The death penalty is necessary in order for justice to be
served.
With the debate about convicted murderer Michael Morales heating
up, it seems appropriate to look at the arguments for abolishing
the death penalty in Lana Yoo’s column “As death
penalty fades, U.S. should follow suit” (March 3), as well as
the reasons why the death penalty should stay.
Yoo is right: the U.S. is one of the last countries that has the
death penalty. But this does not mean that it is wrong or immoral.
The premise of the death penalty is to deliver a sentence that is
equivalent to the crime committed, no more or less.
There is no contradiction in the death penalty, as Yoo suggests.
The contradiction is when a man kidnaps, rapes and murders a
person, like Morales did to 17-year-old Terri Winchell in a case of
premeditated murder, and is allowed to live.
Murder by definition is the unlawful killing of a human being,
especially with premeditated malice. The death penalty is a legal
punishment with no intent of malice per se (which means it does not
intend to produce suffering).
The claim made by Yoo that death by lethal injection is inhumane
is void and without merit.
Yoo refers to the Morales case to support this claim. Judge
Fogel, who presided over the case, endorsed administering five
grams of sodium thiopental instead of the three-drug cocktail
typically used in lethal injections, agreeing with the statement in
a court document that, “It is undisputed that five grams of
sodium thiopental, properly administered, is a fatal dose. It also
is undisputed that sodium thiopental does not cause pain; in fact,
as a barbiturate, it anesthetizes the person into whom it is
injected.” .
Yoo also argued that the death penalty is not an adequate
deterrent to crime. While I agree that it likely isn’t, that
isn’t the intended reason for it in the first place, and thus
not a good reason to abolish it either. The intent of the death
penalty is to deliver the appropriate sentence for the crime
committed. This is a very simple concept.
The idea of the death penalty as a deterrent is foolish and only
misdirects the purpose and intent.
When these murderers are imprisoned, our tax dollars go to
supporting them. Winchell’s family members are taxpayers
supporting the one who viciously murdered their daughter by paying
to house him in jail. This is an injustice to the family left
behind.
Indeed, taxpayers support criminals on death row who are waiting
to be executed, but at least the loved ones will eventually get
closure.
Yoo claims that we don’t have any potent moral authority
if we stand on the same side as human rights-violating countries on
the issue of capital punishment. This is another fallacy. The fact
that we share a legal penalty with a country that violates human
rights is irrelevant. It doesn’t diminish our human
responsibility and moral authority because we have good reason to
maintain the death penalty. How other countries punish criminals
should have no bearing on how we punish our criminals.
As for Morales, we should keep in mind what he did to Winchell,
who had hopes, dreams, and aspirations similar to many of the young
women here on campus.
Imagine the horror she felt as he took her against her will,
strangled her with his belt, hit her 23 times in the head with
hammer, dragged her face down on a gravel road across to a
vineyard, then proceeded to rape her and stab her four times in the
chest.
I know this is graphic. But if you find this as repulsive as I
do, the death penalty must stand. If it doesn’t, we are
reduced to victims without a voice.
Fickert is a third-year philosophy student.