Oct. 27
NEW YORK:
Experts Debate the Death Penalty
Experts from the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide addressed the
death penalty as an ethically controversial issue and predicted that it will
gradually fall out of use going forward.
On Tuesday, the center brought a panel of experts to Myron Taylor Hall, where
they facilitated a discussion on the domestic and international implications of
the movement against the death penalty.
The use of capital punishment in the criminal justice system is severely
flawed, because it can be difficult to fairly discern who deserves the death
penalty, argued Denny LeBoeuf, the current director of the American Civil
Liberties Union's John Adams Project.
"To believe in the death penalty, you have to believe 2 things," LeBoeuf said.
"You must believe that there is a category of ... murderers who, by virtue [of]
their character and the crime they have committed, have no right to life."
Due to these moral concerns, the death penalty is less socially acceptable
today than it has been in the past, according to Delphine Lourtau, the
executive director of the Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide.
"There is a strong and very clear global trend not only towards outright
abolition of the death penalty, but also towards a decreased reliance on
capital punishment as a regular feature of criminal justice," Lourtau said.
"The 2nd big takeaway point ... is that increasingly the death penalty is only
applied by a small minority of states."
Lourtau explained that China performs more executions than the rest of the
world combined and said Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and the United
States "together represent over 90 % of the remaining executions."
Victor M. Uribe, a minister from the Mexican Foreign Service, also shared
insights on capital punishment in Mexico, a country which banned the practice
in 2005. Even before it was prohibited, the death penalty was "applied very
rarely," he said - the last military execution occurred in 1961.
"Mexico is absolutely opposed to the imposition of the death penalty in any
circumstance," Uribe said.
Looking forward, Sheri Lynn Johnson, the assistant director of the Cornell Law
School's Death Penalty Project, predicted that complete abolition of the
practice in the United States will take time.
"There are people now who are saying that the Supreme Court is going to strike
it down, and I'm not optimistic that's going to happen anytime soon," Johnson
said. "What I do think we are going to see and have been seeing is abolition -
or maybe not abolition, but continued decrease in the willingness of most
states, actually all states, to use the death penalty."
Other panelists concurred that the road towards successful elimination of the
death penalty looks promising. Lourtau pointed out that the United States is
the only country in North, Central, or South America that has performed an
execution in the past 7 years.
International pressure will also contribute to a move away from the use of
capital punishment in the United States, according to LeBoeuf.
"The death penalty is increasingly seen as a human rights issue, not a criminal
justice issue," LeBoeuf said.
The Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide - the 1st of its kind in the
United States - was established in 2011 to coordinate efforts to end practice
of the death penalty through research and renewed awareness, according to the
center's official website.
"Cornell is really an ideal place to ideal place to house this center because
it has a unique concentration of faculty that have spent decades defending
people facing the death penalty," said Sandra Babcock, the center's founder and
faculty director.
(source: The Cornell Daily Sun)
ALABAMA:
Alabama inmate asks for execution stay
An Alabama inmate is asking an appellate court to stay his execution scheduled
for next month.
Tommy Arthur asked the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to stay his execution
until it hears his challenge to Alabama's lethal injection process.
Arthur is scheduled to be put to death Nov. 3 for the 1982 murder-for-hire of
Muscle Shoals businessman Troy Wicker.
A federal judge in July dismissed Arthur's challenge that Alabama's lethal
injection procedure causes unconstitutional pain and suffering. His attorneys
appealed, arguing the judge prematurely dismissed the case after misapplying a
requirement for inmates to name an alternate execution method.
Arthur had been scheduled for execution on 6 previous occasions, but was given
court-issued reprieves. The state asked for an expedited execution date after
the judge dismissed Arthur's challenge.
(source: Associated Press)
OHIO:
High court declines to postpone Hoffner execution ---- Buried victim alive in
1993
The Ohio Supreme Court Wednesday declined to postpone the execution date for
convicted murderer Timothy Hoffner.
