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Why I now oppose the death penalty.(The Providence Journal)
I used to support the death penalty. Murder is such an unconscionable crime that it raises our passions. The loss, frustration and anger felt by all of us, but especially families of victims, suggest the death penalty as the only just punishment for murder and the strongest possible signal of our intolerance for that crime.
Decisions of life and death should not be based on passions, however, and the evidence concerning the death penalty is sobering.
As I have learned more about the death penalty, I have concluded that it is a deeply flawed policy.
As much as anyone, I want to see a despicable man like Timothy McVeigh pay for his crime. I, too, want to find a way to make him feel the intensity of the pain experienced by every family touched by the bombing. The heart cries out for vengeance against a man who visited indescribable anguish on many of Oklahoma City's families and who has shown not a shred of remorse. In short, if there was ever an American who deserves the death penalty, it is McVeigh.
While the need for retribution against the truly evil in our society burns deeply within our souls, I think that, as a nation, we must take a collective pause. The death penalty is manifestly appropriate in a case like McVeigh's, but we must consider its suitability to our system generally, including in cases that are not so open and shut. Our justice system risks making mistakes that we cannot take back.
I recently had the opportunity to meet Kenneth Waters, who spent 19 years in a Massachusetts prison on a murder conviction before being released in March. His sister, Betty Anne, a resident of Middletown, put herself through college and law school in her quest to free her brother, ultimately overturning his conviction on the basis of DNA evidence.
Waters is philosophical about his lost years. He is remarkably free of bitterness. But if Massachusetts had the death penalty, he might well be dead now.
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Source: HighBeam Research, Why I now oppose the death penalty.(The Providence Journal)