RETURN HUMANITY TO DEATH ROW!

I do not usually write letters to the editor,
but I feel compelled to now.

 By  Jim Pike E-Mail

Timothy McVeigh was recently executed. I followed the news on TV and the Internet. To some degree, it was a rather morbid and perverse vigil. During this period, I began to read about Death Row, read the inmate's writings and to develop this perception.

Death itself is an acceptable end or point of closure for society if it is humane and applied with diligence. There are those individuals who "deserve" to forego that which is most sacred to all living beings - their life. It is the ultimate in punitive sacrifice.

However, the mental anguish we put the typical condemned individual through goes beyond addressing the needs of society. It does not address the need for closure. Between conviction and execution, the condemned are humiliated, wasted, and allowed to withdraw from life so that at the point of actual execution, the condemned isn't the one who committed the crime to begin with. They are a "shell" of that individual. - a physical symbol of vengeance.

To what degree does this give us closure as a society? Where is that vengeance we need?

We take this lifeless and hopeless shell of a person, stick him with a needle and finish what was begun in a courtroom 10 to 15 years ago.

As a conservative, I think that we need to be tough on crime. As a society, we must establish consequences for ones actions. Do a good thing enough times, and good will happen. Do a bad thing enough times, or get caught the first time, and bad will happen.

Bad things require victims. Crimes affect society. Supposedly, we use the criminal to "teach" society to do more good things than bad ones. We use them to reinforce this principal. At the extreme, we have the death penalty.

Society itself and as a whole is capable of bad things. These bad things result in a much greater loss than any single victim can endure or any single criminal can cause. It is the loss of our humanity. With this loss comes a degradation of compassion, an inability to forgive and a unwillingness to come to terms with the fact that in order to execute, we must become that which we kill.

Fundamentally, the death penalty is an appropriate response in very selective situations. Timothy McVeigh is an example. He intentionally, knowingly and purposefully initiated an act that was engineered to afflict the most physical and mental damage on society. He confessed to the act. He showed no remorse. He could have destroyed the same building in the dead of night, but instead, the "collateral damage" was acceptable.

His insanity was that he had mentally removed himself from that humanity which he professed to be trying to improve by calling attention to the "out of control government." He didn't kill the federal government, he killed mothers, fathers, children... humanity. He had removed himself from operating within the realms of this humanity and could therefore feel no remorse.

I believe that a significant number of death row condemned did not set out with this sense of "purpose". They reacted within a situation that they found themselves in at that time in their lives. They reacted and committed a capital crime due to a lack of social skills, social programming or SOCIETY'S exclusion. Granted, they did a "bad thing" for which they must pay SOME price, but do we classify them the same as McVeigh? Have they removed themselves and set themselves apart from humanity?

As a society, we need to put in place a set a checks and balances that reside outside of the paper mill judicial system.

Society must be prepared to insure that the wrong man not be convicted and killed and that if we do kill, that it is as a LAST ALTERNATIVE. Those who have removed themselves from humanity and commit inhumane crimes must be punished to this extreme. Those who reacted or lacked the skills necessary to fundamentally evaluate their choices must be EDUCATED.

Depending upon the individual, this education may take a lifetime to achieve. But, society could then react in a POSITIVE way to insure its own humanity, to protect itself from becoming that which we kill.

Once a mechanism is in place to determine the "humanity" of the convicted, then society will be able to carry out the execution of those "not human" with all due diligence while those with some shred of humanity still remaining being given the opportunity to be "re-educated" and provide society with a humane punitive mechanism as well as a method of maintaining it own humanity.

To the same degree that we tell people not to kill or you shall be killed, we must remove the political advantage of death from the system.

We must make prosecutorial malpractice in a capital case a capital crime itself. If a prosecutor hides evidence, if he does not COMPLETELY investigate a capital crime to the point of infallibility, if he engineers the conviction of an innocent individual, then he shall be guilty of a capital offence.

For what is the difference? The condemned are convicted because they acted outside of the law, but does the law provide a "safe harbor" for the exact same act?

If a prosecutor, after a complete and thorough investigation, still chooses to prosecute and seek the death penalty, society may then acknowledge that we have applied a mechanism by which to protect the accused from prosecutorial misconduct.

Society struggles with the thought of convicting and executing the wrong person. Society acknowledges that there are those instances in which the wrong person is convicted. The result is our appeals process.

This process is fundamentally unfair. Once an individual is convicted, he is removed from a position from which he can defend himself or challenge his conviction. He is unable to secure representation or to present himself to the system because he is confined. He is imprisoned on death row that immediately begins the execution process through the control and dehumanization mechanisms in place.

This dehumanization protects those charged with the imprisonment (staff) as well as the legal system. Once convicted, the condemned gradually becomes less human. They withdraw, become mentally imbalanced or hyper aggressive and frustrated. This ultimately makes it easier for those charged with the execution to kill them.

