A reader from Chicago has written to share his thoughts on the blanket death sentence commutation in Illinois last week. I think his thoughts are worth sharing with you (with his permission, of course) and I’d like to share my response, as well. He writes: In a recent entry you say:I am writing you from Chicago and have of course been in the midst of the Gov. Ryan death penalty charade (and yes, I do feel that that is a fair classification: the man has been so wrapped with corruption that he could not even run for reelection and scarcely shows his face in public, and he has done this more to try to save his legacy than anything else) and I want to offer you some local perspective.
Do I condemn the killing of the innocent by both sides? Yes, I do. But I did not condemn the killing of Baruch Goldstein by those Arabs who managed to survived his murderous rampage and I do not condemn the killing of terrorists with grenades, knives, bombs and rifles before they manage to murder Israelis in cold blood.I agree with you. But, if I understood this entry correctly, you support Ryan's decision to commute all 160-odd death sentences. Those include: Jacqueline A Williams and Fedell Caffey, who shot a pregnant woman in a plot to 'steal' her full-term, unborn child, which they cut from the womb, and did this in front of the victim's two young children, who they later stabbed and killed as well. And Randy Banks, who starved and exposed his girlfriend's 16-month-old daughter to freezing Chicago winter temperatures over a period of 4 months until the child died. And Danny Edwards, who kidnapped and buried alive a 40-year-old man in an attempt to get ransom from that man's family. I could go on. These crimes are heinous. There is no question and no contention of their guilt. The authors of such calculated and unspeakably cruel crimes do not deserve to live, not any more than Baruch Goldstein or the Hammas scum who guns down 4- and 5-year olds in their beds, as they all have surrendered any claim to humanity with their actions.
What Ryan has done is wrong. He should have gone case by case. I do not condemn the death penalty for monsters like Willaims or Caffey any more than I would for Goldstein or the Hammas murderer-----all deserve it and none less.My response:
First of all, I really do appreciate your sharing your thoughts and your on-the-spot perspective. Yes, it does seem that Gov. Ryan may very well have had a "hidden" agenda. That doesn't detract, for me, from the value of what he did.
There are issues about which I feel strongly and securely and find it hard to relate to people who disagree. This isn't one of them. Nevertheless, I have always been fundamentally opposed to the death penalty for a great number of reasons and certainly by no means intended to imply otherwise in my response to Al-Muhajabah. She asked if I condemned the "killing of the innocent" by both sides. When a man is blazing away at a crowd of people with a gun and you're a member of that crowd or even a bystander, killing him before he can do any more damage is justified. If a man armed with grenades, guns, knives or bombs is attempting to infiltrate a community and can't be apprehended without endangering lives, killing him before he can kill others is justified. If a man is orchestrating mass murder and those who have the authority refuse to arrest him and the only way to stop him from murdering again is to kill him, that's justified. That's what I meant.
But taking a man who's been stripped of all possible weapons, confined behind bars and surrounded by armed guards, strapping him to a chair or a gurney and electrocuting him or poisoning him is, in my opinion, very rarely justified. Such actions, conducted as we "watch" by the amorphous, faceless “person” of the State, tend to reflect a side of our nature that I believe we should try to resist. That, anyway, is my considered opinion, though I understand and respect that others don't feel the same way.
There are exceptions. There are instances where keeping someone alive in jail presents a justification for his "friends" to commit more acts of violence in order to secure his release. We’re seeing that right now in Israel. There are instances in which an incarcerated person can't be controlled, even in a prison environment, and continues to represent a threat. And there are, occasionally, instances in which the crime crosses some red line and guilt is beyond any question (not just a "reasonable doubt") where a different response is required. That last exception is a slippery slope. The crimes you mentioned may cross the line for many people. I'm not sure I'd disagree, but who's to say where we draw that line? At David Westerfield? Randy Banks? Ted Kaczynski? Adolph Eichmann? Usama Bin Laden? What would we do if we ever actually caught Bin Laden? I don't know, but I'd guess that keeping him in prison would result in more terrorism rather than less. My gut says, cut him into little pieces, very slowly. On questions like this, I try not to listen to my gut, but sometimes it makes a lot of noise.
So what was the "value," for me, of Ryan's action and of his speech? I think, I hope, it's given a wake-up call to enough Americans that we'll start to pay some serious attention to all of the many things that are fundamentally wrong with the death penalty as it exists today. I hope we'll start paying attention to the inequities of its application and to the cavalier attitude with which it's often doled out. And I hope we'll find a way to make sure that it's never (and I do mean never) imposed on an innocent person. In an ideal world, I'd like to see us do away with it in most instances. Many "civilized" countries in the world have already done so. But you're not going to find me at some "Free Mumia" rally, that's for sure.
Was this blanket commutation an extreme and overreaching action? Probably, but the State of Illinois granted the governor extreme and overreaching discretion in this matter. Perhaps legislatures will take steps to assure that it doesn’t happen again. Giving Gov. Ryan the benefit of the doubt, however, he used the tools at his disposal to make a difference, to fix a system that was broken and that nobody would get serious about repairing. Well, perhaps we’re getting serious now.
Let me conclude by assuring you that all of this concern of mine is not for the "rights" of criminals. I agree that the crimes you describe are heinous. So heinous, in fact, that there’s no punishment that could be severe enough to balance the scales. Death is definitely not the worst thing that can happen to a person and, personally, I'm just not that worried about whether people who violate the rights of others, especially if violence is involved, are treated "fairly." I respect the fact that our Constitution requires this, but I'll leave it up to others to occupy themselves with protecting the Eighth Amendment. My concern is for the wrongly convicted and for the rest of us who, I believe, would be better off without all of this vicarious bloodletting.
Thanks for stimulating my thoughts on this subject. They really are still in a process of evolution and, depending on how this gambit of Ryan’s ends up playing out, could sway in either direction. In the meantime, I think this is a dialogue that should continue for a good, long while with responsible people taking both sides, until we get it right. Whatever that turns out to be.
