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77-year-old man executed

Bikewer

Penultimate Amazing
Bikewer
Joined
Sep 12, 2003
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Location
St. Louis, Mo.
The state of Mississippi executed a 77-year-old inmate today:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/?feed=TopNews&article=UPI-1-20051215-10435200-bc-us-execute-miss.xml

Making this individual the oldest person to suffer the death penalty. Evidently this case is some 20 years old, and the guy had been on death row that long.
It was a murder-for-hire case.

Now, for a law enforcement officer, I have decidedly ambivalent notions about the death penalty. Actually, mostly negative. There is no proven detterent from the death penalty, it tends to be more expensive than incarceration, and seems to be applied inequitably on the basis of race and money.

I wonder what society gains from the execution of a 77-year-old man? Was he likely to kill again?
Is there now a sense of "closure" for the survivors of the victim after 20 years?
What would have been the harm of letting this guy serve out the remainder of his life (surely not all that long) in prison?

The US is also one of the few remaining countries that applies the death penalty to individuals who were juveniles at the time of the crime....
 
Bikewer said:
I wonder what society gains from the execution of a 77-year-old man? Was he likely to kill again? Is there now a sense of "closure" for the survivors of the victim after 20 years? What would have been the harm of letting this guy serve out the remainder of his life (surely not all that long) in prison?
Click to expand...

The harm would've been inconsistency and injury to the notion of equality before the law. I agree with you about the death penalty, and I'd like to see it abolished for practical reasons, but if we are going to apply it, we should apply it consistently.

How old is too old to execute? How do we decide that? Would it end up with someone's lawyer causing endless procedural delays so that he reaches the age limit before he can be executed? That "defense" would only be available to older convicts...does a murderer in his 50s deserve access to a defense not available to a murderer in his 20s, simply by virtue of his age? There are more issues at work than you can see by looking at any individual case.

Jeremy
 
I, too, am not crazy about the death penalty, but if you were to not execute the guy, you would be rewarding him for a bunch of unsuccessful appeals. After dragging out the case for 20 years, you say you are too old to get the penalty? If he could have had a few more unsuccessful appeals, maybe he could have died of old age.

I think it shows the weirdness of the death penalty in America. Did it really take 20 years to sort out the legal issues? Apparently so, but isn't that a little weird?

ETA: I think the prolonging of the process creates a false sense of security among death penalty supporters. If you make it last 20 years, then there is no possibility of killing an innocent man, they think. I doubt that's true. It probably helps, a little, but not much.
 
From the article Lisa linked to,

Since California reinstated capital punishment, 31 men have died on death row of natural causes and 11 have been executed.
Click to expand...

So much for execution being more effective than life without parole...
 
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