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When death is the proper penalty
by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News
Dec. 13, 2005
Many kept a death watch for Mr. Tookie Williams, who was killed this morning by California, by lethal injection. Small children wanted to read more of his books. Distressed communities worried about the silencing of an effective voice for peace in their communities. Spiritual, community and national leaders from around the world implored the Governor of California to extend the mercy of his office with clemency. Never has there been a better time to consider what role, if any, the death penalty can play in a civilized society.
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Dr. Herb Ruhs & grandson
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I have zero patience with those deluded individuals who seek to use the power of the state to exact revenge. For those who profess a belief in a personalized God, let me remind them that "vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord." For people sincere in that belief system, attempting to hijack the prerogatives of the divine is sacrilege.
However, I retain an open mind on the issue of the use of the death penalty where it can be argued that its use will prevent additional crimes. Which is rare indeed.
Those who have proven that they are capable of heinous crimes can be compassionately and safely confined for the remainder of their lives. For everyone I am aware of who sits in a death row at this time, commutation to life without possibility of parole would seem to meet the need for prevention and humane treatment.
There is also the demonstrable problem of those falsely convicted of capital crimes. Our demented, so called "justice system," in the voice of that grotesque embarrassment that is our Supreme Court, has determined that proven innocence is no barrier to imposition of a death penalty. The death penalty, as it is currently administered in the US, is thus revealed as lynching by other means in the service of greater power for scoundrels and demagogues.
The first order of the business of restoration of humane values in our society is to dismantle this barbaric system. Once that is accomplished, once individuals who are capable of deadly violence are safely restrained, once the fears of victims are adequately addressed by society's iron-clad assurance that individual perpetrators will not be allowed to inflict further violence, once our system of justice is in the hands of people with integrity, honesty and humanity, only then can we consider any other possible situations where the death penalty can be imposed with humane reason.
Given that a just society has been made to function properly, I would submit that there is a category of perpetrator who might best be dealt with in a summary manner. Namely, those individuals who are parts of combinations that continue to use their power to subvert law and decency, who continue to commit crimes of conspiracy against humanity, seem to me to be reasonable targets for the final punishment. These individuals cannot be said to be safely incarcerated because their partners who remain free can be expected to try to subvert the system, likely through the use of further measures of mass violence and terror, in order to secure their release. Such individuals are a threat to lawful individuals but, more importantly, they truly are a threat to the fabric of a just society itself.
I assert that a just society would need to consider the use of the death penalty in those cases where the convicted person remains an active threat by virtue of their connections to active conspiracies against justice. Mass murderers who committed their crimes as parts of organized entities come to mind. Human considerations restrain my call for definitive justice to only those who sit in the highest ranks of such conspiracies. People who can reasonably be considered a continuing threat, that can not reasonably be restrained by life sentences, whose continued existence will serve as a rallying point for groups of demented individuals wishing to conspire together to secure their release, who have access to wealth and power of a degree that can challenge the power of the state, whose continued existence can be reasonably be considered a threat to the lives of innocents, these individuals, I submit, can be considered for execution for the protection of the rest of us.
High-ranking war criminals would be such a category of individuals who might best, and most humanely, be dealt with in this way. Corporate leaders who have been shown to have conspired in the deaths of masses of individuals, people who have misused their power and wealth to kill in the pursuit of massive profits, are another category of candidates who, in a truly just society, might reasonably and humanely be considered for the ultimate penalty. Punishment of the weak and deranged cannot be shown to be a deterrent to crime. Punishment of the powerful, however, can be a forceful deterrent.
Whereas the poor and weak can be considered to have been safely incarcerated, rich and powerful perpetrators cannot be reasonably considered to have been neutralized by mere incarceration. People who are willing to use enormous power to perpetrate their crimes can be considered to have received a proportional punishment when put to death. Those who are tempted to reassert their political and military power, achieve their escape, or control active criminal cabals from within prison, could be considered for execution as a means of harm reduction for the mass of innocent victims who are threatened.
To my knowledge, no-one currently facing the death penalty anywhere in the world, in any system of justice currently in action, can be considered to be facing a just punishment as outlined in the above arguments. However, it seems a compelling argument that many individuals who are currently exercising power in the world in evil ways would be excellent targets for elimination, for the sake of the children, the weak, and the just, for the sake of survival of a just society.
Always remember to never say never or always. The healthy critical faculty does not close doors in the service of ideology. The answers are written in greys, not in blacks and whites.
© by the author.
What do you think?
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Whereas the poor and weak can be considered to have been safely incarcerated, rich and powerful perpetrators cannot be reasonably considered to have been neutralized by mere incarceration.
People who are willing to use enormous power to perpetrate their crimes can be considered to have received a proportional punishment when put to death.
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Previous articles by this author:
The revolution this time
by Herb Ruhs, MD
The good tidings and the bad
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Health care in America: An ongoing, massive con game
by Paul Krugman, The New York Times
with comments by Herb Ruhs, MD
Competition: Destroyer of character
by Herb Ruhs, MD
America without the myths
by Herb Ruhs, MD,
To dream the impossible dream
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Refusing to see the obvious
by Maureen Dowd, The New York Times
with comments by Herb Ruhs, MD
What can we do? Rhetorically speaking, that is.
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Banned in Cloverdale, by Herb Ruhs, MD
All of us are being fatally poisoned
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Daubert is the most influential Supreme Court ruling you've never heard of
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Enough already
by Herb Ruhs, MD
War is sometimes justified, often not, but always insane
by Herb Ruhs, MD
The bad news is the same as the good news
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Trying to control your emotions "can make you pretty stupid"
by Herb Ruhs, MD
The gangsters' mentality
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Nietzsche, New Orleans, and 'Nam
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Four decades in five minutes
by Herb Ruhs, MD
The masquerade of "civilization"
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Habits of successful modern cannibals
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Face these horrors with acceptance, equanimity, humor
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Yet another, higher dose of pain
by Herb Ruhs, MD
The war of one against all:
The roots of our enslavement
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Doctors, medicine, hospitals, and the rest of the story
by Herb Ruhs, MD
System of privilege expands in scope and overall power
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Highway robbery turns out to be legal after all
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Class warfare, anyone?
Why class war is not a fiction but a fixture of our lives
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Why the little-known news is the most important
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Why "Free Speech" does not matter
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Big pharma
by Herb Ruhs, MD
The genius fish and other comments
by Herb Ruhs, MD
When all else fails, try the truth
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Childhood abuse and the role it plays in maintaining coercive power
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Murder by medical device
by Herb Ruhs, MD
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