@snood,
Quote:While Asay would be the state's first white man to be executed in Florida for killing a black man, at least 20 black men have been executed for killing white victims since the state reinstated the death penalty in 1976, according to data from the Death Penalty Information Center. A total of 92 Florida inmates has been executed in that time period.
So this leaves 71 executed murderers unaccounted for. It would be illuminating to learn the facts on their race, ethnicity or gender. Likewise, it would be helpful to know how many black men have been charged with killing white men since 1976, and how many were convicted. Also, same figures as respects alleged and convicted white killers of black men. Not saying that racism hasn't been intertwined in the FL justice system over this period but there are obvious gaps in this presentation of figures that should be filled.
Do you think the man would have been sentenced to death and executed if the jury didn't buy that the murders were racially motivated? There must be some facts missing from the description of the murder of McDowell. I'd be willing to wager a large sum of money that if you told 100 people that a man killed a transvestite prostitute after he discovered that
she was a
he, their first question would not be
"Hhmmm. What were the races of the two people involved?" In the absence of additional evidence, the fact that one was white and one Hispanic and white (which at least in the case of George Zimmerman means
white) certainly seems irrelevant given the circumstances.
If someone supports the death penalty, I can't imagine them not thinking that this was a just outcome, but I also can't imagine the same person thinking it was
unjust if Asay had killed the two in the course of robbing them or because he just wanted to see them die. Along the same line I can't imagine anyone who opposes the death penalty on principle either finding this outcome just and humane or reveling in the execution, but then I also don't understand why a murderer who kills someone due to
hatred is a worse killer than one who doesn't, or why the victim of a hate crime murder is somehow more of a victim than someone who is murdered for greed or out of anger. We should be clear too that the people who advocate for harsher justice for perpetrators of hate crimes don't mean
all hate. Every year hundreds of husbands and wives who hate their spouses kill them, but I don't believe any are charged with committing a hate crime where such statutes exist, nor do hate crime statute advocates argue they should be.
A Jew, a Muslim, a Black a Gayor even a White who is murdered because the killer hated what they were are not
more dead than those murdered for other reasons, and if someone argues that there is no evidence that the death penalty acts as a deterrent, the dynamics behind that conclusion are not changed if hatred is involved. If anything, it's likely to have even less of a deterrent effect on those who murder for greed since most hate crimes are, almost by definition, crimes of passion. In order for a consequence to be a deterrent, the criminal needs to consider it before he or she commits the crime. So if someone changes their position on the death penalty when racist hatred is involved it's due to nothing more than their having found a crime for which they viscerally feel the need for retribution.
I oppose the death penalty for political reasons: I don't want the State to have that power of life and death over its citizens. The other case being discussed here is a good example of why it shouldn't and that doesn't change when the crime is motivated by hatred.