Hoffner, now 44, was convicted in Lucas County Common Pleas Court of aggravated
murder, kidnapping, and aggravated robbery for taking Christopher Hammer, 22,
to a wooded area in Sylvania Township and burying him alive in a shallow grave
in 1993.
His execution currently is scheduled for May 29, 2019, and his co-defendant,
Archie Dixon, is to be executed March 20, 2019.
Supreme Court Justices William O'Neill and Paul Pfeifer, the court's 2 critics
of Ohio's death penalty, both cast dissenting votes on the motion to stay
Hoffner's execution.
(source: Toledo Blade)
INDIANA:
Lawyers continue to prep for Blount death penalty trial
With a trial date four months away, attorneys involved in the capital murder
case of a man charged with killing a Gary police officer appeared in court
Wednesday for a status hearing.
Lead defense counsel Rich Wolter Jr., said discovery continues, and additional
depositions were scheduled for later Wednesday as both sides prepare for the
trial of Carl Le'Ellis Blount, 28, who has pleaded not guilty to a murder
charge filed in the July 2014 shooting of Gary police Patrolman Jeffrey
Westerfield, 47, a 19-year veteran.
4 members of the Lake County Jail Special Operations Response Team provided
extra security during the hearing, which lasted less about 5 minutes.
Lake Superior Court Judge Samuel Cappas scheduled a hearing for 1 p.m. Nov. 17
to address issues related to potential juror qualifications.
Jury selection is scheduled to begin Jan. 30, 2017, and openings statements and
the presentation of evidence are scheduled to begin Feb. 27, 2017.
Cappas has also scheduled a status hearing for 10 a.m. Dec. 2. The judge has
said he will rule by that date or earlier on the defense team's challenge to
the constitutionality of Indiana's death penalty statute.
Westerfield was found dead with several gunshot wounds in his police car on
26th Avenue and Van Buren Place. Westerfield had been following up on a
domestic disturbance involving Blount and a girlfriend, which was reported as a
disturbance at 3:47 a.m. July 6, 2014, in the 2300 block of McKinley Street,
Gary. Westerfield had radioed another officer for a description of Blount,
court records state.
About 2 hours later, a concerned citizen contacted police after seeing
Westerfield dead in his police car.
(source: Post-Tribune)
MISSOURI:
State Rep. wants death penalty as option for repeat sex offenders
It's the one issue in Jefferson City that State Representative Randy Pietzman
says nobody likes to talk about.
"This is not a popular topic to talk about if you're just trying to get
re-elected," he said.
But that's not going to stop him from tackling it head on because he says it
concerns the safety of every Missouri child.
"We need to change something. We need to do something to curb this problem," he
said.
And it's especially relevant for Lincoln County, where the Republican is
running unopposed for his 2nd term this November.
The rural county, about an hour to the northwest of St. Louis, has a
disproportionately high number of sex offenders and sex crimes against
children.
"If you compare us with other counties in the surrounding area, per capita, we
have substantially more sex offenders," said Detective Sean Flynn with the
Lincoln County Sheriff's Office.
"There's something attracting them here," Pietzman said.
But whatever the reason for the unwanted popularity, it's having an impact on
multiple levels.
"It seems these crimes are impacting people across the socioeconomic spectrum,"
Flynn said.
Five on Your Side first exposed this problem last fall.
We discovered at the time that 1 in about 300 people in the county were on the
state's mandatory sex offender registry. Some were convicted in other states
and relocated to Missouri.
1/3 of the total case load at the sheriff's office was also made up of various
sex crimes, including incest.
Now, fast forward to this year.
"It's impacted the department in a way that my time is monopolized by this.
Really, we're at the point where we need more people to investigate," Flynn
said.
And some in law enforcement go a step further to say the situation might be
beyond repair.
Captain Michael Merkel with the Lincoln County Sheriff's Office said, "I don't
think stopping it is an option. I think slowing it down is something we could
do."
