Save Tookie?
Calling all Blogsters and Blog-istas: I personally am on the fence over the Tookie Williams situation and have just read that Gov. Schwarzenegger has denied clemency. Normally, I favor the death penalty, but I find it difficult to do so once a face and personality has been attached to the name. How do you feel?
Is Mr. Williams an exceptional case? Should more states abolish the death penalty and put more money and resources into rehabilitation efforts? Is Mr. Williams truly rehabilitated? Should he be saved?
I would appreciate your thoughts on these and any other questions you see related. Please feel free to post under "Comments" or as an additional post. (I for one would like to see more than just Tacitean posting on this forum, as much as I do enjoy his interesting and thought-provoking contributions)
Calling all Blogsters and Blog-istas: I personally am on the fence over the Tookie Williams situation and have just read that Gov. Schwarzenegger has denied clemency. Normally, I favor the death penalty, but I find it difficult to do so once a face and personality has been attached to the name. How do you feel?
Is Mr. Williams an exceptional case? Should more states abolish the death penalty and put more money and resources into rehabilitation efforts? Is Mr. Williams truly rehabilitated? Should he be saved?
I would appreciate your thoughts on these and any other questions you see related. Please feel free to post under "Comments" or as an additional post. (I for one would like to see more than just Tacitean posting on this forum, as much as I do enjoy his interesting and thought-provoking contributions)
posted by Melanie @ 4:19 PM
7 Comments:
I say word to eudemonic and then some. Furthermore, this case is a perfect example of someone definitely being guilty, if not this but of some murder. He should be in jail for his crimes, but can anyone honestly say that the country will be a better place with Tookie Williams dead than it would be if he were able to continue his anti-gang work? It's too bad that the Terminator has caved to conservative pressure on this one. For a look at a governor who actually makes decisions based on reason as opposed to political pressure, you should all check out the documentary Deadline. It documents the process leading up to Governor Jim Ryan commuting all Illinois death sentences.
Also, I'm glad I'm not in certain sections of Los Angeles right now that are totally going to riot as soon as the switch is pulled.
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I am mostly on the same page (and yes Prometheus and Tacitean, by God it's an evil page!) as my two red haired compatriots. However I differ on a few points.
1) I agree entirely that the deterrence argument has very little data to support it. If there were solid solid data showing that it was an effective deterrent, I would have little difficulty giving capital punishment broader support because...
2) I do not have an ethical problem with society ending lives in accordance with laws. A few caveats to that statement. First, this only goes for societies that I would deem to be democratic and representative viz. the citizens have regular input of some sort (not necessarily direct) which allows them to hold governments accountable at intervals. I DO have a principled opposition to capital punishment in say, Uzbekistan, since I don't consider the government and the laws it creates to have even the tacit support of its people. However, in what are commonly referred to as democratic nations, I would argue that a society absolutely has the right to use death as a punishment for crimes whose severity it deems warrant it.
I won't argue that gargantuan social inequalities in treatment, wealth, education, and opportunity do not create situations which make crime much more difficult avoid than in say, a wealthy community. However, I am also loath to strip people of agency and therefore responsibility for their actions. As Tacitean is fond of saying "punishment is well known". The Tookie case does not involve legal shenanigans whereby we lock people up for "parading without a permit". There is not a mentally fit soul in this country who does not comprehend that murder is a crime with very serious consequences. Spending you life in jail and being executed are both things that are so undesirable as to be effectively equivalent in people's calculation of risk and reward. That is, they both fall into the category of losing everything. For that reason, as others have pointed out, the death penalty carries no additional weight as a deterrent. However, for that same reason, people must be assumed to have full comprehension of the potential repercussions of their crimes. The moment you willingly take another's life in anything but self defense, you must be aware that you have forfeited your own right to live. Not because of a natural moral law, but because you are bound by the consensual laws of your society and if you choose to ignore them but to remain in that society, you throw yourself on the mercy of it's system of justice.
Speaking of mercy, I did (the point is now moot, Tookie having been executed this morning) come down on the side of clemency at the governor's discretion. I think Arnold made the wrong choice and that only adds to my dissatisfaction with him (previous gripes include his failure to properly sell some very good ballot initiatives which subsequently lost, specifically the non-partisan redistricting one) Judges and executives have discretion for just this sort of situation. Tookie has, I think, shown himself to have repented and done much to help others avoid the same crimes for which he was sentenced and that is worth something. I said before that one forfeits one's right to live when committing murder, meaning that the murderer is no longer owed or guaranteed his life. However, the law is a human affair (::collective groan from all those present who have been pressed into editing my personal statement for law school::), by people and for people and as such, devoting one's life to good works as Tookie seems to have done certainly merits consideration by the executive, and in my opinion, clemency. The essential point here is that he did not have a RIGHT to be saved even on account of doing good work and repenting his crimes.
There was a third point having to do with the proven bias of the system, but I don't have the time to go into it right now so I will compress by saying the following: The inequalities are real and proven, but that alone does not invalidate the system on principal. It does however add to the reasons for being more conservative* (oh the sweet reversal of word roles!) in legislating and judicial application of the death penalty.
*Conservative: ie. restrained
I agree with Socratic's point #2 wholeheartedly, caveats or no.
