Oct. 16
TEXAS:
A police widow witnesses the execution of her husband's killer
For veteran Dallas Police Officer Frederick Frazier, the state's execution of
convicted cop killer Licho Escamilla wasn't an occasion for celebration.
It was about justice for the family of Kevin James, the officer who was shot
mercilessly the Sunday after Thanksgiving in 2001.
And it was about closure - for the family of officers that James left behind
and for his widow, Lori, and his daughter Shelby, who was only 8 when her
father was killed.
"The only closure this family has is that the guy who did this is now gone,"
Senior Cpl. Frazier said Thursday, after returning late Wednesday night from
Huntsville where the execution occurred.
"I asked Lori if this feels better and she just shook her head 'yes' and
started crying," said Frazier, the First Vice President of the Dallas Police
Association and chairman of the Kevin James Endowment Fund, which benefits the
Assist the Officer Foundation.
The intense pain, that deep indelible sense of loss, is often lost on those who
don't just stand steadfastly against the death penalty, but mock or malign
those who support it.
No one is gloating here; no one is dancing over Escamilla's dead body.
I'm sure not.
Nor is Lori James, the slain officer's widow, who had been waiting for this day
for nearly 14 years. But when the moment finally arrived, she didn't even want
to go into the room where she could watch Escamilla take his last breath.
"At the last minute," Frazier said, "Lori did not even go in there. She did not
want to see him."
And Shelby, the officer's daughter, didn't even make the trip to Huntsville.
"This really messed her up," Frazier said, explaining how the brutal and sudden
loss of her father damaged the young woman.
Frazier and 21 other current and former Dallas police officers drove down to
Huntsville for the execution. They were joined by law enforcement from the
federal Drug Enforcement Agency, the U.S. Marshal's Office and other Texas
police departments.
They all met at a Mexican restaurant before the execution, and the gathering
was not what many might expect. They were there to comfort each other and,
above all, to reflect on the life of the victim of this heinous crime.
"Lori went and brought about 6 big photo albums in the room, and we all just
started passing them around," said Frazier. "And every time we opened one,
someone said 'remember this, remember that.'"
"No one talked about the execution," Frazier said. "No one talked about the
night of. We talked about Kevin and Lori, and it was good."
One of the books they thumbed through was a wedding album, which showed how
happy Lori and Kevin were on their wedding day about 6 weeks before he was
killed.
"You have to remember," Frazier said, "they had a wedding and funeral within 6
weeks."
So they all laughed and cried. And then they parted ways. The James family
headed to the prison to prep for the execution - "They had to go through some
videos of what to expect," Frazier explained.
Most of the officers, Frazier included, stayed outside the prison, ready to
show support for the victim's family and friends as they came out.
They all agreed to not say or do anything when Escamilla's family came out,
including avoiding eye contact. They didn't want to provoke that family, which
they realize was losing someone close to them, too.
"We wanted to keep it as professional as possible," Frazier said, adding, "No
one was there to condemn them, the [Escamilla] family, they were there to
condemn the murderer."
A group of Houston-area officers called the Thin Blue Line Law Enforcement
Motorcycle Club showed up about 20 minutes before the set execution and lined
up by the prison.
"They only come for cop-killer executions," Frazier said. "And when they got
the word that he [Escamilla] was strapped down" and all the witnesses were
present, "they light up their motorcycle and rev them for 10 minutes straight
as loud as they can go."
They rev the bikes until they get word the execution is done.
"When they did it," Frazier said, "I almost started to cry. The emotions that
ran through me were overwhelming."
It was the 1st execution Frazier has attended.
"The pressure of waiting," is over, he said, and that's a relief "because
there's always a doubt that justice won't be served."
For those with serious misgivings about the death penalty - with legal,
practical or moral objections to it - Wednesday's state-sanctioned killing was
another tragic turn of the screw.
But for those who lost a husband/father/friend/colleague in James, it was a
necessary and long-overdue day of reckoning.
It was a day to which they were entitled.
