Dec. 10
MISSOURI----impending execution (temporarily) stayed
Federal Court Panel Stays Allen Nicklasson's Execution
A panel of federal judges stayed a Missouri man's execution late Monday, a
little more than a day before he was set to die.
Allen Nicklasson, 41, had been scheduled to be put to death at 12:01 a.m.
Wednesday for killing businessman Richard Drummond in 1994. But a 3-judge panel
of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to stay the execution based
on Nicklasson's claims of ineffective counsel.
A stay in a death row case is not unusual and doesn't mean the execution
ultimately will be scuttled.
A message left late Monday by The Associated Press with Nanci Gonder, a
spokeswoman for Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster, was not immediately
returned. However, the state is expected to appeal the decision to the full
appeals court.
After going nearly 3 years without an execution, Missouri had been preparing
for its 2nd in 3 weeks. The state executed racist serial killer Joseph Paul
Franklin on Nov. 20. It was the first execution in Missouri using a single
drug, pentobarbital.
Nicklasson was sentenced to die for killing Drummond, a businessman from
Excelsior Springs, Mo., who in 1994 stopped to help when he saw a car stranded
along Interstate 70 in eastern Missouri. Nicklasson and 2 others forced
Drummond to drive to a secluded area, where Nicklasson killed him.
One of the other men in the car, Dennis Skillicorn, was put to death in 2009.
The 3rd, Tim DeGraffenreid, pleaded guilty to 2nd-degree murder and was spared
the death penalty.
Nicklasson's attorney has asked the Missouri Supreme Court to intervene and
will petition Gov. Jay Nixon for clemency, she said Monday.
The crime happened in August 1994. Nicklasson, Skillicorn and DeGraffenreid
left Kansas City to buy drugs in St. Louis. They were heading back home when
their 1983 Chevrolet Caprice stalled on I-70, soon after they stole guns and
money from a home near Kingdom City, about 100 miles west of St. Louis.
Drummond, a technical support supervisor for AT&T, saw the stranded motorists
in the late afternoon and decided to help. Nicklasson put a gun to Drummond's
head and ordered him to drive west. They directed him to a secluded wooded area
in western Missouri, where Nicklasson shot Drummond twice in the head. His
remains were found 8 days later.
Nicklasson and Skillicorn stole Drummond's car and drove to Arizona. When the
vehicle broke down in the desert, they approached the home of Joseph Babcock,
who was shot and killed by Nicklasson after driving the pair back to their
vehicle. The victim's wife, Charlene Babcock, was killed at the couple's home.
Both men were convicted of the Arizona killings and sentenced to life in
prison, then got the death penalty in Missouri. Nicklasson has been on death
row since 1996.
The group Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty had planned vigils
in support of Nicklasson in seven Missouri locations Tuesday night, including
outside the prison in Bonne Terre where executions take place.
Rita Linhardt, board chairman for Missourian for Alternatives to the Death
Penalty, said Nicklasson suffered from abuse and mental illness. He was
institutionalized and released as a young man, even as he pleaded to stay
because he felt he needed more help, Linhardt said.
He became homeless, got hooked on drugs, and his crimes escalated, Linhardt
said.
"There were opportunities along the way where he could have been helped, but
the state dropped the ball," Linhardt said.
Nicklasson grew up with a mother who was a stripper. He declined interview
requests Monday, but in a 2009 interview with the AP, he recalled his mother
shooting up heroin and bringing home a series of abusive boyfriends. He said he
still has scars from one who burned him.
He met Skillicorn at a drug rehab center in Kansas City in 1994. Skillicorn was
out of prison following a 2nd-degree murder conviction for killing a man during
a robbery. The men, along with DeGraffenreid, decided to go on the drug run,
leading to the fateful meeting with Drummond.
Missouri previously used a 3-drug method of executions, but changed protocols
after drugmakers stopped selling the lethal drugs to prisons and corrections
departments. The pentobarbital used in Missouri executions comes from an
undisclosed compounding pharmacy. The Missouri Department of Corrections
declines to say who makes the drug, or where.
