There was so much news around moratorium issues that we created a special place for it all this month. Here are the articles:
The Death Penalty: Pros and Cons
Moratorium Movement gives Death Penalty Opponents A GLIMMER of hope
Amnesty International Calls US practices "cruel" and "degrading."
New Hampshire Senate Yes, Governor No: Vetoes Life
The Death Penalty: Pros and Cons
By Barbara Jean McAtlin
Editor, Clara A. T. Boggs
With the goal of streamlining judicial reviews and shortening the time of keeping death row prisoners alive, death penalty appeal procedures have gone through many changes in recent years. The idea behind many of these reforms was to bar repetitious and farfetched appeals that seemed to indefinitely stall executions. Some legal professionals say these measures designed to improve efficiency actually stall appeals. Death penalty opponents insist that innocent people are being executed because of the new streamlining procedures.
State and federal court systems have set firm deadlines that limit most defendants to one journey through the court system -- even when new exculpatory evidence is found. New laws have limited the power of Federal judges to reverse many state decisions, rendering them legally incapable of remedying a situation where an obviously innocent person is on the verge of being executed. Some form of procedural rules have always existed, but were more readily waived in the past, especially by federal judges who paid careful attention to defendants' rights, especially in death penalty cases.
As in the Virginia case of Roger Keith Coleman, any mistake by the defendant, lawyer or a court, can mean execution is certain. An appeals document received one day late by the court led the way to Coleman's execution. In this case, a judge signed a retrial order denial on September 4th and the court recorder entered it on September 9th, then sent it to Coleman's lawyers. They had 30 days to file an appeal. September 4th was a Thursday, so the judge had his secretary mail the order to the circuit court clerk in the nearby county seat for receipt on Monday. On September 9th, the order was officially entered into the record by the court clerk who then mailed certified copies to Coleman's lawyers. The copies and clerk's letter were dated September 9th. On September 15th, Coleman's attorney wrote a memo to the other attorneys on the case stating they had 30 days to file a Notice of Appeal. The notice was prepared and sent to Coleman's local counsel, who mailed the notice to the court clerk on October 6th. As the notice was not sent certified mail, it was not considered as being on time when it arrived at the clerk's office on October 7th. The lawyers mistakenly believed that the 30-day contingency began when the document was entered, not when the judge signed it. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to grant Coleman a stay of execution because the document was deemed received one day late. Justice Harry Blackmun, in his dissent, accused his colleagues of creating a Byzantine morass of arbitrary, unnecessary and unjustifiable impediments to the vindication of rights.
The rules are even more complicated now. Recently, capital case defendants have received less review and more streamlining. The U.S. Supreme Court seems more than willing to ignore clear constitutional violations in deference to individual states' interests in carrying out executions. An appeal from the Commonwealth of Virginia asks if federal judges can consider new exculpatory evidence when the state may have been at fault for not discovering evidence in time for consideration by state courts. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said no. In 1999, it ruled that condemned killer Michael Williams missed his one chance to show he didn't personally kill anyone. Under Virginia law, if Williams did not personally kill anyone, he was ineligible for the death penalty. According to recently uncovered information, Virginia prosecutors may have made a deal with Williams' codefendant, Jeffrey Cruse. The DA would give him a break if he'd point to Williams as being a killer. The DA backed out on the deal when he found that Cruse was lying. Prosecutors balked when one of Williams' defense lawyers asked about the promises made to Cruse. Commonwealth judges denied a defense request for funds to investigate and refused to look further into the case. New defense lawyers uncovered records supporting the suspicions after the case reached the federal court level. Richmond's 4th Circuit Court said Williams lost his only chance for an evidentiary hearing by not presenting it before the state courts signed off the case. The 4th circuit judges cited the 1996 Federal Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act -- the broadest, toughest and most impenetrable of all the efficiency reforms.
California invoked this intense law when it executed Thomas Thompson. The prosecution convinced Thompson's trial jury that he was the only murderer. The prosecutor got a 15-year sentence for Thompson's roommate by telling another jury the evidence pointed to Thompson's roommate. In Thompson's case the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco made a procedural error. The court missed the deadline for referring Thompson's appeal to an 11-judge panel. They sent the referral anyway, and the panel ruled 7-4 in Thompson's favor. A dissenting judge said that while sending an innocent man to his death would be a calamity, any errors in the court's procedure can be corrected in a future case.
