Aug. 29
GEORGIA:
Hope, mercy and justice on Alabama's death row
"We need more hope. We need more mercy. We need more justice." - Bryan
Stevenson, Just Mercy p. 241
Bryan Stevenson, one of the country's most sought-after speakers, is scheduled
to deliver the Conson Wilson lecture at Berry College on Sept. 12 at 7:30 p.m.
The event is open to the public at no charge.
In 1989 Mr. Stevenson founded the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery,
Alabama. Its mission is to guarantee legal representation to every inmate on
Alabama's death row. In the past 25 years, the EJI has spared 125 offenders
from execution.
In his 2015 blockbuster memoir, "Just Mercy," Stevenson tells a hard and bitter
story of mass incarceration and a system of justice denied to the poor - in
particular, to people of color.
Stevenson found that, without exception, all death row inmates had been poorly
represented in court.
Jimmy Dill's plight was such a case. The EJI staff became involved in Mr.
Dill's case a mere 30 days before his scheduled execution. Mr. Dill suffered
from an intellectual disability, had been sexually and physically abused
throughout his childhood and had struggled with drug addiction until his
arrest.
His court-appointed counsel had done little to prepare the case for trial. The
state offered a plea deal of 20 years, but this offer was not communicated to
the client. Jimmy Dill went to trial, was found guilty of murder and sentenced
to death. Without further counsel, he missed all the filing deadlines to appeal
his case.
The night his client was executed, Bryan Stevenson talked to him constantly by
phone. Jimmy Dill had a speech impediment that caused him to stutter badly,
especially when he became excited or agitated.
While he still had time, the death row inmate labored to thank his attorney for
trying to save his life.
Broken speech was followed by long silences. The condemned man finally
succeeded. "Mr. Bryan, I just want to thank you for fighting for me. I thank
you for caring about me. I love y'all for trying to save me."
Jimmy Dill is just one face in the crowd of faces that Bryan Stevenson has come
to know in his years of representing the least among us.
He is convinced that if most people saw what he sees on a regular basis, they
would want to change the system. But he says, "Our system of justice is too
isolated."
He is burdened by his observation that as a society "we are indifferent to the
plight of poor people. We tolerate unfairness in a way that burdens me.
"Just Mercy" is an effort to confront this burden."
National statistics bear out the truth of his burden:
The United States of America incarcerates more of its citizens than any country
in the world.
With 5 % of the world's population, we have 25 % of the world's prison
population.
Currently, for every 9 death penalty executions, 1 inmate from death row is
released from prison after new evidence finds him to be innocent.
1 in 3 black men aged 18 to 30 is in prison, jail or on probation or parole.
We have been the only country in the world that condemns children to life
imprisonment without parole. Nearly 3,000 juveniles have been sentenced to die
in prison.
Women are going to prison these days at a faster rate than men. The effect on
children is devastating.
Nearly 80 % of the women in jail are mothers; 67 % are mothers of minor
children; 82 % are imprisoned for nonviolent offenses.
Families are being shattered.
Once, while fighting for a 14-year-old sentenced to life in prison without
parole, Bryan noticed the court janitor watching him closely. At first
opportunity, the man came into the courtroom and sat close behind Stevenson. At
break the sheriff challenged the janitor, an African-American, "Jimmy, what are
you doing in here?"
Jimmy slowly rose from his seat, and spoke directly to the sheriff, "I came in
here, Sheriff, to tell this young man to keep his eye on the prize. Hang on."
Remarkably, after experiencing the worst of what our legal system has to offer,
Bryan Stevenson is still hanging on.
He brings a message of hope, mercy and justice.
As he encourages us to seek liberty and justice for all, we can join Jimmy and
offer him encouragement as well.
That's reason enough to grab a seat in The Cage Center on Sept. 12. For maximum
convenience, Berry officials advise attendees to come early.
(source: Guest Column, R. Rex Hussman; northwestgeorgianews.com)
NEBRASKA:
Panel to be held on death penalty
A panel discussion entitled "Death Penalty: Right or Wrong?" will be from
7-8:30 p.m.Thursday, Sept. 15 at First-Plymouth Congregational Church, 2000 D
St.
