Annapolis Capital Punishment

In the past few weeks I’ve testified before the AA School Board, Annapolis City Council, attended the Environmental Summit, the Green Party Lobby Day, the Bike-Pedestrian Forum/Lobby Day, the NAACP Press Conference and visited the offices of various elected officials to lobby on behalf of bills and issues. Nothing has been as eye-opening and plain old weird as the meeting with Anne Arundel County Delegate Tony McConkey with a small group of Green Party activists. McConkey is a second-term Republican and realtor who has had a few issues of his own that have made headlines, and not always for the best reasons, but I’ll let other media deal with them.

The Green Party folks, about a dozen in all, were making the rounds and a handful of us descended upon McConkey. At first he gave us a variety of reasons as to why he did not favor the Clean Car bill, and he basically seemed to repeat the objections offered by the car dealer’s lobby. We went on to a few other issues and then got to the repeal of the death penalty. McConkey went a little weird on us, questioning why this was an issue of concern to Greens. We must have pushed a button because the lawmaker asked why we though it was wrong to put people to death for committing heinous crimes. He then rhetorically asked, “Why are you people against executing heinous criminals but you think it’s okay to murder babies”? We were a bit dumfounded.

“Wait a minute” I told the delegate. “That’s a pretty serious leap of faith to make such an accusation.” I went on to explain that I was personally on the fence about the death penalty, but how could he make such blanket accusation to our group? We could have shot back and asked why is it wrong to murder babies but not have state sponsored executions?--but we held our breath.

McConkey went on to say, and I am not making this up, “I think we need to kill more people.” Yup-he said it and it did not sink until we regrouped and met later at a local watering hole to figure out what he meant. Apparently, McConkey was saying that the death penalty, because it is so rarely applied, and is subject to years and years of appeals, is really not a deterrent to crime. If we actually applied it more often (i.e. killed more people), it would become a deterrent to crime, and therefore, would not need to be used, because the incidents of crimes calling for such punishment would go down. Okay--maybe, at least it has some semblance of logic. But then it got even weirder again.

He said that there are offenders who don’t mind and may even like getting a prison sentence because they get a warm bed and meals without having to work. I’m not a criminologist, but I don’t think this argument would hold up.

I don’t like many of the arguments either for or against abortion, or how one side makes you anti-choice if you disagree and the other makes you anti-life if you disagree. I think the bottom line is that our society as well as the individuals within it are responsible for breeding too many babies and for breeding too many criminals. I believe ultimately that individuals have to take responsibility and be held accountable for either making an unwanted baby or committing a violent crime. Maybe that makes me a liberal and a conservative. I don’t want to be labeled either anti-choice or anti-life.

Our society has to take better care of all of our citizens, and especially our youth. Death penalty advocates and so-called pro-lifers ignore the culpability of the greater society. Liberals and others often fail to place blame on the hands of the individuals who ultimately decide to use or not use birth control or who decide to kill or not kill. When I see narrow-minded and ideological lawmakers such as Delegate McConkey, it makes me wonder if the politician-class will ever adequately address such vexing social problems. I almost forgot to mention that the well-informed lawmaker told us that more people are killed in Baltimore than are killed in Baghdad. Perhaps this was his way of slamming the new Democratic Governor and praising the Republican President? When I reminded him that well over a hundred had just been blown up in one Baghdad bombing, he seemed nonplussed.

I will give him credit for one thing. When asked about the Greens interest in holding instant-runoff elections, he came right out and said he would support it.