He Sees Dead People: Bush’s Lethal
Travesties
by Joe Conason
Grim new evidence of the death penalty’s unjust application
has emerged in an exhaustively reported two-part series
published June 11 and 12 in the Chicago
Tribune, which concluded that since 1995,
Texas authorities have "executed dozens of
Death Row inmates whose cases were
compromised by unreliable evidence,
disbarred or suspended defense attorneys,
meager defense efforts during sentencing and dubious
psychiatric testimony."
Yet this fresh proof that many defendants who end up on the
Lone Star State’s crowded death row are either not guilty of a
capital crime or didn’t receive a fair trial isn’t quite as shocking
as it once might have been. By now, anyone paying attention
knows that law enforcement officials have executed numerous
citizens—mostly black and Hispanic men—whose trials and sentencing
were so
flawed that their guilt remains in doubt.
While Texas has executed more people than any other state, George
W. Bush’s
domain isn’t alone in its enthusiasm for barbarous human sacrifice.
A new study
prepared for the Senate Judiciary Committee and released the other
day showed
that across the country, seven out of every 100 condemned inmates
who
successfully appeal their sentences are found not guilty on retrial.
What did still seem shocking, however, was the callously nonchalant
attitude of Mr.
Bush, the man responsible for overseeing the death penalty as
governor of Texas
during the past five-and-a-half years. The Republican presidential
nominee declined
to be interviewed by the team of Tribune reporters who prepared the
series on
judicial murder in Texas, but he responded later with the same
bland reassurances
he has offered so many times before on this morbid subject.
"I know there are some in the country who don’t care for the death
penalty, but
I’ve said once and I’ve said a lot, that in every case, we’ve
adequately answered
innocence or guilt," the pious governor told the Associated Press
after attending
church on June 11. "If you’re asking me whether or not as to the
innocence or guilt
or if people have had adequate access to the courts in Texas, I
believe they have.
They’ve had full access to the courts. They’ve had full access to a
fair trial."
The Tribune series is long, detailed and mildly complex, so it was
probably
unreasonable to expect an intelligent response from Mr. Bush, who
is notorious for
his reluctance to read anything longer than a comic book. (At least
he didn’t repeat
the disgusting imitation of Karla Faye Tucker’s plea for clemency
that he performed
last year for a Talk magazine reporter.) Still, it is hard not to
wonder what Mr. Bush
means when he talks about "a fair trial." Were the Texas courts
fair to the 43
defendants whose lawyers were disbarred either before or after
their trials, or
otherwise sanctioned for misconduct? Were those courts fair to the
40 defendants
whose lawyers presented no evidence (or only one witness) during
sentencing? That
isn’t what happens, of course, on the rare occasions when someone
of Mr. Bush’s
wealth and social standing is facing trial for a capital crime.
A spokesman for Mr. Bush observed sagely in an interview with The
New York
Times that whether to put someone to death is "just a question of
the appropriate
punishment." Appropriate punishment is indeed the question Mr. Bush
answered
with such apparent indifference in more than 130 cases until June
1. That was the
day when, under the spotlight of the national media, he exercised
for the first time
his power to grant a temporary reprieve, to an inmate named Ricky
McGinn, so that
new evidence can be examined.
Aside from his direct culpability in numerous cases of gross
injustice, the problem
for Mr. Bush is that this issue again draws attention to his
deficiency in what pundits
like to call "gravitas." He appears oddly uncomprehending of this
awesome aspect
of his otherwise undemanding job, and remarkably ignorant of the
American ideal of
equality under law. His breezy acceptance of a racially
discriminatory system
threatens to blot out all those cute pictures of Mr. Bush posing
with black and
Hispanic children.
And as more voters learn about the lethal travesties carried out
under his regime, he
will become vulnerable to harsh criticism on an issue that until
recently remained
outside mainstream political debate. Or he would be vulnerable, if
only Al Gore
were suddenly courageous enough to speak out about the death
penalty. The Vice
President is forfeiting an opportunity to distinguish himself not
only from Mr. Bush
but from President Clinton as well.
Mr. Gore need not oppose capital punishment in principle if that
violates his beliefs;
he should simply stand up for equal justice under law. He could
begin by demanding
immediate repeal of the one-year limit on federal death penalty
appeals, signed by
the President in a very different election climate four years ago.
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