death penalty news October 8, 2004
USA: Turow critiques death penalty In the midst of this election season, the question of capital punishment has slipped under the radar, said attorney and award-winning author Scott Turow at a speech last night in Cubberly Auditorium, in which he argued for the abolition of capital punishment. The two presidential candidates are at opposite ends of the spectrum on capital punishment. Known to death-penalty abolitionists as the ?Texecutioner,? Bush has allowed more executions than any other elected American official, overseeing over 150 executions in Texas while he was governor and approving three federal executions as president ? the first federal executions since 1963. Kerry, on the other hand, has maintained firm opposition to the death penalty over the course of his career. He took support for capital punishment off the Democratic platform this year for the first time in over twelve years. Kerry has only made one exception on his stance; after the events of Sept. 11, he said he would be in favor of capital punishment for terrorists. ?Kerry doesn?t even listen to the whole question before answering that he is opposed,? said Turow. ?If he is elected, I do not expect to see any federal executions.? Turow explained, however, that the candidates? opposing stances on the issue have been kept under the rug because of political concerns. Although Bush would be tempted to play up the issue, because about 70 percent of the American public favors the death penalty, he has not done so because many Catholics ? generally death penalty opponents ? are swing voters this year. Also, he said that swing states like Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota are among the 12 states that do not practice capital punishment. The result of this political climate, he said, is that neither candidate is really talking about capital punishment, and the issue is not a hot topic on people?s minds ? only about 60 people came to Cubberly last night, although the Bookstore, which sponsored the event, had expected a full house.A lack of publicity about the event rather than student apathy explained the low turnout, said Prof. Bill Abrams, a practicing attorney who does pro bono death penalty cases and teaches a death penalty course and sophomore seminar on campus. His class, ?The Death Penalty: Human Biology, Law, and Policy,? has grown from about 40 students when the class started in 2002 to 96 students enrolled this quarter. After the talk, Turow told The Daily he was surprised that there is no anti-death penalty student group on campus, but he noted that Abrams? class might fill that niche. Turow said that every quarter, he receives e-mails from students in Abrams? class soliciting his perspective for their final papers. The class is not taught to convince students one way or the other on the death penalty, but rather to challenge their critical thinking on the subject, said Abrams. Even so, he said, several students who have taken his class have pursued advocacy upon graduation. ?Many of the students send me e-mails, or visit or call even after they graduate to discuss the issues and seek opportunities to become advocates in this area or pursue public policy or legal careers,? said Abrams. ?Several have gone on to work at places like the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta and Texas Defenders Inc. in Austin.? In addition to Abrams? class on the death penalty, the Law School is offering a seminar on wrongful convictions taught by Larry Marshall, who came to Stanford this year from Northwestern. Marshall headed up the wrongful convictions project at Northwestern that contributed to the exoneration of 13 people from death row and helped to spark Gov. George Ryan to conduct a comprehensive review of the capital punishment system in Illinois. The review led Ryan to commute the sentences of all 164 inmates on Illinois? death row in January 2003. As he explained in last night?s talk, Turow served as a member of the 14-person panel that reviewed Illinois? death row system. At the beginning of the review process, he said he had called himself a death penalty agnostic. After reviewing the system for two years, Turow said he decided that ?the state will never be able to exact the ultimate punishment for the ultimate evils without also involving the innocent.? Turow spelled out several arguments against the death penalty during his talk. He claimed it was unable to deter crime, and that it was not necessary in the age of high security prisons. He also said that the race of victims of capital crimes influences whether a criminal goes to death row.In Illinois, he said, crimes against white victims are three and a half times more likely to receive capital punishment than crimes against black victims. Turow further considered the argument that the death penalty is a necessary symbolic punishment to appease victims? families. ?That argument is a canard,? said Turow, explaining his belief that the justice system uses victims? families ?as a foil to cover our own retributive impulses . . . which really lie at the heart of the death penalty in America.? Although Turow said his talk was not designed to be ?a conversion experience,? his arguments did convince at least one student in the audience. Sihong Chan came to the event in favor of the death penalty on principle, but Turow caused him to change his mind. ?I thought you could reform the system so that it would punish the right crimes, but the endemic problems in the system that he described suggest that we should perhaps abolish the death penalty,? said Chan. Turow is a former