That's the title of Richard Cohen's latest syndicated column. It's via his home paper, the Washington Post.
When it comes to the death penalty, the only thing the United States can do is plead the insanity defense. The rest of the advanced world has moved on, but America resolutely remains among the top five executioners — behind China, Iran and Iraq, and just ahead of Pakistan. In Colorado, prosecutors are seeking the death of James Holmes, the clearly insane young man who dyed his hair a vivid orange, allegedly killed 12 people at a midnight showing of “The Dark Knight Rises” and made no effort to escape. “Justice is death,” declared the prosecutor. The Taliban, I tell you, are among us.That utterance came from the Arapahoe County district attorney, George Brauchler, who said he decided to go for the max after talking to 60 family members of those murdered. Presumably and understandably, they all favored the death penalty — and I might, too, if someone I loved was murdered. But this is the crime, as heinous as it might be, of a crazy person. Holmes’s execution will not deter anyone else — although sensible gun control might — and so his death, if and when it comes, will amount to vengeance. That’s understandable, but it is not justice.
And:
We did not know what to do about Holmes before his crime and we don’t know what to do with him now. The orange is gone from his hair and he looks, more or less, normal. But he is a deranged young man; since we never knew how to treat him, we will now try to kill him. This may seem barbaric, but rest assured: “Justice is death,” the D.A. said. In the United States — as well as, say, China — we have an abundance of justice.
Today's Silicon Valley Mercury News publishes the editorial, "DA should have accepted Aurora suspect James Holmes' guilty plea."
The way the death penalty is applied in the United States makes no sense, and there is no clearer evidence of this than the decision last week to seek it against James Holmes, the man accused of murdering 12 people and injuring 58 others in an Aurora, Colo., movie theater last summer.
Holmes is guilty. He was arrested outside the theater with a stash of weapons, and his attorneys recently wrote in court papers that he would agree to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence, without the possibility of parole.
It's an offer the district attorney of Arapahoe County, George Brauchler, should have taken. Instead, the people of Aurora, along with hundreds of surviving victims and family members, will face decades of uncertainty and legal battles. They will pay millions of their tax dollars in court costs that could instead help treat the mentally ill and provide assistance to crime victims.
The death penalty in this country is immoral, costly and arbitrary. It has to end. Until it does, authorities must use common sense, taking into account emotional and financial costs as they decide how to apply it.
Earlier coverage of the James Holmes case begins at the link.
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