Page 6 - June July 2017

Michael’s Murder - Capital Punishment Vs Life Imprisonment

Every three years when Benton’s parole hearing takes place, the victim’s sister petitions the Oklahoma parole
board in an effort to keep him incarcerated. Although she did not want his life taken as he took her brother’s life,
she feels that he should serve his total sentence. She reasons that he suffers more for his crime by living his life
in prison, whereas he would suffer very briefly if executed. If Benton lives long enough to serve his sentence
which got reduced to 46 years, a 73 year-old broken-down man will leave prison with no income, and a lot of
worry about survival on the outside.
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My older brother, Michael, should not have died in such a gruesome and tragic manner. However, while it A
seems logical that the state of Oklahoma should have taken Benton’s life, killing him would not have brought P
Michael back.
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Although I still grieve heavily over my brother’s death, I do not believe that the execution of Benton would T
have provided my family and me with relief or closure. Yes, Benton took Michael from us, but the intentional A
taking of a human life by any method, including government mandate, still constitutes murder.
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Judicial Death
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Since 1976, judicial death has claimed the lives of 1,184 Americans with 20 of the executions carried out in
2011. As journalist William Bole questioned, in 1977 countries such as Western Europe and Cambodia stopped U
using capital punishment, so why does the United States still kill in order to demonstrate that killing is wrong? N
When other nations view a practice collectively, the United States takes a different position regardless of the I
consequences.
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In America, 34 states practice the “an-eye-for-an-eye, a-tooth-for-a-tooth” method of retribution against people H
who commit savage and barbaric crimes such as murder. Other than the satisfaction that each stakeholder in an M
execution feels when the killer realizes that his or her own death has arrived, how can we justify committing the
same crime that the offender committed to bring justice and closure to victims’ friends and families? How can E
the murder of a second person correct the murder of the first person when not one, but two or more lives have N
been taken? T

Bedau’s Fantasy Argument

I’ll give an example of the death penalty offered by professor of philosophy, Gary Colwell, where in 2002, he
presents philosopher Hugo Bedau’s fantasy-world argument to establish the morality of the death penalty. What
if the execution of each murderer simultaneously restored the murder victim back to life as if no murder had
ever happened?

Bedau, in his argument, stated:

Consider... an imaginary world in which executing the murderer would invariably restore the murder victim to
life, whole and intact, as though no murder had ever occurred. In such a miraculous world, it is hard to see how
anyone could oppose the death penalty on moral grounds. Why shouldn’t a murderer die if that will infallibly
bring that innocent victim back to life? What could possibly be morally wrong with taking the murderer’s life
under such conditions?

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