One way of going about that, he said, is to strengthen the penalties statewide
for what's considered to be some of the most heinous crimes imaginable.
"It's not acceptable that somebody can pass a bad check and be punished more
harshly than someone who has victimized a child," Merkel said.
Capt. Merkel also suggests improving their ability to investigate child sex
crimes. Right now, detectives in Missouri can only interview juvenile victims
if their parents give permission.
And the problem?
"What we run into is we have a parent or family member who's a suspect. And
they're the only ones who can authorize the interview," Merkel explained.
It's a loophole in state law that Rep. Pietzman said could help his county, and
the state, if it was closed.
"We're talking about our kids. If the punishment doesn't match the crime, then
it's going to keep continuing," he said.
That's why, following our initial report, Pietzman is working on a number of
reforms, including one that would make the death penalty a possible punishment
for repeat offenders.
"That seems cruel when you think about it," he said, "but you got to think
about what these guys have done. We???re talking about grown men having sex
with kids as young as 3- or 4-years-old."
There are several cases and states that have pushed for similar measures, but
capital punishment in America right now is almost exclusively reserved for the
crime of murder.
Pietzman said at the very least, he hopes to start a conversation in the
legislature that some in law enforcement say is long overdue.
In fact, Missouri has a number of new sex crime laws that are set to go on the
books in January. Pietzman would also like to see victims have more say in any
plea deal offered to their offenders.
"Any legislation that harshens penalties against those types of offenders, I'm
all for," Merkel said.
(source: KSDK news)
OKLAHOMA:
Oklahoma to vote on death penalty----Capital punishment is on hold in the state
after a series of botched executions
This November, voters in the state of Oklahoma will not only help choose the
next US president, but also decide a ballot measure with big implications for
the future of the death penalty.
Capital punishment is on hold in the southwestern state after a series of
botched executions. With lethal injection drugs becoming harder to acquire,
there are doubts whether Oklahoma can resume executions unless a new method is
approved.
The ballot measure, known as State Question 776, aims to head off any attempts
to end capital punishment by asking voters to enshrine it in the state
constitution and empower legislators to decide the best method of execution.
"We're allowing the people, who overwhelmingly favour the death penalty in
Oklahoma, to show certain entities that they want this," said state
representative Mike Ritze, an Oklahoma Republican who was one of the proposal's
authors.
The measure is expected to pass on November 8, enjoying over 70 % support
according to a June poll.
But there have been a lot of questions raised in the last several years over
the state's death penalty.
Since the US Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976, Oklahoma has
executed 112 people, the most per capita of any state and 2nd overall only to
Texas' 538, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Executions in Oklahoma came to a screeching halt in 2015, after a series of
blunders.
The most serious was in 2014, when the lethal injection execution of Clayton
Lockett left him writhing in pain, due to an improperly placed intravenous
tube. There were 2 subsequent instances of mix-ups involving drugs used in
lethal injections.
The state's attorney general, Scott Pruitt, temporarily halted executions while
the Corrections Department, under new leadership, reviews its failures and
establishes new protocols.
The question now is whether voters are becoming more willing to consider
alternatives to the death penalty in the staunchly Republican, Bible Belt
state.
Death penalty opponents are hopeful that voters are shifting their beliefs,
because another summer poll found 53 % of Oklahomans would approve getting rid
of executions, if those sentenced to death were instead given life in prison
without the possibility of parole.
Decreasing support for the death penalty "is the national direction," said
Abraham Bonowitz, an opponent of capital punishment who is organising the
opposition to Oklahoma's ballot initiative. He believes the November election
can be an important barometer.
"If we can do our small part in Oklahoma by simply making sure that the vote is
not as popular as the proponents of State Question 776 expect it to be, then
that demonstrates less support," said Bonowitz, who lives in Columbus, Ohio.
The ballot measure comes at a time when 36 US states have paused executions, or
stopped them altogether, according to the Death Penalty Information Centre.
