When it comes to matters of political and personal debate, I pride myself in having rational and strong beliefs. Coming into adulthood as an aspiring journalist, education and reflection have allowed me to develop opinions on many issues that guide my thinking in elections, foreign policy and in my consumption of media.
One issue upon which I have never been able to definitively voice an opinion is capital punishment.  In the eighth grade, I wrote a paper expressing views against the death penalty. Later, when I began watching more America’s Most Wanted, Cold Case Files and American Justice, my beliefs on capital punishment changed. Several years back, however, I realized that I simply did not know enough about the issue to make a respectable and informed judgment. When asked, I would simply shrug and say, “Well, I don’t really have a view on it.”
In an effort to learn more about the issue, I attended a panel discussion last Wednesday. Speaking were Greg Kuykendall, a criminal defense lawyer and Director of the Mexican Capital Legal Assistance Program;@@http://www.fairness.com/resources/relation?relation_id=76121@@ Terrie Rodello, Oregon Death Penalty Abolition coordinator for Amnesty International;@@http://tinyurl.com/3gwv43m@@ and Sister Helen Prejean, Roman Catholic nun, anti-death penalty activist and author of “Dead Man Walking” and “The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions.”
Prejean developed her passion for amnesty through her religious faith and believes that similar sympathies can be developed in the public through education.
“It’s not that people have thought about the death penalty deeply and decided to be for it. They’ve never thought about it. It’s all very, very surface,” Prejean said. “If we can bring people close, we can educate them about the death penalty. Most people do not want to kill a fellow human being.”
In a way, this stands true for me. The death penalty is a political issue that, unlike same-sex marriage, abortion and taxes, does not connect at all with the average American. Americans can easily know that executions occur without putting themselves in a thoughtful position about it.
During the summer, the case of Troy Davis was brought to the attention of the public. Davis was sentenced to the death penalty in 1991 for the murder of Georgian police officer Mark MacPhail. In the 20 years since his conviction, Davis insisted upon his innocence, and seven of the nine eye witnesses provided affidavits changing or recanting their testimonies against Davis. Despite lack of physical evidence and major public support, the conviction was upheld, and Davis was executed Sept. 21, 2011.@@http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/19/troy-davis-georgia-execution@@
While the Davis case brought about a flood of anti-death penalty protests and debate, the real and more common issue is one that does not evoke widespread public sympathy.
“It’s quite easy to say ‘I don’t want to see the death penalty imposed or execution carried out for someone who didn’t do it,’” Kuykendall said. “What’s more difficult from a moral standpoint is for people to stand up and say, ‘I don’t want this person convicted, and I know he did it. I know that he harmed the victims terribly.’ That’s what we’re about most of the time … I’m hoping that what we can ultimately achieve is to have people indignant about the killing of guilty murderers.”
Therein lies the pinnacle of my indecision on this issue. Do I possess the ability to be indignant on the behalf of violent, sometimes remorseless, killers? Will I, or anyone who supports or is indecisive about capital punishment, ever be faced with an experience that will test this?
“Human rights are inalienable. You can’t alienate a human right out of a person. This means governments don’t give human rights for good behavior, and they can’t take them away for bad behavior,” Prejean said.
I wholeheartedly believe in this concept. However, can it be said that a person committing an act vile enough to apply the death penalty gives up his human rights in doing so? Is it the government or the criminal who decides?
The problem with this issue is it is not a black-and-white issue; there are no “pro-death/pro-life” labels to apply. Every case and every criminal that enters the courtroom, the media and the public view in a different context.
After the hour-and-a-half panel, where I learned a great deal about the moral and legal inner-workings of the death penalty, I approached Prejean and asked about her opinion of the audience’s positive reaction to the death penalty at a recent GOP debate.
“You always have to look at the context in which something is happening. It’s all in a context, and I’ll always listen to them in that context,” she said. I agree. Context is key, and context is still the basis upon which I will construct my opinions on capital punishment.