Execution Is Murder

An execution by the State of California is scheduled now for Thursday night. I am a Californian living in Brazil, a country that effectively abolished the death penalty 150 years ago. (There remains law that allows for a sentence of capital punishment in cases of treason or wartime crimes. Brazil has not engaged in war since the end of WWII, over sixty years ago. It is unlikely that the death penalty would be sentenced, if there were to be a conviction.) Execution is committed murder by the State, on our behalf. There is no innocense. My friends and colleagues here look at me in disbelief when they learn that there is capital punishement in the United States. I am sickened by reports of the new multi-million dollar facility for this barbaric practice. I think of the homeless who could have shelter, the hungry who could eat and the dance and music that could be performed. But we have chosen a different form of dance. The piling of evil upon evil.

I believe in accountability. As a citizen of the state, I must be accountable for the murder that is committed on my behalf by a state that is broken in spirit. I have attended vigils outside of San Quentin, and I believe in the importance of presence and witness of opponents. There is something surreal and carnival like about them. I think that it is because it is nearly impossible to embrace what is actually happening inside. We push away from the reality. The frezied pro death penalty proponents, some with hateful and vulgar signs; but no less believing that "justice is being served". And, those opposing the death penalty, standing mostly numbed. I remember the vacant feeling and the estrangement from the world, feeling somehow alone in the crowd.

At home, later that night, I couldn't sleep as I wrestled with the deamons. If the execution takes place tomorrow, I'll be restless here too, 7000 air miles from San Quentin.

Updated. The scheduled execution in California was removed from the Department of Corrections' calendar yesterday.