August 8
TEXAS:
2-year moratorium on death penalty proposed----Koch suggests plant ot study
financial, social moral costs of sentence
A Dallas County commissioner raised the idea of putting a 2-year local
moratorium on the use of the death penalty to give the county time to study the
financial, social and moral costs of the punishment.
Commissioner J.J. Koch proposed at Tuesday's meeting that Dallas County could
save money by avoiding expensive death penalty trials, suggesting those funds
be directed toward prosecuting human trafficking crimes. The issue could be
revisited after 2 years, he said.
But such a decision would ultimately be up to the district attorney in Dallas
County, John Creuzot, who said he supports the discussion but stopped short of
saying he was on board with the commissioner's plan.
"I'm in support of discussing the issue, and I commend [Koch] for having the
courage to bring it up and start the discussion," Creuzot said. "I can't commit
myslef to that because I don't know what's around the corner."
Koch's proposal comes on the heels of Dallas County prosecutors' decision to
seek the death penalty against serial murder suspect Billy Chemirmir, who is
accused of smothering more than a dozen elderly women at senior living
complexes around North Texas.
In Texas, capital murder carries an automatic sentence of life in prison
without parole. Prosecutors can also seek the death penalty for crimes they
determine are especially heinous.
Koch said he understands why prosecutors would seek the death penalty in a case
like Chemirmir's, but if a death penalty moratorium were imposed, he would want
to see a "hard moratorium."
"So that way, if Chemirmir were to pop up a year from now, and we'd made this
decision, we wouldn't be seeking the death penalty," he said.
Creuzot said he supports the death penalty in cases where evidence shows a
person would be a "continuing threat in the penal society," he said.
Death penalty cases are expensive - even long after a trial and conviction.
Creuzot said his office is still involved in a 32-year-old case: the killing of
Fred Finch and his wife, Mildred, by Kenneth Thomas.
Thomas has bee sentenced to death twice - in 1987 and 2014 - and Texas' highest
criminal court has ordered another sentencing hearing for Thomas so a jury can
decide whether he is intellectually disabled. A date for that hearing has not
been set, according to Dallas County court records.
If the goal of a death sentence is to create public safety, Creuzot said, a
sentence of life in prison without parole can do the same with a much lower
cost.
"It's becoming more and more difficult to sustain a death penalty conviction in
the United States," Creuzot said.
Shannon Edmonds, staff attorney with the Texas District and County Attorneys
Association, said he hadn't heard of a county government proposing a local
moratorium.
"The answer is not unique to the death penalty," he said.
"A Commissioners court does not have an ability to issue a moratorium on sexual
assault prosecutions of life sentences - that's just not their job."
In Texas, the governor can't impose a statewide moratorium on the death
penalty, Edmonds said. That's not the case in other states, such as California,
where Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a moratorium on the death penalty in March.
Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said it if were possible, he's support a
statewide moratorium on the death penalty to study the moral and financial
questions of whether the punishment shoud be used.
Jenkins said he would support the district attorney putting a stop to the
county's use of the death penalty, but the decision would need to be left up to
the DA.
Commissioners John Wiley Price and Elba Garcia voiced support for Koch's idea.
Commissioner Theresa Daniel said she was looking forward to discussions about
the topic and said it was important to include the DA's office and judges in
those conversations.
Koch said the county wouldn't try to force Creuzot's hand on the issue. He said
the county commissioners coud pass a resolution supporting a moratorium, and
they have final say over the budget for the DA's office.
"We can't do anything unilaterally," he said. "It's his department."
He suggested that the county use money saved from pursuing death penalty cases
to prosecute human trafficking cases.
Creuzot said there are other areas of need in the DA's office, pointing to
grant for lawyers who handle child abuse cases that's about to run out. He said
his budget requests to fund their positions after the grant have been denied.
(source: Dallas Morning News)
*********************
Lawyer says will try to prevent death penalty
A court-appointed lawyer for the man accused of shooting dozens of people in El
Paso says he will do everything he can to ensure his client is not executed.
21-year-old Patrick Crusius has been charged with capital murder in state court
for the Saturday massacre, and may face federal hate-crime charges that could
also come with a death sentence if he’s convicted.
