If the unimaginable occurred, would you support the death penalty?
Industry colleagues often tell me they appreciate the ballsiness of The Good Men Project. Not only do I love the phrase “ballsy”, I love the fact that every person who writes for The Good Men Project is not afraid to put themselves (and their reputations) on the line by telling the world how they truly feel.
We don’t bullshit around here; we boldly speak what’s in our hearts and our minds. The Good Men Project is a visceral experience. We passionately write about what it means to be good, a lack of goodness, individual darkness, morality, gender, equality and everything in between.
What I’m about to tell you is not good. However, it is a good conversation to have, and The Good Men Project is the ideal forum. (Even though it’s frightening to publicly admit my feelings on this topic.) I wrestle with what I’m about to say. Perhaps someone will change my mind? Or maybe you privately identify with my truth and it will be cathartic to hear your sentiments spoken by another?
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Days after the Aurora movie theater shooting, my husband and I hosted a dinner party. The topic of conversation eventually made its way to capital punishment and the possibility of James Holmes receiving the death penalty.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a proponent of the death penalty. Yes, I believe in putting someone to death if they have unequivocally committed a heinous, unconscionable crime. I don’t believe a sadistic sociopath has the right to life. I don’t want my tax dollars keeping him or her alive in a maximum security prison. I don’t care that there is a tacit code amongst prisoners and that they “take care of” the worst of the worst in lock down. Furthermore, I don’t care that certain guards look the other way and allow prisoners to eliminate those deemed most vile. I wouldn’t want to take that chance. I would need to know that my loved one’s killer was put to death by the state – after a trial and conviction.
At times, when I’m shaken by the brutality of my emotions, I push myself further to confirm my truth. I delve deeper into my soul and consider these scenarios: if I had a child, and my son or daughter was raped and murdered, would I honestly want the perpetrator put to death? Yes, I would. If my daughter or sister was a victim of Ted Bundy’s inhumane atrocities would I have sincerely wanted him put to death by the electric chair? Yes, of course; I would have wanted him electrocuted. If one of my loved one’s was a victim of the Aurora movie massacre, would I seriously want this madman to face the death penalty? Yes, I definitely would.
What I’ve confessed is not good, but it’s my truth. Given my upbringing – and my attempt to live altruistically each day – I’m tormented by my thoughts. Cognitively, I know I should not feel this way; yet emotionally, I can’t ignore my primitive disposition.
I will always feel conflicted by my views on capital punishment. If you feel differently, I’m in awe of your goodness. I wish I could be more like you.
Editor’s note: This post will be highly moderated. Please keep the commentary respectful and on topic.
About Nicole Johnson
Of course I would. I’d want them dead. But that doesn’t necessarily mean justice is served by the death penalty. I wouldn’t just want them electrocuted, I’d want them burned at the stake. I’d want it to be painful. To borrow the words from the US Constitution, I’d want it to be cruel and unusual. We don’t give victims or their families final say in justice system specifically because they’re too emotionally involved in the case to weigh the interests of justice fairly.
@ Fnord – Thank you for your honesty.
I think the opposite question should be asked: if your loved one was convicted of a horrible come, would you OPPOSE the death penalty? People like to assume that all killers exist in a vacuum with no familial relations.
@ Monkey – “If your loved one was convicted of a horrible come, would you OPPOSE the death penalty?” That’s a great question. If any of my loved ones unequivocally committed a horrific crime (or series of sadistic crimes), I would still support the death penalty.
A lot of people have been found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt who have later been proven innocent. Some have been on death row. That’s why I oppose the death penatly.
@ Monkey – Excellent point. Our justice system has its flaws. I can’t imagine going to jail for a crime that I did not commit. As mentioned, I support the death penalty for people who have absolutely, unequivocally committed a heinous, unconscionable crime(s).
But that’s the problem – anyone in jail has been proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt (based on the evidence up to that point). There’s no special provision for someone who is unequivocably guilty because everyone is considered unequivocably guilty.
