Execution

[Candy]

“The additional cost of confining an inmate to death row, as compared to the maximum security prisons where those sentenced to life without possibility of parole ordinarily serve their sentences, is $90,000 per year per inmate. With California’s current death row population of 670, that accounts for $63.3 million annually.”

Using conservative rough projections, the Commission estimates the annual costs of the present (death penalty) system to be $137 million per year.

The cost of the present system with reforms recommended by the Commission to ensure a fair process would be $232.7 million per year.

The cost of a system in which the number of death-eligible crimes was significantly narrowed would be $130 million per year.

The cost of a system which imposes a maximum penalty of lifetime incarceration instead of the death penalty would be $11.5 million per year.

The average cost of defending a trial in a federal death case is $620,932, about 8 times that of a federal murder case in which the death penalty is not sought. A study found that those defendants whose representation was the least expensive, and thus who received the least amount of attorney and expert time, had an increased probability of receiving a death sentence. Defendants with less than $320,000 in terms of representation costs (the bottom 1/3 of federal capital trials) had a 44% chance of receiving a death sentence at trial. On the other hand, those defendants whose representation costs were higher than $320,000 (the remaining 2/3 of federal capital trials) had only a 19% chance of being sentenced to death. Thus, the study concluded that defendants with low representation costs were more than twice as likely to receive a death sentence.


I was visiting blogs this morning and our pal Beej had posted a very touching and heart wrenching post about aan recent execution last night...

Here is what Beej's profound blog post said here:

http://lizardinmyshoe.blogspot.com/20...


I found myself thinking about her thoughts all day and about Capital Punishment.

We don't have Capital Punishment in Canada and we are against it...but it has often come up as as issue. I have many thoughts regarding it spiritually but in a nut shell I feel that life and death is best left for the goddesses and gods to decide. I don't believe in the karma of deciding to kill someone.

Plus...it is less expensive to let someone live out their life in prison than to execute them and put them on death row. I would prefer the money of death row to be spent on jobs in the community.

I once had a discussion about the death penality being given in Canada for serial killers. There is no cure fr serial killers...and they are a danger to the people who work around them, like wardens and security gaurds. I thought that was a good point until I heard one security gaurd talk about Clifford Olsen. Olson is a serial killer who murdered many children in Cannada. The guard said that Olson hated being in prison and he hoped that Olson would live into his hundreds.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifford...

There are several studies about the cost of the death penalty...here is one:

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/Costs...

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs...

http://law.jrank.org/pages/5002/Capit...

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/edi...

[Beej]

Candy, I am touched that you posted about my blog here. As I responded to you over at lizardinmyshoe, it wasnt even a matter of whether someone is anti or pro that troubled me. It was that I had always felt so deeply and had always been so vocal about my opposition to it that it stunned me to discover when this occured in my own backyard, that I wanted him to die. I dont like myself for feeling this way. In fact it torments me. But it's honest.

In all the time I've argued against the death penalty, I've used facts kin to those in the links you have provided. I know that the rate of homicide increases nationwide after an execution. But in this case, it doesnt matter to me. What matters is that this duo terrified and traumatized me, my kids, my friends, my neighbors for weeks. We were vulnerable. We never felt safe just going into our yards. Death was a real threat.

I still do not support the death penalty. The reason these two were tried for the killings in Virginia rather than for those in Maryland was because Va was known to opt for execution. As a Virginian, I would shudder at the number of executions each year. Once we had three in a single week! And I felt sickly with each and every one. I never became immune to them. So I cant even use that as an excuse for my desire regarding this one.

I feel as tho my soul has lost depth.

[Rosana]

Beej, I have been following your posts and the various answers to it. Thanks for your honesty and willingness to expose something so personal. I do feel strongly against the death penalty, but although I cannot say that I have ever experienced something like what you are feeling, life does throw some curve balls at me from time to time, where I have to reflect/confront on my personal ethics against my emotions.

I changed so completely the day I become a mother. I now hear every news with the question of What if it was my child? And some of my answers have become more visceral too. I would like anyone who endangers my children dead. Yes, your own children did not get physically hurt by these men, but they – and you - were hurt by the fear they caused. “Fear” is a very primeval feeling, and prompts very primeval emotional answers. You and your family were under attack, to want this man dead is an instinctive response.

Stop feeling that you are not living up to your moral principles. The fact that you are even aware of the contradition within yourself is enough of a signal that your ethics and integrity are strong parts of the person you are. It shows too.

Your soul did not lose depth, but the still waters were shaken. Self-knowledge, even when we find things about ourselves that don’t quite “fit”, still enlarges the soul.

[Beej]

Capitu, bless you.. and thank you.

