THE DEATH PENALTY IS JUSTIFIED

THE DEATH PENALTY IS JUSTIFIED

1. CAPTIAL PUNISHMENT DETERS “ACTS OF WAR” AGAINST CIVILIZED SOCIETY

George Pataki, Governor of New York, 1997

DEATH PENALTY IS A DETERRENT, http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/Articles/Pataki.htm

I know, as do most New Yorkers, that by restoring the death penalty, we have saved lives. Somebody's mother, somebody's brother, somebody's child is alive today because we were strong enough to be tough enough to care enough to do what was necessary to protect the innocent. Preventing a crime from being committed ultimately is more important than punishing criminals after they have shattered innocent lives.

No case illustrates this point more clearly than that of Arthur Shawcross. In 1973, Shawcross, one of New York's most ruthless serial killers, was convicted of the brutal rape and murder of two children in upstate New York. Since the death penalty had been declared unconstitutional, Shawcross was sentenced to prison. After serving just 15 years-an absurd prison term given the crime-he was paroled in 1988. In a horrific 21-month killing spree, Shawcross took 11 more lives. That is 11 innocent people who would be alive today had justice been served 24 years ago; 11 families that would have been spared the pain and agony of losing a loved one. By reinstating the death penalty, New York has sent a clear message to criminals that the lives of our children are worth more than just a IS-year prison term. Moreover, it has given prosecutors the legal wherewithal to ensure New York State never has another Arthur Shawcross. Applying the ultimate punishment Too often, we are confronted with wanton acts of violence that cry out for justice. The World Trade Center bombing and the murderous rampage on the Long Island Rail Road by Colin Ferguson are but two examples. The slaying of a police officer in the line of duty is another. To kill a police officer is to commit an act of war against civilized society.

Roger Clegg, General Counsel; Center for Equal Opportunity, 2001

THE COLOR OF DEATH, http://www.nationalreview.com/contributors/clegg061101.shtml

The fact is that capital criminals don’t look like America, and no one should expect them to. No one is surprised to find more men than women in this class. Nor is it a shock to find that this group contains more twenty-year-olds than septuagenarians. And if — as the left tirelessly maintains — poverty breeds crime, and if — as it tiresomely maintains — the poor are disproportionately minority, then it must follow — as the left entirely denies — that minorities will be “overrepresented” among criminals. Heather Mac Donald sums up the figures that bear all this out: “Males between the ages of 14 and 24, less than 8 percent of the population, commit almost half the nation’s murders; black males of the same age, less than 1 percent of the population, committed some 30 percent of the country’s homicides in the 1990s.”

Thomas R. Eddelman, 2002

TEN ANTI-DEATH PENALTY FALLACIES, http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/2002/06-03-2002/vo18no11_fallacies.htm

The claim that the death penalty unfairly impacts blacks and minorities is a deliberate fraud. The majority of those executed since 1976 have been white, even though black criminals commit a slim majority of murders. If the death penalty is racist, it is biased against white murderers and not blacks. According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, blacks committed 51.5% of murders between 1976 and 1999, while whites committed 46.5%. Yet even though blacks committed a majority of murders, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reports: "Since the death penalty was reinstated by the Supreme Court in 1976, white inmates have made up the majority of those under sentence of death." (Emphasis added.) Whites continued to comprise the majority on death row in the year 2000 (1,990 whites to 1,535 blacks and 68 others). In the year 2000, 49 of the 85 people actually put to death were whites.

WAR ON TERROR IS JUSTIFIED BY THE POST 9/11 ERA; SUPPORTS HUMAN RIGHTS

1. RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN THE WAR ON TERROR SERVE HUMAN PROGRESS

John Gray, 2005

NEW STATESMAN, accessed on May 5, 2005, http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FQP/is_4722_134/ai_n9487577

It is no accident that torture has been reintroduced by the world's pre-eminent liberal state. To be sure, torture is used by many regimes--not only those inspired by liberal ideals. It is routinely employed in tyrannies and the ramshackle failed states that litter the globe; but only in liberal states is it part of a crusade for human rights. Liberalism is a project of universal emancipation, and torture will be necessary as long as the spread of liberal values is resisted. When the Bush administration authorises the use of torture, it does so in the cause of human progress.

2. THE STAKES IN THE WAR ON TERROR WARRANT VIOLATING LEGA PROTECTIONS

John Gray, 2005

NEW STATESMAN, accessed on May 5, 2005, http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FQP/is_4722_134/ai_n9487577

The intensifying war in Iraq looks like being a watershed in modern history. Critics of the war have focused on the suffering it has involved and pointed to a number of errors that have been made in the course of the country's ongoing reconstruction. The suffering and mistakes are real enough, but they should not be allowed to conceal the much larger change of which the war is a part. Liberal societies are evolving rapidly to a higher stage of development, in which many traditions will become obsolete. Under the aegis of the world's most advanced liberal state, torture and collective punishment have once again become normal practice in the conduct of war. To some this may seem anomalous, even contradictory. In reality it is the inner logic of liberal values applied in a time of unprecedented transformation. Liberalism is a universal creed and the crusade for freedom cannot be fettered by archaic legal procedures. Treaties such as the Geneva Convention may have served the cause of freedom in the past, but today they are obstacles to liberal values. A global revolution is in progress in which such quaint relics have no place.

3. CONGRESSIONAL OVERSIGHT HAS VERIFIED THAT PROSECUTING THE WAR ON TERROR HAS NOT INFRINGED ON CIVIL RIGHTS/LIBERTIES

Paul Rosenzweig, Senior Legal Research Fellow (Heritage Foundation), 2004

CONGRESSIONAL TESTIMONY, accessed May 5, 2006, http://www.heritage.org/Research/LegalIssues/tst031904a.cfm

I believe that a governing rule for assessing our response to terror can be readily summarized from the writings of Chief Justice Rehnquist. He wrote: “In any civilized society the most important task is achieving a proper balance between freedom and order. In wartime, reason and history both suggest that this balance shifts in favor of order – in favor of the government’s ability to deal with conditions that threaten the national well-being. Thus far, I believe we have succeeded in meeting that goal. With respect to the Patriot Act (now using those words in the narrower and technical sense of a particular law), the record is, in fact, one of success. The Inspector General for the Department of Justice has reported that there have been no instances in which the Patriot Act has been invoked to infringe on civil rights or civil liberties. This is consistent with the conclusions of others. For example, at a Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on the Patriot Act Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE) said, “some measure of the criticism [of the Patriot Act] is both misinformed and overblown.”

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