DEATH PENALTY AND SELF-DEFENSE

This morning on Steve Kornacki’s show Up on MSNBC, the item for discussion was the death penalty. One of Steve’s guests was a former death row inmate. Generally, the show is an intellectual discussion of current issues from the liberal side of the arguments. The backgrounds of the guests are varied but they are all capable of carrying on an intellectual discussion. This morning was no exception. As you might expect, every one of them was adamant in their belief that the death penalty has no place in civilized society. However, in my mind, they missed one of the great arguments in favor of the death penalty; self defense.

I hate the idea of the State putting people to death even if they invoke the oxymoron, “It is carried out in a human manner”. Lethal injection does not make it OK. The participants in the discussion this morning covered the fact—again—that the death penalty does not deter people from killing people. Once again, they pointed out that juries make mistakes, which was the point of having the ex-death row inmate on that the table. In addition, they pointed out that the state does not kill people to prevent the perpetrator from doing it again, which obviously has no meaning in the case of the death penalty. The guests discussed all of this against the background that it is morally wrong to take a human life—that seems to be a universal truth: a basic morality.

When one considers all of this, there seems to be no justification for the death penalty therefore, we should abolish it, but I maintain there is a very compelling reason to keep it, that reason is self-defense. We should use the death penalty but we should only use to the death penalty to protect society—from serial killers. We have allowed the religious extremist to dominate our Herbert Spencer biological senses, our sense of evolution, “survival of the fittest”. They have made it seem there is no exception to the idea that life is sacred no matter where you find it. Still, secular law recognized that taking a life in self-defense is acceptable. If someone is going to kill you, you can kill him or her. Thus, the death penalty is justified under certain circumstances and is a secular or cultural universal. The fact individuals misuse the concept of self-preservation, for example in the “stand your ground” laws of Florida, does not make self protection unacceptable. Self-preservation is a “secular” universal that puts the “turn the other cheek” concept in true perspective; in fact, it makes it can make it look ridiculous, as it should.

This brings up the entirely different but closely related subject of innate or genetic control of behavior. The fact that chickens act like chickens, dogs act like dogs, and people act like people points out that this is an irrevocable true statement. Also, it seems true that we can modify behavior by learning. Just because we can modify behavior does not mean that we are not responsible for our behavior. If we have a genetic disease, we are the ones to suffer and behavior is not different. If a rapist is a rapist because it is in his genes, he should be in prison just as well as a rapist that behaved badly because of something he has learned.

I do not enjoy watching “Lock–Up”, a TV show depicting life inside prisons, but I do from time to time for the perspective I could not get any other way. It is abundantly clear that there are “serial killers” behind bars. They will kill their fellow inmates or prison guards for no other reason then the fact that feel compelled to kill people. In these people, murder is innate; to kill is in their genes. They are mentally ill. They would be serial killers in open society. Some are openly crazy while others are sly. We all know this. There would be a huge uproar if we started to put the mentally ill to death just because they were mentally ill, as there should be. Like so many other hard choices, we should not make them as individual but we should make them as a society with all the profession help we can find. It would be wrong to find a person not guilty because his behavior is in his genes but I argue here that society has a responsibility to protect its citizens from murders even if those persons are in prison; that is self-defense. That is the government doing what we cannot do for ourselves. The only people the state should put to death should be serial killers. To prove that a person is a serial killer would be extremely difficult but that is the point. Should we execute a wife that killed an abusive husband, no; a burglary gone wrong, no; but should we put a Ted Bundy to death, yes!

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