Perspective
No way to right death penalty wrong
By Thomas C. Fox
Perhaps the bleakest fact of all is that the death
penalty is imposed not only in a freakish and discriminatory manner, but also
in some cases upon defendants who are actually innocent. --
Justice William J. Brennan Jr., 1994
Youre killing an innocent man, said Roy Michael
Roberts, strapped to a gurney, just minutes before being injected with three
lethal drug doses in the Missouri death chamber.
Others had questioned the mans guilt and had fought to delay
the execution. Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan would have none of it. He turned down
a final appeal two hours before executioners placed chemicals in Roberts
veins. Roberts died March 10 just after midnight.
Roberts appointment with death seemed as unfortunate for him
as his immediate predecessors appointment had been fortunate. Darrell
Meases death rendezvous happened to be scheduled during Pope John
Pauls visit to St. Louis last January. The pope pleaded with Carnahan to
save Meases life. The governor, moved by the pontiff or pressured by the
politics of the situation, commuted Meases sentence to life in
prison.
That decision set off an uproar locally as conservatives lashed
out at Carnahan for having caved in on the death sentence. Some locals were
upset that the governor had allowed the pope to interfere at all. In the days
that followed, some came to Carnahans defense, but curiously absent was
any strong defense of the governors action by Catholics or Catholic
organizations.
Local pundits say the governors move has cost him political
capital. Carnahan has an eye on a U.S. Senate seat and is likely to make a bid
in 2000. Being viewed in any way soft on the death penalty in
Missouri is not likely to help him. And his opponents are unlikely to forget
the name Mease in the months ahead.
Carnahans staff has denied that any political considerations
were involved in the Roberts case, and the governor is not known for granting
reprieves. Nevertheless, it is difficult to imagine that politics played no
role when he turned down Roberts appeal despite lingering doubts about
his guilt or innocence. Roy Roberts is as likely to be innocent as he is
guilty, said Tom Block, an anti-death penalty activist in St. Louis
shortly before the execution.
Unlike Mease, who admitted to three murders, Roberts had always
insisted on his innocence. He had been convicted of helping to kill a prison
guard during a riot at the medium security state prison in 1983. Witnesses
testified at his trial that he held the guard while two others plunged
makeshift knives into his body. Roberts denied it. Others questioned it. No
blood was found on Roberts. An initial investigation did not name him.
Curiously, the two who used the knives are still in prison. One or
both may never meet Roberts fate.
The relative merits of the Mease and Roberts cases are not the
point here. The point, once again, is the highly capricious nature of the way
capital punishment is carried out in America. Carnahan has highlighted the
inherent unfairness of capital punishment. As the Kansas City Star
editorialized: Is it fair for the state to kill prisoners because the
pope failed to show up in time to argue against it?
The pontiffs point was simple. There should be no capital
punishment. Meases guilt was beside the point. In fact, by intervening in
the case of an admitted murderer John Paul sent out his clearest statement on
the death penalty.
Church teaching on capital punishment -- and it has become more
clear and emphatic during the pontificate of John Paul II -- is way out in
front of Catholics in general. The same could be said about church teaching on
abortion. The teaching on both topics stems from the belief that human life is
sacred and must be protected. Our understanding of the sacred mystery of life
continues to unfold, extending to the far reaches of the universe, as we learn
from science. One can only imagine how these mysteries will find their way into
our lives in the years ahead.
For the moment, we are faced with what seems to be a growing gap
between the world we long for and the world in which we live. Because our
nation seems all too comfortable with capital punishment, death penalty
opponents are focusing on education efforts.
The haunting truth about the death penalty is that its
irreversible. That innocent people are being sent to their deaths should stop
us all in our tracks. This very point was reinforced just weeks ago when murder
charges were dropped in an Illinois case. Anthony Porter was released from
death row after another man confessed to the 1982 Chicago murders for which
Porter had been convicted. His release resulted from an investigation by
journalism students at Northwestern University. Porter -- who came within two
days of being executed last September -- was the eighth person to be released
from Illinois death row in the past five years.
In February in Maryland, another man, Anthony Gray Jr., was freed
from prison for the 1991 rape and murder of a Calvert County woman. Gray, who
was serving a life sentence, had confessed to a crime he did not commit after
prosecutors threatened him with a death sentence.
Last year, Northwestern Law School in Chicago hosted a Conference
on Wrongful Convictions and the Death Penalty. Attending were 35 of the 75
innocent men and women freed from death row since 1976.
We cannot remain silent. One immediate action would be to join the
Equal Justice USA campaign and get our communities or organizations on record
calling for a moratorium on executions (www.quixote.org/ej). Our
political leaders will not budge until enough voices are raised throughout the
country.
Tom Fox, NCR publisher, can be reached at
tcfox@natcath.org
National Catholic Reporter, March 26,
1999
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