A NOTE FROM LESTER JACKSON, Ph.D.
To provide for public safety and justice for victims of homicides and their loved ones, I will soon post an article proposing a drastic change in strategy for supporters of capital punishment. My new article will cite a book entitled An Eye for an Eye. It is outstanding work by an outstanding, Distinguished Award Winning Author, William T. Harper — himself a survivor of two separate homicide victims on two separate occasions.
With Mr. Harper’s gracious permission, I am posting this book now for ease of reader access to what I cite and, far more importantly, because this excellent defense of capital punishment deserves far more attention from homicide survivors and all advocates of justice for victims. It is well-written by a retired veteran journalist who is highly skilled in his craft.
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According to Mr. Harper:
There is a distinct and vitally active move afoot in this country to do away with the death penalty – a movement generally headed up by social liberals in search of a “cause.” And, as most polls show, they are winning. Support for the death penalty is diminishing. The United States State Department, a source that might not have an axe to grind in the death penalty debate, recently reported “public support [for the death penalty] has dropped from 80 percent to 61 percent since 1994.” The death penalty opponents are winning because most of America’s vast “silent majority” is conceding the argument through inaction and default, and through ignorance and apathy (“I don’t know and I don’t care”).
Others who have taken similar anti-death penalty stances are also met head-on by An Eye for an Eye as it strives to preserve, protect, and defend the concept that for a crime there must be a punishment; that the punishment must fit the crime – and for the ultimate crime there must be the ultimate punishment. Via a series of chapter-opening vignettes illustrating the ghastly, brutal, monstrous murders committed by some of those the death penalty dissenters would spare, the book goes on to prove that the so-called “panacea” – Life Without Parole – is a joke that isn’t funny.
