Is it Justice or is it Revenge?

A prisoner has no right to die. Haugen complains that the state has no right to “take away my will.” Again this begs the question, is death seen as a way to escape his prison?

If so, then death is not the ultimate punishment. The ultimate punishment is a prison cell until 'death do us part.' The death penalty has been called “just another ritual and rituals are about warm and emotional comfort, not cold hearted logic.” I must agree!

There are many arguments for and against the death penalty. One argument against it is that life in prison is a worse punishment and a more effective deterrent. I’m not sure about the deterrent part but it is the best punishment. Another emotional but common sense argument is “why kill people who kill people to show people that killing is wrong?” And Native Americans often used banishment as a punishment for severe offenses. Banishment as opposed to an arrow through the heart! Isolation as opposed to immediate death.

Those that favor the death penalty argue that modern DNA evidence practically eliminates the chances of killing the wrong person. (Practically?) Another in favor argument says there is over population in the prison system. So kill them, to thin out the population?

A third argument in favor of the death penalty says that “prisoner parole or escapes can give prisoners another chance to kill.” That is true, but not statistically accurate. Most parolees don’t kill again. However many prisoners do kill while in prison as our Gary Haugen has done. This argument that parole gives another chance to kill has no logic and is really a non-argument. Most murders are crimes of passion and these killers rarely kill again if paroled. They value their freedom.

For every execution there has to be an executioner; one willing to murder in the name of the law. Again I defer to the bible. John 7:53 to 8:11. It is the passage about the woman caught in adultery and taken to Jesus. The Pericope Adulterae. Jesus says to her would be killers, “Let he who is without sin among you, cast the first stone.” Faced with this decision all her accusers faded away and no one threw a stone. Those who would murder in the name of justice need to read this passage.

If Gary Haugen has a “right to die,” then he must kill himself. For he has no right to make me (the state) his killer or anyone else. In days of old, I'm sure medieval executioners were demented perverts that enjoyed torturing and then killing those accused. But who are the executioners of today? Most are reluctant to participate. Dr Mark Stern, the state corrections doctor, for the state of Washington, quit his job over lethal injections for executions, citing the Hippocratic oath which commands “First do no harm.” Dr. Robert Greifinger, medical director of New York state prisons quit his job over this issue in 1995.

But if modern America has an executioner it would be Dr. Alan Doerhoff who has executed 40 death-row inmates including Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber that killed 168 people. Let the Hippocratic oath be damned. Doerhoff's specialty is lethal injections where he inserts a tube into a vein instead of a needle thereby insuring a proper flow of the deadly cocktail into the blood stream. “It works,” he brags, “every time.”

Oregon has twice outlawed then twice legalized the death penalty. It was overturned by the Oregon Supreme Court in 1981 and restored again in 1984 and has been legal ever since. The first person executed in Oregon was a horse thief, named William Kendal, hanged in Salem when Oregon was only a territory and not yet a state.

The death penalty was made legal by statute in 1864. Oregon has a rich history of killing death-row inmates. Between 1904 and 1994, 115 people were sentenced to death. About half, 58, were actually killed by the state in the name of justice!

Does killing 58 people make Oregonians serial killers in the name of the law? Are we seeking justice or are we seeking revenge? The bible says “thou shalt not kill!”

By Don DuPay

https://sites.google.com/a/pdx.edu/don-l-dupay/the-death-penalty

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Donald Lee Dupay was a police officer for the Portland, Oregon police bureau, from 1961 to 1977. After five years service as a patrol officer Don was promoted to detective where he worked all the specialty units, morals, auto theft, checks, safe, burglary, special missions, and homicide. He was also an officer coach, instructing others on how to be productive detectives and teaching criminal investigation subjects at the police academy. Don witnessed the unintended consequences of the war on drugs that caused some of the officers in his department to become corrupt. Frustrated by that corruption he quit his job as a homicide detective and became the director of security at a major Portland hotel for several years.

Don has long thought we should legalize the so-called "consensual crimes" of drug distribution and use so we can stop killing each other over our failed drug policies. In his presentations Don offers an interesting perspective on additional unintended consequences - "collateral damage" - the countless innocent lives destroyed by drug prohibition.