Putting the Death Penalty in Context

I’ll admit, it seems odd that you have a person like me who is ardently against partial birth abortion, but doesn’t have anywhere near the same revulsion for the death penalty. But I think I can finally put it in a context that would make sense.

Earlier today, Biswanath Halder was sentenced to 190-some counts for his shooting rampage in the Peter B. Lewis building here at Case Western Reserve University back in 2003. The judge spent two and one quarter hours reading aloud all of the convictions, among which include murder and attempt to kill an officer. The murder conviction makes him eligible to receive the death penalty in the state of Ohio.

I work in the Peter B Lewis building, and know many of the faculty members there. These are people who had their lives turned upside down by an armed lunatic—a man who held a building full of professionals and academics hostage and terrorized them during a six hour standoff. This also constitutes a large contingent of liberals, many of whom one would expect opposes the death penalty.

Yet, when the verdict was handed down this morning, and the realization the criminal would be eligible for the death penalty, I heard no sentiment against the possibility. Perhaps it’s too early and not yet real enough for the folks in the business school to consider the gravity of what it means to have been convicted of 190 criminal counts including murder and be eligible for the death penalty—but the rest seems a mere formality to me. I would be surprised if he wasn’t condemned to death by the judge, and local news analysts seem to agree with me.

And yet I still have yet to hear the ‘rational, progressive’ voice of dissent. I think that much of the blind opposition to the death penalty comes from those who have no context for it. Being terrorized and trapped by a madman in a shootout and day-long standoff seems like adequate context to change one’s opinion.

The only anti-death penalty argument I heard came from a friend afterwards, who hoped that the death penalty would not be handed down. Not because the man didn’t deserve it, but because the man is already 65 years old. Putting him to death will probably result in the flurry of appeals that most anti-capital punishment advocates cite as the economic reason for not putting a man to death. In this case, it may indeed be more expensive to put him to death, given the fact he will live a relatively short time in prison with however many life sentences he receives. Yet, is cost really the issue here? What are the real incentives carrying out a death sentence? Clearly, this argument goes well outside the bounds of basic cost differencing analysis.