Death Trap Every Time We Execute A Prisoner, A Little Of Our Civility Dies, Too
FOR THE RECORD: 7-8-2000 Group misidentified: Speedy Rice is chair of the International Relations Committee for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. That organization was misidentified in the Perspective page article he wrote regarding the death penalty in last Sunday’s newspaper.
On June 22, Texas executed Gary Graham, a person who committed some terrible crimes, such as armed robbery and one rape. However, he most likely did not commit the murder for which he was executed. Graham, a 17-year-old kid at the time someone shot Bobby Lambert, was identified by only one eyewitness.
At least two other eyewitnesses are equally convinced Graham was not the person. The bullet that killed Lambert did not come from Graham’s gun. Yet, because of terrible lawyering, the jury never heard the evidence that established Graham’s innocence.
Because legal rules restrict what appellate courts can consider, this evidence never was properly evaluated by any court or jury. Four of the original jurors who voted for death asked the Texas Board of Pardons to grant clemency based on the withheld evidence. The best anyone can say about the case is that evidence of guilt was 50-50.
Faced with mounting evidence of innocence and public outcries from across the world not to execute Graham, pro-death advocates had to make him seem evil. His other crimes were used to demonize him, yet none of them, even collectively, would warrant the death penalty. Graham was referred to as a heinous, vicious, cold-blooded killer. These are words used to describe serial killers such as Charles Manson or Ted Bundy, but none of the evidence supported this description for a person accused of a single shooting during a robbery.
The loss suffered by the Lambert family is tragic and justifies them feeling this way. But people unrelated to the crime? Beyond the fact we still execute our citizens, the rest of the Western world is stunned at our zeal and pleasure for it.
There are many reasons why we should end capital punishment. Increasingly we discover that innocent people are sent to death row. In Illinois, 13 innocent persons were sent to death row because of bad lawyers, bad evidence or corrupt law enforcement. Did the system work in discovering these innocent persons? Only if you can call college students on a class project uncovering the truth as the legal system working.
Texas Gov. George W. Bush states unequivocally that not a single person of the 135 he has ordered executed could have been innocent. Yet he’s approved the executions of persons whose lawyers never put on any evidence in guilt or mitigation, cases where evidence of innocence was hidden by the prosecution and cases where lawyers slept during trial.
In Graham’s case, the evidence was a sole eyewitness some distance away. Study after study demonstrates eyewitness testimony is often inaccurate, no matter how much the eyewitness believes what they saw. As a PBS “Frontline” documentary showed, Jennifer Thompson testified twice she remembered every detail and was 100 percent certain of the man who raped her. She identified the wrong man, even after being confronted with the actual rapist in a second trial. After a man spent 11 years in jail, DNA proved her wrong and confirmed the guilt of the man she said did not do it. Thanks to lawyers like Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, more innocent persons are released from death row every month. But how many have we missed?
The application of the death penalty is arbitrary. Graham supposedly killed one person and was executed. Sammy “The Bull” Gravano executed 19 persons and got five years in prison. When a murder is committed, the possible death path starts with the police and whom they arrest along with the evidence, real and fabricated, that they present to the prosecution.
Next, factors such as the media visibility of the crime, the race of the victim, the status and wealth of the defendant, whether the prosecutor is running for re-election and the financial resources of the county all weigh in on whether the death penalty is pursued. Then we deal with the quality and experience of the lawyers appointed to represent the defendant, the financial resources permitted for investigation and trial, and the negotiating ability of the lawyers pre-trial. Trial itself is a crapshoot, followed by the appeals. The arbitrariness and randomness of who gets death is staggering.
Not a single study has demonstrated a deterrent effect to benefit society. So why do we execute our citizens? We openly admit it is for vengeance. When someone hurts or kills a loved one, we have a natural and deeply personal reaction to strike back, seek vengeance. But vengeance, especially killing out of vengeance, is wrong. It is one of the most base of instincts, a sin. Vengeance is not something we teach our children to honor and exact at every opportunity. Yet when it comes to capital punishment, we have now made vengeance respectable, with the state the designated executioner.
Capital punishment remains one of America’s most prominent vestiges of racial oppression. The U.S. General Accounting Office analyzed 28 studies of capital sentencing and found a remarkably consistent pattern of racial disparities. African Americans make up only 12 percent of the total population, and half of the murder victims in the last 25 years have been African Americans. Yet, 83 percent of the cases in which the death penalty has been carried out have involved white victims. This racial discrimination also was confirmed by the International Commission of Jurists after a visit and extensive study. Study after study has confirmed that the death penalty in the United States is racially discriminatory.
In continuing to execute juvenile offenders such as Graham, the United States. acts in defiance of international consensus and law. Such executions have all but ceased around the world, except in the United States. The death penalty for juveniles is prohibited by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, The U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the American Convention of Human Rights. The same is true regarding our execution of the mentally ill or mentally retarded.
In the end, what do we gain from executing our own citizens? Nothing. It degrades us all as members of the human race and a civilized nation. Unless we stand up and demand that this cruel punishment be stopped, it will only get worse. More than 200 years ago, Italian philosopher Cesare Beccaria wrote: “As punishments become more cruel, men’s minds, adjusting themselves like fluid to the level of surrounding objects, become increasingly hardened.”
Today, Pope John Paul II reflects the view of most of the world’s major religions: “I renew the appeal … for a consensus to end the death penalty, which is both cruel and unnecessary.” It’s time the United States recognizes the dignity of each person, no matter what their worst act was, and embrace respect for all human life.