Yep, the Great Debate over capitol punishment rises again, too big an issue to simply lie down. Timothy McVeigh was executed this morning for a very terrible, very wrong crime. I will in no way contend that the bombing for which he was responsible was not a terrible thing. There are, the way I see it, several reasons why killing him was not the thing to do:
McVeigh may not have been the only person involved in the bombing. Did he work alone? The answer may never be known, now that he’s dead.
He may be something of a martyr now. Hopefully not, but there may be some wackos out there to whom McVeigh’s state-dealt death may be just the ‘justification’ for further terrible acts.
McVeigh’s death will not deter anyone. This goes back to the old ‘capitol punishment is not a deterant’ debate, but it’s very true that people in the frame of mind for killing care little that previous killers got executed.
The media fiasco. McVeigh has been made into the biggest celebrity of the year now, and his ‘15 minutes of fame’ will likely last long after his death today.
Capitol punishment is morally wrong. By killing the killer, you are condoning murder – you are showing that it is okay to take vengeance on someone who has murdered. Lives were already lost when the murderer did his deed; how does killing one more make that better?
I think it’s time for the US to re-evaluate its stance on capitol punishment. As for me, I’m proud to live in Canada, where we got rid of this practice decades ago. I think David Milgard, a Canadian who spent 23 years in prison for a murder he did not commit, would agree with me when I say “It’s a good thing we don’t have executions here.”
Nonsense. The real reason McVeigh’s execution was wrong was that it was too wimpy. Lethal injection? Come on. That’s like dying peacefully in your sleep.
Since McVeigh was convicted for blowing up people, I say they should have executed him by shoving a stick of dynamite down his throat and setting it off. BOOM! Little charred pieces of Tim McVeigh splattered all over the walls. Would’ve been a hell of a show, too. The spectators really would’ve gotten their money’s worth.
And incidentally, it’s capital punishment, not capitol punishment. Capitol spelled with an -ol is used only to describe a kind of building. Capital with an -al is used for every other kind of capital thing – capital punishment, capital letters, capitalism, capital cities, etc…
Whether he was alone or not doesn’t change his own guilt. Presumably, you are of the opinion that were he kept alive, he would eventually 'fess up and reveal any other parties involved?
Wackos are wackos. Whether he lived or died, if someone belived in his cause, they’d continue his work.
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Likewise for prison terms. Obviously, if prison itself were any kind of deterrent, our prisons wouldn’t be overflowing as it is.
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And what of his fame and celebrity if left alive, writing books and such? His fame would probably last much longer if he were given a last-minute reprieve.
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And how is any sort of imposed punishment not an act of vengeance? It seems to me that the idea behind laws in the first place is to a) tell people what they can’t do, and b) what bad things will happen to them if they do something from part a). In effect, societal threats…
Killing someone doesn’t make anything better. But, at the risk of sounding callous, it does get them out of our hair.
And no, none of this is meant to imply that I am either for or against capital punishment.
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I agree that we need to re-evaluate the whole capital punishment thing. But I think in the process, we need to come up with viable alternatives. I find the idea of having to divert federal money to the support of someone like McVeigh because he’s living his life in prison to be just as distasteful. I also find the idea of executing someone who is completely innocent appalling. But then, I find the idea of punishing the innocent in any manner appalling.
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend’s were.
Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
I guess one question which always comes to mind in debates about capital punishment is what percentage of error is acceptable to its advocates?
I remember reading late last year that one US state (Illinois IIRC) has passed legislation limiting the amount of compensation payable to people who have been wrongly imprisoned. The justification given for this was the anticipated increase in people having their convictions overturned as a result of improved DNA testing techniques.
In Saturday’s paper, our police minister openly stated that the general population would be surprised at the number of innocent people in our state’s prisons - primarily as a result of police corruption.
So I guess I have two basic questions for those who advocate capital punishment. 1) what margin of error is acceptable to you, given that no legal system is perfect, and 2) should the standard of prove be higher in cases where the death penalty is being sought?
There was no credible evidence that he didn’t act alone. Of course I don’t think he did act completely alone since his freind Terry is serving a life sentence.
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So we should reduce sentences based on whether or not some people might view him as a martyr? Guess we need to release Charles Manson.
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Prison doesn’t deter anyone either. So what?
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This happens with high profile cases. Remember Leopold and Loeb? This was the trial of the century in the United States during the 20’s I think.
