Opinion Roundup - Atlanta Journal Constitution - End the DP? | AJC OpEd - Carter: Show death penalty the door | More
Steve Hall
This e-mail contains commentary and OpEds from:
Atlanta Journal-Constitution - End the DP?
AJC - Carter: Show death penalty the door
AJC - Sharp: Enforcing penalty saves lives
NH Union Leader - Keshen: NH could do more for victims of crime
April 26, 2012
End the death penalty?
by AJC Opinion | Moderated by Rick Badie
The United States is one of the few industrialized nations that uses capital punishment to deter crime. Georgia, one of 34 death-penalty states, uses lethal injection to execute.
Today, former President Jimmy Carter writes it’s time to end the practice for reasons that include a change in public opinion, prosecutorial costs, and socioeconomic and racial bias. A death penalty proponent argues that an executed murderer never murders again.
What do you think?
And here is more information on the death penalty
In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court voided 40 death penalty statutes and suspended the death penalty.
Four years later, capital punishment was reinstated and a 10-year moratorium on executions ended with the execution of Gary Gilmore by a firing squad in Utah.
Since reinstatement, nearly 1,300 executions have been carried out.
Georgia’s current death row population sits at 99 and includes one woman. Its method of execution is lethal injection.
Georgia’s most recent high-profile execution was that of Troy Anthony Davis, on Sept. 21, 2011, for the 1989 killing of Savannah police officer Mark McPhail.
On Tuesday, a federal prosecutor called for the execution of Brian Richardson for the 2007 killing of his cell mate, Steven Obara, in the U.S. Penitentiary in Atlanta. The defendant is already serving a life term for armed robberies.
Besides Georgia, there are 33 death penalty states: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington and Wyoming.
Illinois became the most recent state to abolish the death penalty when it did so last year.
Other non-death penalty states are Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia.
Since reinstatement of the death penalty, 56 percent of the defendants executed are white; 34 percent are black and 8 percent are Hispanic.
More than 75 percent of murder victims were white in cases that ended with executions.
In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-4 to outlaw the death penalty for juveniles under the age of 18 at the time crimes were committed. The high court called the execution of children unconstitutionally cruel.
Wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy: “Retribution is not proportional if the law’s most severe penalty is imposed on one whose culpability or blameworthiness is diminished, to a substantial degree, by reason of youth and immaturity.”
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Sources: www.deathpenaltyinfo.org.;www.pbs.org.
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http://www.ajc.com/opinion/show-death-penalty-the-1426055.html
Apr 26, 2012
Show death penalty the door
By Jimmy Carter
For many reasons, it is time for Georgia and other states to abolish the death penalty. A recent poll showed that 61 percent of Americans would choose a punishment other than the death penalty for murder.
Also, just 1 percent of police chiefs think that expanding the death penalty would reduce violent crime. This change in public opinion is steadily restricting capital punishment, both in state legislatures and in the federal courts.
As Georgia’s chief executive, I competed with other governors to reduce our prison populations. We classified all new inmates to prepare them for a productive time in prison, followed by carefully monitored early-release and work-release programs. We recruited volunteers from service clubs who acted as probation officers and “adopted” one prospective parolee for whom they found a job when parole was granted. At that time, in the 1970s, only one in 1,000 Americans was in prison.
Our nation’s focus is now on punishment, not rehabilitation. Although violent crimes have not increased, the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world, with more than 7.43 per 1,000 adults imprisoned at the end of 2010. Our country is almost alone in our fascination with the death penalty. Ninety percent of all executions are carried out in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United States.
One argument for the death penalty is that it is a strong deterrent to murder and other violent crimes. In fact, evidence shows just the opposite. The homicide rate is at least five times greater in the United States than in any Western European country, all without the death penalty.
Southern states carry out more than 80 percent of the executions but have a higher murder rate than any other region. Texas has by far the most executions, but its homicide rate is twice that of Wisconsin, the first state to abolish the death penalty. Look at similar adjacent states: There are more capital crimes in South Dakota, Connecticut and Virginia (with death sentences) than neighboring North Dakota, Massachusetts and West Virginia (without death penalties). Furthermore, there has never been any evidence that the death penalty reduces capital crimes or that crimes increased when executions stopped. Tragic mistakes are prevalent. DNA testing and other factors have caused 138 death sentences to be reversed since I left the governor’s office.
The cost for prosecuting executed criminals is astronomical. Since 1973, California has spent roughly $4 billion in capital cases leading to only 13 executions, amounting to about $307 million each.
Some devout Christians are among the most fervent advocates of the death penalty, contradicting Jesus Christ and misinterpreting Holy Scriptures and numerous examples of mercy. We remember God’s forgiveness of Cain, who killed Abel, and the adulterer King David, who had Bathsheba’s husband killed. Jesus forgave an adulterous woman sentenced to be stoned to death and explained away the “eye for an eye” scripture.
There is a stark difference between Protestant and Catholic believers. Many Protestant leaders are in the forefront of demanding ultimate punishment. Official Catholic policy condemns the death penalty. Perhaps the strongest argument against the death penalty is extreme bias against the poor, minorities or those with diminished mental capacity. Although homicide victims are six times more likely to be black rather than white, 77 percent of death penalty cases involve white victims. Also, it is hard to imagine a rich white person going to the death chamber after being defended by expensive lawyers. This demonstrates a higher value placed on the lives of white Americans.
It is clear that there are overwhelming ethical, financial, and religious reasons to abolish the death penalty.
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Jimmy Carter was the 39th president and is founder of The Carter Center in Atlanta.
