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Execution is Capital Offense
Published on Wednesday, February 21, 2001 in the Madison Capital Times
Execution is Capital Offense
by John Nichols
 
Oklahoma City bomber Tim McVeigh’s decision to ask the federal government to help him commit suicide as a way out of a life sentence promises to make 2001 the year of capital punishment in the United States. And the rest of the world will be reminded once more of just how backward, brutal and politically motivated this country’s approach to matters of crime and punishment remains.

By all accounts, McVeigh prefers lethal injection to a lifetime in prison. Thus, in order to "punish" the man whose 1995 crime left 168 people dead, the feds plan to comply with his wish.

Absurd? Absolutely. Even more absurd, and horrifying, is the fact that, if McVeigh is executed, tax dollars from Wisconsin -- a state that has banned capital punishment for 150 years -- will be used to kill an imprisoned human being for the first time since 1963.

While U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., and others -- including the families of some Oklahoma City bombing victims -- have been courageously seeking to prevent the renewal of federal executions, the bloodlust of President George W. Bush and equally wrong-minded politicians is such that they are unlikely to prevent the renewal of federally funded murder.

The execution industry in this country requires a steady flow of blood in order to keep the machinery of death in operation. Bush, Bill Clinton and other "leaders" who have used capital punishment as a political tool cannot allow common sense or sound criminal justice policy to prevail -- since a halt to executions would prove the point of capital punishment foes who argue that the economically and emotionally costly gambit actually makes the streets less safe by fostering a culture of violence.

If most American politicians and jurists lack the courage and the intellectual honesty to oppose capital punishment, leaders in other countries are under no illusions about the fundamental flaws in a system of state-sponsored executions. Last week, the Supreme Court of Canada voted 9-0 to bar the extradition to the United States of two men accused of murder in Washington state unless Canadian authorities receive guarantees that the men will not face execution.

The jurists went far beyond the procedural blocking the extradition of the two men, however. The high court of Canada -- a nation that has barred capital punishment since 1976 -- condemned the death penalty as the flawed, unjust and irrevocable travesty that it is. Citing the frequency of reports of wrongful murder convictions in the United States, the court said the public record "provides tragic testimony to the fallibility of the legal system -- despite its elaborate safeguards for the protection of the innocent."

Even if safeguards did exist, however, the Canadian jurists argue that the practice would be unacceptable. "It is final. It is irreversible. Its imposition has been described as arbitrary," the judges said of capital punishment. "Its deterrent value has been doubted. Its implementation necessarily causes psychological and physical suffering."

The ruling by the Canadian court marks a dramatic shift in direction by that country’s judiciary. Until recently, Canadian courts had held that even if their country’s laws barred executions, that did not constitute sufficient grounds for denying a request for extradition to the United States.

No more. Citing the growing international consensus that capital punishment is not merely unjust but, in fact, immoral, Canada’s jurists now say they can no longer cooperate with U.S. authorities who seek to execute human beings. To do so, the justices explain, would "violate our sense of fundamental justice."

Can there be any doubt left that Americans -- be they judges, senators or citizens -- ought to be saying the same thing?

Copyright 2001 The Capital Times

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