Capital Punishment

                 On September 21^st 2011 two men were put to death by the state.  Troy Davis was executed in Georgia and Lawrence Russell Brewer was executed in Texas.  Davis’ steadfast declarations of his innocence and other circumstances around his case seemed to make him worthy of mercy in many people’s eyes while Brewer’s hate crime and definite guilt made his case almost an afterthought for many, his is not the obvious of the two to discuss while decrying the death penalty.  I witnessed this while trying to find his name for this essay.  I typed “executions September 21, 2011” and only Davis came up so I added “Texas” to the Google search and only one article rose to the top over the shadow of Davis.  I believe it was wrong for the State to have executed either men, and I will not leave Lawrence Russell Brewer out of the discussion for convenience sake.

                In his essay “What do Murderers Deserve?”  David Gelernter wrote for Commentary in the Utne Reader, “Why execute murderers?  To deter?  To avenge?  Supporters of the death penalty often give the first answer, opponents the second.  But neither can be the whole truth.” 

                He continues, “In fact, we execute murderers in order to make a communal proclamation: that murder is intolerable. A deliberate murderer embodies evil so terrible that it defiles the community. Thus the late social philosopher Robert Nisbet wrote: “Until a catharsis has been effected through trial, through the finding of guilt and then punishment, the community is anxious, fearful, apprehensive, and, above all, contaminated.”

When a murder takes place, the community is obliged to clear its throat and step up to the microphone. Every murder demands a communal response. Among possible responses, the death penalty is uniquely powerful because it is permanent. An execution forces the community to assume forever the burden of moral certainty; it is a form of absolute speech that allows no waffling or equivocation.”

                Gelernter states in the same essay, “Opponents of capital punishment describe it as a surrender to emotions—to grief, rage, fear, blood lust. For most supporters of the death penalty, this is false. Even when we resolve in principle to go ahead, we have to steel ourselves. Many of us would find it hard to kill a dog, much less a man. Endorsing capital punishment means not that we yield to our emotions but that we overcome them. If we favor executing murderers, it is not because we want to but because, however much we do not want to, we consider ourselves obliged to.”
                The argument Gelernter makes falls right into the hands of the major criticisms of the utilitarianism his argument espouses: 1) it ignores the rights of the minority 2) it allows innocent people to suffer.
                Davis’ case highlights these two criticisms especially in that his guilt was in question and yet he was put to death.  What Davis’ case thus also highlights is that there is greater utility for society in protecting it from an unjustly executed governmental institution which fosters the lowest qualities of humanity while suppressing and/or numbing the greatest qualities.
                Both sides desire telos (purpose) for society through their espoused views on the death penalty.  The purpose we seek must be to elevate the value of life; Gelernter insists that to execute the murderer is to say life is so important it is worth killing for.   Capital punishment becomes the ultimate statement of the importance of life.  This seems backwards because it is backwards.
                Lawrence Russell Brewer’s life had value in spite of the grotesque nature of his crime.  His victim, James Bird Jr.’s life had an infinite and immeasurable value, but even if Brewer devalued his own life by committing an act as completely horrible as the way he murdered Mr. Bird, according to the universality of Kant’s categorical imperative a murderer condemns him or herself to death, Brewer’s life still had meaning and purpose.  When the state refuses to kill it’s convicted felons it sends a real message about the importance of human life and the reality of the horror of murder.
                When the state murders a convict in its care, it blurs the universality and concreteness of the message, “Murder is wrong.”  If the state can rationalize murder, so too can we, and anybody’s murder might be simply a couple rationalized thoughts away.
                Capital punishment teaches society not about justice, but shows through its own example about sociopathic behavior and implies a virtue therein.  In our hearts there is always an exception to the rule and that exception is us.  Justice must uphold that we are not so special or the categorical imperative falls apart.  The closer we get to characters in the state of anomie, the further we are from justice.
                In order to have the rule of law, the state must be the chief proponent of the rule of law; otherwise the law becomes so many empty words.