Skip to main content

Capital Punishment and the Insane

In both English and U.S. history, it has been consistently argued that using capital punishment (execution) against someone who has been found insane is both “savage and inhuman;” and in 1986 the Supreme Court affirmed that belief by outlawing it. The belief is that someone can’t be responsible for his or her actions if that person doesn’t have control of himself or herself. This issue became important in what would become one of the most forgotten assassinations in U.S. history.

A man by the name of Charles Guiteau had campaigned for upcoming President James Garfield and, after the president’s election, tried to get a job under him. The problem was that he was completely unqualified for the job he wanted (a job with the U.S. Consulate in Paris). Having harassed the president’s secretaries for this position, Guiteau became such an annoyance to them that he was eventually banned from the White House. Guiteau seems to have taken this personally, and he blamed the president.

So, on July 2, 1881, while the president was walking through the waiting room of the Baltimore and Potomac train station in Washington, D.C., Guiteau approached from behind and, with revolver in hand, fired two shots. The first was a miss, grazing the president’s arm; but the second lodged into Garfield’s back, although not in a place that would have killed him. It was only later, after doctors inspected [burrowed inside] the wound with unwashed hands, did the president’s situation become more serious. Having contracted blood poisoning, and after only eighty days in office, President Garfield died.

At this point in the story, anyone would say Guiteau was certainly responsible for the president’s death, but what came next made that a little less clear. Part of Guiteau’s resulting trial focused on whether or not he was insane (he claimed God told him to kill the president; and during the trial had to be physically restrained and told to “shut his mouth” for his continuous outbursts). A doctor familiar with the insane was called as a witness and, during testimony, said he had been “probably insane” when he’d fired the two shots at the president. Because of his previous testimony claiming he was not insane, however, Guiteau was condemned. Being sentenced, he was hanged just under a year later (June 30, 1882).

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Savior

This wasteland cold and dark runs free Its fearful creatures speak to me One fateful day one nudged my hand To set my eyes upon a tree He knew I could not understand For I was in his native land His signs became our common speech To lead me through the deadly sand Now stuck I saw him me beseech He could not lift me out to reach The firm foundation of a cave Outside the boundaries of this beach Withal, the beast became more brave To risk his own my life to save To carry me, its life it gave To carry me, its life it gave. This poem was inspired by Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening." That poem, like this one, has four four-line stanzas of eight syllables per stanza. Its rhyme scheme is AABA BBCB CCDC DDDD.
Post a Comment
Read more

The Nice Guy Fallacy

I read part of a poem recently by one of my favorite poets. It reads: I envy not in any moods The captive void of noble rage The linnet born within the cage That never knew the summer woods. I envy not the beast that takes His license in the field of time Unfetter'd by the sense of crime To whom a conscience never wakes. Nor what may call itself as bles't The heart that never plighted troth But stagnates in the weeds of sloth Nor any want-begotten rest. I hold it true, whate'er befall I feel it, when I sorrow most 'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all. At base, Tennyson contrasted a life of risk, and consequent pain, with one of security. He sides conclusively with the life of risk, and says he fails to envy those who have faced no hardship. I agree with him; and, for good or ill, his words are just as relevant today as they were in the nineteenth century. Like then, there are those today who choose to live their lives with as little risk as...
2 comments
Read more

Evil, According to Republicans and Democrats

Please note that the following thoughts are only my observations. Please consider the evidence you see in the behavior of both parties for yourself. In our politically polarized climate, I was thinking about how Democrats and Republicans are different, and where those differences come from. Democrats seem to place more hope in institutions, and seek to reform those institutions when there is something wrong in society. Hence, there is more willingness to levy taxes to offer more social services as a support to those with less than others. They see the state as a way to equalize society. Thus, evil, to Democrats, seems to be a social issue: if there is a problem in society--poverty, racism, climate change, etc.--it is a problem with the structure of society and must be addressed as such: repair the system, and you will solve the problem. They are generally accepting of a larger state bureaucracy because they believe that increased accountability within a state structure will prevent evi...
Post a Comment
Read more