Nick Crowe and Ian Rawlinson

When thinking about capital punishment, and the various moral and ethical issues it raises, it seems to us that there is no better argument against the death penalty than the case of Stefan Kiszko -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Lesley_Molseed .

He was the subject of a major miscarriage of justice in the 1970.  Although not a victim of judicial murder, well....not by direct means anyway, his case is a powerful argument against capital punishment in the ways in which it reveals the pragmatics of the judicial system.  It is a particularly stark example as to the distortions that can occur in the interplay of individual, systemic and bureaucratic power.

Perhaps we should follow Hannah Arndt in realizing that any violence becomes truly barbaric at the point at which it becomes rationalised.  Or maybe, when we think of the case of Stefan Kiszko, we don't need even to advance that far.  We can simply recognise that the legal system, like any analytical system, is susceptible to those distortions resultant from the exercise of its own power and as such can never be permitted to exercise the power of life over death.



Created for www.artistsvsdeathpenallty.blogspot.com   


March 2011

  
http://www.croweandrawlinson.net/