By: himani

In reply to Ayo.

The thing I’ve never understood about arguments in favor of the death penalty is this: isn’t killing someone in the name of justice also murder by another name? How and where do we draw the line in how we as a society rationalize killing people? This is partially why I included that bit about Dorothy Otnow Lewis interviewing the executioner: he wasn’t all that different from the people on death row because he, too, had rationalized the acts of taking life that he did as a part of his job. Yes, that is just one example and no, you cannot generalize off of an anecdote, but I still think it says something.

Also, this quickly becomes a slippery slope, which is how Purvi Patel went to prison for having an abortion.

And, let’s not forget the racial disparities in convictions and sentencing that lead a disproportionate number of more Black people to be on death row in the first place. You say you’ll gladly stand up against police brutality and corruption — can you really trust such a racist and broken system with such an ultimate tool for extracting “justice”?