That’s not my assessment, although I certainly do agree with it (OK, so I guess that it is): it’s the assessment of Bob Crowell, father of a murder victim whose murderer might be given clemency if John Hickenlooper loses.
No, seriously.
“I think that’s the coward’s way out.”
This story has been addressed on RedState before, notably here and here: the short version is that John Hickenlooper, Democratic governor of Colorado, is against the death penalty. Fine*. This theoretical stance of Hickenlooper’s has come up against the real-world example of Nathan Dunlap, who is a remorseless, cold-blooded killer who ruthlessly and senselessly murdered four people twenty years ago, and who has been staving off his execution ever since. The problem for Hickenlooper is this: while the people of Colorado would dearly love to see Dunlap get the needle, the Lefties that make up Hickenlooper’s organization would not.
Quite the quandary, there. So what did John Hickenlooper do? Read the title and you’ll see that he picked the coward’s path: “Faced with a decision to allow the execution of killer Nathan Dunlap or grant him clemency, Gov. John Hickenlooper chose to do neither. Instead, he granted an extraordinary “temporary reprieve” that likely means Dunlap won’t face execution as long as Hickenlooper is governor.” Worse, John Hickenlooper heavily hinted – effectively in private – that he might offer full clemency to Dunlap if Hickenlooper lost the election:
A CNN interviewer asked Hickenlooper if, “God forbid,” a Tancredo-style candidate who continued to make an issue of the death penalty won, what actions could Hickenlooper take?
“If they did do that, and somehow they won, there are obviously remedies that the governor could do,” Hickenlooper said of his options. “I could do a full clemency between election day and the end of the year. There are a number of different opportunities to make sure that doesn’t happen. Again, human life should not be a political football.”
The recording from the CNN interview — obtained by conservative blogger Todd Shepherd of The Complete Colorado through an open records request — was first reported over the weekend by KNUS-710 on The Craig Silverman Show in Denver, a news and talk radio program.
Opinions about the death penalty are one thing. I have them; so does John Hickenlooper. But a sitting governor needs to have a backbone. If Hickenlooper wants to be opposed to the death penalty, then he should get out there in the public eye and just give Nathan Dunlap clemency, once and for all.
But John Hickenlooper will not, because John Hickenlooper is a coward.
Moe Lane (crosspost)
PS: Bob Beauprez for governor.
*No, seriously, fine. I am for the death penalty, but I recognize that there is an intellectually consistent and ethical argument against it. The argument does not sway me, but that’s not the same as saying that it doesn’t exist.
Hickenlooper’s been a disgrace for a long time now. This latest is just weird. How do you rationalize “elect me or I will make sure this murderer dies naturally”? How he expects that to help him with any constituency is beyond me.
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I’d vote against him because of the magazine capacity limits alone. In fact, that’s why I’m going to.
Hickenlooper and Begich (just pulled ad after heavy pressure) are sick bastards! I hope both these people lose their elections.
For a long time I was pro death penalty, always pro-life. The inconsistenty finally bothered me enough time to explore the church’s stance. I came down to the conclusion that taking a life, no matter how odious, was not my decision but Gods alone
Problem with that argument: The Mosaic Law was quite clear, on numerous occasions for things we would consider trivial, that there is indeed a death penalty.
And before you go quoting a certain passage in John, remember than Jesus there was not a court, and that the passage itself may be apocryphal. Jesus was not subverting the Mosaic Law, He was recognizing his limitation within it. (Assuming the passage was genuine, as it isn’t in the oldest manuscripts.)
I have issues with the application of the DP. But the idea that it is somehow ‘inconsistent’ with pro-life is absurd. There is a manifest difference ethically between infanticide of those who have made no choice in life, and those who have committed the grossest of crimes by clear act of will.
Choices have consequences. And it is an unjust society that does not deal justly with those who destroy life. Mercy is not the prerogative of a government. Justice is.
But is death Justice? Or just revenge? That is the question I wrestled with.
Neither. It is the removal of an impediment to the peaceful operation of a free society.
P.S.– I no longer support the death penalty on application grounds; I would require incontrovertible proof, and I don’t trust any government with that kind of power
Do you trust the government less than you trust the family and friends of the wronged?
Justice is demanded. The State has a monopoly on Justice only because Vendetta Justice is a terrible thing, and because the State worked diligently for centuries to supplant it.
If the State does not hold up its end of the bargain and supply Justice to the aggrieved, then we will inevitably return to Vendetta Justice. It’s already happening in a number of sub-cultures. The only way to stop it is for the State to actually pursue Justice. And yes, that means executing murderers.
Death is the closest to Justice that we can attain.
Tempered with mercy, it’s quick and relatively painless.
For those who have managed to get sentenced with the death penalty in recent decades, I’m not especially inclined towards mercy.
It would be perfectly Just to inflict every wound the murderer inflicted upon the person of the victim, upon the person of the murderer. I am against this for the sole reason that it would be cruel to the Executioner.
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Revenge is a personal matter, by definition. This being the case, it’s rather difficult for the State to practice revenge.
The hallmark of revenge is that it is excessive to the wrong initially suffered. Capital Punishment, as currently practiced does not even come close to meeting that threshold.
Execution is not forbidden, although “cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity “are very rare, if not practically non-existent.””
http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/catechism/cat_view.cfm?recnum=6070
Ted Bundy.
There’s no shortage of murderers in prison that continue to murder other inmates. I dispute the claim of rarity.
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But more importantly, “absolute necessity” is not the threshold.
The threshold is “Justice, as decided by a jury”.