This November, a ballot measure in California - which has 741 death row inmates
- might end the practice in that state. Conversely, Nebraska voters will decide
whether to restore the death penalty.
A key factor is the pharmaceutical industry's mounting opposition to supplying
lethal injection drugs, causing a supply shortage.
States have considered a range of alternatives, from firing squads in Utah to
electrocution in Tennessee, said Amber Widgery, a policy specialist with the
National Conference of State Legislatures.
Oklahoma is considering execution by nitrogen gas, but the broader question
about capital punishment is being discussed along religious lines.
"In Oklahoma, we're basically a very faith-based, biblically orientated
people," said Ritze, a family physician and Southern Baptist deacon who has
served as an execution witness.
"I think we realise that God allows us to judge actions."
But Connie Johnson, a former state senator and longtime member of the Church of
the Living God, a Pentecostal congregation, sees it differently.
"God forgave us for our sins," said Johnson. She herself says she forgave the
man who killed her brother in 1981.
Johnson leads a group against the ballot proposal, which she believes would
circumvent traditional checks and balances between the executive, legislative
and judicial branches of government by undermining the role of the courts to
interpret Oklahoma law.
Some religious leaders, including the state's top Roman Catholic clergyman,
have come out in opposition to the measure.
"Today we have non-lethal means to punish offenders and protect people's
safety," Oklahoma City Archbishop Paul S. Coakley said in a statement.
"The debate should not be 'how' to kill those who commit heinous crimes but
whether we 'should.'"
If the ballot measure passes, Oklahoma would become the fourth state to put
support for capital punishment in its state constitution, joining California,
Oregon and Florida, according to Bonowitz.
(source: Gulf News)
**************************
Supreme Court Sets Aside Death Sentence For Triple Murderer
In a brief unsigned opinion handed down Oct. 11, the U.S. Supreme Court has
thrown out the death sentence an Oklahoma jury gave Shaun Michael Bosse after
convicting him in 2010 of the 1st-degree murders of his former girlfriend and
her 2 young children.
Bosse fatally stabbed 25-year-old Katrina Griffin and her 8-year-old son in her
mobile home, then set it on fire, causing her 6-year-old daughter, whom he had
locked inside a closet, to die from burns and smoke inhalation.
Over Bosse's objection, during the sentencing phase of the 2012 trial, the
judge allowed Griffin's parents and a stepparent to testify on the impact the
crime had on them, give assessments of Bosse's character, and offer their
recommendation on his sentence. All three relatives urged the jury to sentence
Bosse to death.
In its brief, unsuccessfully urging the Supreme Court not to take Bosse's
appeal and to leave his death sentence undisturbed, Oklahoma argued that there
was no need for it to exclude the relatives' testimony, despite the Supreme
Court's 1987 decision in Booth v. Maryland, which held the Eighth Amendment is
violated by such testimony.
The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals had upheld Bosse's sentence, saying it
viewed the Booth decision's bar on such testimony as having been overruled by
the 1991 Supreme Court decision in Payne v. Tennessee. The Payne case allowed
testimony about victims' personal characteristics and the emotional impact the
crime had on other persons during the sentencing phase of potential capital
punishment cases.
The Payne decision explicitly disclaimed any effect on the basis of the Booth
case, of recommendations by relatives on what punishment the defendant should
receive, since that issue was not raised in the Payne case.
The Oklahoma court had also noted that 15 witnesses - Bosse's relatives,
friends and other acquaintances - had offered testimony urging that he not
receive a death sentence, and questioned the fairness of excluding testimony by
Griffin's relatives.
Besides arguing the Supreme Court's Booth decision had been overruled by the
Payne decision, the state also argued that it did not need to follow a
precedent by its federal circuit court, the Oklahoma City-based 10th Circuit,
which forbade relatives' recommendations to the jury in potential death penalty
cases. Further, it argued that an automatic review of death sentences required
under state law would be enough to ensure there was no unfairness to Bosse.
