"dr. ldmf [ph.d, j.d.]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Hi Sue - this seems a very touching situation; one hopes someone will
review it while there is still time to do so. I know the arguments for
proceeding are many because all the intertwining laws and sub-texts add
up to execution, it seems, and not grandfathering in those with dealth
penalties of a prior date; but if technicalities always prevail, we will
have a total triumph of 'form over substance.' This post is not
regarding the merits, but the system. :) LDMF.
-------------------Sue Hartigan wrote:---------------------------------
>
> 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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