A Further Look At Death Penalty By Ben Ijeoma Adigwe
As the battle rages in Nigeria and indeed the word between the retentionists and the abolitionists of the death penalty, perhaps it
would be instructive to look at the contention from a different
perspective.
Sometime ago, news had it that in California, in the United States of America, a survey carried out on the inmates of the prison by researchers discovered that down to a person each of those
prisoners who where there for a violent crime were all abused as a child.
The great Dr. Nelson Mandela, a lawyer and considered by many as the greatest African of the 20th Century, in his autobiography; “A Long
Walk To Freedom” gave the opinion that he believes that it is not nature that makes a criminal, rather a criminal is nurtured. Zeroing in on our own context here in Nigeria, the erudite Chief Judge of Delta State, Honourable Justice Marshal Umukoro at the end of the 2016 prison. visits where he had gone to review the situation of the inmates in the
prisons situated all over the state, granted an interview to the press. He decried the situation where most of the inmates awaiting trial and those already convicted were youths in the prime of life who should be damming, their energies and effort into constructive channels. He stated that he discovered that this decadence is attributed to a breakdown of the family unit, that most of the accused persons and convicts were discovered to have come from
broken and dysfunctional homes.
A science magazine was reported to have published an article that all normal children possessed in their infancy, qualities of genius.
Mediocrity, it’s says, appears only later in life. This position
postulated by a school of thought in the discipline of psychology and sociology, goes on to say that it is what the child encounters along the journey of life that turns him into a criminal. Such people develop a low self esteem and instead of leading a normal life become twisted and cut corners on the path of life.
A very sad case that X-rays this view point reared its head in 1976 in the American State of Utah. It involved a young man called Garry Gilmore. At 14years, he spent most of his time behind bars. He entered reformatory institution after breaking a school window. He was later
jailed for auto theft, Armed robbery and assault. After his release from prison at 35years he started a new life. He got a job and fell in
love with a girl who somewhere along the line left him. She returned back for her former husband. Suddenly Garry Gilmour snapped! He went
to a petrol station and without provocation killed the attendant. The following night he confronted the night manager, of a motel and shot him dead! He was arrested, tried and sentenced to death by firing squad. Against his wishes, an appeal was filed for him. Gilmore sent a
note to the Supreme Court asking that he be allowed to die with dignity. The authorities prevaricated after the sentences were confirmed. Garry Gilmour complained that to “prolong the execution when I don’t ask for it to be prolonged puts me through the stress of cruel, unusual punishment”.
At his execution he was asked if he had anything to say. He looked up for a long time, looked ahead of him and said unrepentantly “let’s do it”. His kinsman made a statement which was a classic. “Things might have been different if Garry had not been caged in different institutions on and off since the age of 14, going
from juvenile trouble maker to a hardened killer in 22years”.
The main premise of the retentionists of the death penalty is retribution or legal revenge, “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” rooted in the laws of Moses which he himself took from Hammurabi code. But does it serve a useful purpose? I doubt very strongly. The current trend in criminal justice administration the world over is reformation of the criminal. In a sense, these criminals are victims of societies. Most of them, for instance, had no choice in the fact of their being from negative, dysfunctional families. On the flip side, the persecutious retentionists of the death penalty who stand on a clean slate have nothing to do to a large extent with the choice of being from “normal backgrounds”. Perhaps they wouldn’t do better if they were in the shoes of those victims on the other side of the divide. I am told the Sioux Indians pray often saying “O Great Spirit keep me from ever judging and criticizing a man until I have walked in his moccasins for two weeks”. This is a prayer the retentionists of the death penalty should look into to appreciate the wisdom embedded in it. The rugged legal luminary of Delta State
origin, Oliseh Chukwurah, one of the greatest mind that ever came out from this country, now deceased but never to be forgotten, once told us (then a group of young lawyers) that there is an African adage that says that because a goat eats your yam you don’t pull out all of its teeth. Punishment should wear a human face. Even the Creator’s view has moved on away from that preached by Moses. He says in Ezekiel
33:11 “As I live saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of
the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live”. This is the most current view of the Sovereign ruler of the Universe and the retentionists’ old premises and loud arguments of vendetta must queue
far, far behind it.
According to that great figure in American history, Abraham Lincoln “ No man was to be eulogized for what he did:
or censured for what he did or did not do because all of us are the children of conditions, of circumstances, of environment, of education, of acquired habits and of heredity molding men as they are and will forever be”. Perhaps those still fervently advocating the death penalty should help answer the questions raised in the next case which I will close this write up with. It is a case that I encountered
in the course of my prosecuting a murder case as a prosecutor. It’s
the case of the State v. Mbong Billy Udobong (1996) 6DTLR.Pt.1 116. The facts of the case were that the deceased, who was the son of the Appellant was alleged to have stolen one and half cups of rice belonging to the
father (Appellant), cooked same and ate with his younger brother and sisters. When the appellant returned home and learnt of the incident, he raved and scolded at the deceased who, according to the appellant, remained stubborn and unrepentant. The appellant therefore reached out for his matchet which he used on the deceased. The deceased fell on
the spot, bled and died. The next morning the appellant dragged the body of the deceased to the bathroom at the back of the house where they lived and buried him in a shallow grave with the aid of his other son PW4. The appellant’s wife who was the mother of the deceased came home from Uyo where she was doing a sandwich programme, and on learning of the incident reported same to the Police. The appellant
identified the grave where he buried the deceased. The body was exhumed and a postmortem examination performed by PW 1. The learned
trial judge convicted the appellant and sentenced him to death by hanging. Appellant has now appealed to the Court of Appeal. The Court
of Appeal upheld the sentence of death on the appellant.
Niki Tobi, JCA (as he then was) in decrying the peculiar facts of this case said, “what are we really up to in this country? Has the economy degenerated
so badly that a child has to pay for one and half cups of rice with his dear life? And what is more, the father, the murderer, is likely to face the hangman all because of one and half cups of rice, PW2 ( the wife) has been denied permanently the company of the deceased and is likely to be
denied the company of the appellant , thus experiencing the exit of two persons from the family. It is really said”.
Our die hard retentionists brothers of the death penalty should answer the question of what would be achieved by hanging the accused in the
above case and thereby compounding an already horrendous situation.
The situation, we advocate, should be handled constructively. The punishment should wear a human face. Life imprisonment, it is submitted, will do in that circumstance. Let the retentionists look beyond the man and focus on rebuilding a society that produced such
specie of man who would rave, scold and kill his own son all because of one and half cups of rice! bearing in mind that a hungry man, is an angry
man, as the wise masters of the English language have told us.
