Not All May Live in Community

I will freely admit that this is disturbing to me. I have been thinking about the death penalty since the State of California executed Stanley Williams. It seems that there are several other people awaiting execution in my home state, several of which have already had the dates of their deaths set by the state. This begs the question: who is entitled to live in community?

Not All Are Entitled
I am a liberal to my core; this means that I value the individual rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness while understanding that the government must protect the environment, provide for just distribution of wealth, and defend those whose rights are endangered by a tyranny of the majority. It is that last clause that causes me such consternation. In good conscience, I have to say that not all are entitled to live in our communities. Some present a clear and present danger. Some must be removed.

While working as a social worker, I came upon a client that we'’ll call "“JR."” Through no fault of his own, JR was born with diminished mental capacities. He had a diagnosis of mild mental retardation and had psychological difficulties. As one psychologist phrased it, he was "all id and no ego," that is to say that he had no ability to understand culpability for his criminal actions. JR was a sex predator. While on a 51-50 hold he stalked and raped at least two women that were under sedation. Later, when confronted, he responded, "they didn'’t say '‘no...'"

I believe in freedom from the government's intrusion into my life. I believe that I should be free from wire-taps without due process. I believe that the criminal justice system should be just and humane. I believe that war is rarely - if ever -– justified; that all wars need to be minimal in scope and subject to both the consent of the people and international law. Having said this, I also believe that JR should never be given the right to live with the general population. JR is incapable of distinguishing right from wrong, feeling remorse for his crimes, or understanding that he is victimizing others, and -– most importantly -– controlling himself. For the safety and wellbeing of the general population, he needed to be removed. The question is this: “Where should he be placed? The last I heard, he was at Wasco. This is hell on earth.

A Civilized Option?
That all cannot live in the greater society or that, some have committed crimes so heinous as to have forfeited their rights to live in that society justifies neither a death penalty nor its moral equivalent. The next person scheduled to die is not a Nobel Prize nominee. Neither is he a study in repentance. He is a case study for the death penalty: Clarence Ray Allen was convicted of ordering the murders of three individuals while he was incarcerated at Folsom State Prison for the crime of murder. Mr. Allen, a member of the Choctaw Nation, is currently 76 years old, suffers from diabetes, is blind, and uses a wheel chair. He is scheduled to die on 17 January 2006. The man that carried out the murders ordered by Mr. Allen, Mr. Billy Hamilton, is also on death row. Mr. Allen is a nefarious character. There is no doubt about this. But the question remains: how is justice served by the termination of this life?

I have always argued that the strongest argument against the death penalty is that it is irrevocable and solely vindictive. There is no attempt to regard the condemned as human or to treat them in a humane manner. I can hear the right wing beginning their bantering, speaking about lily-livered liberals that don'’t care about victims'’ rights. I will say this clearly and for the record: no victim has the right to blood. The convicted must be removed from the greater society and allowed to live out their days segregated from the general population. Their needs must be met but their right to live with others is forfeit.

Pandering to Bloodlust
The benchmark of a civilized society is that we are not all id and no ego. We have the ability to see beyond the need of vengeance and our desire for blood. The death penalty does little, if nothing, to address the causes of violence in our society. It does lend an air of credibility, however, to the idea of an eye for an eye. By condoning violence committed by the state, whether by warfare, unjust distribution of wealth and resources, or utilization of cruelty in our penal system, we become that which the law forswears. The bitterest irony is that we use the law and the mechanisms of the State to commit this act.

I don't expect that Mr. Allen'’s pending execution will draw the celebrity that surrounded the execution of Mr. Williams. And I have to ask, what good does the termination of this life do that cannot be accomplished in so many other ways? It is time to impose a moratorium on executions in this state and to put an end to this barberous practice.

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Writing on January 14, 2006 - The Governor of California has announed that this execution will proceed as planned. The link to Reuters is here. And my question still stands: what is gained for the termination of this life. I fear when our penal system becomes a means of castigation rather than reform. It is curious that the word penitentiary derives from the word penitence, a place where a soul found a means to repent and to be restored to community. The origin of the idea was one of restoring, not destroying life. To mete out punishment is to harden a criminal and steel his or her resolve to continue a criminal. I do not belive that all can be reformed, for various reasons (some physiological, others moral). And I stand by my statement, not all are capable of life in the greater community. There must be a human system to address the people that choose not to accept the bounds of law. But having said that I must object that equally it is immoral for the State to take life.
-tDF