Blood On Our Hands
The state of California made me and you and everyone who lives here a murderer last night. Stanley "Tookie" Williams was put to death, and we are all of us complicit. I have no idea of whether or not he was actually guilty of the four murders he was convicted of committing; a preponderance of the evidence suggests that he was. That fact is beside the point. The point is -- and I realize it's one that many, even most, people disagree with -- that if it is wrong to kill people (which I believe it is), then the state should not be in the business of putting people to death. It's as simple as that.
I have no personal knowledge of or connection to this particular case, and it isn't the Williams case in and of itself that raises my ire and makes me sad. It is the fact that this country insists on perpetuating a barbaric practice, one that most civilized countries around the world have given up. Even here, as in the state of Illinois, where the death penalty is under moratorium due to the number of convicted persons later found to be innocent by means of DNA testing and other new forensic procedures, support is dropping and the practice is being questioned. Still, a solid majority of Americans continue to support it, and I have no illusions that the practice of it will be curtailed any time soon. More's the pity.
It's not that I harbor any illusions about the possible redemption or rehabilitation of many men (and they're virtually all men) who have committed heinous acts and taken lives. It's just that I sincerely believe that killing those men does society no good; in fact, it lessens us all as human beings. Locking them up in prison without hope of parole is a satisfactory punishment in my view; if a mistake is made in the conviction of a man for murder -- and mistakes are made -- there is no recourse, no way to reverse the decision or the act. (SF Chronicle writer Jon Carroll made much the same point in his column yesterday.) I am against child-killers being executed. I am against cop-killers being executed. I am against rapists and serial killers and kidnappers and arsonists and drug lords and pizza thieves being executed. I am against execution, period. Execution of a murderer, any murderer, does nothing to bring back the victim(s) or benefit society in any way. Execution is final, and if even one innocent person is put to death by the state, we are all of us guilty.
This is not a view that I come by lightly, and it is one that I have held for nearly as long as I've been aware of what death means. I can recall in my 6th grade class being one of two people (out of approximately 30) arguing against the death penalty then. My classmates kept positing increasingly horrifying hypothetical situations in an effort to get me to change my mind -- "What if someone came into your house and raped and killed your sisters and your mother, wouldn't you want them put to death then?" -- but I held fast. "Yes," I would answer, "I, personally, would want to see that person suffer, I would want that person to lose his life. But I do not want the state to take it from him in my name, or in anyone's name. I don't believe in the death penalty, and no amount of imagining or gruesome scenarios will make me change my mind." My view had been shaped in large part by my mother's opposition at the time to state-sponsored execution; imagine my disappointment, then, when she told me a few years ago that she now thinks it is justified in certain circumstances. "But you're the one who taught me it was wrong!" I said to her. I have little explanation for her change of heart; I can only think that living in the greater Los Angeles area, as she does, with its ridiculous glut of celebrity news and high-profile but essentially empty-headed court cases (Michael Jackson, Robert Blake, O.J. Simpson, et al) combined with the prevalent right-wing sensibilities of Orange County and the Inland Empire have skewed her vision of reality and allowed her to rationalize away her objections to death by the state. And I'm saddened by that.
Just as I'm saddened by the death of Tookie Williams. Not necessarily because of the man himself, but because, as a member of this society, his death has my name on it. And yours. And all of ours.
I have no personal knowledge of or connection to this particular case, and it isn't the Williams case in and of itself that raises my ire and makes me sad. It is the fact that this country insists on perpetuating a barbaric practice, one that most civilized countries around the world have given up. Even here, as in the state of Illinois, where the death penalty is under moratorium due to the number of convicted persons later found to be innocent by means of DNA testing and other new forensic procedures, support is dropping and the practice is being questioned. Still, a solid majority of Americans continue to support it, and I have no illusions that the practice of it will be curtailed any time soon. More's the pity.
It's not that I harbor any illusions about the possible redemption or rehabilitation of many men (and they're virtually all men) who have committed heinous acts and taken lives. It's just that I sincerely believe that killing those men does society no good; in fact, it lessens us all as human beings. Locking them up in prison without hope of parole is a satisfactory punishment in my view; if a mistake is made in the conviction of a man for murder -- and mistakes are made -- there is no recourse, no way to reverse the decision or the act. (SF Chronicle writer Jon Carroll made much the same point in his column yesterday.) I am against child-killers being executed. I am against cop-killers being executed. I am against rapists and serial killers and kidnappers and arsonists and drug lords and pizza thieves being executed. I am against execution, period. Execution of a murderer, any murderer, does nothing to bring back the victim(s) or benefit society in any way. Execution is final, and if even one innocent person is put to death by the state, we are all of us guilty.
This is not a view that I come by lightly, and it is one that I have held for nearly as long as I've been aware of what death means. I can recall in my 6th grade class being one of two people (out of approximately 30) arguing against the death penalty then. My classmates kept positing increasingly horrifying hypothetical situations in an effort to get me to change my mind -- "What if someone came into your house and raped and killed your sisters and your mother, wouldn't you want them put to death then?" -- but I held fast. "Yes," I would answer, "I, personally, would want to see that person suffer, I would want that person to lose his life. But I do not want the state to take it from him in my name, or in anyone's name. I don't believe in the death penalty, and no amount of imagining or gruesome scenarios will make me change my mind." My view had been shaped in large part by my mother's opposition at the time to state-sponsored execution; imagine my disappointment, then, when she told me a few years ago that she now thinks it is justified in certain circumstances. "But you're the one who taught me it was wrong!" I said to her. I have little explanation for her change of heart; I can only think that living in the greater Los Angeles area, as she does, with its ridiculous glut of celebrity news and high-profile but essentially empty-headed court cases (Michael Jackson, Robert Blake, O.J. Simpson, et al) combined with the prevalent right-wing sensibilities of Orange County and the Inland Empire have skewed her vision of reality and allowed her to rationalize away her objections to death by the state. And I'm saddened by that.
Just as I'm saddened by the death of Tookie Williams. Not necessarily because of the man himself, but because, as a member of this society, his death has my name on it. And yours. And all of ours.
posted by Generik at 7:30 AM
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