FW: [Fredslist] Capital Questions [Op Ed]

[Zahn, Bari]

People always say to those who don't support the death penalty that if
you had a family member that was murdered you would feel differently.
Well, my 28-year old baby brother and only sibling was murdered in his
own home about 5 years ago. Thankfully, they caught the 3 young men
responsible, but at no time did I ever think a-life-for-a-life was the
answer. It's unfortunate that we have not advanced to a level of
conscious awareness as a human race to realize that Hamurabi's Code,
which is exemplified by our modern death penalty, does not work.I am not
a religious person, but I am spiritual and I cherish human life. I find
it intersting that the republican administration and the religious right
have no qualms about supporting the death penalty, but are adamant about
telling a woman what she can and cannot do with her body own body. 

Other than in the name of self-defense, I cannot understand the eye for
an eye tooth for a tooth mentality. Moreover, even if I was a supporter,
unless we could be 100% positive that we would not execute innocent
people and that the death penalty would not disproportionately effect my
human family of color I could never support such a policy.

So there you have it through the eyes of a family member of a murder
victim. It's no accident that most civilized countries have banned the
death penalty all together. I only hope and pray that we as a society
reach a critical mass in human conscious awarenes such that public
support for this method of punishment shall be no more. 

Happy Holidays to all and best wishes for peace on Earth.

All my heart, 
Bari


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-----Original Message-----
From: fredslist-bounces at gothamnetworking.com
<fredslist-bounces at gothamnetworking.com>
To: fred's list <fredslist at gothamnetworking.com>
Sent: Sat Dec 17 11:40:00 2005
Subject: [Fredslist] Capital Questions [Op Ed]

 
Capital Questions
 
By Scott Y. Stuart
 
 
It was current events day in Mrs. Gehlmeyer's sixth grade class.  That
day we were to discuss the death penalty.  My teacher broke us up into
two groups and we had to argue, as best as any 11 year old could, the
pros and cons of capital punishment.  I became the spokesperson for the
group that argued in favor of capital punishment.  
 
Sixth grade for me was smack in the middle of a national moratorium on
the death penalty following a 1972  Supreme Court finding that it was
'cruel and unusual punishment'.  By the time I was in high school
however, there it was again, back at the center stage of the American
penal system.  Today, while most free nations have banned it altogether,
the United Sates ranks fourth in its use behind China, Iran and Vietnam.
And while I may have been an ardent supporter of capital punishment
while debating it in Mrs. Gehlmeyer's sixth grade class, these many
years later I, like many Americans, struggle with the issue. 
 
Recent polls suggest we basically think capital punishment has a place
in our society.  Well, at least 64% of us do.  Now while that is a
strong indication of support for the death penalty, it is not the 80%
that supported it just a decade ago.  In fact, the nation is pretty much
evenly divided when the issue comes down to death verses life
imprisonment.  
 
Admittedly, there are crimes so heinous that it is easy to justify use
of the ultimate sentence.  Unlike other nations that still use capital
punishment though, we go through painstaking efforts to assure propriety
in the use of this sentence, with death row inmates often pursuing
appeals that span a decade or more. Likewise, use of the death penalty
has come under heightened scrutiny in states like Texas, where more
people have been put to death than any other state in the union, and in
Illinois where capital convictions were found to be so flawed that a
governor banned its use altogether.   To really see the issue though is
to see it through the faces of the executed. With this in mind, I
introduce you to John Spenkelnik, Kenneth Lee Boyd and Stanley 'Tookey'
Williams. 
 
As long as I can remember, critics of capital punishment have argued
that the ultimate sentence has been disproportionately handed down to
black men. Perhaps this is why in 1976, following the end of the death
penalty moratorium in America, the first man to be involuntarily
executed was a white man in the State of Florida named John Spenkelnik.
Although no one is quite sure why of the 134 prisoners on death row in
Florida, then Governor Bob Graham signed John Spenkelnik's death
warrant, it has been speculated that the decision to execute him came
from tough on crime politicians determined to see a white man be the
first to be executed in an effort to obviate the argument capital
punishment was primarily a black man's plight. And so it was that on May
25, 1977 John Spendelnick was put to death ushering in the next era of
capital punishment in America.  
 
Thirty eight states in the Union allow capital punishment today, and in
the late 1990's it seemed as if executions were happening at a fast and
furious pace.  It was on December 2, 2005 however that we reached a new
milestone in the post Spendelnick era of capital punishment when Kenneth
Lee Boyd became the 1,000th person executed in the United States since
The Supreme Court gave the thumbs up to capital punishment in 1976.
While the 57 year old former Vietnam veteran convicted of brutal murders
commented he did not want to be remembered as a number, this is exactly
what he was and a significant one at that since of the 1,000 United
states executions, more than half have occurred in Texas, Virginia and
Oklahoma.    
 
Perhaps one of the more controversial faces of the death penalty however
surfaced last week with the execution of Stanley 'Tookey' Williams in
California.  A former gang leader convicted of murdering four people,
his years on death row yielded him a noble peace prize nomination, the
writing of an anti-gang book and renunciation of gang life.  Still, he
was a convicted murderer, and while questions of rehabilitation
surrounded this condemned inmate, he was still denied clemency by
Governor Arnold Schwartznager who believed 'Tookey's' lack of remorse
for the murders he committed outweighed whatever good he seemingly
achieved during his many years in prison.  
 
It was Martin Luther King, Jr. who said "the arc of the moral universe
is long but it bends towards justice."  While I believe capital
punishment has and will continue to be a part of our penal system, it
seems that we are at a pause in the use of the ultimate sentence
nationwide. Today, state governors are exercising clemency powers more
than ever before.  The advent of DNA evidence, something not available
or used just a few years ago, has resulted in the acquittal of 120 death
row inmates.  And even the Supreme Court, established and conservative
as it may be, has banned the use of capital punishment in cases where
juveniles and the mentally retarded are involved.  
 
Sixth grade seems like a long time ago.  But when it comes to the issue
of capital punishment, it seems as if the pendulum is swinging back to
1976, when we again paused as a nation to look at how the death penalty
was being applied. Is it more fair, more just or more fair handed in its
use today?  The jury is still out but the questions loom large and may
go unanswered for years to come.  Perhaps this is why most free nations
have banned the use of capital punishment altogether.  While this may
not be the answer, it certainly is one solution that offers a certainty
our current system in America lacks today. 
 
12/15/05 
 
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SCOTTSTUART.ESQ at GMAIL.COM <mailto:SCOTTSTUART.ESQ at GMAIL.COM> .
 
 
 
 
 



-- 
SCOTT Y. STUART. ESQ. 
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