http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=s ... talmadness

CAPITAL MADNESS
Tue Mar 8, 7:59 PM ET
By Ted Rall


NEW YORK--One of the most famous Taliban executions was one they didn't carry out.

The accused, convicted by a Sharia court of raping and murdering a young woman, sat in the mud near the goalpost of a soccer stadium in Kabul, his arms tightly bound to a chair. The victim's father was brought before the condemned man to determine his fate: Sharia law gave him that right. If he gave the go-ahead, the man would be dispatched with a gunshot to the back of the head, providing satisfaction and entertainment to thousands.

The murdered woman's father could also opt for an intermediate punishment. It was fairly common for the aggrieved to demand goats or a period of time working as an indentured servant in lieu of the death penalty. Mercy was another choice, atypical but not unheard of.

Afghan culture demands stoicism, even bravado, from those facing death. When I asked prisoners being held in a jail for capital crimes whether they had regrets, they smiled: "Only that I got caught." Would you do it again? "Definitely." So the crowd was surprised when the murderer begged his victim's father to spare him. "I'm so sorry," he blubbered, "please don't kill me, I'll do anything you want. Please!" He went on like that until the old man kicked over the murderer's chair.

He spat on the ground. "How could I kill you?" he asked. "You have already died as a man." He went home, and the spectators drifted away. The story goes that the killer's disgusted family threw him out onto the streets, where the coward died a beggar because no one would give him any money.

It's a harsh story. Yet the Taliban system of capital punishment, though barbaric, would be a distinct improvement over ours. It was certainly more honest. Instead of spinning fanciful and repeatedly disproven tales that executions deter crime, the Taliban admitted that they killed killers to assuage their society's lust for vengeance. That's why they gave the victims and survivors, rather than civil servants, the final say.

Although they often assumed a carnival atmosphere in a society where stonings and amputations were the only entertainment, public executions required the public to assume personal responsibility for their bloodlust just by being there. Would we squeamish Americans, who expect the animals we run over with our cars to be whisked off (where? who cares? somewhere, somewhere far away), support the death penalty if he had to watch the terror in the eyes of the condemned on TV? If we had to smell the stench of his loosened bowels? If we held his hand as he breathed his last? Public-funded activities ought to be carried out as publicly as possible. Your tax money pays for the poison, the restraints, the coroner. You pay the killers, so you are a killer.

There's one big reason, moreover, that we can't look down upon the Taliban. Our executions may be sanitized and secretive, but the end result of our system is exactly the same as theirs: a dead man.

Murderers, and probably rapists too, deserve to die. But, as has been proven by the release of dozens of "killers" and "rapists" exonerated by newfound evidence, the courts cannot always determine who has killed or raped with 100 percent certainty. A state that has killed one innocent person is forever morally bankrupt; better to let a million criminals go free than to punish one who hasn't done anything wrong. Those who make the Napoleonic argument--gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet--are no better than the murderers they purport to judge. After all, the same logic rationalizes freelance, non-state-sanctioned murder. Why not plug the night clerk? Gotta break a few eggs to score two hundred bucks out of the register.

Yes, the murderers and rapists deserve to die. But who is qualified to kill them? Not the state, which can't screen out the innocents and is supposed to set an example for citizens to emulate. Not their victims and survivors, unless we're prepared to go the Taliban route. No one can, so no one should. That's hard for our can-do culture to accept, but it's nevertheless true. The death penalty relies on too many fictions--that the courts are always right, that defendants in capital cases have access to adequate legal representation and exculpatory evidence such as DNA tests, that housing prisoners is costlier than endless litigation--for a civilized country to keep it on the books.

The abolition of the death penalty for children under 18 (following a three-year-old decision to stop executing the mentally disabled) is a positive step in the right direction. Besides removing the United States from the tiny list of kid-killing countries, which includes Iran (news - web sites), Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and China, the Supreme Court's decision recognizes the fact that the rest of the world matters. Acknowledging the "overwhelming weight of international opinion against [it]," the court wrote: "Our determination that the death penalty is disproportionate punishment for offenders under 18 finds confirmation in the stark reality that the United States is the only country in the world that continues to give official sanction to the juvenile death penalty." Execution was originally touted as an appropriate adult punishment for children guilty of particularly heinous "adult crimes." Yet the 22 children who have been executed during the last 20 years--13 in Texas--were not serial killers who drank soup out of their victims' skulls, but kids convicted of garden-variety mayhem. Though welcome, the latest narrowing merely reemphasizes capital punishment's intrinsic absurdity. Is a 17-1/2-year-old murderer so different from an 18-year-old that the former should have his life spared while the latter should not?

