Something on my mind, part 2

I wasn’t sure what she was talking about when I saw a Facebook friend chastise some people for gloating over someone else’s death.

So, being me, I had to find out. And as it turns out, someone from our town is scheduled to be executed soon for a crime committed several years ago. And some of this person’s former classmates are pretty happy about it.

Now, let me just start off by saying that I am anti-death penalty anyway, for a few reasons. First, I don’t believe in hell, so I think executing someone is not really a punishment. I think that spending the rest of his life locked in a small cell would have been far more of a punishment for Saddam Hussain, for example, especially since he was living the high life at the expense of so many for so long.

Second, when someone gets sent away for something they didn’t do (and it happens), you can’t release them if you’ve already killed them. On a local forum I frequent, there is constant chatter about the ridiculous amount of laws that are starting to infiltrate our society, supposedly to protect us. Red light camera tickets not paid? We’ll boot your car. Don’t break the law and you’ll be fine. Until the day the computer has a glitch and records my license plate instead of the guy with 15 tickets, and I walk out of work one evening to find I can’t get home.

It’s not the same as the death penalty, I realize. But if you’re mentally saying that, you’re missing my point, which is that mistakes get made. Not all mistakes can be corrected. Once I submit my paper with four typos to my professor, it’s a done deal. In my heart, however, I believe that executing people is one area where we shouldn’t mess around. Salem witches, anyone? Trial by ordeal?

And then there’s the old “two wrongs don’t make a right.” The death penalty doesn’t only punish the convicted. It punishes anyone who ever loved the convicted. And this is where a lot of people (frequently mothers) like to point out that the criminal took the life of someone they loved, so why shouldn’t the criminal’s mother lose her child?

Because the criminal’s mother didn’t commit the crime. No matter how much you may want to blame her.

The crime is a terrible thing. The crime has irrevocably changed the lives of every person related to both the victim and the criminal. The victim’s family has lost the family member that they loved. The criminal’s family has lost who the family member that they knew. I’m not saying that one is harder than the other. I’m saying they’re different. But the bottom line is that the criminal’s family should not have to pay for what the criminal did.

But they do. The sibling of this particular criminal is a classmate. Not someone I was close to by any means, but just an acquaintance. The sibling is on Facebook as well. The people making the comments are mutual friends of the sibling’s friends. The person who originally alerted all of FB about the latest development actually claims to be an old friend of the sibling. I’m glad I don’t have friends like that.

I may not be a praying woman, but I definitely wish for strength for all of the people whose lives have been affected this. I’d wish for some sensitivity on the part of the people shooting their mouths off, but I realize that’s asking a bit much.

(I know that my word choices here are pretty annoying, but I’m trying to be as gender neutral as possible because it is not my intention to add to this former classmate’s grief.)