Abandoned Justice - Day 224 - Haiku - My Response to the Ecotrain QOTW: Is the Death penalty the epitome of hypocrisy? Does an 'eye for an eye' have a place in the modern age, and what kind of message does this send to society?

From "Land of the Free"
to the Death Penalty, we've
abandoned justice.

This is a question we have been wrestling with as a species for millennia, not that we've always done so successfully, or come to the best conclusions for all.

Personally, I've wrestled with this question since my teens, and in the process have completely changed my viewpoint.

My earliest views on the death penalty came primarily from what I was taught in school, and from the majority of sociology and history books, not to mention televised news, that the death penalty was a necessary evil, because it served a necessary function, by ridding society of those who would willingly harm others, while serving as an effective deterrent for others who might otherwise commit such crimes.

That viewpoint came crashing down around my ankles during one long, drawn out, knock-down-drag-out (verbally, not literally) debate with my sister Carol, who had at that point done a lot more research on the subject than had I.

I was . . . maybe seventeen or eighteen? Which would have made her twenty-one or twenty-two. We were both in college, I attending Santa Monica College with some classes at UCLA, and she attending UNM in Albuquerque, from which she was visiting during Spring Break.

When I made my point regarding the death penalty being an effective deterrent, she brought out chapter and verse, with references, on why my viewpoint was a complete and utter fallacy.

The death penalty is not an effective deterrent. It never has been. Ouch.

So I turned to my beloved research skills to prove her wrong. And, instead, proved that she was right on the money.

According to one source I read at the time, the death penalty is not only not an effective deterrent, but certain perpetrators consider it a point of honor to be put to death for their crimes, so for them at least, it serves in fact as a draw --- the antithesis of a deterrent.

Color my mind blown. This possibility had never even occurred to me.

So I continued researching, and learned that not only was the death penalty not an effective deterrent, but that it was often misapplied with prejudice, rendering the court decisions at the very least suspicious, if not entirely invalid.

So then, I went back to the red letter bible my grandmother had given me years before, and asked more or less the question that became very popular in later years . . . what would Yeshua do?

I'll tell you one thing he did NOT do. He never called for the death of another, regardless of the crime. Not once.

And I was humbled. Because it occurred to me, for the first time that, as a follower of Yeshua, I had been promoting precisely what had happened to him - as he was put to death having committed no crime.

As happens in our own legal system FAR too often to discount the possibility:

"Unfortunately, we do not know just how many innocent people have been executed in the United States. It’s hard to prove wrongful executions. Death penalty lawyers hardly have enough resources to work on the cases of live clients, much less for those who are no longer living. What’s more, once a person has been executed, the formal appeals process also ends.

"But in recent years, several cases have come to light where there is compelling evidence of innocence. Two of the clearest cases are those of Cameron Todd Willingham and Carlos DeLuna.

"Cameron Todd Willingham was executed for setting fire to his home and killing his three children, but eight different arson experts now say that the forensic testimony used to convict him was based on junk science that has now been debunked. There is no evidence that the fire was set intentionally. So not only is there no evidence that Willingham committed the murder for which he was executed; there is convincing evidence that there was no murder in the first place.

"A 2012 report called “The Wrong Carlos” details the case of Carlos DeLuna, who was executed for a crime that was likely committed by a look-alike called Carlos Hernandez. Justice John Paul Stevens, the former US Supreme Court Justice, said that Carlos DeLuna’s story, “demonstrated, I think, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that there is a Texas case in which they executed the wrong defendant, and that the person they executed did not in fact commit the crime for which he was punished. And I think it's a sufficient argument against the death penalty...that society should not take the risk that that might happen again, because it's intolerable to think that our government, for really not very powerful reasons, runs the risk of executing innocent people."

Fast forward many years, and I was owner and proprietor of an art and framing gallery in Seminole, Florida, and a local woman began bringing in paintings for me to frame, which were painted by a friend of hers, a man then in prison for murder. I never knew the details, and did not ask, nor did she tell me, aside from the fact that he admitted to the crime.

Around that time, the news started coming to light that one prisoner on Florida's death row after another was being acquitted of the murders they were imprisoned for, and had frequently been framed for, usually by the local police or sheriffs, based on newly available DNA evidence.

Need I mention that the vast majority of these prisoners were of African American descent?

One gentleman I will never forget was finally set free after serving over FORTY years for a crime he NEVER committed. These are years he can never get back.

It is not even possible to compensate for such a loss, and in too many of these cases, no compensation of any kind is even offered. How can that possibly be right???

I don't believe in hell, but if there is one, it was created - and is DESERVED - by the cops who framed this man, and those like him.

So there is my stance in a nutshell.

As long as there is a chance of convicting the WRONG person, which as a nation we have done at least hundreds of times that we KNOW of, the death penalty deserves no place in our criminal justice system, because it is far too easy for injustice to prevail.

This is supposed to be a nation governed by the Rule of Law. What happened to that? Oh yeah, privilege. And money.

The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. As long as you can pay to play. Ugh.

It has always bothered me that so many self-proclaimed Christians are all about the "Right to Life" for unborn children, though many seem to be completely okay with abandoning them to their fate upon birth, yet are completely pro-death penalty, sometimes advocating putting prisoners to death without even bothering with due process of law.

Whatever happened to "Thou shalt not kill?"

Some claim that the real meaning is "Thou shalt not murder," though in fact that is only one of the many translations, but the truth is that the death penalty is in fact, after all, state sanctioned murder.

My viewpoint is simple. We cannot know another's heart, even when we know his or her actions.

I am unwilling to put anyone to death, first and foremost because it is not and never should be my call, because jailhouse conversions really can and do take place, and even absent them, it is not my place to know that person's ultimate soul journey, any more than they could possibly know mine. It is not mine to know.

Secondly, humans are fallible, we get things wrong, and as we have a long and storied history of putting the wrong people to death for crimes they did not commit, I think the death penalty should be abolished once and for all.

Finally, as a fiscal conservative, and yes, it is possible and logical for a political liberal to be a fiscal conservative, the death penalty makes no economic sense.

To keep a prisoner in prison for life is ridiculously expensive, especially maximum security prison, of that we can all agree.

But to sentence that same person to death, and to keep them on Death Row, costs considerably more than to keep them in regular prison, because of the exorbitant cost of the appeals process, the attorney's fees and more.

As just one example:

"Studies of the California death penalty system, the largest in the US, have revealed that a death sentence costs at least 18 times as much as a sentence of life without parole would cost."

Eighteen times more than life without parole. Yeah, that makes a lot of fiscal sense.

And then there's this gem:

"If the death penalty actually deterred crime, then states with the death penalty would be safer than those without. In fact, the opposite is true. Regions with the most executions also have the highest murder rates. What’s more, in states that have repealed the death penalty, there has been no subsequent spike in murder rates. In fact, the murder rate has fallen in New York, New Mexico, Illinois, and Connecticut in the years after they repealed the death penalty."

In the end, however, my decision to reject the death penalty is an ethical and moral choice. As I've alluded to before, we each have a soul journey, unknowable to anyone other than ourselves, and too often we ourselves fail to recognize it for what it is.

From another standpoint, our souls choose the course of our lives, up to and including murdering or being murdered. In point of fact, on a spiritual level, no one can be murdered unless they agree to it on a soul level.

No, this is not comforting for those left behind, nor does it exonerate those who have committed the crimes. And in no way is it victim blaming. But I, and a whole host of spiritual teachers far wiser than I, believe it to be fact. Nothing can happen to us that we have not agreed to on some level.

Then there is the soul journey of the person who has committed the crime.

A few of these people have made such astounding journeys that they have written books or taken on teaching others in such a way that changed lives, that taught others not only not to follow in their paths, but precisely why. This is beyond value.

This reminds me of the 1970s program "Scared Straight," in which at-risk kids who had been arrested for relatively minor crimes such as burglary or simple assault were taken into prisons, to meet the men who had started out much as they were doing, and then laid down the law in none-too-gentle terms as to the futures they were facing should they continue on their present course.

The program was brutal in its honesty, scared the hell out of the kids without being abusive, and the vast majority of kids who went through the program did not become repeat offenders. Many, in fact, vowed never to commit another crime, and some even subsequently worked with at-risk kids themselves. I call that a success story.

It also reminds me of the work of Byron Katie, who has gone into prisons and been left alone at her own request among groups of violent offenders, despite being a relatively petite woman.

Initially, as she describes, none will look at her. Rather than beginning her talk, she remains silent, until the first soul is brave enough to steal a glance in her direction. Finally one does, at which point the spell is broken, then another and another, amid grumbling, cursing along the lines of "Shit, she crazy," and ultimately, laughter.

Then she begins her work.

And before she is done, she thanks each and every man there for the role they are playing, and asks them, to a man, if they believe their time in prison is worth every minute, if it would keep one single kid from following in their footsteps.

And, to a man, they agree that it is.

Every life has value. Every life. Even those our society has chosen to throw away. Even those considered only as marks on the balance sheet of yet another for-profit prison.

Every life. Every. Single. One.

We are not, and cannot claim to be, a truly civilized society as long as we incarcerate people for profit, rather than for justice.

Our "Prison for Profit" system has to come to a close, and soon. It is immoral, unethical, and abhorrent.

We are not, and cannot claim to be, a truly civilized society as long as we put prisoners to death for expedience, rather than for justice.

The death penalty is merely a symptom of the degeneration of our society as a whole. It is a holdover of our lawless past, that deserves no place in our judicial system moving forward, as it has provably outlived its usefulness.

And, like the "Prison for Profit" debacle, it is tainting our spirit, and retarding our growth, as a nation.

This post, and all those from now until the end of 2018, I am dedicating to the work of #tarc and #yah, aka @rhondak's nonprofit dog rescue and @sircork's charity @youarehope.

Half the liquid proceeds earned from my posts will be evenly split between the two organizations, and more when I can manage it.

The photo above was taken by me in October 2009, in Tarpon Springs, Florida, using my Canon PowerShot digital camera.

#haiku #tribegloballove #tarc #yah #ecotrain #thewritersblock #smg #ghsc #thirtydayhaikuchallenge #teamgood #steemsugars #teamgirlpowa #womenofsteemit #steemusa #qurator #steemitbasicincome #bethechange #chooselove #photography #neighbors #beauty #love #animals #dogs #rescue #adoption #spayandneuter #homesteading #permaculture #naturalhealing #dogrescue #dogsofsteemit #rabbits #animals #grace #poetry #philosophy #beablessing #goldenrule #naturalremedy #gratitude #abundance #give #family #peace #tranquility #giving #donating #philanthropy #naturalhealing #pets #cryptocurrency #deathpenalty #criminal #justice #culture #rulebyfear #peacemaking #peacemaker #judgment #judgmentalism #unfair #harsh #cruelandunusual #self-respect #respect #allowing

https://steemitimages.com/0x0/https://tinyurl.com/y93h9wt4

art and flair courtesy of @PegasusPhysics

Us On Discord. https://discord.gg/hPJs5Rb