On the Death Penalty

Reader Steve emails to say that I "inspired" (!) his son to start his own blog. And so I cruise over to find a pretty interesting discussion about the Death Penalty, with Aretae adding his own thoughts in the comments. Pretty smart stuff, with an update post.

So welcome to the Bag Man, here on the blogroll. Go check it out.

My feeling on the matter is that I'd be much more comfortable if we enforced Hammurabi's Code against the Philosopher Kings inhabiting our Criminal Justice System:

If a judge try a case, reach a decision, and present his judgment in writing; if later error shall appear in his decision, and it be through his own fault, then he shall pay twelve times the fine set by him in the case, and he shall be publicly removed from the judge's bench, and never again shall he sit there to render judgement.

One of the best arguments against the Death Penalty is Massachusetts' own dumb-as-a-rock Attorney General, Martha Coakley:

But Coakley’s worst performance by far came in connection with the Fells Acres day care child abuse case (please read the entire link to get a flavor of the situation). Gerald (”Tookie”) Amirault, along with his elderly mother and sister, had been convicted during the day care child sex abuse scare of the 80s. But he was widely known to be innocent by the time Coakley came on the scene as DA, and his mother and sister had been freed years before.

Gerald had received a unanimous recommendation from the parole board for his release. But in 2001 Coakley lobbied that he be kept in prison, and she was successful. As a result, an innocent man was kept behind bars for another three full years to add to the fifteen he had already served.

She - as the State's highest law enforcement official - actively worked to keep an innocent man in prison, knowing that he was very likely wrongly convicted. Add the Death Penalty into this mix of political scumbaggery, and you have an open invitation to shyster politicians to legally lynch people for political gain.

Again, if we enforced Hammurabi's excellent suggestion against then, then my objection would be much less strong. But we don't, and it isn't.

But that's just me. Go read the other side, which is pretty dang smart and lays the argument out.