TheAgitator.com
Response to Ryan’s Critics
Tuesday, January 14th, 2003Conservatives are predictably lashing out against Illinois Gov. George Ryan for commuting all of his states’ death-penalty condemned.
I’ll agree that Gov. Ryan is no altruist. He’s trying to fashion a legacy for himself from the ashes of a corrupt and inept administration (and funny, isn’t it, how quiet conservatives were when Gov. Ryan’s administration was taking bribes and payoffs, but how loudly they condemn him for showing mercy in the face of an obviously flawed system).
But just because his motivations were wrong doesn’t mean his decision was. Let’s take a look at a few of the pro-death penatly positions being bandied about over at NRO:
From Jonah Goldberg:
If you think the cost of a single innocent life is too high to justify capital punishment, in other words if you think it must be perfect in every respect, then you might as well come out against the death penalty because otherwise you’ll have to argue for a perfect government program and that is an untenable position.But keep in mind government finds acceptable rates of accidental deaths in all sorts of areas. From friendly fire in the military to deaths on our highways to extremely rare and fatal drug side effects. Surely even one child’s death is a tragedy, but we know for a fact that roughly 50 young children die every year from drowning in 5 gallon buckets, mostly in their back yards. But we don’t ban buckets. And that’s roughly the same number as the number of cases of accidental gun deaths among small children, and we do not require child-safe bucket locks (Note to parents: You can childproof your bucket by putting a hole in the bottom).
An argument pretty easily dismissed: there’s a clear moral distinction between accidental drownings and military mishaps and the intentional taking of a human life by a government funded and elected by each and every one of us. If the government’s killing in my name, I want to be 100% sure it’s not killing someone innocent, lest that next innocent person be me. We’re not complicit when the government fails to demand that bucket-makers construct buckets that are impervious to drowning. We are complicit when the government we’ve contracted with takes a life in our name.
More from Jonah:
It would be tragic if we executed an innocent man — hasn’t happened yet — but I would still take a mend it don’t end it approach in response (unless I was the one executed). There’s nothing wrong with working very hard to keep that level as low as conceivably possible, but the only way to guarantee no errors is to abolish capital punishment entirely.
Well, Jonah actually has no way of knowing if we’ve yet executed an innocent man (read why here). As for the latter half of his paragraph, I agree completely.
And, lamest of all, a final piece from Jonah:
In 1995, Fedell Caffey shot Debra Evans in her home and stabbed her 10 year old daughter. He then cut the full term baby from her womb and, along with her 7 year old son, kidnapped them. The 7-year-oldâ??s body was later found. The child had been tortured. Departing Illinois Governor George Ryan let Caffey off Death Row, because he believes to do otherwise would be, “playing God.”Lenard Johnson, raped two girls, aged 11 and 13 and sexually assaulted a third, aged 7 while he was baby-sitting them. And, he murdered an 11 year old boy with a knife. He was caught holding the knife to one of the girlâ??s throats. Johnson never made any claim to being innocent of his crimes. George Ryan felt it was impossible to keep Johnson on death row because the “demon of error” made it impossible to tell who deserved to stay on death row and who didn’t.
This is sensationalist tripe, far removed from reason. Yes, there are terrible, evil, maniacal bastards out there. There are also lots of people on death row who shouldn’t even be in prison, much less awaiting execution at your and my expense. The question is whether or not we should kill the evil bastards at risk of killing an innocent, or whether we should lock the evil bastards up for life, and avoid the risk of killing an innocent. That there are terrible people out there doing terrible things to people is completely beside the point.
From Ramesh Ponnuru:
Assuming that the death penalty should be abolished, isn’t it an abuse of the pardon power to effect that policy by executive fiat? You said that Gov. Ryan “did the right thing.” It’s hard to see how that could be true on any conventional understanding of the separation of powers.
Isn’t the whole philosophy behind the power to pardon that the executive ought to be able to grant mercy/clemency/leniency when justice hasn’t been served? If the system had failed one obviously innocent man, I’m sure few would argue with Gov. Ryan’s decision to pardon him. Same with two, or three. But this is a system that has consistently failed, at least a dozen times, probably many more. Gov. Ryan came to the conclusion that the system was so flawed, in fact, that it couldn’t be trusted to administer proper justice to anyone who’d been through it, provided the punishment the faced was death. He pardoned people he felt hadn’t had a fair crack at due process. Why is that inconsistent with separation of powers?
