Documentaries & capital punishment. Lately, I’ve been watching documentaries on the BBC iPlayer site, mostly featuring Louis Theroux. He briefly mentioned documentaries that had an impact on him and listed several. I’ve been working my way through them. One of them follows a man during his last 14 days on death row and continues up to and after his execution. It’s called “14 Days in May.” Coming from a country that does not have the death penalty, documentaries that cover and explain it are always appreciated. Newspapers here go absolutely crazy on the subject, as does the general public. While there have been crimes that have warranted the death penalty, usually prison justice serves its purpose. Unless they are segregated, then it becomes easy street.
I’m not 100% sure on the issue of capital punishment. I do agree that sometimes people deserve to have their life taken for the crimes they have done. Not just flat-out murder; personally, it should apply to crimes that carry a psychological aspect. Raping, molesting, sex trafficking, kidnapping, and any one of those combined with murder, in my own mind, would warrant it. Not just because it’s a crime that was carried out on me, but leaving mental scars is awful. Death? It’s a done deal. But if you are forced to watch your parents being slaughtered and then summarily raped, that to me is worse. Death will come and go, but everything else lingers and never truly disappears.
That harm is lifelong. Should that then later cause the suicide of the victim, and if it shows it was related to the crime, then they should have that added to the sentence at least.
The documentary left an impression. It was sad that 40 years ago, if the crime you committed was black on white rather than white on black, there were significant differences between sentences. I think the statistic was that 1 in 4 black people received capital punishment compared to 1 in 20 for whites. Something like that, it’s in the documentary. Thankfully, nowadays we have DNA evidence, which, if it links you directly to a crime, the glove obviously fits. It was quite fascinating to see someone so calm and devoted to the belief that God is making the decision whether he lives or dies. Then, to find out after he died that someone was a witness to the crime but was told to go away by the police.
That’s a hard one to swallow. Seven years and he might be innocent. I do hope, though, that in this day and age, this sort of injustice cannot happen. I can’t comment on America, but when it comes to blacks, they really don’t have the best record. I like to think that here in the UK, outside of London, crimes are more evenly split. Something tells me that when I go and look at statistics, I will be shocked.
