THE EXECUTIONS
By Marilyn Parish
In December of 2005 I was on Death Row -- in the visiting room at San Quentin, when Tookie Williams walked by on his way to his visitor, and we said hello.
Do you remember all the news coverage about Stan (Tookie) Williams? It was a couple weeks before his scheduled execution. He looked fine, and in good spirits. Two weeks later he was executed. It’s a very cold feeling when someone alive and healthy is deliberately killed.
For several years I’ve been working on the AIM (American Indian Movement) committee for the release of Douglas Roy Stankewitz, better known as “Chief,” a Native American Death Row inmate, and I was visiting him on that day. He and Tookie Williams were long time friends.
The last three people slated for execution at San Quentin illustrate what’s wrong with the death penalty:
1. Tookie Williams case shows that there is no place for rehabilitation in the capital punishment system.
2. Donald Beardslee’s case shows the implacable savagery of capital punishment,
3. Mike Morales’s case illustrates the inadequate defense issue.
I’ll begin with TOOKIE WILLIAMS, founder and leader of the notorious LA Crips gang, he was on death row many years, and along the way had a radical change of heart. From that time on he worked from prison to influence young people away from gangs and violence and winding up in prison. He wrote a series of books on this and a movie, “Redemption” was about his life, made from his book of that name.
His books for children were popular and acclaimed worldwide, especially in Japan and South Africa. Winnie Mandala was impressed and came to visit him. Because of his efforts for peace, Williams was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize (Williams, 2004).
But his appeal was denied. The capital punishment system has no room for rehabilitation.
DONALD BEARDSLEE’S case shows the barbarism of capital punishment. n January of 2005 Beardslee, now ageing and ill, was rolled to his execution in his wheelchair, strapped to the gurney, and killed.
On that day a demonstrator outside the prison said, “My being here has nothing to do with what’s his name and the two gals he murdered, and I have the utmost sympathy for their families. This is all about us. We’re doing it. We’re killing this guy. It’s a revenge killing and we’re in the last remnant of a barbarous time. This is pre-civilized behavior (SFGate, 2005).
Prison records show Beardslee had schizophrenia. He had brain damage at birth and a brain injury from a falling tree at age 21. A director of psychiatry at University of Pennsylvania concluded that the right hemisphere of his brain was virtually nonfunctioning (Gur, 2005).
Other examples of the savagery of capital punishment are:
Louis Michel, a former Belgian foreign minister and member of the European Commission, said about Saddam Hussein’s execution, “You don’t fight barbarism with acts that I deem as barbaric” All European Union countries oppose the death penalty: the bloc’s foreign policy chief Javier Solana, said “The EU condemns the crimes committed by Saddam; the EU also condemns the death penalty.” (Dawn, 2006)
Amnesty International’s spokesman James Dyson said about Saddam Hussein’s trial, “Not only is the death penalty a violation of the right to life, but this most extreme penalty was imposed after a clearly unfair trial.” (Dyson, 2006)
Retarded people are executed, and it’s perfectly legal to pass the death sentence on teenagers, 16 and 17-year-olds. California doesn’t allow it--Texas and Alabama control the market on killing the young (DP Information Center, 2004).
My Indian friend, Chief, gave me some facts about San Quentin.
A total of 13 prisoners have been executed, but what doesn’t get into the papers is that seven of them gave up their appeal in order to die, unable to stomach 10-20 more years waiting to be killed. You’re up for execution when your legal efforts run out. Simply to wait 10 to 20 or more years on death row before you are killed is in itself cruel and unusual punishment.
Turning to the inadequate defense issue, MIKE MORALES is an example. The very judge who had sentenced Morales appealed to Schwarzenegger for clemency because of recent evidence of false testimony at his trial (Wikipedia, 2006). Schwarzenegger refused, but just hours before Morales’ death date the anesthesiologists withdrew, bringing about California’s moratorium on executions—moratorium means its on hold. A Federal judge said California’s lethal injection procedure creates an undue risk of cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the 8th Amendment of the US Constitution (Moratorium, 2006). This ruling imposed a moratorium on executions in California as anesthesiologists now refuse to take part (Wikipedia, 2006).
Morales was poorly defended. His co-defendant paid $80,000 for his lawyer and got life; Morales could pay only $2,000 and got death (Death Penalty focus, 2006). His co-defendant had the motive and did the planning for the murder, and Morales had no motive. Morales only had a poor court-appointed lawyer.
Ninety-nine percent of California’s death row prisoners were represented by public defenders. Death penalties are for the POOR.
Dingerson of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty says “the most prominent problem with the death penalty process…is these are incredibly complex cases at trial and there just aren’t that many attorneys who know how to handle them. So…we risk executing defendants simply because they had a lousy lawyer.”