(source: Associated Press)
*************
Missouri Supreme Court denies execution stay for death row inmate
The Missouri Supreme Court on Monday denied a death-row inmate a stay of
execution, less than 2 days before the man is scheduled to be put to death.
41-year-old Allen L. Nicklasson is scheduled to die via lethal injection at a
prison in Bonne Terre, Mo., at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday. His attorney, Jennifer
Herndon, filed motions in the Missouri Supreme Court, U.S. Court of Appeals
Western District and the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in an attempt to
put off the execution.
Nicklasson was convicted in 1994 of killing Richard Drummond of Excelsior
Springs. Drummond stopped to help Nicklasson and 2 others after their car broke
down on Interstate 70 in Callaway County.
Missouri Chief Justice Mary R. Russell's order was released just after 3 p.m.,
overruling the "motion for stay of execution to afford Appellant his due
process rights in clemency."
The other 2 courts have yet to rule.
White supremacist serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin, convicted of killing a
man outside a St. Louis-area synagogue in 1977, was executed Nov. 20. Franklin
was the 1st person put to death in Missouri using pentobarbital. Franklin also
was the state's 1st execution in almost 3 years. Nicklasson was first scheduled
to be executed on Oct. 23 and was to be the 1st time the state used the
anesthetic propofol.
Nicklasson, Dennis Skillicorn and Tim DeGraffenreid were on their way to Kansas
City, Mo., when their car broke down. They broke into a nearby home and stole
guns and money. Drummond stopped and picked them up near their car. Skillicorn
and Nicklasson forced him at gunpoint to drive to a wooded area in Lafayette
County, where Nicklasson shot him twice in the head.
Skillicorn was convicted and subsequently executed in 2009. DeGraffenreid is
serving a life sentence for 2nd-degree murder. DeGraffenreid led police to
Drummond's body 8 days after the murder.
The state's choice of drug has generated controversy lately. After the European
Union, which is staunchly against the death penalty, threatened to limit the
propofol's export if it was used.
(source: Columbia Daily Tribune)
OKLAHOMA----impending execution
Oklahoma to execute man for killing 2 women
A man convicted of brutally killing 2 elderly women more than a quarter-century
ago is set to be executed in Oklahoma.
53-year-old Ronald Clinton Lott is scheduled to be executed Tuesday by lethal
injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester.
Lott is the 5th Oklahoma death row inmate to be executed this year.
Lott was convicted in Oklahoma County of 2 counts of 1st-degree murder for the
deaths of 83-year-old Anna Laura Fowler in September 1986 and 93-year-old Zelma
Cutler in January 1987.
He was also convicted of raping the women.
Authorities said Lott broke into the women's homes and brutally attacked them,
causing broken bones and bruises.
DNA samples taken from the victims were matched to Lott.
(source: Associated Press)
UTAH:
Condemned killer Ron Lafferty delusional, defense claims
Attorneys for condemned killer Ron Lafferty say their client believes he was
tormented by the ghost of a trial judge's father and that he and former defense
attorney were siblings several hundred years ago in England.
Those delusions illustrate Lafferty's incompetence and inability to properly
assist in efforts to undo his death sentence, the attorneys say in a new court
filing. They want U.S. District Court Judge Dee Benson to stay the proceedings
and send Lafferty, 71, to the Utah State Hospital for treatment aimed at
restoring his mental health.
The filings follow a 2-day competency hearing in October, the second day of
which was opened to the public. A psychologist who testified for the state said
that while Lafferty has narcissistic personality disorder and, despite paranoid
views of the government and unique religious beliefs, is not psychotic. A
psychologist who testified for Lafferty's defense team said he has chronic
psychotic delusions.
Benson has not yet ruled on a media petition to unseal other court documents in
Lafferty's file. Lafferty's attorneys filed their follow-up briefs publicly,
while state attorneys filed their post-hearing brief under seal but said they
will file a redacted public version within 2 weeks.
