By FRED KRONER
fred@sjodaily.com
I will never be chosen to serve on a jury for a case that could require capital punishment.
I don’t believe the death penalty is ever the correct option.
As I count the pros and cons, however, there are certainly many more reasons to justify not feeling as I do.
Someone convicted of heinous crimes, including mass murders or premeditated killings with dismemberments, would rank at the top of the to-be-executed list.
Several friends with whom I shared my viewpoint have asked, “does this person deserve to live?”
Another friend asked a similar question, just from a different vantage point: “Doesn’t this person deserve to die?”
When statistics are studied that show the costs associated with the housing of inmates in federal facilities, there is even additional reason to support capital punishment.
According to an April 2018 report from the General Counsel of Federal Bureau of Prisons, the cost to house one federal inmate in 2016 was $34,704.12 and rose to $36,299.25 in 2017, the latest year for which figures are available.
The 2017 total translates into $99.45 per day per inmate.
While I tend to be more on the side of compassion for many issues, that in itself is not the overriding factor here.
My view is predicated on one point and one point only: Do any of us, either individually or as a group, have the right to determine who will die and when that action will take place?
Clearly, my answer is “no.”
I am aware of the “eye for an eye” mentality and that the convicted killer would be “getting what he/she deserved.”
I also understand that for a person sentenced to life in prison without the chance for parole, whether rehabilitation could be possible does not factor into the equation.
Does the fact that they will otherwise spend the remainder of their years behind bars make an execution right and justified?
Juries across the land don’t have hard and fast guidelines to follow as they try to reach a verdict that’s unanimous.
Nor are policies in place so that decisions reached in the North would be similar to ones reached in the South, and ones agreed to in the East would match ones made in the West.
Is it proper that where a crime is committed could determine whether the death penalty is possible?
Twenty states currently don’t allow capital punishment. Eleven other states haven’t executed anyone in at least a decade and one of those states (New Hampshire) last executed a person in 1939, according to a March 2019 story written by the Pew Research Center.
The argument, of course, is that life and – by extension – death is not fair.
We can find examples in whatever part of life we care to examine. Major league baseball players, for example, can hit a home run that needs only to travel 302 feet down the right-field line at Boston’s Fenway Park while at Chicago’s Wrigley Field a ball hit to right field needs to travel at least 353 feet to be a home run.
A ball hit 302-feet at Wrigley wouldn’t even require the right fielder to reach the warning track to make the catch.
But, sports are trivial when the subject is literally a matter of life and death.
If the death penalty is carried out in even one instance where the person was later proven to be innocent, that is one case too many.
While research doesn’t show a high number of such wrongful deaths, studies also indicate that once an execution takes place, many cases are no longer scrutinized.
No one knows for sure in advance how a person would act – or react – if they found themselves in the situation of having a family member or friend murdered. Since I have never been in that situation – nor had a close friend who experienced that pain – I can only speculate.
I’m sure I would be devastated beyond words, angered to infinity and feeling an emptiness that would never leave.
Every milestone moment would be bittersweet; happy on one hand for the achievement such as a graduation or a marriage, but sad that the victim could not share in the joy.
As the thought enters my mind about whether I might want the person who did this to my relative or friend to die for these actions, I am overwhelmed by another feeling.
There are truly two sides. It’s not the subject of right and wrong.
It’s the existence of two surviving families. One is the victim’s. The other is the perpetrator’s.
Everyone is someone’s child, whether they have done something extraordinary or something awful.
How do you begin to compare the grieving of the victim’s family to that felt by the perpetrator’s family for the actions taken? Both groups are totally innocent (assuming, of course, those family members were not accomplices.)
Imagine the torment that would be felt by knowing someone you had helped raise for years was capable of murderous actions. Not having experienced it firsthand, I can only imagine that the pain would be almost unbearable.
Some families might disown that individual if convicted, while others would continue to show unconditional love and stand by the person while simultaneously condemning and denouncing the actions.
Is it right – is it fitting – that the perpetrator’s family should subsequently be subjected to the horrors surrounding an execution? Some would say, without hesitation, that it is. Justice would have been served.
No matter what fate awaits the convicted killer, however, it will never reverse what has happened. The victim, or victims, can not be brought back to life.
We can’t control what was done in the past, but we can control what is done in the future.
And that explains why I will never be asked to serve on a jury that could require capital punishment.
No man or woman should be placed in a position where they are allowed to determine whether another human being should live or die.