But the Supreme Court, in its opinion in Bosse v. Oklahoma, said the state had
unconstitutionally allowed the relatives to make recommendations to the jury on
what sentence should be imposed on Bosse. It also made clear the Payne decision
had not eroded the Booth decision's bar on relatives' sentencing
recommendations, and reminded the state court it remains bound by Supreme Court
rulings until the high court says they no longer apply.
The high court sent the case back to the state appeals court to consider what
sentence Bosse would have received if the impermissible testimony from the
relatives had not be given. That raises the possibility the state court, on
review, might decide that the relatives' recommendations made no difference in
the jury's decision, and opt to retain the death sentence for Bosse.
(source: Christopher Zoukis is the author of College for Convicts: The Case for
Higher Education in American Prisons (McFarland & Co., 2014) and Prison
Education Guide (Prison Legal News Publishing, 2016)----Huffington Post)
NEBRASKA:
Beatrice 6 member says threat of death penalty persuaded her to confess to a
slaying she didn't commit
Ada JoAnn Taylor says law enforcement authorities told her nearly 30 years ago
she was in line to become the 1st woman ever sentenced to death row in
Nebraska.
She was 25 and suffering a mental breakdown in a Beatrice jail cell, more than
1,000 miles from her North Carolina home. So when the prosecutor agreed to take
the death penalty off the table in exchange for a guilty plea and her
cooperation, Taylor and her court-appointed attorney decided it was the best
option.
On Tuesday, Taylor said the decision to give a false confession may have saved
her life, but it cost her more than 19 1/2 years of freedom. She also lost
custody of her baby son and couldn't attend funerals for loved ones who died
while she was locked away for a crime she didn't commit.
Capital punishment factored heavily in a case that last summer resulted in a
$28 million civil verdict against Gage County and 2 of its sheriff's deputies,
Taylor said.
"Using the threat of execution to coerce a confession happens in Nebraska and
is wrong," she said. "The threat of the death penalty increases the odds that
innocent people will end up in prison."
Taylor is featured on a new television advertisement produced by the anti-death
penalty group Retain a Just Nebraska. The ad is hitting the airwaves 2 weeks
before voters decide whether to retain the death penalty repeal passed in 2015
by Nebraska lawmakers over the veto of Gov. Pete Ricketts.
The governor has been a major financial benefactor of Nebraskans for the Death
Penalty, which gathered more than 143,000 valid signatures to force a
referendum on Nov. 8. The pro-death penalty group has argued that the state
needs to keep capital punishment for the most heinous killers and to protect
the safety of prison workers from inmates who would otherwise have nothing to
lose.
In response to critics who say the death penalty can result in false
confessions, Bob Evnen of Nebraskans for the Death Penalty pointed to cases in
which it has induced admissions of guilt and saved the state the cost of murder
trials. He also mentioned a case where a killer led authorities to a victim's
remains after prosecutors agreed not to seek a death sentence.
"I think the chance of the death penalty inducing a guilty plea when there is
no other evidence they committed the crime is highly, highly unlikely," said
Evnen, a Lincoln attorney.
Jeff Patterson, one of the lawyers who sued Gage County on behalf of those
known as the Beatrice 6, said Tuesday that the possibility of execution played
a role in the guilty or no-contest pleas by 5 of the former murder defendants.
Joseph E. White was the only defendant not to plead guilty, and he was
convicted of 1st-degree murder.
At White's sentencing hearing, the prosecutor argued that White deserved the
death penalty, although it wasn't possible because of the plea bargains offered
to the other defendants. The presiding judge sentenced White to life in prison.
"And that's just how close we as Nebraskans came to having the blood of an
innocent man on our hands," Patterson said.
