May 23
OHIO:
Ohio should do the right thing, not execute those with mental illness
As Ohio takes a break from executions while questions surrounding the lethal
drugs used in the process are hashed out, it’s a good time to consider ending
execution of people who have serious mental illness.
Separate bills to enact such a ban are sitting in committees in the Ohio Senate
and House of Representatives. They deserve consideration, and we hope they’ll
see hearings soon.
Gov. Mike DeWine’s decision earlier this year to pause executions is in line
with the nation’s changing view of capital punishment. DeWine, a former
prosecutor generally regarded as a law-and-order politician, was responding to
a U.S. magistrate’s opinion that the drugs currently used in executions could
cause “senseless pain and needless suffering.” DeWine ordered that executions
be halted until the state can find a drug or combination of drugs that a court
would find constitutional.
Americans’ views on the matter, as measured by Gallup Inc., have evolved over
the decades. In 1960, 53% supported the death penalty and 36% opposed it. As
crime rates rose, support for capital punishment also rose and peaked at 80% in
1994. By October 2017 it had declined to 55% supporting and 41% opposing.
That change is attributed in part to the growing use of DNA evidence and its
revelation of wrongful convictions of innocent defendants. But another key
factor has been growing research into and understanding of mental illness and
its role in criminal behavior.
People with mental illness should face consequences for harming others, and of
course the public must be protected from people whose behavior is dangerous,
whatever its motivation. But neither of those requires imposing the ultimate,
irreversible penalty on someone who was too impaired to understand and control
his actions or who is too ill after the fact to help defend himself in a trial.
Unfortunately, some research suggests that lingering misunderstanding and
stigma associated with mental illness sometimes causes jurors to see the
mentally ill as more deserving of capital punishment rather than less.
Barring execution of the mentally ill would fulfill a recommendation of the
Ohio Supreme Court Joint Task Force on the Administration of the Death Penalty,
which completed its work in 2014.
If they want to avoid the moral catastrophe of an innocent person being killed
in the public’s name, lawmakers also should consider other recommendations of
the task force. For example, one would take the death penalty off the table in
cases where prosecutors lack definitive evidence such as biological or DNA
evidence linking the defendant to the crime, a videotaped voluntary confession
or a video recording conclusively implicating the defendant.
For now, though, ending executions of people too ill to understand their
actions should be an uncontroversial choice. Legislators of both parties have
supported such a ban for years. Sponsors of the current pair of bills include
Reps. Brett Hudson Hillyer of Uhrichsville and Bill Seitz of Cincinnati and
Sen. John Eklund of Chardon on the Republican side, along with Sen. Sandra
Williams of Cleveland and Rep. Casey Weinstein of Hudson for the Democrats.
Some prosecutors oppose the change, saying courts would be overwhelmed by
petitions for reconsideration from death-row inmates who wouldn’t qualify.
If so, that’s unfortunate but an acceptable price to pay for a morally
repugnant practice that never should have been Ohio policy.
(source: Editorial, Columbus Dispatch)
INDIANA:
Dansby pleads guilty in quadruple killing, avoids death penalty
A Fort Wayne man who was facing the death penalty in a September 2016 quadruple
killing has pleaded guilty.
Marcus Dansby, 23, has pleaded guilty 4 counts of murder and another charge of
attempted murder related to the Sept. 11, 2016, killings of 37-year-old
Consuela Arrington; 18-year-old Traeven Harris; 18-year-old Dajahiona Arrington
and her full-term baby named A.J. at a home at 3006 Holton Ave.
Fourteen-year-old Trinity Hairston was also shot and stabbed in the melee, but
she would make a recovery.
He'll face a minimum of 205 years when he is sentenced July 25-26. Prosecutors
will dismiss the death penalty against him.
Police were called to the Holton Avenue home around 4 a.m. that Sept. 11, 2016.
Officers arrived to find the victims bodies stabbed and shot, and Dansby
covered in blood, leaning over the couch, crying and asking for help, according
to an affidavit.
On him, police found a large blood-soaked knife with a broken handle, the
affidavit said.
During an interview with police, Dansby immediately told the investigator, "I
am still hearing gunshots," and reportedly asked, "Did anyone survive?"
according to the affidavit.
