Oppenhagen Column: On capital punishment

It’s kind of funny how opinions change as you get older. I remember being an activist in my college days, eager to stand up for what I believed was right and wanting to change all that was unfair in the
world. And, to this twenty-something, there was a lot wrong with the world. Especially when it came to capital punishment.

I spent my college years in Texas. Texas just happens to lead the nation in executions. The concerns raised about capital punishment in recent years were very much alive and well in Texas in the ’80
’s — a higher percentage of minorities were on death row when whites convicted of similar crimes were given life sentences or less. And the disparity also existed between the rich and poor.

One of my supervisors back then asked me if I knew the difference between a liberal and a conservative. I started with the usual issue-based differences when he stopped me. “The difference between a
liberal and a conservative,” he said, “is that a conservative is a grown-up liberal.“

At the time, I laughed and vowed I would never become a conservative. But as my life experience increased, I found that I became much more moderate in my views on political and social issues, even conservative on a very few.

This week’s execution of John Allen Muhammed, the so-called “Washington Sniper,” brought these feelings back to the forefront of my memory. And it continues to shadow me days after the execution.
How can I mesh the strong anti-death penalty stance of my younger years with my current mixed feelings? Can anyone really justify saying that government-sponsored murder is okay in some cases but
not in others?

Capital punishment stirs strong emotions and everyone feels differently. I am personally torn. I am opposed to capital punishment. But I can truly understand why people feel Muhammed should have been
executed. He randomly killed people on the street. His choices of location did terrorize us. Who doesn’t remember being afraid to go out, to get gas, to go to a store. And usually when this stuff happens
in DC or Maryland, we feel safe in Virginia. But not this time. Muhammed was up and down I-95, shooting at random targets. His spree was neither rational, predictable, nor sane. And it included Prince
William County.

One argument for capital punishment is that it costs thousands of dollars to keep a prisoner alive for life. But who are we to put a dollar value on human life? And who is to say that keeping them alive
doesn’t prevent further similar crimes? Charles Manson is a living example. He was sentenced to die for his crimes. Then capital punishment was abolished and he remains in prison. If he had been
executed, he would have become a revered cult figure rather than the pathetic man he has become.

Another argument for capital punishment is that there are people who are genuinely evil and there is no other recourse than to rid our society of them. History provides us with a long list of these people,
Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, and Saddam Hussein being the most recent examples. And that’s a tough question. I do not doubt for a second that these men were evil and that their deaths better our world.
But remember, too, that Hitler took a coward’s way out and history makes sure that he is remembered that way, as a loser. Josef Stalin, died alone in bed surrounded by people who were too afraid or too
indifferent to help him, abandoned by even his closest cronies and aides. Saddam Hussein was captured hiding in a cramped hole like a coward. He was pitiful — not pitiable but pitiful — when he was
captured. Although he was eventually executed, we still remember him cowering in his spider hole.

That’s the problem with growing up. We stop seeing the world in black and white and begin to see lots of gray. No, we should not have executed Muhammed — put him in prison for life, given him the
psychological help he so desperately needed, try to rehabilitate him. But then again, yes, we were right to execute him — he struck terror in the minds of an entire region, his attacks were unprovoked
and random, he murdered average people doing average chores. And it does prey upon my mind. I know a few people who were adamantly in favor of the execution and have said good riddance in many
ways. And then there is the majority of people who seem to have put it behind them and are apathetic about the ending.

There are no easy answers, nothing that could satisfy everyone. And there shouldn’t be. But as one of the few developed nations that continues to execute prisoners, shouldn’t we be asking questions?

Denise Oppenhagen is a longtime resident of Prince William County and can be reached at DenOp1@comcast.net.