The death penalty excites much debate. Of course, as everyone knows, the application of the death penalty has been very arbitrarily applied in the United States—being applied more to the poor than to the rich and more to non-whites than to whites. It is a given that no law should be applied arbitrarily and capriciously. It is not a given, however, that the death penalty must be applied arbitrarily and capriciously. So this line of attack is not an in-principle objection to the death penalty; whereas the two objections that follow are in-principle objections.
Another line of attack is the charge of inconsistency. It is said that by invoking the death penalty the state is committing precisely the wrong that its citizens are asked refrain from committing. But if one takes seriously the difference between innocence and non-innocence seriously, as surely we all should, then this objection cannot be quite right. Whether it is the state or the citizens of the state, we should all refrain from taking innocent life. A person that willfully murders another person thereby ceases to be an innocent person. It is further understood that no criminal should be put to death without a fair trial, which is another reason why citizens should not take the matter into their own hands. So there is inconsistency in having the death penalty for criminals and asking citizens to refrain from killing innocent individuals. None whatsoever. And the importance of a fair trial serves as yet a further restriction.
The third objection to the death penalty that I wish to consider is the claim that all human life is sacred. But let’s see: if the only way that the parents could stop a 260 pound man who is a master at the martial arts from raping their 13 year old child is to kill the rapist, I cannot imagine that the parents would refrain from doing so. Their killing the rapist would at least be excusable, if not in fact justified. The example is crass. However, the point of it is to show that the thesis that life is sacred becomes absurd if we understand the thesis to mean that there are never any conditions under which a person may be killed owing to criminal behavior. I could have relied upon self-defense, but that would have been too easy. Not only that: if life is sacred, then a person does what is wrong in choosing to end her or his own life owing to being infirmed. I mean no one would dare say either that being infirmed makes life less sacred or that the sacredness of life does not apply when one takes one’s own life.
I understand all too well that rarely is it necessary to kill a person in order to stop the individual from committing a heinous crime. But the thesis that is unlikely that one should ever have to kill in order to prevent a heinous crime such as rape is not to be confused with the thesis that should that possibility arise it would be wrong to kill the culprit.
I have not established that the state should enforce the death penalty. Rather, I have considered three objections against it: one practical objection and two in-principle objections; and I found them wanting. Various forms of these arguments can be at the blog site “Abolish the Death Penalty”, which is the offical blog of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (NCADP). David Elliot (delliot@ncadp.org) is a key figure in the organization.
Undoubtedly, the more powerful in-principle objection to the death penalty is the view that all human life is sacred. Significantly, though, this very powerful thesis does not do the work that people want it to do. One can think that life is sacred and still hold that there are circumstances under which it is appropriate to take the life of a criminal. Insofar as the thesis is defensible, the very idea that life is sacred has to mean that there are very severe restrictions that apply when it comes to the permissibility of taking human life.
This brings me to Michael Ross (rapist and murderer of at least 4 young women) and Jerry Hobbs (the alleged murderer of his own 8 year-old daughter and her 9 year-old friend). I see nothing dehumanizing about applying the death penalty to these two individuals. Vigilante justice might very well be dehumanizing. But insuring that these two individuals are given a fair trial and then applying the death penalty to a verdict of guilty does not incline me to think of a society of individuals driven by rage and vengeance. Quite the contrary, there is something quite majestic morally about insuring a fair trial for individuals reported to have behaved so heinously. A society whose citizens insure this shows itself capable of considerable moral excellence that is not at all tarnished by the application of the death penalty. To deny this is to be utterly disingenuous.
Once more, I have not established that the death penalty should exist. On the other hand, I have shown that being for the death penality does not, on that account alone, make a person the moral monster that opponents of the death penalty are disposed to say that such an individual must be. The death penalty is neither a conceptually nor a morally incoherent response to heinous wrongdoings.
