In case you haven't "met" me before, I'm a Texan. A "centrist conservative" Texan, as David would put it. For you non-Texan liberals, I suppose I match up with all your preconceived notions about Texans, especially conservative Texans (by the way, a "conservative Texan" is anyone who lives outside of Austin, pretty much).
I'm against same-sex marriage (but probably not for the reasons you suspect — I've explained my position extensively, starting here). I support our invasion of Iraq. I'm in favor of lower taxes in almost every case. I oppose abortion except in the most egregious circumstances. I think the now-expired ban on so-called "assault weapons" was idiotic pablum intended to lull people into a false sense of security, while doing nothing to make us safer. Oh, and I'm also in favor of "Right to Carry" laws which mandate that the state must have a compelling reason to deny a citizen the ability to carry a concealed weapon, rather than the citizen being required to prove it's needed.
So since you now know I'm one of those crazed, wild-eyed conservatives (not a Republican, thankyouverymuch) who are wrecking this great nation, you won't be surprised when I tell you that I've been a big supporter of the death penalty since I first thought about it as a teenager. Some crimes are so heinous that the only possible appropriate punishment is to take the criminal's life. Not just for murder, but some other crimes as well; certain categories of rape seem to cry out for execution of the rapist.
Then I read this article earlier this year. And then later that same day, there was something else (which completely escapes my memory) which seemed to make it click for me:
I think The Death Penalty is a bad idea, and should be abolished.
There, I said it. Even many liberal(ish) politicians support the death penalty, including former President Clinton. Support for the death penalty appears to be a make-or-break criterion for receiving a Conservative Club membership card. I guess I'll have to turn mine in.
There have just been too many people who have lately been proved to have been wrongly convicted and sentenced to death. Unfortunately, not all of these people were still alive at the time that their innocence was determined. And who knows how many people have been executed in the past for crimes they didn't commit, back before we had the marvels of DNA science?
I'm also enough of a realist to know that there are prosecutors who are so determined to get a conviction in a capital murder case that they'll throw prudence, fairness and justice out the window. Some are blinded by their ill-founded beliefs, others do it knowing that they couldn't convict the accused if the jury knew all of the facts.
One of the founding principles in this great nation of ours is that it is better to let a guilty man go free than to imprison an innocent one. And imprisonment is a far easier penalty to bear, in most cases, than execution. There's nothing more final than that. There's no turning back; once the innocent man is dead, he's dead. There are no "do-overs."
We could devolve into arguments over the relative costs of lifetime imprisonment versus the costs of appeal after appeal, and the execution itself, but I think those discussions are contemptuous of the only point to be considered: will we never again put an innocent man to death? If we can't guarantee that with 100% certainty, the death penalty has got to go.
Note: Having said that, I can now never serve on a jury in a capital punishment case. I'm not sure yet how I feel about that.
