Nov. 20 USA: Morality and the Death Penalty To the Editor: Does Death Penalty Save Lives? A New Debate (November 18, 2007) Re "Does Death Penalty Save Lives? A New Debate" (front page, Nov. 18): The revived debate over the death penalty already seems destined to miss the mark. It is not a technical or empirical issue, but a moral one. As such, economists and other social scientists have little to tell us as empirical chroniclers about the death penaltys continued use. Although a demonstration that the death penalty has no deterrent effect would be morally significant in curbing its use, there is no particular or free-standing moral significance to the claim that it does have some deterrent effect. There are all manner of punishments and innovations that might be introduced if deterrence were the only or main determinant of its social acceptability: chopping off limbs, stoning people and corporal punishment might be usefully retried. The fact is that the death penalty, like limb-chopping or stoning, is a morally outrageous practice whatever its deterrent effect: it reduces society to the ethical level of the murderer. In a society that aspires to be moral and just, there is no room for such a state-sanctioned uncivilized practice. Allan C. Hutchinson Cambridge, Mass., Nov. 18, 2007 The writer is a visiting professor at Harvard Law School. To the Editor: Statistical analysis may sound scientific, but people dont behave according to economists' mathematical formulas. If the death penalty deterred killers, we would be able to find at least 1, in a state without the death penalty, who expected to be caught and imprisoned for life but committed murder anyway. No rational person would make that exchange. Economists will keep debating the numbers, but they should support public policy that sends clear, rational messages. Heres one: Killing people is wrong whether theyre walking in a dark alley or strapped to a gurney. Howard Tomb Brooklyn, Nov. 18, 2007 To the Editor: Even if we have no clue whether or not the death penalty actually deters, crime prevention is only one of a handful of reasons that a jurisdiction might consider when choosing to mete out the ultimate punishment. Retribution and the community's expression of moral outrage are at least as important. Failure to deter doesn't inevitably drive us to the logical conclusion to execute the death penalty itself. Jonathan Lubin New Haven, Nov. 18, 2007 The writer is a student at Yale Law School. To the Editor: If the death penalty actually deterred others from committing murder, you would think that the death row in Texas would be almost empty by this time and our murder rate would be near zero. We have had 405 executions in Texas during the last 25 years, 4 times more than any other state in the nation, and we still have about 370 people on death row. Somehow, criminals are not getting the message. The most recent study on deterrence in Texas was published in 1999. A team of university researchers found no evidence of a deterrent effect when the death penalty was carried out in Texas. I would think that this study done by university professionals in the most prolific death penalty state in the nation would have a high degree of credibility in this debate. My personal experience from visiting prisoners on death row over many years is that they were often high on alcohol or drugs, were not thinking of consequences, and did not think that they would be caught. If we want to deter violent crime, we must do a much better job in financing programs that prevent violent crime, such as drug and alcohol rehabilitation programs, mental health services, child protective services and anti-gang programs. David Atwood Houston, Nov. 18, 2007 The writer is founder of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. To the Editor: Studies that suggest execution as a method of lowering the murder rate are invalid because the cost of alternative means was not considered. Your article doesn't acknowledge that the assumption that underlies economics rational choice is inapplicable. If rational choice applied, communities would weigh the cost of execution against other means of prevention. Of the men I have represented on death row, 3 were turned away from drug treatment centers shortly before the crimes. Other murders would have been prevented if social services had been sufficiently financed to intervene in horrific childhoods. Mentally ill individuals, too poor to afford care, ended up on death row after psychosis-driven murders. Spending millions on execution, while cost-cutting on other services, is not a rational choice. The death penalty increases the murder rate, because it necessitates allocation of limited tax dollars to execution while cutting basic social and mental health services. Marilyn Ozer Chapel Hill, N.C., Nov. 18, 2007 To the Editor: The possibility that the death penalty does in fact serve as a deterrent brings up an important, if unsettling, question: If we are going to execute criminals because doing so will prevent other crimes and save lives, shouldn't we do everything possible to maximize that deterrence with as much publicity as possible? Shouldn't we mandate public executions? I think we know the answer: there is a deep, natural revulsion against seeing a person killed by the state or anyone else. And that