Matt Hays has a column on FoxNews.com about Why Conservatives Should Oppose the Death Penalty. I felt his column was quite flawed, so I sent him the following:
Your column is thought-provoking, but your logic is flawed. Perhaps by using parallels to what you say, I can demonstrate the problem.
You say: Without addressing the morality of capital punishment, is it not utterly contradictory for a conservative to espouse a government of limited power, but one that can also kill Americans?
Without addressing the morality of imprisonment, is it not utterly contradictory for a conservative to espouse a government of limited power, but one that can also imprison Americans?
Without addressing the morality of war, is it not utterly contradictory for a conservative to espouse a government of limited power, but one that also has a large, powerful military?
Despite the rhetoric that is used sometimes, conservatives are not opposed to all uses of government power. There are legitimate uses of government power, which include protection of our country from external threats (hence general conservative support for a strong military) and protection of our citizens from violent criminals (hence general conservative support for police, prisons, and capital punishment.)
You say: It’s certain that we have executed innocent people in the past, and it’s now just as certain that our courts are, with some regularity, sentencing innocent people to death.
It’s certain that our military has killed innocent civilians in the past, and it’s now just as certain that our military is, with some regularity, killing innocent civilians.
Would you argue that we cannot, therefore, use our military because there is the possibility that innocent civilians would be killed? We, as a nation, have a moral responsibility to try to reduce the number of innoent civilians killed by our military, but as long as we have a legitimate purpose for military action, and are not deliberately targeting civilians, our actions are morally justifiable.
When it comes to capital punishment, yes, there will be some mistakes, and those mistakes are tragedies for the people involved–just as innocent civilians killed by a stray bomb are tragedies–but as long as capital punishment serves a legitimate purpose and we are not deliberately executing innocent people, capital punishment is morally justifiable.
A valid argument against capital punishment would have to focus on whether the purposes capital punishment serves are legitimate–something your column does not do.
You make a big deal of the 78 (estimated) innocent people who have been executed since 1905. Would your argument be the same if, instead of 78, it was only 8? Or 3? Or 1?
If your argument does not apply below a certain threshhold, then we are merely haggling over the number of innocent men who may be executed, and your argument loses all moral force.
On the other hand, if you argue that even one innocent man executed is unacceptable, you are saying that it is better that thousands of guilty men not be executed than that one innocent man be executed. That is a legitimate moral position to take, and there are many who take that position.
However, since no prison is escape-proof (and there are killings of guards and other prisoners), there are people who will die because we did not execute those thousands of guilty men. So your moral position could in fact mean that more innocents will die than would have died had the executions been carried out.
Ultimately, decisions about the death penalty must be made based on whether the legitimate benefits to society of having the death penalty outweigh the negatives. National Review published an article a few months ago that described how the reduction in the use of the death penalty for felony murder may have led to thousands of additional murders. I suggest that you read that article.
(Note: This entry is from my second attempt at a blog, called Spundit.com, and has been transferred here for historical purposes.)
