Killing William

200 years ago, a man (Cesare Beccaria) asked the question,
"Is the death penalty useful and is it necessary?"
And I want to ask you again,
"Is the death penalty useful and is it necessary?"

Some say that the death penalty is a useful deterrent to crime.
And I ask why is it that the majority of the population,
the majority being women, are not committing violent crimes?
Over 400 men have been executed in the last 20 years since the death penalty was reinstated.
Only 1 woman has been executed.
So why are men still the ones committing violent crimes?
It must have something to do with something other than the threat of the death penalty.
It must have something to do with gender and genetics and environment.
And do we want to kill someone because of their genetics, because of their brown eyes and dark skin?
Do we want to kill someone who is merely the product of our own fucked up educational and political and social system?

And what about Charlie Manson, and Dorothea Puente, and OJ, and the Unabomber.
How come they’re not on death row?
Because the justice system is all fucked up.
William did not have million dollar lawyers.
What about the 23 people who were executed and then later found to be innocent?
What can America say to them now?

And why is it that in Sacramento, the capital city of the most powerful state in the most powerful nation on earth,
why is it that almost all of the murders in this city
are committed south of what I call
the homicide line?
South of Broadway.
Because violence has nothing to do with the death penalty or the number of beautiful prisons we build or three strikes policies.

The death penalty is not a deterrent to crime, and therefore it is not useful.

But is the death penalty necessary?
It is necessary to imprison Charlie Manson because he is an insane madman. But it is not necessary to kill him. It is not necessary to kill anyone who has killed unless, as many of my male friends believe, it is necessary for us to enjoy the pleasure of an eye for an eye.
Perhaps it is necessary to execute people because we hate them.
Don’t you think that hatred and ignorance and madness are what caused the violence in the first place?
And do you honestly believe that your hatred and ignorance and madness and murder of one more human being are absolutely necessary?
Is this murder tonight going to ease your hatred and pain, America?
Or is it going to feed into the sick veins of this country like a never-ending lethal injection?

And tomorrow morning, when 250,000 babies come into this world, is William's death going to do anything at all, I mean ANYTHING at all for them? And what about the 250,000 babies born the next day and the next and the next? By Saturday, there will be another million people on this planet, and you are trying to tell me that killing William is useful and necessary, and that we are focusing on the right problems. Almost three hundred people were killed and 5000 people were injured in bombings in the last ten days, and can you even imagine the flood of blood in those hospitals? And you tell me that killing William is useful and necessary? An eye for eye--the IRA and the Pakistanis and the Israelites and Palestinians and Chinese and Vietnamese and all those other wonderful people on earth who believe in a death for a death.
More poets have been tortured and executed and blown away in the civilized 20th century than in all of previous recorded history. You know what this poet believes, as if any of you could really give a fuck, is that we’re all going to kill each other off. And it is not going to be fast and painless. Yes, I believe in an eye for an eye, and humanity is going to get exactly what it deserves.

200 years ago, a man said, "It is better to prevent crimes than to punish them . . . [And] the surest but most difficult way of preventing crime is to improve education."

I will close with the words of Socrates, who invented the word, "democracy," and who said, as he faced his own execution, "It is the chief endeavour of those who love wisdom to free and separate the soul from the body. The philosophers who love wisdom are practicing dying, and death to them is the least terrible thing in the world. If everywhere they see that having a body causes pain and suffering and they desire the soul to be alone by itself they will not fear death. On the contrary, they will go willingly to a place where there is a great hope of finding what they were in love with all through life."



© Eskimo Pie Girl -- This is the rough draft of a speech that Eskimo was going to give on the steps of the Capitol.