[Deathpenalty]death penalty news --- worldwide

[Joerg Sommer]

death penalty news

July 27, 2004


SOUTH KOREA:

Death penalty answers cries of victims

In January, 1998, a controversy began at Mountain View Unit Prison in 
Texas. On death row for 13 years, Karla Faye Tucker, who was convicted of 
two murders in 1985 and admitted she got sexual gratification when she axed 
her victims, declared that she was a born-again Christian. Pope John Paul 
II appealed to the court to commute the death penalty and other religious 
organizations joined in the plea. But she was given a lethal injection at 
6:35 a.m. on Feb. 3, 1998.

Anthony Porter, an African-American who was convicted of murdering two 
teenagers in 1982, was on death row for 17 years. As he was waiting for his 
scheduled execution in February, 1999, the man who was really responsible 
for the crime was caught. Only 15 hours before the execution, Anthony 
Porter was freed.

The death penalty has long been controversial for its shortcomings. Those 
who advocate scrapping capital punishment in Korea like to cite the cases 
of two men. Jo Bong-am, a leader of the Progressive Party, was executed in 
1959 during the military regime on an espionage charge , and Colonel Choi 
Chang-sik, who was executed for having destroyed the bridges over the Han 
River during the Korean War, was found not guilty later.

Nevertheless, there certainly are criminals who deserve the death penalty. 
"The Big Thief," a novel by a former safecracker, Baek Dong-ho, was based 
on true cases and tells stories of a murderer who killed his wife and ate 
her flesh with kimchi, and a man who axed the family of his girlfriend for 
opposing their marriage. Champions of capital punishment deride opponents' 
efforts by citing the cases of brutal killers.

Recently, the Uri Party lawmaker Yoo Ihn-tae started an open discussion on 
whether to abolish capital punishment. He saw fellow democratization 
activists being executed on April 8, 1974, the day after they were found 
guilty. The experience made him an opponent of the death penalty.

Using capital punishment for political retaliation can be ended as 
democracy matures and the rule of law develops. It is absurd to insist on 
abolishing it without taking proper steps. The National Assembly has no 
right to silence the cries of the families who lost loved ones to brutal 
murderers.

(Ahn Sung-kyoo, the writer is a political news deputy editor of the 
JoongAng Ilbo. Contact: askme at joongang.co.kr)

(source: Column, JoongAng Daily)