The proposed main-event for tonight is Angel Maturino Resendiz; famous as The Railway Killer. Convicted and sentenced to death in May of 2000 for the grisly murder of Texas doctor Claudia Benton, he has since been linked to a total of sixteen murders. He's not the innocent poster-victim that the anti-death penalty crowd loves. I rather expect that they really wish he'd just have a heart attack or something and die so they don't have to face the embarrassing task of crying realistic tears of sympathy during their television interviews.
So why am I talking about this sick fuck? I could mention he's an illegal alien (that's illegal alien, not undocumented immigrant, guest worker or other sappy phrase... make of that what you will), or I could talk about how he could be tortured to death by the unreliable lethal injection process, I might even blather about a justice system that is swift in exactly the same way as glaciers (if Resendiz dies tonight it will be an exceptionally swift execution).
Nope...tonight I'm gonna jump on the big bull and see if I can hold on...we're going to talk about the death penalty:
For the record, I'm against the death penalty. Not because it's wrong (even though it is), not because it's cruel (even though it is), not because it's unfair (even though it is), but because the death penalty is too damned expensive.
I guess I just don't place an extremely high value on human life except for those directly involved in mine. Maybe it's years of studying history or the desensitization caused by killing countless thousands in video games (I've killed all sorts of virtual people, but the most intensely satisfying is dismembering hordes of faceless stormtroopers in Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast), but mostly it's because I'm a practical person who believes that the value of human life is not infinite. Once you reach that point then the issue can be compared to the old joke:
Man: "Will you have sex with me for a million dollars?"
Woman: "For a million dollars? You bet I will!"
Man: "Will you have sex with me for twenty dollars?"
Woman: "Of course not! What kind of a woman do you think I am?"
Man: "We've already established that, we're just haggling over the price."
Resendiz's life isn't worth squat to me. I would only pay for the bullet that kills him if it keeps me from having to pay for his food. Unfortunately our justice system has somehow made bullets (or needles in this case) more expensive than all the food, clothing, medical care, security and housing that is needed to keep Resendiz off the streets until he kicks the bucket all by himself.
Most of the cost is incurred by the trial and the endless reviews, appeals and legal wranglings that happen before there's a chance the inmate can lose the lethal injection lottery. It isn't really likely...only about 10% of all people sentenced to death since 1976 have actually been executed...but it still costs 3-5 times more to get that sentence than it does to get life and that's just the tip of the iceberg.
Am I concerned that an innocent may be murdered by my government? Yeah; but I'm also concerned about global warming, Iraq, Somalia, Darfur, traffic accidents, police brutality, street gangs, desertification, AIDS and terrorism. Innocent people die every day and each of them is no more or less a tragedy than if it had been done via a court of law. Catch a district attorney or a cop fabricating evidence that kills someone and I'm all for poetic justice...but accidents happen. That doesn't make it right, but right's got nothing to do with it.
Plain and simple: Under our current system it costs way too much money to kill the subhuman dregs like Angel Resendiz. This murderous asshole deserves to be broken on the wheel or crucified...not put down gently. I'd be able to sleep at night if I lived in a society that did so. Frankly, I wouldn't care how they killed him, if they didn't have to spend an average of 2.16 million dollars per executed thug.
It's simple economics...I'd rather Resendiz and his ilk were yanked right out of this world by a just and efficient legal system...but if it costs less to let them rot in Brownsville then I'll forgo my thirst for bloody vengeance.
2 comments:
I see what you're saying, but I can't square with the idea of allowing inhuman scum like Resendiz to live just because it's cheaper. IMO it's worth every penny to make sure he doesn't enjoy another day of life, and even more so that he won't ever have the chance to kill again, either in or out of prison. Not to mention, I can't stand the fact that my tax dollars go to provide air conditioned comfort, cable TV, and free weights to scumbags who need to be rotting in some dank, fetid hole in the ground.
If anything, we need to find ways to eliminate the endless appeals and legal finagling which causes this punishment to be overly expensive.
It'd be fine with me if we do, but right now it looks like the lawyers are going to keep the price of rope too high. I just disagree that it is worth every penny to kill them.
Now that Resendiz is dead I damn sure wouldn't pay anything to get him back.
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