The fact that Texas recently executed another prisoner in its custody isn’t really news. Nonetheless, the media picked up on the story because it’s the lone star states 400th killing, and on this occasion, the European Union took the unusual step of requesting that Texas cease the practice of carrying out executions altogether.
The United States has put to death 1,089 people since the Supreme Court lifted a ban on capital punishment in 1976. Since then the State of Texas has led the way claiming 400 of those killings, 131 of those under George W. Bush in his tenure as governor. Lethal injection is the preferred method of execution, but the electric chair and gas chamber remain an option. Firing squads and hangings might sound barbaric, but those methods were used to kill 5 people in the United States as recently as 1996. In fact, it was only in 2001 that the Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional to put to death mentally retarded individuals. Following that, in 2005 the Supreme Court concluded that it was unconstitutional to execute anyone who was under the age of 18 when they committed an offense.
Johnny Ray Conner was executed in Texas on Wednesday for the 1998 fatal shooting of a grocery store clerk, Kathyanna Gon Thi Nguyen. Conner always denied the charge and in 2005, a judge overturned Conner’s death sentence and ordered a retrial, saying Conner’s lawyers had been ineffective. In January a federal appeals court reversed that decision.
It is undoubtedly a tragedy that Kathyanna Gon Thi Nguyen was shot and killed. But I’m unconvinced that a state-sanctioned murder of her killer has redressed the balance or served any real justice.
Supporters of the death penalty often cite the Bible verse, “An eye for an eye“, as some kind of divine justification. But the same book also says that God himself said “Vengeance is mine, I will repay.”
So where is the moral directive for justice? Upon what did we base our judgment that killing is wrong? If it was wrong of Ray Conner to kill Kathyanna Gon Thi Nguyen, why then was it right for the state of Texas to kill Ray Conner?
Perhaps the family of Conner’s victim feels better now that her alleged killer is himself dead. But is it the job of the judiciary system to exact revenge in such a way? In effect, are we to believe that in this case, two wrongs have made a right?
Conner was in jail for the crime of murder. He no longer posed a significant threat to the people of Texas. One day he might have been released, and I will agree that such a prospect seems utterly unthinkable when one considers that his victim is dead. But in killing Conner isn’t the State of Texas simply demonstrating the fact that it simply doesn’t believe in its own rehabilitation system?
Perhaps execution is justice. Maybe killing a killer serves as a warning to other would-be murderers that the same fate awaits them should they be caught. However, as the President of the European Union pointed out, there seems to be no evidence from any quarter that the death penalty serves as an effective deterrent. Most murders are not the result of a calculated well thought out process of reason.
If justice is equal-handed then one thing troubles me about the death penalty; how come there have been so few executions compared to the number of crimes that are potentially punishable by death? I understand that the process of law takes time, but in the state of Texas alone there were 55,902 murders between 1976 and 2005, and yet only 355 executions. How is there such a vast difference between the numbers of crimes and so-called justice?
In Furman v. Georgia, the 1972 US Supreme Court case that resulted in a temporary end to executions, it was concluded that the death penalty was “cruel and unusual punishment” proscribed by the Eighth Amendment as incompatible with the evolving standards of decency in modern society. Back then Justice Potter Stewart wrote “These death sentences are cruel and unusual in the same way that being struck by lightning is cruel and unusual. For, of all the people convicted of rapes and murders in 1967 and 1968, many just as reprehensible as these, the petitioners are among a capriciously selected random handful upon whom the sentence of death has in fact been imposed.”
Stewart went on to write “I simply conclude that the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments cannot tolerate the infliction of a sentence of death under legal systems that permit this unique penalty to be so wantonly and so freakishly imposed.” However, just four years later the Supreme Court allowed states to rewrite their death penalty statutes. Florida reinstated the death penalty within five months, followed shortly by 34 other states.
By the end of this month, barring last-minute appeals, the State of Texas will have killed three more people, Daroyce Mosley, John Amador, and Kenneth Foster. I’ve not looked at their specific cases, and make no mistake I’m not suggesting that Texas is especially savage, I’m merely asking whether killing these men and the others that will follow, will really serve justice, and if not then shouldn’t the United States be examining the motives for the death penalty in the first place? What do you think?
