[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----MINN., CALIF.

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 8




MINNESOTA:

We Need the Death Penalty for Jacob Wetterling's Killer


Few things bring a community together like tragedy. It's a sad aspect of the 
human condition. We tend to ignore each other until a moment when our essential 
sameness manifests. Minnesotans find themselves in such a moment, having 
recently learned chilling answers to long held questions in the Jacob 
Wetterling case.

Wetterling was 12 years old when he was abducted at gunpoint on a dead-end 
rural road, snatched while 2 of his friends were forced to look away. For 27 
years, his family and the broader community held out hope that he might somehow 
remain alive. Alas, a vile creature recently led authorities to Jacob's 
remains. In court on Tuesday, that killer detailed his actions, as reported by 
the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

It began with a question: "On Oct. 22, 1989, did you kidnap, sexually assault 
and murder Jacob Wetterling?"

"Yes, I did," Danny Heinrich said.

The hushed courtroom - packed with family members, reporters and law 
enforcement officers - began to buzz. Sitting in the front row, Patty and Jerry 
Wetterling listened, stoically at first, as Heinrich described that warm 
October night.

How he spotted the 3 boys on the dead-end road. How he put on a mask and 
reached for his revolver. How he warned Trevor and Aaron not to look back.

With a clear, low voice, Heinrich said he then handcuffed Jacob and put him in 
the passenger seat. At that point, the prosecutor asked, what did Jacob say to 
you?

"'What did I do wrong?'" Heinrich answered.

A few in the courtroom gasped. Several began sobbing.

The only justice for Jacob would be Heinrich's death. That will not happen. 
Minnesota has no death penalty. On top of that, authorities presumably have 
these answers in the Wetterling case because Heinrich cut a deal. Faced with 
life in prison due to conviction on other charges, Heinrich reportedly seeks 
accommodations that will protect him from other prisoners. The irony is that 
those other prisoners understand something which the rest of us increasingly 
don't. Monsters must be put down.

The death penalty has lost much of its support over the past few decades, even 
among conservatives. Here are a few objections to the death penalty floating 
around conservative circles, and why they are wrong:

1. Government Cannot Be Trusted

Conservatives don't trust government to run health care or fix the economy. Why 
would we trust them with something as important as a human life? There have 
been improper convictions in the past, and an innocent person might be killed.

Let's just shut the whole thing down then. Seriously. Why have government at 
all? If they can't get anything right, why trust them with any of it? This is 
silly. If people are being wrongly convicted, let's stop that! We don't fix 
that problem by nerfing sentences.

How is it better for someone to be falsely convicted to a life sentence than to 
be falsely convicted to a death sentence? Either way, it's a false conviction. 
Are we to regard the world as a better place because an innocent person might 
spend his life in prison rather than be executed? Is that really the standard?

How about we focus on minimizing mistakes? How about we focus on making sound 
convictions? That seems like a much better plan than settling for a world where 
innocent people spend their remaining years in hell, and guilty people don't 
get what they deserve.

2. Death Is Not an Adequate Punishment

If you kill someone, that's it, it's over. They don't suffer. They don't have 
to pay with the lifetime of horror which prison presents. Let's make them 
suffer by keeping them alive.

This is odd in light of the first argument. If a lifetime in prison proves so 
much worse than death, why should we be okay with errant life sentences while 
objecting to errant death sentences? If killing someone gets it over with, 
while letting them live makes them suffer, wouldn't we rather kill the wrong 
person than imprison them for life? You can't have it both ways.

A life sentence in a case which warrants death comes at a financial and moral 
cost. Why should taxpayers foot the bill to keep a murdering rapist alive? More 
importantly, why should we suffer a murdering rapist's continued existence? 
Each breath he draws insults life itself. But more on that later.

3. It's Cheaper to Keep Them Alive

"Cases without the death penalty cost $740,000, while cases where the death 
penalty is sought cost $1.26 million." That's from the Death Penalty 
Information Center. Therefore, some conservatives argue, it proves more 
fiscally responsible to pursue life sentences rather than death sentences.

