Some Not Happy With Death Penalty Abolition. But It's the Right Thing

By Chuck Sudo in News on Jan 12, 2011 2:11PM

A bit of editorializing: we aren't opposed to capital punishment because sometimes innocent men have been on Death Row in Illinois (although it does). Nor are we against it because the poor and minorities seem to get it more (although they do). Nor are we against it because it isn't the deterrent to major crimes its supporters claim. We're opposed to it for one simple, personal reason - if we're supposed to ostensibly be a democracy, then it's blood on our hands every time someone is put to death.

Both the Tribune and the Sun-Times ran editorials this morning applauding the vote to abolish the death penalty and imploring Gov. Quinn to sign the measure into law. But there are some who, in their blind quests for revenge as "justice," don't agree with the General Assembly's decision.

Folks like Thomas Nicarico, father of the late Jeanine Nicarico. Nicarico wasn't happy with the Senate's vote to end capital punishment and told the Sun-Times that it amounted to a "cop-out."

“He’s (Brian Dugan, convicted of Jeanine Nicarico's murder) earned the most severe punishment the state can give — and now the state is taking it away.”

Coincidentally, it's the Nicarico case that's often cited as an example of why capital punishment in Illinois should be abolished. Before Thomas Nicarico's rage was focused on Dugan, he demanded the same form of "justice" for Rolando Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez for his daughter's murder. When evidence later proved that Cruz and Hernandez were nowhere near Jeanine Nicarico at the time of her murder, we remember Thomas Nicarico insisting the state was releasing guilty men.

Consider that, if Quinn signs the measure that abolishes capital punishment, Dugan and others on Death Row who are genuinely guilty of their crimes will likely face a lifetime behind bars, where they (hopefully) will reflect on the actions that put them there. In our mind, it's still a just form of punishment. After all, the root word in "penitentiary" is "penitence."

As for the Nicarico family and others like them who think the vote was a "cop-out," we would never presume to understand how they feel, to have a loved one taken away from them in such a vicious manner. We would hope that we could find it within ourselves to forgive, but not forget.