Questions about Lafferty's competency have been raised since his 1st trial in
1985 for the murders of his sister-in-law Brenda Wright Lafferty and
15-month-old niece.
He was convicted and given the death penalty in that trial, but the 10th
Circuit Court of Appeals found the wrong standard was used to assess his mental
competency and ordered that Lafferty be tried again. Lafferty was convicted and
given death a 2nd time in 1996.
According to his attorneys, Lafferty's delusions generally fall into 2
categories: those involving his legal proceedings and those involving the
presence of and interaction with spirit beings.
He believes, for example, that 2 unidentified men brought him an altered copy
of the appellate court decision from which the word "vacated" had been removed.
Lafferty also believes the state, the LDS Church and his former federal
attorney conspired to manufacture evidence against him and have him executed.
Lafferty believes that the ghost of Judge Steven L. Hansen's father tormented
him during the second trial, causing him physical discomfort and leading him to
act out during the proceedings. The ghost, according to Lafferty, did so
because he was unhappy with how the judge conducted the proceedings.
While many of Lafferty's beliefs are rooted in the Mormon faith within which he
was raised, this particular belief diverges from LDS theology about how spirit
beings interact with the mortal world, the attorneys say.
"This is not a belief that is shared by Mr. Lafferty's cultural or subcultural
group," the brief says. "Therefore it is a delusion."
Likewise, Lafferty likely felt some attraction to one of his former female
defense attorneys, which resulted in his belief they shared a special
relationship in the past, his attorneys say.
"Since this is a belief that they were reincarnated beings, and not people who
knew each other from a pre-existent spirit world, it is a belief that deviates
significantly from LDS theology," they say in the brief.
Lafferty also believes an evil spirit took over the attorney and caused her to
end her representation of him, an incorrect inference about her decision to
change employment, the brief says.
They cite several other examples of Lafferty's delusional beliefs about
attorneys who have represented him and staff at the Utah State Prison to
illustrate his inability to work with his defense team.
Lafferty's attorneys say their client likely had mental disorders even before
he attempted to hang himself in December 1984, whichcaused him to suffer brain
damage.
"Since the attempted hanging, there has never been a serious question as to
whether Mr. Lafferty suffered from a mental disorder, only questions of the
type and severity," the defense says.
One psychologist who evaluated Lafferty in 2011 concluded he was "currently
manifesting delusions and cognitive symptoms that cannot be explained by his
religious and extremist political beliefs." Rather, they appear to be due to
brain damage and an unspecific mental disorder related to his attempted
hanging, the filing says.
The psychologist noted that Lafferty fakes being "well" and "refrains from
talking about subjects that he knows evaluators would consider evidence of
mental illness." It is only after hours of careful interviewing that the "true
nature and severity of his delusions becomes apparent."
Lafferty also has a marked inability to stay on track in a conversation, a
problem so severe it rises to the level of a mental disorder.
(source: Salt Lake Tribune)
CALIFORNIA:
Prosecutor urges death penatly for John Wayne Thomson case----Jury will begin
deliberating Tuesday
Saying "enough is enough" after 3 decades of crime, the prosecutor urged a
California jury to give John Wayne Thomson the death penalty in closing
arguments Monday.
Thomson, also accused of killing Longview's Lori Hamm, was convicted in October
of murdering businessman Charles Hedlund in 2006. The California crime took
place at the end of a month-long crime spree that police say started in
Washington and left 3 dead.
Thomson's jury must decide between the death penalty and life without parole.
San Bernardino Supervising District Attorney Robert Bulloch told themThomson
has used up all his chances with society.
"(Thomson) has been building a resume as a rapist and a serial killer since he
was young," Bulloch said. He's been convicted of 3 rapes in Washington - 2 in
Cowlitz County - and also attempted to solicit murder while in prison, Bulloch
said.
"This man has had a 30-year criminal career of violence and terror on our
society," Bulloch said. He's been given chance after chance and "he gets worse
and more violent each time," he said.
"Enough is enough," Bulloch said. "Hold him responsible. He doesn't deserve the
lesser punishment."
