Where I Stand — Hank Greenspun: A hard look at a hard issue

Friday, May 18, 2001 | 9:42 a.m.

Note to readers: Sun founder Hank Greenspun's last Where I Stand column was written in 1989, the year he passed away. In the following weeks Classic Sun will feature columns written by Hank that still relate to today's headlines. In this column, written on Jan. 20, 1973, Hank writes about how capital punishment played into then-Gov. Mike O'Callaghan's state of the state speech of that year, and his own views on the controversial subject:

To kill or not to kill!

Our good governor, in his state of the state message, has proposed a return to capital punishment. Of course, Mike O'Callaghan being somewhat of a compassionate man, has limited the crimes for which a man can be put to death. The killing of a lawman while on duty or the death of a prison guard were recommended for the extreme penalty.

Few people can have any compunction about dispatching depraved, vicious murderers to another world where they can no longer be a threat to the living, but is this the principle upon which the criminal law was founded?

The law is not supposed to be for vengeance but for the rehabilitation of the criminal and the old biblical axiom of "An eye for an eye" is not for the purpose of revenge but more for compensation.

The biblical interpretation by the sages is that if a man deprives another of his eye he must make restitution in the form of providing for the loss of the eye. And the same holds true with "A life for a life," which has been interpreted to mean that if a man deprives another of his life he must stand in his stead and provide for the family of the man he has killed. Instead of being made to die he should be made to sweat.

Otherwise, it would not be a life for a life but, "A death for a death." Nobody will benefit by the death of both people.

However, there is another theory that might be in the mind of the good governor when he made his recommendations to the Legislature Thursday night.

Some of the legal scholars have interpreted the criminal law in another sense also not founded on the principle of vengeance; but using evil only as a means of preventing greater evil.

With the amount of lawlessness presently taking place in our society, our newspaper experience with the criminal element compels us to side with O'Callaghan.

Normally we would have to say that society in general cannot become killers because there are a few among us, even though there can be no purpose in keeping such criminals alive.

There are many whose potentialities for social rehabilitation are absolutely nil. They place no value on human life except their own and would kill, kidnap, maim and even brutally dismember their fellow men for a price. There is nothing that can be done with such brutal and reckless killers whose entire lifestyles are devoted to preying on society with absolutely no redeeming qualities or personal characteristics.

They are hoodlum barbarians and do not deserve to live. But who among us mortals can decree that another human, even though he be sub-human, should die?

The only rationale for the death penalty is that it can be the most potent aid to law enforcement by keeping the hardened killer off the streets through the bail system or the long drawn-out court processes.

If the killer-for-hire knows the worst penalty facing him is life imprisonment, society faces years of judicial delay and countless sums of taxpayer's monies in trying to convict him. If the alternative is death, the chances are strong that a deal can be made with the prosecution for a plea with life imprisonment as the maximum penalty. It's the fear of death that deters the hardened criminal because he places great value on his own life even while debasing all other life.

As long as the system has no alternatives, there would be little chance for a plea or speedy trial, because the severest sentence is still the most attractive to the criminal after conviction. And a trial always presents some hope of escape from any penalty.

If there is no gas chamber or electric chair down the road there is little chance of getting these animals, these depraved monsters off the streets.

So we have to go along with the governor where we might have been in disagreement a few years ago.

Crime is the number one problem in the nation, so in the interests of a more secure society and the protection of our entire legal system, we have no alternative but a return to capital punishment.