should tell us something about the death penalty. It is antithetical to civilized society. It does more damage than good. Advocates for the death penalty might disagree. But then they would need to answer honestly why we keep the death penalty behind closed doors. Fred P. Hochberg New York, Nov. 18, 2007 The writer is dean of the Milano School for Management and Urban Policy at the New School. (source: Letters to the Editor, New York Times) *********************** New life for pro-death penalty arguments Just as the U.S. Supreme Court has imposed a de facto moratorium on executions come reports that the death penalty indeed does protect lives. A dozen studies performed by economists over the last decade demonstrate the deterrence value of capital punishment, according to the New York Times. Each execution was found to prevent 3 to 18 murders. The authors of one study, professors Roy D. Adler and Michael Summers of Pepperdine University, wrote in the Wall Street Journal that their research found even more dramatic results: "Each execution carried out is correlated with about 74 fewer murders the following year." Opponents of the death penalty dispute the studies, saying too many factors influence crime, there are too few executions each year to have such a dramatic impact and society would be better off looking to better policing and innovative attacks on poverty to reduce homicides. Still, the rigor of the studies, the consistent results and the reputations of the researchers, some of them opponents of capital punishment, have even foes of the death penalty acknowledging the findings complicate the moral arguments. Writing in the December 2005 Stanford Law Review, law professors Cass R. Sunstein of the University of Chicago and Adrian Vermeule of Harvard stated that "capital punishment may be morally required, not for retributive reasons, but rather to prevent the taking of innocent lives." (They go on to argue that evidence of the deterrent suggests "government is obliged to provide far more protection than it now does," meaning increased regulation over a wide range of issues from environmental degradation to poverty relief to reduce threats to human safety. As they note, that's a consequence of the studies not likely to please many conservative supporters of the death penalty.) Opponents of capital punishment had been heartened by the halt on most executions in effect imposed by the Supreme Court's decision to review whether the cocktail of drugs used in lethal injections may cause unconstitutional pain. Illinois already had a moratorium, one imposed by Gov. George Ryan and yet to be lifted by Gov. Blagojevich. Now, these new studies buttress the supporters of the death penalty, including those of us who believe retribution alone is justification -- that in the worst crimes the murderer deserves to be dispatched to hell. Those on the other side argued that life imprisonment without parole is an alternative to execution, but now that has to be counterbalanced by the lives saved by the capital punishment deterrent. Life imprisonment itself can raise uncomfortable issues. For example, should sick murderers be offered the latest medical innovations? In California, an inmate serving a second sentence for robbery in Los Angeles received a heart transplant and $2 million in medical care in 2002, though he later died. California said the treatment was required under a 1976 U.S. Supreme Court decision guaranteeing inmates adequate medical care. In other words, a John Wayne Gacy could be imprisoned for his "natural life" and the taxpayers then required to pay millions for an organ transplant to extend that life. No proponent of execution can ignore the history of wrongful convictions like those that prompted Ryan to declare the moratorium on executions. Imposing a death sentence should require a higher standard than imprisonment. Now DNA technology, recently enacted death penalty reforms and reserving execution for only the most heinous crimes offer safeguards against the state killing the wrong person. We don't know whether Stacy Peterson is missing or dead. But her case and the unresolved death of Nailah Franklin are not isolated events. They remind us there is an endless stream of stories about women stalked, terrorized and murdered by husbands and boyfriends as courts and police fail to safeguard their lives. Recall the horror story that came to be Sheila Gallo's life. She took out an order of protection against her estranged husband, Carl Gallo Jr. of Schaumburg, only to see him stalk her -- despite being convicted three times of violating the order -- and finally rape and strangle her. Her mother found her body with his teeth marks on her breast. Gallo was sentenced to 75 years. Perhaps if society executed more of these predators, the world would be a little safer for women. (source: Column, Steve Huntley, Chicago Sun-Times) ******************* Supreme Court deliberation puts death penalty on hold around the South The U.S. Supreme Court is halting executions by lethal injection until deciding whether the practice is cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the 8th Amendment. Executions in Kentucky, Florida, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas are effectively on hold until a Kentucky case is decided. The current de facto death penalty