Capital Punishment: Emotions vs. Ethics
by Chrystal McChesney
ABSTRACT
Books are written, statistics are gathered and facts are printed on charts and spreadsheets every day on the crime of murder and its punishments. One can find information on most any angle of the topic from who killed whom to how they were punished. What is more difficult to find, and not as often written about, is the why behind the crime. Not all murders are criminals, but they all have committed a crime.
Murder is a capital crime, but does not always deserve capital punishment. Through my personal experiences I have written this research paper with the hope that others understand that the circumstances behind the crime often change the guidelines for the punishment, but do not excuse the crime.
Capital Punishment: Emotions vs. Ethics
At age 21 I thought my opinions about topics such as capital punishment were concrete and that nothing could ever change them. Not being a particularly religious person, I believed strongly in the old “eye for an eye” theory. Therefore, when I was picked to serve on the jury in a capital murder case with the death penalty being a very real option as a sentence for the defendant, I had no qualms about strongly saying “yes” to the judge’s question regarding me being able to vote for the death penalty if I felt sure he was guilty. Who knew that 6 years later I would find myself playing a different role in the same type of play? I was out of the jury box and into the first row behind the defendant as a family member of the accused murderer. All of a sudden, my black and white views on right and wrong were smeared to gray as I realized there was more to it than just guilt or innocence.
Three weeks of testimony, over 100 pieces of evidence and countless witnesses as well as 2 full notebooks of notes taken by me during the trial gave me the evidence and strength I needed to consider the death penalty appropriate. Of course, the defendant was a stranger to me. I knew nothing more than his name and the story told to us as jurors by the prosecutor and testifying witnesses. Words such as “murder and punishment” rang in my head making me ask myself, “How could anything less than the death penalty be right?” It seemed so cut and dry. Taking a life is wrong and illegal.
Certain crimes are so vicious, so heinous that they produce an almost universal revulsion and moral outrage. In the face of crimes such as these, some people believe, it is appropriate – indeed necessary – for society to express its outrage by seeking retribution, by punishing the perpetrator in the most sever way possible. And that way, of course, is to kill him or her. (Wolf 64)
However, upon hearing the words “aunt, shot, uncle, dead, jail” my mind immediately sought out excuses for the crime instead of jumping straight to a verdict and punishment. Right and wrong went out the window and emotion stepped in. The defendant from the trial raped and strangled a girl because he was a criminal. My aunt had to kill her husband to escape a life of mental and physical abuse. See the difference? When I heard my aunt’s reasons for her actions the death penalty seemed extreme and absurd. This is where the gray area begins.
I was at the end of my rope and must have decided I could not
take one more day of it. I don’t
remember actually killing him, but I did. It
didn’t feel like a crime at the time, just a way out.
(Finley)
These
were two different people, with two different backgrounds, that committed the
same crime for different reasons but had the possibility of receiving the same
punishment. Capital punishment is
described a “punishment by death for capital crimes” (Black’s 144).
There is no mention of differentiating between crimes and no exceptions
listed for reasons the crime was committed.
The definition is as cut and dry as my opinion used to be.
At the
end of the trial in which I served as a juror, the lead prosecutor made several
statements in an effort to convince us that the death penalty was the only
reasonable sentence we could hand down to this man if we indeed found him
guilty. My notes from his closing
arguments reflect phrases such as, “in cold blood, unsuspecting victim, does
not deserve to live either” and “only the right thing to do.”
Of course, this was his job and he did it well.
The prosecution had proven to me that the defendant was obsessed with his
victim, found a way to be alone with her, raped her to satisfy his curiosity
about her and then killed her to cover this up.
From the proof of careful planning of the rape and disposal of the body,
it is clear that he understood the crime and the penalty it carried.
The events that lead to her murder as well as the history of the
defendant being obsessed with her was all I needed to be sure he deserved the
death penalty and that his sentence would be a message to others.
I fully believed that handing down a death penalty to him would be a
deterrent to others who might consider committing the same crime.
By having a death penalty, society sends out a message that
murder is so unacceptable
that it is punishable by the ultimate sanction; this is a message we all absorb,
so that intuitively, without thinking about it, we understand that we should
avoid committing murder at all costs. (Wolf
66)
Did my
aunt understand this when she pulled the trigger? She says she didn’t think about it being a crime.
As an adult in her late 40’s she knew right from wrong enough to
understand this was an extreme measure to take, and an end to a means that would
carry great consequences. Studies have shown that women who are victims of domestic
violence often reach a breaking point and snap, not stopping to consider the
penalty involved. This is the case
with my aunt. Although she says she
has no recollection of the actual shooting, she immediately came to her senses
afterwards and called 911 for help. When
I asked her what she was feeling as she sat on the sofa waiting for the
ambulance and police to arrive and watched the blood from his head soak into the
carpet, she surprised me with her quick response of, “Relief.”
As did
the family and friends of the defendant in the trial I served on, we gathered
around my aunt in support while listening in disbelief as her attorney explained
her different options and the penalties each would carry.
We
understood that she had killed someone…but it was Toby!
Everyone knew how he had treated her for years.
I guess we were expecting them to understand and just let her go with a
light slap on the wrist. After all,
it just as easily could have been her in that morgue at the hands of him.
(Hall)
I never
did any research about why people commit murders when I sat on the jury.
I figured it was up to the attorneys to tell me that.
But when it was family, I hit the books.
The graphic tales of domestic violence that I read about usually did not
have the same ending as my aunt’s tale. Just
as Brenda Hall alluded in her statement, it was usually the man who went too far
and ended up killing their spouse instead of just abusing them.
Marital
homicide differs significantly by gender: a large proportion of the killings by
women are acts of self-defense, while almost none of the killings by men are
acts of self-defense. (Florida)
When women
do kill, and they do so at astonishingly lower rates than men who commit 85% of
all homicides, the vast majority kill family members, usually men who have
battered them for years. As many as
90% of the women in jail for killing men had been battered by those men.
(Bass)
With
age and education I now understand that capital punishment is not the only
punishment that fits a crime such as murder. I have experienced two sides to the
same story. Do I still believe the
defendant from the trial I served jury duty in deserved the death penalty for
murdering his victim? Given what I
know, yes. Do I still believe the
death penalty should not have been an option in the case of my aunt murdering my
uncle? Given what I know, yes.
My view of capital punishment as one answer for one crime, regardless of
the circumstances behind it, has broadened quite a bit.
I no longer immediately sentence people in my mind when I hear of a
murder they have committed without knowing the details surrounding it.
Seeing the difference through the eyes of my aunt has changed my opinions
forever.
I wasn’t like some of those other women.
Yes, they had also killed their boyfriends or husbands, but that didn’t
make us the same. We each had a
different story behind our deeds. (Finley)
So, how
did these two stories end? The
actual issue of the death penalty was never decided on. The jury I sat on ended up a hung jury on the issue of guilt
(11 to 1 vote.) We never even
discussed a possible sentence. All
of that confidence I had in my ability to vote one certain way never came to
light. As for my aunt, the prospect
of putting her children on trial in defense of either her or her late spouse was
too much for her. She had a nervous
breakdown during jury selection and at the sight of the murder weapon.
When she came out from under sedation 3 days later she took a plea
bargain for 8 ½ years. While her
family and attorney tried to convince her that she might have gotten off with no
time at all, she felt that she should be punished in some way and took the plea
bargain. The light sentence of 8 ½
years resulted from the judge receiving a letter from a sister of the victim
detailing a history of abusive behavior toward my aunt and reiterating the fact
that it would have probably been my aunt dying at the hands of my uncle in one
of his common fits of rage had she not killed him first.
I am
not saying that murder is acceptable in any circumstance. Nor do I believe that murderers should to unpunished.
But now I have seen two different sides of the same crime and understand
that although many people think in terms of right or wrong, life is mostly about
the gray areas that can’t be so easily categorized.
Bass,
Allison. “Women far less likely to kill than men; no one sure why.” The Boston Globe.
24 February 1992: 27.
"Capital Punishment.” Black’s Law
Dictionary, Abridged. 6th ed. 1993.
Florida Governor’s Task Force on Domestic and Sexual
Violence. Florida
Hall, Brenda. Personal Interview. 10 March 2002.
Wolf, Robert V. Capital Punishment. Philadelphia:
Chelsea House Publishers, 1997.
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