[Whitaker]

Beej wrote: "I feel as tho my soul has lost depth."

Beej, you mustn't feel bad. How we feel and how we choose to react are totally different things. The depth of our souls is measured not by what our knee-jerk reactions are, but whether we are willing to struggle with those reactions. For example, persons who were taught to be racist, then try to change because they realise that these beliefs are unjust are no less commendable when they struggle against their feelings to accept, say, a interracial marriage. It's how we choose to react when our beliefs are challenged, when we rise to that challenge both in ourselves and outside ourselves that defines who we are as human beings.

I wouldn't say in the least that your soul has lost depth because of how you felt. I think it would have been shallow and unhuman if you had felt serenely forgiving from the get-go. None of us are so divinely forgiving that we would have felt no anger or desire for retribution. I'm sure even the Dalai Lama must have felt moments of savage anger at the carnage wrought in Tibet by the Chinese. And in the Christian tradition, even Jesus asked, "Take this cup from my lips."

In fact, I would go further. I would say rather that your soul has gained immeasureably in depth because you looked deep in yourself and struggled to reconcile how you felt on an "id" level and what your "superego" believed.

So don't beat up on yourself. We often forget that true belief is forged in the fires of doubt. That is the true test, and on that basis, you passed with flying colours.

[Whitaker]

Capitu wrote: "Your soul did not lose depth, but the still waters were shaken. Self-knowledge, even when we find things about ourselves that don’t quite “fit”, still enlarges the soul. "

Woah! We really do think alike. :-)

[Candy]

On Beej's blog I said that I believed her struggle with this issue is a blessing. For me it means she is a deep feeler and thinker and this topic is something that should weigh heavily on our minds.

I believe it is very natural and normal to want revenge or retribution for an injustice or a killing. But I also believe there is a difference between feeling that urge and following through on the act of revenge.

All the great literature and Mythology about revenge teaches us the painful lesson that revenge hurts those most who practice revenge. Although revenge or retribution is a natural reaction to violence or a sense of loss...it is also a natural part of being a human to challenge and build character. To not be static and only respond to our base emotions and motives. part of being human is rationally aspiring to walk "the higher ground" either emotionally, spiritually or philosophically.

The D.C. sniper, like most serial killers, has a personality disorder or mental illness. I do not believe that should excuse behaviour but rather give us all pause to consider how viable is it to seek revenge on someone who is mentally ill or has a deficiency of their personality? We don't even have to feel compassion for a serial killer like the D.C sniper...no. But his mental capabilities are an opportunity for a level of leniency or just let him live out his karma in prison.

Prison isn't a fun place. Many people believe it is fun....or prisoners get away with an education, tv. These may be some of the human kindnesses and comforts we allow prisoners but it is still a place of discipline and a harbour to protect the rest of society from dangerous and criminally insane people.

Many of these criminals and serial killers had never had a life with three square meals. We are only barely understanding how nutrition and brain injury affects mental ilness and personality. In some ways allowing them to be contained in such a strict community, with 3 meals a day, clothes and some simple pasttimes is an act of compassion that many of us do not realize we are performing. These may not be angels...but by feeding them we might be doing gods work and let the decision of life or death lay in the source. Let it lay with nature or god or any higher power...rather than humans.

[Beej]

Candy, I agree serial killers have personality disorders but most still know right from wrong. They just do not have any empathy for others.

I'm still not sure I would have preferred the dc sniper had received life without parole. I just do not know anymore.

Btw, it's really helped me deal with everything by sharing it with my friends here. Maybe my heart did not betray my head after all. thank you, all of you.

[Whitaker]

These musings are completely separate from Beej's experience.

I can see how the death penalty can, especially in cases of collective societal trauma, function as a means of cathartic release for the community as a whole. So, for me, the rightness or wrongness of the death penalty is something that each society has to decide for itself on some kind of collective basis. There is no overarching moral imperative that governs this decision.

While I'm against the death penalty, my own objections are more practical rather than moral.

In my professional life, I have only ever been involved in one trial. This was a disciplinary matter and is treated as akin to a criminal trial since the accused will lose his licence to practice. After assembling all the available documentary evidence, and hearing the testimony of both sides, only one thing was clear. Both sides were not telling the truth. Both stories did not quite fit the documentary evidence and both stories contained inconsistencies. It was a defining moment for me and I have since then become very dubious that truth can be arrived at by this trial process.

We have cases where the innocent have been wrongly sent to jail and subsequently exonerated by DNA evidence. Defence lawyers are frequently court appointed and not always very diligent in their preparation (it's not terribly remunerative), and while we would like them to be, the police and prosecutors are not always totally honest in their actions.