moratorium can be traced back to November of 2006, when the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled that the procedure is not cruel and unusual: While conceding that the chemicals used to execute death row inmates in Kentucky might cause needless pain, the state's Supreme Court ruled yesterday that using them did not violate the Constitution's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. "Conflicting medical testimony prevents us from stating categorically that a prisoner feels no pain," Justice Donald C. Wintersheimer wrote for the unanimous court. "The prohibition is against cruel and unusual punishment and does not require a complete absence of pain." In September, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the case on appeal: The Supreme Court agreed yesterday to hear a Kentucky case that challenges the constitutionality of the mix of drugs used in lethal injections. This will be the 1st time the high court will consider whether such injections violate the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment. The decision to hear the case is likely to have an immediate impact beyond Kentucky, said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit organization based in Washington. "Virtually all executions are by lethal injection," Dieter said. "It will at least hold up all executions in the country for a time and may require broad revisions in the law." A week earlier, a federal judge blocked executions by lethal injection in Tennessee: A federal judge on Wednesday blocked next weeks scheduled execution of a prisoner in Tennessee, ruling that newly revised lethal injection procedures were unconstitutional. Judge Aleta A. Trauger of Federal District Court here ruled that the state cannot execute the prisoner, Edward J. Harbison, 52, because Tennessee's use of a 3-drug lethal injection would present "a substantial risk of unnecessary pain." Facing South previously reported on the disturbing inconsistencies in Tennessee's "newly revised" lethal injection procedures, which instruct the executioner to "engage the automatic rheostat" (a rheostat controls the voltage flowing to an electric chair), direct the facility manager to disconnect the electrical cables in the rear of the chair before allowing a doctor to check whether the lethal injection was successful, require shaving the condemned inmate's head, and require fire extinguishers to be on hand. In an even more bizarre twist, Tennessee's Attorney General issued an opinion last week that the electric chair cannot be used as a "backup" method of execution unless requested by the condemned inmate: Tennessee cannot currently use the electric chair on prisoners unless they chose that method of death, the state attorney general said Tuesday in a written opinion. Prosecutors have been calling on the state to use the electric chair as a back-up after a U.S. District Court in September found Tennessee's lethal injection procedures to be unconstitutional. But in his 6-page written opinion, state Attorney General Bob Cooper said that the law "does not allow substitution based on rulings of a federal district court or a state trial court." The law says that the chair back-up is triggered only if the Tennessee Supreme Court or the U.S. Supreme Court find or let stand rulings that hold lethal injection unconstitutional, the opinion said. Along with the previous ruling against lethal injections, this effectively leaves Tennessee without any approved method of carrying out the death penalty. (Ironically, in September a Tennessee inmate requested death by electrocution, the first use of the electric chair in Tennessee since 1960.) Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court stayed an execution in Florida hours before the condemned inmate was to be put to death: A Florida death row inmate has been granted a stay of execution by the US Supreme Court in an action that offers further evidence that a de facto national moratorium on executions is in place. The stay, announced Thursday afternoon, came 4 hours before Mark Dean Schwab was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection at 6 p.m. Lawyers for Mr. Schwab asked the justices to intervene in light of the Supreme Court's decision in late September to hear a Kentucky case challenging that state's use of a three-drug protocol to carry out executions by lethal injection. The Schwab case represents the latest showdown over whether pending executions should be postponed until after the Supreme Court has heard and decided the Kentucky case, Baze v. Rees. In late October in Alabama, a federal appeals court blocked the execution of a terminally ill prisoner: A federal appeals court panel unanimously ordered a stay of execution on Wednesday for a terminally ill prisoner who was scheduled to die by lethal injection in Alabama on Thursday. Lawyers representing the prisoner, Daniel L. Siebert, 56, filed an appeal with the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta after Judge Mark E. Fuller of Federal District Court in Alabama refused to stop his execution. Defense lawyers said the drug mixture used by the state could interact with Mr. Siebert's cancer medications and cause excruciating pain. The 3-judge appeals panel, following a pattern set by other courts in recent weeks, said the execution would have to wait until