(source: James Ragland, Dallas Morning News)
GEORGIA:
Georgia death-row inmate: 'I'm still kicking'
Death-row inmate John Wayne Conner was eager to talk.
Introducing himself, with a broad grin that displayed several missing teeth,
Conner said his name was the same as the "little Terminator." That would be
John Connor, the character in the "Terminator" movies who will lead a human
revolt against the machines that have taken over the world.
Conner, 59, has been on death row for 33 years. As for his appeals, they've
almost run out, he said.
"I'm hanging in there," he said. "I'm still kicking. In here, that's a good
thing."
Conner was 25 years old in January 1982 when he got into a drunken fight with a
friend and wound up killing him. Conner became angry when his friend told
Conner he wanted to sleep with his girlfriend.
Conner was charged with murder by a Telfair County grand jury and the district
attorney sought the death penalty. A jury sentenced him to death in 1982.
33 years later, Conner was eager to talk to his new visitors.
I met Conner during a tour of the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison
in Jackson on Thursday. The tour, led by Warden Bruce Chatman, included 1 of
the 4 pods that house the 80 inmates on death row.
As Conner talked on, Chatman told the group it was time to move on.
"He will engage with you all day," the warden said. "But there are some here
who won't engage with you at all."
(source: Atlanta Journal Constitution)
FLORIDA:
Why Florida's death-sentencing law is likely in trouble
It can be perilous to predict the outcome of a U.S. Supreme Court case by the
questions justices ask during the oral argument, but this once I'll hazard a
guess: Florida's death-sentencing law is in deep trouble.
The better question, in fact, is not whether Pensacola killer Timothy Hurst
will win his appeal but how many more death row inmates might be spared on his
account.
Unlike any other state, Florida requires neither a unanimous jury
recommendation for death nor any declaration by the jurors as to the
aggravating factors that the law specifies to justify the ultimate penalty.
Those decisions are left to the trial judge, who assumes why the jury voted as
it did.
This appears to conflict with the 2002 U.S. Supreme Court opinion in Ring v.
Arizona, which held 7-2 that only the jury, not the judge, can find such
aggravating circumstances. To rule otherwise, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
wrote, would leave the Sixth Amendment's right to a jury trial "senselessly
diminished."
It wasn't only the liberal justices who posed questions helpful to Hurst's case
when it was argued Tuesday. Justice Antonin Scalia, who concurred in Ring,
expressed concern that the merely advisory role of Florida jurors may cause
them to take their responsibility less seriously than they should.
6 other states amended their laws to conform to Ring, but Florida's Legislature
blissfully ignored it.
The state Supreme Court, meanwhile, has consistently held that Ring doesn't
matter in Florida. In 2005 it overruled a decision by Pinellas-Pasco Circuit
Judge Lynn Tepper to require the jury to indicate on a special verdict form
which aggravating factors it would find and by what votes.
"Specific jury findings on aggravators without guidance about their effect on
the imposition of a sentence could unduly influence the trial judge's own
determination of how to sentence the defendant," said the Florida court's
majority opinion. "The trial court alone must make detailed findings about the
existence and weight of aggravating circumstances."
When that was read to the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday, Justice Anthony Kennedy -
often the swing vote in major cases - sounded shocked as much by the timing as
the language.
"Is that a - post Ring?" he asked. "What's the date of that?"
"Yes, this is post Ring," said Seth Waxman, a former U.S. solicitor general who
is Hurst's lead attorney.
That's a pregnant point; it would invite the high court to apply a decision in
Hurst's favor to everyone sent to death row since Ring was handed down 13 years
ago. As no other state would be affected, it would be a relatively easy call.
Although the court refused to extend Ring to inmates who had exhausted their
direct appeals, some states did so on their own.
Florida, on the other hand, has continued to hand down sentences as if Ring had
never happened. Of the 394 people on death row, 143 were sent there after 2002.