White, who died in a workplace accident 2 years after his release, also
persuaded the Nebraska Supreme Court to order DNA testing of crime scene
evidence preserved from the apartment of the victim, Helen Wilson, 68, of
Beatrice. The tests found no matches with any of the 6 but did lead
investigators to a former Beatrice man who died in Oklahoma City in 1992.
Taylor, White, Tom Winslow, Kathy Gonzalez, Deb Shelden and James Dean served
close to 77 years combined after the wrongful convictions.
During a federal civil rights trial last summer, lawyers for Gage County argued
that allegations of death-penalty threats were raised by the plaintiffs only
after they decided to sue. In hours of taped confessions, none of the
investigators is seen making threats of execution.
But not all of the investigative interviews were recorded. And the plaintiffs
testified that the prosecutor, sheriff and other authorities brought up the
electric chair in informal conversations around the jail.
The jury awarded $28 million to the 6 after finding Gage County and its
investigators liable for a reckless investigation and manufacturing false
evidence. Payment of the judgment is pending an appeal by the county.
(source: Scottsbluff Star Herald)
CALIFORNIA:
Is capital punishment a deterrent?----Fewer arson wildfires have been set
locally in the decade since Raymond Lee Oyler's arrest, but hard to prove
causation.
Beaumont mechanic Raymond Lee Oyler is believed to be the 1st person in the
United States convicted of 1st-degree murder for setting a wildland arson fire.
In 2009, a Riverside County jury found Oyler guilty and a judge sentenced him
to death for touching off the 2006 Esperanza fire, which killed five U.S.
Forest Service firefighters in the San Jacinto Mountains. Oyler is on death row
but is appealing the case.
Has Oyler's conviction and punishment deterred would-be wildland arsonists?
Although the number of arson wildfires has decreased significantly in the San
Bernardino National Forest since Oyler's arrest, it's difficult to say with
certainty why more fires haven't been set.
'You can't prove a negative," said Riverside County District Attorney Mike
Hestrin, who as a deputy district attorney prosecuted Oyler.
There's no consensus among those who study crime about how much the death
penalty deters the most serious offenses. Violent homicides that could merit a
death sentence continue.
Rickie Lee Fowler was convicted of murder in August 2012 and sentenced to death
5 months later for setting the Old fire in San Bernardino County, which a jury
ruled caused 5 people to suffer fatal heart attacks. That fire was set in 2003,
3 years before Esperanza.
Officials at the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit organization
that analyzes issues related to capital punishment, said they have not heard of
any subsequent wildland arson death penalty cases.
"I still believe that the death penalty is a deterrent. And to what extent is
difficult to determine," Hestrin said.
The number of arson fires started per month in the San Bernardino National
Forest since the Esperanza fire is less than 1/2 the number started in the
decade before the fire, U.S. Forest Service statistics show. The total number
of fires is down only slightly.
Cal Fire statistics on wildland arsons were not available. But Cal Fire
Battalion Chief Tim Chavez said arson fires have almost disappeared in the past
few years from the San Gorgonio Pass, where prosecutors said Oyler started 23
blazes culminating in the Esperanza fire.
"Vigorous prosecution of the law deters crime, and I think arson would
certainly qualify as that. ... In law enforcement, we've made a statement that
we are not going to tolerate these arsonists," Hestrin said.
Academic studies indicate that the threat of incarceration and prison
conditions could be more of a deterrent of all crimes than the death penalty
itself.
A 2009 study by the University of Colorado reported that 88 % of criminologists
surveyed said they believe the death penalty is not a deterrent.
Recent real-life examples provide evidence that not all criminals fear the
consequences of committing a capital offense.
This month, 4 law enforcement officers statewide, including 2 in Palm Springs,
have been shot to death.
3 suspects are in custody and could face the death penalty.
(source: Press-Enterprise)
*****************
Death Penalty Sought in Killing of 2 Palm Springs Officers
Prosecutors say they'll seek the death penalty against a man charged with the
shooting deaths of 2 Palm Springs police officers in an ambush earlier this
month.