Dansby had cuts on his left hand and initially told police he did know where
the cuts came from. Later he remembered "his cat scratched him," according to
the affidavit.
Police said that Dansby and Dajahiona Arrington had been in a relationship, but
the pair had separated after the woman became pregnant with another man's
child. A DNA test confirmed, though, that Dansby was the father of the unborn
child.
In January 2017, the Allen County prosecutor filed a motion to seek the death
penalty against Dansby.
Dansby was set to stand trial in October. The proceedings were scheduled for
the entire month of October.
(source: WANE news)
SOUTH DAKOTA:
State files motion to seek execution warrant for Charles Rhines
The state is taking steps to move forward with the execution of a Rapid City
man who has been on death row for decades.
The state of South Dakota on May 14 filed a motion for a warrant of execution
of Charles Russell Rhines, who was convicted of 1st-degree murder and
3rd-degree burglary in the 1992 stabbing death of a doughnut shop employee in
Rapid City during a botched robbery.
The hearing on the motion is scheduled for June 25 at 10:15 a.m. in the
Pennington County Courthouse before Judge Robert A. Mandel, according to the
Attorney General's office.
Rhines, 62, has filed multiple appeals that have reached the U.S. Supreme
Court, claiming the jury gave him the death penalty because some jurors'
anti-gay attitudes led them to that life in prison wouldn't be a punishment.
The Supreme Court in April declined to take up his latest appeal.
The American Civil Liberties Union is speaking out against the execution,
asking that Gov. Kristi Noem grant him clemency.
“We know that bias against Mr. Rhines because he is a gay man factored into the
jury’s decision to sentence him to death,” the ACLU wrote in its letter to
Noem. “Mr. Rhines should not be executed on the basis of his sexual
orientation.
"Even against this backdrop, sentencing a man to death because of his sexual
orientation stands out as cruel and inhumane. It violates the basic guarantees
of dignity and liberty that the people in South Dakota hold dear.”
According to an email statement from Noem's office: “The Board of Pardons and
Paroles reviewed the application for clemency by Charles Rhines on December 12,
2018 and his application was denied. I agree with the Board of Pardons and
Parole’s decision.”
(source: Sioux Falls Argus Leader)
CALIFORNIA:
Forensic pathologist details grisly manner of death in killing of 5 in Modesto
home
When investigators entered a 2-story house on Nob Hill Court in east Modesto
nearly 4 years ago, they discovered 5 bodies and a grisly crime scene.
Amanda Crews and Anna Brown Romero had been brutally stabbed to death. And
6-month-old Rachael, 6-year-old Elizabeth and 5-year-old Esmeralda Navarro had
been suffocated with plastic bags fastened around their necks.
Stanislaus County forensic pathologist Sung-Ook Baik testified Tuesday that
Crews and Romero died from blood loss as a result of multiple stab wounds to
their heads, faces, necks and extremities. They also suffered superficial cuts
on their hands, consistent with defensive wounds.
Baik also said during a preliminary hearing for Martin Martinez that the
children died from asphyxia.
Martinez, 34, faces 5 counts of murder in the deaths of his girlfriend, Crews;
her 2 daughters, Rachel and Elizabeth; his mother, Romero; and his niece,
Esmeralda. Testimony resumed this week in a preliminary hearing to determine
whether there’s enough evidence for Martinez to stand trial.
Martinez has remained in custody in Stanislaus County Jail since the 5 people
were found dead inside Crews’ east Modesto home on July 18, 2015.
In a separate case, Martinez has been ordered to stand trial on charges of
murder and child abuse in the Oct. 2, 2014, death of Crews’ 2-year-old son,
Christopher Ripley. The trial in Christopher’s death has not been scheduled.
That case has been set aside, for now, as the case in the 2015 killings moves
forward.
The preliminary hearing in this case began in August 2017 with testimony that
indicated that Martinez had a $2 bill with Crews’ blood when he was taken into
custody in San Jose.
Baik conducted autopsies on the 5 slain over 2 days. He testified that a stab
wound to right side of Crews’ neck cut her jugular vein and trachea.
On Martinez’s mother, the forensic pathologist found her jugular vein and a
carotid artery had been cut from a stab wound.
On the children, Baik found no visible signs of injuries during an external
examination of their bodies.
