Reading The Peking Duck, I find this story:
It’s in the middle of the night in Mississippi. A black guy, the name’s Cory Maye, never had anything to do with the police, is alarmed by intruders in the middle of the night. He shoots one of them out of angst for his baby daughter and himself. Turns out, the intruders were the police who broke into his house by mistake and the intruder killed the son of the police chef. The police were on a drug raid but got the wrong guy. A (mostly) white jury sentences him to death since the police rather chose to change their story about drugs, saying they found traces of it in Maye’s possession during the raid which they first concluded wasn’t the case.
If the facts are as reported, this was self-defense. I don’t have a gun at home and never would want one, but I’d be crazy if I don’t defend myself against any intruder who endangers me or my family. Maye gets the death penalty. Unbelievable.
I’ve written before about capital punishment, and my opinion didn’t change at all since then. In the contrary, almost every news item I read about capital punishment confirms my conviction that a flawed system must not be allowed to execute
irreversible decisions about life and death.
California just executed Tookie Williams. Check out the story online at http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/12/13/MNG0GG79AE1.DTL
I generally do not like capital punishment, but if someone killed one of my loved ones I do not know how against it I would be.
James, you’re certainly correct that when one is affected by such a loss, objectivity is unachievable. It’s the principle, the idea behind capital punishment, which is defective. There’s a huge difference of opinion in this matter between the people here and in the United States. It’s even more basic, let’s take a look at the perception for starters. For the German Spiegel, the upcoming execution of John B. Nixon this night is on their frontpage. It’s news. I don’t see it on CNN and can’t even find it over their search form. Their law section is busy with Williams though.