Hang ‘em High Part Two
“Capital punishment would be more effective as a preventive measure if it were administered prior to the crime.” - Woody Allen
In my last post I made the outrageous statement that, were it up to me, all violent crime would be capital crime. I also said I'd offer an alternative to capital punishment. As well, I discussed one of the main reasons given in opposition to the death penalty. I'll talk first here about the other main reason.
Alongside a perceived lack deterrent value, the main objection to capital punishment would seem to be moral. It is "wrong" for the state to kill people regardless of their acts. Two points strike me about this view:
Firstly, it perplexes me no end that people who hold this view rarely have any problem whatever with the state dropping bombs on or firing cruise missiles at defenseless children or, historically, incinerating hundreds of thousands in Dresden, Tokyo and hundreds of Japanese fishing and farming villages and vaporizing tens of thousands more hapless residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is acceptable state behavior, but hanging someone who tortures, rapes and murders a child would somehow diminish us all. Go figure.
Secondly, the morality issue is simply not resolvable. Like abortion, there is no common ground and therefore no middle ground possible. Ever. There is no such thing as half-way death available here.
So what is one to do with this argument? Nothing. There is nothing to be done beyond trying to persuade the population one at a time that your particular viewpoint is the "right" one. Bon chance, mes freres.
Okay, on to my alternative. Bear in mind that anything I say is with respect to those who have been convicted not beyond a reasonable doubt but beyond all doubt. Self-confessed murderers or murderers caught in the act or witnessed by several people. As I said in my previous post, far too many people are executed in error. (Far too many meaning "one", if it came down to that.) So, my solution to perhaps satisfy those holding one or the other of these views:
1. Capital punishment is immoral and unacceptable under any circumstances. The state does not have the right to end a person's life.
2. Murderers, by their acts, have relinquished any claim to a right to their own lives and killing them is perfectly acceptable.
They are irreconcilable but perhaps the following might come close.
Incarcerate the guilty party in an unfurnished prison cell, the construction and dimensions of which are determined to be medically adequate for survival but no more. Allow the prisoner no contact or communications with other human beings and no opportunity to leave the cell (other than for medical treatment, if necessary). Lack of human contact includes with guards. Food - nutritionally adequate to sustain life but no more - would be provided through some transfer system preventing visual or verbal connection between the prisoner and the person delivering the food. No reading materials, no television, no nothing. Space, toilet/washing facilities and food. Accompanying each meal would be a cyanide capsule to be used or not as the prisoner wished. Financing of the system would be made through voluntary donation, not taxation. That's it.
Such a system would satisfy the mandate of the moralists that the state not take the prisoner's life. And, I cannot be sure, but imagine that even the most hardened, intransigent proponent of capital punishment would be satisfied that the prisoner's life would not be one worth getting upset over.
I can hear the words "cruel and unusual punishment" rattling around in some readers' brains as I type. Well, tough. That little phrase was a flat out boo-boo by the framers. If punishment is not cruel it is an irritant, not punishment. And a penitentiary in which one is locked in a cage for up to 23 hours a day and forced to co-habitate with a population of decidedly scary people is not "cruel and unusual"? Duh!
That's it. Preserve the biological life. Deny the meaningful life.
(As I proofread the above a thought struck me: What about an induced coma? Hmmm….)