Baik found on the 3 girls evidence of pulmonary edema and cerebral edema, or
swelling in their lungs and brains. These are signs of asphyxiation, Baik said.
Testimony in the hearing was expected to continue Wednesday and could end
Thursday afternoon, before Stanislaus Superior Court Judge Ricardo Córdova
issues his ruling.
The Stanislaus County District Attorney’s Office is seeking the death penalty
against Martinez in the 5 slayings.
(source: Modesto Bee)
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Keeping the Faith: The former chaplain and our present governor
After 10 years as chaplain at Alcatraz Federal Prison and then 20 years at San
Quentin State Prison, the Rev. Byron Eshelman retired to the hills of
Occidental and did some preaching in the churches of western Sonoma County. At
Alcatraz he ministered to the notorious gangster Al Capone and the terrible
criminal Robert Stroud, who in solitary confinement observed the birds outside
his barred window, wrote a book about them and became the Birdman of Alcatraz.
A 1962 movie about him stared Burt Lancaster in the title role.
Byron was on the smallish side with wavy hair that stayed dark late into life.
When on the job, he favored black suits and somber ties, and he could pound the
pulpit with the best of them. Byron’s father led evangelistic revivals, and, as
a young boy, Byron began to mimic his father’s wide sweeping pulpit gestures.
The senior Reverend Eshelman set up a wooden orange crate to look like a pulpit
and had Byron stand behind it and preach to the people for several minutes
before the main sermon began. He waved his little arms and ranted at the folks
in his squeaky voice, and the people laughed and cheered. He was known far and
wide as the Boy Preacher, Byron told me.
As a young man, Byron attended the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley where
he was enthralled by a course called “Psychotherapy in Religion,” taught by
Fritz Kunkel, a pioneer in the study of the implications of depth psychology
for religious faith. After graduating from Yale Divinity School, he did
clinical training at mental hospitals and prisons and came to believe that all
human beings are his brothers and sisters, whatever their situation in life.
With this notion embedded in his soul, Byron would recognize ordinary human
traits and talents in prisoners, even though they had done terrible things. He
encouraged them to take classes, write down their thoughts and do drawings.
Some of them became quite good at these things. His supervisors sometimes said
he was naive and overly optimistic in his assessment of prisoners, but Byron
stuck to his convictions.
During his career, Byron accompanied more than 500 men from death row to the
gas chamber. After 10 years at San Quentin, he wrote a book called Death Row
Chaplain, a deeply spiritual writing, even though it deals with men waiting
execution for capital crimes. As an execution draws near, Byron notices,
everyone involved becomes uncomfortable, including the warden, the doctors, the
attendants and the chaplain. While the gas was doing its work, Byron quietly
prayed, “O God, receive thy son, our brother in the human family ...”
Byron also noticed that almost all those executed were either mentally ill or
mentally impaired or raised in abject poverty or all of the above. Many had no
idea what was happening to them or why. And so Byron came to feel the execution
process was so inhuman, so wasteful of time and government resources, so
useless in preventing the crimes for which people are executed, and so fraught
with the possibility of executing an innocent person, that the death penalty
should be done away with.
“I have come to believe that the death penalty is fundamentally a symptom of
bewilderment and confusion in society,” he wrote.
So that’s what a former prison chaplain came to after three decades of
attending executions. Lo and behold, our present governor feels the same way,
and he’s banned executions in California. Byron Eshelman, who died in 1989,
would be pleased.
(source: Bob Jones is the former minister of the Guerneville and Monte Rio
Community Church----Sonoma West Times & News)
************************
Economics of the Death Penalty
I’m a capital habeas attorney. I was very interested in your article (“Capital
Intensive,” May 15, 2019) as I felt like I’d been hit by two trucks after the
2016 election (the other being Trump, of course). But we all really thought
that Prop 62 would pass.
Now I am living and working under Prop 66—per Prop 66, one of my cases was
transferred back to the superior court (in Sacramento County) and now I’m being
paid to relitigate the same issues in the lower courts, and then work my way up
again. In short, I will be paid twice for much of the same work, but with weird
twists that will make it more expensive.