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US execution stats
Texas Department of Criminal Justice: Death Row Facts
Death Penalty – 34 states permit executions
Pending executions in the United States
EU President’s official request to the State of Texas
Wrote the following comment on Aug 25, 2007 at 4:29 am
Here is my controversial opinion: I’m sorry that we spend so much money preserving these prisoner’s rights before we finally kill them. He committed the murder 9 years ago…I can only imagine what our tax dollars have afforded since then – not only in his appeals, but in the cost of keeping him in prison. I know, I’m not much of a bleeding heart social worker; but today, the guy who raped and killed (by burying her alive) Jessica Lunsford, age nine, was convicted – and I just wish he could be raped and buried alive. Maybe I haven’t done the research…Maybe I’m shooting from the hip…maybe I’m just the mother of a girl who was once nine, but personally I think some of these sick bastards don’t die soon enough.
Well then, how’s that for a controversial thought!
Wrote the following comment on Aug 25, 2007 at 10:37 am
You see, that’s the thing. In a murder like that I can agree with you. Those hideous killings where the killer tortures the victim or something awful like that, it’s actually pretty hard to argue that killing them isn’t a just punishment.
But as Justice Potter Stewart said back in 1972, there seems to be little consistency applied to the sentencing to death and that is something to be concerned about.
One of the things I’m also not comfortable about with the death penalty is that while we say it’s the State that kills the person, we forget that in reality, there is a person who will do that job.
Wrote the following comment on Aug 27, 2007 at 4:53 pm
I have really struggled with this one over the years. I detest the politicization of the death penalty. My fundamental belief on this is that when God executes His own vengeance, it is often through government authority. His warning not to take vengeance into one’s own hands, I believe, is a warning to individuals. I believe that governments have the God-given authority to prosecute just executions.
However, I no longer believe that the system is just or good. The US system is WAY broken (I know that’s not proper grammar, but it fits for now). There are too many exhonerations based on DNA evidence now for me to feel comfortable about the convictions that have been handed down over the years.
I appreciate Susan’s comment regarding the issue of spending tax dollars to feed and cloth death row inmates. However, it is a much greater evil for the state to shed the blood of a man or woman innocent of the crime of which they have been accused, than to offer mercy and commute the death penalty in favor of another punishment.
I hear alot of people complaining about the tenure of death row inmates. But given the actual number of death row inmates, compared to the general population, I suspect the money spent on extended stays on the Green Mile as a percentage of the overall budget for federal penitentiaries is quite small. And it befuddles me that we think we are honoring God, to care less about determining guilt or innocence (read: THE TRUTH), and more about “justice” – defined broadly as making sure “they get what they deserve”. Who of us has actually gotten what we deserve? We ought not be so ready to mete out so much “fairness”.
I am in agreement with those who believe that the alternative of life in prison is an injustice to the tax payer. Our penal system needs to be revised and updated. Chain gangs, community/civil service, work programs, etc. are all much better uses of an inmates time. If we’re going to sentence them to extended stays in the pen, we ought to make them give back to society in some way, shape or form. There is no justice, rehabilitation, reconciliation or restoration in prison.
Wrote the following comment on Aug 27, 2007 at 8:54 pm
I just say take them out back and shoot them!
(That one was for you Simon ;) )
Wrote the following comment on Aug 29, 2007 at 2:22 pm
I am a Texan and we don’t all embrace the death penalty. My father was murdered brutally by a home intruder three weeks ago and my first reaction to hearing he was killed was utter shock, sadness and disbelief – as anyone would feel receiving such news. The utter senselessness and randomness of this act is still bewildering… but my team and I (we were teaching English in China) prayed for the perpetrator. We asked God to convict this killer, in his heart, and use this horrible situation to turn him (or her) to his Son, whose mercy is boundless – unlike mine. Only a crazed or troubled soul could have done such a thing…and only Jesus can make a change in such a one. We committed him or her to Jesus.
To a Christian, death is not the end – so whether this one and others die is not the final important thing, though those in whose hand their lives pass will have to give an answer one day – the important thing is that they realize their eternal value to a loving God and give Him what is due only Him – their lives and their allegiance. He certainly paid for it in a merciful way and is worthy of it. Of course the answer to the criminals’ justice is a complicated one – it involves how they are raised and even later, how they are rehabilitated – but that would be an issue we all would have to “get involved” with, not just the judicial system. Right now in Houston, all our jails and prisons have maxed out – and they are building more. Are WE willing to be a part of the solution – willing to reach out to “future criminals” so that the love of God can be known to them and their lives might be changed? That is the question your blog makes me ask myself..
