Pro

By James Zwilling
Opinion Editor

When the federal government executes convicted murderer Timothy McVeigh by lethal injection May 16, he will become the 34th person killed by the government since 1927 and the first since 1963.

His death will mark the end to an all-too-long U.S. hiatus from federal executions.

McVeigh, surrounded by controversy since the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, where 168 people died and nearly 700 were left wounded, dropped all appeals and said he welcomes his death.

Of course he welcomes his death. He thinks he will become a martyr for his cause.

Unfortunately, McVeigh is right. For at least a few people, he will be just that.

However, this small group of people, quite possibly as sick as he, subscribe to the misconception that death row inmates are dying in vain.

Death row inmates do not die in vain. They die for their own wrongdoing.

Although McVeigh’s case has been highly publicized because of the nature of his crime, little separates him and the reasons he should die from the other 21 inmates on federal death row.

In an age where eye-for-an-eye mentalities are almost unimaginable except in the history books, capital punishment remains the only method of punishment holding criminals physically responsible for their crimes.

Sure, it can be argued that the U.S. court system is faulted and that too many inmates have been executed for crimes they didn’t commit. Obviously, this line of thought has garnered enough attention that even Texas, the deadliest state in America, is considering a two-year moratorium on the death penalty.

And yes, there are improvements that could be made in the judicial system, yet doubting the system will only create more problems for the already criticized American justice system.
Who wins then? The criminals, of course.

Without the death penalty, there would be no solace for the families of victims.

No one can say exactly whether the death of the murderer or rapist of their daughter, son, husband or wife will provide relief to the pain they face, but it might.

That alone, the fact that it may help one victim through the grief they experience, is enough to execute these hardened criminals.

Americans don’t have the right to choose whether or not someone should die for their crime unless they’ve been personally affected by the crime of an individual. An overwhelming majority of victims families support the death of the convicted. In McVeigh’s case, nearly 250 of those family members even want to watch the execution.

But whether or not families want a victim to die is purely a moral decision on their behalf.

The rest of America has the responsibility to support capital punishment as a deterrent to crime.

For hundreds of years people have been executed as a deterrent to crime. Today, it is impossible to prove that capital punishment is an effective deterrent to crime. The reason: fancy lawyering and political agendas.

These agendas and lawyer maneuvers have fooled the American people into believing that their system is faulted.

There shouldn’t be any doubt that holding criminals responsible for their actions will prevent people from doing harm. Yet, the political and legal process has become so writ with the personal agendas of the lawyers and politicians that all Americans ever see and hear about are appeals and stays and retrials.

Capital punishment is not a responsibility that needs to lie in the hands of lawyers, legislators and prosecutors. It should lie in the hands of the jury.

That means, it is up to every citizen in this country to defend the justice of capital punishment and not be fooled by the trickery of its opponents.

When this happens, the punishments will be carried out quicker, more prisoners will be executed and eventually, the death penalty will return to its original purpose: deterring crime and saving the lives of those closest to every American.

Con

By Brandon Ortiz
Skiff Staff

Capital punishment.

They say it is fairly administered.

But overwhelmingly it kills minorities. It even kills the mentally ill.

They say it deters crime.

But it has killed the innocent on more than one occasion. It makes martyrs out of monsters.

They say it helps families grieve.

But it has never brought a victim back to life. It never will.

Our society has advanced and grown this century, both technologically and morally. We have put a man on the moon and can clone sheep. Most no longer judge men and women by the color of their skin, at least not openly.

But we still kill one another.

And we, the people who elect pro death penalty representatives, do it for all the wrong reasons. Worst of all, we do it unfairly.

Almost 90 percent of people who are killed by the government are convicted of killing whites, according to the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. The irony in this is that more than half of all homicide victims are minorities.

Apparently juries think that killing a person of color doesn’t deserve maximum punishment nearly as much as killing a white person.

According to the same organization, 60 percent of people on death row in California and Texas are minorities.

Minorities have always been executed more often than whites. This is no new development. But the mentally incompetent are being executed more and more.

The NCADP estimates that more than 300 people on death row have mental retardation, and that number could be as high as 10 percent of the death row population as a whole. Since 1976, 31 mentally ill inmates have been executed, 19 of which have been killed the past five years, reports the NCADP.

Most reasonable people agree that killing someone who is mentally ill is wrong. It’s like killing somebody because they have chicken pox. It’s not right. But the public overwhelmingly supports the death penalty anyway.

Numbers may not tell the whole story, but they never lie. The system is racially biased and unfair. It must go.

For some, it is worth it, because even if one group is targeted more than another, we are stopping future crimes from occurring.

Death penalty supporters believe capital punishment prevents atrocities by putting the fear of death into possible murderers. Many believe it is the only moral reason to support the death penalty. Indeed, it does sound good in theory, but it flies in the face of statistics showing otherwise.

Consider this: In the last 20 years, states with the death penalty have had homicide rates 48 to 101 percent higher than those that don’t, according to a study by The New York Times.

Ten of 12 states without capital punishment have homicide rates less than the national average, according to FBI data.

Capital punishment doesn’t prevent crime. It never has, and it never will.

Governments have killed criminals for centuries, and in much more inhumane ways than they do now. Murderers have been burned at the stake and tortured. Yet murders still happened then, and they still happen now.

And more murders may actually happen as a result of capital punishment.

When Timothy McVeigh is executed, he will be a martyr to right-wing extremists across the country. His death will be another reason to attack what they view as an overbearing government.

McVeigh is a monster. Nothing should be done to make him look like a hero. But that is exactly what will happen.

His death won’t prevent another Oklahoma City bombing. It may only cause more.

Does McVeigh deserve to die? No human being can make that decision. But killing McVeigh will solve nothing. It will not bring back the people he killed, and more people may die as a result of his death.

Capital punishment. They say it affirms life. But it only destroys it. The killing must stop.