Attorney Mark Stevens told The Associated Press in an email Wednesday that he
"will use every legal tool available to me to prevent" Crusius from being put
to death.
Stevens, a veteran criminal defense attorney from San Antonio, said he will
only represent Crusius in state court and declined to comment further on the
case. A judge appointed him Monday.
(source: Associated Press)
ALABAMA:
Tuckers murder trial begins Monday | Prosecution seeks death penalty for
McKelvey
The capital murder trial of Jeff McKelvey is scheduled to begin Monday, Aug.
12, in Criminal Court in Guntersville. It will be the 1st capital trial in
Marshall County since 2012, when Jessie Phillips was convicted of the 2009
shooting deaths of his wife and their unborn child in a carwash at Warrenton.
McKelvey is charged with killing Denie and Pam Tucker during a robbery of their
home on Pea Ridge Road near Asbury. According to past testimony at hearings in
the case, McKelvey approached Denie Tucker at the Cracker Barrel in Cullman
with a fake story about how he didn’t have money and was trying to go check on
his daughter who’d been in a wreck.
Denie gave him $60. The stranger insisted he wanted to repay him. Denie gave
McKelvey a business card with his address on it.
McKelvey and an associate, Henry Pyle, later went to the Tuckers’ home to rob
them. Pyle pled guilty earlier and is serving a life sentence. He is expected
to be a key witness at the trial.
It would likely take at least 2 days to select a jury for the case, possibly
longer, meaning opening statements and testimony could start on Wednesday or
Thursday following jury selection.
Marshall County District Attorney Everett Johnson and Chief Assistant District
Attorney Ed Kellett will prosecute the case. Johnson said they intend to seek
the death penalty. The defense attorneys are Brian White of Decatur and Kevin
Hanson of Albertville.
The Tuckers’ deaths occurred in September of 2015. A fingerprint on the door of
the Tuckers’ home led police to McKelvey.
McKelvey, who lived in Decatur, had a criminal past. Prosecutors said
previously he had been in and out of prison.
(source: sandmountainreporter.com)
LOUISIANA:
Unstoppable: At 80, Sister Helen Prejean has an ongoing mission and a new book
St. Joseph's Academy alumna Sister Helen Prejean speaks after addressing
students and faculty there as part of the school's 150th anniversary speaker
series, Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2018. The 1957 graduate became a nun and later an
outspoken opponent of the death penalty, and is well known for the 1995 movie
'Dead Men Walking,' based on her book about mentoring two men on death row at
Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola.
It’s early on a Tuesday morning, and Sister Helen Prejean is about to make
another pilgrimage to Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, this time to
visit death-row inmate Manuel Ortiz. "I think we have a chance at getting him
out this time," she said. "I really do."
She is 80 years old now, continuing the death-row ministry that began in 1982
when she began corresponding with Patrick Sonnier - the experience that
culminated in the bestselling "Dead Man Walking: The Eyewitness Account of the
Death Penalty That Sparked a National Debate." That book was adapted for an
Academy Award-winning film starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn, as well as an
opera; her second book was "The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of
the Death Penalty in America."
She has continued to write; her new book "River of Fire: My Spiritual Journey"
(Penguin Random House) illuminates the roots of her moral convictions and the
progress of her soul. Its epigraph comes from St. Bonaventure: "Ask not for
understanding, ask for the fire." It is the prelude to "Dead Man Walking."
Book Signing
What: Sister Helen Prejean discusses and signs "River of Fire: My Spiritual
Journey"
When: 1 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 10
Where: St. Rita’s Auditorium, 625 Fontainebleau Drive, New Orleans
Spiritual memoirs follow familiar contours: the education of a self, the
formation of a moral core, the quest to put faith in action, the test of that
faith and forward motion - the person always moving toward God, or whatever
name the writer gives the Divine.
In Prejean’s case, that moral education took the shape of an upbringing in a
loving Cajun family in Baton Rouge, a Catholic education, a commitment to the
novitiate at 18, and her first call as a teacher at St. Frances Cabrini,
teaching grammar to 8th-graders.