Each time a new rule is adopted or an old rule is amended or clarified, it sets the stage for new rounds of litigation over nuances and exceptions. In a recent opinion, a 9th Circuit judge urged her court to get out of the quagmire by ignoring procedural barriers and deciding cases on their merits. By deciding cases on their merits, three people were freed from California's death row between 1973 and 1999. The Bureau of Justice Statistics reported reversals in 33 percent of death penalty cases between 1973 and 1998. What these statistics don't show is how many of these reversals came from federal courts.
In California, substantial evidence of innocence may be reason enough to reopen a case in the state courts. Not so under the rules adopted by the federal courts. Neither innocence nor unconstitutionality will necessarily get federal courts involved after state courts sign the case off. In 1993, Leonel Herrera was executed despite an affidavit from a Texas judge saying Herrera's brother confessed to the murder. The U.S. Supreme Court said the federal courts could not consider the case because Herrera's constitutional rights had not been violated. Again, Blackmun dissented and suggested that executing an innocent person was a violation of constitutional rights and a breach of the prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. "The execution of a person who can show that he is innocent comes perilously close to simple murder," he wrote.
In the past, the Supreme Court viewed habeas corpus relief as a check for individual constitutional rights violations. Recently the court seems more interested in the rights of states than in people's rights. There are also arguments over the need for federal habeas review in state capital cases. The process may be necessary where state courts don't protect defendants, but may be deemed unnecessary in states like California. California State courts are seen as generous about paying defense lawyers who represent indigent death row inmates. The state also funds defense investigations more readily than most states.
Supporters of the new rules actually make some decent arguments for them. When rules are not enforced, some cases may never end and the criminal justice system ceases to have any authority. There's also the question of respecting the states' authority over their own cases. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote before the 1991 execution of the apparently innocent Coleman (whose lawyer filed a state court document a day late), "This case is about federalism" -- the power of the states in our federal system of government.
Still, the death penalty moratorium effort may just be gaining some speed. Stating his state's "shameful record of convicting innocent people and putting them on death row," Illinois Governor George Ryan announced he was blocking executions while death penalty procedures are being investigated. "I cannot support a system, which, in its administration, has proven so fraught with error and has come so close to the ultimate nightmare, the state's taking of innocent life. I can only draw one conclusion: our system is broken."
Illinois had 13 death sentences overturned while they have had 12 executions. Governor Ryan appointed a special panel to probe the state's capital punishment system, which will try to determine what happened in the 13 cases of wrongly convicted men who were sentenced to death row and later released. The 14-member Commission of Capital Punishment is a panel of politicians and high-profile lawyers. Chief U.S. District Judge Frank McGarr will chair the Commission. Former U.S. Senator Paul Simon and former U.S. Attorney Thomas Sullivan will serve as co-chairs. Ryan did not set a timetable for the Commission to conclude its work, but said, "Until I can be sure with moral certainty that no innocent man or woman is facing a lethal injection, no one will meet that fate."
Many death penalty opponents believe Governor Ryan's move to stop executions was inevitable. Given the recent exposure of cases of innocence (as in Illinois), the horrified public reaction to these cases, movies like Stephen King's, The Green Mile, and books like Actual Innocence, there has been a significant shift to a belief that some people on death row are truly innocent. Moratorium groups point to cases of wrongful convictions, prosecutor misconduct and inept legal counsel as factors that have been sending men and women to death row in record numbers. Death penalty abolitionist groups and the media report that more than 85 people have been taken off U.S. death rows after being exonerated of the crime that put them on death row.
In 1999, the Nebraska legislature voted for a moratorium, but Governor Mike Johanns vetoed the measure. Nebraska's last execution was in 1997. After the veto, the Nebraska legislature passed a bill demanding a two year long study of the death penalty and how the state implements it.
