The death penalty was discussed in depth following Willy
Mamah and Frances Ogwo's article
"Death Penalty should be Abolished," (This day,
Tuesday 4th February 2003, pages 45, 51).
In the same issue Ms. Funke Aboyade's comments "It
would be a Big Mistake" provided the counter arguments
for abolition of capital punishment, particularly in our
environment. Mr. John Oziegbe, in THISDAY of Tuesday 18
February made excellent comments in the
discussion so far, supporting abolition. I expect that
by now, Funke Aboyade should be buried in an avalanche of
letters in support of capital punishment, for it is the
normal human instinctual reaction as natural as withdrawing
your finger when it is pierced by a sharp pin or when it
touches a very hot object. So far, the discussion has exposed
the moral and legal points, but there are also medical and
human angles that I wish to emphasise.
I would like to make it quite clear from the beginning
that my contribution is not aimed at any particular judgment
affecting any particular crime. It is always a mistake to
discuss capital punishment with a view of reversing (or
enforcing) it with reference to a particular case or person
in order to avoid a bias introduced by emotional involvement
in that specific circumstance. Such discussion is always
offensive to the relatives of one side or the other. In
any case, a general rule should not be derived from one
specific case.
Death itself is not painful, but the disease and injuries
leading to it are. Human beings have always wrongly assumed
that we go through a terrible agony during the process of
dying. It is on this wrong assumption that death became
a "penalty" for those who committed heinous crimes.
However, evidence from daily life contradicts this. In 1989,
I was involved in a car crash and lay unconscious in the
wreckage. I eventually woke up but could not move, and heard
some passers-by the driver had earlier overtaken at high
speed (I was asleep) nearly Iynching him for having killed
that Oga for nothing. On realising I was being presumed
dead,
I shouted from the wreckage "I am not yet dead!"
They rushed back and extracted me from the wreckage. It
was then that I began to have pain and realised I had injured
my neck. They very kindly took me to a hospital in their
van. Every inch of the journey was agony. Had I truly died,
I would never have felt any pain.
Death is always preceded by loss of consciousness. Anything
that is severe enough to kill first makes the victim unconscious.
The victim never perceives the actual moment of death. It
may also surprise many to know that when you are shot by
a high velocity bullet, it can go right through your body
and cause no pain, except to knock you down by the sheer
force it transmits to your body. Traumatic damage to the
internal organs takes about one hour to cause pain. Armed
robbers being shot at the stake may feel great fear, but
little pain. They merely become weak from internal bleeding,
get unconscious when the heart fails and die before the
stage of feeling pain. One of the military governors probably
realised this when he shocked the nation by suggesting that
armed robbers should be shot slowly from the feet upwards
to make them experience the pain they caused their victims.
Public executions during military rule did not curb armed
robbery; such desecration of human life merely reduced the
reverence for it and increased the number of people that
were ready to kill at the slightest provocation.
If the actual process of dying is not painful, then what
constitutes "punishment" in capital punishment?
Man is a spiritual animal, and I think the period that he
lives under the sentence of death, before the actual execution,
is the punishment. It is the period of mental torture from
which the subject escapes at execution. The only people
truly punished by the death penalty are the relatives and
dependants of the condemned man. They suffer the loss of
their
breadwinner and the stigma of the execution for life despite
the fact that they might have shared the revulsion for the
crime like anyone else.
Despite her powerful argument for capital punishment, Funke
Aboyade admitted that it has not deterred would-be murderers
if murder statistics are to be believed. She hit the right
answer when she said,
"The argument against deterrence is that the criminal
was clearly not deterred by the fear of punishment, and
that it is the fear of being caught that might deter in
its favour."
This is quite correct. No criminal goes out believing that
he would be caught, and the fear of punishment, no matter
how horrible, does not come into his calculations. The lower
the rate of crime detection, the higher would be the incidence
of crime. Conversely the incidence of crime declines sharply
as the rate of detection approaches 100%
It is similar to flying. If every aircraft that took off
crashed, no one would risk their lives flying. Although
the occasional aeroplane crashes and kills all its occupants,
we still go out to fly because we believe that our flight
would not crash. Similarly, even if Society tore capital
offenders limb from limb till they died, the criminal would
still believe that he would not be caught. Therefore, apart
from the government tackling poverty, the Nigeria Police
would have to improve on their present deplorable crime
detection rate to sufficiently rattle the criminal.
All the major contributions on this topic seemed to agree
that the death penalty is a primitive impulse to revenge,
and constitutes a destructive action that has no value for
anyone. On the contrary, it cheapens human life, reduces
its sanctity in the eyes of the public, and thus may indirectly
do the opposite of what it was meant to do.
We share with all other animals the instinct to revenge.
If you bite me, I will bite you; if you hit me, I will hit
you back. If you kill me, society will kill you. Nevertheless,
man can rise above basic instincts. Even during the time
of famine, we do not eat all our crops including the seeds-we
leave them for planting. Here, we are using the higher human
faculties to suppress our basic instinct for greater good.
