Coffeerooms Y(our) Stories

The Death Penalty:
An Eye for an Eye or Thou Shalt Not Kill
by Shannon and Crazydazy

editors note: This topic was also submitted by Mikesgirl

The recent execution of Karla Faye Tucker, confessed murderer and born-again Christian, in Texas, brought the death penalty to the fore of America's consciousness. While the case created such strange political bedfellows as the ACLU and Pat Robertson, debate raged in the classrooms and living rooms across the country.

Is the death penalty just? Is it moral? Should it be legal?
Proponents of the death penalty argue that it is a deterrent for other criminals considering similarly heinous crimes in a way that lifetime imprisonment is not. Since punishment should fit the crime, they argue, the death penalty is an appropriate way of both meting out justice to the criminal and of ridding society of a menace. Opponents argue that the state loses moral authority when it indulges in the same behavior it condemns, and that the death penalty has not proven to be a deterrent for other criminals. And, they add, there is always the haunting spectre of the condemned innocent: people executed for crimes they did not commit.
And as always, the American obsession with race and money is at the fore of the debate. Opponents of the death penalty claim it is racist and classist in its administration; proponents deny this. And debate rages hotly over whether the death penalty is more expensive than lifetime incarceration and how the state should spend its money--as well as the adjoining debate on whether money should be a consideration in matters of life and death.

What do you think? I invite you to join me in this debate on My Two Cents.

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