the Supreme Court decided in the coming months whether lethal injections violated Eighth Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment. Alabama Republican Gov. Bob Riley made an unsuccessful and bizarre argument for allowing the execution to proceed, claiming the state had changed its procedures to insure a painless death: Officials said those changes largely amounted to checking whether a condemned prisoner was conscious after anesthesia had been administered by calling the prisoners name, brushing a finger against the eyelashes and pinching an arm. The state did not change the chemicals or the order in which they are administered, said Brian Corbett, a public information officer with the Alabama Department of Corrections. Georgia's State Supreme Court is also blocking executions: For the 2nd time in 4 days, the Georgia Supreme Court on Monday ordered a stay of execution for a condemned prisoner, citing the United States Supreme Courts decision to review the constitutionality of lethal injection as a method of execution. The prisoner, Curtis Osborne, who was sentenced to death for killing 2 people in 1991, had been scheduled to die on Oct. 23 by lethal injection. His execution will probably be delayed until the Supreme Court issues its ruling on lethal injection, expected next spring. The U.S. Supreme Court has also intervened in Mississippi: The Supreme Court halted an execution in Mississippi on Tuesday, less than an hour before the convicted killer was scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection. The last-minute reprieve for Earl Wesley Berry is the 3rd granted by the justices since they agreed late last month to decide a challenge to Kentucky's lethal injection procedures. Tuesday's order was the latest indication that most, if not all, executions by lethal execution will be halted at least until the justices decide the Kentucky case. Arkansas executions are also on hold: Attorney General Dustin McDaniel will not seek to lift the court-ordered stays of any executions until the U.S. Supreme Court rules on a Kentucky lethal injection challenge, a spokesman for the office said Wednesday. The announcement came a day after the nations highest court stayed a Mississippi execution about an hour before it was scheduled, and a federal judge in Little Rock cited the Kentucky case in granting condemned killer Don William Davis' request to stop his scheduled Nov. 8 execution. "Although the Supreme Court still has not specifically said so, the attorney general believes the (Mississippi) ruling sends the clear signal that the majority of the court intends to stay all executions until the Kentucky case is decided," [Gabe Holmstrom, a spokesman for Attorney General Dustin McDaniel] said. Gov. Mike Beebe's spokesman Matt DeCample said Wednesday that the governor supports the attorney generals decision. ' The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to hear the Kentucky lethal injection case in January and issue a ruling in the summer. The way the court is currently stacked, it is difficult to imagine a finding that lethal injections are cruel or unusual. But, a ruling last year allowed inmates to challenge lethal injections on 8th Amendment grounds, sending mixed signals but opening the door for the current appeal. On the other hand, the court refused to block a Texas execution just hours after agreeing to hear the Kentucky case. In addition to questions about the constitutionality of death by lethal injection, in late October the American Bar Association renewed its call for a death penalty moratorium on other grounds: The American Bar Association said on Monday it was renewing its call for a nationwide moratorium on executions, based on a 3-year study of death penalty systems in eight states that found unfairness and other flaws. The lawyers' group said its study identified key problems, such as major racial disparities, incompetent defense services for poor defendants and irregular clemency review processes, making those death penalty systems operate unfairly. Facing South reported on the ABA study earlier this year, and on an investigative report by McLatchy Newspapers into serious problems with death penalty cases around the South. (source: WFTV News) ************************** Hang your head in shame, Bush----The former governor of Texas never saw an execution he did not approve of. The UN disagrees "There is no conclusive evidence of the death penalty's deterrent value and that any miscarriage or failure of justice in the death penalty's implementation is irreversible and irreparable," declared the UN resolution passed in committee on Thursday, calling for a global moratorium on capital punishment. There are many old and highly appropriate proverbs about the company you keep. The vote found the US spinning at the axle of the Axis of Executions, standing firmly alongside China, Iran, Pakistan, Sudan and Syria for the right to behead, stone, gas, fry, inject, hang or shoot grown human beings. And one has to say that these countries put their fangs where their mouth is, since between them they carry out 90% of executions. In a frenzied last minute attempt to amend the UN resolution to death, the US also supported attempts to insert amendments opposing abortion, "to take all necessary measures to protect the lives of unborn children." Joining