The cheapest option would be to let them back out onto the street and be done 
with it. Let's concede, first and foremost, that our goal is justice at 
whatever cost.

The reason that it is more expensive to prosecute a death penalty case is 
because we have made it more expensive. In a long forgotten past, getting the 
death penalty meant that you were actually going to die, and soon. Today, 
getting the death penalty means that you are going to spend an untold number of 
years in prison while your case goes through seemingly infinite appeals. On the 
one hand, it is understandable why we would want a vigorous appeals process in 
a death penalty case. At a certain point, however, there is a diminishing 
return.

How about we strengthen the process by which initial convictions occur, then 
limit appeals to something more reasonable. It shouldn't cost $1.26 million to 
kill a murdering rapist. Rope is cheap.

4. Death Is Not a Deterrent

The presence of a death penalty, or lack thereof, has no effect upon the rate 
of violent crime.

Accepting that premise for a moment, so what? Deterring crime is not the point. 
A death sentence is an administration of justice. You kill a murdering rapist 
because he deserves to die, not to strike fear in the hearts of other murdering 
rapists.

Even so, let's consider some anecdotal evidence which affirms the deterrent 
value of the death penalty. Recall that the reason we now have answers in the 
Wetterling case is because Heinrich seeks protection from fellow inmates. That 
suggests that he values his life. Weird, huh? Indeed, the one instance in which 
forgoing the death penalty proves acceptable is when such clemency can be 
leveraged to secure a broader justice. But doing so clearly demonstrates the 
value in the death penalty as a means for securing that justice.

It also reveals hypocrisy. Let's not kid ourselves. Whether there is an 
official death penalty on the books or not, this whole case hinges on the fact 
that throwing Heinrich in with the general prison population effectively 
assures his demise. Clearly, we're already benefiting from a de facto death 
penalty. Why pretend we have a problem with it? If we truly objected to the 
death penalty as such, we would protect Heinrich on principle regardless of his 
cooperation.

? 5. Life Is Precious

As conservatives, we're pro-life. We believe that life is precious and ought to 
be preserved. How can the same people who wring hands over the death of an 
unborn child be perfectly content with injecting a lethal chemical cocktail 
into grown adults?

This is face-palming dumb. If I have to explain the moral distinction between 
an unborn child and a murdering rapist, we have bigger problems than criminal 
justice policy. I'll do so anyway for the sake of argument.

Being pro-life is not, and has never been, blind and equal support of any life 
in every context. This is the PETA mentality. A chicken lives, they note, 
therefore it is as valuable as a human being. No, it isn't. A chicken and a 
human being have two different natures which define their relative value.

Human beings make choices. Unlike lesser animals, we cannot get by on instinct. 
We have to think. We have to act on that thought in order to survive and 
thrive. We stand accountable for the consequences of those choices. Obviously, 
an unborn child has not made any choices which might warrant death. A murdering 
rapist clearly has. His nature, defined by his choices, defines his relative 
value.

Indeed, blind and equal support of any life in every context is explicitly 
anti-life. It is because life is precious that we must kill those who take it, 
certainly when the crime proves heinous and wholly intentional. That is what 
justice requires. By killing the killer, you affirm the value of his victim's 
life. It says that the victim's life held value which demands the ultimate 
price. To do less is to diminish the victim, to effectively victimize her 
again, to say that her life was worth less than the monster who killed her.

To oppose the death penalty on the grounds that life is precious is to say that 
Danny Heinrich proves as precious as Jacob Wetterling. He doesn't. Jacob 
deserved to live. His killer deserves to die.

