[Deathpenalty]death penalty news --- USA

[Joerg Sommer]

death penalty news

July 30, 2004


USA:

Death penalty documentary shows dilemma

Can we craft a system of capital punishment that puts to death only those 
who deserve it?

I kept thinking of the Scottsboro Boys while watching “Deadline,” a new 
documentary by Katy Chevigny and Kirsten Johnson.

I sensed them looking on with approval as the film illuminated George 
Ryan’s struggles with capital punishment while he was governor of Illinois. 
In January 2000 Ryan imposed a moratorium on the death penalty there. He 
told CNN: “We have now freed more people than we have put to death under 
our system — 13 people have been exonerated and 12 have been put to death. 
There is a flaw in the system, without question, and it needs to be 
studied.” He appointed a panel to examine the issue.

“Deadline” will air tonight on NBC’s “Dateline” program. It includes 
interviews with several opponents of capital punishment who argue that 
cases often involve race, poverty, bad lawyering and police misconduct. The 
Scottsboro case had all of that. The nine poor, black defendants were 
accused of raping two white women on a Tennessee train in 1931. 
Representing them at their Chattanooga trial were an alcoholic real estate 
attorney who arrived drunk the first day and a forgetful septuagenarian who 
hadn’t been in court for years.

Despite the absence of supporting evidence, all nine were tried and 
convicted in two hours; eight sentenced to death. The youngest, Roy Wright, 
12, received life in prison. They eventually got better lawyers, were 
exonerated and freed.

For decades afterward, the Scottsboro Boys became synonymous with the kind 
of gross miscarriage of justice that can place the wrong person on death 
row. Their arduous experience was frequently cited by opponents of capital 
punishment, who achieved a victory in 1972 when the Supreme Court called a 
halt to government-sponsored executions. That triumph proved short-lived 
when the court allowed the reinstatement of the death penalty in certain 
states in 1976. The Death Penalty Information Center states 921 people have 
been executed since then.

“Deadline” includes chilling interviews with men who came perilously close 
to execution. Anthony Porter was two days from death when a group of 
Northwestern University students found evidence clearing him. Among the 
most compelling speakers is Gary Gauger, a farmer convicted of killing his 
parents and sentenced to death in 1993. In 1996 a three-judge panel 
overturned his conviction.

Interspersed with such segments is riveting testimony from the nine days of 
clemency hearings held in Illinois in October 2002, during which a prisoner 
review board evaluated the cases of 142 of the 160 inmates on the state’s 
death row. Victims’ families comments are heart-rending and show why the 
issue of capital punishment is so perplexing. One listens to a bereaved 
person and joins his desire for vengeance. But how to balance that grief 
against due process? What if our vengeance targets the wrong person? Will 
executing even the right person bring our loved one back?

Attorney and author Scott Turow served on Ryan’s panel. In the film, he 
expresses little concern with executing someone such as serial killer John 
Wayne Gacy. But, he asks, “Can we construct a capital system that only 
executes John Wayne Gacy without also executing the innocent or undeserving?”

Capital punishment is a hot potato for both liberal and conservative 
elected officials, none of whom want to be seen as soft on crime. As 
illustration of the death penalty’s nonpartisan significance, “Deadline” 
takes note of Bill Clinton’s refusal to stop the execution of a mentally 
handicapped Arkansas man in 1992, and calls attention to George W. Bush, 
who allowed 152 executions during his six years as governor of Texas. But 
while other politicians dither, DNA tests and other evidence continue to 
reveal innocent people on death row. The latest and 114th inmate to be 
exonerated since 1973 is Gordon Steidl, released on May 28. His home state? 
Illinois.

(source: Jabari Asim, Opinion, news-press.com)