone as a bushel basket of them apparently) one asleep at the wheel public defender, one lazy judge – that all it takes for the wrong person to get our final vengeance.

Besides, I think Life Without Parole, is a far more meaningful sentence. You do the crime and you serve the time. You take a life and we’ll put you away for the rest of yours. But to take it, to snuff it out, is a final act with no possibility of admission of wrongful prosecution.

Too late.  Too bad.  Tough luck. None of those satisfies my soul. Not the way we dish out capital charges these days. Not in Texas, anyway.