Not everyone is convinced that the death penalty is unjust or that it results in dozens of innocents on death row. Justice For All (JFA), a criminal justice reform group in Texas, believes that the cases of innocent people released from death row prove that the system works. They call the statistics claiming that more than 85 people have been found innocent misleading. They claim that many of these people were found "legally innocent" by the courts, not factually innocent through any evidence. According to a report on the JFA web site, they believe a true effort has been made through pretrial, trial, appeals, writ and clemency procedures to minimize the chance of an innocent person being convicted, sentenced to death, or executed. They also say that since 1973, 37 percent of death row cases have been commuted or overturned by the court system, and that inmates are 6 times more likely to get off death row by appealing rather than by execution.
JFA also says in a report that the capital punishment debate is dominated by the fraudulent voice of anti-death penalty supporters. They say the actual imposition of the death penalty is rare, and that of the 5,900 people sentenced to death between 1973 and 1996, an average of "0.2 percent" were actually executed each year.
A spokesman for JFA said there is no reason to believe Illinois cannot correct any deficiencies in its death penalty system quickly using the Commission Governor Ryan appointed. JFA also wants Governor Ryan to study the state's parole and probation system. They believe Illinois is responsible for voluntarily releasing criminals who murdered, raped or otherwise injured thousands of innocent people in Illinois since 1974. They also contend that if government officials are worried about errors and procedure that could result in the death of innocents, studying the parole and probation system should be at the top of its agenda. They also believe there is no evidence that an innocent person has ever been executed in Illinois.
Two groups pushing for a death penalty moratorium are The Quixote Center and Moratorium 2000. The Quixote Center works to gain grass roots support from churches and town governments, among others. Moratorium 2000 uses the worldwide approach. Moratorium 2000 led a petition drive asking the United Nations to pass a resolution pushing for a moratorium.
Grass roots movement supporters say one of the best arguments to persuade others to join the anti-death penalty movement are wrongful convictions. Recently, several North Carolina cases received widespread publicity: 1. A man sentenced to die for bludgeoning a woman to death won a new trial when a judge ruled that the prosecution withheld the confession of another man. The wrongly accused died in prison while awaiting his hard-won new trial. 2. Another man sentenced to die after being convicted of a double murder was granted a new trial when a higher court ruled that the jury should have been allowed to hear testimony that he had been framed. He was acquitted at his retrial. 3. Governor James Hunt commuted the death sentence of Wendell Flowers. Flowers was serving a life sentence for murder when he was accused and convicted of being involved in killing another inmate. In commuting Flowers' death sentence, Hunt said two other prisoners were convicted in connection with the prisoner's murder and received life, not death sentences. Hunt said that Flowers was dangerous and will spend the rest of his life in prison. 4. A man convicted of murder and sentenced to death was ordered retried because a prosecutor did not reveal evidence that would have aided his case. The evidence withheld was that a witness had seen the convicted in a public place at the time of the murder.
Steve Manning was released from Illinois' death row in January 2000. He was the 13th death row prisoner exonerated in Illinois in the 23 years since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that capital punishment is not cruel and unusual punishment. Thirteen death row prisoners were exonerated in Illinois while 12 were executed. A total of 624 prisoners have been executed in the U.S. while 87 have been exonerated. That's a disturbing one person exonerated for every seven executed. With the chance of executing an innocent citizen being so high, is capital punishment really necessary?
At least 5 states besides Illinois are considering banning executions while the Justice Department reviews accusations of racial bias in federal death penalty cases and the Senate considers innocence-protection legislation. According to a recent poll, only 64 percent of Americans support the death penalty. Only in 1981 was the percentage of death penalty supporters lower. Not all death penalty supporters are willing to change their minds on capital punishment. Supporters say that using DNA testing and setting standards for defense attorneys in death penalty cases, the chances of executing an innocent person will be almost completely eliminated. Almost? Completely? Eliminated? Death penalty abolitionists prefer to take no chances whatsoever when innocent lives hang in the balance. Almost, completely and eliminated, would be changed to no chance, ever. The only way to make absolutely certain that no innocent lives are taken is by completely eliminating the death penalty.
One hopes it would be difficult to find someone who thought letting an innocent slip through the judicial crack is all right as long as more criminals are put to death, but death penalty supporters don't believe that wrongful convictions are common. Supporters admit that mistakes can be made. They say no evidence has been found that an innocent has been executed. However, with the advent of DNA testing, the evidence may be worth reviewing. Eighty-seven death row prisoners exonerated since 1973. In 8 of these cases, DNA evidence played a large part in establishing their innocence.
