Death penalty scrutiny

Consider these points concerning putting the death penalty in place in Alaska.

For:

• The death penalty becomes cruel and unusual punishment for aggravated, malicious murder only for spiritually bankrupt people who believe humans are soulless animals.

• Just punishment is a human device to bring consequences for anti-social behavior to a perpetrator, and to repair harm to public confidence in civilization. The ancient punishment policy of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” has proven a better substitute for our Creator’s infallibility than has naturally imperfect human opinion.

• It’s cheaper to kill and bury someone than it is to publicly fund a lifetime of incarceration.

• Rehabilitation is essentially fixing mis-education in rationality and morality in order to restore public confidence in a person’s ability to contribute and cooperate in society. A person’s willing restitution for wrongs committed, acknowledged and accepted by most of his neighbors, naturally shows successful rehabilitation. What sort of restitution is possible in this life for maliciously planned murder?

Against:

• Rather than covertly mocking it as irrational pacifism, some Christian sects purely follow Christ’s teachings of non-violence and anti-revenge. Example: An Amish community recently refused to help prosecute the murderer of a young Amish girl.

• There’s widespread disrespect for humanity’s heritage of successful justice processes. For instance, the basic principle of a person being innocent until proven guilty by an open trial of facts and law — not hearsay and government know-best — is openly mocked. Example: Refusal by Congress to try then-President Bush for impeachment under constitutional justifications has left the truth unsought and his guilt or innocence left to public prejudice and hearsay. Example: Holding all the alleged enemy combatants at Gitmo for years, justified only by unverified government accusation of offenses warranting death, constitutes guilt and punishment by mere government say-so.

• Several states are having an abnormal percentage of their past murder convictions overturned with unused DNA evidence. This degree of conviction error is consistent proof of prosecutorial incompetence in such cases.

• The accuracy of information used for deliberative thinking historically determines the quality of subsequent judgments or decisions. Look how sloppy sanctioning mass executions and collateral killing committed in war-making has become.

To be ethical, socially sanctioned killing needs strong adherence to proven processes of civic involvement, truth-seeking, deliberation and justice. I don’t see such quality discipline in our society right now.

Stuart Thompson

Wasilla