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

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

Heroes

Although we have several examples of heroes in our day, one of the best known is of a woman named Agnes Gonxhe Bojaxhiu (“Gonja Bojaju”), who devoted her life to sustaining the “poor, sick, orphaned, and dying.” Her venue was Calcutta, India, where she served as a teacher until she began to take notice of the poverty there. Seeking to do something about it, she began an organization that consisted of just thirteen members at its inception. Called the “Missionaries of Charity,” the organization would eventually burgeon into well over 5,000 members worldwide, running approximately 600 missions, schools and shelters in 120 countries; and caring for the orphaned, blind, aged, disabled, and poor. As her personal work expanded, she traveled to countries like Lebanon, where she rescued 37 children from a hospital by pressing for peace between Israel and Palestine; to Ethiopia, where she traveled to help the hungry; to Chernobyl, Russia, to assist victims of the nuclear meltdown there; and to ...
2 comments
Read more

End of an Era

It was over two years ago that I joined an experiment that would last until last July, an experiment that would significantly change me and the eleven others involved. That experiment was the creation of a new church comprised of twelve members whose purpose was to serve the people of downtown Stockton. Most attractive to me about it was that half of our income would be used in some way outside the church, to benefit the local community or to aid in international assistance. In that span of time, we did in fact serve in ways we'd envisioned. One of our first events was a pizza and school supplies giveaway (coupled with games for the kids who came) toward the end of our first summer. Many of those who came seemed genuinely happy at this. Through that year, we also hosted an event called a "card me house party," wherein each person's ticket to the event was a gift card. Once inside, chips could be purchased to play card and other games, with the resulting collection g...
1 comment
Read more