The Riverside County District Attorney on Wednesday announced his intention to
seek the death penalty against 26-year-old John Felix.
He has pleaded not guilty to murder, attempted murder and weapons charges.
He's being held without bail in the shooting deaths of 27-year-old Officer
Lesley Zerebny and 63-year-old Officer Jose "Gil" Vega.
Zerebny was a rookie officer just back from maternity leave. Vega was just
months away from retirement.
Prosecutors say the officers were responding to a domestic disturbance call on
Oct. 8 when Felix opened fire through a metal screen door at his family's home.
Prosecutors say Felix is a gang member.
(source: Associated Press)
*********************
California's death penalty is 'outmoded and unworkable'
As one of the handful of lawyers in this community to have tried multiple
death-penalty cases, and to have represented death-row inmates in
post-conviction proceedings, I was gratified to see the editorial board's
endorsement of Proposition 62 (abolition) and rejection of the fixes proposed
by advocates of Proposition 66.
As the bipartisan California Commission on the Administration of Justice
recognized in 2008, when it adopted then Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald
George's depiction of the system as "dysfunctional," capital punishment is
outmoded and unworkable. Then Gov. Peter Wilson introduced a series of costly
reforms in 1998, but they failed to solve systemic flaws, and there is no
reason to believe more "reforms" will work.
I would add to your candid summary of the issues that abolition would put
California in the same company as 19 other states and the 110-nation World
Coalition Against the Death Penalty, which includes Mexico, Canada, the
European Union and the United Kingdom. Life in prison serves valid penological
interests, and abolition should save an estimated $3 billion over the next 20
years. The time is right to end the cycle of violence.
Phillip H. Cherney, Visalia
(source: Letter to the Editor, Fresno Bee)
USA:
Solitary confinement drains our moral character
Over 125 years ago, in a death penalty case called In re Medley, 134 U.S. 160,
170-71 (1890), the United States Supreme Court wrote that solitary confinement
was a "further terror and peculiar mark of infamy." The Court described it
further as an "additional punishment of the most important and painful
character."
Alluding to this ancient recognition of solitary confinement's mind-destroying,
soul-sapping, and otherwise dehumanizing effects - a view shared today by every
reputable mental health professional, scientist, and reasonable, justice-loving
person - Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote (in his 2015 concurrence in Davis v.
Ayala, 135 S. Ct. 2187, 2209-10): "The human toll wrought by extended terms of
isolation long has been understood, and questioned, by writers and
commentators." Kennedy's opinion highlights the unsurprising conclusion that,
"research still confirms what this Court suggested over a century ago: Years on
end of near total isolation exact a terrible price."
Putting aside Justice Kennedy's eloquent prose, perhaps National Public Radio's
Brian Mann best sums up this country's odious use of solitary confinement. In
his article, "How Solitary Confinement Became Hardwired in U.S. Prisons." Mann
writes, "one of the first things you learn when you study the history of
solitary confinement: People have had deep doubts about isolating inmates for a
really long time." And yet, despite these doubts, as Mann details, the United
States has nonetheless had a long, shameful, enduring history of savagely
segregating our poorest, most vulnerable citizens, disproportionally people of
color, in cells.
Proof of this phenomenon is found in Selma director Ava DuVernay's new
documentary 13th, deftly linking the mass incarceration of minorities with the
express language of the Constitution's 13th Amendment eliminating slavery,
"except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly
convicted."
As Kenneth Turan recaps in his review of "13th" for The Los Angeles Times,
President Obama's voice can be heard at the film's outset saying, "So let's
look at the statistics. The United States is home to 5 % of the world's
population but 25 % of the world's prisoners. Think about that." The film then
"follows that statistic with another, equally unsettling one: African Americans
make up 6.5 % of the American population but 40.2 % of the prison populace.
While a white male has a 1 in 17 chance of ending up behind bars, for black
males it is 1 in 3."