(source: Opinion, Walter Hudson----pjmedia.com)






CALIFORNIA:

Documentary explores issues about death penalty


What: Screening of "Last Day of Freedom" followed by a discussion and Q&A with 
narrator Bill Babbitt, whose brother Manny is featured in the film, and 
directors Dee Hibbert-Jones and Nomi Talisman

When: 7 p.m. Monday, Sept. 12

Where: Davis United Methodist Church, 1620 Anderson Road

Admission: Free

The Yolo County ACLU and the Social Concerns Committee of the Davis United 
Methodist Church are hosting a free screening of the Academy Award-nominated 
short documentary "Last Day of Freedom" on Monday, Sept. 12. The event will 
include a post-screening question-and-answer period featuring narrator Bill 
Babbitt and the film???s directors, Dee Hibbert-Jones and Nomi Talisman.

The screening runs from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at the church, 1620 Anderson Road.

The documentary is narrated by Bill Babbitt and follows the story of his 
brother Manny Babbitt, who was convicted of the murder of a 78-year-old woman, 
Leah Schendel, during a post-traumatic stress episode in Sacramento in 1980. 
Babbitt was executed by lethal injection at San Quentin State Prison in May 
1999, one day after his 50th birthday.

A U.S. Marine veteran of the Vietnam War, Babbitt was wounded at the bloody 
1968 Battle ofKheSanh inQuang Tri Province, South Vietnam. As part of his 
defense, he claimed that he suffered from PTSD, which he said caused him to 
commit his crimes and, later, to lose all memory of them.

After Bill Babbitt discovered his brother had committed a crime, he was faced 
with the difficult decision of turning him in to the police. The documentary 
tells Bill???s story as he decides to support his brother, and explores several 
issues including veterans care, the U.S. criminal system and racism.

When directors Hibbert-Jones and Talisman set out to make the documentary, they 
planned to make a piece that included several stories from families who were 
affected by their loved ones being accused of a capital crime. They wanted to 
show people the experiences families go through, as their perspectives are 
rarely heard. After hearing Bill Babbitt's story, they realized how intense and 
compelling his story was and decided to focus on it.

Hibbert-Jones and Talisman said they wanted to bring Bill???s story to life as 
it demonstrated larger issues of criminal justices and civic responsibility, 
but also touched on topics they were interested in, including how individuals 
manage power systems.

"We wanted to start by telling Bill's story because we have been interested in 
looking at larger systems of individuals and how individuals are impacted by 
larger political systems," Hibbert-Jones said. "The death penalty seemed like 
an incredibly powerful example of that. We also wanted to look at 
infrastructure and support systems where the terrible trauma could have been 
prevented if an individual or institution had stepped in."

Hibbert-Jones and Talisman never imagined that their documentary would garner 
so much attention. In addition to being nominated for an Academy Award for a 
short documentary, the film earned them the Gideon Award presented by the 
California Public Defenders Association, to honor their support of indigent 
communities.

They are preparing to travel to Washington, D.C., for the documentary's 
nomination for the Veterans Braintrust Award from the Congressional Black 
Caucus. This award recognizes people and organizations who have exemplified 
their cause of representing African-American veterans' point of views.

"We have been amazed by the response," Hibbert-Jones said. "It really has been 
incredible to see the response from individuals and also from organizations. 
And that people really do feel it's representing a perspective that isn't heard 
a lot."

For Natalie Wormeli, who organized the Davis screening, this event is not only 
an opportunity to share Bill Babbitt's story, but also a way to get people to 
start talking about the death penalty, especially with 2 initiatives on the 
Nov. 8 ballot addressing capital punishment.

"If they haven't thought about these issues at all, it's going to be a very 
personal way to start thinking about it, talking to a family member that has 
been affected by the death penalty," Wormeli said. "Those who are already 
opposed to the death penalty, it will just strengthen their resolve."

Wormeli said Monday's event will conclude with a brief discussion about the 2 
initiatives dealing with the death penalty: Propositions 62 and 66. Prop. 62 
would repeal the death penalty in California while Prop. 66 would keep the 
death penalty in place, but speed up the appeals process.

Wormeli said the discussion is a small introduction to another event being held 
on Monday, Oct. 3, hosted by the Yolo County ACLU and the Yes on 62, No on 66 
statewide campaign, of which she is the local campaign manager. That event will 
go into more detail about the death penalty.