This was followed by a stint as director of religious education for St. Frances
Cabrini Parish after the announcement of Vatican II, and as director of
novitiates for the Congregation of St. Joseph. Then it was on to Hope House in
New Orleans' St. Thomas housing development, which added a social dimension to
her religious and moral education.
Surprisingly, she came rather late to social justice. Seeing an exhibit of John
F. Kennedy’s writings in New Orleans in 1964, she was inspired to begin keeping
a journal that continues to this day. And when 27-year-old Prejean met Martin
Luther King Jr. in the Chicago airport, the civil rights leader asked for her
prayers.
Vatican II was a turning point for her. "I think that’s really when we became
an adult church, getting down to matters of conscience and sorting things out,"
she said. "We learned to get in the world with the suffering, right down to the
those in our city. And the African-American people at St. Thomas became my
teachers."
"I had 2 cocoons I had to break out of," she said. "I was a child of my time.
The first was the way I saw the world. I’d pray to God to solve the big
problems. It was a vertical thing; I was trying to go to directly to God. But
what I really needed to do was directly commit to loving my neighbor.
"The other cocoon was white privilege. I always saw people just like me. And
there’s a wonderful quote, ‘What the eye doesn’t see, the heart cannot feel.’"
"I’d bring people on retreats, and they’d resist, saying ‘We’re nuns, not
social workers.’ And I said, bring it on! At a community gathering, a nun named
Sister Marie Augusta Neal said, ‘Jesus preached the good news to the poor.’"
Then Prejean heard words that changed her life: "And integral to that good news
is that the poor are to be poor no longer."
"I had studied theology, but I’d never studied liberation theology,{ she said.
"It was never about justice. When you talked about 'the least of these,' it was
couched in terms of charity, but never justice."
So she found a new direction in her vocation. "We have to confront
institutional racism," she said. "And education is crucial; it teaches you how
to be an agent in the world."
Along the way, she was tested, challenged and supported by deep bonds with
others. She writes about her 34-year friendship with Sister Christopher (Ann
Barker), a nurse in Houma, and her relationship with Father William, a priest
from Boston who wanted to marry her and leave the church. Here, we see Prejean
at her most human and revelatory.
"I don’t think humans can live without intimacy," she said. The priest’s
alcoholism finally drove them apart, although eventually he sought help. "I
didn’t know much about alcoholism then, but I learned," she said. "I know this
is a homely metaphor, but I couldn’t be the Elmer’s Glue that held him
together."
Some of the most lyrical passages describe the nuns on retreat in Grand Isle.
"I loved that Chris (Sister Christopher) could come with the teachers on
vacation," Prejean said. "It’s so great to be at the beach and feel the wind in
your hair."
In one hilarious passage, the nuns debate whether they need to wear habits over
their bathing suits to cross the road to the beach.
"You never think, when you become a nun, about going on vacation," she said,
"and when you do, you’re with the same sourpusses you live with!"
As it happened, Prejean was speaking on the feast day of St. Ignatius of
Loyola. The Spanish priest and founder of the Jesuit order "gave us the
'Spiritual Exercises,' rules for discerning what kind of energy is moving in
us," she reflected, "consolation, which gives us a feeling of buoyancy and
hope, or desolation, which gives us a feeling of sadness."
She quoted Goethe: "'We have to be dark to ourselves, open to outsiders, and
truly engaged with the world, not just the surface.'
"And you know me. I really engage."
(source: nola.com)
OHIO:
Bond denied for man charged in 4 West Chester homicides after he appears to
faint in court
A Butler County judge denied bond on Monday for the man accused of killing 4
family members in West Chester in April.
During the hearing, Gurpreet Singh fell over at the podium and appeared to pass
out before he was helped into a chair by deputies. The 37-year-old former West
Chester Twp. man was handcuffed and shackled for the brief court appearance.
When prosecutors and Singh’s defense attorney Charles H. Rittgers were talking
with the Judge Greg Howard at a side bar, Singh swayed then fell to the floor.
Deputies rushed to help him up and placed him in a chair. The judge asked him
if a was alright to continue, and Singh answered “yes.”
The appearance was Singh’s 1st in an Ohio court after his arrest in Connecticut
last month.
