The $3,000,000.00 Euthanasia

The State of Ohio, an economic basket case for much of the last 40 years, probably spent about $3,000,000.00 to snuff Ken Biros today.

They are using a new method, as we discussed earlier. However, they continue to have a problem finding veins; they had to poke around on this guy quite awhile. The last guy they tried to snuff, they finally gave up on because they just couldn’t stab him in the right spot.

In the Biros case, they dispensed with the paralysis and heart-stopping drugs, and just OD’d him on anesthetics, in the same fashion they snuff Fluffy down at the vet’s office when she gets too old and infirm to use her litter pan anymore.

Mission Accomplished. Now let’s look at what we did NOT accomplish.

-Biros’s victim, Tami Egstrom, is still just as dead, and dismembered, as she was the day Ken Biros killed and dismembered her in 1991. For her, as for all murder victims, there will be no justice on this Earth.

-There will not even be one murderer deterred by what happened to Biros. Every statistic we have says that you are MORE likely to be the victim of a violent crime in a DP state than you are in a state that does not employ the DP.

-Biros, who spent 18 years in isolation 23 hours a day, has been given a premature release from what should have been a natural-life sentence. It is my opinion that he should have spent as much time as we could give him in isolation, with as minimal human contact as could be accomplished. I rather like the idea of scum like him sitting in a cell for 40 or 50 years.

It is a mistake to characterize those of us who oppose the DP as being “soft” or having sympathy for the criminals who commit vile acts; I certainly don’t. But let me tell you who I DO have sympathy for.

I have sympathy for the kid who goes to bed tonight hungry because his family couldn’t swing feeding him dinner tonight. I have sympathy for the Vietnam vet who wanders down the street, mumbling to someone only he can see, and I would like to get him out from under the overpass he’ll sleep under tonight and put him into some kind of a shelter. I have sympathy for the elderly couple that goes down the street before trash pickup, looking for aluminum cans that they can sell so they can afford to buy maybe one of their prescriptions this month. I have sympathy for the young mom who will not be able to get her family out of the dire poverty that they are in because she cannot afford to put her kids in daycare so that she can work a full time job.

There is no money for any of these people, because the State of Ohio must balance its budget every year. But there always seems to be $3,000,000.00 available for executing criminals.

How many hungry kids could we feed tonight? How many prescriptions could we afford to subsidize for those elderly and/or disabled people? How many disturbed vets could we get off the streets at night and into someplace warm enough to keep them from freezing to death? How many poor kids could we give a leg up with some educational daycare, while their mom works to bring her family out of the hole they’re in?

I certainly do understand the point of view of the families of those who have been murdered; there have been a few murder victims fairly close to me. I understand the rage that they feel at the murderer. However, we must base our laws not on what makes us all feel good, but what protects us all the best. There is no provision for revenge in any State or Federal Constitution, nor should there be. The other argument that is often made is that an executed criminal “will never kill again,” but we’ve proven many times already that we know how to accomplish that without execution. The roster of murderers sitting in our prisons right now who have never killed again is a long one.

The disturbing number of Death Row inmates who have been cleared and released means that we dare not shorten the appeals process, because some of these innocent folks sat on Death Rows for decades before their exonerations. Clearly, capital punishment serves no beneficial purpose to society, and just as clearly has a lot of detrimental qualities to it. Even worse (at least in my opinion,) capital punishment seems to have a very ugly effect on society as a whole; celebrating an execution is a macabre pastime that is sickening to me personally, and I don’t think you can make the argument that cheering executions is a sign of a healthy society. Maybe if the state lays off of violence, the citizenry might be less violent as well.

Actually, the statistics from non-DP states kind of make that argument for me, don’t they? Let’s do what most of the rest of the world has done, and get away from this barbaric, needless waste of money.

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