"I'm most concerned about California's voters," Wormeli said. "There are going 
to be 17 initiatives on the ballot, and we need informed voters. The fact that 
we have 2 completely different initiatives that both deal with the death 
penalty - we want people to be clear on how they want to vote before they even 
pick up their pen to vote."

For more information on either event, call Wormeli at 530-756-1900
(source: The Davis Enterprise)

******************************

Man Once Sentenced To Death Row Works To Abolish Capital Punishment In 
California


Do you support the death penalty? It???s one of the most serious questions to 
confront California voters this November and one of the most divisive.

A Field Poll published in January shows 47 % of California voters would choose 
to end the death penalty and replace it with life without the possibility of 
parole. That's what Proposition 62 on the November ballot would do.

The same poll found 48 % want to keep California's death penalty and would 
support a new system to speed up the death penalty process. That's what 
Proposition 66 would do.

KPBS is partnering with KPCC to host California Counts Town Hall: The Pros And 
Cons Of Repealing The Death Penalty, on Wednesday at 7 p.m. at the University 
of San Diego's Peace and Justice Theater. If you can't come to the event, tune 
in to Midday Edition on Thursday to hear a recording of the town hall.

One man who is now speaking out in support of Proposition 62 served time on 
death row for a murder he did not commit.

In 1974, at the age of 16, Gary Tyler was convicted in Louisiana of the murder 
of a white high school student and sentenced to death. The Supreme Court 
overturned the state's death penalty in 1976 but Tyler, who is African 
American, was left with a life sentence for a murder he has steadfastly 
maintained he did not commit.

Despite recommendations from parole boards and finally a declaration that his 
life sentence was unconstitutional, Tyler was not released from Angola prison 
until April, having spent almost 42 years in prison, and only after he agreed 
to enter a guilty plea to manslaughter.

Tyler said family, friends and supporters across the country helped him survive 
the time he spent in prison.

"It???s always hard for anyone having to go through an ordeal where no matter 
what you do to try to prove to people that you are innocent, that the system is 
no longer functioning," Tyler said. "That's a bitter pill to swallow. But if 
you are determined to survive, you're able to sustain under horrendous 
conditions. Because you know one thing, you stand on truth and you just make 
the best out of a bad situation."

Tyler, who now lives in California, spoke to Midday Edition about why he 
supports Proposition 62.

(source: KPBS news)

**********************

Man proved innocent STILL on death row


Californian inmate Kevin Cooper has been proven innocent, yet still awaits the 
retraction of his death penalty.

Cooper, who has been on death row since 1985, was charged with the murder of 4 
family members, in an attack in 1983. The incident also left another child 
seriously injured, whose testimony eventually proved crucial to the case.

Since the accused had been staying in close proximity to the crime scene at the 
time, whilst on the run, the police decided that he must be the perpetrator. 
Claiming links between Cooper and blood found at the scene, he was branded 
guilty by investigators.

During the case, someone reportedly hung a stuffed monkey outside the 
courtroom, with a sign that read, "Kill that N****".

Later however, when the injured young boy from the incident had made his 
recovery, he gave his version of events. He recalled that multiple attackers 
were responsible for the murders, none of which were African-American men.

This account of the events gave Cooper a glimmer of hope and an appeal was 
filed. It was uncovered that the police had tampered with evidence in order to 
achieve a conviction against the suspect.

It is strongly suspected that this case was a racially motivated framing, which 
led to an innocent man being sentenced to death.

Despite judges confirming Cooper's innocence, he still to this day awaits the 
lifting of his death sentence. The decision is reportedly in the hands of 
Governor Jerry Brown, to whom several pleas have been sent in efforts to free 
Cooper.

A campaign has been set up, using the hashtag '#FreeKevinCooper', which urges 
supporters to sign a petition to help push the case forward.

(source: blacknet.co.uk)