Post by MXB on Oct 21, 2006 9:11:57 GMT -5
Questioning the Eye for an Eye Society
What would you do if someone murdered your wife or daughter? This is absolutely the hardest question to answer, said James Tobin, a board officer for Ohioans To Stop Executions. Tobin, who is Catholic, said that if he had lost a family member he hopes he would be able to come to a state of mind where he was able to control his anger. "I would tell people, `You know I really don't want that person out in society. But I don't want him dead either.'"
For Tobin, who is also an associate director at the Catholic
Conference of Ohio, the legal battle against lethal injection is
important in that it allows prisoners to buy time. "I think in the
long run more people will see the absurdity of executing someone," Tobin said. "We support all those efforts that make people rethink the death penalty. There is nothing humane about death."
OTSE, which has fought to end the use of capital punishment in Ohio since 1987, along with other groups (such as the American Friends Service Committee and the Intercommunity Justice and Peace Center), has lobbied more than 100 Ohio organizations to call for a moratorium on executions. So far, dozens of local churches have signed up, as well as the American Civil Liberties Union, the League of Women Voters, and the cities of Cincinnati, Dayton and Oberlin.
Tobin said the fight over the lethal injections protocol was
important, but perhaps not the most important initiative. \
He said he was afraid that Ohio would come up with just another drug cocktail. After all, hadn't governments always argued that one execution method was more humane than the other, regardless of whether they used electric chairs, lethal gas, hangings, firing squads or the guillotine?
Tobin said he considered the arbitrariness of the death penalty to be the most important argument against it. In Ohio less than 2% of murders result in death sentences for convicted killers.
From 1983-2000 there were 10,585 murders in the Buckeye state, but only 201 individuals were sentenced to death. "It seems that executions in Ohio are symbolic political rituals that single out a few offenders to die," Tobin said.
Back in Dr. Groner's Columbus Children's Hospital office, I noticed a large photo depicting the Western Wall in Jerusalem. I couldn't help but reflect on a plethora of tragic ironies. The name of the embattled city meant "Heritage of Peace." Yet, the people living there hadn't seen much peace. Now, here was another sad irony, the idea of "humane executions."
I asked Professor Groner what he would say to people who supported lethal injection.
"All of Europe does not execute people," Groner said. "Our founding fathers' conscious decision was that we wouldn't be an `eye for an eye' society. I would also say that you can judge a society by its prisons. How we take care of society's ill off reflects on a society at large. And there is nobody worse off than a death-row inmate."
What would you do if someone murdered your wife or daughter? This is absolutely the hardest question to answer, said James Tobin, a board officer for Ohioans To Stop Executions. Tobin, who is Catholic, said that if he had lost a family member he hopes he would be able to come to a state of mind where he was able to control his anger. "I would tell people, `You know I really don't want that person out in society. But I don't want him dead either.'"
For Tobin, who is also an associate director at the Catholic
Conference of Ohio, the legal battle against lethal injection is
important in that it allows prisoners to buy time. "I think in the
long run more people will see the absurdity of executing someone," Tobin said. "We support all those efforts that make people rethink the death penalty. There is nothing humane about death."
OTSE, which has fought to end the use of capital punishment in Ohio since 1987, along with other groups (such as the American Friends Service Committee and the Intercommunity Justice and Peace Center), has lobbied more than 100 Ohio organizations to call for a moratorium on executions. So far, dozens of local churches have signed up, as well as the American Civil Liberties Union, the League of Women Voters, and the cities of Cincinnati, Dayton and Oberlin.
Tobin said the fight over the lethal injections protocol was
important, but perhaps not the most important initiative. \
He said he was afraid that Ohio would come up with just another drug cocktail. After all, hadn't governments always argued that one execution method was more humane than the other, regardless of whether they used electric chairs, lethal gas, hangings, firing squads or the guillotine?
Tobin said he considered the arbitrariness of the death penalty to be the most important argument against it. In Ohio less than 2% of murders result in death sentences for convicted killers.
From 1983-2000 there were 10,585 murders in the Buckeye state, but only 201 individuals were sentenced to death. "It seems that executions in Ohio are symbolic political rituals that single out a few offenders to die," Tobin said.
Back in Dr. Groner's Columbus Children's Hospital office, I noticed a large photo depicting the Western Wall in Jerusalem. I couldn't help but reflect on a plethora of tragic ironies. The name of the embattled city meant "Heritage of Peace." Yet, the people living there hadn't seen much peace. Now, here was another sad irony, the idea of "humane executions."
I asked Professor Groner what he would say to people who supported lethal injection.
"All of Europe does not execute people," Groner said. "Our founding fathers' conscious decision was that we wouldn't be an `eye for an eye' society. I would also say that you can judge a society by its prisons. How we take care of society's ill off reflects on a society at large. And there is nobody worse off than a death-row inmate."