AS SADDAM Hussein enters his trial for crimes against humanity, one cannot help but think (perhaps wishfully) that he will be sentenced to die. If he is convicted, the freshly constituted Iraqi people will confront that which has stained their past with blood, that is, the institution of the death penalty.
In Iraq, state-sanctioned death (usually accompanied by torture) was used prolifically as a tool for oppression. Today, a marginally less brutal method is undoubtedly being contemplated to seal the final chapter of the Hussein era in Iraq. To argue against killing Saddam Hussein is to confront moral questions that will likely endure long past Hussein's death, natural or otherwise. But the United States would be remiss not to take this opportunity to examine its penchant for the bureaucratic administering of death.
Advocates for death tend to spew catch phrases like "eye for an eye" or "let the punishment fit the crime," as if fortune-cookie philosophy was a basis for a justice system. If judges actually heeded their recommendation, individuals convicted of assault would be systematically beaten and reckless drivers would be forced to drive perpetually around a racetrack at high speed, occasionally swerving to miss obstacles.
By design, our justice system is nuanced and complex, sometimes vexingly so. But the justification for killing another human can never be reduced to a basic phrase -- complex lives should never be extinguished with simple rhetoric.
Even in the case of Saddam Hussein, what punishment could possibly fit the crime? By executing both a practitioner of genocide and a common murderer, one implies that their crimes were of equal depravity. To the chagrin of executioners everywhere, there are some crimes to which there is no "fitting" punishment. In these cases, the recourse should not be death by default, rather, a frustrating acceptance that life is not always fair, and neither is death.
Killing people should not be a preventative activity, unless killing someone involves directly saving the life of another. There are no credible arguments to be made that a person in a prison cell poses any greater threat to society than a person in a coffin. So the "necessity" of the death penalty is, quite simply, false.
Supporters of the death penalty, however, rarely rely on its necessity as their primary argument. It is the death penalty's utility that makes it such a handy little accessory to the justice system. "There are some people," they say, "who don't deserve to live anymore." This or some variation has rolled off the self-righteous lips of many individuals who view the death penalty as a means to cleanse the human race of undesirables and miscreants. What does one need to do to be deserving of life, pray tell?
When Thomas Jefferson wrote that all men are endowed the rights to life and liberty, he did not add "until they are no longer worthy of such rights." In fact, he purposefully added the word "inalienable" to ensure that tyrants knew that these rights weren't of their domain. Governments cannot deprive individuals of these rights, no matter how "undeserving" they appear to be.
The framers of the Constitution even went so far as to include a prohibition of all "cruel and unusual" punishments. I find it hard to believe many well-balanced people could conceive of anything more cruel than electrocuting or drugging someone to death.
Moreover, the "unusual" aspect of the death penalty's infrequent application should render it unconstitutional. If we execute one murderer, but spare another, the death penalty ceases to be the usual punishment for murder. Therefore, by ceasing to be usual, it becomes un-usual. The Eighth Amendment was intended to prevent arbitrary punishment, such as killing some murders and sparing others.
Virginians are currently experiencing a villainous reality regarding the use of the death penalty -- its political implications. Politics is sometimes called the "the blood sport of Washington" -- or Richmond, as it were -- though it's ironic how precise that nickname has become.
Gubernatorial candidates Jerry Kilgore and Tim Kaine, in their soporific exchanges of talking points, have changed the killing of other humans into a political issue, rather than discussing it as a moral one. Richmond and Baghdad seem worlds away, but they share a common burden -- the politics of death.
All politics being local, why are Baghdad and Richmond in similar straits over the matter of capital punishment? Has our moral growth been so stunted by partisan politics that we are unable to advance past a policy of ruthless tyrants and despots?
Both the Virginia gubernatorial race and the impending trial of Saddam Hussein reflect debates on an issue that should be a barbaric relic of the past, not a tool for contemporary justice. John Donne said, "Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind." Donne wasn't referring exclusively to murder victims -- he celebrated the inherent value of all human life, for better or for worse. I can only hope that Iraq, Virginia and the United States begin celebrating it as well.
Dan Keyserling is a Cavalier Daily Viewpoint writer.
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