@ Monkey – I’m referring to people who have absolutely, unequivocally committed heinous, unconscionable crime(s): Ted Bundy, Anders Behring Breivik, Nidal Hasan, Jeffrey Dahmer, Charles Manson, etc. When the evidence is 100% undeniably true, I am a proponent of the death penalty.
“absolutely unequivocally committed” anything is a difficult bar. At some point, someone still has to judge the evidence, and I think that means the system will always be and can only be fallible. Right more often than not, one hopes, but fallible. For anyone who wants a really personal and compelling story of an exoneration & its aftermath, read Picking Cotton by Jennifer Thompson-Cannino, Ronald Cotton, and Erin Torneo.
I’m repeating myself, but the point is that you can have people who are deemed 100% guilty who have been found not to be guilty. In terms of the law, there is no difference between Ted Bundy and Randall Dale Adams, who was in fact innocent.
As long as the state prosecutes and punishes people, there is always the risk of an innocent person being wrongfully convicted and punished. This is the case whether it is the death penalty, life imprisonment, 20 years in prison, probation or a monetary fine. We can attempt to minimize that risk, but it will never be entirely eliminated, unless we decide not to prosecute at all.
The difference is that someone wrongly sentenced to life can one day be free.
Remember those trials in Connecticut for the two men who broke into a house and murdered the mother and two daughters? Joshua Komisarjevsky, the younger perpetrator, has an uncle who publicly supported the victims’ family and he publicly declared that his nephew was guilty and deserved to be executed.
http://articles.courant.com/2011-12-11/news/hc-op-komisarjevsky-uncle-speaks-on-death-penalty–20111211_1_families-theodore-komisarjevsky-crime
Last November, Florida executed a man named Oba Chandler for a triple murder that he committed back in the 1980′s. Whenever there is an execution, the prison authorities separate the protesters on two sides of the prison yard, one side for the anti-death penalty protesters and one side for the pro-death penalty protesters. Chandler had children on both sides of the yard, some protesting against his execution and some cheering for his execution.
And, of course, this ignores situations in which the family of the victim is also the family of the killer. Not an uncommon situation today.
Was the uncle an eyewitness? If not his opinion makes no difference.
Yes
My brother was murdered six years ago and the police still haven’t apprehended the killer but if they did I wouldn’t want the person to recieve the death penalty.
Shawn, I am so sorry for your loss. I am deeply moved by your morality.
If my relative was a victim of murder I would like to have the murderer locked up for the rest of his life, no parole.
If my relative killed murdered somebody, I would like him to receive death penalty.
If you ask why… life sentence is a much more cruel punishment than death penalty. It’s a very cruel mercy, quick death is preferable.
@ Wirbelwind – Thank you for sharing your truth.
The death of my loved one’s killer wouldn’t fix anything. It could potentially satisfy some primal desire for revenge that I might have but in the end, it wouldn’t be an accomplishment; just another person who’s life was lost in the name of murder.
It would accomplish preventing them from killing anyone else, that’s fixing something right there. Would you prefer they kill an indeterminate number of innocents if that were the only alternative to your moralising? Why would we not want to lose this so called person? I admit I’m oversimplifying the situation to make points that you obvoiusly haven’t considered. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating wholesale vigilantes running amok and I’m not endorsing the death penalty as a thing in itself. I’m only being honest, if someone killed one of my loved ones I would defenitely want to slice them in half with a GPMG whether anyone thinks that’s right or wrong it’s a perfectly understandable reaction. A friend of mine once remarked that not killing the criminal won’t bring your loved ones back either. I’m simply making the point that it’s easy sit on a moral pedestal and pretend that all killing is equivalent, it is not. I’ll shut up now.
You’re right, it’s not equivalent; the state killing someone is much worse, especially when you consider the number of wrongly convicted.
From the statistics I have seen murderers (who have been convicted) are much less likely to re-offend. So them being dead wouldn’t solve much in that way. As far as the cost to the tax payers some studies show it costs more to sentence someone to death than life in prison (through appeals and such on top of housing) . Others even claim to show that capital punishment isn’t an effective deterrent. Even knowing all of this I am ashamed to say I would want someone whom I believed killed my family to die.
