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The thing is, if you came up to me and said, Iona, do you believe in the death penalty, I would probably say, "Um, what, of course I don't believe in the death penalty" with added implication that the questioner has either known me for less than five minutes or has never listened to a word I've ever said.
But then, I don't think I've ever thought about it. And I went to an Amicus meeting this afternoon, seriously considered devoting a considerable portion of the next year of my life to the organisation, and maybe I ought to be clear on why I think the death penalty is a double-plus ungood idea. Amicus itself isn't an abolitionist organisation, of course; it's there to prevent abuses of death row prisoners and their rights, and, of course, to prevent wrongful executions. And you could say, off that, that it's entirely neutral about the actual existence of the death penalty, but that said, there's something fuzzy about "wrongful execution" - that doesn't just include innocence cases, but cases where the DA was due re-election soon, the black defendant had an all-white jury, that sort of thing - and also, there's the associated journal, which does rejoice in its "Worldwide abolition" section. There's an implicit value judgement, shall we say.
So... why do I think the death penalty is wrong? Unfortunately, my immediate visceral response is: it's barbaric. Which makes sense in the general context of my education; no-one has been executed in this country since the early sixties, and Protocol 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights provides for complete abolition, and so since 1998, it's been a non-issue. But... yes, it's unfortunate, as you can say "it's barbaric" and then be gently reminded (I mean, I knew this intellectually, but) that thirty-eight American states endorse capital punishment. Obviously that does not mean that seventy-six percent of the American population endorses it, and it doesn't even mean that a majority do, but people do: and these people also necessarily believe it is constitutional and not "cruel and unusual". And there's nothing, I think, essentially illiberal in the death penalty, so that's not why I object.
It's just... why should the state kill? Why can the state kill? There are the pragmatic concerns, and those are easier. I agree, I think, with the people who say just one miscarriage of justice would make the death penalty unconscionable, and there have been, and there are, such miscarriages. (Andrew Lee Jones, the quasi-founder of Amicus, being a prime example.) There are those nutty people who think the death penalty is a solution for prison overcrowding (to which my response can only be, dude, you want your state to kill people because of prison overcrowding), and there are those much more sensible people who think the idea of death row, with appeals and more appeals, and a shortage of attorneys for capital cases, and yet more appeals, squanders resources in itself. There is the problem of saying something ought to be done, and then someone having to do it. (I was reading about the AMA advising its anaesthesiologists to not get themselves involved in lethal injections at any costs if they want to continue to be thought of as ethical physicians.)
In short: the whole thing is sordid and feels oddly primitive. Again, a value judgement, and I don't know, honestly, where the underlying philosophy is here. Is all life sacred? Maybe. I don't actually want to get into that can of worms, and might only say that the state oversteps what it may do with the power vested in it. Is electoral legitimacy enough to sanction this sort of action? I'm not sure. And we definitely don't have a retributive justice system. So, again, I don't know.
In conclusion, I think the death penalty is wrong and will be spending considerable amount of time doing casework for Amicus. In more conclusive conclusion, my head hurts.
In other news! The Internet Watch Foundation is giving rise to so much stupidity it's painful, someone ought to tell Feministing that white-women hand-wringing is really boring, and I don't say this often, but thank god for the Supreme Court. And I'm not saying that today I woke up belligerent, or anything, but I did go to class this afternoon, and a guy said something offensive about transgender people, and I might have yelled at him for being crass and illiberal, thus winning me friends and helping me not to alienate people.
Okay! I need to go and update my CV so it does not say "this woman defies mediocrity in her exemplary unemployability", and probably ought to drink more tea/smash my head into things and go "wraaargh" a lot.
...maybe more coffee.
But then, I don't think I've ever thought about it. And I went to an Amicus meeting this afternoon, seriously considered devoting a considerable portion of the next year of my life to the organisation, and maybe I ought to be clear on why I think the death penalty is a double-plus ungood idea. Amicus itself isn't an abolitionist organisation, of course; it's there to prevent abuses of death row prisoners and their rights, and, of course, to prevent wrongful executions. And you could say, off that, that it's entirely neutral about the actual existence of the death penalty, but that said, there's something fuzzy about "wrongful execution" - that doesn't just include innocence cases, but cases where the DA was due re-election soon, the black defendant had an all-white jury, that sort of thing - and also, there's the associated journal, which does rejoice in its "Worldwide abolition" section. There's an implicit value judgement, shall we say.
So... why do I think the death penalty is wrong? Unfortunately, my immediate visceral response is: it's barbaric. Which makes sense in the general context of my education; no-one has been executed in this country since the early sixties, and Protocol 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights provides for complete abolition, and so since 1998, it's been a non-issue. But... yes, it's unfortunate, as you can say "it's barbaric" and then be gently reminded (I mean, I knew this intellectually, but) that thirty-eight American states endorse capital punishment. Obviously that does not mean that seventy-six percent of the American population endorses it, and it doesn't even mean that a majority do, but people do: and these people also necessarily believe it is constitutional and not "cruel and unusual". And there's nothing, I think, essentially illiberal in the death penalty, so that's not why I object.
It's just... why should the state kill? Why can the state kill? There are the pragmatic concerns, and those are easier. I agree, I think, with the people who say just one miscarriage of justice would make the death penalty unconscionable, and there have been, and there are, such miscarriages. (Andrew Lee Jones, the quasi-founder of Amicus, being a prime example.) There are those nutty people who think the death penalty is a solution for prison overcrowding (to which my response can only be, dude, you want your state to kill people because of prison overcrowding), and there are those much more sensible people who think the idea of death row, with appeals and more appeals, and a shortage of attorneys for capital cases, and yet more appeals, squanders resources in itself. There is the problem of saying something ought to be done, and then someone having to do it. (I was reading about the AMA advising its anaesthesiologists to not get themselves involved in lethal injections at any costs if they want to continue to be thought of as ethical physicians.)
In short: the whole thing is sordid and feels oddly primitive. Again, a value judgement, and I don't know, honestly, where the underlying philosophy is here. Is all life sacred? Maybe. I don't actually want to get into that can of worms, and might only say that the state oversteps what it may do with the power vested in it. Is electoral legitimacy enough to sanction this sort of action? I'm not sure. And we definitely don't have a retributive justice system. So, again, I don't know.
In conclusion, I think the death penalty is wrong and will be spending considerable amount of time doing casework for Amicus. In more conclusive conclusion, my head hurts.
In other news! The Internet Watch Foundation is giving rise to so much stupidity it's painful, someone ought to tell Feministing that white-women hand-wringing is really boring, and I don't say this often, but thank god for the Supreme Court. And I'm not saying that today I woke up belligerent, or anything, but I did go to class this afternoon, and a guy said something offensive about transgender people, and I might have yelled at him for being crass and illiberal, thus winning me friends and helping me not to alienate people.
Okay! I need to go and update my CV so it does not say "this woman defies mediocrity in her exemplary unemployability", and probably ought to drink more tea/smash my head into things and go "wraaargh" a lot.
...maybe more coffee.
