Death Penalty

highest rate of death sentencing in the county ... no right to counsel for appeal ... stay of execution lifted despite a halt to executions nationwide ...

You may expect to hear such things coming out of Texas, the state that far exceeds every other in executions - where Michael Richard was executed on September 25^th, 2007 because a judge didn't want to keep her office open an extra 30 minutes, and where over 400 people have been executed by the state since 1976.  But recent news indicates that Texas may have quite a contender right now in Alabama.

According to the Equal Justice Initiative, based on new data from the Bureau of Justice, Alabama leads the country in new death sentences for the fifth straight year.  Alabama's 13 new death sentences in 2006 even exceeded the 11 in Texas, where the population is 19 million people larger!  According to EJI, judicial override accounted for 25% of death sentences in the state.

In addition, although the convicted have a right to an appeal - the state of Alabama is arguing that there is no 6^th Amendment right to counsel on state court direct appeal for discretionary appeals.  Without filing such an appeal, an inmate cannot appeal for federal review of their case.  So much for a country where everyone has a right to counsel ... so much for a judicial system with adequate checks and balances ... this is not the America I believe in. 

And just two days ago, an appeals court in Alabama lifted a stay, allowing the state to schedule the execution of James Callahan for today at 6pm.  No execution has taken place since September, when the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a case on the constitutionality of lethal injection.  Even Texas is keeping their death chamber quiet while they wait for a ruling from the court.  But Alabama hopes to be the first state in the nation to resume executions.  In this case, the state argued that Callahan's statute of limitations had expired, and thus he could not appeal on the grounds that lethal injection is cruel and inhumane. 

The case has been appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which is expected to grant a stay. 

But, it is not all bad news coming out of Alabama on the death penalty front.  State Senator Hank Sanders, D-Selma, has introduced legislation for a 3-year moratorium on executions so the state can study its application of the death penalty.  Similar legislation has failed in the past, but Sanders is determined to give it another push.  The risk of executing an innocent person, he argues, is just too great. 

By the way, when the Alabama legislature begins their next session on Tuesday, they will also be considering a bill to expand the death penalty to child rapists ...

~ Jessie with AIUSA's Death Penalty Abolition Campaign

"You have not lost a family member, right? You would think very differently about the death penalty after someone close to you is killed", a friend of mine told me. Although she has not lost anyone to murder, she is one of those persons who believe that the death penalty is the right punishment for atrocious murder crimes and that it brings relief to the murder victims' families. She would continue her speech saying, "what about that man who killed and raped that poor baby? The baby's family is in great pain because of him and they cannot rest in peace until that murderer is dead" After those arguments, I decided to do some research.  

I oppose the death penalty because is does not serves as a deterrence to crime, it cost one to three million dollars more than life imprisonment, it is irreversible, arbitrary, unfair, it is a violation to human rights, etc. But could I block all my rationale and favor the death penalty if my mother, sister, any family member or friend was killed?  The research I did was useful to answer this question.

There are various organizations like Murder Victims Families for Human Rights that are serving as a forum for the murder victims' families to express their opinions in relation to the death penalty. In addition, there are numerous web-pages with statements made by these families. BIG SURPRISE, not all murder victims' families favor the death penalty for their relative's killer.

My friend's response to the statement above was, "that is because they are religious and it has to be only a small group of people who think like that".  Of course there are religious people who believe that death penalty is not the answer but ultimately religion had nothing to do in most of the statements and quotes I found. Furthermore, it was not a small group and some of them had taken a stand before the jury of their relative's killer to oppose the latter's death penalty.

Why would murder victims' families oppose the death penalty of their relative's killer? The loved their relative very much and they want the killer to pay for the crime committed but for most of them the death penalty would just prolong their grief.

"You know how they say there are five stages of grief? We may get to a certain stage or a certain point, and then we have to go back to court for a hearing or there's something else in the news and we're right back where we started. So you never finish. You go through the anger and the hatred and the depression and you're finally getting to acceptance, and you have to start all over again.''  --Maggie Lee   http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/VA-news/VA-Pilot/issues/1997/vp970316/03160053.htm

Others murder victims' families explained that responding to one killing with another killing do not honor their loved ones. "We can't imagine making the death of another human being her memorial" said Jennifer Bishop.

       "When the prosecutors in Houston, Texas, promised to give the murderer the    death penalty I was extremely gratified, at first. In fact, I went to the trial every day because I thought that hearing the judge pronounce the sentence of death would bring me some relief. Instead of healing, I found myself focusing on my anger and hatred, which only seemed to increase the pain I felt over the loss of my mother. Eventually I came to realize that capital punishment was not the answer because wishing for another human being to die wasn't helping me heal".-- Celeste Dixon

http://freenet-homepage.de/dpinfo/victimsfamilies.htm

If the murder victims' families equalize their healing with the death penalty of their relative's killer then they are going to be extremely disappointed. First of all, death penalty cases usually last more than 10 years, therefore in those 12 or 15 years these families would not find peace, they would be in and out of court reliving their grief and incrementing their anger. Finally, if their relative's killer receives the death penalty they would still have to go through the stages of grief they have been blocking for more than a decade to finally heal. If the prisoner gets, instead, life without parole then the murder victims' family who for so long has sought the capital punishment would be also be dissatisfied.

