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Capital Punishment

Today I learned that about the execution of Richard Moore1.

For whatever reason, most likely the cup of coffee and the time to read on a Saturday morning23, I decided to do the deep dive on the case. The case received attention when in 2022 Moore opted to be the first person executed by firing squad after the South Carolina Legislature voted to approve it when they ran out of lethal injection drugs4.

Moore went into a convenience store at 3am unarmed and sat two beers on the counter. A witness was present playing video poker. A dispute arose and the clerk pulled out a gun and fired it at Moore hitting him in the arm first. That gun jammed and the clerk pulled out a second gun which Moore wrangled from the clerk and killed him. Moore took some money from the register, fled down the road, and confessed when caught. He had previously been convicted of armed robbery. I read the testimonies and letters requesting clemency5.

My relatively naive general takeaway in this case was unnecessary based on the idea that capital punishment somehow deters crime. If anything, the related press generally leaned in the direction of discrimination without justice. As crime rates have decreased, news coverage and prison sentences have increased6.

I've always leaned towards the 'violence begets violence' 7 'live by the sword die by the sword' 8 'blessed are the peacemakers' 9 pacifist approach. Don't get me wrong, I'm also an astute student of the subReddit PublicFreakout because I enjoy watching human behavior under pressure. Although it's taught me that calm and composure is the winning recipe, I've been in a fight or two and I believe that justice is sometimes served alongside a small dose of violence. Otherwise, I don't have enough knowledge to comment on it's effectiveness in the criminal justice system other than to note it relies on our primitive fears of death.

With that being said, the US is rounding out the top five countries executing the most people alongside China, Iran, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia10. Since 1990 the US is rounding out the top 10 countries executing offenders who were minors alongside, Congo, Sudan, China, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen10. Not exactly the par excellence of countries when it comes to human rights. South Carolina is in the 28% minority of states that have not made it illegal and had executions in the last 10 years with Oklahoma, Lousiana, Texas, Alabama, Arkansas and Missippi leading the cohort11.

All of this leads me to the very timely reference of the salacious advertising titled "Bring Back the Death Penalty" in reference to the now exonerated Central Park five case12 written by Donald Trump in 1989. "Mayor Koch has stated that hate and rancor should be removed from our hearts. I do not think so"... and I think this may become the exact moment later referenced as the start of an era in our country. It was referenced in political debate just last month where he continued to prey on fear and hate all while he was convicted of assault. I just can't buy into this line of thinking and the best references I find are from others:

Hermann Hess - Demian (1919)13:

"You are only afraid if you are not in harmony with yourself. People are afraid because they have never owned up to themselves. A whole society composed of men afraid of the unknown within them! They all sense that the rules they live by are no longer valid, that they live according to archaic laws — neither their religion nor their mortality is in any way suited to the needs of the present ... These people who huddle together in fear are filled with dread and malice, no one trusts the other. They hanker after ideals that are ideals no longer but they will hound the man to death who sets up a new one."

Martin Luther King Jr. - Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (1967)14:

"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy, instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth."

Fyodor Dostoevsky - Crime and Punishment (1866)15:

"You sensed that you should be following a different path, a more ambitious one, you felt that you were destined for other things but you had no idea how to achieve them and in your misery you began to hate everything around you."

The scales of justice - ⚖ - originate from 1550 BC16, reappear throughout history17 in various forms18, and after this my reading this morning... I'm just not quite sure we've got it all worked out yet.

 
 

Footnotes​

  1. Richard Bernard Moore - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Bernard_Moore ↩

  2. Death row inmate Richard Moore executed by lethal injection in South Carolina - The Post & Courier - https://www.postandcourier.com/politics/richard-moore-sc-execution-death-row-inmate/article_68623b14-97a3-11ef-8bcc-e769c0dcb6e6.html ↩

  3. South Carolina executes Richard Moore despite broadly supported plea to cut sentence - NPR - https://www.npr.org/2024/11/02/g-s1-31820/south-carolina-executes-richard-moore ↩

  4. SC Legislature - Bill 200 - https://www.scstatehouse.gov/billsearch.php?billnumbers=200 ↩

  5. Application for Executive Clemency - https://justice360sc.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Moore-Richard-Clemency-Application-Appendix_Redacted.pdf ↩

  6. US incarceration rate - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rate#Editorial_policies_of_major_media ↩

  7. Violence begets violence - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_begets_violence ↩

  8. Live by the sword, die by the sword - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_by_the_sword,_die_by_the_sword ↩

  9. Matthew 5:9 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_5:9 ↩

  10. Capital punishment by country - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_by_country ↩ ↩2

  11. Capital punishment in the United States - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the_United_States ↩

  12. Central Park jogger case - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Park_jogger_case ↩

  13. Demian - Hermann Hess - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demian ↩

  14. Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? - Martin Luther King Jr. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_Do_We_Go_from_Here:_Chaos_or_Community%3F ↩

  15. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_and_Punishment ↩

  16. Book of the Dead - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_the_Dead ↩

  17. Dice (mythology) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dike_(mythology) ↩

  18. Lady Justice - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Justice ↩