Death Penalty - A sermon

I notice that I have become choosy in the audience I address in my posts. Not too long ago, I tried to go over the heads of parents and talk to their pre-teen wards, not on morality, not about fashion, movies, music, friends, Internet, school curriculum, on their teachers, but on a small corner of science, the corner that gets left out, the curiosity corner. It indeed surprised me that I scored twice. Now, in this post my target is the group of people, a very small group and all adults, who have gone beyond finding reasons for their opposition to death penalty and find the very idea of state sanctioned murder immoral to the core (just like I have done). I will be preaching to the converted. This is our religious meeting. The non-converted are requested to head to the exit doors.

This is an extraordinary sermon, occasioned by a series of articles and editorials in the New York Times between August 18 and September 1, 2009, duration of less than two weeks. In two editorials, of August 19th and 21st, we find the paper stating its position unequivocally: “For the state to put a person to death is, in our opinion, always wrong (my emphasis).” And, “We believe the death penalty is in all cases wrong (my emphasis).” This has been the paper’s position for as long as I can remember, at least three decades. It is a moral position and the arguments from procedural infirmities and other injustices (like race being a factor in awarding death sentences) do not seem to have played a part. Yet, the news item, the editorials (1, 2) and also an opinion piece expound on independent cases, showing precisely these, like closing the door of the courthouse just to, it appears, foreclose the possibility of the condemned filing an application.

I had to ask why the paper advanced such detailed arguments after espousing a strong philosophical position. Some background is in order. My position on death penalty developed in reverse of what generally happens. I came to my position in a normative way—the state cannot sanction killing (the issue of war may be set aside in this sermon)—and not instrumentally. Then I found that my norms were validated by the instrumental data. Death penalty does not deter crime; to say it another way, death penalty-less statute books have not increased crime rates; does not do justice to the victim’s family, unless one considers revenge as solace without any justification; execution following fast and cursory proceedings go afoul of the “due process” entitlement of the accused; the possibility of state sanctioned murder of an innocent cannot be accepted under any circumstance. But, I have had very little success in turning people on to my “road to Damascus”. Passion was lacking.

A judge of the state appellate court of the state of Texas, US, Sharon Keller, is being judged for her no-brainer orders to close the clerk’s office in the face of a possible appeal by the accused, Michael Richard. The “appeal was not filed” and the accused was “executed hours later.” If this is not a case of quick and cursory proceedings, I do not know what is. Judge Keller may go in for re-spelling her name, like our redoubtable Jayalalithaa, to Judge Killer. She showed “profound lack of appreciation for the seriousness of taking a life.”

Well, the “hanging” Judge Killer was following in the footsteps of Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas of the US Supreme Court, in the case of Troy Davis who is on death row. The procedures of the case, including the evidences produced, that led to the guilty verdict and death sentence for Mr. Davis appear to be on increasingly shaky foundations. The 6-2 majority ordered a federal trial court in Georgia to ”receive testimony and make findings of fact”. Justices Scalia and Thomas are understood to have said in dissent that “federal courts would be powerless to assist Mr. Davis even if he could categorically establish his innocence (my emphasis).”

Cameron Todd Willingham was executed for not-killing his three daughters, blame procedural infirmities. Two cases in the state of Texas and one in Georgia. It would not be too long before the disease spreads to other states and other countries, if it has not already. We need Tamiflu against this judicial swine flu, in large doses.

When I read these reports, I felt that my sermons so far lacked the power to motivate the congregation. The paper’s brief and sterile assertions of its position do not move people. It is the details that have the motive power . I have learnt my lesson. Now, I will take the low road. Hit the other side below the belt. Yes, that is what I will do and I ask you to do the same.

I have had too brief a time to go further into details. I would beseech you to get down and dirty on these matters, arm yourselves to the hilt.

Congregation, I ask you to post this matter prominently, on the authority of the retrograde justices of the US Supreme Court, so that the non-converted can read:

Killing an innocent may not weight heavily on your mind, if the law is not found to be decidedly against it.

Let their minds be disturbed. Perhaps they would then help in bringing about the necessary changes.

Now, go out and catch hold of the non-believers. Brow beat them. Call them names (I will soon give you a long list). Do not let them escape from your clutches till they are converted. By the way, surprise them with this nugget: … most soldiers are unwilling to fire at the enemy, even in battle.

Conversion is legal. You will not be put behind bars. Your house will not be burnt down. Get more religious. This is the only way we can bring sanity to human beings and sanctity to human life.

I am on my way.

Raghuram Ekambaram