Connecticut + New Hampshire = Texas?
Just after 2 a.m. on Friday, May 13th Michael Ross was executed by lethal injection in the Osborn Correctional Institution in Somers, Connecticut, for the rape and murder of 8 young women in Connecticut and New York in the 1980's. It had been the first execution in New England in 45 years. Connecticut has six other men on death row, while New Hampshire, the only other New England state with the death penalty, has none, and has not executed anyone since 1939. Vermont has someone on death row for the first time in 40 years, but it's for a Federal conviction.
Ross had essentially asked to be executed, and declined assistance from family members and abolitionist groups who had tried to save his life. It is especially tragic that this happened in New England, all of it. It's tragic that such horrific crimes took place there, but that tragedy is compounded by the tarnishment of a long record of progressive government and peaceful coexistence. New England has stood as a bastion of America's ideals from its very inception. It's policies were progressive from the time when most "red states" didn't exist. The cluster of tiny states, whose names had to be listed off to the side of the map, seemed a nicer America, our own Canada, if you will, and it's unfortunate that this had to happen there.
The death penalty is wrong and needs to be abolished. There are countless reasons why, these are but a few. Executing murderers does not deter murder, anybody who says otherwise is lying or mistaken. When they tell you "you're less likely to kill someone if you'll get the chair" like it just makes sense, remind them that when people kill, they either weren't thinking about anything but killing, or they thought they'd get away with it so that punishment would be irrelevant. The only deterrent effect of execution is that the executed will not reoffend, but the same is true of life without parole. Proponents of state execution point to the dramatic drop in crime seen by New York after reinstating the death penalty, as if there hadn't been contemporaneous improvements to law enforcement and 911 response.
I have to go, but I'm not done with this issue... It's important for us to realize the immensity of what a day, let alone a decade or a lifetime in prison entails. Dante explained that the true pain in purgatory and hell arose solely from the absolute absence of God. The same is true of liberty, and I don't care if prisons have cable TV, video games, or saunas, the complete revocation of liberty cannot be merely dismissed as a given, a slap on the wrist upon which we must pile more suffering if punishment is truly to be exacted upon the guilty. It is crucial as we determine our penal policies to bear in mind that Michael Ross was not convicted of killing his specific victims, he was convicted of violating the laws of the state, of crimes not against people, but against society. There is no place for vengeance in such a system of laws, killing the friendless is the same as killing a beloved child in the eyes of society, and so it should be punished, without bloodlust. That New Englanders were ok with executing Michael Ross, though otherwise opposed to the death penalty, is understandable because of his crimes, but it's not right.
Here is a list of the countries that have the death penalty for ordinary crimes, that is, not just for things like military trials or other special circumstances:
Ross had essentially asked to be executed, and declined assistance from family members and abolitionist groups who had tried to save his life. It is especially tragic that this happened in New England, all of it. It's tragic that such horrific crimes took place there, but that tragedy is compounded by the tarnishment of a long record of progressive government and peaceful coexistence. New England has stood as a bastion of America's ideals from its very inception. It's policies were progressive from the time when most "red states" didn't exist. The cluster of tiny states, whose names had to be listed off to the side of the map, seemed a nicer America, our own Canada, if you will, and it's unfortunate that this had to happen there.
The death penalty is wrong and needs to be abolished. There are countless reasons why, these are but a few. Executing murderers does not deter murder, anybody who says otherwise is lying or mistaken. When they tell you "you're less likely to kill someone if you'll get the chair" like it just makes sense, remind them that when people kill, they either weren't thinking about anything but killing, or they thought they'd get away with it so that punishment would be irrelevant. The only deterrent effect of execution is that the executed will not reoffend, but the same is true of life without parole. Proponents of state execution point to the dramatic drop in crime seen by New York after reinstating the death penalty, as if there hadn't been contemporaneous improvements to law enforcement and 911 response.
I have to go, but I'm not done with this issue... It's important for us to realize the immensity of what a day, let alone a decade or a lifetime in prison entails. Dante explained that the true pain in purgatory and hell arose solely from the absolute absence of God. The same is true of liberty, and I don't care if prisons have cable TV, video games, or saunas, the complete revocation of liberty cannot be merely dismissed as a given, a slap on the wrist upon which we must pile more suffering if punishment is truly to be exacted upon the guilty. It is crucial as we determine our penal policies to bear in mind that Michael Ross was not convicted of killing his specific victims, he was convicted of violating the laws of the state, of crimes not against people, but against society. There is no place for vengeance in such a system of laws, killing the friendless is the same as killing a beloved child in the eyes of society, and so it should be punished, without bloodlust. That New Englanders were ok with executing Michael Ross, though otherwise opposed to the death penalty, is understandable because of his crimes, but it's not right.
Here is a list of the countries that have the death penalty for ordinary crimes, that is, not just for things like military trials or other special circumstances:
AFGHANISTAN, ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA, BAHAMAS, BAHRAIN, BANGLADESH, BARBADOS, BELARUS, BELIZE, BOTSWANA, BURUNDI, CAMEROON, CHAD, CHINA, COMOROS, CONGO (Democratic Republic), CUBA, DOMINICA, EGYPT, EQUATORIAL GUINEA, ERITREA,yeah... that's not a nice list, it has too many points to form an axis, but it's definitely evil. The international community has soundly denounced capital punishment as inhumane, an uneffective deterrent, and unacceptably irreversible.
ETHIOPIA, GABON, GHANA, GUATEMALA, GUINEA, GUYANA, INDIA, INDONESIA, IRAN, IRAQ, JAMAICA, JAPAN, JORDAN, KAZAKSTAN, KOREA (North), KOREA (South), KUWAIT, KYRGYZSTAN, LAOS, LEBANON, LESOTHO, LIBERIA, LIBYA, MALAWI, MALAYSIA, MONGOLIA, NIGERIA, OMAN, PAKISTAN, PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY, PHILIPPINES, QATAR, RWANDA,
SAINT CHRISTOPHER & NEVIS, SAINT LUCIA, SAINT VINCENT & GRENADINES, SAUDI ARABIA, SIERRA LEONE, SINGAPORE, SOMALIA, SUDAN, SWAZILAND, SYRIA, TAIWAN, TAJIKISTAN, TANZANIA, THAILAND, TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO, UGANDA, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, UZBEKISTAN, VIET NAM, YEMEN, ZAMBIA, ZIMBABWE
posted by Dan at 3:00 PM
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