Western liberals can be so hypocritical. On one hand, their arguments were against the Bush administration for attempting to bring Western-style democracy to Iraq, saying that we must not presume to tell an ancient culture how to run their own nation. On the other, they’re now angry that we’re going to allow that ancient nation to execute their former leader, Saddam Hussein. How incongruous.
In any case, it appears that Saddam is on borrowed time. His first trial pronounced him guilty and sentenced him to death by hanging. Now, an Iraqi appeals court has upheld that death sentence, and the verdict will be carried out whether or not the Iraqi president, or anybody else, agrees - and it’ll be done within 30 days. [UPDATE: December 29th, 7pm PST. Saddam has been executed, and we’ll expect to see the videotape within days.]
This makes a lot of Westerners very uneasy. Hell, it makes me uneasy, and I’m not even completely opposed to the death penalty.
I have, throughout my thinking life, held various positions on capital punishment. When I started to identify with libertarian ideals several years ago, I noticed that this is one of the few issues upon which libertarians disagree fervently. At once I am persuaded that the death penalty is a just and appropriate sentence while I’m equally as uncertain that it is a practically ethical one. Allow me to explain what I mean.
I don’t believe that it is the duty of the state to punish citizens for crimes that they commit. I believe it is the duty of the state to protect citizens from infringements of their rights (and of course much of this blog is devoted to arguing that the state is often chief among those doing the infringing in the first place). As such, the state is not charged with punishing criminals so much as it is charged with compensating victims of infringements. This is a kind of retributive justice theory, in which compensation is an attempt to equal the value of the right that was infringed upon.
In the case of murder, the infringement is on the victim’s right to life, and the duty of the state is to compensate the victim for that infringement. In the absence of the victim, justice is served by compensating the victim’s legal representative; a spouse, parent, child or relative. Now adequate compensation for theft may be to fine the perpetrator in the amount of what was stolen plus interest, legal fees and state fees which may include the costs necessary to maintain a working, sufficient justice system. But what compensation can be made for murder?
The argument is that, just as it is in the case of a thief who is fined to compensate for his actions (that his right to property is subject to removal), so it is with the case of a murderer (that his right to life is subject to removal).
In practice, however, as Nathaniel Brandon wrote a few decades ago, “Men are not infallible; juries make mistakes; that is the problem. There have been instances recorded where all the available evidence pointed overwhelmingly to a man’s guilt, and the man was convicted, and then subsequently discovered to be innocent.”
And so my position for about the past 18 months or so has been that, in principle, the death penalty may well be justifiable but that, in practice, the justifiability of the death penalty is usually impossible to adequately verify. In short, I agree in principle but oppose in practice. It would be better to sentence a thousand murderers to life in prison than to execute one innocent man.
Any debate about capital punishment for me is not created by a passion or sympathy for the criminal. I have no concern for his right to life since he forfeited that right when he committed murder. But I am concerned about a policy that has the potential to put even one innocent person to death (and by the way I recommend a wonderful film on the theme by Alan Parker, The Life of David Gale that has some relevance to this point).
But. (And this is where this point gets interesting.)
Can the possibility of innocence really exist for Saddam Hussein? His trial was surprisingly thorough, amazingly extensive and very meticulous. I didn’t expect that, since it is obvious to everyone who knows of Iraq that Saddam is guilty of more than a few murders, and of many other horrible things it won’t benefit us to mention. Can any reasonable doubt — reasonable in the sense expressed above — really still exist that Saddam is innocent of every charge against him? He has not one murder conviction against him but one hundred and forty-eight; a mere taster of the total horror of his regime.
So by virtue of my support for the death penalty in principle, and of the complete certainty with which the international community can uphold his conviction by the court of his own nation, I am persuaded that it is appropriate and fitting that Saddam Hussein be executed. And why waste any time?
As the comedian Ron White put it and as the Iraqi court order now instructs, while others are abolishing capital punishment, Saddam went to the express lane. And that’s just fine by me.
John Wright
23 responses so far ↓
1 Brian // Dec 26, 2006 at 6:45 pm
I can’t have any sympathy for Saddam. If more people were privvy to all the things he did then even fewer would wish him spared. But I can understand and share your hesitation on the death penalty. One good question is this. What would the death penalty serve that life in prison would not?
2 S Quinney // Dec 27, 2006 at 7:50 am
Brian the death penalty would be made on principle for compensation of victims in John’s scenario. For example the thousands of people who suffered under Saddam as victims would be given the option of a certain range of tarriff, from a jail sentence to life in prison to death, etc. If they demand death as compensation, then he would be justified going to the gallows. In my eyes it’s a good, but not perfect, theory of justice. But what laws of justice are perfect?
3 John Wright // Dec 27, 2006 at 2:29 pm
Quinney- Yes, law is an imperfect discipline. Ayn Rand at one point said:
“But you ask me what is the punishment deserved by criminal actions. This is a technical, legal issue, which has to be answered by the philosophy of law. The law has to be guided by moral principles, but their application to specific cases is a special field of study. I can only indicate in a general way what principles should be the base of legal justice in determining punishments.
4 Rosalita Paglia // Dec 27, 2006 at 3:15 pm
Rosalita agrees again John though the thought of hanging is perhaps more gruesome than other methods of capital punishment which I feel are more humane, for example lethal injection.
5 S Quinney // Dec 27, 2006 at 10:28 pm
I have to agree with Rosalita on the method of execution. The death penalty is not supposed to be a ‘torture and death’ penalty, and I think if it is to be used it should be as ‘humane’, that is, as painless as possible.
