The headlines jumped out at me yesterday morning as I munched my oatmeal with blueberries. I’m not particularly fond of blueberries, but they pack a mighty anti-oxidant punch that researchers say is really good for you. Maybe, maybe not. I eat them anyway because at the very least they don’t hurt me.
The headline read COURT UPHOLDS STATE’S DEATH PENALTY and the article said that a Delaware judge has ruled the death penalty constitutional. Oh yeah. Well, that judge knows better than I about constitutional matters, but I know about matters of the human condition. And, I don’t support the death penalty for several reasons.
Victims or their families always want revenge and particularly in the case of murder. It is the “I lost my loved one, you should lose your life,” argument and it is a powerful one. It motivates juries, judges, and public opinion. But, consider this. If a person has committed this crime and has to live with it day after day after day after day…..surely those who have even an ounce of guilt or remorse will suffer each and every one of those days. Yes, some won’t, but that is just the nature of not killing people for a crime. Sometimes the bad guy does win, sort of, as much as that distresses us.
Another reason I oppose capital punishment is that there have been documented cases that innocent people have been executed. That is not justice. That is an abomination. Whether we want to admit it or not, we are not perfect and mistakes in judgment and decisions are made all the time. It is bad enough that an innocent person may serve years in prison before being found “Not Guilty,” but if you execute them there is no pathway to redemption. Furthermore, the guilty person is still roaming around free.
I also oppose the death penalty for economic reasons. Year after year we read statistics that tell us it cost more to execute a person than not. For example, it costs 38 – 48 percent more to hold a death penalty trial than a non-death penalty trial. It costs less to keep a prisoner serving life without parole than to keep an inmate on death row. For Example, in California it costs $137 million dollars to keep a death row inmate as compared to $11.5 million for a life term inmate. For more details go to www.deathpenaltyinfo.org . Those precious resources would be better used to keep peace in a community and crime rates down.
Finally, as a Christian I oppose the death penalty in the same way that I oppose anyone killing another person. My faith leads me to the understanding that whether we live or whether we die is best left up to God. As humans we are simply too prone to reacting out of our emotions or simply making bad decisions based on available information. God gives us life. God should take our life. For me it is a moral principle of protecting the innocent not executing the maybe guilty. And, like blueberries, at the very least we shouldn’t hurt the innocent. Think about it.