Posted
on Fri, Sep. 24, 2010
Macon Telegraph
Time for Georgia to stop
taking an eye for an eye
By
KATHERINE BROWN
Thank
you for your coverage of the state of Georgia’s setting of an execution date for
Brandon Rhode for Tuesday night, his suicide attempt Tuesday morning, his
subsequent hospitalization, then his stay of execution until Thursday. Such
horrors occurring at the Georgia Diagnostic Prison in Jackson, only a couple of
exits up from Macon on I-75, indicate that the time has come for Georgia to join
the ranks of the 15 states in our country and most other industrialized nations
in the world that have already abolished the death penalty. The absurdity of
taking Rhode to the hospital, only to cure him enough to execute him a few days
later, is painful for me as a citizen, taxpayer and voter to know is an endorsed
procedure by the state I call home.
One can
argue against use of the death penalty solely on the basis of cost. Death
penalty cases can cost up to three times as much as cases in which the
prosecutor does not seek capital punishment. Simply stated, capital cases drain
state resources. In Georgia, where we are already struggling to fund education
and have dangerously low indigent defense funds, we simply cannot afford it.
One
could also present the case that the death penalty is arbitrarily imposed in
murder cases, biased by factors such as geography, race, mental capacity and
class. One could point out that capital punishment disproportionately affects
those defendants who live the South and who are poor. One could also bring up
cases in which capital defendants were later found to be innocent, having been
convicted on faulty eye witness accounts or testimonies and later exonerated by
DNA evidence.
Since
1973, 139 people on Death Row have been exonerated for innocence, including five
in Georgia. In regard to the argument that the death penalty deters crime, many
law enforcement officials opine that the main deterrent to crime would instead
be investment in drug treatment programs.
But
there are two additional, overarching, and more compelling reasons that it is
high time to end this practice in Georgia. Most faith traditions value the
dignity of all human beings and believe in a merciful God capable of
rehabilitating and forgiving even the most unthinkably horrible crimes.
Faith
teaches us to turn the other cheek (even if this is very hard to do) and to
forgive. Retribution for a crime by committing the same crime does not bring
resolution or healing. Why do we kill people to show that killing people is
wrong? Violence begets more violence.
State-sanctioned
executions put all of us (the taxpayers and voters of Georgia) in the same
position as Rhode. We’re all murderers after an execution. The cause of death
listed on an inmate’s death certificate after an execution, after all, is
“Homicide.” And all we have to show for it in the end are dead bodies. Do we
want to put ourselves and our consciences in this position?
Second,
there are alternatives for protecting society. Shouldn’t this be the main goal,
rather than retribution? Life without parole for violent offenders protects our
communities, costs less than executing them, and allows time for healing, for
families of both victims and defendants.
Perhaps
instead of thinking about whether or not an inmate deserves to die, or whether
or not such punishment is a sufficient match for the crime committed, I would
invite readers to think about whether or not each of us wants to be responsible
for additional homicides when there are alternatives.
What do
our faith traditions and basic human reasoning teach us to do? Ghandi once said,
“An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”
Katey Brown is on the Board of GFADP and a resident of Macon
