-Caveat Lector-
Published Friday, January 29, 1999, in the San Jose Mercury News
Pope's request spares triple murderer's life Missouri governor
commutes sentence
Mercury News Wire Services
ST. LOUIS -- Responding to a personal appeal from Pope John Paul II,
the governor of Missouri on Thursday commuted the death sentence of a
triple murderer whose original execution date would have coincided with
the pontiff's visit to St. Louis.
The case of Darrell Mease, 52, caught the pope's attention after the state
Supreme Court delayed his execution by two weeks, apparently to avoid
the awkward timing.
After leading a festive evening prayer Wednesday, the pope leaned over
to Gov. Mel Carnahan and whispered, ``Have mercy on Mr. Mease.''
The governor was ``quite moved,'' a staff member said, and a few hours
later decided to commute the sentence. Instead, Mease will serve a life
sentence with no possibility of parole.
Legal experts called the decision unprecedented.
While the pope has written appeals on behalf of about a dozen death-row
inmates in his relentless effort to condemn the practice, he has never had
such a direct impact on any case. This sudden -- and what Mease, through
his attorney, called ``miraculous'' -- intervention will probably stand as a
symbol of the pope's lasting ability to prick the world's conscience.
``I know of no other request for commutation that was even largely, let
alone solely, granted because of a papal request,'' said Victor Streib, a
leading scholar on capital punishment and dean of Ohio Northern University
Law School. ``Religious opposition to the death penalty is nothing new, but
usually, it's not sufficient.''
In explaining his decision, the governor cited his ``deep and abiding
respect for the pontiff and all he represents,'' as well as ``the extraordinary
circumstances of the pope's request and the historical significance of the
papal visit to St. Louis.'' He said, however, that he still supported capital
punishment.
Surprised by Carnahan's decision, death-penalty opponents hoped that it
would spark a movement to abolish state executions -- or at least give
political cover to other governors who might want to show mercy.
Advocates of capital punishment, meanwhile, complained that Carnahan
had subverted the judicial process by treating clemency as a favor to a
religious leader.
What's more, they said, Mease had no good claim to clemency -- having
confessed to ambushing and shotgunning his former drug partner, the
man's wife and their disabled grandson. Mease later claimed the
confession had been coerced.
``It raises real due-process questions when a guy is convicted by a jury
and every court upholds (his death sentence) and the governor, for no
apparent reason, commutes the sentence,'' Missouri state Sen. Steve
Ehlmann said.
No explanation needed
But legal scholars said Carnahan's decision -- while unusual -- was not
unconstitutional and would set no precedent for other death-row inmates.
Governors in most states retain the absolute power to pardon; they need
not give any explanation whatsoever.
``What's unusual here is the seemingly blatant influence of a religious
figure in a purely secular decision,'' said Erwin Chemerinsky, a law
professor at the University of Southern California.
``We might criticize it from a political standpoint, but that doesn't make it
illegal,'' Chemerinsky said. ``(And) the fact that one person had his
sentence commuted does not mean that any other person has the right to
have his sentence commuted.''
Carnahan, a 64-year-old Democrat serving his second term, has allowed
26 executions to go forward in his six years as governor. He has granted
clemency just once, to a convicted murderer who was diagnosed with
mental impairments that made him incapable of understanding his death
sentence.
He has turned aside at least one papal request for mercy in the past,
refusing to block the execution of a man convicted of killing a state trooper.
And just this month, he denied clemency to Kelvin S. Malone, convicted of
two murders in California and one in St. Louis, even though appeals were
still pending on the California convictions.
But Mease's case was different.
Different not because there were doubts about his guilt, not because he
had reformed himself in prison, not because his mental state was shaky or
his trial had been unfair.
Mease's case was different because of a scheduling quirk.
He was originally scheduled to die this week. Then the state Supreme
Court postponed the execution until Feb. 10. The court did not explain the
move, but most analysts figured the justices wanted to avoid executing
Mease while the pope was visiting St. Louis.
Publicity about the postponement brought Mease's case to the pope's
attention. The pontiff spoke out strongly against the death penalty in general
during a Mass before 100,000 people in St. Louis on Wednesday morning.
And at a brief meeting with Carnahan, a Baptist, the pope requested mercy
for Mease in particular.
``I'll have to say I was moved by his concern for this prisoner,'' Carnahan
told the New York Times in an interview Thursday afternoon in Washington,
shortly before he was to receive an award from a meeting of the U.S.
Conference of Mayors. In a statement, he said: ``I continue to support
capital punishment.''
It's a `coincidence'
Asked if Mease owed his life to a chance event, Carnahan said: ``You
may wish to call it that. It is the coincidence of the pope being there, taking
a personal interest in him, making a personal request that I chose to
respond to.''
Carnahan's decision pleased the Vatican, where the pope issued a
statement expressing ``great satisfaction for this gesture of great humanity.''
But it brought immediate fire from political opponents of the governor, who
plans to run for the U.S. Senate in 2000. ``This guy (Mease) was saved by
the calendar,'' complained Ehlmann, the Republican floor leader of the
Missouri state Senate.
If Carnahan was so moved by the pope's condemnation of the death
penalty, Ehlmann said, ``the appropriate thing to do would be to start a
dialogue on the issue, rather than simply picking the next person on death
row'' for clemency.
Even opponents of the death penalty could agree. They were glad that
Mease was spared. But they, too, urged the governor to start a broader
discussion about capital punishment.
``Cases like this bring the troubling aspects of the death penalty to public
attention,'' said Margaret Phillips, a Missouri activist. ``They are bringing a
new moral vocabulary to our public discourse. I have every hope that this
will happen again.''
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Wingate
California Director
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