Now that Republicans control both houses of the Iowa Legislature, it appears this may be the year when Iowa makes the bold leap back to Medieval times and reinstates the death penalty.

Governor Branstad has talked about bringing the death penalty back to Iowa ever since he was first elected, all the way back in 1906. In fact, if the death penalty is not reinstated in Iowa this year, it may be a reason for Branstad to renege on his campaign promise that this would be his last term.

The thought of Branstad being governor for another four years is almost enough to make me go against my beliefs and support the death penalty, just to get the man out of office.

But I cannot support the death penalty. It is heinous, barbaric and has no place among supposedly civilized people. But above all other things, I would like our legislators to remember this before they cast their vote on the death penalty: this is Iowa. We don’t need the death penalty here. We’re too good for that.

I say that because I love Iowa. It may sound corny (pardon the pun) but we really have it good here, and I think many Iowans don’t realize how good we have it.

The debate over the death penalty always heats up whenever there is a high-profile murder. “High-profile” means it is the top story in all the newspapers and television reports.

In Iowa, murders are rare in comparison to other states. Therefore, every time someone is murdered, people react as if the whole state is going to hell in a hand basket and the only way to save us all from being murdered in our beds is to reinstate the death penalty.

These are terrible crimes, but the fact is that they would probably go unnoticed by the general population in other states where crime is a real problem.

Take California for example. How many people do you suppose were murdered in California last week? Probably several. How many did you hear about? One, because he happened to be the son of Bill Cosby. By the way, California has the death penalty, and yet people are still murdered there all the time. How can that be?

Iowa does not really have a crime problem. We just like to think we do, because it gives us something to worry about.

The death penalty is not the cure-all that its proponents say it is. Studies have shown that the death penalty does not deter others from committing murder. Supporters of the death penalty say it would at least ensure that those who are convicted of murder will never murder again, but life in prison would be just as effective.

Supporters say that taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay to keep a murderer in prison for life, but many inmates on death row stay there for a lifetime while they clog the legal system with their appeals.

The most destructive thing about the death penalty is that it appeals to our most basic human emotions: fear and vengeance. I recently watched a documentary about a family in Texas who was going to watch the execution of the man who had murdered two of its members.

None of my close family members have ever been murdered, so I cannot begin to understand the pain the family must have experienced. But something that the sister of the victim said stuck with me.

She said the man who had killed her brother and sister was not really human. That he had never experienced love or friendship or the other things that make us human. She said watching him die would be like watching an animal die.

That is too easy. It is easy to justify killing someone if you don’t think of them as being human. States that have the death penalty are saying that people who commit murder are not human. They don’t have feelings. They are animals, and their lives have no value.

I have no great amount of sympathy for someone who kills another person. But people who commit murder are still people. It is not for a jury or judge or legislature to decide whose lives are to be valued and whose are not. Murder is murder, no matter who carries it out or how it is justified.

Finally, executions are a ghoulish public spectacle. People stand outside the prison drinking and partying, celebrating death.

I don’t want to see that in my state. We are too good for that.

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Steven Martens is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Cedar Rapids.