with several other hang 'em high countries in their deep concern for prenatal as opposed to post-natal life, the US envoy Joseph Rees sermonized that "countries that advocate for the abolition of the death penalty should be at least equally scrupulous in showing concern for innocent life." Of course he unwittingly laid himself open to the reverse charge: that the Republicans who put their heart and soul into anti-abortion resolutions in the US should be at least equally concerned with the deaths of fully-grown humans in executions. It is interesting to contrast the shrill fidelity of some American Catholic bishops on the Pope's views on abortion to their almost complete silence about executions. In Britain, there are politicians with excellent left-wing credentials who still share the Pope's right-to-life position, which is at least consistent in opposition to both the death penalty and abortion. However, while it is not easy to establish when human life begins in the womb, it is sadly easy to determine when it ends it the execution chamber. But since these amendments were a cynical attempt to ambush and kill the death penalty resolution rather than protect the unborn, it will not help the Bush administration if ever any of them get to immigration control at the Pearly Gates. Sadly, the abolition of the death penalty is not a popular issue, even in the UK, where many people support it in principle, even if they almost always oppose it in execution, as it were. In the US it is even foggier. I remember a nice, young, liberal audience opposing ethnic cleansing in the Balkans being quite upset when they discovered that the Hague tribunal had no death penalty. The issue also gets confused with some on the left, who, for many years have fervently confused the issue of whether celebrity convict Mumia Abu-Jamal is innocent, which is debatable, with whether he should be executed. Guilty or not, he should not be. And, for some reason opposing executions in the US is for some a separate issue from executions in say, Cuba. At least Venezuela is on the side of the civilised angels on this one and supports the resolution, along with most Latin American states, as indeed does the UK and the rest of the EU. The UN vote, which will now almost certainly pass in the full general assembly and already has the support of the human rights committee, will also certainly provoke the American know-nothings into paroxysms of rage against UN bureaucrats interfering in their country. Of course it is no such thing. It is simply stating the global community's sense of what constitutes civilised behaviour. And if the US wants to join Iran, China, Sudan and Syria, it is its right to do so. But perhaps American presidents should think twice before invoking international law and moral standards against other countries, such as Iran, Syria and Sudan, as an excuse for action. (source: Comment Is Free) **************************** Small Lies, Big Lies, and Economists The timing could not be more inappropriate. The United States is finally moving to join all the civilized nations of the world by ceasing to execute people. It still has quite a way to go. So far, most states that still impose the death penalty have recently suspended executions until the Supreme Court rules on whether the ways people are currently 'put down' constitutes a cruel and unusual punishment; that is, whether lethal injection violates the constitution. Enter a bunch of economists with a model that, they say, shows that the death penalty deters crimes and hence saves lives. Because most people do not read the math involved and have a hard time following the intricacies of these models, these kinds of "findings" are often taken seriously. Indeed, even a major progressive legal scholar, Cass Sunstein, told the press that "the evidence on whether [capital punishment] has a significant deterrent effect seems sufficiently plausible that the moral issue becomes a difficult one." Actually the data on which this model is based are extremely thin. First, there are simply not enough executions for most statistical methods to work properly; in 2003, while there were more than 16,000 homicides nationwide, there were only 65 executions. Adding to this statistical shortfall, too many other factors change over the same period as the number of executions changes to permit a sound conclusion. These include the overall crime rates, policing methods, gun laws, levels of economic growth and of upward mobility, drug rehabilitation and education policy, among others. Things are complicated even further when one recognizes that these factors differ not only over time but also among various states that execute more people than others. The economists gloss over such challenges by using dummy variables, artificial weights, and other slights of hand. But all that the economists ultimately demonstrate is some (deeply questionable) correlation between capital punishment and murder. That is, they show that as the number of executions increased, homicide rates decreased. It doesn't take a doctorate in economics to know that correlation does not prove causality. As Cassandra Stubbs of the ACLU wrote in a recent letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal, one might argue that "children with larger shoe sizes perform better in reading tests." And