When preparing for trial, top lawyers frequently talk of the case theory to construct. A case theory is a narrative thread that ties all the evidence together. Essentially, it's a story. This story is just that: a story, and hence fictional to a greater or lesser degree.

I find police procedurals like CSI and Special Victims Unit very misleading in that the murderer is always clearly identified. In real life, it's never always that cut-and-dried. Sometimes, this is indeed the case as was the situation with the Washington sniper. Many other times, we cannot be sure. To believe that the police always get the right person might be a socially necessary illusion to sustain belief in the justice system, but I am uncomfortable with the notion of policy being set on the basis of a socially necessary illusion and even more uncomfortable with the notion of sentencing an innocent man to death.

This imperfection is inherent as no system can be perfect. So the policy/social choice, it seems to me, is between believing that it is better that 10 guilty men go free rather than have one innocent man hang and believing that it is better that 10 innocent men hang rather than have one guilty man go free.

[Beej]

Bravo, Whitaker.

May I ask what your profession is? For some reason I thought you were an attorney.

[Whitaker]

You're not far off. I used to be an attorney. I hated it and quit doing it about 10 years ago. Now I head up a legal research department in a law firm.

[Beej]

Ah okay. You must have mentioned that somewhere around here before and I remembered it. Thanks.

[Candy]

I think the idea of our reactions becoming more viceral depending on our life experience (thank you Capitu) is important to how we discuss and relate and process an issue and challenge like the death penalty.

Beej said Candy, I agree serial killers have personality disorders but most still know right from wrong. They just do not have any empathy for others.

I'm still not sure I would have preferred the dc sniper had received life without parole. I just do not know anymore.

That's totally fair and natural. It's part of our process of being human.

As for the guilt and responsibility of a serial killer...Those personality disorders come from a series of factors that are not so unknown to us. Entire childhoods of violence, usually from caregivers. Head injuries. Torture, emotional abuse are the bare minimum that create a serial killer. And also malnutrition (which is often why once in prison, with three meals a day, their patterns of trolling and predation are slightly muted. Not always but slightly). As much as they are vile horrible scary "barely human"...the fact is, they were born human...and they were tortured and controlled into being ill and sociopaths. We know this. We have their histories as plain evidence. As vile as they are...they were children who were so messed up beyond recognition. They were born innocent and raised by cruel sick people. Almost without exception.

I think that as much as our life experience, the example that Capitu shared with how she felt differently after having children...is part of this process of analysis and reflection. It's part of Beej's sense of experience specifically to this event. And it also informs all of our attitudes towards this topic.

I was in D.C. for ten days during that serial killer attack. I also lived in two other locations where an active serial killer was terrorzing the community. On the west coast where Clifford Olsen was murdering people of my age group, and Toronto where a rapist was attacking women and then escalated to murder.

so, the subject of how we catch, deal with and reconcile with a serial killer has come vey close to home literally and each time, reawakened my personal feelings about justice.

Yes...I did have fantasies of kicking these serial killers asses. Of course retribution crossed my mind. I have also been the victim of a violent attack and part of the reason I survived was because I fought back. I fought back with the inner intent of killing my attacker, to be honest. It is one of the regrets of my life is that I tried to kil this person but failed.

Having said that...this is partly where Whitaker's excellent examples of justice come to play.

It is completely normal and appropriate emotional and physical and intellectual response to seek retribution or self defense. it is a normal response to want revenge or retribution in certain situations. Especially in the heat of the moment.

Much of our sets of customs, behaviours, manners, ettiquette and laws...are built to guide us. Guide us not when we are relaxed and comfortable. We don't practice manners during our everyday lives. We use and practice our manners...and teach our children to do so at the family dinner table...at restaurants...at parties...even happy occassions where we are all relaxed...we remind our children. "Say thank you".

We practice these manners and customs in our "regular" lives...because when life presents unusual emotional circumstances...liek afuneral, a marrage, a confrontation with our neighbours, our co-workers...we have already dealt with practicing manners and we can ...in emotionally charged situations rely on our experience and history of practicing those sets of behaviours.

We usually don't need to worry about remembering our manners in most daily common situations. We have set up complex patterns of behaviour that serve us best in emotionally charged situations.


In this same way...we have set up customs and laws based ...hopefully...NOT on our heightened emotional responses to unacceptable social situations, including broken laws, theft, adultery and murder. All ranges of events we know occur. We have these laws and guidelines based on the reasonsings we explrea nd challenge whne we are not in jeaopardy. When we are not reacting from an individual selfish survival mode.

