Viewpoint
The only way to ‘fix’ death penalty system is to end
it
By CHARLES CARNEY
On Sept. 21, 1998, I stood face to
face with a man who was scheduled for execution by the State of Illinois just
60 hours later. Anthony Porter’s hands shook visibly as he passed legal
papers to me through the bars of his closet-like cell on Menard Prison’s
death row.
Within 45 minutes, I was convinced he was innocent. All evidence
clearly pointed to another man as the killer. Even family members of the
victims stated they didn’t believe Porter committed the murders of which
he was convicted.
Fortunately, that same day, Porter was temporarily spared death by
a stay of execution, not based on innocence but based on a lack of competence.
A psychiatrist judged that Porter had an IQ of 51. As I drove home from the
prison, I fumed over a system that could allow a man so clearly innocent to
languish on death row for 12 years. As part of my work there, I began to speak
out and write on Porter’s behalf.
In my efforts at advocacy I felt as if I were screaming with all
my might but only whispers were being emitted. It was only when graduate
students from Northwestern University School of Journalism (not law) uncovered
conclusive evidence, that Porter was finally exonerated. On Feb. 5, 1999, he
was released to tearful embraces of his attorney, family and friends. This
emotional scene was one of 13 such scenes that had been replayed in Illinois in
recent years.
Anthony Porter was, as Gov. George Ryan of Illinois put it on Jan.
11, “a perfect [example] of what is so terribly broken about our
system.” On Friday, Ryan ordered the release of four more death row
inmates, based on overwhelming evidence of innocence.
Perhaps Ryan felt something of what I felt as he examined numerous
Illinois capital cases -- cases marked by racism, manufactured evidence, and
confessions extracted under torture. But when Ryan screamed, the whole world
listened.
“Because the Illinois death penalty system is arbitrary and
capricious -- and therefore immoral -- I no longer shall tinker with the
machinery of death,” Ryan said Jan. 11.
There are those who will argue that while the death penalty makes
mistakes on occasion, it is effective overall and should be left intact. To
those I say: Try spending 12 years, 12 months, even 12 weeks under the sentence
of death for a crime you didn’t commit, and then tell us how great the
system is. Put yourself in the shoes of Leroy Orange, who spent 17 years on
Illinois’ death row. Imagine how it would feel to miss your mother’s
funeral and the birth of your grandson.
If the death penalty system were a parachute and it had already
failed numerous times, you can be sure that society would go to great pains to
fix it. Why not then, for a system that involves highly disproportionate
numbers of African-American, Latino and Native American men and women?
Many assert that those who can be shown conclusively to have
committed heinous crimes should be given the ultimate penalty. But doesn’t
the criminal justice system already promise that? Weren’t the 17
exonerated men in Illinois already convicted beyond a reasonable doubt?
This is what I think Ryan was trying to get at when he said the
system is broken and can’t be fixed.
Governments have long histories of trying to make their death
penalty systems apply more equally to all races and income brackets. They have
not been and never will be successful, because the death penalty system is but
a reflection of the inequalities of our society. In such a system, the
disenfranchised will always suffer a grave disadvantage. Wealthy, educated
people with clout are as rare on death row as palm trees in Kansas, while the
poor are overrepresented.
Moreover, any system that gives flawed, biased human beings the
legal power to take the lives of other human beings is intrinsically corrupt
and immoral. The only way to fix it is to end it.
The fact that Ryan represents the Republican Party -- a party
traditionally known to be more favorable to the death penalty -- makes this
event even more significant. His decision is but another dent in the
infrastructure of an infamous legacy whose days are numbered.
Charles Carney served as a staff member for the Eighth Day Center
for Justice, a Chicago-based Catholic coalition of religious congregations
working for human rights, from 1994 to 1999. While there he served on the board
of the Illinois Coalition Against the Death Penalty and was a frequent visitor
to death row. He now lives in Wichita, Kan.
National Catholic Reporter, January 24,
2003
|
