LA Times says it was wrong about McVeigh, opposes death penalty
Posted by on April 9th, 2015
We applaud the LA Times Editorial Board for taking a difficult stand against the death penalty in the federal case of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
This was a terrible crime that killed three and wounded hundreds, and it is understandable that Americans want vengeance. But we must remember that the death penalty is not a deterrent for would be terrorists and there is no benefit to society in avenging death with more death.
The Times Board admits regret in calling for the execution of Timothy McVeigh in 2001, saying “that editorial was written out of passion, not justice.”
In the years since McVeigh’s execution, support for the death penalty in this country has fallen. Since 1996, support has dropped by 23 percentage points, reaching its lowest level in almost two decades, according to a 2014 poll by the Pew Research Center. In just the past eight years, six states have abolished the death penalty and five have imposed moratoriums.
As the Times Board said, Tsarnaev should be sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole because “killing another human being is immoral, whether by bomb or by lethal injection.”