In a similar manner, those societies with higher moral development
(the governments of the USA are not included) have stopped
regarding imprisonment as a punishment, but as an opportunity
to reform the offender. Clearly, some capital offenders
are psychopathic, and cannot be easily reformed, and isolating
them by life imprisonment is appropriate. There are complaints
that society financially supports them. Even if it is not
possible to train them to be sufficiently productive to
pay for their keep, it is better to finance their isolation
that to murder them. We human beings are capable of rising
above our basic survival instincts, but it does not come
automatically. We have to raise our mental functions to
the higher operating level of the human psyche. At this
level, the suffering of every human being is our suffering;
the death of the least of our brethren diminishes us.
I have noticed that the Scriptures have been used on both
sides of the argument, and I would not like to be drawn
into that abyss of confusion. However, the temptation is
overwhelming, and I would venture to say that the Mosaic
law of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth no longer
holds for Christians, unless they disregard what Jesus said
on the cross about his crucifiers: "Father, forgive
them, for they know not what they do!"
Cynics will say that those of us that advocate the abolition
of capital punishment would change our views if we personally
suffered the trauma of armed robbery or the loss of a loved
one from ritual murder. Let no one think that we are a special
breed of people who are immune from feeling the basic instinct
to smash those that grievously hurt us or demand an eye
for an eye. We do, but every human being has an inner "voice"
that comes from the higher reaches of the mind. It advises
us, sometimes against our basic instincts. Some people think
it is God talking to us, while other call it "the guardian
angel;" yet others think it is the conscience. Indeed,
it opposes everything we want to do wrong, and encourages
self- sacrifice and forgiveness. Many people learn to suppress
it and in them it eventually becomes relatively weak. If
you learn to listen to your innermost self, and avoid suppressing
it, you would move your actions to a higher mental faculty.
Here lies the centre for tolerance, unconditional love,
concern for human suffering, compassion for people rejected
by society, and the truth underlying Christianity, Islam
and all other religions. This is my personal experience.
Others may have different experiences or may follow even
better spiritual pathways, but may arrive at a similar destination.
Anyone who personally suffers from the terror and physical
injury of armed robbery, or loses a loved one through ritual
murder would have strong feelings to destroy the perpetrators
of these evils. However, the person functioning at the higher
human mental faculties will overcome the instinct, sometimes
only after great efforts. Instincts are inborn patterns
of behaviour, usually orientated towards survival and reproduction;
they may be so strong that many of us rebel against curbing
them. It is for this reason that discussion on many topics
can get very heated because people are firing from entrenched
positions.
Life Imprisonment
Many supporters of capital punishment think that life imprisonment
is a picnic of sorts. Well, it is not. Two of the most wicked
people in the world are today begging for death rather than
continue to be incarcerated for life, and this in a British
prison.
Ian Brady and his girl friend, Myra Hendley committed the
most horrible series of murders that it is impossible to
find anything more wickedly. They would abduct a child and
Brady would torture her, take obscene photographs, record
the child pleading for mercy, sexually assault her and kill
her. They would bury the body on Saddleworth Moor and celebrate
the event by standing on the grave and taking photographs.
Several children in the area disappeared without trace,
and no one, to this day, knows how many they killed, but
eventually they were convicted of killing three and sentenced
to life imprisonment on the 6th May 1966. Twenty-one years
afterwards, they confessed to two more, and the bodies were
exhumed and given to the parents for proper burial.
The effect of long-term imprisonment has been devastating
on the two. Mr. Steve Boggan, a journalist from whose article
in the Observer this information was obtained, wrote:
"The first thing I learnt from my correspondence with
them was that if you ever felt the desire that Hindley and
Brady should suffer, you can rest assured. Incarceration
is killing both of them. Take this from Hindley during an
interview with me in July 1977. 'I know I could be out here
one week before someone assassinated me. But at least I
would have had one week of freedom. I will take my chances.
I would prefer one week of freedom to the security of a
lifetime of incarceration. '
While Myra Hindley desperately wanted freedom, Ian Brady
felt no remorse and desperately wanted to die to escape
the incarceration. He petitioned the courts several times
to be allowed to die, but with no success. He started food
and water strike in September 1999, but is being force-fed
to this day." For these two, imprisonment is worse
than death. Imprisonment is real punishment. Even if you
had been successfully suppressing that inner self, prolonged
loneliness soon gives it an opportunity to force its way
to your consciousness and torment you over the sins you
suppressed it to commit, and this can be real hell.
If we accept that human life is holy, and make a law that
no one must kill another human being, the law must be absolute
and make no exceptions. Human life does not lose its sanctity
because the owner of that life has sinned by killing. It
is equally wrong for the State to murder under the guise
of legal execution; particularly as such murder does not
have any proven value.
Gyoh, a Consultant Surgeon, wrote in from Gboko, Benue
Sate.
Editors note: Myraj Hindley has since died in prison in
England