While there have been 13 exonerations and 12 executions in Illinois, Florida also bears scrutiny. Since 1976, 18 death row prisoners have been set free, while 46 were executed. Death penalty supporters believe this shows the appeals system is working and these exonerations prove that the system isn't broken. Death penalty opponents are horrified by these high percentages. How many innocents slipped past the system and were executed? Unfortunately, due to the fact that there are so many wrongful convictions, abolitionists, defense lawyers and journalists cannot devote their time to finding out just how many after the fact. They're far too busy working on the new cases that appear every day.
Death penalty supporters seem to accept that innocents could be put to death, but the fact that so many prisoners have been exonerated seems to make little difference in their views. Some of them support DNA databanks that could help prove guilt or innocence with scientific certainty as well as testing defense attorneys to assure they are qualified to defend capital cases.
Bud Welch, whose daughter was killed in the Oklahoma City bombing, has stated publicly that he'd prefer those responsible face life in prison rather than execution. He said executing them would be an act of revenge and rage and that acts of revenge and rage are exactly why his daughter and 167 other victims are dead. He has also pushed for a bill that would abolish New Hampshire's death penalty. New Hampshire's last execution was in 1939 and the state's death penalty law applies only to the murder of a law enforcement or corrections officer, murder for hire and murder during a rape or attempted rape. Representative Jim Splaine proposes changing the penalty for those crimes to life without parole instead of death. His bill passed the New Hampshire House in March by a 191-163 vote. Governor Jeanne Shaheen, who testified against the bill, said she would veto it.
Death penalty opponents argue that life in prison is a far better punishment than execution and that execution is the ultimate form of torture. Kirk Bloodsworth, who spent eight years on Maryland's death row after being wrongly convicted of raping and murdering a 9-year-old girl, said the death penalty is not about guilty people needing to be punished, but about protecting innocent people who need defending. If there is no death penalty, there can be no mistakes.
The high cost of the death penalty is another argument against executions and *for* life sentences. Life is relatively cost effective; execution is not.
(1) North Carolina spends over $2 million more for each execution than the cost of pursuing a life sentence in such cases. Looking at this nationwide, these figures translate to an extra cost of over $1 billion tax dollars spent since 1976.
(2) California spends $90 million above ordinary costs per year with $78 million of that spent just at the trial level.
(3) From 1973 until 1988, Florida spent about $57 million on 18 executions. That's an average of $3.2 million per execution.
(4) Just one death penalty case in Texas costs about $2.3 million. That's three times what it would cost to imprison someone for 40 years in a single cell in maximum security.
If only for the savings to the taxpayer, some death penalty supporters say if they could be certain that life in prison meant life in prison, they would vote for abolition. Three recent death penalty cases cost Indiana taxpayers more than $2 million in defense costs. Prosecution costs usually equal or surpass defense costs and appeals will tack on even more cost. County governments have left employee positions unfilled, put off pay increases, spent their contingency funds and stopped all spending on improvements to pay for capital trials. The Mississippi Supreme Court has ordered counties to start paying for post-conviction appeals attorneys. They obviously didn't keep in mind some very poor counties in the state with no cash reserves and nothing budgeted for that type of expense that will be forced to raise taxes to pay for death penalty cases. Just one automatic appeal can cost a county between $350,000 and $500,000 each. That's an overwhelming amount of money for already poor taxpayers to shell out.
In some counties, lawyers are asking courts to postpone death penalty cases until there is funding to pay them. Some court appointed attorneys have not been paid for their work and are concerned about the quality of defense their clients receive. They believe poor people get poor representation. Overworked public defenders and private lawyers who aren't getting paid represent many of these indigent defendants. That is not equal justice.
Colorado taxpayers spent more than $2.5 million on 5 death penalty cases under the state's new 3-judge-panel sentencing system. Only one of these defendants was actually given a death sentence. Estimates of the costs of the death penalty in New York could reach $238 million by the time it has its first execution. If statute problems delay this execution, those costs could soar to $408 million. That's a lot of money to invest in the hope of getting an actual execution. The return on the dollar of these investments is definitely not Wall Street savvy. If the ultimate punishment were life in prison, there wouldn't be the added expenses of a death penalty case.