Hurst was convicted of the 1998 murder of Cynthia Lee Harrison, a coworker at a
Popeye's restaurant and the Florida Supreme Court narrowly upheld his sentence,
4-3. Only 7 of the 12 jurors had voted to recommend a death sentence. The trial
judge then concluded that there were two aggravating circumstances - that the
crime was heinous, atrocious and cruel, and carried out in the course of a
robbery. But the state had not charged Hurst with robbery. Moreover, it was
possible that a majority of the jury had voted for neither factor. As few as 4
could have found one and as few as three the other.
"There is no other state that permits anyone to be sentenced to death other
than by a unanimous determination by the jury," Waxman said Tuesday. "And the
State of Florida requires unanimity for shoplifting, just not for death."
In the 2005 special verdict form opinion, the Florida Supreme Court urged the
Legislature to "require some unanimity in the jury's recommendation ... to
decide whether it wants Florida to remain the outlier state."
That case involved Alfredie Steele, charged with the murder of Pasco Sheriff's
Lieutenant Charles "Bo" Harrison. The prosecution successfully appealed the
pretrial order in his favor.
As Steele was subsequently sentenced to life rather than death, he had no
grounds for a federal appeal. Dozens of other death-sentenced inmates have
appealed on the basis of Ring, but Hurst's case is the first to be accepted by
the U.S. Supreme Court.
The shakiness of Florida's situation has not gone entirely unnoticed in the
Legislature, but as with so many hot-button issues, it's one that most
legislators fear to touch until something forces them to.
Their timidity isn't unfounded. For co-sponsoring legislation the past two
years to require unanimous recommendations and specific findings, state Rep.
Jose Javier Rodriguez, D-Miami, drew an election opponent who accused him of
coddling murderers. He won nonetheless, and is sponsoring it again this year
with state Rep. Clovis Watson, D-Gainesville. State Sen. Thad Altman,
R-Rockledge, has offered it again in the Senate, but it is reportedly dead on
arrival with the House leadership.
By next June, when the Supreme Court's current term ends, Florida more likely
than not will find itself without an enforceable death penalty. The politicians
who cling to that practice will wish they had listened to the colleagues who
have tried to save it.
(source: Martin Dyckman is a retired associate editor of the St. Petersburg
Times; saintpetersblog.com)
OHIO:
Slaying suspect returns to Ohio to face possible death penalty----Clayton
accused of killing man, wounding 4 children
A man accused of stabbing a man and 4 children in a Springdale apartment was in
a Hamilton County courtroom Friday.
Akihiko Clayton, 20, had been in custody in Northern Kentucky on unrelated bank
robbery charges since his arrest in late July.
He was indicted in August in connection with the July 2 assault that killed
Emilio Ramirez and left 4 children with stab wounds.
Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters has said he intends to seek the death
penalty for Clayton.
Clayton was arraigned late Friday morning, where he pleaded not guilty. No bond
was set.
(source: WLWT news)
LOUISIANA:
Race, justice and the death penalty: Louisiana plays host next week to the
biggest local election of 2015
District attorney races are often fiercely competitive.
For starters, the candidates are lawyers, temperamentally inclined enjoy a good
bout of non-lethal combat. And chief prosecutor jobs (most of which are
elected) don't come open all that often. That's part of the reason that, in
major metropolises and tiny rural hamlets alike, the DA's name is often one
that a lot of people know.
But in Caddo Parish, La. (population: 253,00, biggest city: Shreveport), there
is a district attorney's race that seems utterly suited for something straight
out of a Jim Crow period piece about justice, bias and Southern politics. And
although this might sound like an oxymoron, this could also be a relatively
gripping story about campaign finance.
What's happening in Caddo centers around Glen Ford, a black man convicted of
murder, sentenced to die then locked away in solitary confinement for 30 years
before a court declared him innocent and set him free. There would have to be a
mention of the fact that the until-recently predominantly white Caddo sentences
more people to death, per capita, than any other place in the country. And 77 %
of those who have been so condemned over the last 40 years were black.
