death penalty news December 20, 2004
NEW YORK: The Death Penalty To the Editor: Re "New Debate Over Restoring Death Penalty" (news article, Dec. 16): The Manhattan district attorney, Robert M. Morgenthau, opposes capital punishment because "states with the death penalty have homicide rates that are 44 percent higher than those without it" and "rather than tamping down the flames of violence, it fuels them." But it can be reasonably argued that these states choose to impose the death penalty precisely because they possess the factors and subpopulations that disproportionately contribute to a high homicide rate. Moreover, to claim that the death penalty fuels violence is to argue that it not only doesn't decrease the murder rate, but also increases it more than it would otherwise be increased. This claim is dubious in the extreme. If the proponent of the death penalty is incorrect in his belief that the penalty deters homicide, then he is responsible for the execution of murderers who should not be executed. If the opponent of the death penalty is incorrect in his belief that the death penalty doesn't deter, he is responsible for the murder of innocent individuals who would not have been murdered if the death penalty had been invoked. [Steven Goldberg, New York, Dec. 16, 2004. The writer is chairman of the sociology department at City College, CUNY.] (source: Opinion, New York Times) ------------------------ Temperature Seems to Cool on Death Law Assemblyman Joseph R. Lentol, head of the legislative committee that held a hearing last week on the death penalty, was saying afterward that he was not sure where Eliot Spitzer stood on the issue. That's Eliot Spitzer, New York's Democratic attorney general and a candidate for governor in a state where the death penalty has made and dashed careers. Ten years ago, George E. Pataki's pledge to reinstate the death penalty helped him defeat Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, a committed foe of capital punishment. Candidates would telegraph their fealty to the death penalty before clearing their throats. But Mr. Lentol does not know the position of the man who could lead the state's Democratic ticket in 2006, because Mr. Spitzer hasn't done the usual drill. This, we submit, is no accident. The attorney general - who, by the way, says he favors the death penalty for "premeditated crimes of terrorism" - senses he does not have to trumpet his position, or fears that it could even hurt him with some voters. And that makes this a moment in New York. It suggests a change in the climate surrounding the death penalty, in limbo since June, when the state's highest court found a sentencing guideline in the law unconstitutional. With crime down, doubts up, instances in which DNA evidence has cleared people, and life without parole an option in New York since 1995 - the issue may have lost its edge. Mr. Spitzer says he does think public emotions have calmed down. "Improper convictions in Texas and elsewhere have shaken some folks' confidence in the application of the death penalty," he said in an interview. "You never predict, but I would be surprised if it's an issue that is paramount in public debate." But Robert Blecker, a professor at New York Law School and an outspoken advocate of capital punishment, argues that death penalty supporters have not mobilized more aggressively because they are sure the Legislature will revise the law. The Republican-led State Senate has already approved a new version, but the Assembly, more divided on the issue, is taking its time. It can approve a new law or leave the current one as is. Then the state would have life-without-parole on the books - but not the death penalty. "If we return to the status-quo-ante, we will see a firestorm," predicted Professor Blecker. He is confident that proponents of capital punishment are still strong and that many New Yorkers who favor life without parole will change their minds if they learn that inmates live out their days in, he testified, comfort. So far, the intensity is on the other side. Opponents of the death penalty are well organized and well financed. Only 2 of 15 who testified at last week's hearing at the City Bar Association's headquarters supported the death penalty. Advocates of capital punishment, anticipating abuse, stayed away, Professor Blecker said. BUT something else seems to be afoot. Consider Mr. Lentol, 61, a veteran assemblyman from Brooklyn and longtime proponent of capital punishment. Now he is not sure. In an interview on Friday, Mr. Lentol said that his father, as a state senator, sponsored the 1965 law that abolished the death penalty except in very limited circumstances. Edward S. Lentol, who died in 1981, told his son that he had always favored capital punishment until, as a young lawyer, he represented a client who insisted he'd been framed for murder. His uncle did it, he said. Mr. Lentol didn't believe him, and persuaded the client to accept a plea bargain that sent him to prison. About a year later, news broke that the uncle really had set up Mr. Lentol's client. After that, the senior Mr. Lentol became an active opponent of capital punishment. Now the younger Mr. Lentol, hearing others make arguments his father did, is having second thoughts. "I'm wondering whether or not I have been making a mistake all my life," he said. The assemblyman will make a final decision after the hearings. Two more are scheduled and others may be added. There is no reliable assessment of sentiment in the Assembly or of how Speaker Sheldon Silver, traditionally a death penalty supporter, intends to proceed. But, pressured for legislative reform, he has allowed the hearings (which Pataki aides called "obstructionist"). In 1995, the Legislature overwhelmingly approved the death penalty without holding any hearings. That probably could not happen today. "It's a different time," Andrew M. Cuomo, the former housing secretary, a son of the ex-governor and a death penalty opponent, mused at last week's hearing. (source: New York Times)