@ Matthew and @ Keevo – Thank you for sharing your truth.
So if i say yes , then I have to advocate it for everyone; because morals and knee-jerk reactions are the exact same thing. If I say no, then I’m a no good tosser that can’t be relied upon to white knight the poor weak unfortunates in his life and am totally undeserving of contact with anyone.
Sorry, victims rights lobby. Not falling into this trap.
@ Cosmic Destroyer – Thank you for your feedback.
Morally, I am against the death penalty. Theoretically it is meant to deter crime from happening, but it rarely achieves this goal; it has become a vehicle of societal revenge and blood-letting. Not only that, but I find that a life-sentence is much more of a punishment — locked up for life, no chance of freedom, doomed to die in a cell with your own guilt eating you up inside.
But I can’t definitively say now that, if one of my loved ones was a victim, I wouldn’t crave vengeance. I haven’t been in the situation, so I don’t know that my actual response would match up with my moral response. Because of this, I can’t judge the family members that do want revenge; I haven’t been in their shoes, I haven’t felt their pain.
@ Tim – Thank you for sharing your perspective.
Holding grudges is one of the few parts of the Scorpio horoscope that I live up.
(I’m about to get real dark here.)
If a loved one of mine were killed or hurt in some terrible way I wouldn’t just want them to be killed (as in state sanctioned execution). No I would want to do it myself. I don’t want the killer dying at the hands of the state. I would want the killer to die by own hand knowing that they are dying because of the pain they caused by killing my loved one.
It wouldn’t be about resolving some grand universal wrong. No that’s for people who are blinded by their desire for revenge and grow desperate enough to want it by any means. It would be about me trying to set my own world right (notice I said “right” and not “back to the way it was”, believing that killing one will bring back another is delusional).
So to answer your poll I’d have to offer a fourth answer.
D. No, I’d want to kill them myself.
@ Danny – Thank you for your honesty. I’m a Scorpio too.
No, no, a thousand times no. I understand all the people who say they “don’t know what they’d want” or are acknowledging that they *might* want it against their morals – but to want the death penalty in my case would be to want it to exist, ever. I won’t say I wouldn’t wish the perpetrator dead – I hope I wouldn’t, but I can’t know what now. This is why the STATE punishes crimes, not victims or their families. And I don’t believe the death penalty has any place in a civilized society, which i aspire to someday live in.
@ Kate – Thank you for sharing your truth.
Someone feeling differently does not automatically equate with goodness. Plenty of good people think that bastard should be executed because they ARE good and they actually want to see justice served and actaully have compassion for the vicims. That’s exactly the kind of no – bullshit straight shooting you claimed at the outset this site is apparently about, actually this is one of the few occassions when someone has displayed those traits here. More often than not this site parrots empty politically correct rhetoric and shallow approval seeking mantras of the elite intellectual left wing kind, not wanting to offend and moderating (censoring) plain english and honesty. So kudos to you. How do you know that someone who does not endorse the death penalty in this instance simply doesn’t care less about the victims and dresses up their callous indifference in pretensions of higher morality. This sort of behaviour is not unheard of in the ranks of the politically correct who are notoriously inconsistent and selective in their “ethical” positions. If someone takes exception to my use of the word “bastard” then I think that would tend to illustrate my point. An englishman once told me we have gone from being draconian and harsh to “effete and cowardly”, how spot on is that?
I’ve seen a number of discussions circulating taking of the topic–What Would You Do? Damon Young has an interesting post on this site about the Aurora shooting.
Thank god most of us have never been put in this actual situation, first of all. The What Would You Do question is interesting because it allows, in a way, to practice affirming our beliefs. Damon’s point–you have no idea what you would do until you’re actually in the situation
I’m opposed to the death penalty, absolutely and in all cases, because it doesn’t solve anything. There’s no restoration brought about by the death penalty. There’s no way to turn back the clock, which is what many people I’ve heard seem to be hoping for. I try to weigh in on these types of questions whenever I can, just to re-affirm what I feel about the issue. I’m glad my position hasn’t changed, because I think I’ll be mentally more well-prepared to look for a more restorative justice should the time ever come.