Any retelling would spend some time -- probably too much time if produced by
Hollywood -- on a white and deeply apologetic junior prosecutor who now admits,
decades later, that ambition and narcissism helped produce a horrific
miscarriage of justice. He also staked the jury with white members and knocked
blacks out of contention. He has asked the state bar for punishment.
One of the remaining central characters would have to be Dale Cox, Caddo's
interim DA, appointed after the parish's elected prosecutor was discovered dead
in a Shreveport hotel room. (No foul play is suspected.) Cox, who is white and
in possession of a central-casting kind of Southern drawl and an affinity for
the death penalty, is resolute that Ford's case does not indicate a single ill
in Caddo Parish.
Cox believes the state owes Ford nothing. Nothing at all. To hear Cox tell it,
nothing illegal happened. Nothing immoral happened. In fact, the system worked.
Cox doesn't know why that junior prosecutor has even apologized. Louisiana
should, according to Cox, execute more people. And hey, at least Ford made it
out of prison alive.
This is all precisely what Cox has said publicly, most recently on last
weekend's "60 Minutes." But Cox has already (i.e. before "60 Minutes" but
shortly after the New York Times ran a story titled, "The Prosecutor Who Says
Louisiana Should 'Kill More People'") bowed out of a special election scheduled
for Oct. 24. So 6 people are seeking Caddo's DA seat.
Now, enter the final character. That would be George Soros, a
Hungarian-American known for his support of liberal causes and concern about
race-related injustice.
Soros is another white hero or a villain here, depending on your notion of
fairness, your politics and your feelings about campaign finance law. Soros
already ranks among the county's biggest billionaire federal campaign
financiers. And on Oct. 5, he dropped $256,000 into a Louisiana super PAC that
promptly put ads on the air in support of one of the Caddo DA candidates. Soros
appears to be the super PAC's only donor.
Now, picture some tense courtroom scenes, corridors and offices. The super
PAC's ad (see below) has started working to support a black judge and Democrat
named James Stewart. Stewart retired from the bench in September after a
somewhat shadowy source financed billboards encouraging him to run for Caddo
DA. A local lawyer filed a suit against Stewart saying Stewart had to resign if
he was going to run.
On Oct. 2, at Stewart's request, a court instead sanctioned that local lawyer,
describing his suit as politically motivated and possibly nothing more than a
publicity stunt since the court did not have jurisdiction to rule on the legal
questions raised. The lawyer knew this, the court ruled, because he has done
something similar before. So, the court ordered Stewart's would-be foil to pay
court costs and take 10 hours of training in ethics and professionalism.
Even before the Soros donation to that super PAC, Stewart seemed to have some
advantages over other candidates. Stewart might have entered the race last, but
he worked as a junior and then senior prosecutor in Caddo Parish before he was
elected to the bench in the early 1990s. Both his older brothers are lawyers.
One, a Clinton appointee, is chief judge of the U.S. Fifth Court of Appeals.
So Stewart knows the local justice system and has broader contacts too. There's
some expectation that if elected DA, he would be far less interested than Cox
in sending people -- an overwhelming majority of them being black -- to death
row.
The New Yorker magazine and the aforementioned New York Times and "60 Minutes"
have all come to town. The Washington Post wrote about the case, too.
And partisan outlets have weighed in, too, in about the ways you'd expect. The
conservative Washington Free Beacon said Soros is trying to "buy" the election
for Stewart, in contrast to the objections that Soros and many other Democrats
often raise about the corrupting influence of big money in politics.
All that drama has been compounded by a personal story of the man involved that
is nothing short of tragic.
The day Ford was released from jail, the state did give him a $20 gift card. He
used it to by fried chicken, iced tea and french fries. He emerged with $4 and
some change. 2 weeks later, Ford was diagnosed with an advanced form of lung
cancer and has since died, just more than a year after his release. The
Louisiana Innocence Project announced his late-June death on July 4. Donors
covered the cost of his funeral, as Ford was penniless.
