Death Penalty/Tookie Williams

I’ve heard about the Tookie Williams case in the news from time to time in the past few weeks. Then I saw that Leo Morris has a post over at Opening Arguments.

His reservations on the death penalty generally are based on a question of whether the government is competent to entrust with that power. He says:

It’s hard to question the government’s competence to do something as simple as paving potholes or hauling garbage and then blithely give it the very power of life and death.

My concerns about the death penalty are similar, though I suspect I have a more optimistic view about the abilities of our fellow citizens who work for the government. But, a missed pothole is not quite as tragic as executing an innocent man. And, since I’m not comfortable that the fact-finding process in capital trials is error-free, I can’t be comfortable about implementation of the death penalty generally.

But my specific thoughts about the Tookie Williams matter don’t even deal with that. Even though he claims he’s innocent, I’m just taking for granted that he was properly convicted. And, at this time, I’ll put forth my disclaimer that I haven’t followed the case closely at all. My understanding is that 1) Mr. Williams was convicted of killing some people about 30+ years ago in a manner that was cold-blooded and without any mitigating circumstances. 2) He denies having done it. 3) He has done some very good things with his time in jail, apparently working to keep kids away from gangs. 4) He’s scheduled to be executed tonight.

Based on the facts above, my thoughts on why clemency should be considered are pretty coldly pragmatic. I know there is an emotional desire to obtain retribution for the lives Mr. Williams took. But, I think clemency should be granted, if not necessarily in this case, in cases of a similar nature. First, killing Mr. Williams is not going to bring back the victims. Second, any deterrent effect of the death penalty is going to be the same if the death penalty is carried out in most cases rather than all cases. Third, the world –assuming as an irreversible status quo, the world as it was after Mr. Williams committed the murders– is at least marginally better because Mr. Williams worked hard to make it a little better. Fourth, all things being equal, we’d rather have death row inmates working hard to make the world a little better than doing nothing at all or working to make it worse. Fifth, (and, pragmatically, this might be the most important) death row inmates are likely easier to control and guard if they have something to live for.

So, if you grant clemency here and there for death row inmates who have worked exceptionally hard to do a little bit of good in the world after their heinous crimes, you are not likely to reduce the deterrent effect, such as it is, of the death penalty. You are likely to encourage future death row inmates to work hard to do a little bit of good. And, you make death row inmates a more controllable population in the prison. So, I do not know enough about the Williams case to say whether he’s exactly the right sort of candidate for clemency, but certainly I think there are probably cases like his where clemency would be the right course of action.

Like I said, this doesn’t satisfy the emotional desire of retribution for the deaths caused by Mr. Williams. But, I think we should set our policy rationally rather than emotionally.