Healing is a very difficult process as it is, it does not need the pressure a death penalty case inflicts to make it worse. I can answer now my friend's question; I would still oppose the death penalty even if a loved one is killed.

Tania, DP Intern

Last night, the NBC show ER featured a retired prison doctor who had performed lethal injections and was now racked with guilt.  This doctor, Dr. Truman, was also dying of cancer and was spending his remaining time trying to make amends to the families of the men he had helped execute.  He jumped in a frozen lake to save the life of Gabriel, the child of one of the men he had helped put to death, and both wound up in the ER.  Despite his rescue of the child, Dr. Truman remained convinced he was going to Hell, and Gabriel's mother, at her child's side, was completely unforgiving as well. 

The overarching theme of the episode, entitled Atonement, was forgiveness:  Are there sins for which there can be no forgiveness?  Will you (should you) ultimately be judged by the worst thing you ever did?   This question certainly applies to the death penalty debate, though the twist here was that it was the executioner whose sins were being judged.  To its credit, the show did not provide a clear answer to the question "can there be atonement" though it seemed to be leaning towards a "yes" answer.  What was clear from the episode, and what we know to be indisputably true about the death penalty, is that it inflicts additional pain and suffering on everyone it touches.

Somewhat lost in the ethereal debates about forgiveness and eternal judgment was the more earthly question of medical ethics.  I was hoping one of the ER doctors would remark that participating in executions is a violation of medical ethics, but it didn't happen.  This is not entirely unrealistic, as surveys have shown that a significant percentage of doctors do not know that playing a role in executions violates AMA rules.  (In fact, almost every health profession in the US has rules against participation in executions.)

Amnesty International has been working to raise awareness about this with health professionals and the general public, through its Declaration on the Participation of Health Personnel in the Death Penalty.   You can support this effort by signing the Declaration online and/or passing it along. 

Brian

Women continue to bear the brunt of Iran's draconian penal system and are subject to more punishments by stoning. Eleven people-nine of them women-are currently waiting to be stoned to death on charges of adultery. In a 32-page reported entitled, Iran: death by stoning a grotesque and unacceptable penalty, Amnesty International documents a cruel practice that is often imposed after grossly unfair trials. In particular, women are not treated equally with men under the law and by courts, and they are also particularly vulnerable to unfair trials because their higher illiteracy rate makes them more likely to sign confessions to crimes they did not commit.

Iranian law also permits stoning to death individuals who commit "adultery," a loosely defined term that refers to any sex (consensual or otherwise) outside the context of marriage. Amnesty International is calling for urgent changes to Iranian law to ensure that no one can be sentenced to death for adultery, whether by stoning or any other means.

Brian - DPAC

Oral arguments in the case of Baze v. Rees, on the constitutionality of Kentucky's lethal injection protocol, took place this morning at the U.S. Supreme Court.  I sat in the courtroom and listened to both sides make their case, as the nine Supreme Court Justices asked continuous questions and as those watching, like myself, listened silently.  It was hard to believe I was actually listening to intelligent human beings debate how to "humanely" kill another human being.  Nonetheless, that is the world, well, the country that we live in... 

Larry Cox, Executive Director for Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) made the following statement today:

The United States Supreme Court will soon examine whether death by lethal injection, as it is currently administered, constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

Lethal injection was introduced with the reinstatement of capital punishment in the late 1970s. It was intended to make executions more palatable to a public that had grown used to living without the death penalty. The American people were promised that lethal injection would make executions "humane," but this promise proved false. From a human rights lens, the numerous botched lethal injections over the last 25 years confirm the inhumanity of the practice. In some cases executions have lasted up to an hour, with prisoners visibly gasping for air or convulsing in pain. Autopsies have revealed severe, foot-long chemical burns and collapsed veins.

Proponents of lethal injection assert that the practice can be improved by turning the job over to professionals, giving rise to another disturbing proposition: doctors turning their backs on the very oath they pledge to upkeep. Health professionals vow to do no harm and sustain human life; they should never be at the center of an ethical tug-of-war that forces them to choose between their medical vows and the law.

"Improving" lethal injection will not improve the death penalty, a system that is arbitrary, biased, ineffective and riddled with errors. In the last month two more innocent men, Michael L. McCormick in Tennessee and Jonathon Hoffman in North Carolina, were exonerated from death row, bringing the total to 126. Regardless of how the Supreme Court rules on the question of lethal injection, all death penalty states should maintain the de facto moratorium on executions and take a long, sober look at the irreversible flaws of the death penalty itself.

The death penalty is inherently inhumane and cannot be "improved."  Check out editorials in today's New York Times and L.A. Times, and don't forget to read Amnesty International's report: Execution by Lethal Injection: A quarter century of state poisoning to learn more.  Finally, if you haven't already, please sign Amnesty's Declaration calling on health professionals worldwide to respect fundamental medical ethics by adhering to the ethical rule to "harm none."

Still have questions?  Check out the transcript from our online chat with Ty Alper, Counsel of Record for the amicus brief Michael Morales, et al. in the Baze v. Rees case.