Capital Punishment Should Serve the People

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Capital Punishment Should Serve the People

Author:

Steve Richards

Topic:

Politics

Posted:

Jun 28, 2001

Comments:

Not long ago, Timothy McVeigh was executed in the United States as punishment for the worst act of terrorism ever committed on American soil. However, notwithstanding President Bush's absurd claims that the execution allowed the victims' families to "begin the healing process", there is one pressing question that remains unanswered: who did this execution help? The victims are still dead. A martyr has been made. An accomplice may have gone free. And, on Tuesday, June 12, the day after McVeigh's execution, Sarah Kinsey, age 14, died in an Oklahoma City hospital for want of a new liver.

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McVeigh's death and subsequent cremation was not only a misguided act of justice, but also a missed opporunity to save a life. There were 183 executions in the United States in 1999 and 2000, and the vast majority did nothing more productive than temporarily sate the bloodthirsty urges of the citizens of the United States of America. Many of these prisoners had perfectly viable hearts, livers, kidneys, and corneas that could have been used to save or significantly improve the lives of others through the modern miracle of organ transplantation. With demand for organ donors vastly exceeding supply, how many hundreds of lives have been squandered since the United States ended its moratorium on the death penalty in 1976?

It has recently been announced that the People's Republic of China has been pioneering the practice of using the organs of the condemned to help the living. For years, with the help of new and innovative execution methods, kidneys, skin, and corneas have successfully been harvested from dead criminals and used to better the lives of those in need. In China, capital punishment is no longer an animal lashing-out against the enemies of society, but a wholesome, constructive act of giving new life.

Now that China has demonstrated beyond the shadow of a doubt the feasibility of harvesting organs from condemned criminals, the obvious next step for the United States is to do the same - but passive harvesting is only a start. The United States executed 98 people in 1999. China, with five times the population, executed at least 1,263 prisoners during the same time period, and almost certainly more. That's more than twice as many executions per capita. This remarkable accomplishment, achieved through strict penalties for violent crime, drug trafficking, and government corruption, provides many more organs to those in need, as well as the additional benefits of low rates of criminal behavior and drug abuse (especially compared to certain other nations).

There is no reason that the United States cannot step up its death penalty convictions to match Chinese levels and achieve the same benefits -- but this won't happen without your help. Write your elected representatives and let them know what you think about the tremendous waste represented by the death penalty as it is used in the United States today. Inform them that you support capital punishment for drug traffickers, a mandatory death penalty for violent criminals, and research on transplant-friendly means of execution.

But please also remember that this is about more than activism and statistics. This is about real people. This is about Timothy McVeigh, about poor Sarah Kinsey, and about how, as different as they were, they shared two things: a time of death -- and a blood type.

	This seems a bit Unethical. There's an alternative (5.00 / 2) (#1)
	by dmg on Thu Jun 28th, 2001 at 04:32:19 PM PST

	Recent advances in cyronics suggest that we may soon be able to freeze human beings, and bring them back to life at a later date. This has serious implications for the way we treat mass murderers and other criminals who currently receive the death penalty. My idea is that instead of executing these criminals, we should put them into suspended animation indefinately. There are many benefits to this approach. 1) We would not need to worry if we got the wrong man by mistake. He could simply be brought back to life when the evidence was reviewed. 2) Certain criminals may have commited crimes due to as-yet unknown medical conditions. It seems unfair to execute them if they were simply ill. With my approach, when such medical conditions are disovered, the criminal could be re-animated and treated before being returned to society. 3) The public are squeamish about the death penalty. It is so final. My approach gives the opportunity to correct any mistakes, hence will be more likely to be accepted by joe average. 4) Cost. The average death-row prisoner costs the US taxpayer $260000 per year spent on death row. The cost of freezing someone is limited to the cost of cooling the nitrogen, and keeping it cool. The USA contains a state (Alaska) which is almost unpopulated, and covered with ice to a depth of over 300 meters. This would be an ideal storage location for the frozen convicts, until such time as we are able to cure them. 5) Social development. A large number of criminals commit their crimes due to social pressures, lack of money, education etc. If Star Trek has taught us anything, it is that such things will not be a problem in the future, as technology will advance making poverty a thing of the past. Criminals convicted for crimes against property could be safely un-frozen and released into public life in the future, once the USA has achieved these socially beneficial conditions. All in all, cyronic suspesion of death-row candidates is humane, fair, and presents yet another example of how technology carefully applied can solve almost any problem or ethical dilemma. time to give a Newtonian demonstration - of a bullet, its mass and its acceleration. -- MC Hawking

	You care about the criminals more than the victims (none / 0) (#5)
	by Steve Richards on Fri Jun 29th, 2001 at 10:22:56 AM PST

