death penalty news July 30, 2004
USA: Death penalty documentary shows dilemma Can we craft a system of capital punishment that puts to death only those who deserve it? I kept thinking of the Scottsboro Boys while watching ?Deadline,? a new documentary by Katy Chevigny and Kirsten Johnson. I sensed them looking on with approval as the film illuminated George Ryan?s struggles with capital punishment while he was governor of Illinois. In January 2000 Ryan imposed a moratorium on the death penalty there. He told CNN: ?We have now freed more people than we have put to death under our system ? 13 people have been exonerated and 12 have been put to death. There is a flaw in the system, without question, and it needs to be studied.? He appointed a panel to examine the issue. ?Deadline? will air tonight on NBC?s ?Dateline? program. It includes interviews with several opponents of capital punishment who argue that cases often involve race, poverty, bad lawyering and police misconduct. The Scottsboro case had all of that. The nine poor, black defendants were accused of raping two white women on a Tennessee train in 1931. Representing them at their Chattanooga trial were an alcoholic real estate attorney who arrived drunk the first day and a forgetful septuagenarian who hadn?t been in court for years. Despite the absence of supporting evidence, all nine were tried and convicted in two hours; eight sentenced to death. The youngest, Roy Wright, 12, received life in prison. They eventually got better lawyers, were exonerated and freed. For decades afterward, the Scottsboro Boys became synonymous with the kind of gross miscarriage of justice that can place the wrong person on death row. Their arduous experience was frequently cited by opponents of capital punishment, who achieved a victory in 1972 when the Supreme Court called a halt to government-sponsored executions. That triumph proved short-lived when the court allowed the reinstatement of the death penalty in certain states in 1976. The Death Penalty Information Center states 921 people have been executed since then. ?Deadline? includes chilling interviews with men who came perilously close to execution. Anthony Porter was two days from death when a group of Northwestern University students found evidence clearing him. Among the most compelling speakers is Gary Gauger, a farmer convicted of killing his parents and sentenced to death in 1993. In 1996 a three-judge panel overturned his conviction. Interspersed with such segments is riveting testimony from the nine days of clemency hearings held in Illinois in October 2002, during which a prisoner review board evaluated the cases of 142 of the 160 inmates on the state?s death row. Victims? families comments are heart-rending and show why the issue of capital punishment is so perplexing. One listens to a bereaved person and joins his desire for vengeance. But how to balance that grief against due process? What if our vengeance targets the wrong person? Will executing even the right person bring our loved one back? Attorney and author Scott Turow served on Ryan?s panel. In the film, he expresses little concern with executing someone such as serial killer John Wayne Gacy. But, he asks, ?Can we construct a capital system that only executes John Wayne Gacy without also executing the innocent or undeserving?? Capital punishment is a hot potato for both liberal and conservative elected officials, none of whom want to be seen as soft on crime. As illustration of the death penalty?s nonpartisan significance, ?Deadline? takes note of Bill Clinton?s refusal to stop the execution of a mentally handicapped Arkansas man in 1992, and calls attention to George W. Bush, who allowed 152 executions during his six years as governor of Texas. But while other politicians dither, DNA tests and other evidence continue to reveal innocent people on death row. The latest and 114th inmate to be exonerated since 1973 is Gordon Steidl, released on May 28. His home state? Illinois. (source: Jabari Asim, Opinion, news-press.com)
