About
Blog
Contact

Death Penalty Abolition

Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens has written a powerful essay against the death penalty in the next edition of The New York Review of Books.  The essay was published tonight online and you can read it here.  Stevens' essay is actually a review of Peculiar Institution: America's Death Penalty in an Age of Abolition by David Garland. 

I admit that I've seen cases over the years where I quietly thought that I'd want to be the executioner.  Wesley Allan Dodd comes to mind.  There have been others, too.  But Stevens, in his essay, eloquently captures the primary reason I oppose the death penalty—our society's inability to justly administer the ultimate exercise of state power.  Read Stevens' argument for yourself.  See if you agree.  

Discover more from Tim Burgess

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Tim is a former member of the Seattle City Council (2008-2017), became the city’s 55th mayor for 71 days when the previous mayor resigned (2017), and served as deputy mayor in the administration of Mayor Bruce Harrell (2022-2025). Tim was the lead architect of the Seattle Preschool Program and focused much of his work as a public official on the all-important birth-to-five years of a child’s life, stronger police accountability, economic development, and building the common good.

Comments

3 responses to “Death Penalty Abolition”

  1. Jeff Forde Avatar
    Jeff Forde

    Great article – I think I’ll pick up the book!

    Reply
  2. Kirk Robbins Avatar
    Kirk Robbins

    Justice Stevens and the book he reviews deal with a mythical “American death penalty”, but what of Washington’s law, which Stevens never mentions? The argument in the book is about a much wider use than is available here — the extreme penalty is only available in extreme cases. There seems to be scant research as to whether statutes like ours produce the disproportionality which characterizes its use in other states, mostly in the South.
    Washington has executed five people since 1976, all men. Three of them (including Dodd) were of defendants who did not appeal their sentences. Nothing in Stevens’ review of Garland’s book addresses our situation or those in states with similar laws.

    Reply
  3. Continued Efforts to End the Death Penalty in Washington – Tim Burgess

    […] As I’ve written previously, I oppose the death penalty. There is a lack of evidence that this form of punishment deters crime, but an abundance of evidence that it costs society much more and is used arbitrarily and disproportionately across racial lines. Our society has been unable to justly administer this ultimate exercise of power. Too many lives have been ruined as a result. […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Search
Latest Posts
Post Categories
More posts

Discover more from Tim Burgess

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading