Days after his state bungled the execution of a death row inmate, Oklahoma state Rep. Mike Christian (R) appeared to be uncompromising on his death penalty views.
In an interview with the Associated Press published Saturday, Christian said Clayton Lockett’s case did not sway his support for the practice.
“I realize this may sound harsh,” Christian told the AP, “but as a father and former lawman, I really don’t care if it’s by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions.”
Is this a case of Lions-1, Christians – 0?
Does Mike Christian have a point? It’s very hard to muster up any sympathy for Clayton Lockett. He didn’t just watch a teenage girl get buried alive. He raped her, ordered her shot, and ordered her to be buried alive by the people he was with. That’s barbaric.
According to the Washington Post:
Stephanie Neiman, 18, was dropping off her friend Summer Bradshaw at that house, and Lockett and his accomplices tried to take the keys to her new Chevy truck. Neiman, who graduated from high school only two weeks earlier, fought back, and the men covered her mouth with duct tape and beat and sexually assualted her. They also covered her 18-year-old friend’s mouth with duct tape, and beat and sexually assaulted her. Both were abducted, along with Bornt and his son. Lockett and his accomplices drove the four people they kidnapped west of Ponca City. Lockett asked Neiman if she planned to call the police. She would not say no, and Mathis spent 20 minutes digging a grave over which Lockett shot Neiman twice with a sawed-off 12-gauge shotgun, the three other victims later told authorities.
We either support the death penalty or not, for the most part. I used to be opposed as a young woman. In fact, some of my most serious political quarrels with my husband, in those early days, were over the right of society to execute those who committed heinous crimes. Somewhere along the way, when I was in my 20’s, I got turned, as it were. I began to support the death penalty where absolute certainty was evident.
What made me change? Heinous people committing heinous acts. I saw no reason to keep people like Richard Speck and Charlie Manson alive. Monsters like Speck and Manson really make your lose your innocence when it comes to belief in humanity. My argument previously was that people could be rehabilitated. When I became convinced some people could not be rehabilitated, I lost my will to keep them alive.
So there’s MY confession on the subject. I think what we have to do is decide if the state (representing society) has the right to off people it no longer feels should live. Does how we do it matter? Can we sanitize executions enough? Maybe its a good thing this happened. It forces us to look at what really happens during executions.
Do you agree with Rep. Mike Christian? What is it that pushes some of us over the edge to simply not care what happened to this cold blooded killer?
I sort of like the symmetry of an Oklahoma pol named “Christian” advocating feeding criminals to the lions. It sounds as though he would enjoy some time in North Korea.
Wouldn’t that be considered recycling?
I’ve always struggled with the idea of the death penalty. Part of me feels I should be consistent with my views on protecting life. The other part of me says that it’s innocent life that matters and that deserves protection. That’s also the part that says that criminals know about the death penalty, so when they commit a capital crime they are just basically committing suicide. Guilt needs to be established beyond the shadow of a doubt, in any case.
I agree with the last sentence.
At least I am consistent…to a point. I also have cut off periods when it comes to abortion rights unless there are extreme circumstances involving life of the mother or fetal health.
I don’t know how others feel, but for me, a life sentence would
be worse than death. Of course, it’s a lot more expensive to keep
someone alive for an unknown number of years. Also, the longer
they live, the more medical care is needed to keep them alive. Because
the state HAS to keep the person alive until he/she dies a natural death.
I guess it varies from person to person.
There seems to be no easy answer to this age old question to how best to rid ourselves of those who commit heinous or not so heinous crimes-adultery and theft come to mind. We’ve tried animals of various varieties, stoning, crucifixion, poisoning, drowning, pressing, burning, loping off heads by any number of means, gas of one form or another, “Old Sparky” (electricity) shooting, drugs in various combinations and my favorite–hanged, drawn and quartered. Many of these have been done in public either for entertainment or in the belief it would deter further crime. As time has gone by, we have tried to find more “humane” ways of exterminating those who have done evil things. We have asked and have been asked–Are we sure this is the right person? The law demands that we find the person “guilty beyond a reasonable doubt” but is that satisfactory and what does “reasonable doubt” mean? According to many legal definitions, “beyond a reasonable doubt means:
“The standard that must be met by the prosecution’s evidence in a criminal prosecution: that no other logical explanation can be derived from the facts except that the defendant committed the crime, thereby overcoming the presumption that a person is innocent until proven guilty.
If the jurors or judge have no doubt as to the defendant’s guilt, or if their only doubts are unreasonable doubts, then the prosecutor has proven the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and the defendant should be pronounced guilty.
The term connotes that evidence establishes a particular point to a moral certainty and that it is beyond dispute that any reasonable alternative is possible. It does not mean that no doubt exists as to the accused’s guilt, but only that no Reasonable Doubt is possible from the evidence presented.”
With the advent of DNA testing, this level of proof has sometimes been shown to not be sufficient. There have been many cases of innocent people being put to death and later exonerated by DNA evidence. And also there have been folks sentenced to long terms of imprisonment who have been found to be innocent as a result of DNA evidence.
Why or how were these people convicted? Sometimes it has been as the result of malfeasance on the part of prosecutors who have hidden evidence that might well have exonerated the convicted. What should happen in those cases? Should the prosecutor who hid evidence in a case where someone was executed then be executed?
No easy answers for sure, but I still come down on the side of capital punishment. It may not deter others but it does deter the one who is executed.
Excellent theme, George. No easy answers. As I read your comment, I thought about how many times incarceration has been used simply to punish one’s enemies…not real wrong doing that violated our social mores and laws.
DNA helps but it isn’t the panacea for everything. I have to keep reminding myself of that.
Yes, DNA is not the be all to all. And that is when “beyond a reasonable doubt” becomes the benchmark. Will mistakes be made? Yes-we humans are not infallible. And when those mistakes happened, we are lessened. I think I would remove the public from the executions and maybe even the families. Executions are a matter between the sentencing jurisdiction and the person to be executed. While I am not certain, I think the military does executions with little, if any, public “participation”. Of course, the military has not done an execution for several decades.
I still wonder that if prosecutors who purposely withheld exculpatory evidence were forced to suffer the same fate as an exonerated person, including the death penalty, would that make “beyond a reasonable doubt” an absolute.