Unit 6：Death and Justice
How Capital Punishment Affirms Life
By Edward I. Koch
死亡与司法
死刑如何肯定生命
Edward I. Koch
1.Last December a man named Robert Lee Willie, who had been convicted of raping and murdering an eighteen-year-old woman, was executed in the Louisiana state prison. In a statement issued several minutes before his death, Mr. Willie said: “Killing people is wrong… It makes no difference whether it’s citizens, countries, or governments. Killing is wrong.” Two weeks later in South Carolina, an admitted killer named Joseph Carl Shaw was put to death for murdering two teenagers. In an appeal to the governor for clemency, Mr. Shaw wrote: “Ki
lling was wrong when I did it. Killing was wrong when you do it. I hope you have the courage and moral strength to stop the killing.”
去年12月，一个名叫罗伯特.李.威利的罪犯在路易斯安那州的监狱中被处决，罪名是和谋杀一名18岁的女子。在其死亡前几分钟发表的一份声明中，威利先生说：“杀人是错误的... ... 无论是公民、国家，还是政府，都没有区别。杀人是不对的”。两周后在南卡罗来纳州，一个名为约瑟夫.卡尔.肖的杀人犯因为杀害两名青少年被处死。在上诉到州长请求宽恕时，肖先生说：“当我杀人时杀人是错误的。当你杀人时杀人也是错误的。我希望你有勇气和道德力量来阻止杀戮。”
2.It is a curiosity of modern life that we find ourselves being lectured on morality by cold-blooded killers. Mr. Willie previously had been convicted of aggravated rape, aggravated kidnapping, and the murders of a Louisiana deputy and a man from Missouri. Mr. Shaw committed another murder a week before the two for which he was executed, and admitted mutilating the body of the fourteen-year-old girl he killed. I can’t help wondering what prompted these murderers to speak out against killing as they entered the death-house do
or. Did their newfound reverence for life stem from the realization that they were about to lose their own?
冷血的杀人犯对我们进行道德说教，这真是现代社会的一件奇事。威利先生之前已经犯有恶性罪、恶性罪和谋杀一名路易斯安那州副州长和一名密苏里州人的谋杀罪。肖先生在杀害致其被处死的两个人的一周前，还进行了另一起谋杀，他承认肢解了他所杀害的14岁女孩的身体。我不禁要问，是什么原因促使这些凶手在走入鬼门关的时候发表反对杀人的言论。他们重新发现对生命的尊重是源于意识到即将失去自己的生命了吗？
3.Life is indeed precious, and I believe the death penalty helps to affirm this fact. Had the death penalty been a real possibility in the minds of these murderers, they might well have stayed their hand. They might have shown moral awareness before their victims died, and not after. Consider the tragic death of Rosa Velez, who happened to be home when a man named Luis Vera burglarized her apartment in Brooklyn. “Yeah, I shot her,” Vera admitted. “She knew me, and I knew I wouldn’t go to the chair.”
生命无疑是宝贵的，我相信死刑可以肯定这一事实。如果这些杀人犯脑子里真想到过死刑的
话，他们就可能会手下留情，就应该会在受害者死亡之前而不是之后表现出道德良知。考虑罗莎.贝莱斯的悲惨死亡，当一个名为路易斯.维拉的人在她布鲁克林的公寓内盗窃时，她碰巧回家。 “是的，我射杀了她，”维拉承认。“她认识我，并且我知道我不会被处死刑。”
4.During my twenty-two years in public service, I have heard the pros and cons of capital punishment expressed with special intensity. As a district leader, councilman, congressman, and mayor, I have represented constituencies generally thought of as liberal. Because I support the death penalty for heinouseditorial英文 crimes of murder, I have sometimes been the subject of emotional and outraged attacked by voters who find my position reprehensible or worse. I have listened to their ideas. I have weighed their objections carefully. I still support the death penalty. The reasons I maintain my position can be best understood by examining the arguments most frequently heard in opposition.
在我二十多年的公共服务期间，我听过关于死刑利弊的种种表达。作为一个选区的领导人、议会议员、国会议员和市长，我代表了普遍被认为是自由派的选民。因为我支持对十恶不赦的谋杀判处死刑，我有时是选民情绪和愤怒的攻击对象，他们觉得我的立场应该受到攻击或
者更糟。我听取了他们的想法，仔细权衡了他们的反对意见，但仍然支持死刑。我坚持自己立场的原因，可以通过剖析最常听到的反对观点来解释。
5.Reason 1. The death penalty is “barbaric.” Sometimes opponents of capital punishment horrify with tales of lingering death on the gallows, of faulty electric chairs, or of agony in the gas chamber. Partly in response to such protests, several states such as North Carolina and Texas switched to execution by lethal injection. The condemned person is put to death painlessly, without ropes, voltage, bullets, or gas. Did this answer the objections of death penalty opponents? Of course not. On June 22, 1984, the New York Times published an editorial that sarcastically attacked the new “hygienic” method of death by injection, and stated that “execution can never be made humane through science.” So it’s not the method that really troubles opponents. It’s the death itself they consider barbaric.
5. 原因1：死刑是“野蛮的”。有时候，绞刑架上凌迟的讲述、故障死刑电椅上的讲述、或在毒气室中临死挣扎的讲述使得死刑反对者更害怕。在一定程度上是为了响应这样的抗议，北卡
罗莱纳州和得克萨斯州等几个州改为注射毒针来执行死刑。判刑的人被无痛苦地杀死，没有绳索、电压、子弹或气体。这就回答了死刑反对者的异议了吗？当然没有。1984年6月22日，纽约时报发表了一篇社论，讽刺性地攻击了新的“卫生”的注射死亡方法，并指出“科学从来不能使死刑变得仁慈”。所以真正困扰反对者的不是方法，而是他们认为死亡本身是野蛮的。
6.Admittedly, capital punishment is not a pleasant topic. However, one does not have to like the death penalty in order to support it any more than one must like radical surgery, radiation, or chemotherapy in order to find necessary these attempts at curing cancer. Ultimately, we may learn how to cure cancer with a simple pill. Unfortunately, the day has not yet arrived. Today we are faced with the choice of letting the cancer spread or trying to cure it with the methods available, methods that one day will almost certainly be considered barbaric. But to give up and do nothing would be far more barbaric and would certainly delay the discovery of an eventual cure. The analogy between cancer and murder is imperfect, because murder is not the “disease” we are trying to cure. The disease is injustice. We may not like the death penalty, but it must be available to punish crimes of col
d-blooded murder, cases in which any other form of punishment would be inadequate and, therefore, unjust. If we create a society in which injustice is not tolerated, incidents of murder—the most flagrant form of injustice—will diminish.