Student: I'd just like to know your
thoughts on the death penalty.
Wheeler: Great question.
This is an area where I've been called a hypocrite.
Student: I'd just like to know your
thoughts on the death penalty.
Wheeler: Great question.
This is an area where I've been called a hypocrite
because people on the left, and some people on the right,
will say, "how can you be pro-life
if you support or you're okay with capital punishment?"
And my answer to that is, well,
I'm glad I'm not a hypocrite,
I don't support capital punishment.
So good try.
[audience applause]
And hear me out though, hear me out.
There's a lot of conservatives
that are like, ooh, weak on crime,
and I'm like, wrong again.
Hear me out.
So the reason why I'm not in favor of capital punishment
is because again, this is a timing issue.
There were times in our country
where capital punishment might have been necessary.
There were times in our country where the idea of justice,
being that we are trying to restore order to our society,
we are trying to protect those innocent people
and their inherent rights from being violated
by somebody else, required us to put people to death
in order to restore the order to our society
and to protect the innocent from being violated by somebody,
a criminal who had already proved that they were willing
to violate somebody else's inherent rights, right?
We're not at that point anymore.
We have maximum security prisons, which are not being...
we don't see jail breaks there
the same way that we saw in the wild west,
for example. We don't have facilities where it's impossible
to incarcerate somebody without threatening someone else's
livelihood, even to the point of, you know, isolation.
We really have the capacity, in that sense,
to make sure that an individual is not a threat
to other people, is not going to violate somebody else.
That's the first thing.
The second thing is there have been too many mistakes
in capital punishment in our country,
especially since the 1970s, where innocent people
have been put to death and then exonerated
after they had already been put to death,
based on DNA evidence.
This is, in my opinion, inexcusable.
Our justice system is based on the idea that
it's not a matter of being guilty or innocent,
it's a matter of being guilty or being not guilty,
meaning we cannot prove that you are guilty.
Now, what does that mean?
That means that we are willing, in our justice system,
to let guilty people walk free if we cannot, as a jury,
meet the standards of proving beyond a shadow of a doubt
that person is guilty.
Well, that standard applies to capital punishment as well.
Now I'm not advocating that that we let murderers walk free,
that we let child rapists walk free.
No, no, what I'm advocating for
is looking at the statistics of how many people
have been wrongly put to death
versus the idea that we can house these people
in maximum security facilities without a threat
of them harming someone else.
So we shouldn't accept that the government
has a right to put people to death.
That's a slippery slope to begin with,
but we shouldn't accept that government has the power
to put people to death and then accept the fact
that the government has put innocent citizens to death.
That is not okay.
The third reason is the fiscal reason.
It is not a fiscally conservative policy,
meaning we do not have a system where
someone is convicted of murder and they're put on death row,
and they are... that sentence is quickly enacted.
No, no it's decades usually
before someone is actually executed.
What happens in the interim
between their conviction and sentencing
and when that sentence is actually carried out?
Well appeals, years and years of appeals.
And that's extremely expensive
if you weigh the amount of money that it would cost
to just house someone for life, without parole, in prison,
versus the amount of money that it costs to go through
these appeals process for decades
before you even get to the capital punishment itself.
It's more fiscally responsible
to just put the person in jail for life
without the possibility of parole.
So for those three reasons, in addition, of course,
it's coupled with the fact that I'm Catholic, I'm Christian.
I understand the dignity of life itself,
but I also understand the idea
that if we put someone to death
and they have not repented for their sins,
then they could very well be condemned to hell.
And that's a pretty hefty responsibility
to hold on our shoulders when we have other options
that would protect the innocent.
And so if there's a possibility of allowing them,
keeping other people safe,
allowing them the possibility to hopefully repent
so they're not condemned to hell,
then we should try to do that as well.
So for those reasons, I'm against capital punishment.
Student: Thank you. [audience applause]