Murderous Thugs

 Adam Serwer's quote "The cruelty is the point" remains the ur-text of Trumpistan. It's in the vein that last night's state-sanctioned murder of Brandon Bernard took place. Arguments for the rampant use of the death penalty tend to disintegrate under scrutiny. There is very little credible evidence that the death penalty deters crime. European countries without the death penalty have lower crime rates than we do. 

There are, I suppose, some crimes so heinous that the death penalty might be warranted. I could be convinced that bin Laden shouldn't have lived out his days in Gitmo. A guy like Ed Gein might have qualified, but he was insane, as so many serial killers are. Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer, confessed to killing over 70 women, but he also didn't get the death penalty.

So, what's the point of it? 

I don't like backwards reasoning, but Trump's gleeful killing spree as he leaves office - nine so far in his last year in office, with more to come - suggests that maybe it's just an extension of Serwer's point. The death penalty is about cruelty. It's about vengeance. There's no justice for people who are killed. Their deaths are permanent and irrevocable. Killing the perpetrators is not a restorative act. While I can sympathize with the families of the victims, sincerely I do, there is less reason for society at large to require the deaths of people. And this is before we even get into the misapplication of the death penalty (certainly true in Bernard's case) and the false guilty verdicts.

We also know that race plays into the death penalty. First, if you're Black and accused of killing someone, you're more likely to get the death penalty. Second, if the victim is White, the killer is more likely to get the death penalty. This is another, underdiscussed, facet of Black Lives Matter. First, the disproportionate number of Black men and women who are sentenced to death and the lack of legal accountability when Black people are killed by criminals (not just the police).

Americans have always had a cruel streak, because they are human beings. Cruelty isn't cultural, it's universal. Our unique history of race layers onto that innate bloodlust. I doubt that Biden will ever have the votes to ban the death penalty at the federal level; I doubt even more that a Court dominated by "pro-life" death penalty advocates will rule it unconstitutional under the 8th Amendment.

Still, it seems a fight worth having.