The Death Penalty Remains an Example of an Objective Concept That is Always Used Subjectively

Christa Pike was set to be executed. Until she wasn't, but then it was ruled she could be one of the first women in many years to be legally killed in the state of Tennessee. Then, it went horribly awry, and two doses of a drug that were supposed to kill her failed. She is now on a ventilator and unconscious. In summary, an attempt to kill someone failed, so now she's being kept on life support. America, if we fail to kill you, we'll barely keep you alive! In all seriousness, however, this goes back to my post in 2022, "The Death Penalty is Arguably Useless as a Deterrent and Often Used Unfairly." If you recall that post or check it out now, I touch upon how the Death Penalty would work in a perfectly objective World, but we live in a subjective reality. It is supposed to be a deterrent, but it is often used in ways that are racially motivated, impacted by gender, and so forth. 

I would agree that certain people are not fit to walk this Earth. There are horrible excuses for human beings out there doing unspeakable things to others. When we have people with their own opinions, preconceptions, and such choosing who is sentenced to live or die, however, that just ain't gonna work out. A black man could kill a single white male or female and be sentenced to death. A white person could commit a mass shooting and end up with life in prison. If we let the government decide, "Oh, this person who did this exact same crime gets this sentence, but this person gets this one," you create a huge space for bias to impact the supposed idea of, "Justice is blind." Let's be real, ya'll, if that were true, the criminal justice system wouldn't look the way it does in regard to high incarceration (and execution) rates of people of color, men, and especially black men.

Christa Pike is a white woman; she is a bit of an outlier when it comes to people sentenced to death. That is one reason her case got so much attention, and then the state's failure to kill her resulted in even more of a media fiasco. You know a good way to avoid botched executions? Get rid of the death penalty! You know how to avoid putting potentially innocent people to death (which has happened, and even once is too much)? Get rid of the death penalty? Do you know how you can try to reduce the use of execution as a tool unfairly used on minority populations? Again, you get rid of it! People are prone to feelings and not using logic. If someone threatened or hurt my family, I would probably go to extreme lengths to protect them or feel some kind of revenge--and I know that is wrong, but we as humans operate on emotion. The legal system is supposed to be fair. It clearly is not, but at least if we abolish the death penalty, we can reduce one example of a concept that should be objective in how it is used, but only ever finds its application occurring due to subjective reasoning.