New Jersey unplugs the chair
I've always had strong doubts about the wisdom of allowing government officials -- even after trial and the appeals process -- to kill prisoners as punishment for their crimes. To judge by the news, the governor of the woefully mis-nicknamed Garden State feels the same way. I can't speak for Governor Jon Corzine -- God knows, I wouldn't ever want to speak for Corzine -- but for my part, I oppose the death penalty on both personal and pragmatic grounds.
It's not that I'm a pacifist; to the contrary, I believe very strongly in the right to bear arms and to use them in defense of life and property. But killing an assailant who poses an active threat to you, your friends and loved ones, or your home and valuables is a very different matter from hauling a prisoner in shackles from his jail cell, strapping him to a gurney and running high-voltage or poison into his body. It's clear to me that, as long as an attacker displays the intention and the capacity to do you harm, you have the right to use whatever force is necessary, including lethal force, in self-defense. But force ceases to be necessary once that attacker has surrendered or been subdued. Of course you can shoot an intruder who breaks into your house in the middle of the night and brandishes a weapon at you. But how do you justify poisoning or electrocuting that same person once he's been disarmed and confined? I just don't see a moral justification for killing as a penalty for past acts.
Then there are problems with the integrity and fallibility of the people who administer all human institutions. Do you remember when then-Illinois Governor George Ryan suspended his state's death penalty -- and why he did so? As Ryan commented at the time:
More recently, Mississippi's de facto state medical examiner, Steven Hayne, has been exposed as a hack who essentially testilies to anything that prosecutors want, no matter how unfounded his statements may be and how impermissible his practices have been judged by professional organizations. Says former Columbus, Mississippi, police chief J.D. Sanders, "There’s no question in my mind that there are innocent people doing time at Parchman Penitentiary due to the testimony of Dr. Hayne. "There may even be some on death row."
It's unacceptable to imprison people for crimes they didn't actually commit, but at least you can free them, cut them checks that feature lots of zeros and wish them the best in their new lives. How do you make amends to somebody who has been wrongly executed? Fresh flowers on the grave every week just won't do the job.
New Jersey politicians don't do a lot of things right, but they took the high ground by formally abolishing a penalty that's morally indefensible, dangerous to implement in a system run by fallible human beings -- and which the state hasn't used since 1963 anyway. It's time for other states to follow suit.
It's not that I'm a pacifist; to the contrary, I believe very strongly in the right to bear arms and to use them in defense of life and property. But killing an assailant who poses an active threat to you, your friends and loved ones, or your home and valuables is a very different matter from hauling a prisoner in shackles from his jail cell, strapping him to a gurney and running high-voltage or poison into his body. It's clear to me that, as long as an attacker displays the intention and the capacity to do you harm, you have the right to use whatever force is necessary, including lethal force, in self-defense. But force ceases to be necessary once that attacker has surrendered or been subdued. Of course you can shoot an intruder who breaks into your house in the middle of the night and brandishes a weapon at you. But how do you justify poisoning or electrocuting that same person once he's been disarmed and confined? I just don't see a moral justification for killing as a penalty for past acts.
Then there are problems with the integrity and fallibility of the people who administer all human institutions. Do you remember when then-Illinois Governor George Ryan suspended his state's death penalty -- and why he did so? As Ryan commented at the time:
We have now freed more people than we have put to death under our system -- 13 people have been exonerated and 12 have been put to death. There is a flaw in the system, without question, and it needs to be studied.
More recently, Mississippi's de facto state medical examiner, Steven Hayne, has been exposed as a hack who essentially testilies to anything that prosecutors want, no matter how unfounded his statements may be and how impermissible his practices have been judged by professional organizations. Says former Columbus, Mississippi, police chief J.D. Sanders, "There’s no question in my mind that there are innocent people doing time at Parchman Penitentiary due to the testimony of Dr. Hayne. "There may even be some on death row."
It's unacceptable to imprison people for crimes they didn't actually commit, but at least you can free them, cut them checks that feature lots of zeros and wish them the best in their new lives. How do you make amends to somebody who has been wrongly executed? Fresh flowers on the grave every week just won't do the job.
New Jersey politicians don't do a lot of things right, but they took the high ground by formally abolishing a penalty that's morally indefensible, dangerous to implement in a system run by fallible human beings -- and which the state hasn't used since 1963 anyway. It's time for other states to follow suit.
Labels: civil liberties
posted by J.D. Tuccille at
10:46 AM
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