Face off: Sentencing Rodriguez to death does not solve the real issues
Putting Alfonso Rodriguez Jr. to death is more of a crime than an act of justice.
When casual conversations suggest “frying him” as the only viable option, the real issue isn’t being addressed.
Is this solution dealing with a heinous murderer or just removing him so society can move on, believing the world to be a better place?
This trial wasn’t supposed to be about us or how pictures of a contorted, decayed and naked body made us feel. It should have been about safety and punishment, and maybe it partially was.
But deciding a man’s fate, if it must be a decision, should be a conscious and deliberate one, not an immediate feeling evoked from an eloquent play on words or an answer in the midst of sickening graphic images. And consistently, the same answer should surface in the end.
Rodriguez is unmistakably guilty. He even considered pleading guilty. No thought managed to exist in the minds of the jury suggesting his innocence. That’s the one fact that everyone agrees on, consistently.
However, the objective and desire to demonstrate this man’s guilt may have bled into a realm beyond punishment.
Rodriguez can be controlled and punished without ending his life. He will never get parole, he cannot escape, and everyone, in and out of jail, knows the horrible things he has done. How does killing someone show that killing is wrong? Is it going to make him understand through experience the magnitude of what he did to Dru?
The jury has requested that the murderer receive a lethal injection. This is hardly cruel punishment in terms of pain, but it is definitely unusual. He won’t be humiliated, threatened, raped or tortured.
Instead, he will be allowed to say goodbye to family and friends, but then must fall asleep and die, on a timetable. There will be a pre-determined minute in time that will be the last moment of Rodriguez’s life.
Dru had hope until her last breath. Rodriguez, if sentenced to death, will die in the unfailing system. Someone will decide the last thought in his mind, and the last glimpse through his eyes.
The two victims, Dru and Rodriguez, will only share a common fear, the fear of dying — a fear that every human will eventually face.
This case is apparently not about rehabilitation; it’s not even completely about making Rodriguez suffer consequences for his actions.
The whole concept of punishment is to discipline or to teach an individual how to behave in a better way. The death penalty option doesn’t look at Rodriguez as having a chance to become better, to learn or a chance to understand what he has done. When did justice translate to revenge and removal?
Undeniably, even after all of the immoral, disgusting and evil acts that were committed the night Dru died, Rodriguez is still a human being. He’s the same as every person on the jury who unanimously decided death to be the best option — more alike than they should be comfortable with.
Rodriguez had power over another life, similar to the jury’s command over his.
They even reacted in the same way, becoming careless with the life they came to control.
Both Rodriguez and his jury underestimated the intrinsic value of a human life, the lasting effects of taking it and the somber suffering that society endures when life isn’t valued.
Columnists' opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of The Spectrum