@ Trevor – Thank you for sharing your truth.
I don’t know. I simply don’t know how I would feel if a loved one would get killed. I might just turn into a stron supporter of the death penalty, of torture and cruel and unusual punishment. I might want revenge. And to be honest, I never want to find out…
But exactly for this reason, that noone reacts rational and normal when such strong emotions are involved, we don’t allow personaly involved people to be involved in Court decicions. Feelings from victims are to be taken serious, are normal and natural. But they should NOT matter when it comes to punishment of criminals. Because they never are and can not be rational.
Revenge, hate and so on should never be part of a judicial system in any way. And yes, I am strongly against torture and against the death penalty. Because it doesn’t do “justice, because is is irreversible (And mistakes will ALWAYS happen), it’s expensive and simply also because it is a much lighte Punishment then a life long prison sentence. (And yes, that is also not rational, but emotional. But my view on it)
@ Chris – Thank you for your feedback.
I would like to thank everyone who has shared their truth in this comment thread. Capital punishment is a challenging subject. As I’ve mentioned, cognitively, I know I should not feel the way I do – but I can’t ignore my truth. Thank you for sharing your truth with me and The Good Men Project. I enjoy learning from all of you; I deeply appreciate your insight and your willingness to tackle this topic with me. I look forward to hearing more opinions in the days and weeks to come.
With tremendous gratitude,
Nicole
Put me in the room with them and there’s a good chance I’d kill them myself, but my personal feelings of outrage and hatred shouldn’t be the basis of how we conduct our affairs as a society. I veer more socialist than libertarian, but I’m very leery of establishing the government’s right to actually kill people.
For me I think that the issue is more about setting a societal standard. By enforcing the death penalty we are saying as a society that this type of behavior will not be tolerated here. Furthermore, we are also upholding the value of the individual in enforcing the death penalty. Perhaps it’s slightly contradicting to say so but hear me out. By allowing somebody to continue to live who has intentionally and maliciously taken the life of another person we say that the murderer has more value than murdered. If we say that all individuals are equal than the life of the murdered is just as important as the life of the murderer. So if we as a society believe all individuals are equal than we must uphold that standard when it is violated. Thus we should uphold the death penalty because we as a society say that all are created and valued equally. The death penalty is stating, through action, that we as a society will not tolerate those who deliberately choose to devalue other individual’s lives. We will not tolerate those who lord themselves over others and violate all individual’s right to life.
Yes nfinch, the death penalty is about setting a societal standard. The question is only which one. The standard the death penalty sets is not that something like murder is not tolerated. This is already set by the laws against these crimes. This standard is already set by punishing these crimes. The standard that the death penalty sets is simply that we are willing to do the same thing the murderer has done to satisfy our personal feelings of revenge. Because what are the laws concerning murder about? That it is not acceptable to kill in our society. We don’t give a murderer value when we “let him live”, but we take our own value away if we kill ourselves. All indiciduals are equal. That means all have to follow the laws, all have the right to live, noone has the right to kill. Changing these fundamentals means we give them up. For all of us.
1. As I understand a prisoner on death row is actually costing the taxpayers more dollars than a prisoner sentenced to life. There are other costs than the electricity bill to the process of sentencing convicted criminals. For instance it has been said that California could save $1 billion over five years by replacing the death penalty with permanent imprisonment. (http://www.deathpenalty.org/article.php?id=42)
2. Is your second statement a tacit support for prison rape and prison violence? A support for a second addition punishment without any due process other than some convicted criminals idea of what constitutes the worst of the worst? I just don’t get the complacency towards the problem of violence and sexual violence which exists in US prisons and jails.
What if the killer was underage. 16? 14?, 12?, 10? What if the killer was mentally ill (insanity) or if the killer were just mentally incapable of understanding what they did (they have a cognitive disabillity)?
