Mark Fuhrman Rejects the Death Penalty

UM List | 1 Oct 03 | V. Lawrence

[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?

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

Ref post #18. I agree with you. Well said.

[xzins]

All of the arguments for the death penalty have merit and add up to a body of merit.

The type of culture we establish, though, impacts us every single day. All the way down to the fear we feel when we walk our own neighborhoods at night....anymore, even in the daytime.

[xzins]

Murder is a malicious taking of life.

Capital punishment, by definition,is self-protection by the society. Therefore, it is not malicious.

[cyborg]

No I do not totally discount a civilian's opinion. If I want expert advice/opinion on an issue, I tend to go to people in the field first. I am a civilian with zero experience in law enforcement. I am going to say I know more about the death penalty system,etc. than someone in the field? I'm just doing what people do when we talk about racial profiling. That is, it doesn't really matter what civilians think. It is best to go see what the policemen think first.

That's all.

[The Great RJ]

If anything is to be posted on the Internet it should be the murder crime scene photos. People need to see things like the face frozen in terror on the little girl who was raped and murdered by some pervert or the mutilated and decomposing bodies left by some serial killer. Seeing that they would have the "stomach" to watch an execution--just like many victim's families choose to do.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Unimpeachable certainty does not mean that silly arguments or bogus data provide acceptable impeachment.

How can you possibly know that evidence is unimpeachable when the people handling it are extremely impeachable?

[xzins]

In some cases guilt can be established with unimpeachable certainty.

That is simply a fact.

In those cases of unimpeachable certainty, Mark Fuhrman's objections are not relevant. Multiple witnesses, confessions by guilty parties, and/or physical evidence sometimes leads to absolute certainty of guilt. Those whose guilt is unimpeachably certain should be candidates for the death penalty for the good of the culture.

[JudgemAll]

"Every murder is “heinous, atrocious and cruel.” By executing the innocent we have commited an act just as “heinous, atrocious and cruel”ourselves.

What utter BS ... equating a gratuitous crime with aim to destroy the truth with that of the painstaking death penalty process which has noble duel and truth finding role.

The duel between a criminal and the courts in arguments cannot be compared to a heinous crime. This a hole has obviously a liberal agenda.

[xzins]

For the sake of our culture we must insist on the punishment for the crime being equal or greater than the value of the object taken. In the case of murder, we devalue life when we accept anything less.

[xzins]

Because multiple eyewitnesses, confession, etc. combined with physical evidence sometimes provide unimpeachable certainty.

If you and your neighbor watched me take your car from the driveway and you both knew me, and I never return your car, would you have some idea of whom has stolen your car?

Would you be absolutely certain given the above facts?

[Kevin Curry]

He does not have faith in the compentency or honesty of the prosecutors, investigators, forensic pathologists, etc., who are supposed to ensure that only the guilty face the ultimate penalty.

Strange that he would leave out the jurors in his broadbrush condemnation. Or did you do that?

Fuhrman's opinion is likely colored largely by his negative experience in O.J. trial. There, the incompetence of the system led to the acquittal of a man who should be on death row today. Still smarting from that injustice, it isn't hard for Fuhrman to take double umbrage to what he believes is the injustice of that same system executing a possibly innocent person. After all, an incompetent system arguably is incompetent in all ways--not just one.

But I believe he overstates his case. His opinion is emotion driven--not logic and facts driven. No criminal justice system can deliver justice perfectly. What it can do is deliver heavy-handed injustice to the point that no one trusts it any longer and the social order founders on the reef of popular rebellion. Or, it can be so weak and equivocal that no one trusts it to protect their interests and the social order crashes on the rocks of anomie.

Neither condition is healthy.

[xzins]

Yes, I agree. A mistaken capital punishment by a justice system that has significant proof of guilt is not even comparable to a murderer who maliciously takes a life.

To call those mistakes "heinous, atrocious, and cruel" is propaganda designed to influence.

Mistakes are irrevocable and extremely sad, but they are not cause to end the death penalty for those murders wherein unimpeachable guilt can be established.

[P-Marlowe]

If we don’t have the stomach to watch executions, we shouldn’t be performing them.

I agree with that. Frankly Fuhrman's opinion at least is rational. Most people who argue against the death penalty are areguing in favor of the perpetrator's right to live even if he spent his whole life killing and torturing children. Fuhrma's concern is in regard to the question of guilt.

Frankly there should be a different standard of proof before we give someone the death penalty and Fuhrman appears to be open to that, but he doesn't express it. Before we execute a criminal the proof should not only be "beyond a reasonable doubt" but the evidence should preclude the possibility that anyone other then the defendant could be guilty. In other words there should be a finding that it would have been impossible that the defendant did not commit the crime. Perhaps a secondary standard that the jury would have to reach in a death penatly case, something like, "no legitimate or actual possibility of innocence".

Some death penalty cases are really borderline in the evidence department and the heinousness of the crime often poisons the jurors minds against the defendant to the point that they wish to punish somebody and the defendant then becomes the target of their wrath.

I think Fuhrman has gone too far by suggesting that the death penalty should be abolished, but then his arguments at least have the appearancer of legitimacy.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Would you be absolutely certain given the above facts?

I would be absolutely certain, but I don't get to execute the guy.

We have a corrupt legal system in which I have zero faith.

That's the issue.

[xzins]

I believe a standard of impossible for it not to be the defendant is the same as what I'm suggesting here: unimpeachable certainty.

I would go higher to absolute certainty, but I'm trying to word it in a way that would prevent frivolous objections.

[xzins]

The corrupt legal system is a different issue than the standard of proof, but where it is corrupt it must be reformed.

A standard such as "unimpeachable certainty" or even "absolute certainty" would change the system so far as the death penalty is concerned.

See P-marlowe's post at #33.

[dennisw]

I saw a crime show the other day (true life)that the family was devastated the murderer did not get the death penalty. That is argument number one for me.

Vengeance and closure are very real human emotions. They work for me. Seeking vengeance on a man who killed a loved one is far from a sin. Why should the good and peaceful people be playthings for the murderous?

[Sam Cree]

"Capital punishment, by definition,is self-protection by the society."

I would say also that by definition, capital punishment contains elements of revenge, thus malice.

[waterstraat]

cops that lie on the witness stand in murder trials, who commit perjury, and take the fifth ammendment when asked about if they lied on the witness stand, should not be in favor of the death penalty.

[dennisw]

Mistakes are irrevocable and extremely sad, but they are not cause to end the death penalty for those murders wherein unimpeachable guilt can be established.
 

Plus the man mistakenly executed has a violent history 95% of the time. Is not a peaceful citizen plucked from the crowd.