The state still hasn't paid Ford or his heirs anything, even though a state law
indicates he's eligible for about $330,000. Cox insists Ford knew the robbery
which lead to the murder was going to happen and did not inform police and thus
isn't entitled to the payout. Ford has never been charged in connection with
Cox's allegation or convicted. But Cox says it's true and that, according to
Cox, is good enough reason for taxpayers to avoid a $330,000 bill.
In the end, an innocent man spent 30 years on death row. The local interim
prosecutor is bordering on proud. Some members of the local press seem
perplexed about the national outrage and suggestions that racism may have
something to do with all that's gone on.
Mostly, the consensus concern seems to be the "bad press" interim DA Cox has
brought to Caddo. Now, big outside campaign cash and a special election have
made what would otherwise be a local race into a national story involving race,
death, wrongful convictions and partisan politics.
We'll find out next weekend -- Oct. 24 -- what the next chapter holds.
(source: Janell Ross is a reporter for The Fix who writes about race, gender,
immigration and inequality----Washington Post)
OKLAHOMA:
All executions may be put on hold until 2016, court documents show----Attorneys
for death row inmates and the attorney general's office jointly filed a motion
in federal court Friday requesting that executions and a legal challenge to the
state's death penalty be put on hold.
State executions are on hold until at least early next year, a judge ruled
Friday.
Attorneys for death row inmates and the Oklahoma attorney general's office
jointly filed a motion in federal court early Friday morning requesting that
executions and a legal challenge to the state's death penalty be put on hold.
All of Oklahoma's scheduled executions were put on hold last month after the
execution of inmate Richard Glossip was halted when corrections officials
noticed they'd received the wrong drug for the procedure.
Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt said the indefinite stay made it
unnecessary to litigate challenges to the state's execution protocol brought by
Glossip's attorneys.
"As I have previously stated, my office is conducting a full and thorough
investigation into all aspects of the Department of Corrections' handling of
executions," Pruitt said. "The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals granted the
state's request for an indefinite stay of all scheduled executions. My office
does not plan to ask the court to set an execution date until the conclusion of
its investigation."
In the filing, both parties agreed the state should not seek any new execution
dates until all ongoing federal and state investigations into Oklahoma's death
penalty have been completed, any investigations and changes to protocol are
made available to the extent they are public, and the Oklahoma Department of
Corrections is able to comply with its execution protocol.
A multicounty grand jury will hear testimony on Tuesday from Corrections
Department Director Robert Patton and other officials as part of a state
investigation, and the attorney general's office is conducting an internal
inquiry into recent lethal drug mix-ups.
The attorney general's office also agreed to not seek an execution date until
after those stipulations are met. At that point, the public defenders
representing Oklahoma's death row inmates could reopen their federal challenge
to the state's method of execution.
Given that the grand jury investigation could take months, it is likely the
state will not conduct an execution for more than a year. That's if the state
is able to acquire the drugs necessary to perform another lethal injection.
Oklahoma has run into a series of problems in recent years with its lethal
injection process. In 2014, outdated protocol and a lack of basic equipment led
to the controversial 43-minute execution of Clayton Lockett, the first inmate
in Oklahoma to be executed using the sedative midazolam.
Midazolam came under fire across the country when it was used in a string of
problematic lethal injections that year.
Glossip's execution has been stayed 4 times, the most recent on Sept. 30, when
Gov. Mary Fallin postponed his death sentence when it was discovered 2 hours
before the procedure that the state Corrections Department had received the
wrong combination of lethal drugs. The state needed potassium chloride but was
provided with potassium acetate, a drug not authorized for executions in
Oklahoma.
This month, documents provided to The Oklahoman revealed the state executed
Charles Warner in January using potassium acetate.
The state Corrections Department says it is still searching for pentobarbital,
the drug preferred by state corrections departments for lethal injections. That
drug has become increasingly difficult for those departments to acquire since
its maker restricted its use in capital punishment, and pharmacies that can
make it have come under public scrutiny.
State Corrections Department spokeswoman Terri Watkins said given the ongoing
inquiries, she was unable to comment on whether the state is searching for
either midazolam or potassium chloride.