Rittgers said Singh declined transport to a hospital and was taken back to the
jail
Singh was indicted by a Butler County grand jury on Friday on 4 counts of
aggravated murder from the April 28 incident. With specifications of using a
firearm and killing 2 or more persons, Singh faces the death penalty if
convicted.
During the arraignment, Singh pleaded not guilty and waived the formal reading
of the lengthy indictment. However, Howard ordered the indictment be read in
open court.
Rittgers pointed out his client is a citizen of the United States and has been
in constant contact with him, even when he moved to Indiana. The warrants
related to the investigation include an Indianapolis address for Singh.
"When he was arrested, he was in Connecticut for a wedding that had been
planned for a year," Rittgers said, adding Singh has no prior criminal record
and has surrendered his passport.
"We ask the court set a reasonable bond," Rittgers told the judge.
But due to the seriousness of the charges, Assistant Prosecutor Josh Muennich
requested 'significant' bond.
Howard agreed with the prosecution, noting the four charges that include a
death penalty specification and denied bond.
Singh spent four weeks incarcerated in Connecticut after being arrested there
on initial charges and warrants signed by the West Chester Police department.
He was transported from Connecticut and booked into the Butler County Jail
early Friday morning.
Rittgers said Friday that Singh is "absolutely not guilty."
Singh retained Rittgers to represent him after West Chester police requested a
second round of questioning, the attorney said. That is when Singh became
concerned he was a suspect, despite being let go by detectives.
"They took him to back to the station immediately after he called 911 and after
he discovered the body of his wife and his in-laws. They took him from the
scene back to the station and interrogated him for 6 or 7 hours and let him go
at 4 or 5 in the morning," Rittgers said.
Singh is the man who called 911 at about 9:40 p.m. on the night of April 28
screaming that he had found his family dead, according to police. Rittgers said
Singh had last seen his family alive about 6 p.m. when he left to work on his
truck.
Singh is accused of the killing his wife, Shalinderjit Kaur, 39; his in-laws,
Hakikat Singh Pannag, 59, and Parmjit Kaur, 62; and his aunt by marriage,
Amarjit Kaur, 58, at their apartment on Wyndtree Drive. All died of gunshot
wounds.
(source: Dayton Daily News)
KENTUCKY:
Timothy Madden Capital Case Inches Closer to Trial
The Allen County man charged in the murder of a 7-year-old girl nearly 4 years
ago is now less than a month away from going on trial.
Timothy Madden was in court on Wednesday for a pre-trial hearing.
After multiple delays, the case is on schedule to go to trial on September 4.
If convicted, Madden could get the death penalty for the kidnapping, rape,
sodomy, and murder of Gabbi Doolin in 2015.
Due to publicity, the case will be tried in Elizabethtown. Allen Circuit Judge
Janet Crocker said 146 Hardin County residents will be questioned and evaluated
in the process of seating a jury. Commonwealth’s Attorney Corey Morgan says
he’s confident a fair jury can be impaneled.
"Whenever there's jury selection, normally you talk to jurors as a group,
"Morgan explained. "However, in a death penalty case, it's individual. That
means you have to take each person into the chambers with the judge and
opposing counsel and talk about the death penalty to see their views on it, and
that takes time."
Despite Elizabethtown being in a different media market, Madden’s public
defender Tom Griffiths says he still has concerns about seating an impartial
jury.
"Television doesn't hit a wall and people report each other's stories," said
Griffiths. "Once something is in the Courier-Journal, it gets picked up by
everybody in the state, and frankly, vice versa."
Jury selection is expected to take at least a week, and the trial, as long as a
month.
Both sides told Judge Crocker they will be ready for the trial to begin in just
over 3 weeks, although the defense is still waiting on two reports, including a
psychiatric evaluation and independent DNA testing.
Hardin Circuit Court Judge Kelley Mark Easton will preside over jury selection
while Judge Crocker will oversee the trial.
Timothy Madden returns to court on August 24 for a rare Saturday hearing, which
will be his last in Scottsville before the case is transferred to Hardin
County.
(source: WKYU news)
CALIFORNIA:
Suspects arrested for murdering off-duty officer at taco stand: Police
A pair of suspected gang members were charged with murder on Tuesday in the
death of an off-duty Los Angeles police officer who was fatally shot while
visiting a taco stand with his girlfriend.