Thomson's defense attorney argued Thomson already faces punishment with the
lesser sentence of life in prison.
"He will spend the rest of his life in prison," John Zitny said. "He will never
get out. He will be held accountable. He will be punished."
Zitny will continue his closing arguments today before the case is turned over
to the jury.
Thomson, 53, was raised in Cowlitz County and lived in Lewis County shortly
before police say his deadly crime spree began in the summer of 2006.
In addition to Hamm's death, Thomson also is charged with murder in Spokane for
the death of James Ehrgott. Both were killed in July 2006.
He then fled to California where he attacked 3 other people and stole or
attempted to steal their cars while trying to evade a manhunt that included the
FBI. He was captured in California in August of 2006.
Local prosecutors say they'll bring Thomson back to stand trial here after the
California case is resolved.
(source: The Daily News Online)
*********************
Warren prelim to begin today: Judge closes courtroom to cameras in double
murder case
A judge is slated today to start the process of determining if there is enough
evidence to hold a 28-year-old man accused of a pair of brutal murders to stand
trial.
Jason Anthony Warren has pleaded not guilty to charges stemming from
allegations that he purposely ran down 3 joggers on Old Arcata Road last
September -- killing one and severely injuring 2 others -- after murdering a
woman in Hoopa. If convicted, Warren faces life in prison without the
possibility of parole or the death penalty.
Humboldt County Superior Court Judge Dale Reinholtsen on Monday granted a
defense motion in the case barring media cameras from the courtroom for
Warren's preliminary hearing.
"Obviously, the media has the right to be in the courtroom and report whatever
goes on in the courtroom," Reinholtsen said, adding that his order simply
forbids people from photographing or video recording the proceedings.
Reinholtsen denied a motion by Warren's attorney, Public Defender Kevin
Robinson, seeking to allow Warren to appear at his preliminary hearing in plain
clothes, rather than his orange jail jumpsuit. Robinson explained that both
motions were intended to limit images of his client that could prejudice
potential jurors in the case, which would necessitate a prolonged jury
selection process or, possibly, a change of venue.
District Attorney Paul Gallegos, who's prosecuting the case, opposed the
motion, saying he believes appearing in plain clothes is a "trial right," and
should be limited to defendants appearing before a jury. Gallegos added that he
believes Robinson's other motion denying cameras in the courtroom was
sufficient to limit the potential prejudicing of future jurors.
Reinholtsen agreed. A gag order forbidding attorneys and local law enforcement
from discussing the case publicly also remains in place.
Warren was out of custody on a Cruz waiver and awaiting sentencing under a plea
deal reached with the district attorney's office when he is alleged to have
purposely run down 3 joggers -- killing Humboldt State University geography
instructor and mother of 2 Suzanne Seemann on Sept. 27, 2012.
An investigation into the hit-and-run led detectives to the Hoopa home of
47-year-old Dorothy Ulrich, where they found the housewife and mother of three
dead. While details of Ulrich's killing haven't been released, her mother
described the circumstances of her death as ???horrific??? in a previous
interview with the Times-Standard.
Warren's preliminary hearing is expected to span 10 court days, after which
Reinholtsen will determine if prosecutors presented sufficient evidence to hold
Warren to stand trial on charges of murder and attempted murder, as well
special allegations of having committed multiple murders, lying in wait and
torture.
(source: The Times-Standard)
USA:
Comment: We support the death penalty because we feel compassion for mankind
'Let the punishment fit the crime.'
We have declared this for centuries as our essential credo, the very essence of
justice, even as our criminal justice system today mocks that aspiration.
Thousands of hours inside prisons and on death rows in several states of the US
these past twenty five years only confirms it for me: We have largely abandoned
justice by largely abandoning punishment itself. We retributivists who call for
the death penalty, but only for the worst of the worst, defend a punishment of
death as consistent with - nay sometimes necessary for- human dignity.
We also insist on a sentence of life without parole to supplement or supplant
death as punishment that truly punishes. Opponents dismiss us as bloodthirsty
and inhumane, but let's see what a commitment to human dignity and justice
really entails.
