Criminal But Not Capital

Very few, if any, crimes deserve capital punishment.

We don’t know if George Floyd really did try to pass a counterfeit $20 bill. But let’s assume he did. That’s a crime and deserves punishment — but hardly capital punishment. Yet that’s what he got. Similarly, Rayshard Brooks resisted arrest and attacked a police officer. Again, that deserves punishment — but not capital punishment.

We don’t have to treat petty criminals as heroes or even as innocent parties in order to recognize the gross injustce of depriving them of their lives. Claiming them to be totally innocent is causing a faulty justification to be used on behalf of a justified conclusion.

Capital punishment is far from being the harshest possible punishment, by the way. Life in solitary confinement, punctuated by occasional and unpredictable flogging, would be much worse.