As summer heats up, debate over the death penalty is back and rising to a fever pitch. There's the sentencing of Jodi Arias, the filibustering of an abolition vote in Nebraska, the signing of the death penalty repeal in Maryland, the temporary reprieve of a death row prisoner in Colorado and the controversy around a bill aimed at speeding up executions in Florida.
Throughout recent public discussions, there's been lots of talk about budgets, degrees of "justice" (is life without parole sufficiently horrible?) and the ever-present possibility of accidentally executing an innocent prisoner. Surprisingly little attention has been paid to the question of humanity: Are people convicted of murder exiled from our species - or are they still human? If they are, what does it mean for the state to not only legitimize the principle of taking a human life, but also, simply, to take a human life? What exactly does "taking" a life entail?
As phrases like "cold-blooded monsters" and "pure evil" and "worst of the worst" pulse through the airwaves, one such life enters my mind. I first reached out to
Steven Woods, a death row inmate in Texas, in 2006. He was leading a hunger strike to protest against solitary confinement; I was writing about it. Addressing the envelope ("Polunsky Unit," death row) scared me. My image of Steven was murky and amorphous, a silent symbol of "worst"ness. However, the day I received my first letter from Steven, I came to the thudding realization that he was a person.
Source: Maya Schenwar, Truthout, May 30, 2013
