Many capital punishment abolitionists argue that life without parole is adequate to protect the innocent from the aggressor whose crimes deserve the ultimate sanction; yet capital punishment supporters argue that life without parole can always be changed while capital punishment is a final resolution.
This article from the Des Moines Register reports on local action buttressing the argument offered by supporters of capital punishment.
An excerpt.
“In March 1984, just three days after his 18th birthday, Stanley Hart III conspired with two accomplices to murder his aunt at her rural Keokuk home, a crime that sent him to prison for life.
“Hart promised a younger teen a car, $2,500 and all the beer he could drink to kill Marilyn Hart, 53, in hopes of gaining access to his family's wealth.
“Twenty-five years later, Hart, grandson of a once-prominent state senator, remains behind bars at the Iowa State Penitentiary in Fort Madison.
“Hart, 43, has behaved well there, earning a bachelor's degree from the University of Iowa and graduate degrees in business and theology. Dozens of people have written to Iowa officials supporting a commutation of his sentence, which would make him eligible for parole.
“But like all Iowa prisoners serving life sentences, Hart has a slim chance of winning freedom. Iowa is one of the most difficult states in the nation for an inmate serving a life sentence to gain release, according to a study issued last month by the Sentencing Project, a Washington advocacy group.
“Iowa's three most recent governors have commuted life sentences only nine times in 26 years. At the same time, the population of lifers in Iowa's prison system has risen dramatically, from 162 inmates in 1983 to 617 today, an increase of 281 percent.
“Critics want to reduce that number, citing the high cost in dollars - nearly $19 million a year to house current lifers - and in lost human potential. But that notion threatens to disturb Iowa's uneasy truce over capital punishment: Iowa lawmakers have repeatedly rejected the death penalty, but only because "life means life" for the most serious crimes, noted Corwin Ritchie, executive director of the Iowa County Attorneys Association.
“The issue highlights the conflict between two deeply held societal views about crime and punishment: that everyone deserves a second chance, and that some crimes against society are so heinous that criminals must forever forfeit their freedom.”
Lampstand Foundation website, http://www.lampstandfoundation.org/
"The sinner is at the very heart of Christianity. Nobody is so competent as the sinner in matters of Christianity. Nobody, except the saint." Charles Peguy (1873-1914)
About
- David H. Lukenbill
- I am a California native, married, we have one daughter and live close to the American River with two cats and all the wild critters we can feed. I am a management consultant to nonprofit organizations and have an Associates of Arts degree in Administration of Justice from Sacramento City College, a Bachelor of Science degree in Organizational Behavior from the University of San Francisco and a Master of Public Administration degree, also from the University of San Francisco.