I would like to respond to Jesse Handy's Feb. 17 column on the death penalty. How could you possibly compare the United States to Third World countries? Give me a break.
You say that since the U.S. still practices capital punishment we are comparable to Third World countries. If an individual is placed on death row, every legal means has been exhausted to prevent his or her death. Countless motions and appeals have gone through and been denied.
I will admit that there have been innocent individuals in the past that have been wrongly accused and executed. The death penalty should only be used sparingly and on individuals who repeatedly break the law and show no signs of rehabilitation.
The sole purpose of capital punishment is to ensure that certain individuals who have repeatedly broken the law in the most serious matters do not break the law again.
Taking this argument further, the purpose of the death penalty is to save lives. I will admit that families of victims of serious crimes may seek the death penalty for some sort of vengeance, but the ultimate goal of the death penalty is to protect society from dangerous individuals.
How many lives are being saved by having one individual executed? You say that the death penalty does not lower the crime rate, but how do you know?
Let's look at Ted Bundy, sentenced to imprisonment for strangling 32 young women. After escaping, he killed four more women. What if he had been executed the first time? Those women would have been given a fair shot at life. Instead, those women were raped and murdered because somebody didn't have the stomach to execute an individual who had killed 32 already.
The death penalty would have saved four young women; who knows how many lives the death penalty has saved. Maybe yours.
Finally, how can you say that the legal system is unfairly applied? You wrote "you are more likely to be executed for killing a white person than a black or Hispanic."
I hope for the defendant's sake that you are never placed on a jury. I wonder if there is a connection between the race of an individual and violent crimes. Maybe this explains the "unfair application" of the death penalty of which you speak.
Robert Brooks, freshman business major
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