Always Look on the Bright Side...of Death

There has been a lot written on the death penalty, both for and against it. Personally, I think little of it really gets at the underlying issue. Here's our problem: we have people we don't want in society. We want to kill them. Good, I say, but if we're going to do it, let's do it right, and not fuck it up like we're currently doing. There's statistics that say that more minorities are being killed than white people, and some that say that 30% of the people are innocent, etc. While statistics do lie, in this case, they begin to illustrate the fact that our death penalty is poorly implemented.

What are the problems? Well, for one thing, those that support the death penalty usually oppose abortion, calling themselves "pro-life", which I think is completely hypocritical if they support the death penalty. But I digress. The main problem with those that support the death penalty is that they tout it as being a 'deterrent' for people to not commit capital crimes, their reasoning being the one may think to him or herself 'Hmm, if I commit this crime, I may be convicted and sentenced to death for it.' Well, the problem is, most people don't think when they do these things, or there's something in the back of their mind that says 'I'll never get caught'. So, the 'fear of the death penalty' reasoning is bullshit. At that, some super-left wingers may say "If it's bullshit, then the death penalty must be abolished." I say that's a load of crap, too. The death penalty, if used correctly, does work; just not in the way that it is touted to. How does it work? It prevents those who are executed from ever comitting any crime again. As a matter of fact, it prevents them from doing anything at all--they're dead. You don't see John Wayne Gacey killing any teenage boys anymore. You don't see Ted Bundy stalking sorority girls. Why? They're fucking dead. They can never have their conviction overturned on technicalities; they can't be released to a mental hospital; they can't escape from prison; they can't sell their memoirs for loads of money. They're dead. I say good--let's make sure the serial killers are where they can never hurt anyone again--six feet underground. The finality of the death penalty does beg the question of the evidence used against the accused, which brings me to my next point.

Our courts don't require enough evidence to convict someone of this crime. Sure, there has to be 'evidence beyond a reasonable doubt', but you can convince a jury of that without any physical evidence. Hell, look at the OJ trial. He killed Nicole without any doubt. Look at Robert DeCaro. Look at any number of rich motherfuckers, and you'll see the same thing: they got off. Why? Because their lawyer was a better storyteller than the other. If you're poor, then you get convicted because most pro-bono DAs can't even tell a joke at a bar much less convince a jury that their client is innocent. Well, that shit needs to stop. If there is no physical or irrefutable evidence (like a videotape of the crime), then the death penalty can't be applied. Let's say that you raped a woman, then strangled her to death, leaving your DNA all over the place. OK, you get to die. What if you shot someone to death and there was only ballistic evidence and nothing else? Then they might be able to send you to life in prison, but they can't use the death penalty--not irrefutable evidence. This keeps the few innocents off death row that don't belong there. For those that do get sentenced to death, it allows us to do one thing that we really need, my next point:

It takes entirely too long to kill someone. If you're sentenced to die, it should be as soon as possible after the pronouncement. Two weeks should be about max. You get sentenced, then you die. Big deal. Since you need irrefutable evidence of your crime to be sentencted to death, you can't cry over it. You did it. Now society deems you unworthy of breathing. Bye.

The fourth major problem is that the methods of killing, with one exception, suck. Most are cruel and unusual, and they all cost too much. Gas chamber? Horrible way to die. All of your muscles contract at the same time as you suffocate internally from having the iron ripped out of your blood by the cyanide. Electric chair? Who thought that shit up? Dr. Frankenstein? Seriously, that's very cruel and incredibly unusual. Lethal injection is the only humane way to go, but it's expensive. So, what do we need to do? Shoot people. It's not cruel or unusual at all. Look at how often it happens every day. It's what we train our soldiers to do. Our country has killed far more people with bullets than by all kinds of execution combined. It's fast, it's cheap, and it's much less cruel than anything we have except lethal injection, which is too expensive. I'm not talking firing squad--no, each state needs to pay a full-time executioner, whose job it is to shoot people at point blank range with a 12-ga. 00-buckshot nitro-express load in the head. Sounds bad, but it's quick and painless. Strap the bastard down in the chair and let 'er rip. If you don't want an executioner, you can have a computer fire the gun. It makes no difference. You won't miss at point blank range, and with such a hot load, even though you may be spending as much as $0.80 per round, it's guaranteed to kill instantaneously.

The last major problem with the death penalty is that it's not applied fairly. It is not applied in 'mitigating circumstances' and it's not applied to crimes that definitely warrant it. The death penalty is not applied to those who are deemed to be 'insane' or 'not in control of themselves'. What? They were on drugs when they did it? What the fuck? They did it, there's irrefutable evidence that points to them as the killer, and they freely admit it? Kill the fucker. I don't give a shit if he's retarded, insane, or was just fucked up on drugs and alcohol at the time--WE DON'T NEED THEM IN OUR SOCIETY. You shoot someone who breaks into your house, or if you accidentally kill someone, you're excused to a lesser charge, if any. You are on drugs and fire a gun or operate a motor vehicle, it was your own damn fault and bad decision, so sorry, but you don't get to make any ever again, because you will be dead. You're insane you say? It was a chemical imbalance in your brain that led you to rape and murder 8 year old girls? You definitely need to get a 12-ga. slug through the brain. If you did it, and there is no question about it, you go. I mean this to apply to rich bastards, too. No more white-collar prison for politicians that break the law. You are a senator that hires a hitman to kill your wife? You drive drunk and kill someone? You get the shotgun treatment, too. No mercy for the rich.

To further this last point, the death penalty needs to be applied to more crimes than murder. What about rape? This is a sticky subject, and it wouldn't be able to be applied in a 'he said-she said' situation, but for the small percentage where the rapist doesn't know the accuser and there's physical evidence pointing to the rapist... I mean, really--think about it--you can think up a few reasons to kill someone, from good ones (like self-defense) to poor ones (accidental, revenge). Can you honestly tell me that you can think of any reason to rape someone? That's right, there's not. You die, too. You molest children? Boom. Want to torture animals? How about cut down trees? Confiscate fireworks? (Well, maybe the last two are a little harsh...) We need to take a good look at what we need to get rid of people. There are those criminals that are unreformable. We either need to separate these prisoners and hold them for life, or kill them. I'm not sure which I'd prefer, honestly. It seems a bit harsh to kill someone for armed robbery, but if they've been doing armed robbery for 10 years, maybe they need to go. Of course, this is all to do with irrefutable evidence as well. For criminals that can be reformed, we need to educate them and send them back out into society as productive members. If you're unreformable, then you need to spend the rest of your life in a 9x12 room. No daylight. No exercise. No TV. You never leave. You are unreformable. You therefore get punishment, not reform. Humane treatment is reserved for those who act like humans. If you get out, you'll just spread more misery. If you believe bullshit statistics, 80% of crime is comitted by only 30% of the population, meaning that there are some very unreformable people out there.

One last option that we might consider is to give criminals a choice for the death penalty. If they are of the non-reformable group and won't ever be getting out of prison, then they should be given the choice of whether or not they want to spend the rest of their days in a cell or if they want to die quickly. Although many may choose to live, they may start to lose interest after 15 years of darkness in a cell eating cold grits and hotdogs.