To the Editor:
Re “Executions Ensure ‘Justice Is Being Done’” (Op-Ed, July 28):
Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey A. Rosen rightly observes that the death penalty is “a difficult issue for many Americans on moral, religious and policy grounds.” Yet his justification of the first three federal executions last month in 17 years on “straightforward” legal grounds fails to outweigh the moral, religious and policy objections.
In the federal system, the final decision to seek the death penalty rests with the attorney general. It’s discretionary, not legally mandated, and bills are pending in Congress that would abolish the practice.
Our government should stop catering to the assumed desire for vengeance by victims’ families. It should recognize the tendency of our broken legal system to execute disproportionately people of color, who most often cannot afford competent representation in court.
More important, federal and state governments should acknowledge the biblical injunction that killing is wrong, whether committed by an individual or by a government.
We need to tell the attorney general to stop the killing in our name.
L. Michael Hager
Eastham, Mass.
The writer is a co-founder and former director general of the International Development Law Organization, Rome.
To the Editor:
If executing a murderer would restore the victim’s life, few could oppose it. If capital punishment were a certain deterrent, we would have to consider it seriously, but proponents have never been able to prove this.
What remains are revenge and retribution and the claim that capital punishment alone constitutes “justice” for the victim and victim’s family. This definition of justice is entirely arbitrary, and most modern democracies have left it behind on the road to civilization.
We admonish our children that two wrongs do not make a right, whether in large matters or small. Killing is wrong.
The reason capital punishment cannot be fairly administered is that it is inherently inhumane, no matter who does the killing and by what means. State execution, with its cold calculation and pretense of sterility, higher morality and regrettable duty, is simply murder by another name.
Judy Olinick
Middlebury, Vt.
To the Editor:
Nowhere does Jeffrey A. Rosen mention the some 165 people who reportedly were wrongly convicted and sentenced to death since 1973, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
There are numerous cases in recent years of death penalty convictions being overturned because of false evidence. While I appreciate the need for closure of the victims’ families and the need for justice, at best there is too great a potential for error aside from any moral issues one may have.
Henry Brezenoff
West Orange, N.J.