Fact #1: The state of Texas leads the nation in the number of annual executions. Thirty seven last year alone.
Fact #2: The city of Houston leads the nation in death penalty convictions.
Fact #3: The majority of the countries that still execute criminals are considered Third World or developing countries.
I have to ask Daily Cougar readers: How does it feel to live in your nation's execution capitol?
We live in a nation that was essentially (theoretically) based on Judeo-Christian principals, which we believe to be represented in our laws. We tightly clutch our Bibles and with tears in our eyes beg for criminals to be put to death, while ignoring the fact that the book in question says, "Thou shalt not kill."
Some death penalty proponents like to assert that the Bible says, "An eye for an eye." If you'll pardon the cliché, "an eye for an eye" leaves everyone blind.
Proponents always use the same tired argument, and I defy you find someone who's pro-death penalty who won't drag out the dinosaur of a point: "What if someone killed your mother? Wouldn't you want that person to be executed?" I want to better that. What if someone killed me?
Would executing the guy somehow resurrect me?
The death penalty has been around for as long as there has been civilization, but does that justify it? We claim the death penalty is intended as a crime deterrent, yet strangely it doesn't seem to be working.
The death penalty is unfairly applied, since you're more likely to be executed for killing a white person than a black or Hispanic. Also, women are considerably less likely than men to be executed.
Some apparently look at the death penalty the same way homophobes used to look at AIDS. Why question it as long as it's killing all the right people?
As was is the case with AIDS, the death penalty is not doing us any favors. There have been numerous instances of men being proven innocent years after their executions.
Thurgood Marshall once said, "What are you going to say to an innocent man who's been executed? Oops, sorry about that?" This is not to say that every convicted murderer is innocent, but unless our criminal justice system becomes infallible we need to re-examine the practice of killing criminals.
Americans frequently complain that only rich men can afford justice because of the elaborate web of well paid legal professionals we surround ourselves with, and that we hypocritically send poor men into courtrooms with court appointed lawyers and sign their death warrants by opposing them with conviction-hungry district attorneys.
A British reporter present at a recent Texas execution said that the British no longer execute criminals, because this close to the 21st century the practice seems even more barbaric.
Americans frequently sit in judgment of other cultures and point out how civilized we are in comparison, yet we still practice a form of controlled mob justice.
Concluding Fact: Of all the world's "industrialized," nations, the only nation that still executes its criminals is the United States of America. God bless America.
Handy is a senior RTV major