Consider the victims of a particularly brutal murder - like the one in
Connecticut where 2 men broke into a family home in the middle of the night,
raped and strangled the mother, raped the 11 year old daughter, and after
keeping her and her 17 year old sister tied to their beds for 6 hours, to
eliminate them as witnesses, poured gasoline on or around them, and burnt them
up alive. What do they deserve? Do they deserve to die? We feel certain they
do. A jury of their peers agreed and condemned them. And how should they live
before they die? Punishment is not a number - 15 years confined, but a daily
experience.
I visited one of them, Steven Hayes, on death row. The guards told me he had
adjusted well to death row. I didn't get a chance to find out from him. He was
taking his afternoon nap. I looked around his cell and spotted all sorts of
goodies stacked upon the upper bunk. But the chocolate bar waiting to be eaten
really grabbed my attention and stoked my ire. When he awoke from his nap, he
could watch his favorite football team on colour TV while getting that
momentary pleasure which only chocolate can bring.
"Resentment prompts us to punish," Adam Smith declared in his great work of
retributive psychology published in 1759. We put ourselves in the place of the
victim and "feel that resentment which we imagine he ought to feel and which he
would feel" if he looked down and saw his torturer enjoying life. The murderer
"must be made to grieve" for the wrong he inflicted, Adam Smith declared.
We rightly hate - yes hate - Myra Hindley and other monsters like her.
Fitzjames Stephen, the great English judge and historian of the criminal law,
declared it "highly desirable" to design punishments "to give expression to
that hatred". Of course a true commitment to human dignity requires appropriate
limits. Too often we encounter anger or ignorance that would lash out, out of
all proportion to a criminal's moral blameworthiness. The United States
punishes many too many with death or life without parole for relatively trivial
crimes that still should allow these criminals some hope to someday rejoin
society as free, full persons. But for the worst of the worst, "it is now far
more likely," Fitzjames Stephen declared more than a century ago, "that people
should witness acts of grievous cruelty . . . with too little hatred than that
they should feel too much." How challenging to strike a balance between giving
people what they deserve and giving vent to the same ugly impulses that make
them deserve it.
And if we discard the death penalty and substitute 'natural life'? Once we put
it out of our power to reconsider, we have made and will keep a covenant with
the past, with the victim, our fellow citizen who the government failed to
protect from the predator. Make no mistake about it, you opponents of the death
penalty. Natural life as punishment constitutes retribution no less than death.
By it we declare it irrelevant how the killer may grow, develop or transform in
prison. We will never forgive nor forget.
We who advocate an unpleasant daily life for the worst of the worst - serial
killers, professional assassins, sadistic murderers, terrorists - keep a
covenant with the past. We must, as Adam Smith insisted, "oppose to the
emotions of compassion which we feel for a particular person, a more enlarged
compassion which we feel for mankind".
By this we demonstrate our humanity, and commitment to human dignity. By
punishing the criminal we acknowledge his free will - we treat him as more than
the product of his genetic predispositions, early psychological influences that
formed or deformed him, social circumstances that pressured him. We punish him
not to deter others, nor as an animal to be caged - but recognising his
humanity, and the responsibility that goes with it. We commit ourselves more
nearly to achieve justice and give him what he deserves.
(source: Robert Blecker, a criminal law professor at New York Law School, is
the author of The Death of Punishment: Searching for Justice for the Worst of
the Worst; politics.co.uk)
**************
A photographer's mission to end the death penalty
Toshi Kazama has never understood why people applaud when the hero kills the
villain in a movie.
"Why are we celebrating death? Is life cheap?" he asks.
"We kill in the name of war, in the name of race, in the name of religion and
in the name of justice," continues the 55-year-old Tokyo-born photographer.
Kazama, who has lived in his New York home for the last 40 years, opposes the
death penalty and has been campaigning against it through his pictures.
He photographs the faces of juvenile offenders on death row and his
black-and-white images have been displayed all over the world.