I’m also convinced that the opposition to eliminating the death penalty is
really economically driven by the DAs. They don’t account for how much of their
budget goes to capital cases from what I can see, but I am willing to bet they
heavily rely on them to justify hefty budgets. So many of the death penalty
cases come out a few counties—Riverside, Kern, San Bernardino, Sacramento—that
don’t have all that much money to spare but do have conservative populations.
I’ve been doing criminal defense work for 40 years in Sonoma County (I started
here in the DA’s office). Much of all of it is economically driven—I just think
we should be upfront about what it really costs both in dollar and human terms,
to make more intelligent decisions. I see signs of progress, but a long way to
go. I really hope you don’t stop with that article but continue to explore this
area.
Marylou Hillberg, Via Bohemian.com
(source: Pacific Sun)
OREGON:
Reforms Seek To Limit Oregon’s Death Penalty
A new bill passed in the Senate on Tuesday would redefine some crimes once
classified as “aggravated murder,” the only crime punishable by death in
Oregon, instead trying some of these as 1st degree murder cases.
Senate Bill 1013 (SB 1013) passed 18-9 on Tuesday, May 21. Oregon’s death
penalty law exists in the state Constitution, not in normal statute, so it can
only be overturned by a vote of the people. Instead, lawmakers are seeking to
“de-fang” the law by redefining the one crime under which capital punishment is
allowed.
Currently, aggravated murder charges can be brought for a variety of crimes,
such as engaging in torture, or killing a law enforcement officer. SB 1013
would restrict aggravated murder to incidents in which two or more people are
killed “to intimidate a civilian population or influence a government,”
premeditated murder of children (under the age of 14), or killing another
inmate while in prison for murder. This change would not be retroactive for
those currently on death row.
Oregon has only executed 2 people in the past 50 years, and the past 2
governors have held to a moratorium on executions. Supporters of SB 1013, like
its chief sponsor Sen. Floyd Prozanski (D-Eugene) cite the extreme cost of
state executions, which a 2016 study claimed was between $800,000 and
$1,000,000.
While the bill’s progress has not generated public energy one way or another,
it may ultimately be up to the public to decide. SB 1013 now heads to the
House, run by Speaker Tina Kotek, who has stated that capital punishment is an
issue that should be voted on by Oregonians, not decided in the legislature.
(source: The Corvallis Advocate)
USA:
Supreme Court Faces New Appeal Over Clergy at Executions
Supreme Court justices who’ve sparred over capital punishment this term face
their latest challenge from death row about religious rights at executions,
setting up another potential showdown on Thursday.
But this latest attempt to halt an execution involves a prisoner’s desire to
not have any clergy at all watch over his last breaths.
The justices made waves with rulings earlier this year in appeals from Muslim
and Buddhist prisoners pressing claims to have their respective faith ministers
in the death chamber.
Divided majorities voted against the Muslim, Dominique Ray, in February and for
the Buddhist, Patrick Murphy, a month later. Alabama executed Ray without his
imam present. After the high court granted Murphy’s stay, Texas changed its
rule to allow no clergy.
This latest case comes from Florida, where serial killer Bobby Joe Long is set
for lethal injection at the state prison on Thursday.
Rules in Florida give the condemned 2 witnesses: legal counsel and clergy. Long
asked for a non-clergy member as his 2nd witness. The state said no.
That violates the Constitution, Long argues in a pending appeal raising a host
of other claims as well before the justices, trying to get them to halt his
execution and take up his appeal.
The state’s restriction of the 2nd witness to a clergyman violates the First
Amendment establishment clause, Long argues in his petition. He says he’s
“being given unequal treatment because he does not want a religious minister.”
So the Supreme Court “should enter a stay under Murphy until the State of
Florida changes its discriminatory practice,” he said.
Long pleaded guilty to the 1984 1st-degree murder, kidnapping, and sexual
battery of Michelle Simms. He also pleaded guilty to 7 other 1st-degree murders
and other crimes against those victims, and to the kidnapping and sexual
battery of an eighth victim who was not murdered, the state top court noted in
ruling against Long’s various claims last week.
The Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops wants his sentence reduced to life
without parole.
The case is Long v. Inch, U.S., 18-9358, 18-9356, stay applications, cert
petitions pending.