(soruce: The Oklahoman)
USA:
Recusal Fight in Boston Death Penalty Case
Federal prosecutors are not taking no for an answer in their quest to have a
judge recuse himself from the upcoming resentencing of convicted killer Gary
Sampson.
"By moving for this court's recusal, the government seeks only to ensure public
confidence in these proceedings and a record that, in the event of another
death sentence, will withstand scrutiny," a motion filed Tuesday states.
"Accordingly, the government respectfully submits that the interests of justice
compel reconsideration of the court's recusal decision."
Sampson, now 55, was originally sentenced to death in 2003 after pleading
guilty to 3 people in New England over the course of a week.
U.S. District Judge Mark Wolf vacated Sampson's sentence in 2011, however,
after he discovered that 1 of the jurors had lied about her past encounters
with law enforcement.
Death-penalty trials are uncommon in Massachusetts, and prosecutors worry that
Sampson could capitalize Wolf's recent disclosure regarding his professional
relationship with a potential defense witness.
Sampson's resentencing had initially been scheduled to occur last month but it
has been held in limbo since Wolf's disclosure that he took part in a panel
discussion last year after the screening of "The Life and Mind of Mark
DeFriest."
The animated documentary follows the story of DeFriest, whose numerous attempts
at escaping prison transformed a 4-year sentence for theft into 34 years behind
bars.
Sampson was joined on the panel by noted attorney Alan Dershowitz and
prisoner's rights advocate James Gilligan.
Prosecutors note that like Sampson, DeFriest had claimed that the brain damage
he suffered as a child explains his violent behavior.
They say Gilligan earned praise from Sampson for an argument about the
treatment of inmates that Sampson's defense attorneys may use for their client.
The material could create an opportunity for the defense to appeal whatever
sentence is rendered, according to a motion from prosecutors.
Though Wolf refused to recuse himself last month, Assistant U.S. Attorney
Zachary Hafer moved for reconsideration Tuesday.
"A reasonable person might question whether each of those rulings will be
affected by the court's promotion of a 1-sided defense movie and panel linking
head injury, prison abuse, and violent behavior, its extra-record contact with
Dr. Gilligan, and its praise of Dr. Gilligan and Professor Dershowitz as being
'literally like the 2 world's leading experts on the subject' after they had
offered opinions consistent with evidence Sampson will present in this case and
adverse to evidence the government will present," Hafer wrote.
On Wednesday, Wolf gave Sampson until Oct. 28 to respond to the government's
motion.
(source: Courthouse News)
************************
The Rosenbergs Live: On Nostalgia and Red Scare Realities
"Judge Irving Kaufman, of Rosenberg Spy Trial and Free-Press Rulings, Dies at
81." The 1992 New York Times obituary stated that Judge Kaufman hoped "he would
be remembered for his role not in the Rosenberg case ... but as the judge whose
order was the 1st to desegregate a public school in the North." Kaufman was
appointed to the federal bench in Manhattan in 1949. 2 years later, the
"espionage trial of the century" landed in his courtroom.
Consider the backdrop. America, flush with victory, was pivoting to Cold War
politics. Redbaiting was in; Fireside Chats out. Against the shiny orange roofs
of proliferating Howard Johnsons and the pulsating floors of teenage sock hops,
the country was off to war again. This time on the Korean peninsula, fighting a
new enemy called Communism.
covercoverOur literary imagination remains captive to this era, as if we could
jump in a Studebaker and road trip past the nostalgic caricature of ourselves
to discover something new. In her seminal The Future of Nostalgia, Svetlana
Boym opines: "Nostalgia is a sentiment of loss and displacement, but it is also
a romance with one's own fantasy ... The 20th century began with a futuristic
utopia and ended with nostalgia." We may not be stuck mid-century, but if Mad
Men is an indication, we're still trying to figure a few things out.
"Damn Cold in February," part of Joni Tevis's stunning new essay collection,
The World Is on Fire, combs the 1950s for atomic kitsch. Tevis lines up Buddy
Holly with choice snippets of U.S. government operating manuals (and
propaganda), artifacts to underscore the era's cultural ironies. In 1957, The
New York Times "explained how to plan one's summer vacation around the
'non-ancient but none the less honorable pastime of atomic-bomb watching.'"
