June, 1997
Though I haven't been following the Timothy McVeigh/Oklahoma bombing trial, I haven't been able to avoid it altogether, either. And any well-publicized court case which involves the death penalty tends to lead to thoughts about the validity of the death penalty.
Something about the whole deal made me uneasy. I think it's part seeing a group of human beings excited, joyous over the decision of the court to throw the convicted to the lions, so to speak.
But the real explanation of my uneasiness came unexpectedly from a more local story of murder: 14-year-old Bryn Goodman's admission of shooting his sister, Ciji, 13, in Whitefield.
This case, to me, should be the evidence to end capitol punishment forever, even though the death penalty is not an issue in it directly. Here we have a situation where the family of the victim and the family of the perpetrator are one in the same. And what is that family's reaction?
A quote from the Bryn's mother, Kathy Mansfield, in the June 18th Portland Press Herald: ''My daughter didn't deserve to die, but my son deserves all the help he can get. I pray to God, Bryn gets the help he needs to get on with his life."
Imagine this same philosophy applied to any death penalty case. We are all one family of man.
If the murder of Ciji was caused by some luckless drifter who happened through town, would Mansfield's reaction be the same? Would it be the same for any of us? If not, would we be justified in wanting the maximum penalty, when if it was our offspring we would probably, like Mansfield, want the person to "receive all the help he can get"?
We can't rely on the judgment of the bereaved placed in the chair of Caesar.
If we had a criminal justice system where the lives of those who ended others' were put to good use through productive service, instead of maintained uselessly at taxpayer expense or executed, perhaps at least the greatest amount of possible good from such tragic incidents could occur.
John Alphonse is reality x editor and publisher.
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