New York Times: Mentally Retarded Man Facing Texas Execution Draws Wide Attention (via metafilter) Actually, it more like world wide attention. Go ahead and read the links, I’ll wait right here…
You know, I really kind of hate the idea of this country allowing someone like that to slip through the cracks so as to harm other members of society. This points more towards issues of mental heath care and the Department of Social Services in Texas, inability to manage heath risks such as this. I won’t even insert Bush bashing here, though I really could. I really believe that this person should have been under the proper care and supervision in the first place. Why? because… people like this are our problem, our liabilty, and our responsibility. We owe it to them not to allow them to harm any other member of society and we owe it to society not to allow people like him to harm them. This type of system is not free! It’s going to cost a lot of money, but it probably would have cost less to manage this man all of his natural life, then it would to maintain his physical and legal expenses on death row for 20 years. Further, this problem will never take care of itself. Now, the world is without one very prominent and promising young white woman and (soon) one very retarded man.
I cannot tolerate the fact that we are allowing the government to murder members of society. I do not trust the political, judicial, or any other entity established by our government not to personalize an issue such as this. Hence, this is the real key to the debate on the death penalty. Personalization. No one, in my opinion, can prevent themselves from personalizing decisions made that determine the nature of a punishment as final as the death penalty.
I’ve never heard a death penalty argument (either pro, or con) that is strictly empirical and impersonal. They always start, or end with: “If your (insert relative here) was (insert henous crime here), what would you want done?” Good god, has anyone thought that that is exactly what jurors are doing? Doesn’t anyone else realize that capitol cases are what help advance the prosecutors political careers via the extended publicity? Does anyone else realize that very rich and powerful law firms donate legal talent to defend capitol criminals because of the great publicity? Isn’t anyone else uncomfortable with construct that we have given our government the power to determine the life and death of it’s citizens? Finally, what system other than appeals, have we established to make sure that an innocent person isn’t put to death? How about this for personalization: If I was an innocent man standing accused of a capitol crime, facing death… my life in the hands of lawyers and career politicians, I would try and find a way to take my own life. Unfortunately for this man, he doesn’t have that as an option… he’s far to retarded to even understand what he’s facing.