After winning Miss Atomic Bomb, "a local woman poses for photos with a
cauliflower-shaped cloud pasted to the front of her bathing suit." Tevis clicks
through the slides of an atomic view-master toy and concludes, "Not only do
Americans want to see the bomb, we want to become it, shaping our bodies to fit
its form."
It turns out, however, that it's much less fun once the Russians have it. In
1949, a successful Soviet nuclear test threatened our self-image as supreme in
the world, invoking terror around the country. Treason took on new meaning with
rumors of espionage and leaks of classified documents to our former ally
Russia. Everyone, it seemed, was building a fallout shelter - public buildings,
apartment houses, families. School children practiced for bomb attacks.
The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) was all about the Russian
threat. HUAC revved up in the late-'40s, holding hearings the broadcasts of
which stoked public fear and paranoia. Congressman Richard Nixon cut his teeth
crushing the distinguished public servant Alger Hiss, convicted of perjury -
not espionage - charges the merits of which are still debated. Wisconsin
Senator Joseph McCarthy fulminated, wielding a list of alleged Reds lurking in
the State Department. HUAC pitted neighbor against neighbor and colleague
against colleague, destroying careers in Hollywood and plenty of others too.
Old Blue Eyes may have been ascendant, but celebrated actor/singer Paul Robeson
went down for his politics.
Enter Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. They bonded over the Communist Party the
tenets of which, they believed, would level the playing field between the haves
and have-nots. Julius, an electrical engineer, and Ethel, an aspiring
actress/singer turned secretary, were struggling to provide for their 2 young
sons on New York's Lower East Side when the FBI set them in its crosshairs. The
Rosenbergs were indicted in 1950 - Julius on atomic espionage charges for
passing secrets to the Russians, and Ethel as his accomplice. Ethel was
denounced on apparently false charges by her brother, David Greenglass, an Army
machinist at the weapons installation in Los Alamos. To state the barest facts
- the Rosenbergs were tried in 1951, found guilty of conspiracy to commit
espionage, and given the electric chair on June 19, 1953.
Jillian Cantor steps into this space with her forthcoming novel, The Hours
Count, narrated by Millie Stein, fictional neighbor to the Rosenbergs. Millie's
consuming interest is her son, David, who appears to be autistic. Largely
estranged from her family, Millie is unable to connect to her husband, Ed, a
surly and often drunk Russian, who may or may not be entangled in nefarious
political activities.
This isn't the 1st time Cantor has fictionalized history. In Margot, Cantor
imagines Anne Frank's older sister to have survived, living in Philadelphia.
Like Margot, The Hours Count is narrated by a woman who declines to swim
through history's riptides, but instead bobs passively along. Perhaps the
passivity of these narrators is meant to bring the surrounding characters into
focus. In The Hours Count, Ethel Rosenberg is such a character, portrayed as a
devoted wife and mother, and a caring friend.
Much of The Hours Count is taken up with Millie's strange and conflicted
relationship with a man who promises to help her disabled child. Dramatic
scenes from the Rosenbergs' execution at Sing Sing are spliced throughout the
novel. But the main part of the story breaks off when Ethel departs for the
grand jury, leaving her 2 young sons in Millie's care.
Ethel never returned. She refused to testify against her husband and was taken
straight to prison, leaving her boys behind. Michael and Robert Rosenberg were
6 and 10 when their parents were electrocuted 3 years later. They were
ultimately adopted by Abel and Anne Meeropol, changing their last names to
Meeropol. (Abel Meeropol, incidentally, wrote both the words and music to the
iconic song, "Strange Fruit.")
