Representative Keenan Offers Principled Stand
BOSTON – Representative John Keenan (D-Salem) today found himself on a national stage as Governor Mitt Romney presented his bill to reinstate the death penalty in Massachusetts to the legislature’s Committee on the Judiciary, on which the Representative sits. Meeting in Gardner Auditorium at the State House this morning, the committee heard testimony from dozens of individuals and groups in favor of and in opposition to the Governor’s so-called “fool-proof” death penalty proposal. The Governor’s proposed bill would revive the death penalty in Massachusetts after almost six decades of no state-sponsored executions. In reaction to the bill, Representative Keenan offered a principled defense for keeping Massachusetts execution-free. “The death penalty as proposed is immoral, impractical, and unenforceable. Although we have come a long way from the spectral evidence of the witch trials to the DNA testing of today, we cannot escape the timeless reality that errors are made when humans are involved,” said Representative Keenan, a former prosecutor and a direct descendent of witchcraft hysteria victim Rebecca Nurse, “We must not return to the days of possible wrongful accusation, conviction, and execution.” “I share the sorrow and anger of the families and friends of murder victims,” continued Representative Keenan, “But we must remember that capital punishment is no punishment at all. For these offenders, it is a release. It is a freedom that they in no way deserve. They deserve, rather, to suffer in prison for as long as they draw breath.” Representative Keenan reflected on the fundamental flaw in the death penalty. “We cannot prove that killing is wrong by killing in turn,” he observed, “The job of the legislature is to make laws, not take lives.” Representative Keenan, a father of a three-year-old and six-year-old, asked, “How can we teach our kids that violence is wrong, but at the same time sanction such actions as the death penalty?”
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||