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Capital punishment is not morally wrong. Murder is the immoral or illegal act of killing another human being. There was nothing immoral or illegal about killing McVeigh. Tell me, is it kidnapping when we lock prisoners away?
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Nothing wrong with taking a look at something. I’m marginally against the death penalty because I fear the affect it has on the employees of our prison system as well as my fear of executing an innocent person.
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Well bully for you. As long as there at least onething for a Canadian to be proud of.
And I’m sure Stan Faulder wished he killed one of his fellow Canadians instead of murdering someone in Texas. Then he’d still be alive.
I’m generally pro-death penalty - I even believe we should extend it to crimes beyond murder, but only in cases where there is absolutely no doubt the accused is guilty (as an example, I find the alternate theories on who the ‘real killer’ was in the O.J. case ridiculous, but they would be enough for me to not want O.J. executed). But though there is no doubt that McVeigh is guilty and that it is a crime worthy of the death penalty, I’m afraid that making a martyr of him will lead to more of the same kind of violence.
For me, what it comes down to is: What gives us the right to take a human life? Our society for the most part sees murder as the worst crime we can commit. As a society we murder the murderer to punish him for it. This doesn’t make any sense to me. What ever happened to “Two wrongs don’t make a right”?
I am pro-imprisonment because I think people who commit these crimes don’t deserve to live among us. I am in favour of all prisoners being put to hard labour, to help pay for their keep, and I’m not opposed to keeping them in substandard conditions because I feel that they gave up their right to compassionate treatment when they committed their crime. But I draw the line at killing them. They should be made to work for the community to pay off their debt to the community. They should be locked up away from the rest of us, banned from having visitors, and given the basics they need to live - sufficient food and water, medications and access to some recreation to prevent them from going crazy. They should not be given anything that would be described as a luxury - no cigarettes for the smokers, no chocolate bars, no choices. But not death. What gives us the right to take a human life?
I believe that there is a justification for capital punishment. Ritual execution should be reserved for heinous crimes, crimes that make all of us with a remnant shred of decency look down at our feet in shame. Those who commit such crimes–and who are captured, tried, and proven beyond a reasonable doubt to be quilty–should be looked upon with loathing and fear, for they have truly transcended humanity and have become something that exists only at the very edges of our perception.
Timothy McVeigh committed a heinous crime, a crime against individuals, against my country, and against humankind. His death serves to remind us that there are some acts which go beyond the pale, acts for which there is no atonement, no redemption.
The only thing that cheapens the importance of this execution is the large number of other executions that we largely ignore. We Americans kill far too many people for far to many reasons, but McVeigh is the first person to be executed by the federal government in three decades. This time, I agree with them. That bastard had to go.
I think that the death penalty just encourages people. People who are otherwise suicidal and try to get themselves killed through the death penalty. Its not a deterrent, its an encouragement. If you don’t have the guts to kill yourself, go out and kill other people and then we will do it for you
According to the last statistics I read on an AOL report, around 68% of the population agree with capitol punishment. When they catch that guy who is one the run for blowing up and killing nurses and doctors who worked in abortion clinics along with they occasional security guard or two, he’d better die by the needle or there will be a riot. Then again, he might do like two of three guys who killed cops, a few innocent bystanders and ran off into the desert after stealing and abandoning a water truck that they were going to turn into a big bomb after McVeigh’s example, and kill themselves.
Ask the relatives of the Federal Building if they would want that dirty piece of crap to go on living at tax payers expense while their children, mothers, daughters, fathers, sons, and friends lay beneath headstones. All because he wanted to make a statement. He was the primary. It was his idea. Personally, I figure they should have taken him out into the desert, tied him up on a big pile of the same explosives he used and detonated them.
The flaw I see with this reasoning is that while suicide by cop is fairly immediate, suicide by death penalty most definitely isn’t. It can take up to a decade to exhaust all the automatic appeals.
I think it does encourage those seeking martyrdom though.
Before I start, I think there were many other ways to handle the problem–particularly ones that avoided it in the first place. So I am not maintaining here his execution was right or wrong.
However. A casual stroll through the philosophical legal theories concerning punishment shows that deterrence is only one among several reasons for punishing someone. It gets me when people reduce it to this.
