Oct. 30
TEXAS:
Death penalty foes dream of change
In the 1st weeks, months and even years after the execution, Desire
Babbitt spoke as little as possible about how she used to have a dad on
death row.
"I even managed to avoid the subject with psychiatrists that were giving
me medication for my problems," she said. "But six years later, when I
realized that not a day goes by when I don't think about it, there's
nowhere else to go. There's no other option."
So, leaving her home in New England, the 27-year-old traveled last week to
the nation's capital of capital punishment in the hopes that her voice
would help shame the unforgiving system that silenced her father in 1999,
executing him for the murder nearly 2 decades earlier of an elderly woman.
Here, she joined other relatives of executed convicts at a conference that
put on display the passion and tenacity, if not necessarily the
effectiveness, of the movement to abolish the death penalty on the books
in 38 states.
The gathering assembled more than 300 activists and lawyers at what they
said was a ripe moment in the decades-long battle over mercy and
retribution in America.
"We're working in an atmosphere where I believe the death penalty is
really on the decline," said Diann Rust-Tierney, executive director of the
conference's sponsor, the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.
This year, the U.S. Supreme Court capped its 2002 decision forbidding the
execution of retarded convicts by ruling that capital punishment is also
cruel, unusual and impermissible for juveniles.
New York's attempt to revive its 10-year-old death penalty stalled in the
state Assembly, and the Texas Legislature added life without parole as an
alternative to the death penalty.
Perhaps most strikingly, the number of death sentences around the country
continued to drop.
"I would agree with them they've had some significant victories," said
Dudley Sharp, a vocal defender of the death penalty in Texas. "You'd be a
fool not to observe that."
Although Sharp admires the relentless organization of the self-described
abolitionists, he says they deserve little credit for any changes afoot.
Citing a May Gallup poll that found 74 % support for capital punishment,
he said there's been little shift in public opinion - although a Zogby
poll reported a 16 % increase in opposition among Catholics.
The decline in death sentences has several causes, Sharp said. Primarily,
court rulings have complicated the appeals process for prosecutors and
simply reduced the number of defendants eligible for capital punishment.
"The gains the anti-death penalty movement has made is not because of
their efforts," he said. "It's because of judges."
With a new chief justice and another new member expected to arrive soon,
the Supreme Court and its future rulings are an open question - although a
majority of the remaining justices have been openly critical of death
penalty procedures.
At the same time, even optimistic opponents of the death penalty
acknowledge that some states could be just one highly publicized crime
spree away from again embracing capital punishment.
"We're watching very closely the crime figures in New York," said David
Kaczynski, executive director of New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty.
What holds sway?
They are doing more than watching. There was no evidence of complacency at
last week's conference.
Seminars focused on winning new recruits in campuses, churches and
legislatures, and discussions wrestled with nuances of strategy.
What would be the best way to sway Americans? Convince them that capital
punishment is immoral? Or focus their attention on the justice system's
bureaucratic flaws?
Should activists abandon confrontational protests and the kind of
inflammatory rhetoric such as the bumper sticker for sale that declared
"The Death Penalty is a Hate Crime"?
Whatever the solutions, activists didn't need to look far for evidence of
the challenges ahead. Indeed, one sat quietly in the back row of a seminar
on death penalty appeals.
There, flipping through a crisp new legal handbook, was Ori T. White, a
former Pecos County district attorney who was instrumental in last year's
exoneration of Texas death row inmate Ernest Willis.
Declaring Willis innocent, White paved the way for his release. And now in
private practice, the lawyer is working on an appeal for a client on death
row.
Even so, he still supports the death penalty in appropriate cases. "The
system is capable of getting it right," he said.
Other panel discussions offered glimpses not of external obstacles but of
subtle, internal divisions within the abolitionist movement.
A morning session was designed to remind its audience that opposition to
the death penalty has roots in deep moral values, such as forgiveness and
nonviolence.
"Before you can make the death penalty illegal, you must make it immoral,"
Joseph Parker, pastor of Austin's David Chapel Missionary Baptist Church,
told the audience. "Our response to the death penalty must rise from the
heart."
That afternoon, a political scientist advised abolitionists that publicly
painting capital punishment as immoral would be less effective than
attacking the failings of the criminal justice bureaucracy.
"It doesn't require a person to admit their moral code was wrong," said
Frank R. Baumgartner of Pennsylvania State University. "It also doesn't
require a degree in constitutional interpretation."
Afterward, as activists mingled in the corridor, it was evident that a
strategic tailoring of the movement's message held limited appeal.
"I don't spend my time figuring out how to convince pro-death penalty
people to be on our side," said Stephen Dear of the North Carolina-based
group People of Faith Against the Death Penalty. "I think that's a waste
of time."
What the movement needs to do, he said, is energize the vast number of
people who oppose capital punishment.
Another activist insisted that the campaign needs to address America's
sense of morality, if only to counter arguments that capital punishment is
just and brings closure for victims' families.
Talking about "innocence gets you a little of the way," at least to a
moratorium so that the system can be fixed, said Renny Cushing. "But at
the end of the day, morality closes the deal."
Hidden victims
Firmly opposed to capital punishment even though his own father was
murdered, Cushing has long worked to deny the death penalty any claim on
the moral high ground.
First, he focused on debunking claims that capital punishment brings
victims' families closure, rallying others like him, who opposed the
execution of the convicts who killed their daughters, fathers and
brothers.
His group's newest initiative highlights what he calls the death penalty's
hidden victims - the families of the executed.
It's an approach that death penalty defenders say is misdirected.
Although no one denies that innocent family members suffer at each
execution, the death penalty is described by its defenders in terms of
individual responsibility.
They say the one truly to blame for the family's misfortune is their own
son, brother or father - the convict himself.
"The murderer must be held responsible," said Mary Jane Peterson of the
San Antonio Chapter of Parents of Murdered Children.
On the conference's first day, a gathering of the families of executed
inmates filled the room with powerful stories of grief.
In the front row sat Babbitt, one of more than a dozen relatives of
condemned inmates.
When 1 woman excused herself to cry, wailing could be heard through the
doorway. Soon, others began fighting back tears.
Babbitt leaned against her uncle. Minutes earlier, she had been discussing
the toll of the conference and a string of speaking engagements before it.
It had forced her to dwell on how her father, a decorated Marine veteran
who came back from Vietnam deeply troubled, was arrested when she was 3
years old for the murder of an elderly woman in California.
All the talking also had, to her surprise, rewarded her.
"Talking about it out loud, instead of just thinking about it," she said,
had stirred dormant memories "that I don't ever want to forget."
As described by his daughter, Manuel Babbitt did what he could to help
raise his daughter from a prison cell while she, in turn, doted on him
from afar.
She would daydream in class about him returning home from prison. And,
after he was executed, she would dream of him finally free of shackles.
(source: San Antonio Express-News)
**********************
Hundreds rally against death penalty
About 200 people demonstrated Saturday across the street from the
Governor's Mansion during the 6th Annual March to Stop Executions.
The international effort, which has occurred during a weekend in October
since 2000, seeks the abolition of the death penalty in Texas and the
United States.
Saturday's marchers were addressed by a host of speakers, including Gary
Bledsoe, president of the Texas National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People; Scott Cobb of the anti-death penalty group Texas
Moratorium Network; and Michele Taube, president of the World Coalition
Against the Death Penalty.
(source: Austin American-Statesman)