6 Stephen // Dec 28, 2006 at 2:21 am
Good article John,
To be honest I used to be against the death penalty, but no longer. I’m a little unsure of your compensation theory, and it wouldn’t be the primary grounds on which I would defend the death penalty. You are correct to say that the state does not have a duty to punish but that it’s duty is to protect and uphold rights against infringement. For this reason I think the justification of the death penalty for murder is similar to the justification of self-defence. If the citizens of our country were to be attacked by a foreign agressor I think our government is just and right to fight back - killing the foreign aggressors - to defend its own. Similar principles apply to the case of a domestic aggressor - if a man kills another man then the state might be right to view him in the same way as it should view a foreign aggressor, and thus rightly take his life.
SG
7 Rosalita // Dec 28, 2006 at 8:19 am
Good to hear from you Stephen.. How’s the baby?
8 S Quinney // Dec 28, 2006 at 12:43 pm
Stephen I think both of you are right, like two sides of the same coin. What do you think of John’s reluctance to use the death penalty because of perhaps executing innocents, do you think that’s a real possibility? From what I’ve seen I think most trials are very competent and would not think under the current system in America for example that anyone could be wrongly executed in this day and age.
9 Stephen // Dec 28, 2006 at 1:38 pm
Thanks Rosalita…the baby is doing well, growing, eating and sleeping and pretty much enjoying life. I promise more articles in the new year.
S:
When it comes to the execution of innocents I think that in most Western justice systems it is highly unlikely. What is far more likely is that guilty men and women go free. Such is the stringent burden of proof on the shoulders of the prosecution. In any event I could use the same analogy as I mentioned above. If our country is attacked by foreign agressors we are justified in hitting back even if we know that quite possibly innocents will get hit in the cross fire. The same applies here. Some innocents might possibly get caught in the cross fire, but that is insufficient in and of itself to say the penalty is unjustified. Many innocent people go to jail, but that doesn’t mean life sentences are unjustified.
SG
10 Anonymous // Dec 28, 2006 at 2:26 pm
I think the death penalty is horrible. Anyone who practices it ought to be up on crimes against humanity. And by the way the United States should be ashamed to be categorized with most of the countries that still practice the death penalty.
11 Anonymous // Dec 28, 2006 at 2:29 pm
And Stephen I think you would quickly change your mind if it was your innocent brother that was put to death by mistake. OOPS isn’t quite going to cut it.
12 Anonymous // Dec 28, 2006 at 5:16 pm
American sponsored and financed trial drafted by American advisers and funded by the US and heavily staffed by US personnel to meet the corrupt self-righteous American agenda of vengeance is mine USA style, will America be brought to trial for its crimes against humanity and the innocent.
The trial it’s self was no more than a kangaroo court to meet the aspirations of a gung-ho Texas cowboy president who sought to justify his act of illegal vengeance against the rule of Saddam Hussein in retaliation for 9/11,
It was drafted in terms of being adversarial and confrontational, so it completely flew in face of legal logic for Iraqis, Des Doherty Lawyer.
The trial which has led to the judgment of the execution of Saddam Hussein is legally improper based on flawed international legal procedure because the court is not lawfully mandated by the UN.
What happened to impartiality and independence which was obviously lacking in the course of this trial? And the absence of legal logic.
Shame on the USA!
13 John Wright // Dec 28, 2006 at 8:49 pm
That’s right, Anonymous. Shame on the USA for bringing Saddam to justice. Are you aware of what Saddam did? Obviously if it were up to you he’d still be in a position to murder and abuse thousands of his own citizens; and we wonder why you aren’t in charge?
Next time you have a thought….. let it go.
14 Stephen // Dec 29, 2006 at 9:03 am
Anonymous:
My feelings if it were my innocent brother or son on the receiving end of such a penalty are insufficient to establish that the penalty is wrong or unjustified. My feelings are irrelevant. As are yours. Perhaps you should use your brain rather than your feelings when it comes to such matters.
SG
15 Anonymous // Dec 29, 2006 at 5:25 pm
Over I.3 million babies murdered in abortion clinics in the USA during 2006, do I hear the cry for justice for the murder of innocent babies? Is this consistent? With the execution which will be meted out to Saddam Hussein were is the equivalence of justice, is there logic of equality in this duplicity.ONE BIG NO
16 Stephen // Dec 30, 2006 at 2:16 pm
Well folks, do you want to know what going off on a tangent looks like?
SG
17 S Quinney // Dec 30, 2006 at 4:53 pm
Yes indeed, a morally vacuous and rhetorically stunted tangent.
18 Brian // Jan 2, 2007 at 9:18 am
Has anyone seen the full execution video as caught on cellphone? To watch or not to watch? It’s available to every one of the readers of this blog and yet I would be interested in how many have watched or are planning to.
19 WTK55 // Jan 2, 2007 at 9:30 am
Excellent question Brian. I have a morbid interest but not sure if I could watch it or not…
20 Anonymous // Jan 8, 2007 at 10:45 pm
I would think that true libertarians would not want to give the state the ulitimate power to take a life…even if the SOB so richly deserves it.
21 John Wright // Jan 9, 2007 at 7:51 am
Anonymous- Perhaps the “ultimate power” is not to take a life by execution but to take a life by removing all his inherent freedoms and rights? But if you read the above article you’d know that probably half of libertarians agree with you.
22 Anonymous // Jan 9, 2007 at 8:29 pm
I can read the article and still state an opinion, can’t I?
23 John Wright // Jan 10, 2007 at 11:47 am
Certainly, and I’m glad you did! Liek I say, many libertarians agree with you and disagree with me (ie. that libertarians should not be happy with the state having the power to end a person’s life). Thanks for your comments.
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