Death penalty

[I wrote that in December 1983 in California. Its English is shaky at places and the reasoning is murky, but I still agree about the gist of it! Renaud Fortuner, October 2016]

Once again we are killing the criminals on death row. Once again the question of death penalty needs to be answered. Is it right to kill the killers? Yes, answers the majority of the people, in the USA and elsewhere. But is the majority right?

Why does society forbid crime? If you are a Christian you will answer that God expressly forbids us to kill each other, but you have only changed the question: Why does God forbid us to kill?

If you do not want to base laws on God's commandments, you will probably answer that society forbids crime to protect itself. Certainly, a society where crime is allowed would be very hard to live with, and even harder to die with!

However, I do not believe that this is a valid reason. When laws are justified by self-protection, the relationships between murderers and society are viewed as a kind of war. Murderers kill members of society and, when they are caught, the society kills them. Laws become the rules of a deadly game where death is the penalty of the losers. Killers kill people, the People kill killers, it's all part of the fun. Crime is not wrong, it's a fact of life. Such an attitude justifies killing.

Murder should be condemned because murder is wrong. Period. But why is it so?

If you believe in Good and in God's plan for Man, you recognize the infinite dignity and importance of each human being. Every man born on Earth is given a chance to take advantage of the circumstances of his life to grow and become a more complete person. Many fail in the attempt but, until the last second of their life, all have this chance to better themselves. Growth is a slow process and it takes many years to any of us to make any progress. We have been given a biological life span of about 130 years and we certainly need every minute of it if we hope to achieve perfection. Anything that reduces that life span goes against God's plan and deprives a man of his chances to grow. Sickness is wrong, accidents are wrong, and, naturally, willful killing of oneself or another human being is wrong because it reduces the opportunity granted by God.

Not everyone of us is religious minded and many will reject my interpretation of God's plan. However, everybody will recognize the importance of at least one individual: himself! Early in life, we naturally consider ourselves as the center of the universe we know. Later, as we grow into adults, we recognize the same feeling in other fellow human beings. Because we want ourselves – the all-important center of our universe – to be happy and well, and because we have grown to understand that other people are the centers of their own private universes, and in this sense are as important as we are, we extend to all the privileges we demand for ourselves. This includes demands for privacy, personal liberty, and fairness in our relations with each other. It also includes demands that no willful death be inflicted upon any of us. We see death as the absolute evil because every death destroys a universe.

Some murderers are insane. Short of trying to cure them, nothing can be done about them: you do not reason with insanity. But many sane people kill. I contend that such criminals are non-adults. They are people who, for this or that reason, have not grown and have remained unaware of the all-importance of others. Were they able to see the rest of humanity composed of individuals with the same memories, the same yearnings and feelings as they themselves experience, they would be unable to destroy a single life. Instead, they see other men as inconsistent shadows, playing a role in their isolated life, to be brushed aside for pleasure or profit. You have experienced this feeling. When a friend has been visiting you and it is time for him to leave, when the door shuts and you go back to your own business, don't you ever feel it hard to imagine that your friend's life goes on s well by itself and that he did not vanish in limbo when he went out of your sight? It takes an effort to realize that he still exists and has by now forgotten that you live on. Criminals lack the ability to put themselves in other people's shoes. They do not shy at inflicting death to other people because, for criminals, other people do not really exist, they do not feel pain or experience death as the criminal knows he does. Why not kill an inconsistent shadow if I can gain pleasure or profit from its death? Look at the sadistic murderer as he tortures his victims before he kills them. His crime is awful but look at him and you will see the same innocent pleasure as a child's when he plucks off the wings of a fly. The criminal is guilty in the eye of society because he broke a law, and because he knew he was breaking a law. But at the same time he is innocent in his own eyes because the law never made any sense to him. He never understood why he should not kill. He never knew that inside the hapless tortured body whose life he has taken was a mind like his own, whose private universe he has shattered.

And what is the answer of society? "I want to protect myself. I want vengeance. I want to teach you and your kind not to kill. I am setting up laws you must follow or else…" Laws become a defense established by the victims to prevent the criminal from taking his pleasure or his profit. Sure, there is nothing wrong with that as far as you and I are concerned. We all want to be safe and protected from crime. But what of the criminal? He feels free to cheat at a game whose rules were imposed upon him. If he is caught, he will pay the penalty of his failure and be killed. But the law does not teach him why he is doing wrong. Kill and be killed, that's his universe. When we support death penalty, it is also ours.

Society kills. It kills murderers, it kills its enemies in war. Much has been written about the exemplarity of death penalty. I have my doubts about the exemplarity of a punishment that has been inflicted since the dawn of civilization without ever stopping, even temporarily, the killers. But even if it could be proven that death penalty does prevent some crimes, I would still think that in a larger perspective, it contributes to perpetuate civil violence. Because society kills, the murderers feel justified in their killings. Ends can never justify the means and if you use death to establish peace, you do not establish peace, but death.

We must ban death penalty because we, as adult members of society, recognize the all-importance of every human being, man, woman, and murderer alike. We must do our upmost to educate our fellow human beings and help them to become adults. This, we can achieve with love and understanding, not with hate and death. Murderers live by hate and death and, when we kill them, we become murderers, all and every one of us.

There are but four answers to crime:

Vengeance

Punishment

Self-protection

Rehabilitation

Pick one and only one; they are mutually exclusive.