Have you had experience with the death penalty in your life?

Question

I’m going to post something and then I’m going to leave for a few hours because what I have to say is very personal and raw.
I have been against the death penalty since I was a teenager. I always said “I’m against it, but if someone in my family were killed, I might change my mind.”
My grandmom, Ruth Lewis, was beaten to death in her home. Three guys pushed in through the front door and they took about an hour – she was alive for much of it. For one day I wanted not just to kill these guys but to beat them. I wanted them to feel the pain and fear that she felt as she died. They caught the guys that it and put them on trial. They asked us, her family, if we wanted the death penalty. As I talked about it with my own family, my daughter, who was 9, told me this “If we kill them, they win. Because then they make us as bad as they are.”

Everyone in my family said they did – except my brother and I. We remained silent out of respect for our parents. In the end, two of them have life in prison without parole (one of these boys had an IQ of 78). The other was 15 at the time and will be out in 20 years.

That is enough. Killing them doesn’t teach them anything and it’s been proven not to be a deterrent to other murderers. Killing won’t bring her back. Killing only serves a primitive need for vengeance and Gramma would want me to be better than that.

Answer 1

I'm really sorry you lost your grandmother in such a bad way. I have had secondhand experience with death penalty cases since my father, a lawyer, tends to take violent crime cases that have the death penalty as option. He usually takes cases for people who are obviously guilty, but his purpose is to save them from the death penalty. Sometimes he does, but sometimes it doesn't go that way. A close family friend's son and childhood friend of mine committed a brutal double murder a few years ago; my father represented him out of friendship with the family, but the evidence was too great against him and he was convicted and sentenced to death. He smirked as the death sentence was read, and my father commented that he seemed cold and emotionless, without remorse. I think the families of the victims believed that his death would lead to that mythical state called "closure." I don't believe in closure, as awful things like murder do not allow the return to an innocent state. As many have stated, the death penalty does not rehabilitate the offender; however, in the prisons, although their ostensible purpose is to rehabilitate, rehabilitation is the last thing on the minds of the inmates and the jailers. Control and survival rule the day, and these environments have their own unique and often brutal rules of survival. I think rehabilitation is a fond dream but is not workable in the main as the prison system stands currently.

The dilemma is how to house violent offenders for their entire lives and how to lighten the burden on the already overwhelmed appeals system to make sure violent offenders do not get cycled back into the general society. I cannot speak to being completely against the death penalty in its practical aspects, but I do not think it works as deterrent to others; its only use would be to ensure the safety of others against an offender who might otherwise by let loose into the world again by the appeals system or by judicial glitches. But this, too, is not the best answer ethically. The responsibility is awesome and imperfectly handled at all levels.

My personal opinion does not arise from the case I've mentioned; it arises from my own experience as a firsthand survivor of violent crime. The offender came up for parole recently, and I submitted a plea to have psychological evaluations done and impressed on the board the importance of determining whether the individual had shown any signs of rehabilitation. However, at the time of the crime, if I had been physically able, I would have killed the man myself. I still maintain that right of the attacked to defend his or her own life or the lives of loved ones in crisis situation. The years long glitch-plagued system of death row appeals, however, does not serve this protective mandate and is, in itself, a form of cruelty that is often overlooked and can be a fate worse than death. It is an imperfect system and the problems cannot be completely solved overnight.

Answer 2

Since this is an emotional question I'd like to give an emotional answer, for one thing they are separate issues and secondly, since when are the pro-life folks well informed? Better educated? I don't hear of any pro-choice activists gunning down pro-life activists either. Who is really pro-life here? By the way, I am a pro-choice supporter but I don't beleive the word choice is apt. It is more like a decision, an individual's decision, unlike the death penalty which is a public decision.

Answer 3

Wow.

Somehow I'm not surprised about the IQ part. I had a psychology professor who, in his very politically incorrect way, always said that most people in jail have IQs between 71 and 85. Above that, and they graduate high school and stay out of trouble. Below that, and they can't be held competent to stand trial so they get shipped off to psych wards for the rest of their lives.

But between 71 and 85, he said they fail school, can't quality for special aid, and people just push them around. So they get mean. Then, they go out and commit some act of violence, like this one.

But I'm against the death penalty, for two reasons: (1) sometimes we convict the wrong people; (2) I don't think that I, as a human being, ever have the "right" to kill anyone. Self-defense is one thing, but I don't see it as within my moral realm to condemn the life of another. As the Christians would say but seldom act on, who am I to judge?

Answer 4

Punishing criminals is done to rehabilitate them. To make them better people and return them to society. If they get life in prison, then they will at least have the ability to feel remorse for their actions and, even though they cannot return to society, become a better person anyway.
The death penalty is not rehabilitation, as it is impossible to be a better person when you are dead. If the prison system is not working- that is, it's little more than a pitstop where you watch tv and get free food before going out to commit more crimes, then it is a problem with the system, and not your decision against their death. You made the right choice.

Answer 5

Thank you for telling your story. I am sorry for your terrible loss. Wondering if you know about a couple of organizations whose members whose close family member was murdered and have also chosen to oppose the death penalty.

Journey of Hope, www.journeyofhope.org and Murder Victims Family Members for Reconciliation, www.mvfr.org.

Just as a postscript, 48 states now have life without parole on the books. Murder victims family members, testified at hearings of the New Jersey Death Penalty Study Commission, held in 2006, that they support the death penalty in principal but prefer life without parole because of the effect of the death penalty on families like theirs.

Answer 6

I am very sorry for what happened to your family. But If I were in that case I would have asked for the death penalty. I couldn't care less of their IQ or their age, they murdered somebody I love and care about. There is no point in them living in prison because when they get out they will be institutionalized and will continue committing crime. I guess I have always believed in the death penalty for a criminal not only if they killed somebody in my family. Maybe I just have too much passion for whats right and wrong and the punishment.

Answer 7

I fully agree. Any punishment has to serve a purpose, and the main purpose is to have the perpetrators learn what they did wrong. The death-penalty simply takes away any opportunity on educating the criminal. A good society is as strong as it treats its weakest link.

I'm sorry you had to go through all this, my deepest sympathy. The way you handled this, shows what a good person you are. Kudos for that.

Answer 8

I've never had an experience like that, no.

But I have had an experience with violent death that made me read stories in the paper differently... that made me judge the actions of strangers a little differently.

There's not many people that can have something like this happen to them and react the way you have. Your little girl is a bright young lady...

I'm very sorry you had to go through something like that.

Answer 9

I am so sorry about what happened to your Grandmother. I can't imagine the sorrow that you went through. What your daughter said was very wise. Killing them would make you just as bad. It's hard to do the right thing in situations like these. Topics like this makes me sad. What happened to your Grandmother was a tragedy. I'll keep you in my prayers.

Answer 10

I see it from the other angle--these guys do get back out and they haven't learned anything, they commit the same crimes again. My brother just got out of prison, and the system is beyond overcrowded. The stories about other inmates "taking care of" these violent offenders are exaggerated. Essentially these guys spend a few years watching TV and playing cards at our expense and then go back home like nothing happened.