What of those children, purposefully orphaned by the State? E.L. Doctorow takes
them on in The Book of Daniel, tackling the whole raging tragedy. Reimagining
them as Daniel and Susan Isaacson, Doctorow explores the agonized years between
their parents' arrest and execution when they moved among harsh grandparents,
private homes, and an orphanage. He gives us the lawyer who not only had the
thankless task of representing their parents, but also worked tirelessly to
find an appropriate home for Daniel and Susan. (The lawyer's widow accuses the
Isaacsons of causing her husband???s untimely death.) And the anguished
stepparents, who cannot staunch Daniel's fury, nor heal his sister, a former
radical dying in a mental institution. "Today Susan is a starfish," Daniel
says. "There are few silences deeper than the silence of the starfish. There
are not many degrees of life lower before there is no life."
Published in 1971, The Book of Daniel remains as charged as a live wire. This
big meaty book follows Daniel as he plunges into the radical 1960s, an angry
young father on a quest to confront the people in his parents' and thus his own
drama. He suggests his parents mistook shared political ideology for
friendship, and socialist doctrine for life advice. Of lessons learned from his
father, who "ran up and down history like a pianist playing his scales," Daniel
says, "I heard about the framing of Tom Mooney and the execution of Joe Hill,
and all the maimed and dead labor heroes of the early labor movement. The
incredibly brutal fate of anyone who tried to help the worker."
Cousin Linda, whose father betrayed Daniel's mother and got 10 years instead of
death, tells him, "neither you nor I was responsible for what happened. But
we've borne the brunt ... This is what happens to us, to the children of
trials; our hearts run to cunning, our minds are sharp as claws."
The real children, Michael and Robert Meeropol, have dedicated their lives to
bringing justice to their executed parents. Their continued presence on the
public stage subverts nostalgia; if you're paying attention, it's pretty tough
to get sentimental about this time period. In August 2015, The New York Times
ran a lengthy Op Ed by the Meeropols, pleading their mother's case and urging
her posthumous exoneration. Their father might have been "legally guilty of the
conspiracy charge, but not atomic spying," but their mother "was prosecuted
primarily for refusing to turn on our father."
"The government held her life hostage to coerce our father to talk, and when
that failed, it extracted false statements to secure her wrongful execution ...
[with] disturbing implications in post-9/11 America."
What about the judge who meted the sentence, Irving Kaufman? Doctorow portrays
him as an ambitious man who saw the trial as a means to advance his career.
Here's Daniel's father, describing the fictional Judge Kaufman. "Not having
known of [the judge's] existence even a few short months ago, [he] knows a good
deal more about him now, including [the judge's] most intimate professional
secret, that he hopes to be appointed to the Supreme Court. All the lawyers in
the corridor know this. [The judge] has heard more cases brought by the
government in the field of subversive activities than anyone else."
In 1960, Judge Kaufman published a lengthy piece in the Atlantic Monthly called
"Sentencing: The Judge's Problem," in which he asserted his belief that judges
should have wide discretion in sentencing. "In no other judicial function is
the judge more alone," Kaufman wrote. Judges take their role seriously; every
judge "is painfully aware of what 5 years without a father may mean to a
prisoner's son." Moreover, sentences that are too harsh "have historically had
an effect opposite from the one intended." A judge should have the
"satisfaction" of saying "to oneself, 'I have never consciously rendered an
unjust decision.'"
It's not a leap to read this article today as post hoc justification for
sending the Rosenbergs to their deaths. Whatever its intent, the following year
Kaufman received a promotion to the Second Circuit Federal Court of Appeals
where he served more than a quarter century.
The trial and execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are sobering reminders of
how public sentiment can affect the wheels of justice. The Rosenbergs were
tried within a particular context: Congress inflaming the Red Scare, the
country again at war, and mounting fears about the A-bomb. Ideally a judge
would take extra precaution to separate hysteria from legitimate danger. Judge
Kaufman, it seems, thought he would do well to embrace the times - "The general
attitude of the public toward a particular type of crime ... must be taken into
consideration if respect for the law is to be upheld."
Perhaps we'd best let the Meeropols have the last word: "Neither of our parents
deserved the death penalty."
(source: Martha Anne Toll, The Millions)
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