Some states have even used extreme means to save death row inmates from dying of natural causes so they could be executed. These expenses are also added to the bottom line. After spending millions on a capital case, a state will have bought itself nothing it could not have gotten with a far less expensive no-parole life sentence. With overtime pay for prison employees and highway patrol officers, Ohio spent about $1.5 million to kill a mentally ill man who wanted to be executed. This price tag doesn't include an extra $5300 for a satellite truck to break the official news of the execution to the waiting media or the $88.50 for the drugs of death. Keeping the executed man in prison for the rest of his life would have cut these costs by about half.
According to news reports, U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno reported that she finds no evidence that the death penalty deters crime. She said she tried to find studies that show capital punishment deters crime, but has never seen any to substantiate this claim. Although she said she had no reservations about going ahead with an execution, she said she would have to be certain that the facts and the law would justify it before she'd authorize it. Reno, who is personally opposed to capital punishment, makes the final decision on whether federal prosecutors around the country will seek the federal death penalty.
When the U.S. Supreme Court struck down state death penalty laws, another ruling brought federal executions to a halt. After adopting new procedures in 1976, the high court reinstated the state death penalty, but Congress didn't adopt a new federal death penalty law until 1988. In 1994, the court expanded the number of federal crimes punishable by death.
While Attorney General Reno cannot find evidence that the death penalty is a deterrent to crime, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor told an international law conference in Washington, D.C. that the U.S. will go its own way when it comes to executions, especially those of people under 18 at the time of their crimes. O'Connor cited "American conceptions of decency" in a 1989 high court decision that allows execution of those who were 16 or 17 at the time of the crime. She said some members of the international community have criticized the U.S. for keeping capital punishment, as well as for applying it to those under 18 at the time of their crimes, on the grounds that it is inconsistent with evolving international concerns.
O'Connor conceded that the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, adopted in 1966 by the UN General Assembly, bans the death penalty for those who committed crimes when they were under 18, as well as for pregnant women. But she noted that in 1992, the US Senate ratified the covenant with two exceptions. It reserved the right of the U.S. to execute those convicted of capital crimes (excluding pregnant women) but including those under 18 at the time of their crimes, and the Senate said the U.S. considers itself bound by the covenant's ban on "cruel, inhuman or degrading" punishment only insofar as such punishment is interpreted by the U.S. Constitution.
O'Connor also said that in some circumstances, international practices and standards may be relevant in evaluating standards of decency, but the approach reflects the idea that in matters of domestic law, national interests outweigh international norms.
The fight to reform the US's flawed death penalty system gained momentum recently when the Innocence Protection Act was introduced. Ray LaHood of Illinois and William Delahunt of Massachusetts sponsored this bill that parallels a bill that Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont has already introduced in the Senate. Governor Ryan of Illinois also lent his support. The Act is designed to provide new safeguards that will lessen the very real chance of executing an innocent. It would require ongoing preservation of biological crime scene evidence, make DNA testing available to both federal and state inmates, and would set national defense standards to ensure that indigent defendants accused of capital crimes are represented by competent lawyers. House Judiciary Committee chairman Henry Hyde praised the bill and promised a prompt hearing. Supporters and opponents of the death penalty should be able to agree on this sensible measure that may reduce the risk of executing the innocent.
Members of the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association along with two exonerated death row inmates called on Governor George W. Bush to declare a moratorium on executions in Texas. The Association is pushing for changes in state and federal laws that have limited judicial review of capital cases. The laws that limit reviews reduce the chances innocent people have to prove their innocence. The Association found that careless police work, inaccurate forensic tests and witness misidentifications are the leading causes of wrongful convictions. Because Texas has a record of convicting innocent people and putting them on death row, Bush was called on to stop executions and name a commission to investigate the state's death penalty flaws. An avid supporter of the death penalty, Bush has remained mum on these moratorium requests.