fellow and lecturer at the Stanford University Creative Writing Center. Between working as a partner at a Chicago law firm and taking on pro bono death penalty cases, he has published several novels, including ?Reversible Errors? (2002), as well as many non-fiction pieces. After his speech last night, he signed copies of his most recent non-fiction work, ?Ultimate Punishment: A lawyer?s reflections on dealing with the death penalty,? published in October 2003. (source: The Stanford Daily) ====================== CONNECTICUT: Death penalty on trial - Ross sentencing renews controversy over executions in state Connecticut is not as enamored of capital punishment as states like Texas, Florida and Oklahoma, but it could soon join those states in killing its death row inmates. On Wednesday, an execution date was set for serial killer Michael Ross. A New London Superior Court judge set the date for Jan. 26 after Ross said he wanted to stop the appeals of his death sentence. Ross could be the first death row inmate in this state to be executed since 1960, when Joseph "Mad Dog" Taborsky was killed in the electric chair. Some don't want to see the state perform more executions. Others, though, favor putting some criminals to death, and many observers believe the state is headed in that direction. Ross, who could still appeal in federal court, describes himself as a sexual sadist. He was convicted and sentenced to death for killing four teenage girls in eastern Connecticut in the early 1980s. "There is a very definite chance it will happen. Unless he changes his mind, then it will happen," said David Elliot, the communications director for the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty in D.C. Elliot, whose organization is the only nonprofit group in the country that works solely to abolish capital punishment, said that Connecticut politicians "will hear from us. That's not a threat. It's a promise." "Every time an execution date is set anywhere in the country, we urge our members to write letters to the respective governor and the appropriate Board of Pardons and Board of Paroles urging the execution not be carried out," Elliot said. Public Defender Michael Courtney, who represents poor clients facing death but has never represented Ross, said he doesn't think the execution will go forward in January. However, it could happen sooner rather than later, especially if Ross persists in "volunteering" to be killed, said Courtney, who is representing David Stone of New Milford. If convicted, Stone would face the death penalty for the Sept. 21 killing of his girlfriend and their 4-month-old baby. Elliot said the activism of the NCADP doesn't always work at getting clemency for a death row inmate, but there have been occasions when activism has gotten results. The NCADP has about 100 affiliate organizations and thousands of activists throughout the country, including in Connecticut. Elliot's organization sends letters to the powers-that-be in each state, urging against execution. "Every month, thousands of letters get written by our members," Elliot said. Connecticut is not as "in love" with the death penalty as Texas, Florida and Oklahoma are, Elliot said. "The very fact that Connecticut has not carried out an execution since 1960 shows that there is a lot of antipathy in the state," Elliot said. Yet, Elliot and other observers of this issue think it could happen in Connecticut very soon. "I definitely think it's a real possibility and I've been told that by members of the capital defense team as well," said Danbury Public Defender Robert Field, who has defended clients facing death in Connecticut. "It seems as though there's a push to get the death penalty rolling in the state of Connecticut," Field said. Field represented Alex Gray, the Kentucky man suffering from schizophrenia who was recently sentenced to life in prison for killing an elderly couple in New Fairfield. He was facing the death penalty, but as part of a deal worked out between prosecutors and the defense, the capital felony charge ? the charge that leads to the death penalty ? will not be pursued. "It's incredible to me that we consider killing someone morally wrong, so the answer to that is killing someone else," Field said of his opposition to the death penalty. Elliot said his organization believes that the death penalty is wrong for several reasons. "The death penalty discriminates based on race and class. The death penalty frequently makes mistakes and sends innocent people to death row. The death penalty denies redemption. We don't think anybody is beyond redemption," Elliot said. Yet there are many death penalty proponents, some of whom are the relatives of victims who were savagely killed. The father of a teenager who was killed by Ross, Edwin Shelley, said that he is "elated" to hear about Ross's possible execution. "It will be the second time I've heard the execution date set," Shelley said. "Hopefully, and I do believe, this time it will happen. And I will be at his execution." Laurie Czudak, a good friend of Ronald and Roberta Ahrlich, the victims in the Gray case, said she supports the death penalty. "I have read the description of what happened to Ronnie and Bert. This man does not deserve to live, and I don't feel we need to support him," she said, referring to Gray. "Why should we support these people in jail? They have destroyed a life and the lives of the family members left behind. I am sure the family members go to bed at night wondering why their loved one is gone, and the killer is now in jail, partially supported by their income," Czudak said. (source: NewsTimes / AP)
