The Supreme Court ended its term last week and all the justices and clerks hurried off to wherever those kind of people spend their summer months. That’s too bad, because if they were around this week, the might see the sixth annual fast and vigil held in front of the court by the Abolitionist Action Committee, a group which opposes the death penalty.
The vigil began Tuesday, June 29, the 27th anniversary of Furman v. Georgia, the case in which the Supreme Court found the various state death penalty statutes were being applied in an arbitrary and capricious manner. In other words, no equal justice under law. The vigil ends July 2, the 23rd anniversary of Gregg v. Georgia, the Supreme Court ruling which allowed executions to resume. During this week, many people keeping the vigil will not eat; they will pass out leaflets and speak to passers-by about the death penalty.
With the 1976 Gregg decision, the Supreme Court took pains to say that while it was allowing a resumption of executions, states must exercise themselves to ensure the rights of the condemned are preserved and death penalty statutes are fairly applied.
In May, the state of Illinois exonerated Ronald Jones in a case of rape and murder for which he was scheduled to die; a DNA test showed he had not committed the crime. A DNA test is a powerful tool for law enforcers – and yet – neither state nor federal law requires DNA testing prior to execution in cases where unexamined DNA evidence is available. How many people will die while biological proof of their innocence gathers dust in an evidence locker?
Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, 79 people have been freed from death row – one innocent person found for every seven executed. That is far too sloppy a system to be called justice.
What happened to the high-minded promises the Supreme Court made in the Gregg case? In Alabama, court-appointed defense lawyers in capital cases receive a maximum of $2,000. In Houston, a court-appointed lawyer fell asleep four times during his client’s trial. The client was sentenced to death. Congress and state legislatures enact laws limiting death-row appeals, in direct contradiction to the Gregg ruling and ensuring more innocent people will go to the death house.
When the Supreme Court stopped executions in 1972, Justice Potter Stewart compared the irrationality of capital punishment in America to being struck by lightning. The court promised evenhandedness in resuming executions, but it hasn’t worked that way.
You are more likely to die if you are convicted in the southeast, or if you are a man rather than a woman. You are more likely to die if you are convicted in an urban county, because rural prosecutors don’t have large budgets for appeals, so few death sentences are sought in rural counties. And, of course, you are more likely to die if you are black rather than white or if your victim is white rather than black. The Supreme Court has acknowledged the truth of these lopsided facts, but has ruled they are only significant if a condemned person can prove prosecutors intended to discriminate on the basis of geography, gender or race.
Down the hill from the Supreme Court protest is the White House. When Governor Bill Clinton was charging through the presidential primaries in 1992, Arkansas prepared to execute Ricky Ray Rector, who was mentally defective after shooting away the front of his brain in a botched suicide attempt. Even though the Supreme Court in 1986 found the execution of insane people to be unconstitutional, Governor Clinton signed the death warrant and went on to become president.
This year, Texas Governor George Bush, the “compassionate conservative” and declared presidential candidate, must decide whether to sign a death warrant for Larry Robison, a man who Texas health authorities diagnosed as schizophrenic, but failed to treat.
Hungry for Justice
The Supreme Court ended its term last week and all the justices and clerks hurried off to wherever those kind of people spend their summer months. That’s too bad, because if they were around this week, the might see the sixth annual fast and vigil held in front of the court by the Abolitionist Action Committee, a group which opposes the death penalty.
The vigil began Tuesday, June 29, the 27th anniversary of Furman v. Georgia, the case in which the Supreme Court found the various state death penalty statutes were being applied in an arbitrary and capricious manner. In other words, no equal justice under law. The vigil ends July 2, the 23rd anniversary of Gregg v. Georgia, the Supreme Court ruling which allowed executions to resume. During this week, many people keeping the vigil will not eat; they will pass out leaflets and speak to passers-by about the death penalty.
With the 1976 Gregg decision, the Supreme Court took pains to say that while it was allowing a resumption of executions, states must exercise themselves to ensure the rights of the condemned are preserved and death penalty statutes are fairly applied.
In May, the state of Illinois exonerated Ronald Jones in a case of rape and murder for which he was scheduled to die; a DNA test showed he had not committed the crime. A DNA test is a powerful tool for law enforcers – and yet – neither state nor federal law requires DNA testing prior to execution in cases where unexamined DNA evidence is available. How many people will die while biological proof of their innocence gathers dust in an evidence locker?
Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, 79 people have been freed from death row – one innocent person found for every seven executed. That is far too sloppy a system to be called justice.
What happened to the high-minded promises the Supreme Court made in the Gregg case? In Alabama, court-appointed defense lawyers in capital cases receive a maximum of $2,000. In Houston, a court-appointed lawyer fell asleep four times during his client’s trial. The client was sentenced to death. Congress and state legislatures enact laws limiting death-row appeals, in direct contradiction to the Gregg ruling and ensuring more innocent people will go to the death house.
When the Supreme Court stopped executions in 1972, Justice Potter Stewart compared the irrationality of capital punishment in America to being struck by lightning. The court promised evenhandedness in resuming executions, but it hasn’t worked that way.
You are more likely to die if you are convicted in the southeast, or if you are a man rather than a woman. You are more likely to die if you are convicted in an urban county, because rural prosecutors don’t have large budgets for appeals, so few death sentences are sought in rural counties. And, of course, you are more likely to die if you are black rather than white or if your victim is white rather than black. The Supreme Court has acknowledged the truth of these lopsided facts, but has ruled they are only significant if a condemned person can prove prosecutors intended to discriminate on the basis of geography, gender or race.
Down the hill from the Supreme Court protest is the White House. When Governor Bill Clinton was charging through the presidential primaries in 1992, Arkansas prepared to execute Ricky Ray Rector, who was mentally defective after shooting away the front of his brain in a botched suicide attempt. Even though the Supreme Court in 1986 found the execution of insane people to be unconstitutional, Governor Clinton signed the death warrant and went on to become president.
This year, Texas Governor George Bush, the “compassionate conservative” and declared presidential candidate, must decide whether to sign a death warrant for Larry Robison, a man who Texas health authorities diagnosed as schizophrenic, but failed to treat.
What do you think will happen?