Jonah loves nothing more than confusing his readers just enough so that they believe they must have missed that crucial, logical pin that holds his otherwise patchworked arguments together. Well, as usual, there is no pin holding things together for good old Jonah. And wit, however caustic, can only get you so far in policy analysis…
At least Ryan went by a case by case basis to look for cases that have the slightest bit of irregularity instead of a blanket clemency that would supersede the rule of law in Illinois. Nope, Ryan would never do that….
Refusing to punish the guilty for fear of harming an innocent is just moral cowardice. it means you just don’t have the guts to serve justice. it means you’re willing to let sick maniacs sit around in prison sucking up our tax dollars and laughing about how many innocents they killed because you just can’t risk him being possibly innocent. it’ll never happen. you will NEVER have a perfect system. you’re basically wanting to fight a war without any of your side suffering any casualties, and when you realize you can’t do it, you just refuse to fight the war. crime is a war, and in a war guilty and innocent both die. but when you refuse to do anything, only the innocent die.
T.J. –
If it’s revealed that the IRS has been systematically denying people due process, then yes, I would fully support a George W. Bush pardon granted to all tax cheats.
Jimmy –
So are *you* volunteering to be one of those innocent martyrs we execute in the name of this “war?” Or would you like to volunteer one of your family members? It’s easy to pass off the killing of innocents when those innocents are people you’ve never met, or who happen to hail from a different class than you.
As for tax dollars, study after study after study has shown that it costs more to execute someone than it does to keep him in prison for life.
For the record, I’m quickly becoming anti-capital punishment, mostly due to the arguments I’ve heard on this site.
However, while executing an innocent person is clearly horrible, and the decision to allow it is morally twisted, nobody seems to mention the morality of locking up a potentially innocent person for life.
Admittedly, I don’t have an answer for this dilemma. I suppose at least if we lock them up, we have the option of releasing them at a later date.
Personally, I think I’d rather die than live my whole life behind bars.
This isn’t a volunteer thing. so i’m not going to answer your loaded question. And i don’t buy this knee-jerk “what if it happened to you or someone you knew?” statement. well of course i’d be mad. but you know what, if someone i knew was killed in a car wreck, i wouldn’t be a total moron and demand that we outlaw cars.
and the only reason it costs more to execute someone is because we have umpteen million appeals processes.
I oppose capital punishment and I oppose what Ryan did. He has no evidence that the Death Row inmates whose sentences he commuted were in any way denied due process (let alone “systematically,” which is why the IRS analogy doesn’t apply), and he went ahead and commuted them anyway, in an attempt to circumvent the clear wish of the legislature. Yes, what he did was legal, but I think it’s possible to say that he abused his powers even though he acted within the letter of the law. This sort of thing is said of private individuals all the time, why not of government officials?
“He’s trying to fashion a legacy for himself from the ashes of a corrupt and inept administration (…).
“But just because his motivations were wrong doesn’t mean his decision was.”
How is it that you know what his motivations are? I must have missed the quotes Ryan gave about how he was doing this so he could end a shitty administration on a high note. Maybe you’re a phsycic or have some other methods of divining his motivation with enough certainty to print it as fact and attach your name to it. I however, am not and would appreciate it if you would back up this assertation.
Look, this was certainly not the most important aspect of your piece, but if you start out with high proffessional standards we (your readers, well me that I know of) can be assured that you have done so throughout.
Jimmy-
First off, your car argument has loopholes. Every time you get in a car you run the risk, voluntarily, of getting injured. Being sent to death for a crime you didn’t commit is not voluntary. You don’t stand up in a crowd and say, I’ll be put on trial for that murder, and just hope I’ll get a not guilty verdict.
Second, this post isn’t talking about trying to save money in the system. I could make lists of possibilities to save money in the judicial system (or just take all the money from the war on drugs, take all the nonviolent drug offenders out of jail, and that will pay to keep the rest of the *criminals* in for as long as needed). Anyway, It’s not perfect. But, if there wasn’t capital punishment, not only would there not be “umpteen million appeals processes”, there wouldn’t be any chance of umpteen million more innocents to die-and no I’m not saying that many innocents have died, but it’s possible.
Lastly, I think it’s kind of an easy road out. Roger Lewis just said “Personally, I think I’d rather die than live my whole life behind bars.” I think a lot of us would agree. But we’re not on death row. Do you really think that death row inmates, the ones that deserve to be there, are easily deterred? Do you think they’re scared of the big bad electric chair? So why does it matter? Does it stop people from murder, or rape? If they knew they would only get life and not capital, do you think that would have made them kill more, or less? Let them rot in prison. And maybe one day, we could save a few.