Panelists include: the Rev. Stephen Griffith, United Methodist minister and
executive director of Nebraskans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty; Ari
Kohen, associate professor of political science at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln and a death penalty opponent; Robert Evnen, Lincoln attorney
and co-founder of Nebraskans for the Death Penalty; and the Rev. Stu Kerns,
pastor of Zion Church and a death penalty supporter.
The discussion of both sides of the death penalty issue is intended to help
voters make an informed decision when they go to the polls on Nov. 8.
Nebraska voters will decide whether or not to retain the law passed by the 2015
Legislature, which replaced the death penalty with life in prison without
parole.
A vote to "RETAIN" the law means the death penalty will NOT be reinstated. A
vote to "REPEAL" the law means the death penalty will be restored.
The event is open to the public free of charge.
(source: KLKN TV news)
NEW MEXICO:
Heinous crimes raise stakes in death-penalty debate
New Mexico still had the death penalty when target shooters found Katie
Sepich's body discarded in a onetime garbage dump. She had been raped,
strangled and set on fire.
Whoever attacked her had no conscience. Sepich's family and friends, not the
killer, would bear the agony of losing her at age 22.
Raised in Carlsbad, Sepich was a graduate student at New Mexico State
University in Las Cruces when she left a party on Aug. 31, 2003, for the
3-block walk to her apartment. That was the last time anybody except her killer
saw her alive.
If ever a case seemed to fit the standard for the death penalty, it was
Sepich's. Gov. Susana Martinez was the district attorney in Las Cruces when
Sepich died and when her killer, Gabriel Avila, finally was pinpointed by DNA
evidence in 2006.
But Martinez didn't seek the death penalty against Avila. Instead, she obtained
from Avila guilty pleas to 1st-degree murder, kidnapping, rape and tampering
with evidence. In return, a judge sentenced Avila to 69 years in prison.
Equally important, Avila did not start serving his murder sentence until he
completed a 9-year prison term for aggravated burglary in a separate case.
Now 38, Avila will be eligible for parole in approximately 2043, after serving
30 years of his murder sentence. But it's safe to say Avila will remain in
prison until he dies. No parole board would dare free him.
State legislators and then-Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat, abolished the
death penalty in 2009. Now Martinez, a Republican who's been governor for 5 1/2
years, says she wants to bring back capital punishment.
She called for reinstatement of the death penalty this month after an Ohio
fugitive was arrested in the shooting death of a Hatch police officer. Martinez
also intimated that the death penalty would be an appropriate course in the
case of 3 people suspected of drugging, molesting and killing 10-year-old
Victoria Martens last week in Albuquerque.
Dave Sepich, Katie's father, says he hopes Martinez succeeds in reviving the
death penalty. He is a bright and courageous man, but I disagree with him on
this one. Sepich says DNA science has substantially lessened the chance of
wrongful convictions, but not every case turns on DNA.
New Mexico sentenced four innocent men from Michigan to death in the 1970s for
the murder of a university student in Albuquerque. They might have been
executed if not for the diligence of The Detroit News, which established that
the eyewitness who identified the four defendants was lying. The 4 wrongly
convicted men then went free.
Dave Sepich says he favors a death-penalty law so narrowly written that it
would require a range of evidence before a defendant could be sent to death
row. For instance, he would not support a law in which only eyewitness
testimony could be used to obtain a death sentence. Dave Sepich and his wife,
Jayann, understand the failings of eyewitness testimony better than most.
Since Katie's death, they have advocated for laws to collect DNA samples from
every person arrested on suspicion of a felony. This builds the DNA database, a
means to convict the guilty and protect the innocent.
Dave and Jayann Sepich sometimes lecture with James Calvin Tillman, a black man
who spent 18 years in prison in Connecticut for the kidnap and rape of a white
woman. Tillman, convicted on eyewitness testimony, always said he was innocent,
and DNA evidence at last confirmed it, setting him free in 2006.