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http://www.ajc.com/opinion/enforcing-penalty-saves-lives-1426010.html
Apr 26, 2012
Enforcing penalty saves lives
By Dudley Sharp
Eighty-one percent supported and 16 percent opposed Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh’s execution for the murder of 168 people, 19 of whom were infants.
Moreover, 80 percent supported Saddam Hussein’s execution. Western European nations, save one, also showed majority support.
Polling has consistently found that 80 percent of Americans support the death penalty for some crimes, with only 15 percent opposing the death penalty for all crimes.
Eighty-five percent of those in Connecticut, our most liberal state, supported the execution of serial rapist-murderer Michael Ross.
Why?
Justice, the foundation of support for all criminal sanctions.
Theologian John Murray said, “Nothing shows the moral bankruptcy of a people or of a generation more than disregard for the sanctity of human life... . It is this same atrophy of moral fiber that appears in the plea for the abolition of the death penalty.”
Death penalty support is based upon the sanctity of life, just as incarceration is based upon a reverence for freedom.
Sanctions are sanctions only because we treasure that which is taken away.
All sanctions protect innocent lives, as with the death penalty, which is a better protector of innocent lives than a life sentence.
Living murderers harm and murder again, in prison, after escape, after early release and after we have failed to incarcerate them.
Executed murderers never harm again.
Based upon recidivism studies, just since 1973, we have allowed an additional 14,000 people to be murdered by those we know to have murdered before.
The death penalty has greater due process than other sanctions. Therefore, innocents are more likely to die as an innocent in prison, than they are likely to be executed.
There is no reliable claim of an innocent person being executed in the United States, at least since the 1930s.
There is a continuous fraud relating to those who are “exonerated” from death row. The current false number is 140.
Extensive, separate and well-publicized reviews find the real numbers are in the 25 to 40 range of the truly innocent being discovered and released from death row. That reflects a 99.6 percent accuracy rate in findings of guilt.
Some claim 67 percent of death sentences are overturned on appeal. Actually, it’s 38 percent.
We do know, under almost all circumstances, we would chose life over death, just as many potential murderers also fear death more than life. Whether crime rates are high or low, rising or falling, criminal sanctions deter some in all jurisdictions.
What we fear the most deters the most.
Yet justice must remain primary. C.S. Lewis wrote: “What can be more immoral than to inflict suffering on me for the sake of deterring others if I do not deserve it?”
The recent trend with states abolishing the death penalty occurs in those states with a majority of anti-death penalty Democratic legislators.
I side with the overwhelming moral voice of the American people:
Justice finds that some murderers have sacrificed their right to live, just as other criminals have sacrificed their right to freedom.
By enforcing the death penalty, we save additional innocent lives that deserve to be saved.
As Pope Pius XII stated:
“When it is a question of the execution of a man condemned to death it is then reserved to the public power to deprive the condemned of the benefit of life, in expiation of his fault, when already, by his fault, he has dispossessed himself of the right to live.”
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Dudley Sharp, a former opponent of capital punishment, is a published author and victims’ rights activist who lives in Texas.
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http://www.unionleader.com/article/20120426/LOCALVOICES/704269977
Apr 26, 2012
Another View: New Hampshire could do more for victims of crime
By BARBARA KESHEN | Special to the Union Leader
This week is National Crime Victim Rights Week. It is appropriate to ask how we in New Hampshire are doing when it comes to trying to make amends to victims of crime. I am ashamed to say that we could and should be doing a lot more for victims of crime here in New Hampshire.
Although we have recently raised the cap on the amount of compensation that a victim of a crime can receive, the amount that we provide to victims is not so much modest as it is niggardly. The maximum recovery for the family of a murder victim is $25,000. That sum is obscenely dwarfed by the amount of money that we pay to prosecute and incarcerate offenders.
Compare New Hampshire to Taiwan. Lin Hsinyi, executive director of the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty, was quoted in the newsletter of Murder Victim Families for Human Rights saying that in Taiwan the family of a murder victim can receive up to $62,500 and that they are trying to increase that amount. That puts us to shame.
For the first time in decades, New Hampshire has a resident on death row. The time, energy and taxpayer dollars that went into obtaining this one conviction is staggering. Ironically, during the same time period that our state was spending millions of dollars to obtain this one death penalty conviction, victims of crime who called the victims assistance commission got this message:
“You have reached the victim's assistance commission at the Attorney General's office. If you would like an application or brochure mailed to you, please leave your name, address and telephone number. For all other calls, please leave a message with your name, telephone number and the reason for your call. As this unit is currently short staffed this line is not being answered, but it is checked often for messages. You will need to leave a message. Someone will return your call as soon as possible. Thank you for calling.”
The message on the answering machine has since been changed, but the unit still has too few staff members. Victims of crime are still getting the short stick. At the very least, when a crime victim calls the victims assistance commission, he or she should be able to talk to a trained and compassionate individual.
A couple of years ago New Hampshire unveiled a new cold case unit. The unit was funded with a $1.2 million federal grant. There are 117 unsolved murders in New Hampshire. Murder victim family members have testified that the pain of not knowing what happened to their loved ones is unbearable. The federal grant has ended and the Legislature did not fund the cold case unit, although the unit continues to limp along with depleted resources. What does it say about us if we spend millions of dollars to obtain a single death penalty conviction when we could devote those resources to bringing some semblance of relief and justice to victim family members?
So how is New Hampshire doing when it comes to compensating victims? Not so good.
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Barbara Keshen is staff attorney at the New Hampshire Civil Liberties Union.
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Steve Hall
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