(source: Bloomberg law)
*************************
U.S. prosecutors weigh death penalty for accused Pittsburgh synagogue shooter
The case of Robert Bowers, the man accused of massacring 11 people at
Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue last year was set to return to a federal
courtroom on Thursday, as prosecutors weigh whether to pursue the death penalty
against him.
Bowers, 46, is accused of bursting into the synagogue on Oct. 27 with a
semi-automatic rifle and 3 handguns and shouting “all Jews must die” as he
fired on congregants gathered for a Sabbath service.
Bowers has pleaded not guilty in U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh to a
63-count indictment. Some of the charges, including murder as a hate crime, can
carry the death penalty.
At Thursday’s hearing, prosecutors may discuss whether they will seek the death
penalty. The session is a routine hearing to review the status of the case.
The United States is seeing a rise in the number of hate crimes and the number
of hate groups, according to separate reports from the Federal Bureau of
Investigation and the Southern Poverty Law Center.
One of Bowers’ attorneys, death penalty specialist Judith Clarke, said at his
last hearing that the defense hoped to settle without trial. A negotiated plea
deal could allow Bowers to avoid facing the risk of execution.
It was not clear whether Bowers would be present at the hearing.
Prosecutors say Bowers frequently posted anti-Semitic comments on right-wing
social-media websites, including a post on the morning of the shooting in which
he decried the work of a U.S. Jewish charity, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.
Among those killed in the attack were a 97-year-old woman, 2 brothers in their
50s and a married couple in their 80s. Two civilians and five police officers
were wounded before the gunman was shot by police and surrendered.
Ahead of Thursday’s hearing, Bowers filed a motion to the court through his
lawyers, which Judge Donetta Ambrose allowed to be sealed from public view per
Bowers’ request.
(source: Reuters)
***********************
Why we need the federal death penalty for cop killers
The suspect was sheathed in camouflage body armor, wore a helmet and carried an
M4 style rifle -- a shorter, lighter version of the M16 assault rifle -- when
police arrived earlier this week at the Arrowhead Mobile Home Park in Coffee
County, Alabama in response to a call about a domestic disturbance.
This wasn’t the suspect’s first brush with the law. According to court records
and reporting by the Associated Press, last November a local woman asked a
judge for a court order protecting her from alleged abuse by the man.
She accused him of sexually assaulting her while she was incapacitated and
feared he would harm her after learning she was pressing charges, according to
reports. The Alabama judge refused the protection order following a hearing in
January, ruling the woman didn't have a "qualifying relationship" with the
suspect, whom she said she did not know before the alleged assault.
When police arrived, the suspect allegedly opened fire, killing veteran Auburn,
Alabama police officer William Buechner and wounding 2 other responding law
enforcement officers.
As we await the results of the full investigation into the shooting, it’s
reasonable to assume that the suspect knew officers were coming and
intentionally waiting to attack them – hence the body armor and helmet.
Unfortunately, these types of ambush attacks against law enforcement officers
aren’t new.
Over the last few years, we have seen a steady increase in ambush style attacks
and felonious killings of law enforcement officers with 2016 spiking to over
170 officers killed in the line of duty overall. Ambush style attacks that year
were up 62%
We’ve also witnessed an overall increase in the number of assaults against law
enforcement officers with 58,627 assaults in 2016 rising to 61, 995 in 2017.
Current FBI statistics indicate that although overall officer deaths from all
causes have declined so far this year, the majority of those deaths have been
reported as feloniously killed in 2019.
In the case of the Alabama killing, the state charged the suspect with capital
murder, three counts of attempted murder and a count of 2nd-degree domestic
abuse, which carries the possibility of the death penalty, in Alabama.
“When you shoot a police officer, we’re going to pursue the death penalty,” Lee
County District Attorney Brandon Hughes reportedly said at a news conference
announcing the charges against the Alabama suspect.
And while Alabama has a death penalty, it is only one of 32 states that do,
even when a police officer is killed.
Why won’t states institute the death penalty, at the least for those that kill
cops?
“I feel sorry for the officer,” a candidate for district attorney in Contra
Costa County, California said last year in response to a question about why he
didn’t support the death penalty for those that are convicted of killing law
enforcement officers. “It’s part of the risk they take as being an officer of
the law.”
This was followed by California’s governor signing a death penalty moratorium,
even for cop killers. Even in Florida, the state Supreme Court overturned the
death penalty for 2 cop killers.