when one notes, as Professor Ronald Allen of the Northwestern University School of Law has, that during the time-period in question the homicide rate fell more or less nationwide--that is, not merely in states with capital punishment--one wonders whether these economists are not doing some shoe-gazing of their own. Finally, there are some measures that civilized societies just don't employ, whether they are efficient or not. And if these measures are used, the societies at issue should be profoundly shamed rather than comforted with pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo. Good societies do not hang people, do not torture people, and in select key areas, they allow their values to take precedent over all other considerations. After all, if our legal system followed the cost-benefit analysis of economics, we would shoot all young, 1st time offenders--because we know they are very likely to offend again. Not to mention that the costs of incarceration are higher than many college tuition rates; some $30,000 per year, per inmate. A bullet and cremation can be readily had for a few bucks. The death penalty, especially given how often innocent people have been executed, belongs on this--granted short--list of no-nos. It is this taboo which I urge the United States to finally embrace, and also which is the only reason I oppose hanging a few economists in order to deter the others from building such deadly models. (source: Amitai Etzioni is University Professor at the George Washington University and author of The Moral Dimension: Toward a New Economics; Huffington Post) MISSOURI: Prosecutor considering death penalty for Porter As he left court today, Dan Porter said he was "ashamed" and that "he can't get (his 2 children) out of his mind." Porter was charged with 1st-degree murder in the deaths of Sam and Lindsey Porter. Authorities this morning charged Dan Porter with 1st-degree murder in the deaths of his 2 children, Sam and Lindsey. The 9:30 a.m. announcement by Jackson County Prosecutor Jim Kanatzar came more than 2 months after Porter confessed to the crimes and led FBI agents and police to a wooded area in Sugar Creek, where he said he killed and buried them. Authorities searched the area and found the childrens skeletal remains Sept. 9. Court documents allege that Porter planned the killings two days before he picked up the children for a weekend visit. Each child died of a gunshot wound, according to the documents. The 1st-degree murder charges could lead to the death penalty if Porter is convicted, Kanatzar said. "Given the facts surrounding this case, including but not limited to the ages of the victim and the fact that he was their father, I must and will consider the death penalty," Kanatzar said. "That process will now move forward. I hope to make a final decision in 3 to 4 weeks." Porter dressed in an orange jumpsuit and with a full beard that was not present during previous court hearings was arraigned later in the morning at the Jackson County Courthouse Annex in Independence on 2 counts of 1st-degree murder. He did not have an attorney present, and another hearing was scheduled for December. After the hearing, Porter spoke to reporters as guards escorted him into a van for transfer to the Jackson County jail. "I couldn't take it anymore," he said when asked why he confessed to authorities. "I would have done it sooner." Porter said that no matter how sorry he is, he realizes that some will never forgive him. "I can't get them out of my mind," he said of his children. "I'm ashamed." Porter, 44, currently is serving a 38-year prison sentence from a 2006 conviction of kidnapping the children to terrorize his former wife, Tina Porter. He is awaiting the outcome of an appeal of that conviction. Porter also must serve10 years on a federal weapons violation. Court documents released this morning provided few details on the killings or the reason Porter told police he was confessing after going 3 years and 3 months without telling authorities the whereabouts of his children. The documents allege that Porter met with FBI agents and officials with the Missouri Department of Corrections on Sept. 7 and admitted to killing the children the same day he picked them up for a weekend visit. He told the investigators of the crime scene off Cement City Road in Sugar Creek. Sam and Lindsey were 7 and 8 when they vanished after Porter picked them up at their Independence home. Dan Porter and Tina Porter were estranged at the time. The case gathered nationwide attention that increased as Porter continually refused to tell authorities an accurate account of where they were or what he did to them. After he was arrested June 10, 2004, near Trenton, Mo., Porter told police various stories, including that he sold the children to a woman from Illinois, and that he strangled them. (source: Kansas City Star) LOUISIANA: Prosecutors seek death penalty in child rape case It could be life or death for a Caddo Parish man scheduled for trial next month. Richard Davis is accused of raping a 5-year-old girl. It's very rare for prosecutors to seek the death penalty in a rape case-- it's a first for Caddo Parish -- but it is an option for those charged with raping children. The death penalty has only been sought twice for rape in Louisiana. Even though they've been preparing the