The Newsblog

While I was working for the Public Defender’s Office, in Lubbock, Texas, I worked on many death penalty cases. Capital Punishment, is something taken very seriously in the great state of Texas, which believes in the policy of “KILL BABY KILL!” It is perhaps because of this thinking, that Texas amounts for over 70% of the total executions done in USA in any said year.

Its is not an old debate, and the death penalty and anti death penalty activists and lobbyists have always been busy in their own campaigns. It is because of this that there is some confusion in the American legal system; some states have abolished death penalty, while others proudly carry the law. So much so, that politicians and at times even Presidents are elected on their policies on the subject matter.

What brought Pakistan in the picture, were the closing arguments of one of my colleague in a sentencing hearing in Odessa, Texas. Where is stressed on the barbaric nature of the death penalty and then stated, that do we really need to stand in the same line as Pakistan, China and Saudi Arabia, who still practice this inhumane treatment? This statement triggered some strong emotions in me. It is common knowledge, what bad an image Pakistan holds in the America, but now to disgust the judge, my country’s name is used. I didn’t see that coming.

I have in my legal career, witnessed two executions by lethal injections. Needless to say, that it is an inhumane and painful way of punishment, it is equally barbaric. Before witnessing them, I was always undecided on my support for death penalty, but then I felt violated. No society, culture or religion supports killing, be it a serial killer or a rapist or worst, a child molester. I believe they should be brought to justice, and as an officer of the court, I do believe that the justice should prevail. But killing someone, well this is a big mushy mushy area.

The answer to this problem is the new ingenious solution called “Life without Parole” (LWOP). Which literally means that the person remains in prison for the rest of his natural life, without ever getting a chance to be paroled. It is an ingenious punishment, which keeps the society safe from the convicted individual, while at the same time, helping the state to avoid the necessity to be inhumane.

International researches have shown the success of LWOP in the American and European criminal sentencing process. Not only is it statistically cheaper on the state, but also on the taxpayers. Where a person on death row has more money spent on him, than a normal convict serving LWOP with general prison population. Now many may seem confused by this remark, but it is true, because when a convict is sentenced death, he is transferred to death row, he is living in a cell alone and is living in maximum security with a lot of stringent care facilities and millions spent on replying to a hundred different appeals that the defense puts up, thus cost of his upkeep/maintenance which usually lasts around 8-10 years supersedes the cost of a convict facing LWOP living in general population prison for 30+ years.

In Pakistan the process of parole is almost non-existent. There is an odd presidential pardon on any religious event. Experimenting with the legal concept of LWOP in Pakistan, and slowly substituting the death Penalty with LWOP in Pakistan could be a good legal move. In reality, there haven’t been many executions in Pakistan, in the last decade, only three. So why keep a law which is not even practiced that often while we get so many sanctions because of it. One of them being trade restrictions with Europe, which is death penalty free continent now.

Our society is not very barbaric, and certainly not a cultural norm to expect death penalty, but then we are still labeled as “violence loving nation.”