Posted on 10/01/2003 6:27:50 AM PDT by xzins
Having been involved in law enforcement for about eight years, chaplain with a local police department and having served as a volunteer Chaplain with the Oklahoma Department of Corrections as an Institutional Chaplain, I was interested in the book by Mark Fuhrman, An Expose of Oklahoma's Death Row Machine: DEATH AND JUSTICE, so bought it and found it very interesting. Furhrman wrote the following on pages 251-252:
"Every murder is “heinous, atrocious and cruel.” By executing the innocent we have commited an act just as “heinous, atrocious and cruel”ourselves.
"In my career as a detective, both as a police officer and an author, I have always followed the evidence, wherever it led. My investigation of the death penalty in Oklahoma County has brought me to this conclusion: death penalty cases are not investigated or prosecuted at a level that can guarantee justice, or even that the accused is actually guilty.
"I no longer believe in the death penalty. I no longer have faith that is administered fairly or justly. I fear that innocent people have been executed.
"That’s why I am calling for the abolition of the death penalty, not only in Oklahoma but in every state. The federal government should reserve the right to execute only those guilty of treason, terrorism, or political assassination. In these circumstances, we as a nation would be executing the criminal, and it would no longer be up to individuals like Bob Macy and Joyce Gilchrist. These federal executions should be televised and broadcast on the Internet. If we don’t have the stomach to watch executions, we shouldn’t be performing them.
"I could make all sorts of arguments about deterrence, cost-effectiveness, wrongful convictions, politics, philosophy, and so on. But it boils down to this – the death penalty brings out the worst in all of us: hatred, anger, vengeance, ambition, cruelty, and deceit.”
“Jim Fowler showed me the peace that forgiveness and compassion can offer. If he, who has suffered so much, can forgive, then why can’t the rest of us? The story of the death penalty in Oklahoma, and throughout America, is sad, even depressing. But it is not without hope. The solution rests with each one of us to see the truth and then act on it. To choose justice over revenge.
— Mark Fuhrman —
Death and Justice
(New York: HarperCollins, 2003), pp.251-252.
This response to Mark Fuhrman was posted on the UM List.
Fuhrman is wrong.
The issue is not deterrence, vengeance, cost, or any of the other arguments generally given in favor of the death penalty, even though each of them has some merit. (That merit is additive, so those combined arguments amount to a significant body of merit for having a death penalty.)
An initial question involves certainty. What about when there is unimpeachable certainty that felon Y has murdered citizen A? Certainty does exist in a significant number of cases.
Given certainty, THE ISSUE is the cultural value of innocent life. We establish the value of anything by our reaction when that anything is taken. We establish it by determining what will compensate for the taking. If it is a cow that is taken, then it is the return of the cow or the price of a comparable cow that is proper compensation. If it is a horse that is taken, then the same thing...(except there was an era when the taking of a horse resulted in the taking of a human life as compensation...horse taking became rare.)
The culture that would develop where the taking of a cow was compensated by anything less than the value of a cow would be a culture that eventually stopped producing cows. It would be more expensive to nurture, feed, and grow them than would be the cost of simply stealing them. One could make a profit stealing cows EVEN if apprehended.
Likewise, If some are truly serious about ridding the world of gas guzzling SUVs, then simply pass a law that says thieves who take an SUV only have to return $10.50 to the owner of the SUV. It does not make sense in that culture to own an SUV. We have established a cultural climate that will result in many thefts of SUVs.
The same with innocent life. If we establish a culture where the compensation for an innocent life is less than the value of that life, then there is a cultural devaluation of innocent life. That devaluation is an encouragement to view innocent life apathetically. That cultural norm of devalued innocent life will bring about a culture where more innocent life is taken. Doesn’t life imprisonment serve the purpose of demonstrating a high value on innocent human life? No, because we are not placing a valuation at least equal to the value of an innocent human life. In short, we are encouraging a culture that more easily takes innocent human life than it would if the compensation were at least as costly as the item taken, i.e., innocent human life. (What if as societal compensation we required the life of the murderer and all of the financial assets of the murderer and all of the murderer's family? The valuation of innocent life would then be GREATER THAN equal compensation.)
The issue of cultural valuation of life is the reason that those murderers who have certainly committed their crimes should pay with their own lives.
Othewise, we will encourage a culture where the taking of life is more common than in those cultures that place an acceptably high valuation on innocent human life. Is there any evidence that our culture has more murders than other cultures?
It isn’t an issue of revenge. It is an issue of the valuation of life. Therefore, it is a question of what kind of culture we wish to establish.
Barricade yourself in your home. Your life isn’t highly valued. I have proof.
What do you think?
What we as a society must do is work to make the system fair and honest enough so that fewer inncoent men and women are convicted.
That's an interesting application of the us vs. them mentality. Why would you discount a "civilian's" opinion? Do you think that only LEOs are qualified to make ethical judgements regarding application of the death penalty?
I think he was involved or aware of a case where students worked on getting an innocent man released due to DNA testing. Hopefully with the advances DNA testing there will be less error and the people executed will be the ones guilty of committing the horrible acts that put them on death row.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/992872/posts
After reading about some of the sloppy work being done in the criminal justice system, I cannot disagree with him.
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