There are other reasons actively at work. Note that I am NOT (that’s spelled N-O-T) claiming any of these are right. The following from a law class I took:
Revenge. There are still many, many people who believe in this. Execution may suit them just fine.
Getting a public nuisance off the public roll. I.e., the idea that it would be nice not to have to kill people, but it’s too expensive to keep them alive.
Making sure that the criminal is not released later, when funds get tight, avoiding the chance they will do it again.
Stopping really criminal people from passing on their craziness to other people. For example, teaching a shoplifter how to make lethal bombs.
Because the society affected doesn’t want to think about it any more. (Notice the “Now the healing starts” article in the NY Times.)
The wacko thing about this problem is that someone can be condemned by a jury, many of whom have entirely different (and perhaps incorrect from your own point of view) reasons for acting as they do.
McVeigh is pure evil. I think if he were to stay alive, all those “wackos” would just be thinking, “Hey, if i blow up people, tax payers will pay for my food and housing for the rest of my life.” While the food may suck and the housing bad and crowded, you still get it for free.
Capital punishment does not show that murder is condoned. It shows that it is PUNISHED. I think it would be better though if they killed the criminal in the way they killed their victim.
Ok, but remember that it typically costs more to execute someone than to throw them in prison for life, except perhaps in Texas or Alabama. Lawyers cost more than prison guards. Not that I think this is the most salient point.
I’ve heard that longer sentencing does not typically provide extra deterrence. I’ve also heard that increasing the probability of punishment is more effective. I have never heard that prison does not deter crime at all.
I suppose the underlying argument might be that prison and the death penalty deter roughly equally: there is no evidence that the death penalty deters crime more than say, 10 years in prison.
IMO, tracer presents the strongest argument so far. According to the web, (eg this link), there are 5 theories of punishment: deterrence, incapacitation, rehabilitation, retribution and vengence. #1 and #3 are nix and #2 only to the extent that a lifer has the opportunity to escape. Sure, it could happen (and does) but we’re talking about low probabilities for a given person.
What the death penalty is really about is retribution/entertainment. And though I personally oppose the death penalty, I can’t argue with popular taste. If the concern was with potential crime victims, more effort would be directed at pursuing cost-effective methods of crime reduction.
Yeah, I live in California, where we got rid of capital punishment decades ago. And as a result, one Robert Lee Massie–who was on death row at the time for a killing that happened during a botched robbery–was set free, whereupon he killed another person during a botched robbery. And was executed in March of this year (yeah, California has reinstated the death penalty).
See, the death penalty protects society against those who will kill again. And if you think McVeigh wouldn’t kill again, you’ve got another thing coming.
Now, if we could keep capital convicts in prison, perhaps as Bill O’Reilly suggests doing hard labor for the rest of their lives, then the death penalty wouldn’t be necessary. However, we all know for certain that McVeigh will not strike again.
Boy, the anti-death penalty people sure love to use this argument. It is a cheap underhanded trick. If you are against the death penalty just say so, but don’t make it seem like you’re only against because an innocent might be executed. "I’m against the death penalty, because I’m afraid an innocent person might be executed!” Okay, then conversely someone who uses this argument should be for the execution of someone who is obviously guilty. Let’s take a look McVeigh. He is obviously guilty. He is not some wacko who confessed to a crime. There was no insanity to take into account. He knew all the details, and proclaimed it loudly. Now someone who is intellectually honest and uses this argument would have to be for the execution of a piece of scum like this. But are they for it? No. They hem and haw and come up with other reasons why they are still against the death penalty. So why use this argument at all?
The anti-death penalty people have been trying for sometime now to get an execution televised in the hopes of swinging the popular opinion against capital punishment. In the instance of McVeigh, I wish they were successful. I would show a montage of mutilated victims being pulled out of the Federal building. I would show the dead children being pulled from the rubble. I would show an interview of McVeigh acknowledging that he knew there were children inside. I would show in explicit detail all the hurt he caused. At the end, I would show McVeigh, for all his crimes, just seemingly going to sleep. Which way do you think the popular opinion will swing then?
The terrible thing is that there will be monsters worse than McVeigh. However these monsters are the only way for some people to finally see the need for the death penalty.
ONLY? Given that you and I and probably 99.999% of us are innocent, I cannot think of a better reason. Perhaps apart from the fact that it sends the clear message that the government holds human life in pretty much the same regard as McVeigh.