You are way off on this one. Is the system perfect? Of course not. I can tell though that letting murdering bastards live is pretty fucking far from perfect. The death penalty works as long as as actually enforced, which is not nearly enough.
As far as what a politician does or doesn’t do logic is not in the equation.
Statistics I would most value on this issue would be this. Are you both pro-life on the abortion issue and anti-capitol punishment on the death penalty issue? Lets find out how many of us are inconsistent and really haven’t thought these matters out.
Qmony-
It’s hard to comment on such a well thought out and logical, educational thesis. But okay-”I can tell though that letting murdering bastards live is pretty fucking far from perfect.” Is letting them “live” in prison really letting them live? Wouldn’t you rather die, like I said, if you knew that you would be in prison for forty years and would be taken, in a bag, out of the pen that held you for so long?
Shotwell- Yes I am pro-life and anti- capital punishment. But I don’t know where you’re really going with that and how it could or could not be “inconsistent”. So I’ll let you respond.
A lot of emotional and illogical arguments are flying around here… I’m with Dave on wondering how abortion and capital punishment are morally equivalent – care to elaborate?? Also, Jimmy, I think you’ve dug yourself in a hole – you cite that the system isn’t perfect and that a perfect system will never exist, but then you argue that the only reason it costs more to execute someone is the excessive appeals process. Am I correct in assuming then that you would be satisfied making an imperfect system even more flawed by significantly cutting the appeals process so that capital punishment is the cheaper option?? In that case, why not just ditch the entire appeal process?? It wouldn’t be a perfect system but that’s okay, it sure would be cheap!
Like someone posted earlier, I’m not exactly sure where I stand on capital punishment anymore. The guilty should be punished but at what cost? Executing one innocent individual (I don’t know if it has happened yet or not, or if it even will) makes the state no better than the guilty people they execute. I am reconsidering my opinion primarily because most of the anti-capital punishment arguments that have been presented here are fairly logical and unemotional. If people who argue for the death penalty want to influence people toward their side, I recommend laying off the excessive use of profanity and derogatory labels and stick to relevant comparisons.
Paul,
I’ve personally been wishy washy on the death penalty. I’m for it in some cases, the best I can think of is those 3 guys who drug that black dude to death down in Texas. I think of that case and the blood boils.
I don’t know how good an argument I can make for the DP but I do question the alternatives. Basically, I think it comes down to the rate of mistakes. The objection being that we execute innocent people, rather than a case of execution being morally wrong in and of itself. That being said, how is the system made any better by putting an innocent man in jail for the rest of his life without parole, in lieu of executing him?
I know an argument can be made that says he has the rest of his life to prove his innocence. But I don’t think that’s the case if he’s afforded the same amount of appeals as a DP recipient. The court system will see an arrest, conviction, sentence and x amount of appeals. Ultimately he’ll be left to rot. Did we make the system better? I personally don’t think so.
Now, the whole money angle. That’s a whole different ball of wax. I need to think on that a bit.
I do not beleive there are “lots of people on death row who shouldn’t even be in prison.” Our justice system has it’s flaws, true. But do you honestly think that “lots of (innocent) people” are going to be put to death. In Florida, we have very little Death Pennalty opposition. If we truly believed we were systematically killing innocent people on death row, we would abolish it. Yet everytime it comes up during a vote, it is unanimously accepted.
I do, however, like to see Fedell Caffey and Lenard Johnson go into General Population. In Florida’s State Pen, 80% of Gen Pop is HIV positive. Look at what happened to Dahmer.
I find the arguments against capital punishment tiresome and faulty. While I would agree with efforts to improve the process, I do not agree with abolishing it. It should, however, be reserved for those likely to kill again. If we only execute those who enjoy killing, and who would continue to do so, then it is strictly societal self-defense. There is no way to prevent murderers from killing once, but we can prevent them from doing so again. Life in jail does not guarantee they won’t escape and kill again, but capital punishment does.
The costs of capital punishment are due to our excessive appeals and the politicisation of justice, not the actual practice of execution. It costs very little to execute someone, but quite a bit to maintain them for years while waiting for it. It seems more cruel to me to tell someone they will be executed, only to keep them incarcerated year after year with no word, letting hope wax and wane. Better to set a date at the time of sentencing, thus determining the period appeals may be considered, than to impose a sentence with an indefinite timeframe.