Cristian Facundo, 20, and Franciso Talamantes, 23, were charged with 1 count of
murder and 2 counts of attempted murder in the death of Juan Diaz, a
24-year-old Los Angeles Police Department officer who was killed last month,
the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office said.
The murder charge also carries a special circumstance which makes the suspects
eligible for the death penalty.
Diaz, who had been with the department for just 2 years, was eating at a taco
stand with his girlfriend and her 2 brothers at around 1 a.m. when he saw the
suspects defacing a property in LA's Lincoln Heights neighborhood, a police
source told ABC's Los Angeles station KABC. The officer had ordered the men to
stop when one of them pulled out a gun and began threatening him.
The officer and his companions tried to avoid an altercation by getting into
their vehicle and leaving, but the gunman, later identified as Facundo, opened
fire, killing Diaz and injuring one the girlfriend's brothers, the police
source said.
Facundo, Talamantes, and a 3rd suspect -- Ashlyn Smith -- also face a charge of
shooting at an occupied motor vehicle and vandalism, according to the district
attorney's office. Smith, 19, also faces 1 count of accessory after the fact,
while Talamantes was charged with 1 count of possession of a firearm by a
felon, the office said.
"All 3 defendants also are accused of vandalizing a vehicle less than an hour
before Diaz's murder," the district attorney's office said in a statement on
Tuesday. "After the murder, Facundo and Talamantes allegedly were driven back
to the vandalism scene by Smith and are accused of an attempted murder there."
Dozens of family members, friends and fellow officers gathered for a vigil at
the LAPD's headquarters a day after his death. The department tweeted images
from the gathering late Saturday night, remembering him as a "dedicated public
servant and Angeleno that put service to others above all else."
"Tonight we gathered to honor a man who dedicated himself to our city - A man
whose passion was LA," the department said in a subsequent tweet. "There were
hugs & tears-but we held our heads high as we paid tribute to his dedication to
something greater than himself. Tonight our HQ Facility is proud to have Juan
front & center."
The officer's loved ones and several members of the force -- including Sgt.
Manuel Hernandez, his police academy training officer -- spoke at the vigil.
"He grew up in a bad neighborhood, infested with gangs, yet he led a good
life," Hernandez said.
"What we mainly want is for all of you guys to remember Juan for the goofball
he was, the personality he was, always made someone smile," Diaz's sister,
Anahi Diaz, added.
source: KGO TV news)
USA:
Death penalty questionable as a deterrent to mass killing
President Donald Trump is calling for new death penalty legislation as an
answer to hate crimes and mass killings. But whether that would deter shooters
is questionable - especially since most don’t live to face trial.
More than half the perpetrators of mass shootings since 2006 have ended up dead
at the scene of their crimes, either killed by others or dying by suicide,
according to a database compiled by The Associated Press, USA Today and
Northeastern University.
Death penalty scholars and psychologists say killers motivated by ideology are
unlikely to be deterred by punishment. Most of them are willing to die or
understand the risk and prepare for it. Some want the fame that an execution
could potentially bring to their cause.
“In fact, in the case of terrorism, it might be worse than that because you
have the very real possibility of creating martyrs,” said Gary LaFree, head of
the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of
Maryland, and co-founder of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism
and Responses to Terrorism.
Trump’s remarks Monday on the death penalty followed weekend attacks that
killed a total of 31 people in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas. The shooting
suspect in El Paso is believed to have posted a racist, anti-immigrant screed
on the internet before the shooting. The motive in Dayton remains unknown.
Trump said he was ordering the Justice Department to propose legislation
ensuring that "those who commit hate crimes and mass murders face the death
penalty, and that this capital punishment be delivered quickly, decisively, and
without years of needless delay."
The death penalty was one of several steps Trump outlined that embrace
conservative responses to mass shootings - such as denouncing video games and
calling for changes in mental health laws - while brushing aside Democratic
calls for stricter gun regulations and demands that he back off his virulent
anti-immigrant rhetoric.