case for 2 years now, assistant Caddo D.A.'s Lea Hall and Brady O'Callaghan didn't decide to seek a death sentence until recently. They needed to find out how the state supreme court ruled in a similar case in Jefferson Parish. "Obviously if the Supreme Court said we couldn't follow through, there wouldn't be a point in getting a penalty that would be unconsititutional," said O'Callaghan. But this summer, the state's high court ruled it is constititutional. Therefore, if jurors in the Davis trial find him guilty as charged, they'll then have to decide if he gets life in prison or a death sentence. "People's attitudes toward capital punishment are very personal and very complicated and it's not something a lot of people think about until they're placed in that position of being a potential juror," said O'Callaghan. "Certain cases are more in need of a stiffer sentence than others," said Hall. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled it unconstitutional to seek the death penalty for rape no matter if it's of a child or an adult. But, the Louisiana supreme court does not prohibit it when the victim is younger than 13. The man sentenced to death in Jefferson Parish is appealing his sentence to the U.S. Supreme Court. Justices have agreed to hear the case. (source: KTBS News) ARKANSAS: Legal Experts Discuss Death Penalty 3 legal experts participating in a university symposium on the death penalty Tuesday said they favored a national moratorium on executions, while a fourth said a moratorium is unnecessary because the legal system works. The panel discussion at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock came at a time when most executions have been put on hold because of the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision to review whether lethal injection is a constitutional method of administering the death penalty. The court is expected to rule next year. Holly Dickson, a staff attorney for the Arkansas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said during Tuesday's discussion that veterinarians refuse to euthanize animals by the method used on people because it poses a risk of excruciating pain. Regardless of the method used, the death penalty is unconstitutional because it is applied inequitably, she said. "If it does not apply equally to every American, it is not constitutional," she contended. More fuel was added to the death penalty debate this week when The New York Times reported on recent studies suggesting for every inmate executed, three to 18 murders are prevented. Other studies have shown murder rates are higher in states executing condemned prisoners than in states that do not impose the death penalty, Dickson said. "There's still a lot of controversy as to whether or not there is a deterrent effect," she said. "That is not a settled question." Dickson said she favors a moratorium on executions, as do panelists Latrece Gray, an attorney with the Arkansas Public Defender Commission, and John DiPippa, associate dean for academic affairs at the UALR School of Law. Pulaski County Prosecutor Larry Jegley said he is against halting capital punishment. Deterrence is not the only issue that should be considered in examining the death penalty, Dickson said. Studies have shown it is disproportionately applied against minorities, people with limited education and the poor, she said. Gray said 23 of the 37 inmates on death row in Arkansas, or 62 percent, are black males. Blacks are more likely to receive the death penalty than whites, especially if the victim is white, she said. "You're going to get killed if you kill somebody white," Gray said. Jegley said some studies dispute the claim the death penalty is inequitably applied along racial lines. "If you key to the underlying crime rate and the homicide rate, studies will show you that blacks are not disproportionately treated under the system, but in fact they're under-represented in terms of the number of capital murders that occur," he said. Gray said blacks are disproportionately represented in the entire criminal justice system, not just on death row. DiPippa said he opposes the death penalty on moral grounds but does not agree it is unconstitutional. "The Constitution anticipates the death penalty," he said. Executions also prevent the possibility of correcting wrongful convictions, Dickson said, noting 124 people nationwide have been released from death row because of overturned convictions. Still, Jegley argued the criminal justice system works. "I think that its only flaw is the fact that it really leaves the victims out in terms of how it progresses," he said. In the audience for the panel discussion was Elaine Colclasure of Little Rock, whose husband, Charles Colclasure, was murdered in 1990. She told the panel that after Alvin Bernal Jackson of Little Rock was sentenced to life in prison without parole for her husband's killing, he killed again, fatally stabbing prison guard Scott Grimes at the Tucker Unit in Pine Bluff in 1995. Jackson received the death penalty in the 1995 slaying. If he had been executed for his 1st capital murder, "maybe Scott Grimes would be alive," Elaine Colclasure said. (source: Morning News)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----USA. MO., LA., ARK.
Rick Halperin Wed, 21 Nov 2007 01:19:30 -0600 (Central Standard Time)
