OPINION: Death Sentence is Murder. Should we Abolish it?

We merely find it less chilling and somehow acceptable because it is committed by the state, for justice-as we purport. But whichever way we look at it, it is murder.

In the last few weeks, the judiciary has gone on an overdrive in handing down capital punishment to individuals charged with committing some of the most horrific and unimaginable crimes in our society.

In one such ruling, a 30 year old man was sentenced to death for killing his four month old step daughter. In a similar case, a 63 year old man was given the death sentence after defiling and killing his daughter in Kiambu.

Undeniably, these are horrid crimes deserving the toughest of penalties.But can we ever really justify the death penalty? What does it achieve? Who is the winner here?

For the family of the victims, there may be closure, or perhaps not. After all, it does not bring their loved ones back. We may argue that perpetrators are paying for their crimes and getting what they deserve. But isn’t sending them to the hang man handing them a free and quick pass to the afterlife?  

Last hanging and the 1982 coup connection

Is this not somehow allowing them to escape from their crimes? A life sentence seems more appropriate- another life is saved while at the same time we give perpetrators the space to live with their actions till their dying day.

Clearly, capital punishment does not act as a deterrent. Human beings, globally, are inherently wicked. Even in countries (such as China, Iran, Iraq, the USA among others) where executions are the norm, heinous crimes continue to be committed.

Kenya has had a coy approach to capital punishment. While the death penalty remained firmly engraved within our laws following the promulgation of a new constitution in 2010, Kenya still remains a de facto abolitionist state. Not a single person has been executed for nearly two decades.

The last man was hanged in 1987 following the 1982 failed coup.

Quite frankly our country lacks the political will to maintain capital punishment and has even toyed with the idea of abolishing all together.

 In 2009, the former president Mwai Kibaki, announced that he was commuting the death sentences of an estimated 4,000 people to life imprisonment.

But perhaps the most important argument is the fact that capital punishment lacks the people’s will. 

We don’t appear to desire it. Kenya prides itself for having one of the most progressive constitutions in the world- why then can’t we just abolish this retrogressive and outdated law?

 

By Njoki Mwangi

The writer is a blogger

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