Punitive and retributive purposes of penology are legitimate and necessary for administration of justice.
Some crimes are particularly savage, cruel, depraved, tortuous, and heinous.
Any punishment less than execution (ordered by the due process death sentence itself) evinces—1) a complete lack of respect for the immeasurable human dignity of the blameless victims; 2) a total disregard for innocence; and 3) a further traumatization of surviving family member victims.
•Otherwise, disproportionate leniency will occur, causing a lack of respect for the rule of law, respect for which is the bedrock of civilized society. False mercy without true justice is the mother of all dissolution.
•Scales are instead tipped grievously in favor of the predator bullies. The innocent are not restored to their original position. Evil is unjustly enriched. Justice, in order to be justice, must after all be defined as rendering to the other—that which is his/her due.
•There is no guaranty of the protection of the public in a so-called “life imprisonment” faux scenario. There always is a possibility for executive pardon, commutation, or clemency, even escape, or release for “illness” or “overcrowding, unleashing recidivistic terror.
•Concomitant effect is that without certain necessary executions, people cannot live in relatively and predictably reliable peace and security. Evil will be emboldened. Travel and commerce historically matriculate to a comparatively lesser extent, as violent criminals will not be removed, incurring marginally greater serious assaults and robbery-burglaries.
•Swift and certain punishment is a deterrent. Cause and effect is established—self-preservation instinct kicks in to where the bad behavior by dangerous felons causally related to perceived self-extinction becomes highly undesirable.
•Absolute deterrence exists in capital punishment to the extent that one can say, with apodictical, metaphysical certitude, that the heinous villains no longer can kill, as they will become deceased.
•If “life in prison” is the worst sentence, there is no disincentive for the malevolent to attempt to escape prison, even to kill a guard in escape, as no further penalty can be imposed.
•Capital punishment also prevents robbing needed resources from a society, when said resources instead are diverted to support decades-long overly generous standard of living for a destructive murderer who has forgone the right to live in a civilized society.
•Utilizing modern technology DNA evidence, it is almost impossible to fail in an appeal for an unjustly accused person.
•In the age of modern science, the death penalty can utilize means ensuring that an execution can be meted out in a humane, non-cruel fashion.
•We live in an emergency situation. Police have been emasculated and no longer are able to deter crime at the front end. Endless appeals mean justice delayed is justice denied at the back end.
What is sickening is that in season and out, a self-loathing group of elite nihilists, infected with Stockholm syndrome (and themselves protected by gates and guards from the crimes plaguing the majority of society) identify more with the rights of evil and depravity than they do with the rights of the innocent merely to live in decency and peace.
Next January in House and Senate Chambers, it’s time for an honest review and re-assessment.
Author: Jon Jacobsen, B.S.B.A., J.D.
Rep. Jon A. Jacobsen, J.D. (R-Council Bluffs), is newly re-elected member of the Iowa Legislature, as Iowa State Representative from District 22 (Pottawattamie County). Jacobsen serves in the House as Vice-Chairman of the Commerce Committee, Vice-Chairman of the Ethics Committee, and in addition is seated on the State Government and Agriculture Appropriations Committees. Jon won his 2016 election by the largest percentage margin of votes in modern district history, engendering a huge voter turnout of nearly 75% of all registered district voters for a mid-term, non-Senate cycle. A married father of three, Jon is a bank senior trust officer/vice president, attorney (Univ. of Iowa Law alumnus), and has won a dozen Iowa Broadcast News Association Awards for Radio programming, including for Political Coverage, Public Affairs, In-Depth Series, Feature, and Overall Best Use of Online Media.
