CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: A BELIEF IN REVENGE

Those who, for spiritual or other reasons, resist the strong urge to kill as a matter of revenge, oppose executions.

Those who believe in the efficacy and necessity of deadly revenge, favor it.

All the other arguments are secondary, however legitimate some may be.

There is very good evidence that innocent people have been executed. At the same time, there is no doubt that some of the men on Death Row are guilty of the crimes for which they were sentenced.

The unfairness of the death sentence also is obvious, from the viewpoint that some criminals are only imprisoned for some crimes as awful or worse than those committed by men facing death. To the believer in the death penalty, however, this is no excuse for sparing the lives of those given the maximum sentence.

Executions in Ohio have been delayed for decades by the game of the appeals process. These delays have suited some former governors who might have qualms about killing but who have preferred that procedures take them off the hook. In a year or two, though, the men on Death Row will head for the electric chair or the poison gurney.

When Ohio gets seriously into the killing business, the public may be so jaded and frustrated that there will be no great outcry. Some friends and relatives of the victims of those on Death Row will find relief and satisfaction, and some politicians will celebrate the executions. In the final analysis, though, the State of Ohio will be killing. Revenge is a moral choice, and this is where it takes us.