So why does Dave Sepich support the death penalty, knowing all too well that
innocent people can and have been convicted of serious crimes, some of which
have resulted in death sentences? In the murder of his daughter, Sepich said,
prosecutor Martinez had the death penalty as a mighty bargaining chip. DNA
evidence against the killer, Avila, was insurmountable, so Dave Sepich said
Martinez was able to use the potential of the death penalty as a means to get
Avila to plead guilty.
Families of murder victims in other states have told the Sepich family that the
mere prospect of the death penalty would have been useful in securing plea
bargains, thereby sparing them from the arduous appeals of a condemned
defendant.
"Some of the appeals in death-penalty cases can go on for 20 or 25 years," Dave
Sepich said. "We didn't want to have to keep going back to court for hearings."
Avila forfeited his right to appeal after he pleaded guilty to Katie Sepich's
murder. That allowed Dave and Jayann Sepich to devote themselves to passing
laws that expand DNA evidence banks. In New Mexico, the statute requiring every
person arrested on suspicion of a felony to provide a DNA sample is named
Katie's Law, after their daughter.
Having the death penalty might have helped convince the man who killed Katie
Sepich to plead guilty. But it also might have taken the lives of four men who
did nothing more than ride their motorcycles through New Mexico, only to be
charged in a murder case that prosecutors built around perjured testimony.
State legislators should rewrite the New Mexico law to eliminate parole
eligibility after 30 years for the worst of the worst, such as Gabriel Avila.
Life in prison is a hellish sentence. And it's a good alternative to
death-penalty cases, which last for decades and still may convict the innocent.
(source: Milan Simonich, The Santa Fe New Mexican)
****************************
Should we trust the state to kill its citizens?
Last week, Gov. Susana Martinez expressed her desire to reinstate the New
Mexico death penalty. While she's a leader in many ways, Martinez is an outlier
when it comes to capital punishment. Conservative and liberal states are moving
away from it.
Executions are at a 20-year low and death sentences are at a 40-year low.
Furthermore, Republicans are increasingly spearheading efforts to end the death
penalty.
The Nebraska legislature voted to abolish capital punishment. The Utah Senate
did the same and conservatives have sponsored repeal bills in more than a
half-dozen states.
Moreover, public opinion is starkly turning against capital punishment. Just in
the past month, polls have shown that the majority of Kentuckians, Floridians
and Oklahomans prefer alternatives to the death penalty. I suspect New Mexicans
likely feel the same because they understand what is at stake.
Growing numbers of conservatives are coming to realize that the death penalty
is nothing more than a government-run program and, as such, it is prone to
error. If capital punishment is reinstated, then a degree of collateral damage
must be expected.
Nationally, over 155 individuals have been wrongly sentenced to die and
eventually released from death row, and a recent study estimated that around
4.1 % of those sentenced to death are innocent.
For pro-life conservatives who believe that we should safeguard innocent life,
not take it, the death penalty - and the inevitable errors that come with it -
is simply unacceptable.
Earlier this year, it was revealed that New Mexico is facing a massive
budgetary shortfall. The death penalty will only add to the state's woes.
It's beyond doubt that capital punishment costs millions of dollars more than
life without parole. ... When New Mexico had the death penalty, it was
estimated that it cost the state millions of dollars a year. A leading
economist found that each execution in North Carolina costs an additional $2
million.
During the looming fiscal crisis, should New Mexico really take on the added
burden of another wasteful government program? If Martinez exercises fiscal
responsibility, then the answer is an emphatic no.
The death penalty is more than just a financial boondoggle and an unnecessary
risk to innocent lives. It also harms murder victims' families.
The mandated, complex legal processes ensure that justice will not be swift.
Furthermore, capital cases attract an inordinate amount of media attention,
which forces murder victims' families to repeatedly and publicly relive the
worst moments of their lives for decades. This can inflict additional harm as
they try to rebuild their lives.
Martinez claims that New Mexico needs capital punishment because some people
"deserve the ultimate penalty" and because police officers must be protected.