His interest in the subject arose because when he was raising his three
children in the USA, he was compelled to study the local criminal justice
system. A near-death experience following a vicious attack only reinforced his
commitment to his cause.
"There so much death and killing in the world that as a father, I thought I
needed to do something. I couldn't wait until the next generation.
"I do it for my children so they can live in a better society," he said
recently during a talk at an exhibition titled Focus on Life at the Central
Market.
He has taken pictures of 22 inmates on death row in the United States and one
inmate in Taiwan. He also takes pictures of the victims' and perpetrators'
families, survivors and the crime scenes.
The 1st prison he visited for his anti-capital punishment project was in
Alabama. It took him 1 year to get access to the prison. The 1st photo he
captured was that of an electric chair.
"There was a mark on the seat. It was caused by an inmate's tailbone burning on
the chair. There was also the smell of human flesh burning," he recalled.
It was in this prison that he also photographed his 1st death row inmate -
16-year-old Michael Barnes who was convicted of 2 murders, including that of a
76-year-old woman.
"I thought he would look like a monster but he looked like an ordinary boy that
I could find in my son's classroom," he said.
Kazama said that Barnes' mother had overdosed on drugs when she was pregnant
with him, causing him to be born with a mental disability.
He said that Barnes' fingerprints were one of many found at the scene of the
crime where the victim had been raped, strangled and then set on fire.
"The police only arrested Michael because he admitted being at the crime scene.
It was easy to put the blame on him because of his mental disability," he said.
In this and many other cases, Kazama pointed out that it is usually the most
uneducated, underprivileged and racial minorities who are given the maximum
sentences.
Another of his photographs was that of Christa Pike who murdered a girl who
allegedly tried to steal her boyfriend.
"She bashed the girl's head with a stone. Later she cut off a piece of the
girl's skull and kept it in her pocket until her arrest," said Kazama.
Pike committed the crime when she was 18 and was sentenced when she was 20.
Kazama, however, discovered why Pike resorted to murder.
"When I met her mother, it made sense. In my opinion, she grew up with very
little love. So when Christa thought that someone was snatching love from her,
she chose to kill," he said.
While Kazama admits what Pike did was not right, he doesn't think that killing
her for her crime is sending the right message.
"The original crime was inhumane. But by giving her the death penalty, they are
saying that killing someone is wrong. But yet the state is also killing," he
said.
Kazama instead prefers forgiveness to revenge. 10 years ago, an unknown
assailant attacked Kazama from behind while walking his daughter home from
school.
His head was smashed against the pavement and he suffered from multiple skull
fractures.
His hearing has been affected ever since and there is always a buzzing sound in
his ear. At first, doctors were unsure of his survival chances but after 4
days, he came back to life.
"I don't seek anything more than a sincere apology," he said.
Surviving the incident has also made Kazama more determined to get his
anti-capital punishment message across to the masses.
Kazama thinks that no one really wants to see another being killed. He recalled
an incident in the Louisana prison relayed to him by the guards. In the
execution chambers, there are two phones - one connected to the prison warden
and the other to the Governor.
The Governor has the prerogative to prevent an execution. The phone is placed
in the chamber so that the Governor can make a call in such a case.
There was once when the phone rang 5 minutes before a convicted murderer was
due for execution.
"When the phone rang, everybody cheered because they thought they didn't have
to kill anybody that night. However, the Governor said to carry on with the
execution in a drunken voice," he said.
Over the years, he has made friends with the inmates and those around them. One
inmate he photographed, a Sean Sellers, even asked him to witness his execution
as his friend.
Kazama, however, did not go for it, a decision he regretted later.
The main reason why Kazama is against capital punishment is that it is
irreversible.
"The justice system is run by people. And people make mistakes," he said.
He photographed Shareef Cousin who was convicted of murder when he was 16 but
was later released when he found a good lawyer.
"He was let out and now he's at law school to become a lawyer. The police had
people forcefully testifying against him," said Kazama.
He said there was another case where a man witnessed a murder but pleaded
guilty so that his sister, who was the actual murderer, could get away.