None of my closes were victims of Anders Breivik some of the people I meet through work and friends of my cousins were hit by the tragedy and lost friends and family members. A month or so ago the proceedings in the court case against Breivik was finished (the verdict and sentencing remains) and the main thing getting discussed was wether he was to be considered psycothic when the crime took place or if he is criminally responsible. He is more likely to stay imprisoned (locked up in a closed mental institution is being imprisoned) for a longer time if he is being considered “insane” than if he is considered sane and can be sentenced to a normal prison sentence. My impression by media is that most victims would rather have him considered sane rather than going for the insanity which would mean a more longer sentence for him. The matter of death penalty has never been an issue outside the fringes. The last time Norway had capital punishment was after WW2 (1945-1948) as a punishment for some of the people convicted for treason against the country. One of the executed ones had a surname which later became to be another word for a traitor: Vidkun Quisling.
“Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.” — Romans 12:19
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor[a] and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” — Matthew 5:43-44
“Do not say, “I’ll pay you back for this wrong!” Wait for the LORD, and he will deliver you.” — Proverbs 20:22
Even if a violent crime was committed against one of my family members, we should pray for the perpetrator and let the Lord exercise His wrath if He chooses to do so. It is not up to us to make judgments of whether the perpetrator should live or die. I agree the perpretator should be removed from society in order to prevent further crimes, but they must also be given a chance to repent for their sins. So I wouldn’t want them to die, I would trust in the Almighty to determine that.
I think if my loved one was a victim of a horrific crime, I would sincerely wish the perpetrator dead – but I don’t think I could bring myself to the point of wanting the state to kill them.
For one thing, even if they are duly tried and convicted, that doesn’t provide 100% certainty that the right person has been arrested, charged, tried and convicted. It seems like every few months, I hear about someone who was duly found guilty of a heinous crime and thrown in prison, only to be exonerated years later by new evidence or a review of the evidence. You can’t release a person from being dead because you later found out you executed the wrong individual.
In addition, the death penalty is not applied impartially, but hits hardest for those of lower socioeconomic status and those who choose white victims over those who hurt or kill people of color. If we can’t apply a penalty evenly across the board, we don’t need to be applying it to anyone.
The death penalty does not deter future crimes from happening. I’ve read statistics (in a book I no longer have) that suggest crime goes UP immediately following a state execution.
The death penalty is expensive. If someone is convicted and sentenced to the death penalty, that person’s case is automatically appealed. I believe holding someone on death row is more expensive than holding them in the general population, as well. To what end? Sentence them to life without parole instead, and spend some of those dollars on prevention – education, mentoring, rehabilitation, and other programs.
I used to be a proponent of the death penalty, but I can’t any more. It costs too much, it can be (and is) wrongly applied, it is racist and classist, and it doesn’t deter or prevent further crime. All it can provide is a momentary sick satisfaction of revenge – and I’m convinced, in my own case, at least, that it would ultimately come to torment me, rather than satisfying anything.
Now, if I came across someone in the process of horrifically harming someone I cared about, I do believe I could pick up a gun and shoot them (given the opportunity). But I can’t bring myself to advocate cold-bloodedly putting down a human being like a shelter animal, when there is little or nothing to be gained.
I have always thought that if some stuffed shirt pompous oaf demaned to know from me, “what if it was your child?”, I would answer accordingly:
I’ll answer your question, but it will cost you, because I will ask you a question in return. And I require that you answer my question as honestly and forthrighty as I answer yours.
If it was my child, I would want what any parent would want. I’d want revenge.
Now, my question to you is this: What is the relationship between revenge and justice?
That’s some heavy handed stereotyping right there. Charicaturing those you disagree with as a “stuffed shirt pompous oaf” is like someone calling you a “limp wristed hand wringing idealist do – gooder” or something of that nature as an argumentative tool. At least you are honest about the perfectly understandable desire for revenge you would feel, that appears to be almost universal and I’m not convinced it is as wrong or negative as so many believe. As for the relationship between revenge and justice, I don’t believe the two are mutually exclusive and it is possible to have both rather than one or the other.