Comment by freerobby | Hacker News Reader

Comment by freerobby | Hacker News Reader

It's nice to see a statement of regret, but it really bothers me how rarely those who feel this way do anything about it while in positions of power. This Warden claims to have felt it wrong in the moment, yet he did not make the faintest of sacrifices to oppose it. It would be much more influential for a well-regarded Warden to publicly oppose or resign over such policies, than to obey them blindly and issue a mea culpa years later when he no longer has influence. Read the passage below, and consider the lack of courage required to kill someone in a way you feel is pointless at best, and morally heinous at worst, because it's your "job." How many extra years of capital punishment will we have, how many extra prisoners killed, because people in his position took too long to speak up?

> Regardless of their crimes, the fact that I was now to be personally involved in their executions forced me into a deeper reckoning with my feelings about capital punishment. After much contemplation, I became convinced that, on a moral level, life was either hallowed or it wasn’t. And I wanted it to be.

> I could not see that execution did anything to enhance public safety. While death penalty supporters suggest that capital punishment has the power of deterrence, a 2012 report by the National Research Council found that research “is not informative about whether capital punishment decreases, increases or has no effect on homicide rates.”

> I now believed that capital punishment was a dismal failure as a policy, but I was still expected to do my job. So I met with my staff and explained my position. I made it known that anyone who felt similarly opposed could back out of our assignment. According to state policy, assisting in the executions was voluntary for everyone but the superintendent. And yet each of those asked to serve chose to stay to ensure that the job was done professionally.

I disagree that it is so cut and dry. Does publicly opposing a̶n̶d̶ or resigning prevent those deaths from occurring? Should all of the staff involved be morally obligated to hand in their resignation or publicly oppose as well? What of the other prisoners under his custody that he may feel responsibility for?

Quitting or publicly opposing may be the most conspicuous way of opposing the death penalty, but people need to be able to choose their battles.

I said "publicly oppose or resign." There are many ways to protest and draw attention to things that are broken; my point isn't that he failed to do all of them, it's that he failed to do any of them.

He failed to do any that you are aware of, with regards to this single issue of many that affect his facility.

> He failed to do any that you are aware of

The whole premise of this piece is that the author went along with a broken system because "that's the way it's supposed to work" -- that people on the inside oil the machine and people on the outside look the other way, and both are to blame for their part in it.

The author bends over backwards throughout to show that he was no exception, that he went right along with it, and he seems to regret that now. If evidence to the contrary is available, I'm all ears.

> with regards to this single issue of many that affect his facility.

Well yeah, but "this single issue" is the premise of the article, a major social issue, and the topic of discussion here. I'm not saying this guy shirked his moral duties all throughout life; I'm saying he shirked them on capital punishment.

I think that had he, as warden, resigned/publicly opposed the executions they still would have happened. I think that as warden, he has many other opportunities for reform within his prison. I therefore don't think that he has a moral obligation to resign/publicly oppose the executions. We live in a society of broken systems. If we have to protest every wrongdoing that we encounter, we wouldn't be able to get anything done.

As to the warden's own lack of "the faintest sacrifice to oppose it" and "bending over backwards". What do you consider an appropriate sacrifice for an ordinary citizen who opposes capital punishment? Campaigning for more progressive political leaders? Communicating with state officials? How do you know he did none of these things? I don't have evidence that he did but neither do you have evidence that he didn't. I don't understand the condemnation of this individual you know only through an op-ed.

Public opinion is turning on capital punishment[1]. Anything those with power can do to draw attention to its failures will continue and further that momentum. Yeah, those two guys were probably going to be executed either way, but he could have impacted others by accelerating the pace of reform. Similar impact has been made elsewhere in the last decade, in states like Illinois where moratoriums have been imposed when officials and governors have come to their senses before the lawmakers.

In terms of what an appropriate sacrifice is, I suppose there's a pretty wide spectrum. At the extreme, he could've publicly resigned and refused to have any part in something so unethical. On the lighter end, he could've penned an op/ed stating that it's a terrible practice but that he's going to stay and do his part to make it as comfortable as possible for the condemned, while calling on lawmakers to end the practice. I'm not prescriptive about how exactly people should react when their ethics are challenged, but I think it's reasonable to ask them to wander in the direction of their moral compass even when their job points the other way.[2]

[1] http://www.people-press.org/2015/04/16/less-support-for-deat...

[2] Obviously, some people would be hurting for work if they lost their job, and cannot afford to take big risks or piss off their bosses. But that doesn't apply to prison wardens, and if anything, the imperative of a prison warden to have solid ethics is much higher than that of a typical worker.

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