We have some states that have and follow death penalty laws and others that
don't. We see local district attorneys and governors that also won't follow
their states laws or -- some may argue --- can go overboard with it. These
inconsistencies can subject the victims and their families to an uneven
application of justice.
That ongoing, uneven application of justice may be what prompted President
Donald Trump last week, at a podium in front of the US. Capitol during the
annual National Peace Officers’ Memorial Service, to declare that “The ambushes
and attacks on our police must end, and they must end right now.”
“We believe that criminals who murder police officers should immediately, but
with trial, get the death penalty,” he said. “But quickly. The trial should go
fast. It’s got to be fair, but it’s got to go fast.” The statement drew a round
of applause from law enforcement officers in attendance.
U.S. law enforcement understands all too well that if someone is willing to
intentionally target law enforcement officers for murder, they would likely
target anyone, making them among the most dangerous individuals walking free on
the streets of the nation today.
Senator Patrick Toomey recognizes this, too, and re-introduced the “Thin Blue
Line Act” which passed out of the House of Representatives last year but never
got a vote in the Senate. This bill would make the killing of law enforcement
officers a death penalty-eligible offense in the federal court system.
In his remarks, Senator Toomey said that “It’s about the criminal that would
actually single out and kill a law enforcement officer. That is the most
dangerous type of person in our society and that’s why this is an appropriate
response.”
“If you murder or target a police officer for murder, you should expect the
harshest possible penalty,” Toomey added – and he is right.
Clearly, since only 32 states have the death penalty and many states and their
prosecutors can be more apt to make political rather than policy decisions
concerning cop killers, it would seem the federal court system may be the last
bastion of justice for these most dangerous among us. To be fair, the same
holds true when a state judicial systems fails to police their police and the
federal system steps in, usually with federal civil rights charges.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has questioned the need for a federal
death penalty law -- saying that almost every federal death penalty case that
involved the killing or targeting of a police officer would already include
several “aggravating factors” and that those that kill local police officers
would also be subject to the harshest possible state-level punishments --
including the death penalty in states that allow it.
The ACLU and others need to look no further than to the states with no death
penalty and even in the ones that do, where political decisions about what
punishments to seek in cop killer cases are made.
Opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect the views of ABC
News.
(source: Richard Frankel is an ABC News contributor and retired FBI special
agent who was the special agent in charge of the FBI's Newark Division and
prior to that, the FBI's NY Joint Terrorism TASK force. He is currently the
Vice President of Investigation for T&M Protection Resources.
Donald J. Mihalek is an ABC News contributor, retired senior Secret Service
agent and regional field training instructor who also serves as the executive
vice president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association Foundation;
Opinnion----go.com)
*********************
Washing the Blood Off Our Hands
As Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee faced his 1st execution last week, he said that he
was “upholding the sentence of the State of Tennessee and will not be
intervening.” It sounds like an innocent bystander deciding not to push someone
out of the way of a moving car. But the fact is, Lee is driving the car that is
about to run over them, and he has the power to steer it another direction and
save their life.
After all “states” don’t execute people. Governors do. And governors have the
power to stop executions. That’s exactly the case in Pennsylvania, where Gov.
Tom Wolf has halted executions even though the state still has not abolished
the death penalty. It’s the same case in several other states, and most
radically in California. Even though California narrowly voted to keep the
death penalty alive, and despite having the largest death row of any state in
the country, Gov. Gavin Newsom decided to stand up for life. Convinced the
death penalty is “immoral,” Newsom halted executions and actually dismantled
the entire death chamber so it could never kill again.
Back to Tennessee: Lee talks often about his faith. He has some great spiritual
advisers. I genuinely believe that Lee doesn’t want to kill anyone. I doubt
that he would have killed Don Johnson on his own — but he was willing to have
someone else kill on his behalf.
We weren’t meant to kill people. When we do kill, it does something to us. In
writing my book Executing Grace, I interviewed a former executioner who told me
how he was haunted by the spirits of the men he executed, whose souls visited
him at night and sat by his bedside.
We have a system that kills, but nobody wants to be a killer. The burden of
death is carefully divided in the hopes that no one gets crushed by its full
weight — at least that’s the intention.