Law should strive for rationality, a goal largely realized through consistency. The death penalty is inherently inconsistent and therefore intrinsically irrational.

I was in 100% agreement with this until the last three big paragraphs. Then he took his argument a little too far to the logical extreme to be persuasive. I still agree with him, but his arguments went from virtually indisputable to highly disputable. "Garden variety mayhem" was especially poorly chosen verbiage.

--PunkDavid

I really like the argument for making all of us more accountable for our executions. A lot of people think it would be a horrible society if we televised executions, but I'm certain they would be abolished shortly there after.

I mean, if we don't have the courage to watch an execution, we shouldn't be paying someone to do it.

I think we should get rid of the death penalty too but I don't know about this argument. I wouldn't want to be a prision guard either. Should we not pay someone to do that job?

But I'd watch him do his job. I didn't say you had to do it, just watch it.

Fair enough. But how long would you watch? What if someone had a life sentence? Would you watch the guard do his job for the entire sentence?

I just think are much much better arguments to be made for abolishing the death penalty.

The first and third sentences there seem to contradict each other.

There are better arguments. You're right. That's just what popped into my head after reading the article. I was intrigued by the concept of being forced to watch someone die.

i would love to watch public executions and have no problem with the death penalty...some people just dont deserve to live

I didn't give anyone life. I don't feel justified in taking it away.

I have no problem with the death penalty for people who have murdered someone. Heck, the murderes shouldn't have a problem with it; they seem to be perfectly content with the idea of ending somebody else's life. The fundamental problem with legally protecting these people is that these are the same people who violated someone else's legal protection. And, on top of that, execution is simply alot cheaper than keeping these people in jail for their whole life.

I don't like the idea of the death penalty, but I'm not against it, not in the U.S, anyway, in specific cases. The problem with it is that the system associated with issuing it is severely flawed on many levels, not the least of which are both an over-burdened judicial and prison system. All sweeping generalizations, I know. Nevertheless, "Some people should die, that's just unconscious knowledge." (Jane's Addiction Pigs In Zen)

But the 15+ years of appeals on death penalty cases are often more expensive than keeping someone in jail with no possibility of parole.

Agreed. Flaw in the system. People KNOW they can be in appeals forever. The penalty is not even remotely a deterrant for any given crime.

If a person, man or woman, rapes and/or kills a child, I would feel justified.

and proud to do it

I disagree with that. Just because we permit abortions doesn't mean we should have to watch them. Maybe that is a bad example. But if people were forced to watch executions which is sick in its own right, they should also view the murder scene photos, the autopsy photos, and all the other evidence that the jury or judge who ruled on the case saw. I think I could have easily though endured a lethal injection execution for a convicted murder. A hanging or an electric chair execution would be pretty jarring though.

I am conflicted on the death penalty thing as many are. There are many open and shut cases where it is obvious that they are guilty. Then there are things like say the Peterson trial, where it is pretty obvious that he is guilty, but it isn't so open and shut. I hate the idea of one innocent person being put to death, but I love the idea of some of these sick fucks getting put down.

You make some great points. I acknowledge that "watching" something is a lame standard. I think the spirit of my post was about forcing oneself to think about whether a given action is truly what you want to happen. I'm not sure about abortion, but I know I could go through homicide photos and come out the other end saying "wow, that was the worst thing I've ever done, but studying those photos is a critical function of our police that society cannot do without." I think after watching an execution I would come out saying, "I don't see any benefit to society from putting a person through that. I can meet the critical need of society by locking that dude in a box for the rest of his life." Hell, I came to that decision without witnessing an execution.

I'm for removing dangerous people from society.
And by removing I mean life in prison.

exactly how i feel.