Death Penalty (cont’d.)
By Jeffrey Page
Regular Zest of Orange readers may recall the ongoing debate I’ve had with myself, and with you, over the issue of capital punishment. I noted last year that I was a lifelong opponent of the death penalty but that I have my limits.
I recall and honor the words of Clarence Darrow in his famous summation in the Leopold-Loeb murder trial of 1924: “You may stand them up on the trap-door of the scaffold, and choke them to death, but that act will be infinitely more cold-blooded whether justified or not, than any act that these boys have committed or can commit.”
But then came Timothy McVeigh and Oklahoma City, and after that came Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and that field in Shanksville, Pa., and I wasn’t sure of much. I still believe that the use of capital punishment relegates society to the same circle of hell as the criminal, and I wonder if I will be relegated to the same circle as McVeigh and Mohammed.
In the names of the children McVeigh murdered in the day-care center in Oklahoma and in the names of the kids aboard the four airplanes brought down by Mohammed on Sept. 11, whatever compassion I once might have held for their killers is gone.
And now comes Steven Hayes, proving to be another test of what once was my rock-solid conviction on the death sentence. He’s on trial in New Haven. This is what the authorities say he did.
–Hayes and an accomplice – he will be tried later – broke into the home of William Petit and Jennifer Hawke-Petit in Chesire, Conn. three years ago. Hayes tied Petit up in the basement after slugging him several times with a baseball bat. He forced Hawke-Petit to drive to the bank and bring back $15,000 while he imprisoned her husband and the couple’s two daughters, Michaela, 11, and Hayley, 17. But he wasn’t finished.
–When Hawke-Petit returned, Hayes raped her. Then he beat her. This is not an allegation; it’s an admission from Hayes’s lawyer in his opening statement to the jury. But he wasn’t finished.
–Hayes murdered Hawke-Petit by strangling. Again, this is something that has gone past the point of allegation. Hayes admitted the killing. But he wasn’t finished.
–Authorities say Hayes and the accomplice, Joshua Komisarjevsky tied Michaela the 11-year old, and Hayley the 17-year old, to their beds. Then they set the house on fire, and the girls died of smoke inhalation.
Steven Hayes’s trial began on Monday in New Haven. In that opening statement, after acknowledging his client’s rape and murder of Hawke-Petit, Hayes’s lawyer wanted the jury to understand that when Hayes was arrested, he told the police that things had gotten out of control.
Gotten out of control? How were things supposed to have gone?
Such people as Steven Hayes make it difficult to despise capital punishment.
When I wrote last year about my opposition to the death penalty becoming shaky, one reader cautioned me that by killing a mass murderer, I might create a martyr. A valid point, but doesn’t society stand a chance of being called an instrument of brutality and torture every time it sentences someone to life imprisonment without parole?
Another reader noted that veering just one step from the straight and narrow path of death penalty opposition makes one a death penalty supporter. I guess that’s true. But indulge me for a moment and let me pose this: If Hitler or Pol Pot were on trial for their crimes, and if there was a conviction and a sentence of death, ought they be spared because we might create a martyr or might let our emotions rule our lives?
What is the extent of compassion ordinary people are supposed to have for someone like Steven Hayes, whose home invasion “went out of control” resulting in the murders of a woman and her two children? Are we supposed to wonder about Steven Hayes’s childhood and whether his father was a scoundrel who abandoned the family or whether his mother used drugs?
Jeffrey can be reached at jeffrey@zestoforange.com
Tags: Jeffrey Page
September 15th, 2010 at 7:40 pm
Mr Page, whose writing, sense of humor, and personal probity I’ve long admired, seems to wander, ever so slightly, from a point of principle toward a one of revenge. Bibical writers, Christian and Jews, note: “Vengence is mine says the Lord, I will repay…”
September 15th, 2010 at 9:28 pm
It costs a pile of money to keep even one prisoner locked up for life, but I think that’s the price we have to pay for integrity. I recall a story I once heard about a woman who visited her son’s murderer in prison and told him, “You have killed my son and now you must take his place.” Supposedly, she visited him in prison frequently, and treated him as she might treat a son. Unfortunately, I don’t know how the story ended. Still, the concept is interesting.
The question you pose, Jeffrey, deals with our immediate problems with the criminal justice system, and our feelings toward it as well as toward the crime, itself. A more far-ranging question might be: Why do we have such a large portion of our population behind bars? Also, why does our society seem to foster such barbaric behavior in so many of our people? Statistically, we lead the world in the percentage of our population that is incarcerated. And Texas….well, what can I say, except that it’s Texas? As was observed during the last papal visit to the U.S., we are a culture of death – at the beginning of life, at the end, and (as we ponder the options) sometimes in the middle.
The older I get, the harder it is for me to dismiss the horror stories we read and hear about. Crimes of passion – and I include religious fervor in this category – are committed by irrational people. But an eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth sentence is a crime of passion, too, in my book. It’s the premeditated, calculated crimes of murder and torture (torture as in waterboarding, etc.) that I find more difficult to be rational about.
September 16th, 2010 at 9:15 am
I’m with you Jeff on this one. I don’t buy into the argument that the death penalty does anything at all to alleviate crime. I do feel that in cases like the one you cited a death penalty sentence is appropriate. I also think we can all get compassion burnout when we hear about these horrible crimes. And, the woman even got them the money! I’m also big time angry about the delay of the cops. The bank people tried to help!
September 16th, 2010 at 9:18 am
Opposition to the death penalty is not about compassion for the criminal. Most persons accused of the heinous crimes warranting the death penalty hardly deserve our sympathy or compassion. Opposition to the death penalty rests on two principles: 1. the continued brutalization of our society by making the public complicit in the death of anyone; and 2. the possiblilty, however remote, that an innocent person may be executed. (The Innocence Project and similar efforts have shown us how many prisoners incarcerated on death row are actually innocent of the crimes for which they were convicted.) Your agonizing about Hayes’ crime, while understandable, is irrelevant. He should be imprisoned for life, with no possibility of parole.
September 20th, 2010 at 8:13 am
Jeff,
I understand your angst. I ascribe, however, to the saying, “Why do we execute people when we know killing is wrong.” Having never had the experience of having someone close to me killed or maimed as a result of of a heinous crime, I am wont to commiserate with those, who indeed, have greatly suffered but can transcend that sense of revenge: in the long run, much healthier for the soul.