I mentioned the story of Mark Stroman and his victim, Rais Bhuiyan in my blog post yesterday. It was announced that he was in fact executed on Wednesday evening. What an unfortunate and preventable loss of a tremendous opportunity to allow these two men to teach the world about forgiveness, redemption, and second chances.
Stories like this make me want to get involved in anti-capital punishment efforts again. I could argue for days about the costs of execution (more expensive than life in prison); unfairness of the system (like the example of Alan Gell, a death row inmate who was wrongly accused of murder. It was later discovered that the prosecution withheld critical evidence); the fact that it has not proven to be a deterrent; etc.
But the real reasons I oppose the death penalty are simple: I believe in stories like that of Stroman and Bhuiyan. And cliche as it might be, I believe that “An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.”
As one button I used to have says, “Why do we kill people who kill people to show that killing is wrong?”
Does anyone know of respectable organizations in or around Raleigh that work against the death penalty? I don’t believe in promoting peace by less than peaceful means.
P.S. I don’t generally write blog posts on very intense and controversial topics, but I feel very strongly about this one.
Scintillating Simplicity 