Killing the Death Penalty

By Heidi Shepard

Should the government kill people that brutally kill others? That's the question that some people are asking as they fight against the death penalty. A local protest was held in town square Monday. Alaska has never had the death penalty, but the federal government does allow it. That's why a movement to abolish it was played out in Anchorage Monday evening.

"I was wrongfully convicted in 1984. I'm a prime example that the death penalty is bad government policy," said Juan Melendez who spent 17-years 8-months and 1-day on death row in Florida for a burglary and murder he did not commit. "I was on my last appeal. I was there 18 years so every time you lose an appeal, you're getting closer and closer to death, so I was a candidate for the government to sign a death warrant."

In Melendez' case, the real killer confessed, but he says even for the guilty, the death penalty is only about vengeance. That's why he came to Alaska to talk to people about the extreme punishment and the push to abolish it. Under civil authority, eight men were executed in territorial Alaska between 1900 and 1957. Then the death penalty was abolished in the 49th state. No serious attempts to reintroduce it have made it through the legislature. But still, those against it are still fighting it.

"We're only one gruesome murder away from facing legislation because that seems to be the only response to horrible crimes that legislators can come up with," said Kathy Harris, the State Death Penalty Abolition Coordinator for Amnesty International.

Alaskans Against the Death Penalty say the punishment does not prevent crime, they say in fact that the 38 states that do allow it tend to have a higher murder rate. They say it's because those states are telling people it's okay to kill. Since 1976, more than one hundred people have been released from death row.