But the deterrent effect of the death penalty has long been questioned. Several
studies have shown it doesn’t work to reduce crime. And perpetrators of mass
killings are already subject to the death penalty in 30 states as well as under
federal law. According to an analysis from the Death Penalty Information
Center, all but 2 of the states where mass shootings have occurred already have
capital punishment.
The El Paso shooting occurred even though Texas has used the death penalty far
more than any other state, executing 108 prisoners since 2010.
"Look at Dylan Roof," said Miriam Gohara, a Yale University law professor who
studies the death penalty, referring to the man convicted and sentenced to
death in the racist 2015 killings at a Charleston church. "He has been
sentenced to death. And that clearly did not dissuade these people."
Of the 82 public mass shootings since 2006, 30 gunmen killed themselves and 16
were killed, according to the AP/USA Today/Northeastern database. Fourteen are
serving life sentences, 12 are awaiting trial, and only 3 have been given the
death penalty. There was also one who committed suicide while in custody.
Others received other penalties and one suspect had charges dropped.
The database tracks every mass killing in the country dating back to 2006,
defined as involving four or more people killed (not including the offender)
over 24 hours, regardless of weapon, location, victim-offender relationship or
motive.
The federal death penalty was reinstated in 1988, though actual executions
rare. The government has put to death only 3 defendants since 1988, the most
recent of which occurred in 2003, when Louis Jones was executed for the 1995
kidnapping, rape and murder of a female soldier.
The Justice Department has continued to approve death penalty prosecutions and
federal courts have sentenced defendants to death. Attorney General William
Barr recently ordered the Bureau of Prisons to schedule executions again,
starting in December.
Experts say death penalty cases are time consuming and costly, and suggest the
money would be better spent in mental health. And because there isn’t one
motivator that pushes someone into violence, there isn’t a panacea answer.
For one thing, psychologists haven’t been able to study many of the shooters,
said Frank Farley, a Temple University psychology professor and former
president of the American Psychological Association. "Because so many of them
never survive, there’s no fabulous study on the psychology of mass killers," he
said.
(source: Savannah Morning News)
*****************************
The Death Penalty Cannot Be Justified Through Retributive Justice Or
Self-Defense
Defenders of the death penalty usually employ 1 or 2 distinct strategies in
their apologetics, sometimes separately, sometimes together. The 1st is to
promote capital punishment as "retributive justice," and the 2nd is to suggest
the death penalty should be used as it acts as a kind of 'self-defense' for
society.
For Christians who embrace the dignity of life, both arguments are invalid.
Jesus overturned the notion of retributive justice when he rejected the notion
of 'an eye for an eye.' Likewise, St. Paul, following Jesus, gave his own
rejection to the principles of retributive justice:
Repay no one evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of
all. If possible, so far as it depends upon you, live peaceably with all.
Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God; for it is
written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." No, "if your enemy
is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him drink; for by so doing you will
heap burning coals upon his head." Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome
evil with good (Rom. 12: 17-21 RSV).
Interestingly enough, Paul referenced Deuteronomy 32:35 in his rejection of
retributive justice; this shows us that the Christian ethic is not other than
the one intended in, and so comes out of, the Torah itself. Jesus, Paul, and
subsequent Christian commentaries developed what was implicit in the Torah. It
is true, the Mosaic laws might have allowed for capital punishment, but like
animal sacrifices, this was never the intent or desire of God. "For I have no
pleasure in the death of any one, says the Lord GOD; so turn, and live" (Ezek.
18:32 RSV). Rather, God condescended to meet the people of Israel where they
were at in their knowledge and understanding, and directed them away from the
path of death and destruction by having them slowly embrace the path of true
justice found in his mercy and grace.[1]
While some apologists for capital punishment might concede Christians cannot
accept it on retributive grounds (though many will continue to push for it,
despite the long Christian moral reflection against such a notion), they think
their strongest answer lies in the notion that it serves as a kind of
self-defense for the community, both because they say it stops criminals from
continuing in their criminal activities, but also because they think it acts as
a deterrent.
Considering the notion of deterrence, reality, shows it does not truly act as a
deterrent. Study after study says the same thing. This should not be surprising
to readers of Vladimir Solovyov, who, in the 19th century, examined the
evidence and said the same thing: executing people does not stop or lessen
crime. Indeed, Solovyov thought that it could even encourage violent crime, as
the state justifies the act of violence in its executions.
