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Monday, January 16, 2006

Put To Death

Posted by on January 16 at 14:15 PM

On every political and social topic, I stand to the far left, save the issue of the death penalty. My heart believes that men who commit murder at a certain age should be put to death (and not in a nice medical way, but quartered or hanged—the final punishment should always be graphic, visceral, and public). But my brain knows that the final punishment system is such that class (and as a consequence, race) plays too big role in the judgment process. (I also have an esthetic reason for supporting the death penalty: What would film noir be without it. But as with most matters that concern crime and punishment, the fiction of noir barely translates into the facts of life; those who are executed by the state tend not to look like Fred MacMurray but Michael Clarke Duncan.) The only reason I say no to the death penalty is because the system is seriously imperfect.
But what say you about this case.

SAN FRANCISCO - A 76-year-old convicted killer — legally blind, nearly deaf and in a wheelchair — tried to stave off execution early Tuesday by arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court that it would be cruel and unusual punishment to put a feeble old man to death… Allen went to prison for having his teenage son’s 17-year-old girlfriend murdered for fear she would tell police about a grocery-store burglary. While behind bars, he tried to have witnesses in the case wiped out, prosecutors said. He was sentenced to death in 1982 for hiring a hit man who killed a witness and two bystanders.


I say, like the robot in Blade Runner, “Wake up! It’s time to die.”


CommentsRSS icon

For once, I'm with you Charles, and in every way. Deaf or blind or both, he's still the same man. And since we know he was responsible for a fact and there's no chance of an imperfect system missing the mark in this case, go for it.

That vampire who's running for governor of Minnesota (he's been on the slog several times now) has a platform that includes impalement. From his website:

"Victims, aren't we all? That's what terrorists and criminals want you to think. However, I feel the time has come for terrorists and criminals to become victims. Victims of being IMPALED!"

I think Charles should interview him.

(http://www.jonathonforgovernor.us/Impalement.html)

I've always had mixed feelings about the death penalty. I think it is wrong, but mostly because it is unfairly applied, and because judges and juries can be imperfect. So, on principal, I am against the death penalty. However, when it comes down to a particular individual, like the guy in your example, I can't generate a whole lot of sympathy for him. He was convicted of having several people killed. If he could successful convince the court that it was a mistaken conviction or something, perhaps I could sympathize. But he's not. He isn't saying he didn't do it. He's saying he shouldn't be executed because of his poor health. I say tough shit. Poor health or not, he had several people killed, and tried to have witnesses killed. It's the needle for you, asshole! Wheelchair or not. What, we're supposed to release him because he's in poor health? Even half blind & deaf and in a wheelchair, he can still order more hits.

Emotional reaction aside, I think I could agree to the general idea of the death penalty only if it was automatically applied equally to all capitol crimes (not just to poor minority convicts), and if there was any way to guarantee judges and juries couldn't make a mistake. Since that seems impossible, I still say we should eliminate the death penalty.

In this case, it seems like the death penalty would let this guy off easy. He's blind, almost deaf, in a wheelchair, and in prison. Could it get any worse than that? Unless the punishment entailed something similar to what Charles described (drawn and quartered, tortured a bit perhaps), I would think that letting him live the rest of his life in that condition is a far better punishment.

That said, being old and impaired shouldn't be an excuse to escape the death penalty. It takes decades of appeals before most states get around to executing their death-row inmates. Of course, by that time, many of them would be old and infirm.

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