The Death Penalty

Ever since Dukakis' failed presidential bid in 1988, opposition to the death penalty in the Democratic party has wained. Clinton openly embraced the death penalty, using it as a "crossover" issue, a way of appealing to moderate voters and appearing to be tough on crime. Other Democrats with presidential ambitions have followed Clinton's lead, including John Kerry, who, after opposing the death penalty his entire career, voted in favor of applying it to terrorists just before launching his presidential campaign.

Not everyone has given up, though. And there are signs that death penalty opponents are finally using the right arguments. Today at the Huffington Post, Mark Green lays out a long and thoroughly damning critique of the death penalty. For years, opponents of the death penalty have allowed themselves to get bogged down in a debate over whether there are crimes so heinous that those who commit them deserve to die. While this is certainly a fascinating philosophical question, and one that can cause heated disagreement among reasonable people, it is entirely irrelevant to the underlying policy debate. This is because the question itself assumes something that never exists in the real world, namely, absolute certainty as to the identity of the wrongdoer. In the real world, human beings and the institutions they create are fallible. It is impossible to design a criminal justice system that is capable of successfully identifying the guilty and the innocent in all cases. Whatever we do, people will occasionally be convicted of crimes they did not commit. In his posting, Green points out that over 120 death row inmates have been cleared in recent years. Supporters of the death penalty must answer this question: can the good (if there is any) that comes from the death penalty possibly outweigh the injustice of executing even one innocent person? To me, that's a no brainer. So there's no need to get to the second question, which is better suited for a philosophy class than a policy debate.

Unfortunately, opponents of the death penalty always seem to let themselves get sucked into irrelevant hypothetical questions. Remember that famous Bernard Shaw question in the 1988 presidential debate. Dukakis was asked whether he would want the death penalty imposed on someone who raped and murdered his wife. Besides being in incredibly poor taste, Shaw's question assumed away the most important issue in the death penalty debate. Dukakis should have said the following:

Of course I would be furious. Of course I would want revenge. That's only human. But I could never live with myself if I later found out that the wrong person was executed. The truth is, Bernie, our criminal justice system is not perfect, nor will it ever be. And the death penalty is forever. It can never be taken back, even if new evidence is discovered. And but for the grace of God, it could be me or someone I love who is falsely accused. The death penalty leaves no room for error, and that's simply too great a risk to take in a world as imperfect as our own.