David Drucker Drucker is a history
student in his final quarter at UCLA. E-mail him at [email protected].
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Here in Westwood, there are few issues as divisive as the death
penalty.
The arguments for and against are as predictable as the
political lines they’re drawn against.
If you see the world through a left-leaning prism, the fact that
our government executes convicted murderers probably strikes you as
abhorrent and oddly inhumane. Swing that prism around to the right,
and you’re likely to accept lethal injections and
electrocutions as a necessary part of maintaining a just
society.
Recently, death penalty foes seized upon a couple of
high-profile cases to advance the notion that society should not be
in the business of killing. In fact, an Illinois man had his
conviction overturned just days before his scheduled execution. He
was exonerated by DNA evidence after spending 17 years on death
row.
But to label the anti-death penalty crowd as people who are
merely concerned for the fate of the innocent is to grossly
mischaracterize their position. No one on either side of this
debate wants to see an innocent man executed ““ let alone
incarcerated ““ for a crime he didn’t commit.
 Illustration by JENNY YURSHANSKY/Daily Bruin In reality,
those against the death penalty are opposed to executing even our
country’s most heinous murderers. They identify these vicious
convicts as simply misunderstood souls who are in actuality sweeter
than Mother Teresa. If only we could look past the hardened
exterior and see the inner child.
Think I’m exaggerating? Take a look at second-year
psychobiology student Amber Wobbekind’s portrayal of
convicted murderer Timothy McVeigh, who admitted to blowing up the
Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City back in April
1995 (“Government
uses execution to rally support for the death penalty,”
Viewpoint, May 15).
“Who is (McVeigh)?” she asks. “Most people
would answer that he is that sadistic, messed up, psychotic
sociopath who took the lives of 168 innocent (people) … However,
these people do not generally know much about McVeigh’s
history …”
Poor, poor, murdering McVeigh. He callously extinguishes the
lives of 168 innocent men, women and children ““ even a
four-month-old ““ earning him the distinction of the worst
single mass murderer in American history, and all Wobbekind can say
is that we don’t realize how McVeigh “became the
monster that the news media paints him to be …” and that
“we need to understand that McVeigh acted out with the
violence he learned in the U.S. Army …”
That’s great. Blow people up, and you can rest easy
because the media will get blamed for painting you as a
criminal.
But the issue is greater than some random sophomore’s view
of a mass murderer. What Wobbekind’s admonishment
exemplifies, however, is the depth of compassion that many people
hold for murderers. In the meantime, these same people ignore the
murder victims themselves ““ not to mention the loved ones
they leave behind.
Maybe, the next time Campaign to End the Death Penalty turns
Meyerhoff Park into a makeshift graveyard (“Demonstrators
rally against capital punishment,” News, April 19), they
can erect a headstone in memory of Julie Welch.
Welch was only 23 years old when McVeigh murdered her.
“She used to go to Little Flowers Church,” her father
Bud told CNN on April 27, 1995. (“Julie Welch will never see
her future,” CNN, April 27, 1995). “It’s in a
poor neighborhood … and there’s little Hispanic kids there,
some that can’t speak much English, and a girl like Julie can
talk to them and give them a ray of hope. We’ve lost that
now.”
Welch used her degree in Spanish from Marquette University as an
interpreter for the Social Security Administration. That’s
why she was in the Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995.
“Julie had a vision of the way things should be,”
college friend Joe Hoover recalled for CNN in the same article.
“She’d pull me aside and say, “˜That’s not
the way things should be.’ She felt things so
deeply.”
Here’s a poignant question you can ask yourself: Where
does your compassion lay?
Does it reside with McVeigh, the only one of a half-million Gulf
War veterans who came home and murdered 168 people? Or does it lay
with Julie Welch, a girl who will forever be 23 because McVeigh
decided to murder her in cold blood?
Does your compassion reside with murdering McVeigh, a coward who
covertly targeted innocent government employees? Or does it lay
with Bud Welch, a man who was forced to outlive his daughter, and
will never have the pleasure of watching her marry or have
children?
Possibly, in some sense, the news media is at fault ““ for
not spotlighting the victims and their survivors.
Back in July of 1999, for instance, Allen Lee Davis was executed
in Florida’s electric chair. According to eyewitness
accounts, an eight inch spot of blood appeared on Davis’
chest, causing some to term the execution cruel and unusual
punishment. Writing in June of 1999, Bob Greene of the Chicago
Tribune attributed a civil liberties attorney with describing the
electrocution as “barbaric.” (“Who weeps for the
blood of the Weiler family,” Chicago Tribune July 14,
1999).
Maybe so. But then again, let’s take a minute to consider
what Davis admitted to doing.
On May 11, 1982, Davis unlawfully entered the home of the Weiler
family. In short order, he proceeded to bludgeon Nancy Weiler, 37,
to death. He did such a thorough job that her body was virtually
unrecognizable when found by police. But he wasn’t done
yet.
After finishing off Nancy, Davis tied up her 10-year-old
daughter, Kristy. He murdered her by shooting her in the face. But
he wasn’t done yet. As Kristy’s five-year-old sister
Kathy tried to get away, Davis shot her in the back. He then
crushed her skull for good measure.
But it gets even better.
Davis got to kick around for 16 years in prison prior to his
execution. He had the pleasure of eating, reading, watching TV and
enjoying other simple pleasures that make life worth living. John
Weiler received the privilege of spending those same 16 years
remembering his wife and children and the horror in which they
perished.
The next time you speak against capital punishment, take a
minute to consider the victim, rather than murderer, and ask
yourself:
Where does your compassion lay?