The death penalty is just for two reasons: first, it confirms that the state has a monopoly on force; second, some crimes are beyond the pale of civilized society.
The idea that the death penalty is an example of “do what we say and not what we do,” (that is, the state taking human life sets a bad example for citizens) doesn’t hold up.
The private citizen is in a different moral dimension from the state: he cannot levy taxes or write his own laws, for example. Does anyone therefore say the state exercising those authorities is “setting a bad example”? Of course not.
In the same way only the state can declare war, it has authority over human life in the realm of punishments. Only the state has this authority. That is the principle.
Given that the state has this authority, we must then understand that some crimes do in fact deserve this ultimate penalty. To say this is mere “revenge” is ridiculous.
Is fining a graffiti artist $500 revenge? No, it is the penalty for graffiti. So as the crimes grow more serious, so should the penalty. If our principle were revenge, every taking of a life would be met with the death penalty, without exception and with equal reciprocity.
This is not so (for example, self-defense), as our principle is justice, whereby certain crimes are met with the only possible remedy that fits such heinous deeds.
As for the now-academic Mr. Williams, if his redemption was sincere, that doesn't reduce the severity of his actions. In fact, I would hope it would enable him to accept the consequences for his deeds. Surely children's books - regardless of their virtue - cannot exculpate murder!
Again, if his redemption and conversion were sincere, he is receiving his heavenly reward now at any rate. If they were not sincere, and were a cynical ploy to get out of punishment, he may well find his eternal punishmen to be all the worse.
Just to show that I am not immune to calls to reform the death penalty on the basis of faulty convictions, I refer you to my Cory Maye post below as well as this recent blog post on Volokh:
http://www.volokh.com/archives/archive_2005_12_11-2005_12_17.shtml#1134497241
Let me draw a distinction: Williams was justly convicted. Maye was not. This makes all the difference in the world.
I would ask Tacitean if we know for a fact that Tookie Williams was definitely guilty of the crimes he was tried for? Would he be willing to bet his life on it, because he seems willing to bet someone else's life on it. I am 99% sure Williams committed those crimes, but unless I could add that 1% in, I would never feel confident saying he deserved to die for his crimes. And there is the problem with anyone, no matter how guilty they seem, being sentenced to death. The law is sometimes just, but often it is not. Until we can guarantee beyond all doubt that everyone who is sentenced to death is absolutely guilty of their crime, we shouldn't even allow for the chance that the state put to death an innocent person.
I'm sure the jury in Texas who convicted David Spence were absolutely certain they were doing justice by convicting a man who seemed to have committed so heinous a crime. Of couse, the number of witnesses after the trial who recanted their testimony spoke to the problems inherent in the justice system. The problem is nothing is ever black and white, and juries are fallible. Supreme Courts are fallible. They've been known to reverse their decisions over time. Are we then to put possibly innocent lives on the line because we believe in the sanctity of the state, even when that sanctity has been proven wrong again and again?
Let us return to first principles.
We have already established - and it seems obtained broad consent for - the idea that the state has a monopoly on the use of lethal force. I agree that it does not follow necessarily that the state *must* use that force, but we agree it has that power.
So what remains, then, is to define the situation in which that force can be used in the criminal justice system, or even if it can.
My point then comes down to this: given that guilt can be ascertained, I am in favor of putting criminals to death in these extreme situations of multiple homicide.
Both Eudemonic and Kelly said, and rightly so, that a high degree of certainty should be requisite for any execution. But then they went a bit further and wandered in the world of absolutes.
'Are we then to put possibly innocent lives on the line because we believe in the sanctity of the state, even when that sanctity has been proven wrong again and again?' is the direct quote.
Of course the state - at various levels - has been wrong, and this is why we have a lengthy appeals process, mandated by the Constitution. This is also why we demand better DNA evidence, a stricter standard of reasonable doubt, and so on. I would perfectly willing to grant stays of execution and put a hold on mortal punishment in certain jurisdictions that have not adopted these stricter standards.
But am I to believe that, as these methods approach greater perfectability - and if we are talking of DNA, the word is not out of place - and guilt becomes all the more certain for it, my friends will suddenly convert to the wisdom of the death penalty? I would assume they would not, but am open to being corrected.
With respect to the 'sanctity' of the state, I never claimed the state was inviolable. I merely claimed that, for society to function, we have to assume that a verdict of guilty means just that, or all human justice is completely moot.
As I said, I am in favor of a multi-layered appeals process, strict guidelines and review of all relevant evidence, and an extremely high threshold for applicability of death penalty (that is, only multiple, aggravated murder). My own New Hampshire has not executed anyone since 1939, and I think this reflects the seriousness with which we view our death penalty statutes.
But I think this talk of 'racism' and 'classism' and 'sanctity' are, in a sense, so many red herrings. I agree these are real concerns, and of course every effort must be made to ensure that the civil law works the same for us all.
But if one's opposition to the death penalty is based on the flaws of the system, then one must grant that, were the flaws removed, one's opposition would also be removed, as I hinted above.
If that opposition is based on ethical scruples relating to the sanctity of life, no matter the moral implications of that life, I must respect that and humbly differ in regard to this specific instance. (I would, however, ask that this attitude be extended consistently to the morality of abortion, where I would share those scruples)
My own position is clear: the system should allow for a careful and conservative application of the death penalty.
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