I don’t think anyone can be reasonably surprised when a progressive Democratic Presidential candidate disappoints us. But Obama didn’t have to speak out on the recent Supreme Court decision about the death penalty, and yet he chose to — against their decision and in support of capital punishment. I’m with Liliana on this one:
There’s no question the sexual assault of a child is a monstrous thing, the kind of utterly indefensible crime that can test the resolve of anyone who opposes the death penalty on moral grounds. Indeed, it is the sort of offense death penalty supporters reach for in arguing for the “ultimate sanction.” For a political candidate, it’s a particularly easy position to take. What kind of a person would attack you for saying a child rapist deserves to die?
In fact, in the recent history of the death penalty, calling for the execution of a person who commits a crime other than murder is a radical stance. Nobody has been executed for such an offense in the United States in over 40 years. Until yesterday, only two people out of more than 3,200 prisoners on death row faced execution for a crime in which the victim did not die. Affirming the death penalty for child rape would not only have potentially placed thousands more people on death row — as Justice Anthony Kennedy noted yesterday, there were 5,792 rapes of children under 12 in 2005 alone — it would have vastly broadened the net for capital crimes, a trend that would quickly become a slippery slope. Nevertheless, “I think that the rape of a small child, 6 or 8 years old, is a heinous crime,” Obama said yesterday, “and if a state makes a decision that under narrow, limited, well-defined circumstances the death penalty is at least potentially applicable, that that does not violate our Constitution.” Never mind cruel and unusual punishment. (And yes, that is Obama embracing the conservative mantle of states’ rights.)
Obama’s defenders may argue, as they do about his other recent shifts to the right, that he had to take this position in order to strengthen his candidacy. No, he didn’t. The Democrats may continue to operate in a world in which opposition to the death penalty equals political death, a world shaped by that famous 1988 Dukakis moment, in which the Democratic presidential candidate was hapless when challenged to state that he would support the killing of a man who raped his wife. But times have changed. While the Democrats have embraced the death penalty, public support for it has dwindled — especially in recent years. The regular exonerations of innocent prisoners in this country (218 and counting), persistent evidence of rampant racial and economic bias, and botched executions nationwide have led people — and juries — more and more, to reject the death penalty. Chalk it up, as the Supreme Court likes to, to our “evolving standards of decency.”
I have no sympathy for the monsters who rape children. If anyone deserves to die, it’s probably them. But I still oppose the death penalty — not only because I believe it’s morally and ethically wrong, but also because it’s impossible to assign equitably. The decision of who gets put to death and who doesn’t is far too dependent on the state where the trial is held, on the characteristics of the defendant, and on the characteristics of the jury. Criminal defendants don’t have a as good of a chance if they’re of a certain color or a certain economic class in certain states — and death is simply too harsh a penalty to be applied haphazardly.
Of course, even if was applied to every criminal, the death penalty would still be wrong. It’s unnecessary and cruel. And the fact that we really hate the person who committed the crime doesn’t justify it. I’m disappointed to see Obama on the wrong side of this one.