In The Death of Innocents, Sister Helen goes on at some length about how the Catholic church dropped the words from the Catechism "not excluding, in cases of extreme gravity, the death penalty" (129-130). She argues that since the Catholic church has dropped that qualifier that they're essentially saying that governments shouldn't make exceptions for executions, not for killers of police officers, children, a room full of people (or a concert hall, i.e. Paris last Friday), or terrorists such as Osama bin Laden (who was still alive when this book was published). What do you think about this argument? Why is it not okay to make exceptions for particularly heinous murders?
Use the blog this week to get caught up. It seems like a lot of you hadn't read the chapter on Joseph O'Dell. Please do so. I have been haunted by this chapter. Look at the very end, the email from the "jailhouse snitch" Steven Watson who confessed that he lied about O'Dell's confession (and about how he said that he was threatened w/ 10 years of jail for contempt of course if he recanted his original testimony). Or the fact that the state of VA destroyed the evidence before the defense could get it DNA tested. What is your reaction to this sad story?
I believe Sister Helen said "not excluding, in cases of extreme gravity, the death penalty" because this makes the death penalty an option under certain cases. Those cases where the suspect reaches lowest of the low is where death penalty becomes a viable option. But District Attorneys have the skill to make any suspect seem to be the lowest of the low so nothing changes. By making the death penalty not an option under any circumstance, it removes making death penalty an option.
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ReplyDeleteI believe the only reason to keep someone like that alive they have to have information that would improve or save lives and give it up and work for the government to save lives for the rest of there's.
ReplyDeleteIt is not okay to make exceptions for those kinds of crimes but at the sometime they shouldn't be shoot in the head where they die in no seconds. But they should be locked away where they're by themselves and be lonely, lonely enough to think about all the things they did. Their loneliness and the memories from the crimes they have committed will hunt them down. They are so cruel, that their actions alone showed you that they will never change and deserve no chance and so locking them away where they can have no contact with any relative and friends I believe is worse and definitely a better than just shoot them. "Not excluding, in cases of extreme gravity, the death penalty", has been removed from the Catechism. This now means that no matter how bad a crime is, death penalty is not the answer. Those criminals who are potentially dangerous could be locked up where they cannot escape, death penalty don't have to be apply in order to make the members of the public threat.
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