Gary Leon Ridgway may not be a household name, but the infamous Green River Killer is one of the most accomplished serial murderers in U.S. history. In 2003, Ridgway confessed 48 accounts of aggravated first degree murder (more confirmed murders than any other American serial killer) during a two-and-a-half-year period in the early 1980s near Seattle, although it is believed he slaughtered even more. The majority of his victims were runaway teenage girls and hookers whom he picked up on the interstate and strangled to death. But Ridgway was spared the death penalty as part of a plea bargain three years ago, in exchange for his assistance in leading investigators to his victim’s remains and revealing other information to help “bring closure” to the grieving families (“Green River Killer Avoids Death in Plea Deal”).
Despite overwhelming national approval of it, deliberation over the death penalty in America has been dominated by the devious voices of the petite but vocal death penalty opposition, and aided heavily by the leftist groups like the NAACP, ACLU, and Amnesty International. Their deceitful repertoire of lies and half-truths has been echoed for so long, that many of these fallacies have eventually been regarded as fact in the mainstream, and even among death penalty advocates. The institution has been falsely accused of inaccuracy, ineffectiveness, and racism. And as the only course of action capable of adequately displaying our outrage and disgust at the savage destruction of innocent life, the death penalty deserves a defense.
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“Since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1976 that capital punishment is not `cruel and unusual,’ 618 prisoners have been executed across the nation and about 80 have been exonerated….
…ed nations in its support for capital punishment (with the exception of China), but America, in her exceptionalism, has often stood alone in defense of that which is good and decent and just. While the consistency of the implementation must be expanded to all murderers, rather than reserved, this presents an opportunity for reform and increased efficacy. The Declaration of Independence holds that the right to life is an unalienable among all men, and if this creed of life’s value is to be taken seriously, then those who assume it upon themselves to deny an innocent man of this right can hold no equal share in it. Today, serving 48 consecutive life sentences, the Green River Killer can still laugh and learn, read and write, forge friendships and fall in love, and engage in scores of other things permanently obscured from at least 48 innocent women. Is this justice?
