Justice =/= Vengeance

While contemplating the aftermath of yet another "botched execution", I was saddened that as a society we still haven't learned basic civics. As soon as some people criticized how it took two painful hours to execute the condemned, you had a plethora of others jump in to basically say, "Hey, don't forget that this asshole murdered people. He got what was coming, and I'm only sorry it didn't hurt more." Like anyone doesn't realize that this is a horrible human being who committed horrible crimes... I mean, he is on death row. Nobody's stupid enough to believe he didn't commit an atrocious crime and doesn't deserve to be punished.

Let me back up and explain: back in the ancient codes of law, it was common to see what Rome referred to as Lex Talionis. That is to say, retribution authorized or prescribed by law. The Hammurabi, one of the oldest written codes of law known to man, had many examples of this: If you wreck a man's house, the guard would come to your house and wreck it equally. If you broke a man's bone, a guard would similarly break your bone. The early bible also had a similar eye-for-an-eye prescription in Leviticus, "Just as he inflicted an injury upon a person, so shall it be inflicted upon him." This is basically legal vengeance, where the law allows (or mandates) a response in kind. If you want to take the cup-half-full approach to this, you can generously say that this also limits the damage, since it doesn't allow more damage to be met out than the original crime.

But somewhere along the enlightenment era, humanists and philosophers (some of whom where also lawyers and justices) parted ways with the old system. In fact, Jefferson and Madison were channeling these very works when they amended the constitution of the United States to forbid "cruel and unusual punishment". This is a much more of a "new-testament" approach to punishment, where Jesus says, "You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth'. But I say to you, do not resist an evildoer. If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also". Which also makes me wonder why so many of those who wish vengeful torture on criminals also happen to be Christians... but that's a post for another day. The basic premise here is not to coddle the criminal, but that in a moral and civil society, cruelty is not justified by prior cruel acts. Just because a barbarous criminal takes a machete to a victim, doesn't mean that civil and moral society should take a machete to him.

We see how ridiculous this notion is when applied to other entities. When a company (say BP) contaminates public water with a crapload of toxic oil, and pollutes it so much that millions of animals die, thousands of people lose their livelihoods and income, and the economy takes billions of dollars worth of damage, we don't punish BP by shoving them into a locked room and filling it to the brim with oil (no matter how satisfying that might sound at the time). Instead, justice, as prescribed by modern law, is concerned with rectification (restoring what was damaged, paying victims for losses, etc.), and punitive and/or deterrent actions (heavy fines and extra regulation meant to deter future incidents, for example). Suffering, and especially suffering in kind, is not part of the equation.

The problem with vengeance or retribution, is that it quickly spirals out of control. People dish out reprisal in perpetuity, gangster style. Take this case into account: a while back I heard an interview with a Palestinian teenager who joined Hamas specifically to hit back at Israel. The reporter asked him something like, "But wouldn't attacking Israel cause them to strike back and kill more Palestinians?" To which the boy replied, "It doesn't matter. They need to suffer as we suffer. As long as they suffer even a little bit, it will be worth it if we die, and I will be happy." It's a barbarism that denies reparations and fosters animosity that leads to a spiral of oblivion.

Modern justice, on the other hand, is what separates moral and civil society from the barbaric criminal. Otherwise, we might as well all be barbarians and criminals.