2004 Human Rights Essay Contest > 1st Place Essay

2004 Human Rights Essay Contest – 1st Place Winner

Mihir Gupta
Edina High School
Edina, Minnesota
Grade 10

Why Re-introducing Executions in Minnesota Denies Justice for All

The 19th-century Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky, in his book The Idiot, written in 1868, candidly explained, "To kill for murder is a punishment immeasurably greater than the crime itself." With Governor Pawlenty’s call for reintroducing executions in Minnesota, many have been wondering over how much "justice" capital punishment can bring back to Minnesota’s courtrooms. Sadly, capital punishment fails to achieve justice for Minnesota on three levels, from its normative moral basis to its implementation in the courtroom, and finally its use outside the justice system.

First, the death penalty’s method of achieving justice is flawed in its most basic normative approach. Jeffrey Reiman, in the journal Philosophy and Public Affairs, explains that the rationale for an execution is that of lex talionis, "an eye for an eye" mentality. In fact, the reasoning stems from the desire for a victim to seek pleasure in their retribution against a criminal, and "equality" between the crime and punishment. However, this logic is highly inconsistent and, in fact, dangerous. Would the court torture a torturer, assault an assaulter, or rape a rapist? It is here that subjectivity and injustice rule the day, when there is no clear line as to what constitutes full and precise retribution. There is no such objective way to apply the death penalty in this manner, such as in the case of multiple murders. Similarly, legalizing executions shows a regression of society’s morals, and civilization itself. Reiman expounds, "The pain of foreseen, humanly administered death strikes us with the urgency that characterizes intense physical pain, causing grown men to cry, faint and lose control of their bodily functions. There is something to be gained by refusing to endorse the hardness of heart necessary to impose such a fate." Thus, executions assume an "eye for an eye" mentality for achieving justice, which, as Mahatma Gandhi put it, "will make the whole world blind."

Beyond its normative base, the death penalty’s implementation in the courtroom has been a primary factor in denying justice to all. The finality of death as a punishment implies a perfect legal system, one which would never question a decision or allow an appeal after the start of a sentence. Expecting such perfection from the courts is simply unrealistic, because of the possibly devastating effects on the wrongly convicted. Many of these disparities have found their way to the Midwest. On January 31, 2000, Illinois Governor George Ryan declared a moratorium on the death penalty, contending, "I cannot support a system which...has come so close to the ultimate nightmare, the state’s taking of innocent life. Thirteen people have been found to have been wrongfully convicted." Indeed, even though African Americans make up only 12% of the nation’s population, they constitute 43% of current death row inmates, revealing a racial bias that is subconscious at best. The Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that blacks and whites have been equal in numbers of murder victims, but 80% of people executed for murder had white victims. Even those suffering from mental retardation are unfairly convicted, comprising 10% of the death row population nationwide. In fact, 44 people with mental retardation have been executed since 1976, despite the American Bar Association’s 1989 resolution that no one with mental retardation should be executed because it would violate "contemporary standards of decency." Even for the innocent, prospects are bleak. The ACLU found that 3.5% of people the Attorney General tried to convict were actually innocent. Thus, demanding the perfection that the death penalty requires, even from Minnesota’s courts, is simply too dangerous because of its unjust consequences for racial minorities, the mentally handicapped and the innocent.

Sadly, executions have negative ramifications for the interests of justice outside the courtroom as well. Supporting the death penalty provides judges and attorneys running for office with political capital to appear "tough on crime." Minnesota, which abolished the death penalty in 1911, has been a primary target for some of the Federal Government’s big shooters, such as Attorney General John Ashcroft. In May of 2003, Ashcroft tried to convict Richard Oslund to death, primarily because Minnesota hadn’t executed nearly as many people as other states. Ashcroft could have tried to decrease the number of executions in other states. His strategy, however, as death penalty defense expert Sandra Babcock explained, was to, "increase�the federal death penalty in states that had historically not had a great number of federal prosecutions." Unfortunately, executions are no longer a tool of justice, but rather tools of "tough" politicians.

Because of disparities ranging from their most basic normative justifications and failed implementation in courtrooms to being abused by politicians, reintroducing executions in Minnesota will not advance justice in any way.

References

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