But what about self-defense? Does not the church itself teach us self-defense
is acceptable, and so we can kill in self-defense? Does this not lead to the
church accepting other forms of killing, such as those which are done in just
wars? Why, then, if the criminal is dangerous, can’t the church approve their
execution?
This comes from a poor reading of the church’s stand on self-defense and on
just war theory. In both instances, not only must the cause be just (and
retributive justice is not just), killing or war must always be the last
resort, it must be done as a secondary effect of some other primary purpose (in
other words, it is an issue of double-effect).[2] When war is declared, and it
appears that the war is just, that does not instantly make any killing by those
on the side of justice justified: they still have to follow basic moral
principles (Jus in Bello), seeking not to kill if the opportunity arises to
stop the enemy without such violence. This is why those who are held as
prisoners of war, as well as civilians, cannot be executed. For prisoners of
war, although they are soldiers, since they have been taken out of the combat,
their threat has been neutralized. Likewise, with self-defense (and it must be
noted, Augustine and others did not approve of non-authorities using violence
in self-defense), the point must be defensive, the reaction proportional, and
if the threat is contained, the violence must be stopped (killing someone after
they are no longer a threat cannot be justified as an act of self-defense).
Just war theory (and with it, any theories of justified self-defense) does not
accept preemptive strikes as being just. We don’t attack someone because we
think we might be attacked if we do not. We have to have a clear and present
danger, one which cannot be stopped by any other means; if other means have not
been exhausted, or the danger is not immediate, then any act of war is an act
of aggression, and so is unjustified (which is why Bishop Botean condemned the
Iraq War). Similarly, it is not self-defense when we attack someone for what
they might do in the future. Just war, and self-defense, must always be the
last resort; this means we must have a real, immediate threat (and not some
virtual threat). When those who propose to use the death penalty as a kind of
'self-defense,' they are falling for the same kind of error which promotes
preemptive strikes: it justifies aggression based upon virtual possibilities
instead of reality. Once this argument is accepted, then all aggression, all
killing quickly becomes 'just' as all killing would just be seen as
'preemptive' forms of self-defense.
Christians must follow the hard path of love, and with it, accept that moral
responsibility might leave them vulnerable. But such vulnerability is what is
capable of transforming the situation and creating true peace and safety: the
more society rejects all premises which support of aggression, the more people
will move away from aggression and seek other remedies for their needs.
Christian history shows this with the martyrs: Christians changed the hearts of
Rome, not because they became a powerful military force that overwhelmed Rome,
but because they embraced their vulnerability. If they had fought back, if they
had embraced the path of violence, and started taking out Roman soldiers in
guerrilla wars, Christians would have gained no sympathy from the Roman people
but only their hatred, and world history would have been much different.
Self-defense arguments for capital punishment are unacceptable. Once a criminal
is contained, just as a prisoner of war is contained, just as a threat has been
neutralized, the dignity of human life must take precedence. Fearing what a
prisoner could do in the future and using that to justify an execution only
demonstrates a fundamental rejection of what the dignity of life entails. If
there is some fear that a threat will not be properly contained, the solution
is to work on the containment. If a criminal finds a way to circumvent their
containment, then deal with the situation in as just a manner as possible Until
then, the solution will be to improve the containment, make it as strong as
possible. There will never be the need for state-sponsored executions of
criminals because there will always be ways to deal with them other than giving
in to the path of death. If there comes a time in which an act of self-defense
becomes necessary, and through such actions, the death of a criminal in custody
becomes an unwilled consequence of actions used to contain them (using the
best, most proportional means to do so) that is not the same thing as the death
penalty because it is an unintentional side-effect of the actions necessary to
contain the situation: but when direct, intentional killing is done, and done
by the state, the end result is a rejection of the dignity of life and an
acceptance of the premises which all murderers hold. If that is the case, how
can one say murderers are unjust?
[1] God’s reaction to the murder of Abel, where God forbade the execution of
Cain, represents in full God’s desire to save the wicked instead of to have
them destroyed.
