[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 136 (Tuesday, September 5, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Page S12631]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          VICTIMS OF VENGEANCE

 Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, recently, I read in a denominational 
magazine, the Lutheran, an article by Judge Richard L. Nygaard on 
capital punishment.
  It was of interest to me that the South African Supreme Court 
unanimously ruled against capital punishment, making South Africa join 
the large majority of modern, civilized nations that outlaw capital 
punishment.
  The article has practical wisdom for all of us, coming from a judge 
who has no political agenda.
  I ask that the article be printed in the Record at this point..
  The article follows:

                          Victims of Vengeance

                        (By Richard L. Nygaard)

       Perry Carris is dead. I doubt that many mourned him. Even 
     among those who did not want him to die, most would readily 
     admit that the world is a better place without him. He was a 
     brutal killer. He and a friend entered the home of the 
     friend's elderly uncle and aunt, then killed and robbed them. 
     The uncle was stabbed 79 times and the aunt, who weighed only 
     70 pounds, 66 times.
       But, you see, Carris didn't just die--we killed him. One 
     night last year officers of the prison where he spent his 
     final hours injected him with lethal chemicals, and, quietly, 
     he met eternity. Many more are scheduled to die in like 
     fashion. Moreover, the new federal crime bill imposes death 
     as a penalty for 50 more crimes.
       Is it not time to think about what society is doing? What 
     we are doing? Carris' act was deliberate. So was ours. 
     Carris' motivation was a cruel disregard for life. What was 
     ours? The first killing clearly was criminal and 
     unjustified--and sinful. But how about the second?
       The death penalty as the ultimate sanction brings 
     punishment sharply into focus. It is the surrogate for 
     society's frustration with the failures of government to 
     maintain order and protect them.
       As a form of punishment, the killing of criminals is an 
     issue with which Christians also must reconcile their 
     beliefs. Many who are quick to condemn abortion because it 
     kills an innocent being are just as quick to accept the death 
     penalty, ostensibly because it kills a guilty being. Each is 
     the killing of a human: The first is one whom Jesus said 
     knows no sin; the second is one whose sin Jesus said could be 
     forgiven. Is there a difference? Is this a paradox? Or can we 
     reconcile our ambivalent attitudes about death?


                             why we punish

       It is important first to know the purpose of our 
     punishment. American penology is really quite simple. We have 
     just three means of criminal punishment: probation, 
     incarceration and death. And we rely upon only four 
     justifications: rehabilitation, deterrence, containment and 
     retribution. How does the death penalty serve these ends?
       When we look at each possible justification, it becomes 
     clear that both society's motivation and the penal system's 
     justification for the death penalty is simply retribution: We 
     are ``getting even.''
       First, one can easily reject rehabilitation as the goal. 
     The death penalty surely does not rehabilitate the person 
     upon whom it is imposed. It simply takes his life.
       The second purpose, deterrence, is more problematic. 
     Statistics uniformly show that condemned criminals on death 
     row did not consider the possibility that they might die for 
     their crimes. Others, of course, may have thought of the 
     consequences--and did not kill. But this possibility has been 
     little-researched. We simply do not know much about this 
     aspect of deterrence. Death, of course, is permanent 
     deterrence. But the question is whether it is necessary. Life 
     imprisonment will protect society from further criminal acts 
     by the malefactor--and at less expense than execution.
       Containment, the third justification for punishment, also 
     poses a philosophical problem because it punishes a person 
     for something as yet not done. We use the crime already 
     committed to project, sometimes without further information, 
     that he or she will do it again. Then we contain the person 
     to prevent that.
       Although killing the offender does, in a grim and final 
     sense, contain and so protect society we must ask again: Is 
     it necessary? It is not. Penologists recognize that an 
     offender can be effectively and economically contained in a 
     prison. They also reject containment to justify the capital 
     punishment.


                          the ultimate payback

       This leaves only retribution. Revenge--the ultimate 
     payback. As a tool of retribution, death works wonderfully.
       The desire for revenge is the dark secret in us all. It is 
     human nature to resent a hurt, and each of us has a desire to 
     hurt back. Before the time of law, the fear of personal 
     reprisal may have been all that kept some from physical 
     attacks upon others or property crimes against them. But with 
     law, cultures sought to limit personal revenge by punishment 
     controlled and meted out in a detached fashion by the 
     sovereign.
       Revenge between citizens is antithetical to civilized 
     society. It invites a greater retaliation . . . which in turn 
     invites counter reprisal . . . which invites more revenge. A 
     spiraling escalation of violence between society and the 
     criminal subculture results. By exacting revenge upon 
     criminals, society plays on their terms and by their 
     rules. We cannot win.


                          `Acceptable' revenge

       Leaders know, and have for centuries, that civilization 
     requires restraint. They know that open personal revenge is 
     socially destructive and cannot be permitted. That, indeed, 
     it must be renounced. Official revenge is not better, and the 
     results are no less odious. By catering to the passions of 
     society, government tells its citizens that vengeance is 
     acceptable--it is just that you cannot do it.
       Leaders today respond politically to the base passions of 
     society rather than act as statesmen upon the sociological 
     necessities of civilization. Vengeance requires a victim. In 
     putting a criminal to death, our government gives us one. 
     ``Paying back,'' although destructive to culture and family 
     alike, is politically popular. And so it is the law.
       Christians also must confront what institutionalized 
     killing is doing to our attitudes toward ourselves. As a 
     judge, I have seen the defiant and unrepentant murderer. I 
     know how easy it is to identify only with the innocent and 
     injured. But should we not, as Christians, strive to 
     exemplify the grace and mercy of Jesus? Should we not desire 
     this quality also in our society?
       On the eve of one execution last year, crowds gathered 
     outside the prison to await a condemned man's death. And at 
     the fateful hour, they cheered. The Sunday before another 
     execution, the newspaper printed a photograph of the 
     stretcher upon which the offender was to die.
       By urging vengeful punishment, society exposes its own 
     desire for violence. Yes, the death penalty is 
     constitutional. It is legal. But is it proper for government 
     to give vent to this base desire of its citizens? I doubt 
     that we, as a society, can kill without doing psychological 
     damage to our culture.
       Perry Carris, I know, received a fair trial and his full 
     measure of due process on appeal. I know because I sat on the 
     court that declined to stay his execution. What, however, 
     does his death and the deaths of others executed mean--to me 
     or to you, Christians who must decide whether or not to 
     support death as a penalty?
       We are a government of the people. We citizens are obliged 
     to scrutinize the reason our society, and thus our 
     government, kills. We who are Christians also must be 
     satisfied that the reason is reconcilable with the tenets of 
     our faith. Is it, when the reason is revenge?

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