Jan. 18 ARIZONA: Carlson focuses on political ideas of justice -- What role does religion play in shaping the political ideas of justice? What does justice require or entail? Can capital punishment or war ever be justified? If so, under what circumstances? Such questions may not occur to most people, but to John Carlson, who was named associate director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict this year, they are a life's work. Carlson, also an assistant professor in the Department of Religious Studies, where he teaches classes that explore religious perspectives on war, violence and peace, wrote his doctoral dissertation on the intersection between religion, politics and justice. "I started this project through a range of coursework I was doing in theology, political philosophy and 'moral anthropology' at the University of Chicago," he says. "The role of human nature in justice wasn't being talked about, which seemed odd. "There was a gaping lacuna. My concern was to investigate what else falls through the cracks - what gets lost, politically and ethically speaking - when we ignore what it means to be human." Human nature, Carlson says, is a central concern of theological writings. "I wanted to look at justice as conceived through those 2 lenses: human nature and notions of transcendence or God," he says. It is tempting to think of justice only as a means of retribution, or as "just desserts," but Carlson says the idea is much broader. In an essay on religion and the death penalty, titled "Human Nature, Limited Justice, and the Irony of Capital Punishment," Carlson offers his "working definition" of justice. "In a rough and ready fashion," he states, "we might say that justice involves the proper ordering and balance of human relations within a social and political community, including the right relations of citizens to one another and vis--vis the state." Justice has to do, Carlson says, with "how we as communities live together and relate, what values we cherish, and how we orient our lives to each other and to God." Americans, he says, "have perhaps too narrow an idea of justice; often we think of justice as the moment when the judge hands down the verdict." In his dissertation, Carlson examines how thinkers such as Plato, Hobbes and Marx viewed justice, based on their beliefs about human nature and the divine. John Calvin, for example, believed in pervasive human sinfulness and an inscrutable God; such a belief can lead to calls for harsh punishment and rigorous, pious forms of "ultimate justice." (The Taliban is a recent exemplar of "ultimate justice.") Theologians and philosophers such as St. Augustine and Camus, however, have anthropological and theological views that point to more modest aspirations of "limited justice." The discussion ultimately turns back, Carlson says, to human nature. "Any discussion of justice should take human nature into consideration, however unwilling many contemporary philosophers have been to do so," he says. "When you don't take stock of human nature, including its limitations, one can launch easily into other forms of ultimate justice' that are problematic. Confronting this involves understanding how our nature limits our ability to achieve the justice we seek." (source: Arizona State University) ALABAMA: Parker's attack insults court It's the United States Supreme Court that is the highest court in the land, not the Alabama Supreme Court. That point appears to elude Justice Tom Parker of the state Supreme Court, who attacked his colleagues for following U.S. Supreme Court precedent in a recent case. That, of course, is precisely what the other justices should have done. If lower courts are not going to follow the precedents established by the nation's highest court, the stage is set for anarchy in the courtroom. In essence, nothing would ever be decided -- and deciding issues is what the judicial system is all about. The case that prompted Parker to launch his unannounced attack on his colleagues in an op-ed article in the Birmingham News involved a death sentence given a defendant who was 17 at the time of his crimes. In Roper v. Simmons, the U.S. Supreme Court held the execution of juveniles to be unconstitutional. Following that precedent, 8 justices of the Alabama Supreme Court overturned the death sentence and sent the case of Renaldo Chante Adams back to the lower court, where the defendant is expected to be sentenced to life in prison without parole. Parker had to recuse himself from the case because he had been involved in the prosecution of Adams during his time in the attorney general's office. (Curiously, in his op-ed article he misidentifies the attorney general he worked for at the time. It was not Jeff Sessions, who had already taken office as a U.S. senator when the crime occurred, but Sessions' successor Bill Pryor.) Parker, predictably, lashed out at "liberal activists" on the U.S. Supreme Court and criticized the Roper decision. It's one thing to criticize the decision, but it is a flying leap across the line of propriety to state that the court on which he serves should ignore the decision and uphold the sentence. He was "surprised, and dismayed," he wrote, that his colleagues on the court "not only gave in to this unconstitutional activism without a word of protest but also became accomplices to it by citing Roper as the basis for their decision to free Adams from death row." As responsible jurists -- a concept seemingly lost on Parker -- they could not have done otherwise. Indeed, Parker's approach could well be labeled judicial activism, a practice he purports to deplore. Instead of trying to subvert the Supreme Court in the politically transparent manner of his mentor Roy Moore, the justice should instead turn his energies to bringing his workload up to the standards of the court on which he sits. A check last fall found that Parker had produced less than half the number of opinions of any other justice in the same time period. You've got a job to do, Mr. Justice, and it is unlikely to get done while you're whaling away at your colleagues and at the nation's highest court. (source: Montgomery Advertiser) CALIFORNIA----impending execution Lawyer cites ethical tangle as reason to delay execution In Ventura, prosecutors from San Joaquin County are expected to obtain a death warrant today for condemned killer Michael Angelo Morales of Stockton despite a failed attempt by his attorney to derail next month's execution. Morales' Los Angeles attorney, David Senior, said he is objecting to the Feb. 21 execution, citing a conflict within the San Joaquin County District Attorney's Office. Senior contends there's an ethical tangle, because Assistant District Attorney Craig M. Holmes, the office's second-highest ranking jurist, represented Morales 25 years ago on when Holmes worked as an attorney in the San Joaquin County Public Defender's Office. It was that murder trial that landed Morales, 46, on San Quentin State Prison's death row, where he waits