The School of Letters and Sciences commenced its 2011 Humanities Lecture Series Thursday night with a discussion led by area experts on “The Pros and Cons of Capital Punishment.”
Andrew Clemency, an adjunct associate in the School of Criminology and Crime and a public defender in the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, presented the case against the death penalty while Kent Cattani, an attorney with the Arizona Attorney General’s Office, took the stage in favor of capital punishment.
The lengthy period between conviction and execution keeps families from finding closure, said Clemency, explaining that capital punishment is not an efficient way of punishing criminals.
“That’s not giving the victims closure,” Clemency said. “It re-traumatizes (and) re-victimizes them for 20 years.”
However, Cattani said closure is not the point of the death penalty, adding that revenge is not either.
“The decision to seek the death penalty is not made by the victim…The decision to seek death is made by a dispassionate third party,” he said.
It is illogical to seek the death penalty despite this nation’s notion of an eye for an eye, Clemency said, noting that killing people to show individuals that murder is wrong does not make sense.
“We don’t rape rapists,” he said.
Later on, Cattani said the U.S. has a justice system where the punishment is reflective of the crime.
“The decision to seek death is not taken lightly,” he said.
Clemency argued that the death penalty process is expensive, adding burden to taxpayers.
“There’s a lot of lawyers who make their living in the system, a comfortable living,” he said. He added that the system employs many other officials.
Cattani denied the system exists for the purpose of providing jobs for certain people.
“Our attorneys are there because they believe that we’re actually serving the public with what we’re doing,” he said.
The current costs of maintaining and upholding the death penalty are too expensive for the country’s economic situation, Clemency said.
Both men agreed that executing an innocent person is wrong. Rather than tie up those cases in appeals, Cattani said he would rather work to improve the justice system in order to prevent the innocent from being convicted.
“The emphasis should be on the main event — the trial,” he said. If the job is done correctly in court, he added, fewer resources are needed for appeals and the incarceration process.
Exercise and wellness freshman, Brooke Weinberger, said neither side persuaded her during the discussion.
“It was just something factual to educate people, but whether I am for it or against it, I’m still unsure,” she said.
Contact the reporter at tara.boyd@asu.edu