Do certain crimes merit the death penalty? That question belongs in a
philosophy class. Since capital punishment claims the lives of the guilty and
risks innocent lives, the real question is how much collateral damage is
acceptable?
Her 2nd point that law enforcement officers need to be safeguarded is
absolutely correct, but capital punishment doesn't do that. A poll of police
chiefs ranked the death penalty dead last in terms of policies that effectively
reduce crime.
Studies have also shown that capital punishment simply doesn't deter crime. In
fact, murder rates have gone down in many states after ending the death penalty
and that is exactly what happened in New Mexico once its capital punishment
program was abolished.
The death penalty is a failed government program that is antithetical to
conservative values. It unnecessarily imperils innocent people, costs far more
than the alternatives, and it fails to achieve its purported objectives of
protecting society and providing justice to murder victims' families.
Moreover, most conservatives are wary of government power. Should we really
trust the state with the authority to kill its citizens when its track record
is one of mistakes and sometimes abuse? No.
Martinez is well-intentioned but misinformed in her quest to bring back the
death penalty and she is clearly swimming against the current. Conservatives
repeal broken, wasteful government programs. We don't reinstate them.
(source: Guest Columnist; Marc Hyden is the National Advocacy Coordinator for
Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty----Albuquerque Journal)
USA:
Like Gissendaner, Wood case may change hearts on death penalty
Many Americans support capital punishment until they hear a story or meet
someone who makes it personal to them, anti-death penalty activist Melissa
Browning says.
"Everything changes when you see it through the eyes of someone who is
personally affected," said Browning, assistant professor of contextual ministry
at Mercer University's McAfee School of Theology in in Atlanta.
Some Baptists experienced that in June, Browning said, when Dakota Brookshire,
the son of Georgia execution victim Kelly Gissendaner, participated in a recent
death penalty workshop.
Browning and others have said the high-profile support Gissendaner received
before and after her September 2015 death by lethal injection caused many
people to rethink their long-time support for capital punishment.
And now the controversial case of Jeffrey Wood may have the same effect on
public opinion, said Wendell Griffen, a Baptist pastor and Arkansas judge.
Wood gained national media attention Aug. 19 when a Texas criminal appeals
court stayed his pending execution. News outlets began publishing and
broadcasting stories about the case.
Among the more shocking facts about Wood is that he landed on Texas' death row
without even being accused of murder. His crime was to wait in a pickup truck
in 1996 while a friend robbed a gas station and - without Wood knowing it -
killing an employee.
News reports also say faulty psychiatric evidence was presented against Wood at
his trial; he has an IQ below 80.
The details of Wood's case are putting the death penalty on trial as Americans
continue to "rethink our love affair" with capital punishment, Griffen said.
"Even incremental information can cause us to pause and ponder the injustice of
someone sentenced to die for an event for which they are not personally
responsible," he said.
Death sentences declining
That was the impact Gissendaner's execution had on many, said Eileen
Campbell-Reed, associate professor of practical theology at Central Baptist
Theological Seminary.
The Georgia woman's case helped transform Campbell-Reed from a longtime death
penalty opponent into one willing to take action. She helped with some of the
social media effort on Gissendaner's behalf and was inspired to organize the
related workshop.
She also moved into action after teaching religion in a Tennessee prison in
2014. That helped her see firsthand the evils of mass incarceration, she said.
Arguments for capital punishment usually are based on false assumptions,
Campbell-Reed said. Studies show the death penalty does not prevent homicides
and it is not the most dangerous of criminals who are on death row.
The death penalty is unfair and violates the teachings of Christ, she said.
"As a Baptist, I am not interested in the state killing on my behalf."
It may well be that the publicity surrounding Wood will help others feel the
same way.
"Cases like Jeff Wood and Kelly Gissendaner are highly questionable," she said.
"It moves some people to question, do we really want to keep doing this?"
There's plenty of evidence that the answer to that question is no, and that
support for capital punishment is waning.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, there were 28 executions
nationwide in 2015, compared to 35 in 2014 and 43 in 2012. The rate peaked at
98 in 1999.