Since 1982 when the death penalty was reinstated, Texas has executed 214 people. Texas has the dubious distinction of being number one in executions in the U.S. Obviously its system is seriously flawed. If the current streamlining laws had applied to the cases of Randall Dale Adams and Mr. Clarence Brandley, both would have been executed before their claims of innocence could ever be proven. Bush would do well to pause in his race to execute, join Illinois, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Missouri, Indiana and the federal government, and review the Texas death penalty.
Although Bush has said on national television, "There's no doubt in my mind that each person who has been executed in my state was guilty of their crime," Adams and Brandley offered their personal testimony that the system is flawed, regardless of what Bush seems to believe. Adams, sentenced to death for the 1976 slaying of patrolman Robert Wood, was freed when his accuser recanted and an appeals court ruled that prosecutors had suppressed inconsistent statements from a key prosecution witness. Brandley was sentenced to die for the 1980 rape-strangulation of Cheryl Dee Fergeson. The girl's body was found in a loft above a school auditorium near the office where Brandley said he was sitting alone at the time of the murder. Brandley spent nine years on death row before an appeals court, citing lost and mishandled evidence in the case, threw out the verdict.
According to the Association, there are 3 major flaws in the Texas system as well as many minor ones. The most serious flaw is that nearly every capital defendant is too poor to afford a quality defense. They also said the Texas judiciary is too partisan, and relies on a get-tough-on-crime stand to raise campaign money. Also cited was the fact Texas jurors are not given the option in capital cases of sentencing someone to life without parole. Obviously, the system in Texas is broken and cannot be trusted.
Small but outspoken groups are starting to seriously question the application of the death penalty. A number of well-known conservatives with get-tough-on-crime attitudes recently raised questions about it. Some have pushed for more DNA testing to help acquit the wrongly convicted. Others have called for more procedural safeguards. Even TV evangelist Pat Robertson has called for a moratorium, saying that the death penalty discriminates against minorities and the poor who can't afford competent counsel. Conservative syndicated columnist George Will wrote that "skepticism is in order" when it comes to capital punishment. Nobody is predicting a conservative rethinking of the death penalty will abolish capital punishment, but there are signs that they are rethinking long-held notions and the political climate is shifting. The Republican-controlled New Hampshire House passed a bill to abolish the death penalty, and the nonpartisan, but conservative, Nebraska legislature approved a moratorium.
Conservative qualms about capital punishment are not usually based on the idea of any sort of immorality about capital punishment. Few conservatives will say they believe executions are cruel and unusual punishment, much less unconstitutional. The legitimacy of the death penalty is the issue, but there is nothing that could be more terrible to a justice system than to execute innocent people. When you consider the screw-ups, mix-ups and incompetence often found in government work at all levels, the chance of executing an innocent should frighten us. There does seem to be something fundamentally wrong with the idea that an institution that puts people to death is the same one that pays $700 for a $9 toilet seat or $85 for a $12 hammer.
Some conservatives say there are several reasons for the sudden change of heart on capital punishment. With capital crimes at their lowest rate since 1967, there is generally less fear of crime and more reasons for conservatives to have a change of mind regarding the death penalty. A recent poll found that 66 percent of those questioned said they favored the death penalty. Although 66 percent seems high, it represents the lowest level of death penalty support since the early 1980s. Only 52 percent of those people favored the death penalty if a life sentence without parole were an option. Ninety-one percent of the people polled are now aware that innocent people have been sentenced to die. When pro-death penalty supporters were asked their reasons for favoring the death penalty, their answers ranged from an eye for an eye, fair punishment, and (from a terribly uninformed supporter) saves taxpayer money.
DNA testing has also brought to light cases where defendants were wrongly convicted and sentenced to die. There are many stories of defense attorneys who fall asleep during murder trials, judges who leave the courtroom, prosecutors willfully hiding exculpatory evidence from the defense, junk science and incompetent investigators. In several Illinois cases, prosecutors acknowledged they had convicted the wrong man after being confronted with DNA evidence. New witnesses or confessions from others have also played a part in wrongful convictions where DNA evidence did not apply. Some convictions were thrown out on appeal and prosecutors declined to retry those cases.
Before he was exonerated, Delbert Tibbs spent three years on Florida's death row for a 1974 rape and murder he did not commit. Just a few short years ago, stories like Tibbs' would have been no cause for alarm and more than likely would have been looked at as a ploy to stall his execution by anti-death penalty liberals. Now, because of the soaring numbers of executions, death row innocence cases have captured the public mind, and the death penalty seems to be approaching a political head.