Journalist Robert Scheer wrote in the LA Times, “In some capital cases, the court-appointed lawyers were drunk and had trouble remembering their clients’ names.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg said “I have yet to see a death case in which the defendant was well represented at trial among the dozens coming to the Supreme Court”
Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens said there are a “substantial number of erroneously imposed death sentences (Stevens, 20051) and “this country would be much better off if we did not have capital punishment.
The Associated Press says that DNA testing has exonerated more than 200 prison inmates over the last 22 years, including some on death rows (Associated Press, 2007).
A study by Columbia law Professor Liebman showed that appellate courts reversed the death sentences in over two-thirds of the cases reviewed over a 23-year period. Capital sentences in the United States are “persistently and systematically fraught with error that seriously undermines their reliability.”
Why do we even have capital punishment? Maybe we’re just a violent species. Before the last century, people greatly enjoyed public hangings. It was a festive occasion; refreshments were sold. The Roman Coliseum was high entertainment. We used to have the rack and burning at the stake. Actually, we’ve become more civilized.
Some of you must favor the death penalty. Studies show there are usually two reasons: (1) that it’s a deterrent, and (2) a demand that murderers suffer punishment proper to their offence. (CQResearcher, 1995)
The deterrence rationale rests on shaky ground, however, because of the difficulty of proving that it does deter. According to a 1995 survey of police chiefs and sheriffs, the death penalty ranks last as a way of reducing violent crime. “Police chiefs would rather spend their limited crime-fighting dollars on such proven measures as community policing, more police training, neighborhood watch programs and long prison sentences.
According to a LA Times study, California spends $250 million per execution, and to house a death row inmate is $90,000 more a year than the general prison population.
Regarding the eye for an eye idea, remember that our Constitution does forbid cruel and unusual punishment. Capital punishment is premeditated murder. When you murder the murderer you ARE a murderer. And does anyone still remember the Biblical injunction, “Thou shalt not kill?”
Some might argue that we should not have the appeals that take years and years and are very costly, that we should execute the prisoners immediately. This goes against our Constitutional rights and would damage all of us.
What happens when we outlaw the death penalty? Prisoners go in the main system, on a life sentence with some chance of parole. Costs to the State go way down, and we join the more civilized European nations, all of whom have outlawed the death penalty.
What can we do about it? We ourselves as the public elect and support our government and its policies, and we are paying for this. We have a voice through our vote, and through writing to our representatives and the Governor.
To sum up, the death penalty is savage, uncivilized, unconstitutional, not a deterrent, and kills the innocent, mentally ill, teenagers and those unable to afford a proper defense.
Let me close with a quote from the prisoner Ricky Ray Rector who had such severe brain damage that when he had his last meal, he said “I’ll eat my dessert afterward.
References
Associated Press (2007) April 24.
CQ Researcher (1995, in http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/documentj.php?id=cqresrre1995031000&tuype=hitlist
Dawn (2006) in http://www.dawn.com/2006/text/int8.htm
Death Penalty Focus (2006), in http://www.deathpenalty.org.
Dingerson (1995), in CQ Researcher, http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/document.php
?id=cqresrre1995031000&type=hitlist.
DP Information Center, (Table), October 20, 2004.
Dyson, J. (2006), Amnesty International, in http://www.dawn.com/2006/text/int8.htm
Ginsberg, R. (2001) in http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/document.php?id=cqresrre
1995031000&type=hitlist
Gur, R. (2005), neuropsychologist, Brain Behavior Lab, Univ. of Pennsylvania, in
http://www. clarkprosecutor.org/html/death/US/Beardslee946.htm
Liebman, J.S. (2000) ”A Broken System: Error Rates in Capital Cases, 1973-1995,” in Texas Law Journal, October.
Los Angeles Times, 2005 Study, in http://www.deathpenalty.org/index/php?pid=cost
Minsker, N. (2005) in www. Ktvu.com/deathrow/7233502/detail.html
Moratorium, in http://jurist/law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2006/12/federal-judge-rules-california- lethal.php
Murphy, P. (1995) “Death Penalty Useless,” USA Today, Feb. 23, p. 11A.
Scheer, R. (1995), “Equal Justice: $11.75 vs. $1.4 Million,” LA Times, Washington edition,
February 22, p. 4.
SFGate, (2005), in http://www.SFgate.com/cgitbin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/01/19/
MNGENASPG31.DTL
SFGate, (2005), in http://www.SFgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?=/c/a/2005/01/FAGAN.TMP
Stankewitz, D. (2007), testimony of a Death Row prisoner.
Stevens1, J.P. (2005), in “Sevens Focuses on Death Penalty Flaws,” The Associated Press, August 7.
Stevens2 , J.P. (2005), quoted in Monica Thomas, “O’Connor Exit Wrenching, Stevens Tells
Lawyers Here, Chicago Sun-times, August 7.
Wikipedia (2006), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Morales
Williams, S. (2004) Redemption, MiloBooks, New York.