For those worried about innocent convicts, the proper place to determine that is during the trial. Tighten controls over the determination at trial when the death penalty is sought, making it harder to convict in such cases, and prosecutors will have less reason to seek it. If they want a suspect executed, they’ll know they need a much stronger than normal case to achieve it, so they will be less likely to seek it for the press. The judge should also only entertain the request in cases of serial killers and others who can reasonably be expected to kill again. Age, intellect, gender, race, and sanity should all be irrelevant.
We shoot mad dogs, after all, as a matter of protection. Capital punishment should be viewed the same way. It should be considered a dispassionate necessity, not wrathful vengeance.
William, you are correct that it *should be* considered a dispassionate necessity, and not wrathful vengeance, but that’s simply not possible in a system were the horror of the crime is used as evidence. Whether it is the aim or not, pictures of bloody children/elders/etc tend to stir up desire for revenge. Take the John Lee Malvo case, for instance. In the hearing to determine whether he should be tried as an adult (and thereby whether the death penalty could be used), the evidence presented consisted largely of the victims’ loved ones crying on the stand. Very little evidence that he acted as an adult, not a child, was ever presented. The same thing happens in death penalty cases. Emotion plays a huge part in our justice system, and always will, as long as humans are on the jury.
Radley,
It sounds like you don’t have a classical view on justice. This view is largely rooted in (but not limited to) our Judeo-Christian roots and prescibes punishment be proportionate to the crime.
If one desires proportionate punishment as an end, then the question comes down how best to acheive it.
Your argument seems to be that you are not opposed to Capital Punishment in principal (which many death penalty opponents are) but due to the perceived risk of, if not actual, misapplication of it. This argument is ultimately untenable morally. Either the death penalty is wrong in principal and should be abolished or it is correct in principal and should be maintained.
Based on snippets of your writings I have read you seem not to distinguish between two concepts critical in determining justice. Those concepts are ‘Procedural’ guilt/innocence versus ‘Real’ guilt/innocence. Any system of justice devised by man should attempt to bring those two as close together as possible. Gov. Ryan seemed completely incapable of making that distinction. His emphasis was entirely on prosecutorial process. One of Ryan’s arguments was (ironically from Johnny Cochran’s book of justice) that if the prosecution makes a mistake the defendant by inference is less guilty or not guilty at all.
Whether a prosecution team makes a procedural mistake or not has NOTHING TO DO with a defendant’s REAL guilt or innocence. Was O.J. guilty or innocent because Mark Furman may have had racist thoughts in his past? Was another defendant really guilty or innocent based on whether the prosecution used a subsequently revealed biased ‘expert witness’? Was a hypothetical murder suspect really guilty or innocent based on whether police read him his rights upon arrest? No in all cases. Process SHOULD help in discovering real guilt or innocence but if process is the end and not the means (as has been the case in the last few decades) in trying to bring justice than the system is broken.
Crime statistics show that the murder of strangers has risen dramatically in direct relation to the rise in the emphasis on process (e.g. miranda rights) in our system of justice. This goes back to roughly 1960.
If your argument was that Government should never be an agent that leads to the death of an innocent it would at least be a consistent one. If that were the case then Government would have no Armed Forces or Police since dropping a bomb or firing a bullet may kill an innocent. If you believe that then you have no conception of why societies organized in the first place (read Bastiat’s ‘The Law’). Of course you wouldn’t be any different than most of our ‘law’makers; Ron Paul being a notable exception.
You seem to carve out an exception for capital punishment. Why I don’t know since the chance of an innocent dying are exponentially less than in the use of our Armed Forces. It’s also contorted to me since the chance of only the guilty being harmed is exponentially higher.
In a different era, the educated seemed to believe in proportionate punishment and strove to devise a system to maximize it’s probability. I think we had that prior to 1960. Now our Utopian desires raise the question of why are we even formed into a Union since security, both personal and collective, is no longer emphasized and in some cases deliberately undermined.
In the case of Ryan’s ‘capricious’ use of the pardon power I am not aware of one innocent being involved. If they are truly innocent they shouldn’t be in jail at all. If they are guilty, proportionate punishment is death. We have neither in this case.
The only thing certain that comes of this is that if people desire security from being murdered ‘capriciously’ they had better take their defense into their own hands since (at least in the state of Illinois) their Government has said their lives are not worthy of proportionate punishment.
If I have misunderstood or misrepresented any of your thoughts please correct me.
Sincerely,
William Geatches
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