Jimmy Carter on the Death Penalty
This article appeared in the Macon Telegraph.
For many reasons, it is time for Georgia and other states to abolish the death penalty. A recent poll showed 61 % of Americans would choose a punishment other than the death penalty for murder.
Also, just 1 % of police chiefs think that expanding the death penalty would reduce violent crime. This change in public opinion is steadily restricting capital punishment, both in state legislatures and in the federal courts.
As Georgia’s chief executive, I competed with other governors to reduce our prison populations. We classified all new inmates to prepare them for a productive time in prison, followed by carefully monitored early-release and work-release programs. We recruited volunteers from service clubs who acted as probation officers and “adopted” one prospective parolee for whom they found a job when parole was granted. At that time, in the 1970s, only 1 in 1,000 Americans was in prison.
Our nation’s focus is now on punishment, not rehabilitation. Although violent crimes have not increased, the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world, with more than 7.43 per 1,000 adults imprisoned at the end of 2010. Our country is almost alone in our fascination with the death penalty. 90 % of all executions are carried out in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United States.
One argument for the death penalty is that it is a strong deterrent to murder and other violent crimes. In fact, evidence shows just the opposite. The homicide rate is at least 5 times greater in the United States than in any Western European country, all without the death penalty.
Southern states carry out more than 80 % of the executions but have a higher murder rate than any other region. Texas has by far the most executions, but its homicide rate is twice that of Wisconsin, the first state to abolish the death penalty. Look at similar adjacent states: There are more capital crimes in South Dakota, Connecticut and Virginia (with death sentences) than neighboring North Dakota, Massachusetts and West Virginia (without death penalties). Furthermore, there has never been any evidence that the death penalty reduces capital crimes or that crimes increased when executions stopped. Tragic mistakes are prevalent. DNA testing and other factors have caused 138 death sentences to be reversed since I left the governor’s office.
The cost for prosecuting executed criminals is astronomical. Since 1973, California has spent about $4 billion in capital cases leading to only 13 executions, amounting to about $307 million each.
Some devout Christians are among the most fervent advocates of the death penalty, contradicting Jesus Christ and misinterpreting holy scriptures and numerous examples of mercy. We remember God’s forgiveness of Cain, who killed Abel, and the adulterer King David, who had Bathsheba’s husband killed. Jesus forgave an adulterous woman sentenced to be stoned to death and explained away the “eye for an eye” scripture.
There is a stark difference between Protestant and Catholic believers. Many Protestant leaders are in the forefront of demanding ultimate punishment.
Official Catholic policy condemns the death penalty. Perhaps the strongest argument against the death penalty is extreme bias against the poor, minorities or those with diminished mental capacity. Although homicide victims are 6 times more likely to be black rather than white, 77 % of death penalty cases involve white victims.
Also, it is hard to imagine a rich white person going to the death chamber after being defended by expensive lawyers. This demonstrates a higher value placed on the lives of white Americans.
It is clear that there are overwhelming ethical, financial and religious reasons to abolish the death penalty.
Jimmy makes some interesting points and I think he’s right.
One thing I find interesting is that Protestants are more in favour of the death penalty than Catholics. I doubt many European Protestant are in favour, so why the difference?
Is The American Political System Too Complicated?
This article made me think. Here’s a taster.
Can a democratic system function efficiently in an advanced economy in our modern, globalized world? A system based, say, on a couple of 18th century documents updated occasionally by nine people in black robes and a two-chambered legislature that must devote at least as much time to the raising of funds to re-elect itself? I think it can—eventually—but not everyone agrees.
There’s a lot more of the same.
Connecticut Abolishes the Death Penalty
About time too, but it’s here on the BBC
A Restaurant That Lives Up To Its Name
The Heart Attack Grill is in Las Vegas and it is living up to its name, as this story from Reuters show. Here’s an extract.
The female customer, a Las Vegas resident in her 40s, had been devouring a “double bypass burger,” puffing on cigarettes, and sipping a margarita when she collapsed Saturday night, the Grill’s owner told ABC News.
I won’t be visiting.
Santorum Gives Up
I think this is good for the world, as he would have made one of the worst US Presidents ever.
With all the religiously-driven troubles around the world, the one thing we don’t need is an extreme right-wing Catholic, totally out of kilter on womens’ issues and humanity in the White House.
He should crawl back with the dinosaurs and reeducate himself about the real world, where contraception and abortion are commonplace and legal, women work and guns and the death penalty are something you read about in history books.
Abu Hamza Can Be Extradited
I’m not going to comment on the legal reasons, as it does seem to me, that the verdict of the European Court to allow the extradition of Abu Hamza may create more problems than it solves.
After all, it’s unlikely he’ll get a slap on the wrists in a United States court, so what will be the reaction of his apologists here in the UK, when they realise he’s not going to come back? I think it might be better for everyone here if he was kept in a nice warm cell and released when his time is up.
But then I don’t have to get elected in a few years time.
The EU could put a whole cap on it, by passing a law that says that no-one could be extradited to a country with the death penalty on the statute book.
Another Mass Shooting In the United States
Sadly, there is has been another mass shooting in the United States, this time in Oakland.
When is the country going to get the simple relation, that guns kill people?
They send an awful message to the rest of the world. Look at the latest film from Hollywood; The Hunger Games. Quite frankly it is sick. Why has it been given a certificate in the UK?
The American Lottery
The news this morning carries a story that the Mega Millions lottery in the United States
It used to be the case, that American lottery winners paid tax on the winnings.
So that might be the worst prize as well!
Japan Joins the Evil Empire
Yesterday, Japan hanged three men.
The death penalty is barbaric, but in Japan, they just take you in the morning and hang you, after you might have been in jail for twenty or thirty years. Your relatives aren’ even told.
That though is truly barbaric. Even when we had the death penalty, it was carried out as humanely as possible, according to the standards of the time.
So Japan now joins the Evil Empire of Iran, China and the United States.
