Our local newspaper printed an editorial opposing the death penalty. It said the usual things. Here's the letter I wrote in response:Daily News editorials are usually admirable. Not so your hand-fluttering screed against capital punishment. You stated “It’s wrong to take a life.” Really? You just ruled out killing in self defense or in defending the life of others, in policemen being armed, in having an army.
The biblical injunction “thou shalt not kill” is a mistranslation; it really said “thou shalt not murder.” Murder is killing someone unlawfully. Conflating that with legitimate killing is simplistic—and immoral.
Of course the state has the right to take a life. Otherwise it surrenders its ability to defend its citizens, which is its primary reason for existing. And no sane death penalty advocate would extend that penalty to non-murder crimes like rape. That would only incentivize rapists to murder their victims.
Yet at the same time you failed to make the best anti-death penalty argument: the fact that many innocent people get executed, as the Innocence Project (www.innocenceproject.org/) has proven, using DNA evidence to exonerate (thus far) 164 people facing death or life without parole. You could reasonably argue for a death penalty moratorium in cases where there’s any question of guilt. Even multiple eyewitnesses have been wrong, due to faulty police procedures and the fallibility of human memory.
But often there’s no question of guilt (BTK, Dahmer, etc.). And ultimately you need the death penalty as a final control on lifers who would otherwise feel little compunction about killing other prisoners and jailers.
Ehkzu
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