During his 1992 presidential campaign, Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton rushed back to Arkansas to execute Ricky Ray Rector. Presiding over 214 since he has been the Governor of Texas, executions are sickeningly routine for Governor Bush. The death penalty has not always been a part of the political landscape that Clinton, Bush and others seem to presume. Thomas Jefferson sought legislation to limit executions in Virginia while Benjamin Rush and Tom Paine were staunch capital punishment opponents. The territory of Michigan enacted the first ban on executions in 1847. Large-scale capital punishment followed the introduction of the electric chair in New York in 1892. In the next three decades, the number of executions in the U.S. doubled. Even with all its flaws, the death penalty is as much a part of the 20th-century as Mickey Mouse.
One study that followed the changing views on the death penalty concluded that the more informed people are, the less likely they are to support it. When people change their views on capital punishment, it seems to be because of doubts about the death penalty based on public knowledge of wrongful convictions, racial discrimination and fairness. The more information, the more doubt. With the media seeming to tale a more anti-death penalty view and with intensive investigative reporting, the public is now being given information that may, and sometimes will, change its pro-capital punishment views.
While New Jersey's governor is pushing to speed up appeals and the Pennsylvania Senate has rejected a moratorium bill, there seems to be a slow but growing awareness that there is a problem with the death penalty in the U.S. As a result of the Illinois decision to call for a moratorium and study of the death penalty, other states as well as the federal government seem to be considering the flaws in their death penalties. Though Missouri has rejected a ban, Kentucky and Maryland are considering calling for either a moratorium or complete abolition of capital punishment.
Richard Cohen wrote in his Washington Post column: "Tinker, tinker. This is what some political figures want to do with the death penalty. Only after the accused is guaranteed a good lawyer, only after he is granted access to DNA testing, only after every safeguard is in place will these politicians and others breathe easy about capital punishment. Then they will know, to a mythical certainty, that guilty and condemned are one and the same. Who are they fooling?"
With the crime rate declining and the many stories about condemned men freed by DNA testing after spending many years on death row, many politicians and citizens alike seem to be rethinking their ideas about executing our citizens. Unfortunately, politicians like George W. Bush remain rabid champions of the death penalty despite 214 executions during his administration. He tells us on television that in his state mistakes are never made. You have his word on it. Would you be willing to bet your life on it?
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ABCNEWS.com
May God Have Mercy, John C. Tucker
Amnesty International Calls US practices "cruel" and "degrading."
On May 9, the worldwide, grassroots human-rights advocacy organization Amnesty International condemned what it called "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment" in US prisons.
On the eve of the US Government's first appearance before the UN Committee against Torture in Geneva, Amnesty stated, "Cruelty to detainees and prisoners is becoming institutionalized across the USA." On May 15, the committee issued a public rebuke of the United States, citing the issues that Amnesty had raised.
"Since the United States ratified the Convention against Torture in October 1994, its increasingly punitive approach towards offenders has continued to lead to practices which facilitate torture or other forms of ill-treatment prohibited under international law. ... Police brutality is rife in many areas, and it is disproportionately directed at racial and ethnic minorities."
The statement denounced the use of stun belts and stun guns, "widespread punitive solitary confinement and excessive use of shackling, handcuffing," supermax prisons, restraint devices and pepper spray.
"As with other international human rights treaties, the USA's respect for the Convention against Torture is only half-hearted when applied to itself," Amnesty International said. "If all countries took this approach, the global system for protecting fundamental human rights would quickly collapse. ... The US Government, which so often labels itself as champion of human rights, must take serious steps to ensure that international standards are respected throughout the country."
(William Kreuter is Washington State Death Penalty Abolition Coordinator for Amnesty International, and he serves on the steering committee of the Washington Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.)
New Hampshire Senate Yes, Governor No: Vetoes Life
By Kay Ryder-Echols, staff writer
"We must meet the challenges of these changing times and determine what kind of state we want New Hampshire to be. It is up to us to create the kind of future we want." -- Inaugural Address, January 1999
Governor Jeann Shaheen spoke these words just a little over a year and a half ago. Recently her response to meeting these challenges was to veto HB 1542, after it passed the senate floor. House Bill 1542 sought to replace the death penalty with true life without parole. It passed the senate with a vote of 14 to 10.
