LETTERS: DEATH-PENALTY REASONING

To the editor:

I am not usually given to writing letters to the editor, but the letter by the Rev. Pat Wissman of Scott City could not go unanswered. Wissman apparently is fundamentally opposed to the death penalty. He feels that the American Bar Association suggests that the present system is imperfect to the extent that some innocent people might be executed and launches his arguments from there.

The ABA over the years has become dominated by people who fundamentally oppose the death penalty, and the organization reflects that opposition. Wissman cannot be expected to understand that the procedures the ABA opposed are so replete with ponderous safeguards that the guilty are seldom executed, much less the innocent. Innocence is not at issue in a court of law. The state is obligated to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty. Failure to prove the defendant guilty is not analogous to the defendant being innocent. Often, guilty defendants are acquitted because relevant and reliable evidence of their guilt is excluded for a variety of technical reasons that have nothing to do with the merits of the case. In a death penalty case, the jury must first of all find the defendant guilty of premeditated murder, and then it must impose the death penalty based upon specific findings alleged and proved by the state. And that just begins the process which continues for year and years and years.

On a personal level, Wissman concluded that Morley Swingle, the prosecuting attorney of Cape Girardeau County, from his stated position has no concern for the innocent. Nothing could be further from the truth. Apparently, Wissman does not know Morley, or that thought would never darken his mind. As I mention above, the technical issues involved in the legal process have virtually nothing to do with innocence, and Wissman mistakes the technical analysis of the process with a lack of concern for the innocent.

To oppose the death penalty is good and proper for a man of the cloth, I suppose. However, there are those of us who feel differently. And, as my grandmother used to say, that's why they make chocolate and vanilla ice cream. On the other hand, the victims have no safeguards, no due process of law, nor appeal.

IAN D.W. SUTHERLAND, First Assistant Prosecuting Attorney

Office of Prosecuting Attorney

Cape Girardeau County

Jackson