Number 11 The Death Penalty

I have been, as long as I can remember, in opposition to the death penalty. For quite sometime my opposition was based on my religious convictions but in recent years the bases of my opposition has moved away from religion to simply invalid thinking.

Barbarism is still a very popular way of life throughout the world and that includes the United States. We are not so much more civilized in this country than in many cultures abroad, we merely have a more sophisticated legal system by which we subject the accused in order to arrive at guilt or innocents. If guilty you are likely to pay heavily.

The death penalty in my opinion is as much a barbaric act as the act for which the criminal was convicted and sentenced to be executed.

The prosecution usually has many more resources to carry on his investigation than does the defendant. To start with, this immediately puts the defendant at a serious disadvantage, and, we are, more and more, hearing about people in prison being exonerated after spending many years behind bars for crimes for which they played no part in. Some of these wrongly convicted people are sitting on death row awaiting execution and most likely will be executed.

How many more innocent people are in prison today because the prosecution could make a case against a poor defendant that could not afford or acquire competent representation? How many will spend the rest of their lives behind bars though they are completely innocent? How many innocent men or women are on death row that most likely will be executed, and how many throughout the years have died by the rope, the ax, the needle, the electric chair, the firing squad or the gas chamber? Don't forget that I am speaking hear about the wrongly convicted, not the truly guilty.

Can you imagine being on death row, counting your days to live before your last hours or moments? Can you imagine the angst that your loved ones are going through daily, especially if they know you are innocent but can't prove it? Can you imagine their helplessness?

The death penalty is an institution that nobody, I think, would be proud to wear the badge of executioner. When a state ordains the death penalty they must employ an executioner or executioners to carry out these barbaric means of punishment, so how does the state give notice that the state is in need of executioners? Do they interview potential persons interested in being an executioner for the state? Does the state think it important to examine the psychological status of such applicants? What psychological profile is ideal to qualify an individual to be an executioner?

I'm sure that there must be personalities out there that would love to be an executioner, but aside from these few personalities I can't imagine anyone else being interested in such a position. Perhaps I am wrong. There may be a great number of people ready and willing to execute someone as long as the courts and the state ordains it, and they may be exhilarated in knowing that they executed this person.

Most people throughout the world are capable of killing another person under severe circumstances such as self defense or to protect some innocent individual or to avenge the harm or death of a loved one. Unfortunately we sometimes live with a would-be murderer, or next door to such a person. We work with and even like and admire some of these individuals completely unaware of this secret side of their personality.

I, at one time had a welder work for me and I liked him . Not too long after he quit working for me a young girl was bludgeoned to death and left in a field to be torn to pieces by scavengers. He became the focus of the investigation and eventually was convicted of murdering the girl. The court did not hand down the death penalty. I think he is still serving time in prison but I'm not sure how many years he was sentenced to serve.

I firmly believe that premeditated murderers should remain in prison for the rest of their life because they have shown society that they possess little or no respect for life. They have demonstrated that they lack the capacity to think validly the consequences of their actions and are therefore too big of a risk to society. I also believe that anyone incarcerated should be required to work or not eat. If I choose not to work it will not be long before I will be without food and therefore become very hungry. Then I will start looking for a job or perhaps a handout, but as we find out handouts usually don't last very long.

I am going to end this BLOG pertaining to 'The Death Penalty' today but I plan to return to it on
my next BLOG number 12.

Finton