Democrat and Republican senators alike considered evidence, religion and constituent's beliefs concerning the death penalty and the majority weighed in for life. New Hampshire could have made the history books as being the first state to replace the death penalty with life in prison without parole. But the bill had little chance of becoming law. Before the vote, Judy Reardon, Governor Shaheen's legal counsel, said, "She is going to veto it, there's no question about that."
Shaheen heard family testimony, received the same phone calls and letters from the same citizens, religious leaders and international advocates for the abolition of the death penalty, yet she refused to budge, even if the veto puts her in opposition to her own legislature in an election year.
"It's a very personal issue," the governor responded before the vote took place, "The position that I've had on the death penalty is one that I've had for a number of years. I've tried to read new information that's come out. I've tried to listen to the discussion this time around, but I haven't heard anything that makes me feel differently at this point about my position on the death penalty."
The poll was conducted by Northeastern University; two months after the New Hampshire House passed the legislation 191-163."
Gov. Shaheen did not feel any differently after Amnesty International, USA, welcomed evidence from New Hampshire citizens overwhelmingly supporting legislation to abolish the death penalty. Fifty-five percent of residents polled support abolition, with 35 percent opposed to the bill. The poll was conducted by Northeastern University two months after the New Hampshire House passed the legislation 191-163.
"A majority of the citizens of New Hampshire recognize that the death penalty is flawed beyond repair," said Dr. William F. Schulz, Executive Director of Amnesty International USA (AIUSA). "With this legislation to abolish the death penalty, New Hampshire has the opportunity to lead the nation away from state-sanctioned killing."
The support for abolition in New Hampshire is the latest indication that increasing numbers of Americans harbor serious doubts about the death penalty. Some other facts that did not sway Governor Shaheen's decision, but have weighted the lawmaker's decisions on caution's side are: Since 1973, 87 people have been freed from death row nationwide because of errors at trial or the discovery of exonerating evidence. A recent study revealed over 400 cases of wrongful conviction for capital offenses in the United States between 1900 and 1991. Most of the convictions were upheld on appeal, with evidence produced years after sentencing to prove the prisoner's innocence. For 23 of the prisoners, that evidence appeared too late. They had already been executed.
In 1989 Randall Dale Adams spent 12 years on death row and escaped execution by only three days when Texas authorities overturned his murder conviction and released him. In the same year, Florida officials released James Richardson 24 hours prior to his execution. Richardson had spent 21 years in custody for murders he did not commit. Judicial misconduct was cited in his case. In 1990, Texas released Clarence Lee Brandley after nine years on death row and twice coming within days of execution. Judge Perry Pickett said, "The court unequivocally concludes that the color of Clarence Brandley's skin was a substantial factor which pervaded all aspects of the State's capital prosecution of him."
Kirk Bloodsworth was released from death row in 1993 by the state of Maryland after DNA tests confirmed his innocence. Federico Macias was granted a stay two days before his scheduled execution in Texas. Ultimately, his conviction was overturned. The court found gross ineffectiveness of trial counsel and possible innocence. Walter McMillian was released after spending nearly six years on Alabama's death row for a murder he did not commit. Three witnesses recanted their testimony and prosecutors acknowledged he had been wrongfully convicted.
Because the death penalty is a uniquely irrevocable punishment, it demands infallibility of the human beings who are imposing death. Because human beings are fallible, innocent ones will continue to die unless we stop state-sanctioned killing.
Two-thirds of the lawmakers would have had to support the legislation to override the governor's veto. New Hampshire residents will have to convince Governor Shaheen that she can do the right thing, without risking political suicide, and keep her accountable to her promises to meet the challenges of our times and create the kind of future we want.
You can express your concerns to Governor Shaheen about her veto of HB 1548 by writing, phoning or faxing her at: State House, 107 North Main Street, Concord, NH 03301, phone: (603) 271-2121, fax: (603) 271-6998.
Sources: Sarah Koenig, Concord Monitor, Amnesty International, USA
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