The Position of Justice: Denied on the Death Penalty
By William Kreuter, with contributions from Sheila Eaken
Justice: Denied opposes capital punishment under all circumstances. As a magazine devoted
to helping people who have been wrongly convicted, our position stems in largest part from
the appalling number of persons sentenced to death but later released due to the
likelihood of their innocence -- nationally, one such prisoner for every seven others who
were executed. In Illinois, as many prisoners have been released from death row because
their cases fell apart as have been executed. We demand to know how many among the six
hundred prisoners executed since 1977 were innocent, given that over two thousand death
sentences have been overturned in this period due to violation of defendants' rights,
erroneous court rulings or shoddiness of the cases.
However, we maintain that the time for complete abolition of the death penalty is long
past, irrespective of guilt or innocence. Capital punishment is a relic now shunned by
virtually the entire democratic world. On November 10, Senator Russell Feingold of
Wisconsin introduced S. 1917, the Federal Death Penalty Abolition Act of 1999. Although
this legislation would affect only the rarely imposed federal death penalty and it faces,
to say the least, an uphill battle, it deserves a letter of support to your state's two US
senators.
Senator Feingold said on introducing the legislation, "The death penalty is at odds
with our best traditions. It is wrong and it is immoral. The adage 'two wrongs do not make
a right' could not be more appropriate here....
"The use of the death penalty by the United States stands in stark contrast to the
majority of nations that have abolished the death penalty in law or practice. The United
Nations Commission on Human Rights has called for a worldwide moratorium on the use of the
death penalty. And soon, Italy and other European nations are expected to introduce a
resolution in the UN General Assembly calling for a worldwide moratorium. The European
Union bans membership in the Union to nations that use the death penalty."
Besides the effect of the death penalty on the standing of the United States among the
nations of the world, Feingold also alluded to many other concerns we share, including the
releases from death row of innocent prisoners. He mentioned the racism inherent in
applying capital punishment and the accepted fact that the death penalty is not a
deterrent.
Elaborating on Feingold's remarks, we note that the death penalty is applied very
unevenly, with most executions occurring in just a few states. Of those, just a few Texas
counties account for a large fraction. We point out that even the US Supreme Court has
conceded that those convicted of killing whites are much more likely to be sentenced to
death than those convicted of killing blacks. Almost without exception, the death penalty
is meted out (as noted capital defense lawyer Stephen Bright says) not to the worst
criminals, but to those having the worst lawyers.
One searches in vain for the rich and the upper middle class on death row. One instead
finds the mentally ill and retarded, minorities, those with lawyers who were drunk or
asleep at trial, or occasionally those with fringe politics.
Incompetent or disastrously underpaid defense is among the major practical problems with
the capital punishment system that were discussed in a series of articles in the Chicago Tribune
in November. Faulty evidence and prosecutors' dishonest tactics are also cited. These
articles are reprinted at http://www.jessejacksonjr.org
click on "articles" on the "issues and positions" button.
As Senator Feingold says, capital punishment is useless as a deterrent to future
murderers. Most murders are heat-of-the-moment crimes or are committed by the irrational
or drugged-out who are hardly going to weigh costs, benefits and risks. Most American
police chiefs agree, and it's borne out by almost every academic study. Even in China,
where thousands of executions annually are held within a day or two of a kangaroo trial,
crime is not reduced by the use of capital punishment.
Murder rates declined sharply in Canada after that country abolished the death penalty in
1976; the experience has been similar around the world. In the United States, the twelve
states without the death penalty are no less safe than those conducting executions.
Some studies also find a counter-deterrent effect -- that is, murder rates go up in
response to executions. The lesson of brutality, that killing is a good response to
problems, is easily learned. When killing at the hand of the state is rationalized, we
should expect some members of society to rationalize killing as individuals. As the Christian
Science Monitor recently editorialized, 'State-sanctioned killing is at odds with the
need to reduce the level of violence in society.'"
In some cases there is no doubt that capital punishment has prompted murder. In Washington
state, for example, Jeremy Sagastegui stated clearly that he had committed his crimes
because he wanted suicide by execution. His execution for a triple homicide was rushed
through by a judicial system eager to accommodate his wishes. Sagastegui's three victims
would be alive today if Washington had abolished the death penalty.
The death penalty is also several times more expensive than life without parole. The costs
leading up to execution are as much as several million dollars more expensive than trying
and incarcerating a prisoner for life. The bulk of this expense is incurred prior to any
appeals. Limiting appeals is in vogue, but the further this happens, the more likely it
will be that innocent prisoners will be executed. The 1996 Anti-Terrorism and Effective
Death Penalty Act has already been a disaster for prisoners trying to prove their
innocence on appeal.
We join Senator Feingold in asking, "What has happened to our nation's sense of
striving to do what we know to be the right thing? Those who favor the death penalty
should be pressed to explain why fallible human beings should presume to use the power of
the state to extinguish the life of a fellow human being on our collective
behalf." We maintain that to kill a prisoner who is already helpless in the
custody of the state is counterproductive and pointless vengeance. If killing is bad,
let's start with our own example. Murderers should not set our moral tone, for when
killing is made acceptable for any reason, we turn into our own enemy.
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. He wrote the article about Mumia Abu-Jamal which appeared in Issue 7 of Justice: Denied.