In the same way that it is completely normal for us to feel our sense of justice or our hackles raise when we have a discussion about emotional topics...we hope we can stay civil or match the same levels of composure others also want to maintain. But of course...it is completely natural and normal to lose our patinence and tempers in a sesnitive topic or social setting. it doesn't mean we are awful people or mean-spirited...we may even konow the difference between right and wrong...and still feel hurt, snarky, defensive. This is normal part of shaing time with each other...even online. We want to aspire to a cetain belief system...but it is also normal to fail and in order to share what we really think...sometimes we need to have compassion for each other and also sometimes we can only find our thoughts by losing a level of composure.

It can happen to anyone. It's part of the process of being human.

We can take this to the extreme and see that we do this with our laws and with our feelings towards the criminally insane like serial killers. Our laws are meant to serve our sense of "taking the high road".

Whitaker is absolutely profound by demonstrating that when we are rational and removed from our personal experiences of injustice (Beej with the D.C sniper, or me with the Troonto serial killer Pul Bernardo) we can explore the real problems of capital punishment. We sometimes make mistakes and kill innocent people.

And in my original post here, we spend more money on death row than on life sentences.

Beej is not alone. We all struggle with how we feel about retribution. I hope we all always struggle with this ...taking into account all factors. Our own connections to killers and crime...all the way to Whitaker's insight into innocence and the fragility of lawmaking and justice.

All of these and many many more scenarios are part of what Beej was experiencing...it's all factors into how we deal with capital punishment and revenge in our various countries and societies. We need to be able to discuss and analyse all of the factors...while we are in anon-emotional response phase. When we are not in the process of feeling directly threatened.

And this is why there are some families of victims who become involved in fighting againt capital punishment. These peope are fascinating and amzing to me. We have such an outspoken family in Toronto. Their child was killed and found days later. She had been missing for a few days and it was the whole cities grief and worry. My daughter and I went to the trial of her accused killer (I went to several serial killer trials over the years for writing work)..and for years this young girls family has lobbied against the death penalty...as some people in Canada have wanted to bring it back.

There is somethign so amazing about these parents to me. I am moved every time they are interviewed. They are the best example of how our society struggles with personal grief, with retribution, and with laws, customs and manners with reflection and preparation rather than the heat of the moment.

[Whitaker]

Candy wrote: "There is somethign so amazing about these parents to me. I am moved every time they are interviewed. They are the best example of how our society struggles with personal grief, with retribution, and with laws, customs and manners with reflection and preparation rather than the heat of the moment."

Wow, superb! And so true.

Have you guys ever watched Kieslowski's The Decalogue? It's a series of stories he made with each story based on one of the Ten Commandments. The one based on "Thou Shalt Not Kill" was about a man who murders a woman for her money and his trial and execution. It's compelling viewing because Kieslowski clearly means for us to ask the question, "Is there a difference between one and the other?" Whatever your personal response might be to that question, it really forces you to think.

[Candy]

Oh yes, I have seen The DecalogueWhitaker. What a fantastic set of films and very good example to this topic.

You know, I've often meant to buy the dvd set of The Decalogue...it is special too because somehow even though it's setting is bleak it is also beautiful...

[Candy]

I remember quite a long time ago...when Camille Paglia said if fathers and brothers were still involved in families...rape incidents would drop. She said there was a time where rape happened but the fellow who did so in a small town or village...say in Paglias beloved RItaly...they would get the shit beaten out of them.

She said...everyone knew the "rules". They weren't written down...but a guy who raped a woman knew...even before the rape he wouldn't get away with it. he knew the results. Less rape happened.

I suspect...in a smaller more connected group of primates this would certainly be a "truth". The rapist, if he got away with it...would sorely pay.

I think what I took from this idea is the idea of buildig a community for our selves. A group of people...even within a huge city that looks out for each other. The idea of these small families (nuclear families" is something perhaps more dangerous on so many elevels than we ever could have predicited.

So much abuse can get done...emotional verbal...not to mention physical...when there aren't the checks of involved neighbours. Of involved close living relatives who actually try to compromise and live within a group with each other.

When the corner store family sees a black eye...when children are playing on the street inf ront of the corner store, when girls are always in packs with their cousins and friends, when we all check each other...maybe we can have a sense of connection and consequences?

But so many people live with an intimacy of only a half dozen people in their lives. Often parents aren't even with their own children that much during the week, families have followed jobs and are disperced.

In Malcom Gladwells' book Outliers he talks about the healthiest city in N.A. where they have very little heart disease. They are Italian-Americans so at first doctors thought it must be the olive il or fresh non-trans fat foods...but no.

After years of study...they found out the only thing different about this entire town in penn. was that everyone talked to each other. Neighbours shared food and made extras for each other. People talked over their fences and on street corners with each other very day. (this ties into the articles I posted yeasterday about depression too)

btw, I HIGHLY recommend the book Outliers.

:)