EDITORIAL
Execution, even in this case, is wrong
Take political ambition and
prosecutorial zeal, combine them with the death penalty and a 24/7 media frenzy
surrounding the cruel and calculated shootings of more than a dozen people, and
you’ve got a recipe for ugliness. That’s precisely what we have in
the aftermath of the arrests of the “Beltway snipers.”
In a three-week period ending Oct. 24, John Allen
Muhammad and his teenage sidekick, John Lee Malvo, allegedly placed
13 unsuspecting men, women and children within the sites of their .223 caliber
rifle. Eleven died. Muhammad and Malvo have subsequently been linked to
other killings or attempted murders.
These crimes cry out for justice -- not state-sanctioned
murder.
The reason the Catholic church opposes the death penalty is
because Catholics believe all human life is made in the image of God.
All human life sacred. No human life is beyond redemption.
It is, therefore, especially in cases such as these, that we are
called on to assert our beliefs.
What a marvelous moment it would be if some prominent public
office holders spoke up against the execution of these alleged murderers. What
we’re getting instead, at least from the Justice Department and
prosecutors in the half-dozen or more counties that claim jurisdiction, are
calls for vengeance.
Adding to the ugliness, it does not seem to matter much that Malvo
is a minor, or that, as a vulnerable youth, he came under the heavy influence
of Muhammad, his “uncle” and surrogate father.
Douglas Gansler, the grandstanding state’s attorney for
Montgomery County, Md., clearly wants his suburban Maryland jurisdiction -- the
site of six of the shootings -- to be the first to prosecute Mohammad and
Malvo. As he made the all-too-expected rounds of the Sunday network talk shows,
Gansler seemed almost sorry that Maryland does not allow for the execution of
minors. He was equally uneasy that the state sets a relatively high standard
for executing adults. In the frenzied competition to prosecute Mohammad and
Malvo, those factors work against Gansler’s argument -- in line with his
ambitions -- that Montgomery County should go first.
Gansler seems positively benign compared to prosecutors in
Virginia (the location of five shootings) and Alabama (where Mohammad and Malvo
are suspected of one murder and an additional shooting), who argue they should
get first crack at Mohammed and Malvo because their states have no prohibition
against executing teenagers. Virginia is second only to Texas in its
willingness to execute convicted murderers.
Not to be outdone, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft stepped in
last week with a bloodthirsty, 20-count criminal complaint, aimed at putting
the two to death.
On the other hand, it was nearly four years ago that Pope John
Paul II took on a tough case when he appealed to then-Missouri Gov. Mel
Carnahan to spare the life of Darrell J. Mease, a sleazy methamphetamine dealer
who killed two of his drug-dealing partners and an innocent bystander.
Amazingly, miraculously even, Carnahan -- himself an ambitious politician,
death penalty supporter and non-Catholic -- stayed the execution.
The pope’s words from 1999 have even greater meaning in the
current circumstance. “A sign of hope is the increasing recognition that
the dignity of human life must never be taken away, even in the case of someone
who has done great evil. Modern society has the means of protecting itself,
without definitively denying criminals the chance to reform. I renew the appeal
I made most recently at Christmas for a consensus to end the death penalty,
which is both cruel and unnecessary.”
Amen to that.
National Catholic Reporter, November 08,
2002
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