[2] And, even if the killing ends up being 'justified,' this does not make it
good. It remains an evil. Historically, the church required soldiers who killed
in war to undergo penance for what they have done, whether or not the war was
justified, because it understood all killing to be evil.
(source: patheos.com)
*******************************
Ret. Federal Judge Responds to Execution Update for Convicted Iowa Murderer
The U.S. Department of Justice recently announced plans to resume federal
executions for the 1st time in 15 years.
5 inmates are scheduled to be put to death for their crimes, including
Iowa-native Dustin Honken.
Honken received the death penalty in 2004 for 5 murders, including 2 children
in 1993.
Their bodies were discovered in a mass grave near Mason City in 2000.
Retired Federal Judge Mark Bennett sat on the bench during Honken’s trial in
Sioux City .
Bennett is now at Drake University serving as the Director of the new Institute
for Justice Reform and Innovation.
The Institute for Justice Reform and Innovation serves as a center for research
and training on topics like sentencing reform, bias and improving trial
procedures.
Siouxland Public Media’s Sheila Brummer traveled to Des Moines over the weekend
to meet up with Judge Bennett at the Drake Law School.
He talked about the case, security measures taken during the trial and his
thoughts on the government’s move to execute Honken.
RET. FEDERAL JUDGE RESPONSE TO DECISION TO RESUME EXECUTIONS
Bennett also presided over the trial of Dustin Honken’s girlfriend Angela
Johnson. She was the 1st woman to receive the federal death penalty in 50
years. Judge Bennett vacated her sentence after he ruled Johnson didn’t get
adequate council during her trial. She was re-sentenced to life in prison.
(source: KWIT news)
******************************
Former National Corrections Chief Warns of Dangers Federal Execution Plan Poses
for Prison Personnel
A former high-ranking federal corrections official has warned that the federal
government’s plan to execute 5 prisoners over a 5-week period in December and
January risks seriously traumatizing correctional workers. Allen Ault
(pictured) is a former chief of the Justice Department’s National Institute of
Corrections who also served as corrections commissioner in Georgia,
Mississippi, and Colorado, and as chairman of the Florida Department of
Corrections. In a July 31, 2019 op-ed in The Washington Post, Ault says, "I
know from my own firsthand experiences, supervising executions as a state
director of corrections, that the damage executions inflict on correctional
staff is deep and far-ranging."
Ault’s op-ed describes the mental and emotional toll that executions take on
corrections officials, including those who do not directly participate in the
execution. Execution team members, he says, have reported "nightmares, insomnia
and addiction" and have developed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a
result of taking part in executions.
The 'compressed schedule' proposed by the federal government presents
additional challenges. Three executions are scheduled in a five-day span in
December 2019, with 2 more in January 2020 just two days apart. According to
Ault, this schedule "causes an extended disruption to normal prison operations
and precludes any attempt to return to normalcy following an execution. It also
prevents any meaningful review by execution team members and other officials to
address problems or concerns in the execution process. That increases the risk
that something could go horribly wrong in the next execution. And if a
‘routine’ execution is traumatizing for all involved, a botched one is
devastating."
"Psychologists have described the impact of executions on correctional staff as
similar to that suffered by battlefield veterans," Ault writes. "But in my
military experience, there was one major difference: The enemy was an
anonymous, armed combatant who was threatening my life. In an execution, the
condemned prisoner is a known human being who is totally defenseless when
brought into the death chamber. Staff members know that he has been secured
safely for many years before his execution and poses no threat to them
personally." Other corrections officers are also affected, Ault says. "The
trauma extends through the many correctional staff who interact every day with
death row prisoners, often forming meaningful bonds over the course of many
years and, in many cases, witnessing their changed mind-sets and profound
remorse." He reports that executions can cause "depression, anxiety and other
mental and physical impacts" in other members of the prison community.
23 corrections officials, including Ault, warned Arkansas about these dangers
when the state scheduled 8 executions in an 11-day period in 2017. Ault argues
that "[t]here’s no good reason for the Trump administration to move forward
with executions. There hasn’t been a federal execution since 2003, and the
prisoners under federal death sentence have been safely managed by the Bureau
of Prisons in high-security federal prisons."
(source: Death Penalty Information Center)
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