Death Penalty for a Terrorist
The man who terrorized the Washington area seven years ago with the indiscriminate murder of innocent people at random was put to death last night in Virginia.
I am not a big fan of the death penalty, but this case fits my personal criteria. Because of the propensity of people to make mistakes, and the irreversible nature of the punishment, my personal belief is there should be a higher standard for imposing death than simply guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt.” I would advocate a standard of “guilt beyond any doubt.” Anything short of that should result in life without parole. That’s my opinion.
For example, after listening to the evidence in the celebrated O.J. Simpson trial, I was convinced he was guilty beyond “a reasonable doubt.” But was there a slim possibility his defense was true? Did the glove really not fit? Or was that courtroom theatrics? Did police plant evidence to try to ensure a conviction? Maybe. So I would NOT consider that case a candidate for the death penalty. (He was found not guilty in the criminal trial of course, but that’s irrelevant for the purposes of this argument.)
I am aware that some people think life without parole is actually harsher punishment than death. They see death as an easy out for someone who has committed a heinous act, and to some extent I agree.
But I also feel there are some crimes so despicable, so heartless, so inexcusable that the perpetrator simply does not deserve to live. They should die for that simple fact, even if it costs society more to kill them (with death row appeals and all) than to keep them alive. I put the DC sniper in that category.
And make no mistake; the sniper was a terrorist, plain and simple. His campaign was designed to strike fear in everyone. And that’s what terrorists do, they seek to accomplish their goals through creating paralyzing fear.
In October of 2002, I was in the Persian Gulf region reporting on preparations for the coming invasion of Iraq. My wife was home, worried about my safety, and about possible terrorist attacks from extremists in the region. When I learned of the sniper, I was more worried about her and my family, and the threat they faced from a homegrown terrorist.
One day, after I returned, I was inspecting a dying tree in my backyard, when a white panel truck pulled up next to my fence, and stopped for no obvious reason. It began to slowly back up, just as it might do if someone inside wanted to get a better shot at me. (At the time everyone was on the lookout for white vans because an eyewitness thought he saw one leaving the scene of one of the shootings.) I knew I might be overreacting, but I also knew sometimes overreacting is the right response. So I darted across my backyard in a zigzag pattern, keeping my head down, so as to present the most difficult target possible.
Once through my backdoor I yelled at my wife to call 911, and we began to follow the truck’s movements from our house. It continued to slowly backup, and make the turn it has obviously missed onto a nearby street. In a minute or so we saw a sofa being unloaded and delivered to a neighbor’s house. We told the police, “Nevermind.”
Such was the fear that gripped the area in the fall of 2002.
Now we have another ‘homegrown” terrorist to deal with, whose crime also took the lives of innocents in a random act of horrific violence. Should he be found guilty beyond any doubt, he, too, should be put to death. Not because it the most just punishment, and not because it will deter others, just because someone like that doesn’t deserves to breathe the same air as the rest of us.
Tags: DC Sniper, Death Penalty, John Allen Mohammad, Terrorists
