The View from a Drawbridge

There are some things that I’m completely certain of. One is that even if someone I dearly loved were brutally murdered, I would plead with the judge and the prosecutors that they not pursue the death penalty for the killer. Even if there was absolutely no doubt whatsoever that the person who was convicted of the crime was the actual criminal, even if the heinous act was on video, in broad daylight, and there were 50 witnesses, and they guy said, “Yup, I did it, I planned it, and I have no remorse,” and turned himself over to the police two seconds afterward, I would still not want the death penalty.

Generally speaking, there are plenty of reasons to oppose the death penalty.

• It is a system that is rigged against racial minorities and the economically underprivileged.
• It is actually a hell of a lot more expensive to put someone on death row than it is to incarcerate him for life.
• It gives criminals the attention that they crave.
• It gives governments the legal power to kill people.
• It allows politicians to decide which states will do this and which won’t.
• It’s embarrassing that we are one of the few countries that still participate in this brutality.
• The party atmosphere around executions is disturbing.
• The methods of execution are not foolproof, and they can therefore be barbaric.
• The death penalty has never been a deterrent to heinous crimes.
• The doctors who participate in executions are going against the Hippocratic oath.
• Killing the murderer does not bring back the victim, and it does not bring closure to the victim’s loved ones.
• You can’t un-kill someone if you later find out that you executed the wrong person.
• Killing someone tortures his or her family, who did not commit the crime.
• A society that deliberately kills human beings cannot claim to respect life, and therefore cannot legitimately take the moral high ground regarding anything else.

Along with all of the above, I am opposed to the death penalty not because I’m some particularly decent, caring, compassionate person. Nor is my opposition due to any religious conviction on my part. It’s not because the lord says vengeance is his.  (Actually, under certain circumstances I can be pretty damned vengeful. Ask anyone who knows me well.) My opposition is based on a strong belief that there are fates worse than death, and I would want the worst possible thing to happen to someone who brutally murdered someone I loved.

I would want the person to get life without the possibility of parole because:

• I’d want him to be locked up and surrounded by people he needs to be afraid of 24 hours a day.
• I’d want him to be lonely and never feel safe and never get to do things like walk barefoot in the grass or go swimming again.
• I’d want people to forget about him.
• I’d want him to realize he has no future, and nothing in particular to live for.
• I’d want him to eat shitty food and never have a moment of peace and quiet.
• I’d want his fellow inmates to beat him up at sporadic and unexpected moments so he would constantly be on edge.
• I’d want him to know that he has no control over any aspect of his life, ever.
• I’d want him to be so endlessly bored that COVID lockdown would seem like a walk in the park to him.
• I’d want him to never be able to pet a dog or go to the movies or eat good pizza or plan a trip.
• Even if, for some reason, he managed to rehabilitate himself inside prison, even if he found religion and became a new man, I’d want him to be forced to accept the fact that his new shining, happy self would still be locked in a tiny little box with no way out.
• I’d want him to know that he will never have a change of scenery. Not ever.

Any of those things is worse than death, and indeed, I’d want him to wish he were dead. Then I’d want him to know that it was me who prevented that from happening. The only way around that would be if he lucked out and someone murdered him as brutally as he murdered my loved one. Otherwise he’d have to do it himself, and it’s a safe bet that he’d never have that kind of courage. He might pretend that he’s not doing it because he doesn’t want to give the world the satisfaction, but in actual fact, he’d know, deep down, without a shadow of a doubt, that the world would be a much better place without him and that would make him feel like the weak and ineffectual loser that he is.

And that knowledge, right there, eating away at his tiny little brain, day after day, year after year, would mean that in all the ways that truly matter, he would already be dead, but without the “resting in peace” part.

The actual death of a body is too much of a release. It is too easy. It’s the end of pain. If you know that you’re a despicable human being, whether you admit it or not, it frees you from being that thing.

It’s life without any autonomy that’s hard. I can’t think of anything worse than being trapped inside a worthless, unloved meat sack that is trapped inside a tiny cell that is trapped inside a hostile environment that is completely out of your control and beyond your ability to escape. And then, while rotting away in that multi-layered prison, having to marinate in the knowledge that your circumstances will never change, as long as you live.

Don’t take away someone’s life. Take away their hope, their future, and any chance for a sense of purpose or possibility. That is what someone who brutally murdered my loved one would deserve.

And that, of course, would be part of my victim impact statement. It wouldn’t even matter to me if he listened or cared. Because the facts would remain, and sooner or later each of those facts would smack him right upside the head.

But let’s face it. The reason we’ve hung on to the death penalty is so politicians can use it as a political pawn to prove that they are tough on crime. We, the people, don’t even figure in their reasoning. They don’t care about us or our definition of justice one way or the other. They just want our votes.

Because of this, it is highly doubtful that anyone would care that I didn’t want the death penalty in a brutal murder case if I had the misfortune of living in a death penalty state. But if they planned to pull those shenanigans, I would be writing all of the above to every media outlet in the country. I’d be shouting it from the rooftops. I would make so much noise and cause so much disruption that the politicians in question would rue the day they ever met me.

You think the death penalty is bad? Just try having a face-off with my righteous indignation and my justifiable rage sometime. Death row might start looking good to you at that point, Bubba.