The two prisoners who killed South Dakota penitentiary guard Ron Johnson stretch my opposition to the death penalty to the breaking point. (I won't do them the legal courtesy of declaring their crime "alleged.") They are dangerous and seemingly incorrigible. They have demonstrated their escape and reoffense risk. Prior to their murder of Officer Johnson, they stood little chance of parole. Any penalty imposed on the two criminals short of death is a formality.
But the death penalty remains wrong. We will spend more trying to kill these two criminals than we will simply continuing their lifelong lockup. We won't deter crime, certainly not among lost souls who think they have nothing to lose. And we won't do our own souls any good by killing men whom we can control by other means.
I've also argued that capital punishment risks the lives of innocents. That argument doesn't help in this case. Life sentences risk the lives of the innocents in uniform, brave souls like Ron Johnson who do the hard work of enforcing my comfortable moral sensibilities.
But consider (and feel free to pummel) this analogy: last weekend, a young man was killed at his work by a piece of farm machinery. This accident is an awful loss of a good man. That machinery is dangerous. It could kill again. Do we make that workplace safe by destroying the machine? No. We review workplace safety procedures. We install more rails or shields or cut-off switches to protect workers from the lethal components.
(The attentive moral purists in the audience will critique my analogy as an objectification of the human beings who committed the crime. By viewing the criminals as machines, I commit the same moral error they did in viewing Ron Johnson as nothing more than a source of a uniform. I acknowledge this objectification and forge on uncomfortably.)
We do not destroy the machine because its utility outweighs the cost of demolition and replacement. We do not destroy men because life bears moral value, and because we have practical and moral alternatives to destroying them.
Ms. Golden raises the question of the extent to which Officer Johnson's family should have a say over the terms of the murderers' punishment. While Attorney General Marty Jackley acts admirably in briefing the family on the coming prosecution, giving victims' families influence over punishment has its moral and legal limits. Imagine the extremes: suppose the murdered officer's relatives and friends recommended lowering the murderers very slowly into a pool of pirahnas. Or suppose the relatives and friends were all Amish, forgave immediately, became convinced the murderers had converted to Christianity, and demanded the murderers be released to do mission work. We would balk at both suggestions (wouldn't we?). The victim's family has suffered the ultimate loss, but that loss does not convey moral or legal authority beyond the rule of law.
Whatever judge and jury must take this case, those citizens will face serious soul-searching. If at the end of this case they decide that we will kill Ron Johnson's killers, I will have difficulty opposing their decision... but I will oppose it. Capital punishment remains immoral and ineffective. Killing these murderers will do us no good... just as the murder of Ron Johnson did its perpetrators no good.
The number of $50,000 per year rolls around regarding the cost per prisoner for incarceration. Not sure if that's exact, but how can it cost more to put them to death, even with legal costs, rather than keep them for 40 more years. Also, your analogy of farm equipment killing people isn't even close. One was a premeditated act of violence with clear intent to kill another human. The other was a farming accident. My question is why was there only one guard? That's one area where budget reductions can put staff and the public at tremendous risk.
Cory - the day after this cold-blooded murder I opened up the death penalty discussion with my friends on Facebook. Thought it would provoke conversation here if I re-posted my initial remarks here...
"I noticed yesterday in the news how the UN is now pushing for full human rights and protections for bugs and trees. Yet, that same liberal mindset gets mad when you suggest unborn human beings should have full human rights. That same liberal mindset emits no compassion or mercy when a capital punishment is exacted on the judicially innocent (the unborn) yet that same liberal mindset typically opposes the death penalty for the judicially guilty. Here's what the Bible says about this matter... "When the sentence for a crime is not quickly carried out, the hearts of the people are filled with schemes to do wrong." (Ecc. 8:11) This passage says it would be "wrong" to show mercy and the longer people sit on death row, the more we shift our compassion off their victims and onto those who killed violently. For sure, we all need to forgive these types of people and tell them how to get right with God but the government is God's agent to exact justice on the wrongdoer and that means these guys need to hang. Yesterday I checked into our death penalty statutes and legislative history on modes of execution and lethal injection is all about mercy. (We have far more mercy terminating the life of a murderer than we do terminating the life of an unwanted child - we dismember them without anesthesia.) I'd be in favor of bringing back the gallows. Not only is swift justice a deterrent, to do otherwise allows opportunity for schemes to do wrong and misplaced compassion to sneak in."
Civil rights and human rights are hardly synonymous, Rev; yours is just another red state platitude.
Rep. Hickey, thank you for sharing those comments. I would ask our conversation partners to note that despite my liberal mindset, I have not here advocated human rights for bugs or trees. I feel a strong temptation to call for the gallows. Had the guards happened to use deadly force in subduing the murderers, I might have looked the other way. But we've got them, and we can make sure they never move without chains again.
Here are some additional statements from me from last weeks lengthy comment string on this situation...
"There ARE complexities and racial and economic injustices in some capital punishment cases yet none of those factor in here. This is an open and shut case and to think about this taking years in appeals is a further crime against our community."
"Thanks for the dialog everyone, keep it coming. FYI, I am working on a bill to introduce next year requiring the state preserve DNA from crimes as we are one of twenty-some states where there is no statute requiring DNA be preserved. This is important in our pursuit of justice and to ensure certainty of guilt and innocence. Give me more feedback on whether or not we should have lethal injection AND hanging. Two states still have both."
"Even if, when the smoke clears and things settle, even if the family opposes the death penalty, this is a crime against society and if these two remorseless cold-blooded murderers are allowed to sit in jail and kill another guard someday-- what then will we say about not stringing them up now?? They have demonstrated they are not only a grave danger to society, but a grave danger even incarcerated. Time to pass them off to God."
"Wow, I didn't hear he was scheduled to retire in ten days. I imagine he and his wife were looking forward to that as they were surely looking forward to his birthday party that evening with his six grandkids. I did hear his head was wrapped in shrink wrap when other guards found him lying next to the bloody pipe.
"Praying today for the Johnson family and the law enforcement community at the Pen and city PD/ sheriff's dept. Yes I'm a Sioux Falls Police and Minnehaha County Sheriff's Office chaplain and admittedly I am processing this through some of that - yet I figure that all the more justifies my commenting on this in light of Scripture and the justice of God."
"In this conversation people tend to have a hard time separating what they are to do from what the government is to do. I hear, "I could never make the decision to end a life." And to that I say good because it's not your role to get into vindication. But it IS the governments God's-given-Romans 13 role to bring the sword on the wrongdoer. If/when the govt abdicates that role, then I guess we have fully entered into the foretold time when the "restrainer" (govt) is removed from the earth and lawlessness prevails. "
How many times will legislatures defund services at the most basic health care level to at risk youth before red states collapse into puddles of tears?
It is a police power of states to educate and nurture young people in order to prevent the kind of inmate driven to despair. Strap on a pair, Rev. and join the Tim Fountains of the world and put your glutei to work.