[Deathpenalty]death penalty news --- USA

[Joerg Sommer]

death penalty news

July 27, 2004


USA:

No longer pushing the death penalty

The Democratic party platform that will be adopted this week includes one 
particularly significant change from the platforms adopted by the party 
conventions of 1992, 1996 and 2000. During the platform-writing process, 
the drafting committee quietly removed the section of the document that 
endorsed capital punishment. Thus, for the first time since the 1980s, 
Democrats will not be campaigning on a pro-death penalty program.

Why the change?

Simply put, on the question of execution, John Kerry is a very different 
Democrat from Bill Clinton and Al Gore. Clinton and Gore, while surely 
aware that capital punishment is an ineffective and racially and 
economically biased vehicle for fighting crime, were willing to embrace it 
as a political tool. When he was running for the presidency in 1992, then 
Governor Clinton even rushed back to Arkansas during the 1992 campaign to 
oversee the execution of a mentally-retarded inmate.

With Clinton and Gore steering the party's policies, Democratic platforms 
explicitly and frequently endorsed capital punishment.

But Clinton and Gore are no longer at the helm. And, as of tonight, the 
party will no longer be on record as supporting the death penalty. Asked 
about the removal of the pro-capital punishment language, U.S. 
Representative Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., the chair of the committee that 
drafted the document, explained that, "It's a reflection of John Kerry."

Kerry, who is often accused by his Republican critics of flip-flopping, is 
made of firmer stuff than most politicians when it comes to the issue of 
capital punishment. He opposes executions in virtually all cases -- making 
an exception only after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade 
Center and the Pentagon, when he said he would consider supporting capital 
punishment, in limited cases, for foreign terrorists.

On the domestic front, Kerry has earned high marks from death penalty 
critics. Last fall, when the Students Against the Death Penalty project of 
the American Civil Liberties Union rated the nine candidates who were then 
seeking the Democratic presidential nomination on a variety of death 
penalty-related issues, Kerry and Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chair 
Dennis Kucinich were the only two who received perfect scores.

Kerry opposes the execution of juveniles, supports greater access to DNA 
testing for death row inmates and argues that studies "reveal serious 
questions, racial bias, and deep disparities in the way the death penalty 
is applied." Kerry was a cosponsor of the National Death Penalty Moratorium 
Act of 2001 and of the National Death Penalty Moratorium Act of 2003.

"I know something about killing," Kerry says, referencing his service in 
Vietnam as a swift-boat commander. "I don't like killing. That's just a 
personal belief I have."

Polls show a majority of Americans support the death penalty in at least 
some instances. But since the late 1980s, enthusiasm for capital punishment 
has been slipping. Many Americans, including some political leaders such as 
former Illinois Governor George Ryan, have come to question the morality of 
state-sponsored executions, as the use of DNA analysis has led to the 
exoneration of dozens of death-row inmates.

Still, the death penalty remains a divisive issue. Not since 1988 has 
either major party nominated a critic of capital punishment for the 
presidency. The 1988 Democratic nominee, former Massachusetts Governor 
Michael Dukakis, was attacked by that year's Republican nominee, George 
Herbert Walker Bush, for opposing the death penalty. Whether Kerry will 
face similar attacks from Bush's son, an enthusiastic backer and frequent 
practitioner of state-sponsored executions during his days as governor of 
Texas, remains to be seen. But the volatility of the issue may explain why 
Democrats have been so quiet about the shift in platform language.

It is notable, however, that, in addition to Kerry's home state of 
Massachusetts, eleven other states bar executions. Among them are a number 
of the battleground states that could decide the November election, 
including Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan, Maine and West Virginia.

(source: The Nation)