AncienTrails

Beltane                                                                        Emergence Moon

How about those Okies?  Hey, even though we’re not sure, let’s just try an experiment! Yes, it was stupid, heartless and reckless. It was those things. And cruel. And, as the Sack cartoon said in the Star-Tribune this morning, not so unusual. (full disclosure: I was born in Duncan, Oklahoma and still have many relatives in the state.) But. It is also true that regardless of the case law, regardless of the Supreme Court decisions and the capacity of states to make their own laws, killing a killer for killing other people is immoral. Not to say at least contradictory.

A good outcome of the Oklahoma execution of Clayton Lockett would be the final elimination of this barbarity altogether. In the newspapers today is an article that suggests one reason to eliminate it in addition to its morally contradictory nature, at least 4.1% of individuals on death row are innocent. NYT article.

Kate and Anne and I watched “12 Years a Slave” tonight. Capital punishment belongs with slavery as one of humanity’s reviled institutions. The state says that if you commit certain acts you may be incarcerated and, if the acts are serious enough, killed. This reminded me of the whipping scene of Pat in the movie. “I can do anything I want with my property,” says Edwin Epps, the plantation owner played by Michael Fassbinder.

The awful juxtaposition of Solomon Northrup’s enslavement with his status as a freeman made his situation seem so much worse than that of the other slaves. But in reality Northrup’s enslavement and desire to be free was identical with those enslaved from birth. His status as a freeman in the state of New York made clear the tremendous burden of all the other slaves among whom he worked.

Crime and punishment is a conundrum faced by all complex cultures and I’m not denying the right of state as my representative to punish those convicted of violating our laws. What I am denying is the right of the state to deprive any one of their life on my behalf. (We’ll not go into here the disproportionate impact of punishment on persons of color, though it’s a vital issue, too.)

addendum. This is a list of states which have no death penalty. It’s interesting to me that the earliest three states to prohibit it are Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota.