Kevin Cooper

California plans to execute Kevin Cooper next Tuesday, despite the fact that at least five of the 12 jurors in Cooper's trial have called for a reprieve. The facts of the case are summarized on the Save Kevin Cooper website.

For those who are interested, here is the Mennonite Church USA's official position on capital punishment, which calls for the immediate abolition of the death penalty. I like this phrase from our 2001 resolution:

We acknowledge the deep grief of families of murder victims and victims of capital punishment laws; hold them in our prayers; and commit ourselves to walk with them...

For Mennonites, all those who are executed, guilty or innocent, are "victims of capital punishment laws". I am moved by the way that without distinctions, my church lifts up in prayer all of the dead and those who grieve for them. Some critics might say it is just bleeding-heart liberalism masquerading as the Gospel, but I think not. I'm in the right place.

Comments

[The Angry Clam]

http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040203/APN/402030936

[Hugo]

Well, I pray for this young man in the article you mentioned.

But my opposition to Kevin Cooper's execution doesn't hinge on the facts of the case. It's not that I question his guilt. It is that I believe that DESPITE his guilt, we are called to spare him. He did a terrible, ugly, sinful, wicked thing. Whether he is "right with God" now, I don't know. But I will pray for him, and for his victims, equally and without distinction, on February 10.

[Xrlq]

Fair enough, but if you don't question his guilt, you may want to consider revising the link to the "Save Kevin Cooper" web site, which sort of implies that you do. That site does not exactly "summarize the facts of the case." Rather, these jokers parade some irrelevant facts (Cooper's artwork and writing samples, or the existence of racists in San Bernardino County), omits some other pretty important ones (multiple rapes, DNA evidence in the car he claims never to have stolen), distorts others still beyond recognition (mentioning the "bloody overalls" lady whose testimony was excluded, without elaborating as to why), and, on their other web site (http://www.nodeathpenalty.org/factsheets/kevinCooper.html), flat-out lie and claim that Cooper's only surviving victim, Josh Ryen, questions his guilt.

I realize it may be tempting for death penalty abolitionists to manufacture doubt over every killer's guilt as his execution date nears. As with the little boy who cried wolf, however, this tactic is guaranteed to backfire. If, God forbid, we ever are on the eve of a truly innocent man's execution, and the Campaign to End the Death Penalty screams that he's innocent, will anyone believe them?

[Hugo]

That's fair. See my forthcoming post, xrlq. You are right that I am a bit inconsistent.

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