Capital Punishment

The news in NH is full of the trial of Michael Addison, who shot and killed a police officer, Michael Briggs. Addison has been found guilty of murder, and is eligible for the death penalty, and the poor jury is now deliberating on his fate. According to NHPR, the state currently doesn't possess the means for an execution, and no one has been executed since 1931 or some such date.

Why is it that we feel the need to take a person's life in exchange for the life they have taken? I've always believed that the greater punishment for the murderer was to have to live the rest of his/her life behind bars, thinking about the crime they have committed and the freedom they have lost. What could be worse?

Not only that, but what does it profit anyone to snuff out another life? The original victim will not come back, and, the executioner, representing the state, has just become a murderer. A murder for a murder. It just doesn't make sense. We are not a barbaric society. We are supposedly a predominantly Christian society, and the last time I looked, it was the Old Testament that called for an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. I thought that with the coming of Christ and before his MURDER, he preached a new theology, that of the New Testament, which suggested that we should turn the other cheek, that we should practice forgiveness, that we should love others as we love ourselves. Even those who interpret the Bible absolutely literallly can't miss these tenets of the gospel preached by Christ and his disciples. This half of the Bible superseded the theology of the Old Testament, at least that is what I was taught.

Tonight's news featured Michael Briggs's parents testifying about what their son's death has meant to them. Of course it was emotional testimony. But do they think that the death of Michael Addison will really make them feel any better? Will it ease their grief and sense of loss? I can't see how it will.

I am in favor of bringing a criminal to justice. I guess I just think we don't need to take a life in order to accomplish justice. Michael Addison committed a heinous crime. He deserves to be punished and removed from society. He doesn't deserve to be murdered.