Sue Hartigan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Posted for Bill:
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
DEATH PENALTY
About the time Missourians are drifting off the sleep tonight, the
executioner
is scheduled to administer a lethal injection to Milton Griffin-El. His
death
should trouble our sleep.
Many will be satisfied by his execution. There's no doubt that
Griffin-El and
Antoine Owens killed Jerome Redden and his girlfriend, Loretta Trotter,
on
Aug. 15, 1986. There's no doubt it was a brutal attack in the apartment
above the Redden family cleaning establishment on St. Louis Avenue.
There's
no doubt that the murder had tragic consequences quite beyond the
victims
who were stabbed and bludgeoned to death. Mr. Redden and Ms. Trotter's
4-month-old son, Germaine, was found crying near the bodies and
eventually
was put up for adoption.
Rosie Redden, Mr. Redden's mother, sees the execution as simple justice:
"He took two lives for a robbery. He deserves to die."
So what is there to trouble us?
The trouble lies in what the case says about the quality of justice as a
new
federal law begins to limit death row appeals. The case also illustrates
other
problems with the death penalty:
* Griffin-El was sentenced to death while Owens got life sentences for
stabbing both Ms. Trotter and Mr. Redden. Hence the arbitrariness of the
death penalty.
* Griffin-El was convicted by a jury from which the prosecutor had
struck six
African-Americans - a common prosecutorial practice in the 1980s and a
reason the death penalty has been stacked against blacks.
* The jury deadlocked on the death sentence at 10-2 in favor. Under a
new
state law, Griffin-El became the first Missourian to be sentenced to
death by
a judge acting alone - a lonely exercise of discretion for a public
official who
can pay for it in the next election.
* Griffin-El will be the first of the 30 men put to death in Missouri
who did
not have a chance at a full hearing before the federal appeals court.
The reason that Griffin-El hasn't received that last hearing is that
Congress
passed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act in 1996 to cut
back on the appeals of death-row inmates.
Understandably, people are frustrated by the decades-long appeals
process.
But, when the ultimate judgment of death is involved, there can be no
mistakes. A vivid example of the importance of careful appeals is
Illinois
where nine men who were sentenced to die in recent years have been found
to be innocent.
It is particularly unfair that the Antiterrorism law be applied to
Griffin-El
because there is every indication the Supreme Court won't apply the law
retroactively to cases like his. The Supreme Court ruled last year that
portions of the law are not retroactive and has another case on the
issue
before it now.
What kind of justice would it be for the Supreme Court to turn down
Griffin-El's plea for one last hearing and then to decide after
Griffin-El's
execution that the Antiterrorism law didn't apply to older cases like
his?
The Supreme Court and Gov. Mel Carnahan still have time to make a loud
statement for justice.
--
Two rules in life:
1. Don't tell people everything you know.
2.
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