I'm going to mention the history of Canadian capital punishment.
Canada decided the day of abolition of death penalty for murder as July 14, 1976, by the result 130:124 of free vote; however, Lester Pearson (Liberal) canceled all death penalties as a matter of policy, when he won as a prime minister in 1963. (The last execution in Canada was occurred on December 11, 1962.)
Since then, first-degree murderer is given a mandatory life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years.
This is the map of "Capital Punishment Laws of the World" (Wikipedia, January 29, 2008)
As you see, many countries in the world are still having capital punishment legally, such as China, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and many states in U.S., etc.
Many of the students who had joined this debate, were focusing "justice" so that capital punishment should be legal in Canada too. While listening their opinions, a big doubt was emerging into my head.
If murder - terminating somebody's life, - is unforgivable act and the biggest sin as human being, why can the government kill somebody? That does not make sense. In other words, as well as murderer is an object as capture and punishment whatever the reason the murderer had for terminating somebody's life, the government should not be allowed to kill the person whatever the reason is.
On the other hand, I understand how the people related to the victim or society feels massive loss, sadness, and hatred, but does the "eye for eye" justice really work for those people? Will they be happy or satisfied even though the victim will never come back by eliminating the murderer? Revenge can even create the same feelings on other people like family of "the criminal," and they sometimes strongly believe that the system made mistake.
Also, some people say that capital punishment reduces the crime rate. Well, yeah, it can plant the seed of fear on some people as "Don't wanna die? Then don't kill" (except some serial killers or psychopaths - they kill people without caring their own lives). But, society can not learn the true meaning of the preciousness of human life and why no one has the right to kill somebody. It sounds the same to me as that "I can not steal that bicycle because my parents will be really upset." What will come next? "You know what? I think I can steal it if I would not be caught!"
One more reason I think we should not have capital punishment is, the death penalty by mistake, as I mentioned above. It actually happens in the world and many cases were found as innocence, after those "criminals" were executed (see "Wrongful execution").
According to the writer of the ORBIS, "Since 1973, when the supreme court affirmed the constitutionality of the death penalty, the United States has executed just over 1,000 people, while more than 120 have been released from death row."
What is the justice for them? Should their family do revenge somehow? When is this cycle of anger and sadness going to end?
What surprised me was the fact that people were executed even though their "crime" is not murder or attempted murder.
In Iran, a 16 year old girl was raped by a 51 year old married man. She was arrested by the criminal sentence that she did not tell anybody about the rape. Her neighbor testified that she was immoral since she was already (corporally) punished for being alone with a boy when she was 13 years old. She could not prove the fact of the rape; furthermore, she took off her veil and threw it away in court. From her looks, the court decided that her age was 22 years old (!!) and she was given death penalty and her execution was performed the next day after the court's decision without any notice to her family. The man who raped her had only 95 times of corporal punishment. This case was reported by BBC (the British Broadcasting Corporation) in 2006 to the world for the first time.
As long as capital punishment exists, wrongful execution exists too, since only the murderer and the victim know the real truth. As you may know, the true criminal can be non-criminal, if their lawyer cleverly does very good job for them. Sometimes innocent people can be criminals, depending on the prosecutors.
But I still can not answer fully to the justice for victims. Because the level of how we feel can be different and sometime the time makes different. After going throw their hard time to face their loss, some of them start to wish the same thing will not happen to other people.
I would be glad to know what you think.
For further information and statistics, see Amnesty International website.
What is the justice for them? Should their family do revenge somehow? When is this cycle of anger and sadness going to end?
What surprised me was the fact that people were executed even though their "crime" is not murder or attempted murder.
In Iran, a 16 year old girl was raped by a 51 year old married man. She was arrested by the criminal sentence that she did not tell anybody about the rape. Her neighbor testified that she was immoral since she was already (corporally) punished for being alone with a boy when she was 13 years old. She could not prove the fact of the rape; furthermore, she took off her veil and threw it away in court. From her looks, the court decided that her age was 22 years old (!!) and she was given death penalty and her execution was performed the next day after the court's decision without any notice to her family. The man who raped her had only 95 times of corporal punishment. This case was reported by BBC (the British Broadcasting Corporation) in 2006 to the world for the first time.
As long as capital punishment exists, wrongful execution exists too, since only the murderer and the victim know the real truth. As you may know, the true criminal can be non-criminal, if their lawyer cleverly does very good job for them. Sometimes innocent people can be criminals, depending on the prosecutors.
But I still can not answer fully to the justice for victims. Because the level of how we feel can be different and sometime the time makes different. After going throw their hard time to face their loss, some of them start to wish the same thing will not happen to other people.
I would be glad to know what you think.
For further information and statistics, see Amnesty International website.
1 comment:
I'm not sure what I think about capital punishment itself -- but when the issue comes up, I think also about the politics of it, which for me is a mass of hypocrisy anyway.
In my experience, conservative politicians from my "old country" (the U.S.) tend to be in favor of capital punishment as rather an easy way to get credit from their constituents for being "tough on crime."
Now, if you actually want to BE "tough on crime," you need to do things like hire, train, and pay more police officers, build prisons, develop intervention programs of one kind or another -- all of which cost money and might require higher taxes. And if you want to build a prison, you have to build it somewhere.
But of course, you don't actually have to do any of that politically difficult stuff. All you have to do is say "I'm for capital punishment" and you'll have lots of fans. Because you're a moral guy. And of course, since that's really a judicial matter, unless you're running for a judgeship, it has nothing to do with the job you're applying for anyway, so you can't lose, as Karl Rove understands quite well . . .
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