[EMAIL PROTECTED] (William J. Foristal) writes:
HI Sue,
Thanks for posting this. I thought the editorial asks some good
questions about this issue.
Bill
On Tue, 24 Mar 1998 08:42:51 -0800 Sue Hartigan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
writes:
>Sue Hartigan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
>
>Posted for Bill:
>
>St. Louis Post-Dispatch
>
>DEATH PENALTY
>
>About the time Missourians are drifting off the sleep tonight, the
>executioner
>is scheduled to administer a lethal injection to Milton Griffin-El.
>His
>death
>should trouble our sleep.
>Many will be satisfied by his execution. There's no doubt that
>Griffin-El and
>Antoine Owens killed Jerome Redden and his girlfriend, Loretta
>Trotter,
>on
>Aug. 15, 1986. There's no doubt it was a brutal attack in the
>apartment
>above the Redden family cleaning establishment on St. Louis Avenue.
>There's
>no doubt that the murder had tragic consequences quite beyond the
>victims
>who were stabbed and bludgeoned to death. Mr. Redden and Ms. Trotter's
>4-month-old son, Germaine, was found crying near the bodies and
>eventually
>was put up for adoption.
>Rosie Redden, Mr. Redden's mother, sees the execution as simple
>justice:
>"He took two lives for a robbery. He deserves to die."
>So what is there to trouble us?
>The trouble lies in what the case says about the quality of justice as
>a
>new
>federal law begins to limit death row appeals. The case also
>illustrates
>other
> problems with the death penalty:
>* Griffin-El was sentenced to death while Owens got life sentences for
>stabbing both Ms. Trotter and Mr. Redden. Hence the arbitrariness of
>the
>death penalty.
>* Griffin-El was convicted by a jury from which the prosecutor had
>struck six
>African-Americans - a common prosecutorial practice in the 1980s and a
>reason the death penalty has been stacked against blacks.
>* The jury deadlocked on the death sentence at 10-2 in favor. Under a
>new
>state law, Griffin-El became the first Missourian to be sentenced to
>death by
>a judge acting alone - a lonely exercise of discretion for a public
>official who
>can pay for it in the next election.
> * Griffin-El will be the first of the 30 men put to death in Missouri
>who did
>not have a chance at a full hearing before the federal appeals court.
>The reason that Griffin-El hasn't received that last hearing is that
>Congress
>passed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act in 1996 to
>cut
>back on the appeals of death-row inmates.
>Understandably, people are frustrated by the decades-long appeals
>process.
>But, when the ultimate judgment of death is involved, there can be no
>mistakes. A vivid example of the importance of careful appeals is
>Illinois
>where nine men who were sentenced to die in recent years have been
>found
>to be innocent.
>It is particularly unfair that the Antiterrorism law be applied to
>Griffin-El
>because there is every indication the Supreme Court won't apply the
>law
>retroactively to cases like his. The Supreme Court ruled last year
>that
>portions of the law are not retroactive and has another case on the
>issue
>before it now.
>What kind of justice would it be for the Supreme Court to turn down
>Griffin-El's plea for one last hearing and then to decide after
>Griffin-El's
>execution that the Antiterrorism law didn't apply to older cases like
>his?
>The Supreme Court and Gov. Mel Carnahan still have time to make a loud
>statement for justice.
>--
>Two rules in life:
>
>1. Don't tell people everything you know.
>2.
>
>Subscribe/Unsubscribe, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>In the body of the message enter: subscribe/unsubscribe law-issues
>
_____________________________________________________________________
You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail.
Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com
Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]
Subscribe/Unsubscribe, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
In the body of the message enter: subscribe/unsubscribe law-issues