Though we bill ourselves as "the land of the free and the home of the brave,"
the United States continues (as it has for over a century) to incarcerate, in
solitary confinement, an astounding number of men, women, even children.
Writing for The Smithsonian in February of 2014, Joseph Stromberg offered a
terrifying visual of this. Stromberg wrote: "Picture Metlife Stadium, the New
Jersey venue that hosted the Super Bowl. It seats 82,556 people in total,
making it the largest stadium in the NFL. Imagine the crowd it takes to fill
that enormous stadium. That, give or take a thousand, is the number of men and
women held in solitary confinement in prisons across the U.S."
The sad and undiscussed truth is that a great many of these citizens are
afflicted with organic brain injury and/or mental illness that has long gone
untreated. Their symptoms are greatly exacerbated (sometimes to the point of
madness) by their forced nomadic, stimuli-deprived environments.
To properly gauge the level of their suffering, one need only contemplate the
words of South Africa's legendary anti-apartheid revolutionary, Nelson Mandela.
Locked up for 27 years as a political prisoner, Mandela is quoted as saying
about the time he spent in solitary confinement that "nothing was more
dehumanizing than isolation from human companionship."
Mandela is also known for saying that, "no one truly knows a nation until one
has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its
highest citizens, but its lowest ones." By this measure, until the abominable
practice of solitary confinement is completely eradicated from our prisons, the
United States' justice system will always be a disappointment.
(source: Stephen Cooper, Baltimore Post Examiner)
********************
Drop the death penalty for Dylann Roof
In authorizing the death-penalty prosecution of Dylann Roof, the white man
accused of murdering 9 people in a racially motivated assault at a historic
African American church in Charleston, S.C., Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch
cited the "nature of the alleged crime and the resulting harm." There can be no
disagreement about the merciless horror that occurred June 17, 2015, or about
the evidence of Mr. Roof's culpability. But we question whether justice is best
served by pressing ahead with not 1 but 2 trials seeking the death penalty in
the face of Mr. Roof's offer to plead guilty in exchange for life in prison
without possibility of release.
Some of the people whose lives were tragically touched by the events last year
also question the government's decision. The remarkable display of grace that
characterized Charleston's response to the shooting - including from family
members of victims who publicly forgave the 21-year-old gunman days after the
massacre - should cause federal and state prosecutors to rethink the wisdom of
pressing ahead with costly trials and potentially protracted appeals that will
cause the families and friends of victims to relive their trauma.
Mr. Roof is set to go on trial Nov. 7 on 33 federal charges in connection with
the mass shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. It will take
an estimated 2 to 3 weeks to seat a jury and then two to three weeks for the
trial and deliberations. Assuming a guilty verdict, there will be an additional
3 to 4 weeks as the jury decides the penalty. Then, in a jurisdictional pileup
over the death penalty, South Carolina plans to go to trial with its own
charges.
It seems senseless. Trials involving the death penalty are expensive;
imprisoning Mr. Roof for life would cost taxpayers less. Studies show that
death-penalty trials make it more difficult for survivors and relatives of
victims to heal and recover. 3 adults and 2 children survived the attacks;
imagine what they might have to endure as these trials drag on through the end
of the year.
"Racially motivated violence such as this is the original domestic terrorism,"
Ms. Lynch said in explaining why the death penalty is appropriate. True. But
some of the most powerful arguments against Mr. Roof's execution are from
prominent civil rights leaders. Wade Henderson, president and chief executive
of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, wrote a Post op-ed
recalling the connection between the death penalty and racial discrimination
that results in disproportionately more blacks being put to death. A poll by
the University of South Carolina found a majority of black South Carolinians
favor life without parole - not death - for Mr. Roof.
We urge Ms. Lynch to bring a speedy and final resolution to the federal case by
accepting Mr. Roof's guilty plea. The state should then drop its prosecution
and let Mr. Roof be locked away for the rest of his sorry life.
(source: Editorial, Washington Post)
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