	Your post is ridiculous. Not only do you propose that society's worst criminals not be punished for their crimes, but you suggest that their life actually be prolonged beyond that of normal citizens. I will rebut your "reasoning" (it hardly deserves the name) point by point: 1) We would not need to worry if we got the wrong man by mistake. He could simply be brought back to life when the evidence was reviewed. With a judicial system as corrupt as the United States', I can see why convicting innocent men would be a worry. However, using this as an excuse to cripple the very instrument of punishment is absurd. The proper solution would be to strike hard against judicial corruption by instituting the death penalty for official corruption and vigorously prosecuting corrupt officials of all types. 2) Certain criminals may have commited crimes due to as-yet unknown medical conditions. It seems unfair to execute them if they were simply ill. With my approach, when such medical conditions are disovered, the criminal could be re-animated and treated before being returned to society. An "insane" criminal is no different than a rabid dog -- society's only responsibility is to put him down. Furthermore, if he is preserved, it may be possible to cure his "mental illness" at some future point, while if he is executed today, his organs can be used to save the lives of as many as four deserving people who would otherwise die and to treat the physical conditions of countless others. 3) The public are squeamish about the death penalty. It is so final. My approach gives the opportunity to correct any mistakes, hence will be more likely to be accepted by joe average. This is blatantly false. Recent polls show massive support for the death penalty in the United States. Also, don't forget, this is about more than executing killers. This is about poor Sarah Kinsey and all the others who could have been saved by the donation of organs from condemned criminals. Cryogenically freezing criminals removes this possibility. 4) Cost. The average death-row prisoner costs the US taxpayer $260000 per year spent on death row. The cost of freezing someone is limited to the cost of cooling the nitrogen, and keeping it cool. The USA contains a state (Alaska) which is almost unpopulated, and covered with ice to a depth of over 300 meters. This would be an ideal storage location for the frozen convicts, until such time as we are able to cure them. If it costs the United States $260,000 per year to house a prisoner on death row, what makes you think that they could maintain some fantasyland science fiction high tech freezer under the ice in Alaska any cheaper? The sane solution would be to simply cut down on the time that every prisoner spends on death row by drastically restricting the appeals process. 5) Social development. A large number of criminals commit their crimes due to social pressures, lack of money, education etc. If Star Trek has taught us anything, it is that such things will not be a problem in the future, as technology will advance making poverty a thing of the past. Criminals convicted for crimes against property could be safely un-frozen and released into public life in the future, once the USA has achieved these socially beneficial conditions. A criminal that commits crimes against the people's property will always be a danger to society. Not providing a clear and swift deterrent to the enemies of the people is simple creeping liberalism, symptomatic of the kinds of thinking that have given the United States the highest crime rates in the industrialized world.

	Condensed version (none / 0) (#6)
	by Nefarious on Tue Jul 3rd, 2001 at 09:41:11 AM PST

	For those of you who may not have the patience to absorb Steve's diatribe, I'll try to sum up the debate by striking a perfect balance between detail and efficiency. dmg: We shouldn't kill convicts because blah blah blah words words words blah blah. Steve: Suck it down!

	You know,I'd be worried about contaminated blood.. (none / 0) (#7)
	by Anonymous Reader on Sun Jul 8th, 2001 at 10:54:06 AM PST

	If I had a transplant from a vilent criminal like mcvay I wold be worrid that his blood is contaminatid with his sickness foul murdarous genes. How do I know if I will becom a murdarer like mcvay ? Would my helth insoranc covar me for if that happened ? I dobt it. (Please forgiv my speling im A dislexix)

	Executions, transplants, unemployment, ecology (none / 0) (#4)
	by Adam Rightmann on Fri Jun 29th, 2001 at 08:36:09 AM PST

	Well, that is a mouthful of third rail topics, but they do have an underlying theme. The reason that there was such an uproar about the execution was that it was very unsatisfying. The aggrieved kin will feel no release since they did nothing, the murdering doctor will be bothered by his conscience (unless he's already a baby killer), and McVeigh's death served no one. Harvesting McVeigh's organs may help a few people, but not enough. For future executions, I propose the time tested method of stoning. A few tons of the bloodstained rubble from Oklahoma should have been set aside for stoning purposes. Once McVeigh was captured and sentenced, he should have been brought back to Oklahoma City, been surrounded by all the kin of the victims, and brought down by a ceaseless barrage of stones and rubble. The relatives would feel a cathartic sense of relief, no doctor's need be involved, and a valuable lesson would be learned. I'm against harvesting organs from executed people. There would be too few executions to make a difference, unless we increase the number of capital crimes, and any faithful readers of Niven will no where that road goes. My solution is to expand on an existing one, in a way that will provide employment for right thinking Americans and help save the Earth that was so graciously provided for us. We need to expand the American motorcycle industry. We need to make more motorcycles in America, and make more people drive them. I propose we give Federal funds to start motorcycle manufacturing across the country. This has the following benefits. More jobs to right thinking American laborers. Less money flowing our of country to antiChristian, antiAmerican counties like Japan, Italy and Germany (golly, where have I seen those three countries listed together before?). A reduction in youth crimes. Most motorcycle riders will be young men, who commit most of the crimes in the country. They instead will get their jollies by riding motorcycles. Also, youth will be reduced. A great increase in the number of young, healthy available organs. Typically, 70% of the organs available for transplant come from motorcycle accidents (fatal automobile accidents tend to leave little left to harvest). More healthy young men gallivanting on their motorcycles mean more healthy young men being run over by trucks, crashing into trees and generally providing organs. Less use of fossil fuels, saving the Earth that was so graciously provided for us. Well, what do you think? A. Rightmann

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