Executing retarded people wrong (executing retards) 6.25.02

So last Thursday, six Supreme Court justices out of nine made the call that executing mentally retarded individuals - generally regarded as those with I.Q.s of 70 or lower - might be cruel and unusual (thus violating the Eighth Amendment) and should be put on hold. As a unit, the court tends to believe the death penalty is not in and of itself cruel or unusual. So let's go with that.
O'Connor, Kennedy, Souter, Bader Ginsburg, Breyer and Stevens said "we are not persuaded that the execution of mentally retarded criminals will measurably advance the deterrent or the retributive purpose of the death penalty."
Scalia, Thomas and Rehnquist were so outraged at this decision that their rebuttal - called scathing and scoffing - said: "If one is to say as the court does today that ALL executions of the mentally retarded are so morally repugnant as to violate our national standards of decency, surely the consensus it points to must be one that has set its righteous face against ALL such executions."
In short, they are saying the other six are obviously yet secretly opposed to the death penalty and must be soft-on-crime pinkos. Scalia refused to sign the dissent "respectfully dissenting" to let everyone know they meant business.
Scalia mocked what he referred to as the "the 47 percent consensus" pointing out that only 18 states of the 38 allowing capital punishment don't execute the retarded and that is way less than half.
I would suggest it is safe to say the 12 states that don't allow capital punishment at all could legitimately and safely be counted with the 18 bringing the consensus to 30 states against executing the retarded to 20 that allow it and may or may not like being referred to as "IN FAVOR of executing the retarded."
Call me crazy, but I think that not executing retarded people is a good thing and is not the drawback to law and order critics suggest.
"Now everybody that commits murder will claim to be retarded," is the rallying cry. Yeah, because we'll never see through that.
Have we gotten so hung up on payback that we just want to kill anyone and everyone that crosses the line regardless of their capacity to know right from wrong? At some point, it is important to establish that justice can be served short of death rather than seeking the most extreme punishment in as many cases as possible.
Well, I'm with Dubya on this one, executing retarded folks is just plain wrong.
The problem is that "justice" has become synonymous with "retribution" in America. It is time to maybe step back a pace and look at what the whole point of executing people is supposed to be.
Regardless of your stance on capital punishment, whether you believe that no civilized nation should use death as a punishment, whether you think we should kill 'em all and let God figure out whose guilty or whether you think you could think of 20 things worse to do to a murderer than giving him the quick release of death, one thing seems pretty clear: if there is no chance of securing the public from future, similar crimes or of meaningfully punishing an individual in a way they and others like them are capable of understanding, then the punishment is not only unjust it runs the risk of making the public less secure.
Example. In Henry VIII's England, capital crimes were extended to include highway robbery. The logic was this would curb highway robbery by scaring the robbers straight. What it did was jack up the murder rate as highway robbers began killing everyone they robbed to keep witnesses to a minimum.
In the current case, executing a retarded guy who may or may not appreciate his crime does little to teach him an important lesson about what it's like to be an upstanding member of society nor does it send a clear message to other retarded people to behave since the idea of clearly communicating concepts to retarded people is at the heart of the matter. What do they understand? Is it reasonable to expect someone with an I.Q. of 70 or less to always appreciate the consequences of their actions?
Good and evil, that's the heart of the matter. We want to punish evil, keep it in line. Does everyone always know when they are being evil?
I appreciate that evil, if left unchecked, can spread like a virus. I also believe good people can be capable of evil and still be good. Continuing to check ourselves MAKES us good.
Good people who see nothing wrong with executing retarded people might need to do a check, that's all I'm saying. People who stand around with frying pans shouting "burn, baby, burn" at executions have definitely crossed a line somewhere. Either that or their hometowns don't have cable.
Before writing this column, I asked myself "what would Jesus do?" and funny enough Jesus wouldn't pull the switch on a retarded guy either so... safe for one more day I guess.
Granted, the Eighth Amendment is a bit vague. "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." It doesn't say what cruel or unusual is because they either had a general understanding of "cruel and unusual" in December, 1791 when the Bill of Rights was adopted or they wanted to let successive generations decide for themselves.
They didn't have electricity, I.Q. tests or psychiatrists in 1791 so they could not be expected to determine whether sending a charge through a retarded guy was cruel or unusual. Lucky for us, we have all of these things and should be able to either breathe a sigh of relief that something good has been done in a world full of badness or, at the very least, let it slide and respectfully dissent.
- Greg Jerrett is a Nonpareil staff writer. His column runs on Wednesdays and Saturdays. He may be contacted at 328-1811, Ext. 279, or by e-mail at gjerrett@nonpareilonline.com.