I can’t tell you exactly when politics became important to me, but I can tell you the first time a politician really made me proud.
October 13, 1988.
Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis and Republican nominee George H.W. Bush met in a prime-time televised debate. Moderator Bernard Shaw asked Dukakis, the governor of Massachusetts, “Governor, if Kitty Dukakis (his wife) were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?”
The response was direct and devoid of melodrama.
“No I don’t Bernard, and I think you know I’ve opposed the death penalty during all of my life. I don’t see any evidence that it’s a deterrent and I think there are better and more effective ways to deal with violent crime. We’ve done so in my own state and it’s one of the reasons why we have had the biggest drop in crime of any industrial state in America, why we have the lowest murder rate of any industrial state in America.”
Dukakis’s response has been considered by many to be a turning point in the campaign, to his detriment. In recent years, I’ve heard his answer mentioned in discussions of debate “gaffes”.
Putting aside the appropriateness of the question in a presidential debate, I thought Dukakis handled it with class and dignity, and I was surprised at the criticism he took. I had followed politics occasionally in the past, but when this debate was held I was a recent high school graduate eager to vote for the first time. Dukakis was already likely to get my vote, but this debate cinched it.
Sadly, it didn’t have the same effect on others. Coincidentally, or not, Dukakis was the last presidential nominee of either major party to oppose the death penalty.
Shaw’s question to Dukakis was a version of the same one that will inevitably be put to anybody who argues against the death penalty. I’ve heard it myself, but instead of my wife, my mother or sister were usually the subject. If I had to answer such a question publicly, here’s how I would hope to do so.
“I would probably not want the killer to be executed, because I might prefer to hunt him down and take him out myself. If I was unable to do so, I would likely want him to fry in a painful manner. But, and this is the important point, I WOULD BE WRONG. Killing another human, unless done in such a way that it would save the lives of innocent people, should not be acceptable in a moral society. We don’t allow victims and their families to hunt down accused criminals because we prefer a detached criminal justice system that seeks only truth and justice, not vengeance and blood. It’s important to form an opinion on this subject with a clear mind, and I doubt many can function with a clear mind when a loved one has been brutally victimized. Of course, some mistake my opposition to the death penalty as a desire to just let murderers ‘get away with it.’ I believe in protecting the public from dangerous criminals, but life without parole offers plenty of protection, and does so without turning the state, and thereby the people it represents, into a conduit of organized killing.”
Notice that my response did not include a mention of the high cost of the death penalty, its ineffectiveness as a deterrent to violent crime, and the unjust manner in which it has often been applied in the U.S.
In recent years, public opinion has swung against the death penalty. While this is encouraging, it is often based on the three arguments I just mentioned. This is disturbing because I fear if somehow proponents of capital punishment can offer a way to make capital cases less costly than other prosecutions, show it to be a deterrent and/or implement it more fairly with an assurance that only the truly guilty will be executed, many people will likely support capital punishment again.
However, the moral argument, the one at the root of my own opposition to capital punishment, does not change. It does not weaken. It does not waver.
This is not to say that those of us on the abolitionist side of the issue shouldn’t welcome more people joining our cause. We should embrace their support, but we should never forget that even if the death penalty became cost effective, pursued evenly across class and racial lines, and was applied only to the guilty, we would still oppose it. And we should never forget why.
Michael Dukakis spoke on the practical, rather than the moral side, of the issue. I can quibble with his points, but not his courage, because rather than falling prey to emotion or using political doublespeak to dance around a controversial issue, he offered a politically dangerous answer at a crucial time in his campaign. For that, we owe him thanks. And the next time someone says his response to that “death penalty question” was a misstep, remind them that it’s a misstep for which Dukakis should be quite proud.
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