Death penalty has no place in civilized society

ON DISTANT SHORE
By Val G. Abelgas 

Proposals to bring back the death penalty in the Philippines were revived last week following the gruesome killing of UST honor graduate Cyrish Magalang in Cavite. Magalang was stabbed 49 times.

In California, it is the other way around. Proposition 34, which was one of several people’s initiatives up for approval or rejection by voters last Tuesday, sought to abolish the death penalty in the state and to replace it with life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

California is one of 33 states in the United States that still impose capital punishment or the death penalty. The US, along with China, Iran and Vietnam, accounted for 97% of all global executions in 2004.

The Philippines, on the other hand, is one of 139 of 192 countries all over the world that have abolished the death penalty from their statutes. It is the only country in Asia that does not impose the death penalty.

Both the Philippines and the US have at one time or another suspended or resumed capital punishment.

Capital punishment was banned by the 1987 Constitution in the Philippines except for certain heinous crimes. In 1993, during the term of President Fidel V. Ramos, the death penalty was revived although the first execution was carried out by lethal injection during the term of President Joseph Estrada. In 2000, Estrada called for a moratorium on the request of his spiritual advisor, Bishop Teodoro Bacani.

On April 15, 2006, Congress passed Republic Act 9346 that re-abolished the death penalty and in June that year, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo commuted the death sentences of 1,230 death row inmates to life imprisonment of a minimum of 30 years.

And now, the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption is pushing for the revival of capital punishment as a deterrent to crime. VACC said it has noted an upsurge of violent crimes in recent years.

Proponents of the death penalty all over the world cite its role as a major deterrent to crime as the primary reason capital punishments should be imposed. However, such claims have no basis in fact. In the Philippines, for example, according to Sen. Joker Arroyo, a longtime human rights lawyer and activist, the revival of the death penalty from 1993 to 2004 did not bring the number of violent crimes down.

In the US, Texas has had the most number of executions for years, but is still ranked 13th in the country in violent crimes and 17th in murders per 100,000 citizens.

The American Civil Liberties Union said there is no credible evidence that the death penalty deters crime more effectively than long terms of imprisonment.

“States that have death penalty laws do not have lower crime rates or murder rates than states without such laws. And states that have abolished capital punishment show no significant changes in either crime or murder rates,” it said.

There is no evidence that serial killers and rapists would consider their death by lethal injection or in the gas chamber prior to committing crimes. Law enforcement experts say criminals usually operate with the belief they will not be caught.

Proponents also claim that “deserved punishment protects society morally by restoring this just order, making the wrongdoer pay a price equivalent to the harm he has done.” Abolitionists, however, counter: “To kill the person who has killed someone close to you is simply to continue the cycle of violence which ultimately destroys the avenger as well as the offender.”

The biggest argument against the death penalty, however, especially in the Philippines where the judicial system is far from ideal, is the real possibility that a wrongly convicted person could be put to death for a crime he did not commit but was unable to defend himself in court because of various factors, including inadequate legal representation by court-appointed defense attorneys, serious flaw in police investigative work, racial prejudice, political pressure to solve a case, and misrepresentation of evidence.

In the US, which boasts of one of the best judicial systems in the world, it has been established that two out of three death penalty convictions have been overturned on appeal because of police and prosecutorial misconduct.

Proponents of the abolition measure in California cited the case of Cameron Willingham who in 2004 was executed in Texas for an arson that killed his children. Impartial investigators established later, however, that there was no arson and that Willingham was wrongly convicted.

US Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, in introducing the National Death Penalty Moratorium Act of 2000 said: “It is a central pillar of our criminal justice system that it is better that many guilty people go free than that one innocent should suffer… Let us reflect to ensure that we are being just. Let us pause to be certain we do not kill a single innocent person. This is really not too much to ask for a civilized society.”

In the Philippines, which has one of the worst law enforcement and judicial systems in the world that even President Aquino had expressed his doubts on the ability of courts to render fair judgments, one can just imagine how many in its Death Row really deserve the capital punishment.

Proponents of Proposition 34 in California suggests that instead of death penalty, those convicted of certain violent crimes should instead be sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole and made to work while in prison, with a big portion of their pay given to victims or victims’ kin as payment of court-ordered restitution.

They stress that the death penalty brings heavy financial burden on states and counties because of the lengthy and expensive jury trials and sentencing trials. Aside from these costly trials, those sent to Death Row are allowed endless appeals that also cost tens of thousands of dollars. In the meantime, they are given free board and lodging in county and state prisons and often die anyway before they are executed.

The death penalty is a senseless, barbaric form of state-aided revenge that has long been abolished by civilized society. That many American states have continued to embrace it is ironic for a country known as the leader of the modern world.

The Philippines, on the other hand, gained international recognition when it abolished the death penalty in 1987 and 2006, the only country in Asia to do so. Why join the ranks of the uncivilized again?

(valabelgas@aol.com)