The prison staff is generally there for the purpose of providing for their families and their own future. If given the opportunity to legally kill a neighbor, friend or coworker, they probably would not do so. This neighbor, friend or coworker is "too human" for them to execute.

Subsequently, for their own mental protection, they have engineered a dehumanizing environment for the management of the condemned. They prison system itself has physically engineered the maximum-security facility to dehumanize them further.

At the point of conviction, the "system" begins this self-protecting dehumanization of the convicted. The legal mechanism churns. Occasionally, a conviction is overturned, a retrial is ordered, or clemency is granted. But, this usually is only after years of dehumanization.

Once a person spends years on death row, is he the same person convicted of the crime? Is it appropriate to release someone who we have intentionally dehumanized back into society even if we find him innocent years later? Is he the same person who we wrongfully convicted in the first place?

Under the present system, we run the risk that if we convict an innocent person, that we will create that which we wrongfully accused them of. At best, we have reengineered someone to the point where they will not be able to function within the realms of society or they will become a "burden" on society. But is it appropriate then to ask the question, do we do the right thing by NOT executing them anyway? We began killing them years ago.

We should maintain the death penalty. However, we should reengineer the system.

Upon securing a capital conviction, the "tentatively condemned" is then removed from society, and placed in the general population type environment.

A NEW legal team is immediately assigned to the case. One year later, the case is completely retried. Different judge, prosecutor and jury hear the case. This time, under more intensive scrutiny of "guilt" and after having time to fully investigate the evidence after the "picture" of the first trial. This will reduce the impact of possible poor representation at the first trial.

If convicted a second time, the possibility of execution is applied to the individual. He is removed and taken immediately to death row.

One year later, a panel representative of society will assemble to evaluate the "humanity" of the convicted. The panel should be large enough so that the votes are diluted to the point where prejudice and predetermination have minimal impact. This panel may include 50 to 100 people RANDOMLY chosen and NOT through some jury selection process. These people represent society/humanity. They are charged with examining the inmate's life, conduct, crime, remorse and determining the humanity of this individual. Victim and witnesses may present themselves. The convicted may call upon his own witnesses.

In this phase, the convicted represents and presents HIMSELF as being a member of humanity. He must justify his life. He must convince this panel that he is worthy of being called human. There is no judge; there is no prosecutor. It is ENTIRELY up to the individual to present himself. He is already assumed executed, but is given this opportunity to account for his place within society and his actions. The condemned has 2 days with the panel to do this.

The panel may contain plumbers, priests, barbers, police, pro athletes etc. It will be COMPLETELY RANDOM. A judge may actually sit on this panel, not as a judge, but as a human. He was chosen at random. Those who initially prosecuted the case are precluded from being selected. A panel member may only serve once in his life.

The panel will vote electronically. They will be able to vote Human or Not Human. There should be an even number.

A simple majority is required to execute. Once this vote of Not Human is returned, the execution is carried out 30 days later.

If the vote of Human is returned, the sentence is automatically commuted to Life with Possibility of Parole. The education process may begin.

A 50/50 split will require a reexamination. This will occur 1 year later. A different panel will convene to reexamine the humanity of the convicted.

If, over this period of time, the convicted has been able to reestablish his humanity then he should prevail and be given the opportunity to be educated.

If, after another year, society is not able to gather the resources to prove that the convicted is truly not human, then the convicted truly deserves to be spared. Sometimes, over time, that "heinous crime" can be reexamined and evaluated to such a degree that mitigation or at least the understanding of mitigating circumstances is possible.

But fundamentally, society must be COMMITTED to the execution either in the first panel’s Not Human classification or in its ability to maintain the energy to seek death in the second review.

If Not Human, the convicted is executed in 30 days. If human, commuted to Life With Possibility of Parole.

The life With is important because it gives the convicted AND society HOPE.

Yes, capital punishment and the death penalty are warranted in some instances, but NOT under the present system. We engineered the system to remove humanity, but not evaluate it or to determine the TRUE worth of an individual.

Because of this, society struggles. We are both determined and reluctant to kill. We bear this emotional burden that impacts society down to the individual level.

We do not address closure. We do not address vengeance; we do not address retribution. What we kill is not the killer, but the shell of what once was. This leaves the hole - that unfilled variable.

If we do choose to kill, we must do it with surety, with diligence and with the confidence that what we kill is not human. And, we must do it quickly.

What we do to these men is worse than death. Lingering hope in a faulty system, which gradually fades over time. If innocent after 15 years, they are not human. They cannot be coming out of the new "modern" death rows. Why waste the time with appeals after 10 or 15 years?

If we implement a sequential, date driven system of determining fate and humanity, the troubling issues for society will be removed.

 

Jim -- A Pro death penalty but only in extreme situations supporter.

 

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