Wrote the following comment on Aug 29, 2007 at 2:43 pm
What an emotive subject! Personally, as a Christian, I don’t feel that we have the right to take anyone’s life regardless of what they have done. HOWEVER, I fully accept the pain that families have to suffer when they see the perpetrator ‘living it up’ in prison, while a loved one has gone to an early grave. The issue of tax payers money is also a big one. I agree that some form of Community Service/heavy labour should be enforced. I also think that prison life should be made a LOT harder! Get rid of the luxuries of TV, Argos shopping and the like! But hey, that’s another issue altogether!
Wrote the following comment on Aug 29, 2007 at 4:16 pm
You know when I wrote this post I did a bit of research and one figure that I was a little disheartened by was the fact that the United States imprisons more of its citizens than any other country in the world. Prison doesn’t work and neither does killing those dysfunctional people who have killed. There isn’t a jot of evidence to say otherwise.
Leighnae, I admire your choice to offer your fathers killer to the mercy of God. In the same situation I am not sure how I would react. But you raise a very good point about all of us being willing to be part of the solution.
Our mega-rich money driven society has horribly lost it’s way. Our understanding of what is truly important has become warped by our self-centered approach to life. Being part of the solution is a HUGE challenge when put in the context of our lives that would seem to revolve around the desires of the individual rather than the needs of the community at large.
In essence it’s far easier and cheaper for us as individuals to invest in better personal security than it is for us to invest in better society. As the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jnr once said “We have guided missiles and misguided men.”
Wrote the following comment on Aug 29, 2007 at 10:58 pm
I think that you all make extremely good points and I can see the argument for both sides. As a guy who knows little about the Law, especially US law I can only pass my oppinion. As a non religious person, I believe that no matter of the cost, the best way to punish a person for the ending of anothers life is to put them in a cell, give them little or no access to the outside world and every 6 months or so give them an update to the society that they have left behind. Make them really truly repent by allowing them to see the world move forward but not to be a part of it. To kill them ends it too quickly. Leave them in prison for a couple of decades and then release them. The world will be a very different place.
That, to me anyway, is punishment. Nobody should be killed, or have their time on this earth cut short. mother nature decides when it is your time to depart, for whatever reason. No man should have that choice.
I write this as a person who sees and deals with death on an everyday basis, and my feelings are that nobody should be taken from this world. The world makes you too aware to quickly how fragile life is. Punish these criminals yes, but kill them? Thats makes the ‘justice’ as bad as the crime.
Jon
Wrote the following comment on Sep 5, 2007 at 2:30 am
John Joe Amador last words were ‘Forgive them for they know not what they do’…this is confirmed by the State of Texas. Executed 29/08/07 Texas.
There was no murder weapon, no DNA, no motive. Just a very drunk witness who later retracted her statement and a bitter ex girlfriend who claimed he confessed to it. Although he was already convicted for the killing of his stepfather your press never report that his step father was a brutal man. He was only trying to protect his mother from beatings, rape and abuse. He was a child when this crime happened. One he has no memory of. What would you do a s a 14 year old child do to save your own mother?Instead of the support and care he would have received in any other civilised country he was placed in prison.
When will you people wake up to the fact that you routinely execute innocent people that you create more victims and the circle of violence carries on. I hope that one day your country will evolve enough to stop murdering your own kind.
Your human rights are on par with China, Iran and Saudi Arabia…shame on you.
And by the way, it costs more to execute than life without parole…all the money goes on the courts and appeals and into the hands of lawyers…
and do you not know that 2 out of 3 Executions as Bush as President are Gulf War Veterans ! see; Canadian coalition against the death penalty..
Wrote the following comment on Sep 5, 2007 at 3:41 am
Carry, My country hasn’t executed anyone since 1964.
Wrote the following comment on Sep 30, 2007 at 12:34 am
It all comes down to responsibility and consequences for one’s actions…
Advocates for ‘lenient’ punishments (you rape/kill and you go away where you never have to work again…) forget consequences are a HUGE factor in ones behavior…
Punishments should be, well, PUNISHMENT…
Simply getting a paid vacation is not punishment.
Wrote the following comment on Sep 30, 2007 at 2:18 am
Anyone who describes a jail sentance as a “paid vacation” clearly has no meaningful understanding of what jail is like.