Capital Punishment

I just heard a radio show on NPR discussing capital punishment.  It seems that this issue is coming up once more before the voters of California.  And, while California is a rather liberal state, its voters don't seem ready to give up capital punishment.  And, I, for one, don't understand why any state or nation should.

The three most common arguments for doing away with capital punishment are, first, that it is cruel and inhuman, second, that it costs far more to administer than a sentence of life imprisonment, and, finally, that on more than one occasion we've gotten it wrong and have executed an innocent person.

Before getting into these various arguments about capital punishment, let me first clear up a matter of semantics.  In my opinion,  capital punishment might better be referred to as "capital termination," or "capital forfeiture."  "Punishment" suggests that we wish to reform behavior.  Once you terminate someone, there's not going to be any reform.   I would argue that certain behavior is so heinous that the perpetrator has forfeited his right to live.  This, of course, raises the question as to whether anyone who's committed a crime so heinous as to warrant the taking of that person's life can be judged as being sane.  That is, of course, an issue for the courts.

The taking of a perpetrators life does not have to be either cruel or inhuman.  I don't see a firing squad as being either cruel or inhuman, nor for that matter does hanging necessarily qualify as being cruel and inhuman.  But, it does seem to me that lethal injection is probably the least violent means of terminating a life.

As to cost:  Sure, capital punishment is expensive.  But, so it the alternative.  Sentence a cruel and inhuman butcher to life and, in all probability, that sentence too will be appealed as being excessive.  That's the system.

The most terrible possibility to contemplate is taking the life of an innocent person.  Here we must rely on the judge to make a determination on the facts of the case.  If the criminal has been sufficiently clever as to cover up damning elements of his crime, then, despite the preponderance of the evidence that remains, his sentence must be reduced to a life sentence.