Death sentences also are dropping. The center reported there were 49 last year
compared to 295 in 1998.
"The death penalty is losing favor across the U.S. and people are growing very
intolerant of it - especially when we hear more stories like Kelly Gissendaner
and Jeff Wood," Browning said.
Hearing those stories is critical, she said, because it transforms inmates from
statistics into human beings. Gissendaner's plea for life changed the hearts of
many in Atlanta.
"It changed the way a lot of people see the death penalty," Browning said.
(source: Baptist News)
***************
Don't kill Dylann Roof
On Nov. 7 in Charleston, South Carolina, a federal court will begin selecting a
jury in the death penalty prosecution of Dylann Roof, the accused killer of 9
African American worshipers at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church.
At first glance, the notion of a white man facing the death penalty for
murdering black people in the South - in a killing inspired by the murderer's
racist views - may seem like a marker of racial progress.
It isn't - and those who champion civil rights should not celebrate this
moment. Roof's crime was surely heinous, and his racism was repugnant. But
supporters of racial equality and equal treatment under the law should support
Roof's offer to plead guilty and serve a sentence of life without the
possibility of parole.
How can it be that a lifelong civil rights lawyer such as myself would take
this position? Because the death penalty cannot be separated from the issue of
racial discrimination, especially in the South. The history of slavery and
lynching left deep scars in the black community, and the current death penalty
does not fare much better. More than 8 in 10 of the executions carried out
since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976 have occurred in the South.
Blacks make up more than 1/3 of the 1,170 defendants executed in the region,
with most convicted of murdering a white victim.
Given the racial disproportion inherent in the modern application of the death
penalty, it is no surprise that most African Americans (including me) oppose
the death penalty, a position that would also disqualify most of them (and me)
from serving on the jury in Roof's case.
As a result, if the Roof trial continues on its present course, a jury will be
chosen that represents only part of the community. Those who oppose the death
penalty on principle will be struck from the pool of jurors by the presiding
judge.
Those who express doubts about the death penalty will likely be struck by the
prosecution. The resulting jury will have fewer blacks, fewer women and fewer
people of faiths that oppose the death penalty than a jury selected at random
from the residents of Charleston. That cannot be a desirable outcome in such an
emotional and racially charged case.
Neither would the adversarial proceeding necessitated by a refusal to accept
Roof's offer to plead guilty and accept a sentence of life without the
possibility of parole. Once the trial begins, there will be a detailed
recounting of the worst day this community has ever experienced. It will be the
prosecution's duty to portray this multiple murder as gruesomely as possible in
order to secure a death sentence. Family members may be called to the stand to
describe precisely what they went through that day and how it affected them.
Likewise, the defense will be obligated to do everything in its power to lessen
Roof's culpability. This is how our adversarial process works, but it is not
necessary here. Without the agony of trying to decide between life and death, a
sentencing proceeding that followed a guilty plea could pay tribute to the
victims, focusing on the value of their lives and the consequences of their
loss. All family members could voice their pain, regardless of their view on
the death penalty. It would not be an easy day, but far better than months of
focusing only on Roof, followed by years of appeals and uncertainty.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch has allowed this case to proceed as a capital
prosecution until now, but a new decision point is coming soon. Most criminal
cases settle before trial because it is in the best interests of the entire
community. That could happen here; the offer is already on the table. The
attorney general need only agree.
After the racially inspired attack on the parishioners of Mother Emanuel,as the
church is known, South Carolina took the bold and important step of permanently
lowering the Confederate battle flag from the state capitol grounds. This
powerful symbol - perceived by many as the embodiment of racism and
discrimination - had to go.
With the death penalty, the Justice Department now has the power to lower
another flag that has torn communities apart along racial lines. Capital
punishment in this case may appear to be just retribution for Roof's
unfathomable crime. Yet the real-life operation of the death penalty suggests
that its application to Roof would only pave the way for future cases in which
the death penalty is invoked to harm the very community on which he inflicted
so much pain.
(source: Opinion; Wade Henderson is president and chief executive of the
Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights----The Herald)
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