------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the May 24, 2001 issue of Workers World newspaper ------------------------- MCVEIGH AND SANKOFA: TWO STANDARDS OF JUSTICE By Greg Butterfield George W. Bush and John Ashcroft: defenders of death-row prisoners' rights? The federal death machine's gears ground to a sudden halt on May 11, five days before Timothy McVeigh's scheduled execution. McVeigh was sentenced to death for his role in the right-wing terror bombing that destroyed Oklahoma City's Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995, killing 168 people. It was to have been the first federal execution in 38 years- a river the Bush administration is eager to cross. Attorney General Ashcroft postponed McVeigh's execution until at least June 11 after the FBI said it had failed to turn over 3,000 pages of evidence to McVeigh's lawyers. The postponement is meant to give the defense team time to study this new material. "Today is an example of the system being fair," said President Bush, who was responsible for the state-sponsored lynchings of more than 140 prisoners when he was Texas governor. Ashcroft said the postponement was necessary for "the integrity of the nation's system of justice." All sides admit there's little chance of uncovering significant evidence in the newly released documents. But both officials said they couldn't go forward with McVeigh's execution in good conscience until his legal team had a chance to review the paperwork. WHAT ABOUT SHAKA? Bush and Ashcroft didn't show such concern for fairness and integrity last year. On June 22, 2000, Texas Gov. George W. Bush brushed aside world leaders, religious figures, celebrities and nervous members of the capitalist establishment, who had all appealed to him to delay the execution of Shaka Sankofa/Gary Graham. Bush pushed that execution forward despite a mountain of evidence pointing to Sankofa's innocence. Professor Lawrence C. Marshall, legal director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law, said that execution was "based on the weakest evidence I have seen in the last 30 years." Sen. John Ashcroft, like Democratic President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore, didn't utter a single word of protest. So what's different now? McVeigh, a Gulf War veteran and Ku Klux Klan sympathizer, is white. His racist, anti-women, anti-gay ideology has much in common with some of the far-right groups that backed Bush's presidential candidacy and Ashcroft's attorney-general nomination. In an unusual arrangement-sealed under Clinton and continued under Bush-- the U.S. government agreed to turn over every document concerning McVeigh's role in the Oklahoma City bombing to the defense. Sankofa-a juvenile at the time of his arrest for murder in 1981-was an impoverished African American youth. His trial was marred by judicial misconduct and suppression of evidence. After his conviction, he became a revolutionary political activist and prisoner-rights leader. During nearly a decade of appeals, Sankofa couldn't get a single court to hear his case, even after many eyewitnesses came forward to contradict the testimony of the witness who had fingered him. His defenders had uncovered this new evidence without any help from local, state or federal authorities. DOUBLE STANDARD The Bush administration's sudden concern for a death-row prisoner's legal rights shows that the capitalist state has two standards of "justice": one for its ultra-right stooges, another for the oppressed people and impoverished workers who make up the vast majority of the 3,600 people on death row. Foes of the death penalty oppose McVeigh's execution. They know the government's real aim is not to punish the racist far right but to shore up waning public support for legal lynchings. What about the thousands of African Americans, Latinos and other poor people on death row who never received a real trial, much less full disclosure from the government? Death-penalty foes, anti-racists, unions and community organizations must mobilize to put the Bush administration's feet to the fire and demand that the same standards of full disclosure and legal rights be applied to all death-row prisoners. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