Deep down we know that killing is wrong, but somehow we convince ourselves that
it’s different when it is done by the “state.” There’s a third-century
Christian named Cyprian who saw the irony of it all. He pointed out how odd it
is that when an individual kills someone we call it a crime but when the
government kills we call it virtuous. Cyprian and the other early Christians
consistently stood against all killing, whether it was done by a criminal or by
a magistrate.
So we end up creating countless cogs in the machinery of death to carry the
burden of responsibility. After all, killing someone is a heavy burden to bear.
And many shoulders make the burden a little easier to bear.
We have a system that kills, but nobody wants to be a killer. The burden of
death is carefully divided in the hopes that no one gets crushed by its full
weight — at least that’s the intention. But on dark nights, perhaps everyone
carries the weight, even the governor. After all, at the end of the day there
is a dead body, and the governor knows that with a 15-second phone call, he
could have saved the life of Don Johnson.
As a man of faith, I hope the governor will recognize the eerie similarities
between those who killed Jesus and the position he now finds himself in. Jesus
was executed not just by some Roman soldiers, but also by a host of other
contributors, none of whom wanted to carry the shame and burden of the
execution — Judas who betrayed him, and the Sanhedrin, and Caiaphas, and Herod,
and the angry mob … and Pontius Pilate washing the blood from his hands. And so
it goes.
We have attorneys who open the door to death.
We have a jury that finds someone guilty.
A judge (or judges) who sentences the convicted prisoner to death.
A governor who nods in approval or signs a warrant.
A clemency board that removes all obstacles.
A warden who oversees the execution.
Prison guards who prepare the person to die.
A “death team” that performs the execution.
A physician who inserts the needle.
And a coroner who pronounces the defendant dead.
We have a system that kills but that has no killers. But at the end of the day,
there is a corpse, and the state has no arms or hands but ours. On the death
certificate of an executed person, the manner of death is listed as “homicide.”
Legal homicide.
That’s why we build these bureaucratic walls. We devise ways to create distance
between the killers and the killed; we work hard to ensure that they cannot see
each other as human. Guards are part of the machinery of death, “just doing
their job.” Inmates are numbers, not names. They are statistics, not people.
We have a system that kills but that has no killers. But at the end of the day,
there is a corpse, and the state has no arms or hands but ours.
When I visited the men on death row last week, I asked them what we could do to
convince the governor to stop the executions that are lined up in Tennessee
this next year.
The men said, “Invite the governor to come and pray with us.” So simple. But
also so profound. Nothing transforms people like proximity, and nothing would
move the governor like getting to know the men on death row.
There’s historic proof of this right here in Tennessee in the 1960s — Gov.
Frank Clement, the 41st governor of Tennessee.
After overseeing 6 executions during his first 2 terms as governor, Clement
began to be terribly tormented, especially as he saw the humanity of the men on
death row. He met with the victims. But then he also made regular visits to the
prison to spend time with the men on death row. On one occasion he even took
Billy Graham.* As he got to know the men on death row, executing them became
unbearable. Eventually, he commuted the sentences of everyone on death row — in
1965!
But what moved him was proximity.
I know that if the governor met these men that I’ve had the privilege of
knowing for several years now, he would see the power of God to redeem and heal
— and it would be harder for him to kill them.
The scriptures speak of those we are up against as “principalities and powers”
(Eph. 6:12, KJV), not flesh and blood. It is not the people themselves but the
system of killing that we are fighting as we seek to abolish the death penalty.
And people are bound up in the cogs of that system all along the way. Tennessee
cannot kill without Gov. Lee. And Tennessee will not be able to kill if Lee
decides to be consistently pro-life and stand against death.
It is our duty, our shared responsibility, to become the monkey wrench that
stops the wheels of death from turning. The state is us. So let us refuse to
kill. Let the doctors uphold their oath to do no harm and refuse to participate
in executions. Let the guards and wardens and staff refuse to be accomplices to
murder.
The state cannot kill without Gov. Lee. And it cannot kill without us.
(source: Shane Claiborne is a Red Letter Christian and a founding partner of
The Simple Way community, a radical faith community in Philadelphia. His newest
book is Executing Grace: Why It is Time to Put the Death Penalty to
Death----Sojounrers)
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