In his letter on capital punishment (Oct. 28), H.J. Oettinger raises a number of emotional arguments, none of which hold up when looked at from a rational perspective.
First, he decries that a 13-year-old murder suspect in Florida is not receiving special treatment on account of his age. Why should he? Either he is guilty or he is innocent, and if he is guilty of such an egregious crime at the “tender” age of 13, I don’t want to know what kind of adult he may turn out to be later on.
Further, Oettinger writes that by putting murderers to death, we “align ourselves with totalitarian regimes.” To equate killing dissidents with killing killers comes much closer to aligning oneself with a totalitarian regime. Besides, most dissidents in many totalitarian regimes are simply jailed rather than killed.
Another argument raised is that the U.S. is the only western nation which has a death penalty. First, it is not germane to the discussion of the morality of the issue.
As for the deterrence issue, that is a much more difficult issue to call. In most states we have it in name only, and even then carried out only after numerous automatic appeals. One thing is certain, however: It is a 100 percent effective deterrent against repeat offenses.
