To the editor:

Alan Hickey (Journal-World, Feb. 13) makes several mistakes of logic in both theory and application in his support for Kansas Senate Bill 208 (to effectively abolish the death penalty).

His position that since Iraq executed fewer people than the United States, we should be ashamed is both culturally incorrect as well as logically. First, to the cultural mistake: Iraqis often suffer the death penalty as part of unrecorded tribal law; secondly, there are less people in Iraq than the U.S., so it would follow there would be fewer executions.

Similar to this is his citing of Southern execution rates. If there are, indeed, higher murder rates in the South, it would logically follow there would be more executions.

As to citing DNA evidence resulting in overturning convictions, one can still support the death penalty by adding in DNA testing as part of the routine processes of capital crime — thereby eliminating DNA as an objection since it was utilized in the original trial.

Lastly, the deterrent objection stretches credulity: We have nearly 300 million people in the United States; someone must have been deterred.

Matthew M. O’Connell,
Lawrence