My cousin, who I love dearly, and who is also the author of a previous post on this blog (Viewpoint on the Death Penalty) has been trying for years to convince me of the injustice of the death penalty. To say that he is an adamant opponent of the death penalty would be an understatement. His reasons for opposing capital punishment are numerous, but topping his list are these: the possibility of a wrongful execution of innocent people, racial bias, and taking the life of another person under any circumstance is morally wrong. The pending execution of Troy Davis has renewed our debate.
I was neutral on the death penalty issue until sometime during the 1980’s when six year old Adam Walsh was murdered and decapitated. Until then, the most horrific crime I had ever heard of, I learned about as a child. The story – told and retold by my parents and numerous adults in my extended family – detailed the torture and murder of Emmett Till in 1955. Till, a 14 year old black boy, while visiting Money, Mississippi from Chicago, allegedly “disrespected” a white woman. For his action during that pre-civil rights era, Till was severely beaten, had an eye gouged out, was shot, and then thrown in the Tallahatchie River; a cotton gin fan tied around his neck with barbed wire weighing him down.
The debate between my cousin and I continues, but something happened recently that has caused me to reconsider my position. I recently bought a book by Michael Moore. Although I have long admired Moore as a social critic, I never bought any of his books until just the other day. Strangely, after I began reading the first chapter of Here Comes Trouble, in which Moore shares details about his involvement with a death row inmate, I began to rethink my position on that subject.
My wavering has as much to do with what I read in that chapter as it does with the fact that I am a huge fan of Moore, not only because he usually roots for the underdog, but because he has the guts to say publicly what many people want to say but are afraid to. He usually supports unpopular issues that he believes in and is often ostracized for advocating causes that some people shy away from, because of their career, political or religious affiliations, or their concern about what their friends will think.
I cannot explain why reading those few poignant paragraphs concerning Moore’s initiation into the anti-death penalty movement affected me as it did. Nor am I saying that I have completely changed my mind about capital punishment. Because while, I may be leaning toward favoring life imprisonment without parole over the death penalty, I am still not totally opposed to the latter. Perhaps that is because I watch too many true crime dramas and live court proceedings on TV, where a person who is guilty as sin is handed a death sentence, then freed after the case is overturned on appeal. Obviously, a death sentence does not always mean a death sentence. So, as long as government officials have the power to grant amnesty or commute a sentence, I have time to decide how I choose to weigh in on the subject.