DEATH PENALTY DETERS PROSPECTIVE CRIMINALS

Some arguments are never over. In 1972, California voters passed Proposition 17 to firmly establish the death penalty. In his first turn as governor, Jerry Brown vetoed a measure expanding the list of crimes for which the death penalty could be imposed. His veto was overridden by Proposition 7 in 1978. In the 1986 election, Chief Justice Rose Bird and Associate Justices Cruz Reynoso and Joseph Grodin were denied reconfirmation largely because of their rulings overturning death penalty convictions.

In a 1986 Field Poll, 83 percent of Californians supported the death penalty. A 2006 Field Poll registered only 67 percent, but another Field Poll in 2010 showed a rise to 70 percent support.

With this forty year history, overturning the California death penalty does not look promising, but Senator Loni Hancock (D-Oakland) has introduced a measure in the California Senate to do just that. If passed by the Legislature, signed by the governor and affirmed by voters in 2012, it would eliminate future impositions of the death penalty and convert all past death penalty sentences to life without parole.

The proponents, newly in touch with their inner deficit hawk, claim that California’s budget woes make the cost of enforcing the death penalty untenable. Opponents say that cost can be solved by streamlining the appeals process. But, the debate should not be about dollars. How much would we be willing to pay in taxes to avoid the killing of a teenage rape victim or an abducted child?

Opponents of capital punishment deny its potential for prevention. Sister Helen Prejean spoke at a March, 2011 meeting in Brea. She is known for her book, “Dead Man Walking,” that recounts her spiritual guidance of Elmo Patrick Sonnier before his execution. The movie, in which Prejean was played by Susan Sarandon, blended Sonnier and another similar murderer.

The San Bernardino Diocese newspaper reported that “Sr. Prejean spoke excitedly about the recent repeal of the death penalty in Illinois and urged California Catholics to push for the same in their state.”

Less than a month later, Jitka Vesel was murdered in Illinois. DuPage County State’s Attorney Robert Berlin revealed that, “The defendant did indicate that he researched whether Illinois had a death penalty and the defendant was aware that the death penalty had recently been abolished, so he knew then that he could go through with this plan.”

The Sonnier case makes an especially bad poster child for abolition activists. After raping a teenage girl, Sonnier and his brother killed them because Sonnier did not want to go back to prison. He risked his life for that extra chance of avoiding apprehension. He represents the segment of criminals for whom the death penalty is not a deterrent. But the killer of Jitka Vesel represents the segment for whom the death penalty is a deciding factor. Is it not obvious that, without the death penalty, more rape victims and abducted children would be killed to improve the perpetrators’ chances of avoiding arrest?

The abolitionists have one good argument – the remote possibility that an innocent person could be sentenced to death because he was found guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt.” This problem could be resolved by changing the standard to “beyond any doubt.” Some murderers would then escape execution, but the lifesaving deterrence of the death penalty would be retained, and the fear of its unjust application would be removed.

In the end, it’s a trade-off. Whose life should pay for a vicious murder, the murderer’s, or that of an innocent victim like Vesel who would have been spared if the death penalty had not been abolished?

Let’s us pray therefore for ALL the victims of abuse & violence, and in reparation for the sins and atrocities commited against mankind.
PAX et vivat Iesus!

The strongest argument against capital punishment, in my opinion, is that it is unnecessary, but that point isn’t made until later in the call. I think the argument is much better if it leads and further expounds upon this point.