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It has long been debated whether capital punishment is effective. Some argue that it is best used as a deterrent, and will stop those who are likely to commit a crime which may qualify them for the death penalty from acting on their impulses. Others contend that putting murderers and other criminals whose criminal histories are serious enough to necessitate the death penalty is essential to keep them from committing crimes in jail or worse yet, returning to the street and committing crimes against the general public again. On the other hand, the opposition explains that there are other ways to prevent both of these scenarios from occurring, namely sentencing the criminal to life without parole. The positive points of life without parole is that the criminal is punished for the heinous crimes that they committed and the state is making murder alright. That is to say, death penalty opponents argue that when the state puts a criminal to death, it is acting hypocritically in that it is saying that murder is acceptable, but only when the state is the one administering it.
On January 31, 2001, then Illinois Governor George Ryan, a death penalty supporter, enacted a moratorium on executions in Illinois stating, "I now favor a moratorium, because I have grave concerns about our state's shameful record of
convicting innocent people and putting them on death row. And, I believe, many Illinois residents now feel that same deep reservation. I cannot support a system, which, in its administration, has proven to be so fraught with error and has come so close to the ultimate nightmare, the state's taking of innocent life. Thirteen people have been found to have been wrongfully convicted." (Illinois) "Some of the 13 inmates were taken off death row after DNA evidence exonerated them; the cases of others collapsed after new trials were ordered by appellate courts." (CNN) Ryan’s decision to halt executions was not a moral decision against capital punishment; he stated that he was attempting to correct a deficiency in the court system where more people were being freed for being wrongly convicted versus the number of people put to death in the same period. "One of the 13 exonerated Illinois inmates, Anthony Porter, spent 15 years on death row and was within two days of being executed before a group of student journalists at Northwestern University uncovered evidence that was used to prove his innocence… The governor's decision makes Illinois the first of the 38 states with capital punishment to halt all executions while it reviews its death penalty procedures. The Nebraska legislature passed a moratorium on executions last year but it was vetoed by Republican Gov. Mike Johanns." (CNN) The moratorium begun by Ryan continues today, and is going to continue indefinitely. When Ryan stopped imposing the death penalty, he created a commission to examine the court system in Illinois. Ryan instructed the commission, composed of both those who are proponents of and opponents of capital punishment, to review the Illinois’ death penalty system and to advise him on how to minimize the chances of the innocent to death and to ensure fairness. After a two year study, the commission reported back with a comprehensive report and gave eighty-five suggestions to improve the death penalty system in Illinois. As a reaction to that, the Illinois legislature composed a bill which included several of the recommendations of the committee. Current Governor Rod Blagojevich felt that the bill did not go far enough to remove the prejudices in the system, or to eliminate the chances of an innocent person being executed, and therefore decided that executions should not continue for an indeterminate amount of time. Ryan’s decision for the moratorium does nothing more than put a stay on the execution of everybody on death row in Illinois, which is what most critics have of the moratorium. They claim that if Ryan truly believed, or there was credible evidence, that there were innocent people on death row, then he should have had their cases reviewed on one by one basis, instead of giving blanket clemency to everybody on death row. They argue that giving clemency does nothing because if there are innocent people on death row, then they will continue to be imprisoned until their case is heard in court again, and they are able to overturn the original guilty ruling. Therefore, the moratorium essentially does little to assist the innocent individuals on death row; it merely extends everybody’s prison terms and prevents their entire sentence to be carried out. Also, this hurts the victims’ families. There is no "closure" for them as they have to live everyday of their lives remembering that the person who killed their mother, daughter, brother, whoever, continues to rot in jail; and in fact they are still paying for this awful person to live and eat and consume resources better used on somebody else.
Sentencing a criminal to death has become somewhat routine nowadays. The humane way in which the lethal injection is administered allows the death penalty to be likened to putting a dog or cat to sleep more than the commission of murder by state. This is rather disturbing in that the more acceptable it becomes in society, the easier it will be for juries to sentence criminals to death. It should be a difficult decision for juries to come to, rather than be able to just sentence anybody. Possibly, if the death penalty were less "humane" then people would think longer and harder about it before condemning a criminal. If, instead of knowing that the accused would be able to fall asleep and never wake up, it were known that the death penalty was a terrible sentence and inflicting it the accused would cause some sort of terrible pain and suffering would make juries think twice before doling out the punishment. The major problem with that, however, is that enacting less "humane" methods of capital punishment would make the American people think less of ourselves and would never be approved of by the voting public. In fact, it would probably show them that any state imposed murder is just as horrific as the Iraqis and other societies which are currently being condemned for being barbaric.
Life without parole seems to be an acceptable solution in many cases. The only problem lies in the severe overcrowding of the prisons. These most heinous of criminals could not be integrated into the general prison population as they would likely wreak havoc on the other criminals, either killing the others or being killed themselves. One would be hard pressed to find anybody who would support building new prisons to house or the expense of feeding those who commit these terrible crimes for the rest of their lives.
The author does not agree with the death penalty. In fact, he believes that it ought to be administered only in the most heinous of cases. But this brings him to a dilemma, he does not believe that the state ought to support murder, but does not wish to have to pay to house and feed capital criminals. The current system makes it expensive either way; however, all that is truly necessary to impose the death penalty on criminals who are convicted of atrocities is a single bullet. Not exactly a very politically correct opinion, and therefore not likely to gain much support were any lawmakers to draft a bill and make killing capital criminals a simpler process. In most cases, the author believes that criminals may be rehabilitated, yet with murder, violent rape and others of these very serious crimes, the author does not believe that the criminals will ever be able to function acceptably in society again. At least with other crimes, rehabilitation is a possibility. With the death penalty eligible crimes, such is an extremely narrow likelihood. How many of these criminals would be able to convince a parole board that has been bogged down with work due to overcrowding in the prisons that they have been rehabilitated and should be released on to the street? Recidivism at that point would be disastrous. How many people would be murdered or raped before the criminal was recaptured? Even a single law-abiding citizen losing their life would be a tragedy. The author believes that some should be sentenced to death at the hands of the state, but only those who have committed some sort of atrocious murder, as in premeditation or multiple murders. The sentence should be carried out quickly, while allowing some standard amount of time for the convicted to appeal the guilty ruling. The only problem with an execution quickly after the appeal process is that some evidence may arrive later, which may be able to exonerate those who have already been found guilty, and that may increase the chance of error on the state’s part of executing innocent people. Ideally, though, only the truly guilty would be convicted.
Works Cited
Illinois Coalition Against the Death Penalty. 13 Feb. 2005. <http://www.icadp.org/page7.html>.
Illinois. State of Illinois. Governor Ryan declares moratorium on executions, will appoint commission to review capital punishment system. 31 Jan. 2000. <http://www.state.il.us/gov/press/00/Jan/morat.htm>.
Illinois Suspends Death Penalty. 31 Jan. 2000. CNN. <http://www.cnn.com>.