Death to the Death Penalty

The United States isn’t the country with the most legal executions in the world; that depressing honor goes to Iran. But the United States do hold the top spot in the Western Hemisphere for uses of the death penalty. The most recent one was performed last week, when Troy Davis, a 33-year-old* black man, received a lethal injection in Georgia. He was accused of killing a police officer in 1989. Davis maintained that he was innocent until the very end, and he was supported by serious doubts: The only evidence against him were nine testimonies, seven of which corrected their original version.

The tenacity with which the United States holds on to this anachronistic punishment is shocking. It is headed toward disappearance — it was banned in Germany in 1949, in Great Britain in 1969, in France in 1969 and in Spain in 1995. In contrast, the United States, which had abolished it, began to allow it once again in 1976. Between then and January 2011, it has executed 1,270 prisoners.

Not only are the numbers shocking (almost three a month), but so is the racial distribution. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, even though the number of whites executed doubles the number of blacks, when the victim of a crime is white, it triples the chances that capital punishment will be used. And what’s more: At the beginning of 2011, there were 3,251 on death row; of those, 54 percent were black or Hispanic.

There are many arguments against the death penalty, and they have all been wielded. The pope reminded us, when he opposed the execution of Davis, that only God can take life away. Others denounce it as an extreme example of cruelty, whose very existence violates human dignity. From an ethical point of view, it seems to be a legalized form of revenge — an act of retaliation in disguise. Furthermore, it has always been said that an irreversible punishment requires an infallible judge, something that does not exist in the imperfect human world.

In addition to philosophical concerns, scientific reasons abound against the ultimate punishment. Eighty-eight percent of criminologists agree that statistically speaking, the death penalty does not reduce the incidence of homicide. It is lamentable that such a cruel, inhumane and useless institution persists, and that some congressmen in Colombia are supporting it for certain crimes.

*Watching America Note: Troy Davis was 42 years old at his execution.