THE DEATH PENALTY REVISITED

Victor Bloom MD

This is my answer to a letter from a professor of Law and Sociology at the University of Michigan who argues cogently against the Death Penalty:

Dear Rick,

"As usual, you have good arguments and do not give in. You are intrepid and trenchant. However, as you know, I can be stubborn and persistent. Especially when I think there is a good chance I may be right.

I think the key element here is EMOTION. Here I am, capitalizing the word for emphasis, injecting a jot of emotion. The judge is very legalistic. He is right to an extent to forbid the injection of overly emotional arguments for or against the death penalty. It was amazing that he asked for NO display of emotion in the courtroom with the reading of the verdict.

There is a philosophy that rates or ranks REASON above EMOTION, which probably caused me (unconsciously) to capitalize 'emotion'. There is a place in human life for emotion. Not all emotion leads to irrationality or destructiveness.

Love is an emotion. It must be tempered with reason. But what reason is there to love my children over all other children, to love my wife over all other women? What is Love if Love is not emotional and irrational?

If someone murders my child, I want to kill him. If I had been there and could have prevented it (by killing McVeigh), I would have, and I would be forgiven on the basis of 'self-defense', even though it would not be my own life I would be saving, but my offspring, my seed, my legacy. A judge or jury would probably grant me that.

But what if I were not there to prevent this murderer from blowing my child to bits? I would want to kill him retrospectively. I would not want to be rational about it. What if I were there, but seconds too late upon the scene to prevent the murder of my child and in an attempt to save his life I killed the perpetrator? I might be forgiven as my intent was to save a life, not take a life. But in the immediacy of the situation, I would have been overcome with emotions of vengeance and retribution, and would have taken the opportunity to exterminate the murderer of my child.

This is what I believe is going on in the unconscious minds of the victims and the victims' family and friends. There is a residual of vengeance in the mind, a wish for the ultimate and fair punishment for a terrible crime. I do not know what is God's will, God's justice. I do not believe every last life is sacred. My child's life was sacred and this man took it in cold blood for some crazy reason. I do not want to be reasonable about the death penalty. I am emotional about it, but not irrational.

I do not want to eat breakfast every day, knowing Timothy McVeigh is having breakfast and will later read law books and talk to his attorneys and supporters and friends and family about appeals and parole, and my child is gone, his high-chair is empty.

It galls me! I am full of emotion about it. It doesn't seem fair. I don't think there is a 1% chance that Timothy McVeigh didn't do it. He has no alibi. The leg may have been from a disintegrated accomplice who he will not name. Not only that, he does not name all the other people who were involved and could also be tried as co-conspirators. He shows no remorse. He made his point about waging war on the government. He got a lot of attention. My child will never get to make his point; he will never get attention again in this life.

My legacy is gone. I would be enraged at my government for taking care of this ruthless, reckless murderer, instead of killing him for me. That is what the death penalty is all about! I am not permitted to take revenge personally, but the government, the people, will do it for me.

I don't care that the death penalty was abused in the past, that people were murdered for their religious beliefs or opinions, or for witchcraft, or for stealing horses or picking pockets. I don't care that people used to be hanged or burned at the stake or boiled in oil or drawn and quartered. What can be more civilized, more kind, than a lethal injection? If people believe in God, that only God can be the ultimate judge of a person's life, then it is of little consequence that we end this person's mortal, corporeal existence. His spirit will live on, and God will either forgive him or send him to hell to burn for all eternity. This bodily existence is a brief candle in an eternity of time. If he is wrongly executed, it is of little consequence to his immortal soul.

My child was murdered; I will never see him again. I hate the man who did this to me and to my child and I rue every day that Timothy McVeigh is alive, that he lives and breathes and takes up space and consumes food and we have to provide for him and take care of his waste and provide him with books and recreation, while my child never takes another breath, never reads another book, never has another birthday party, never goes to the zoo or the circus again, never comes with us on family picnics and vacations. He will never graduate, never marry, never experience love's bliss, never have a child of his own. My legacy to the future is cut and gone, while that of Timothy McVeigh lives on, maybe to redeem himself and have a measure of satisfaction and happiness. It would not be fair!

Yes, I am emotional, Judge Richard Matsch! Let there be admitted some emotional testimony, to argue for the execution of the murderer of my child! Yes, I am emotional, but I am not only emotional. I am a human being. I have emotions. I love and I hate, and the even the bible says there is a time for hate, a time for killing.

That's why there is the question of a death penalty. Yes, I want vengeance, I want retribution, I want the ultimate punishment for the person who robbed me of my child, my legacy, my happiness. Yes, I will feel somewhat better if the people agree to terminate this man's life. He has lived too long already.

This is not a lynching. He has had due process. We are a civilized people, I am a civilized person. Therefore I deserve this justice. I don't believe there is justice when my child is dead and gone and his murderer lives on."

Dr. Bloom is Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Wayne State University School of Medicine, a Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, a member of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and practices in Grosse Pointe Park.