today. Senior, expressing outrage at the apparent conflict, said he wanted the entire district attorney's office disqualified from Morales' case because of Holmes. "Mr. Morales' trial counsel - Craig Holmes, now assistant DA - is taking action adverse to his former client in the same proceeding," Senior said Tuesday. "That is unethical, to say the least." Senior raised the issue of a possible conflict at a hearing last week. A Ventura County Superior Court judge dismissed those claims Tuesday. Morales was convicted for the 1981 murder and rape of 17-year-old Tokay High School senior Terri Lynn Winchell. Morales, whom Senior said has expressed remorse about the crime, killed Winchell as a favor to his cousin, Rickey Ortega. The case garnered so much public interest in San Joaquin County that it was moved to Ventura County for trial. According to court testimony, Ortega was jealous of Winchell, because she dated a young man with whom Ortega had a homosexual relationship. Ortega was given a life sentence in prison for his part in the killing. Senior said Holmes represented Morales for more than 2 years throughout the trial and sentencing. Holmes did not respond to a request Tuesday for an interview. Chuck Schultz, the San Joaquin County District Attorney's Office prosecutor who is expected to appear today in Ventura County Superior Court, said Holmes' apparent conflict was addressed and resolved in court in 1993. He said Holmes is prohibited by a court order from talking to anybody in his office about Morales' case. And when Holmes' ethical dilemma arose again in 1999, Holmes signed an affidavit further promising he would exclude himself from the case or any discussions of it. Schultz said Senior failed at delaying Morales' execution. "It was an issue without any merit at all, and Mr. Senior made it sound as if it was brand new," Schultz said. "All that remains is to sign the death warrant and execute Michael Morales." (source: Stockton Record) **************** Executing Clarence Ray Allen----The Crime of Giving the Orders Legalized killing requires official justifications. The execution of Clarence Ray Allen early Tuesday morning was no exception. A prosecutor explained that "he masterminded the murders of 3 innocent young people and conspired to attack the heart of our criminal justice system."And California's governor was stern when he denied a clemency request for the 76-year-old prisoner. "The passage of time does not excuse Allen from the jury's punishment," Arnold Schwarzenegger said. Allen had been convicted of enlisting a fellow prisoner to kill witnesses against him in 1980. Allen "was blind and mostly deaf, suffered from diabetes and had a nearly fatal heart attack in September only to be revived and returned to death row,"the Associated Press recounted. His last breath would be determined by the state's timetable. Around midnight, Allen "was assisted into the death chamber by four large correctional officers and lifted out of his wheelchair"-- just before the lethal injection. Righteously deploring murder, the state murdered again. To recap, the prosecutor said that Clarence Ray Allen "masterminded the murders of three innocent young people"and "conspired to attack the heart of our criminal justice system."What could an intrepid prosecutor say about the machinations of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney as they pushed ahead for the U.S. war effort in Iraq? And why shouldn't rigorous investigations be underway to probe evidence that Bush and Cheney have engaged in systematic lawbreaking? Such questions should be loud, public and insistent. While people in Washington's highest places demand endless benefits of countless doubts, we need to insist on accountability at the top of the U.S. government. A jury condemned Clarence Ray Allen despite the fact that he did not pull the trigger on the sawed-off shotgun. The charge was that he got someone else to do it. President Bush doesn't pull triggers. He commands. Like the official lying that preceded the Iraq war and sustains it, the killing is nonstop. And a constant media barrage conveys the deceptive assumption that legitimate authority is giving the orders. (source : CounterPunch - Norman Solomon is the author of War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.) ************ Death row elder needed 2 injections----Last words: 'Hoka hey, it's a good day to die' In the end, California's oldest condemned inmate did not seem quite as feeble as his attorneys made him out to be in their efforts to save his life. With the help of 4 big prison guards, Clarence Ray Allen shuffled from his wheelchair to a gurney inside San Quentin's death chamber early Tuesday, a day after his 76th birthday. Though legally blind, Allen raised his head to search among execution witnesses for relatives he had invited. "Hoka hey, it's a good day to die," Allen said in a nod to his Choctaw Indian heritage. "Thank you very much, I love you all. Goodbye." Having suffered a heart attack back in September, Allen had asked prison authorities to let him die if he went into cardiac arrest before his execution, a request prison officials said they would not honor. "At no point are we not going to value the sanctity of life," said prison spokesman Vernell Crittendon. "We would resuscitate him," then execute him. But the barrel-chested prisoner's heart was strong to the end: Doctors had to administer a 2nd shot of potassium chloride to stop it. "It's not unusual. This guy's heart had been going for 76 years," said Warden Stephen Ornoski. Allen, condemned for ordering behind bars a hit that left three people dead, was the 2nd-oldest inmate executed in the United States since capital punishment resumed nearly 30 years ago, behind only a 77-year-old in Mississippi last month. His attorneys had pleaded with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the U.S. Supreme Court to spare his life, claiming that executing a man as old and feeble as Allen amounted to cruel and unusual punishment, and that the 23 years he spent on death row were unconstitutionally cruel, too. Among other things, Allen was nearly deaf and had diabetes. Medical records show he was indeed ailing, and prison officials did not dispute his condition. However, some observers saw a man in better condition that he had been portrayed. "For 76 years old, he looked to be in remarkably good shape," said Republican Assemblyman Todd Spitzer, who witnessed the execution as a member of a legislative committee debating a moratorium on the death penalty. Allen died wearing a beaded headband, a medicine bag around his neck and an eagle feather on his chest. Two Indian spiritual advisers visited with him in the hours before the execution. His last meal included a buffalo steak and Indian pan-fried bread. The family of one of Allen's victims, Josephine Rocha, said in a statement that Allen "abused the justice system with endless appeals until he lived longer in prison than the short 17 years of Josephine's life." (source: Associated Press)
