The death penalty is an issue I have always felt strongly about. It represents much of what people hate about America: a daily reminder of the contradictions in our ideologies and our legal system. To a certain degree I would support any group that opposes the death penalty; however, I cannot and will not support the false marketing of hypocritical statistics in hopes of evoking shock value.
An open-eyed walk through campus last week yielded a view of a multitude of posters arguing against the death penalty on the grounds that it’s racist, biased and anti-poor. The posters all sport poignant statistics about the death penalty in practice from a smattering of anti-death penalty groups. Unfortunately, however, the posters also contain unsubstantiated conclusions about racism and socio-economic bias because they do not present a cohesive picture.
A perfect example of this is a poster that reads: “A smoker is 1.7 times more likely to get coronary heart disease than a non-smoker. In Georgia a defendant is 4.3 times more likely to get the death penalty for having a white victim than a black victim. The death penalty is racist.”
Upon first reading this seems like a clever marketing scheme to sell the conclusion that the death penalty is racist. However, it leaves too many questions unanswered. First, in Georgia, what type of murders are committed? More cold-blooded, pre-mediated murders or more second degree murders? Which types of murder are more likely to be committed against which race, that is to say, is one group more likely to be killed in the act of robbery? Once these questions are answered, national questions must be answered too, such as whether the system is more prone to execute someone for killing a random person during robbery than an acquaintance during an altercation? One cannot conclude that an entire system is racist on the grounds of one state’s statistic, without even all the data from that specific state.
One more example of this incoherent logic is the argument that the death penalty is anti-poor because “over 90 percent of defendants facing the death penalty cannot afford an attorney.” The argument that the penalty is anti-poor and it should therefore be abolished is not accomplished through this statistic either. What percentage of defendants facing jail time cannot afford an attorney? If it were a comparable percentage would the group argue to abolish the system of jail? No, it would argue to reform jail and make it fair to all concerned, not to get rid of it, and for this reason their logic to abolish the death penalty fails again.
Is the issue here bias in the justice system or the death penalty? Assume that one can adequately prove that the death penalty is biased in practice, is this reason to abolish a system? I would argue that a group who claims the death penalty is biased would be content with the death penalty if it were made equal and unbiased. If one were to argue that the justice system is biased, one would argue to reform it and make it unbiased, not to abolish the system.
The correct way to argue against a system is to argue against its principles, not its practice. In the same way that one wouldn’t argue to get rid of democracy just because it is not always equal in practice, one cannot argue against the death penalty because of its improper practice.
To attack the death penalty on a basis of morals and logic is superior. The death penalty should be abolished because a government cannot logically argue against killing in every instance when it, itself, kills. A government cannot argue for universal human rights when it violates the right to life for its own reasons. A government cannot argue against euthanasia while supporting the death penalty because this states that a person cannot declare that he, himself, is terminally ill beyond repair and should die while the government can declare that a person is beyond repair and should be killed. As shown by this last example, the government is given a dangerous power, the power to kill, by the death penalty. These reasons are valid arguments for abolition; reasons relating to the death penalty in practice are arguments for reform.
I can’t fault the death penalty group’s intentions, nor their display last week in front of the ICC, nor, further, can I fault the few of their posters that argue against the immorality of the death penalty. I do, however, feel that it is necessary to bring to the attention of the group and the Georgetown community the hypocritical and illogical nature of numerous of their posters in hopes that the anti-death penalty movement will not be identified with arguments for reform but, rather, with solid arguments urging for abolition.