Kazama also said that killing is not an easy thing, pointing out that in Japan,
depending on the execution chamber, three to five guards simultaneously push
the button to activate the noose.
In the United States, there are 2 switches connected to the electric chair and
an automated process to inject three chemicals to both arms in the lethal
injection.
He said these measures are supposed to provide relief to those operating the
switches.
"Do you have the guts to hold a gun in your hand and pull the trigger at an
inmate? In reality someone has to kill in your name. No one is happy to kill
another human," he said.
(source: The Star)
*********************
N.M. jury continues deliberations in death penalty case
Jurors resumed deliberations Monday on the punishment for an Arizona inmate who
kidnapped and murdered a retired Oklahoma.
The federal panel is considering whether John McCluskey should be executed or
sentenced to life in prison for the August 2010 slayings of Gary and Linda Haas
of Tecumseh, Okla.
The couple crossed paths with McCluskey and fellow fugitives at a New Mexico
rest stop following an Arizona prison break.
McCluskey was convicted in October of murder and numerous other charges.
Much of the sentencing phase focused on whether he was capable of controlling
his impulses and making reasoned decisions when he kidnapped and killed the
couple.
The defense argues he has a low IQ and has suffered a hard life of abuse, brain
damage and addiction. Prosecutors say he's a remorseless, cold-blooded killer.
(source: Associated Press)
*********************
Blackstone's warning
'It is better that 10 guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer."
Does this statement ring true to you? If so, you are probably over 40. My
students, having grown up in a post-Columbine, post-9/11, post-Virginia Tech
era, hesitate when I introduce them to the 1765 formulation of British jurist
William Blackstone.
It's no surprise that today's teens have a harder time accepting Blackstone's
statement than I did at their age. For them, dangers to their own well-being
and to the stability of the community seem to come primarily from lone gunmen
and small groups of extremists. They are likely to fear dangerous people on the
loose and see their government as their protector.
A half-century ago, high schoolers were instructed to assemble below ground as
practice for a possible nuclear strike. I was. Now they head to the basements
in preparation for a terrorist attack and are told to lock themselves in their
classrooms in the case of a threat from an armed intruder.
In the 1960s and '70s, many Americans, especially younger ones, saw government
as the primary menace to their personal freedom and safety. In 1970, college
kids were shot at Kent State and Jackson State, not by deranged fellow
students, but by National Guardsmen and police, respectively. This was also a
period during which public support for the death penalty, carried out by the
state, reached a historic low. Executions were temporarily halted between 1967
and 1977.
Some of the sections of the Bill of Rights, ratified in 1791, are already
familiar to my students when we begin studying them. They know about the
freedoms of speech, press, and assembly, and they are familiar with expressions
such as "no double jeopardy" and "pleading the Fifth." But it doesn't
immediately occur to them that these are also limitations on government power
designed to prevent citizens from being silenced, or repeatedly dragged into
court, or forced to confess, or imprisoned without trial, or denied the benefit
of counsel. Blackstone's dictum underpins our legal system. Ben Franklin
referred to it approvingly.
In weakening our devotion to this principle, advances in technology have
certainly played a role. A few people can do a lot more damage in our time than
they could in the 18th century - witness the attacks of Sept. 11. But
technology also makes it easier to extend government power. Drones -
computer-guided, unmanned aircraft - have allowed the United States to kill
suspected terrorists (including at least one U.S. citizen) remotely. Earlier
this year, the Justice Department secretly seized electronic phone records from
the Associated Press. The National Security Agency has been collecting millions
of personal e-mail contact lists.
These days we don't have much sympathy for leakers, whistle-blowers, or
investigative journalists. And that's a problem, because the executive branch
is notably cavalier about our constitutional rights. There is no doubt that the
threats from which the NSA hopes to protect us are real, but so is the
ever-present tendency toward government overreach.
Blackstone's observation remains at least as important now as it was in the
18th century. Whenever an innocent person suffers at the hands of the system we
have created, we all do.
(source: Opinion, Grant Calder; Philadelphia Inquirer)
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