Retired Federal Judge H. Lee Sarokin recent­ly wrote in the Huffington Post urg­ing Illinois Governor Pat Quinn to sign a bill that would repeal the death penal­ty. He wrote, ​“I am cer­tain we could all list per­sons who com­mit­ted out­ra­geous and despi­ca­ble crimes that we would want exe­cut­ed. Many of us want revenge, ret­ri­bu­tion and the ulti­mate pun­ish­ment in those cas­es, but, nonethe­less, I am opposed to the death penal­ty.” Judge Sarokin high­light­ed deter­rence, costs, racial dis­crim­i­na­tion, the risk of wrong­ful exe­cu­tions and per­son­al moral views as among the most sig­nif­i­cant rea­sons for his oppo­si­tion. He believes that, ​“deter­rence plays no part what­so­ev­er. Persons con­tem­plat­ing mur­der do not sit around the kitchen table and say I won’t com­mit this mur­der if I face the death penal­ty, but I will do it if the penal­ty is life with­out parole. I do not believe per­sons con­tem­plat­ing or com­mit­ting mur­der plan to get caught or weigh the con­se­quences.” Reall full arti­cle below.

Is It Time to Execute the Death Penalty? 

I want to see the Tucson shoot­er suf­fer pain, be killed, exe­cut­ed. I feel the same way about the per­sons who raped and mur­dered that fam­i­ly in Connecticut. I am cer­tain we could all list per­sons who com­mit­ted out­ra­geous and despi­ca­ble crimes that we would want exe­cut­ed. Many of us want revenge, ret­ri­bu­tion and the ulti­mate pun­ish­ment in those cas­es, but, nonethe­less, I am opposed to the death penal­ty. The dis­cus­sion is rel­e­vant now because Governor Pat Quinn has it with­in his pow­er to end the death penal­ty in Illinois.

The argu­ments for and against have raged for years, but here is my personal view:

Deterrence: In my view deter­rence plays no part what­so­ev­er. Persons con­tem­plat­ing mur­der do not sit around the kitchen table and say I won’t com­mit this mur­der if I face the death penal­ty, but I will do it if the penal­ty is life with­out parole. I do not believe per­sons con­tem­plat­ing or com­mit­ting mur­der plan to get caught or weigh the con­se­quences. Statistics demon­strate that states with­out the death penal­ty have con­sis­tent­ly low­er mur­der rates than states with it, but frankly I think those sta­tis­tics are imma­te­r­i­al and coin­ci­den­tal. Fear of the death penal­ty may cause a few to hes­i­tate, but cer­tain­ly not enough to keep it in force, and the truth is that there is no way of ever know­ing whether or not the death penalty deters.

Costs: Because of the grow­ing num­ber of rever­sals, new tri­als and exon­er­a­tions, the appeal process has become slow, long and expen­sive. The death penal­ty is final and irre­versible, and as a result, coun­sel are aggres­sive and courts are thor­ough. I can­not say whether or not the costs asso­ci­at­ed with appeals exceed those of life-time incar­cer­a­tion, but cost should cer­tain­ly not be a deter­min­ing fac­tor in whether or not a per­son lives or dies.

Discrimination: Race plays a role in who becomes eli­gi­ble for the death penal­ty and against whom it is imposed. I would sup­pose that this is a fac­tor that could be cor­rect­ed prospec­tive­ly, but it is a risk that we should not be will­ing to under­take based upon past history.

Morality: This issue like­wise has been dis­cussed for years. After a life­time of watch­ing the death penal­ty at work, I believe that despite our under­stand­able desire for revenge, ret­ri­bu­tion and even death for the most hor­ren­dous of crimes, the state should not be the car­ri­er and enforcer of those emo­tions. I rec­og­nize and respect the oppo­site view, but I just can­not accept that the inten­tion­al killing by the state of an indi­vid­ual is moral.

Exonerations: However, the most com­pelling argu­ment for me is the fact that we have exe­cut­ed inno­cent per­sons and oth­ers are sched­uled for exe­cu­tion and oth­ers undoubt­ed­ly will be in the future. Thanks to the Medill Innocence Project and oth­ers like it, and per­sons like Barry Scheck and his work with DNA, inno­cent per­sons have been snatched from lethal injec­tions or oth­er forms of exe­cu­tion, some­times just moments before they were to die. If none of the for­go­ing argu­ments are per­sua­sive, this should and must car­ry the day. If we per­mit inno­cent peo­ple to be exe­cut­ed are we any bet­ter than the man who took that lit­tle girl’s life in Tucson. I sup­pose one could argue that the com­par­i­son is not apt because he was act­ing know­ing­ly and inten­tion­al­ly in killing an inno­cent per­son, and the state is not, but in both cas­es the vic­tims would be inno­cent and that is some­thing no civ­i­lized nation should allow or tolerate.

Be brave Gov. Quinn! Sign the bill. The time has come to exe­cute the death penalty!

(H. L. Sarokin, ​“Is it Time to Execute the Death Penalty?” The Huffington Post, January 16, 2011). Read more New Voices. See Costs, Deterrence, Innocence and Race.

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