| [ The Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
01/15/03]
AJC.COM SPECIAL
Growing civilized
means ending death penalty
"Polls show that popular support for the death
penalty has steadily dropped over the years . . . Eventually, public
opinion will kill the death penalty."
By ROWLAND
NETHAWAY
Former
Illinois Gov. George Ryan may be a crook as well as a jerk, but he
deserves praise for his last minute blanket pardon of all the
convicted murderers on Illinois' death row.
Scandal has stalked Ryan's political career. It's possible that
Ryan, who has always talked a good game on the subject of
law-and-order, may get indicted for his own unlawful behavior.
Therefore, Ryan's motivation for his good-guy show of clemency
for wrongfully prosecuted citizens is open for debate. In the near
future Ryan may claim that he is being wrongfully prosecuted.
Ryan's commutation of every death sentence in Illinois also
reopens the national debate on the use of capital punishment. That's
good. It is a life-and-death issue that needs to be debated.
While most first-world nations have long since abandoned capital
punishment as barbaric, Americans continue to support state
executions.
Polls show that popular support for the death penalty has
steadily dropped over the years. When given a choice between the
death penalty and life in prison with no chance of parole, Americans
now are evenly divided.
In most cases, Ryan's pardons only spared the death row inmates
from the death penalty. Of the 167 inmates on Illinois' death row a
few days ago, 164 now must live out their lives in prison with no
chance at parole.
Ryan has released nearly 20 death row prisoners who had been
wrongfully convicted, which became apparent with DNA evidence,
confessions of actual killers or other evidence.
Like most of the nation, the editorial board of this newspaper is
divided on this issue.
I believe that the day will come when the United States joins its
European neighbors by abandoning the practice of capital punishment
in the same way that nations abandoned the practice of slavery in
the 19th Century.
As time passes, societies develop different sensibilities and
attitudes. It's a natural phenomenon -- a civilizing part of
civilization.
The idea of the government killing people safely locked behind
bars is considered an uncivilized human rights violation by most of
the world's opponents of capital punishment.
Arguments in support of the death penalty most often include:
-- Capital punishment is a deterrent.
-- The death penalty balances the scales by paying back the
victims.
-- Government executions protect society from criminals who
commit outrageous offenses.
There is little evidence that capital punishment acts as
deterrent.
Most killings are unplanned, spur-of-the-moment passion murders.
People who commit these murders are not thinking about capital
punishment.
Killers who plan their crimes seldom get caught. Those who do get
caught believed they would avoid detection. These people are not
deterred by capital punishment.
Mentally unbalanced killers and those driven by political or
religious fantasies are not deterred by capital punishment.
The pay-back argument is based on cultural and religious views on
death and retribution. Polls show American public opinion moving
away from the eye-for-an-eye argument.
Finally, the alternative of locking convicted killers up for life
with no chance of parole protects society as effectively as an
execution.
It's easy to show that race and poverty are key factors on
America's death rows. In other words, justice is not applied equally
when citizens are sentenced to death.
Most importantly, the government makes mistakes. There's no
correcting an erroneous execution. Dead remains dead. Sorry about
that.
Eventually, public opinion will kill the death penalty.
Rowland Nethaway is the Waco Tribune-Herald editor.
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