The Absurdity of the Death Penalty Reaches New Heights

“Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.” -  Gandalf the Grey in Lord of the Rings    

 

The absurdity of the death penalty was placed into sharp focus this morning.  In a nutshell, convicted murderer Carey Moore was able to acquire a stay of execution for the sixth time due to questions about the quality of one of the drugs used in a lethal injection execution.  As the drugs used are no longer being manufactured in the United States, and in this case were imported from India.  Mr. Moore's attorney has argued that since they were not manufactured in the States, the drugs don't meet US pharmaceutical guidelines. 
 

Obviously, one has to question how this could cause a stay- what's the worst that could happen to someone who is being put to death?  Amazing that we were frying people a few years back, and now the state is not able to administer a lethal injection because the criminal has concerns about the quality of the drugs being used to put him to death.  Absurd.  Unfortunately, it's another absurdity in what is an absurd practice. 

Buyer's Remorse

Yesterday's front cover of the World-Herald had a somewhat interesting article- in the wake of the awful shooting of a vice principal at Millard South by a student, the Millard School District hired a company called Crisis Management Inc. to advise them on making their schools safer.

In the wake of a tragedy, it's only natural to look for answers and solutions.  But honestly, this is what Crisis Management Inc. came up with?  Their recommendations:

-adopt a “closed campus” policy that would bar high school students from leaving their campuses at lunchtime.
- A ban on student cellphones.
- Requiring students to wear mandatory identification cards and to use backpacks or bookbags that are clear or made of a mesh product so the contents are visible.
-Baggy clothing also should be restricted, the consultant said, because weapons can easily be concealed under such clothing.

I won't debate the merits of each policy, because of one simple fact- not one of these policies would have prevented the tragedy from happening.  I just don't have patience for irrelevant supposed solutions.  For example, a few weeks ago we took our daughter to the Shrine Circus, where they made a big show of searching purses- but announced loud and clear that they were not searching diaper bags.  If you've ever seen the size of some of these diaper bags, you probably realize that you could sneak in a B-52 Bomber in one of these things.

Consultants Paid to Confirm the Existence of Gravity

Millard Public Schools hired a consultant to give them suggestions on safety they seemingly could have gotten from a cheap pamphlet or mail-order book. I would love to know how much Crisis Management Inc. got paid for this mostly impractical and sometimes completely ridiculous advice. They suggested things like a ban on cell phones and baggy clothes, and a requirement of see-through backpacks and identification cards that must be worn by all students. Anybody could have come up with that advice and I think most of us could find holes in all of it. I think this firm’s sole reason for existing is the opportunity to prey on the irrational fears of parents, teachers and administrators. I call them irrational fears because the truth is school shootings are exceedingly rare. It was estimated by Dewey Cornell of the University of Virginia that the average school can expect an on-campus homicide once every 12,000 years. So the steps being taken by Millard Public Schools is analogous to someone hiring a CPA for tax advice in case he ever wins the lottery. Sure you could do it in order to be prepared, but it will almost certainly prove to be a waste of time and money. Obviously when these school shootings do happen they are tragic and incomprehensible, but what is nearly as incomprehensible to me is the ridiculous overreaction by people who should know better.

My Two Cents: Cops Conspire to Plant Evidence

A quick comment on the case of the two cops conspiring to plant evidence, which Michael Kelly did a fine job in today’s paper addressing. I won’t bother to recap the details; you can find those in Kelly’s story. I just wanted to provide my two cents on this story because our civil rights and specifically the right of due process are something I hold dear. There is a lot about our government you can find fault with but there is not much worse a government can due than deny the individual his or her right to life and liberty, and violating the concept of due process can lead to just that.

Look, for all we know the potential victim of this evidence planting is a drug dealer, so it’s easy to write this off as just a couple of cops trying to go the extra mile to catch a criminal. But let’s remember the case of David Kofoed, who assumed the victims of his crime were innocent as well. Police are fallible just like the rest of us. This is why we have the concept of due process because the government is supposed to maintain a presumption of innocence for all its citizens. If you relax that presumption of innocence, the result will be that innocent people will wind up in jail; that is the undeniable reality. I’d rather have a few more criminals go free (for a little longer, anyway) if it means fewer innocent people winding up in jail. I couldn’t imagine being one of those innocent persons sitting in jail right now, and neither could you (I’m assuming our readership is small enough that the odds of an innocent person reading this from jail are minute). It must be a special kind of hell to live that.

I’m glad Police Chief Alex Hayes is taking this seriously, though I could think of worse punishment for Kara Hindman than being placed on 11 month paid leave and Frank Platt getting to retire with a pension, as this behavior cannot be allowed to continue within our police departments. I want to echo Michael Kelly that Officer Steve Kult should be commended for exposing this behavior when he did. If you have read anything about police abuse you know that the blue code of silence is an unfortunate reality in many police departments across the country. Let us hope this case was a rare lapse in judgment by an otherwise upstanding local police force.

Repealing the Death Penalty in Nebraska

A bill sponsored by former Omaha mayoral candidate and current State Senator Brenda Council made it out of committee the other day. LB 276 would repeal Nebraska’s death penalty, which would be replaced with a life sentence without the possibility of parole. This is a bill I want to throw my full support behind, which will consist of this blog post and probably another post when this bill comes up for vote in the legislature some time next year (truly my influence knows no bounds). I’m not going to cover every argument for and against the death penalty, but as this is a blog about Omaha I thought I would remind everyone of a case involving a local man that demonstrates one of the major problems with the death penalty. That man is the ignominious David Kofoed.

For those who don’t know the story of David Kofoed let me fill you in. Kofoed is a former Douglas County Crime Lab Manager. He was convicted for evidence tampering in a case that nearly sent two men, Matthew Livers and Nicholas Sampson, to prison for a double homicide. Kofoed took it upon himself to plant blood evidence in a car linked to one of the suspects. With that evidence along with a false confession by Livers (something that happens more than we would like to believe), the two suspects according to Special Prosecutor Mock of the case against Kofoed, “may very well be on death row right now.” Let’s focus on that for a second. Without the subsequent finding of exculpatory evidence, these two perfectly innocent men could be on death row right now, and death penalty advocates would not object to them paying the ultimate price for a crime they in fact did not commit. That happened right here in Nebraska. It would be naïve to think this is the one and only time something like this has ever happened. Law enforcement officers are under pressure to produce results in their investigations and under that pressure they are capable of making mistakes and unfortunately some investigators even decide to cross ethical boundaries in pursuit of those results.

Our criminal justice system is not perfect and in fact it is not expected to be. In criminal cases guilt only has to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. It is understood and accepted that rarely can a case against a defendant be made with absolute certainty. The difference between life without parole and the death penalty is that if exculpatory evidence is discovered, then that mistaken conviction can be rectified in the case where a defendant was sent to life without parole, not so if that person was put to death. In the unfortunate event that exculpatory evidence never comes to light, at least that innocent suspect will have been able to live out the remainder of his or her life, even if not in ideal conditions, and at least innocent blood won’t be on our hands.