Why I Hate the Death Penalty

I have many friends and family who are one issue voters. Most have a great passion for the abortion question and it is a big one; life and death. I have contended - some would say with profound cowardice - that the morning I wake up pregnant I will have a position on the question. Until then it is not for me to say. The de facto consequence of that hypothetical is that I am viewed as pro choice. But murder is murder and not fighting with all your might to protect human life means murder is okay with me. Trust me, it is not.

That question, women's rights, life rights, is just too complicated for my feeble mind. However, using that same logic, I could very well wake up one day on death row. Many of the men in that unenviable place look more look me than I care to admit. Notwithstanding The fact that we are either moments away from, or moments beyond the death of Richard Cooey, who is white, a black man is nearly four times more likely to receive the death penalty in a capital cases. It's true that there are more white prisoners facing the ultimate punishment in American prisons, but the proportion based on the population is way out of whack.

If I were sent to prison tomorrow for aggravated murder, depending on several factors, I could be sentenced to lethal injection. If that happened there's no turning back. It's done, I'm done, even though we both know I'm innocent.

"Letters From the Editor" has a very good blog up now that gives us a good snapshot of the lives cut short by Richard Cooey twenty-two years ago. It is a very sad story and a compelling argument that this murderer deserves what he gets. This man is learning nothing from dying except how to die, and like it or not, we all know how to do that. Some might say that others contemplating such evil might see what happens Tuesday morning in Ohio and have a miraculous epiphany. Of course we will never know if any minds have changed and murders prevented, but somehow I doubt it. Wipe all the other reasons away and what you have is revenge, or if you prefer avenge the death of Wendy Offredo and Dawn McCreery, two students at the University of Akron killed at the hands of then 19 year old Richard Cooey.

I don't know how many men will die at the hands of the state tomorrow, this week, this month. I just know that it could be me, rightly or wrongly I could be there and I would not be out of the ordinary. So my reasons are selfish and based on ignorance, much like my stance, or lack thereof, on the abortion question. But after all, aren't all so-called social issues based on self interests?

And if the timeline of my life turned particularly ugly, it would not be the dying that's so terrible, it's the knowing that at 10am on whatever day, whatever year, that's it, done, good bye and good luck. Makes me sick just thinking about it.