This letter is in response to Jamie Lynn Perna's column "Murderers Should Be Put to Death" in the Wednesday, April 23, issue of The Spectrum. Her argument shows her complete lack of knowledge regarding the death penalty and her complete separation from the U.S. prison system.
Those who don't support the death penalty do so for a variety of reasons including the fact that it is disproportionately handed down to minorities, it in no way acts as a deterrent, and it is a waste of resources, as it costs far more to keep an inmate on death row than it does to keep an inmate in the general prison population. There is also the argument that the state should not have the right to kill anyone just as we don't. The use of the death penalty is an admission of failure in society, rather than a just punishment for any wrongdoing.
The blatant racism exhibited on those sentenced to death is reason alone to abolish it. Since 1976 there have been 229 executions. Eighty-four percent of the executed criminals were found guilty of killing white people, compared to only 12 percent of cases with black victims. Last year alone, 89 percent of the death penalty cases involved black male defendants with white victims, despite the fact that 50 percent of the homicides in this nation involve black victims.
The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 was unprecedented in that it allowed for the death penalty in cases of murders committed in drug deals gone bad. This was one of the most racist institutions of a law that was set to stop crimes that happen almost exclusively in impoverished (minority) neighborhoods. Of the 3,701 inmates currently on death row, 1,602 of them are black males - 43 percent of the death row population, while black males make up between 6 and 8 percent of the U.S. population, not to mention 54 percent of the entire death row population, is made up of minorities.
In Perna's support of the death penalty, she describes the perfect candidates for execution. However, the fact is that many people on death row did not commit premeditated murders, nor did they even have the intention to kill. Maryland now sentences to death people who commit murder while in the act of a felony. If a product of a depressed neighborhood of the United States is desperate enough to commit a robbery to simply get money to sustain life for their family, and a murder occurs in a freak accident, they are a prime candidate for the death penalty for a murder they never intended to commit. Twenty-eight of the 38 states that employ the death penalty allow the sentence to be handed down for murder with at least one aggravating circumstance, meaning they could give the death penalty for a similar occurrence.
Another reason to oppose the death penalty is the fact that it in no way deters crimes of such a horrific nature. Yes, it does prevent those who have committed such crimes from doing it again, but it in no way deters those who have never committed any crimes before. In the United States between 1997 and 1999 the murder rate averaged 6.26 homicides per 100,000 people, compared to Sweden with a rate of 1.92 - the highest rate in any European country where the death penalty is not used. In the United States, the states that do not use the death penalty have nearly half the murder rates of those that do. Texas carried out more than 30 percent of all executions last year in the United States, and yet their murder rate still remains the highest in the nation.
The greatest argument to oppose the death penalty is the fact that innocent people are on death row. Since 1976, a total of 69 inmates have been released from death row on account of their acquittal on all charges. That is 69 people condemned to die who did not commit any crime whatsoever. They were just innocent victims in horrible crimes. Current trends in states administering the death penalty allow the defendants less time for appeal as the executions are happening closer to sentencing dates, making the execution of an innocent person in the near future very possible.
Perna contends that murderers spending their lives in prison are "enjoying" the life they denied their victims with their terrible crimes. Let me assure you that there is nothing whatsoever that is enjoyable about prison, and suggesting that someone may be enjoying their time locked up behind bars like a caged animal is simply ignorant.
The truth is that murderers are the product of a society that has completely failed them in many respects, and thinking that two wrongs make a right is completely incorrect. The prison system in the United States has all but given up the idea of rehabilitation, and in the case of those executed and those on death row, it has not only failed them but it has failed to help their victims as well.
Photo: Meredith Forrest Kulwicki
