Is it time for Oregon to repeal the death penalty?
A week ago today, Governor Bill Richardson signed a bill that repealed New Mexico's death penalty. From CNN.com:
"Regardless of my personal opinion about the death penalty, I do not have confidence in the criminal justice system as it currently operates to be the final arbiter when it comes to who lives and who dies for their crime," Richardson said in a statement Wednesday.
He noted that more than 130 death row inmates have been exonerated in the past 10 years, including four in New Mexico.
"Faced with the reality that our system for imposing the death penalty can never be perfect, my conscience compels me to replace the death penalty with a solution that keeps society safe," he said.
The death penalty throughout history has been doled out for crimes from murder, treason, stealing horses, being a witch, marrying a Jew or being a bad slave. Executions were performed by crucifixion, drowning, stoning, burning alive, firing squad, hanging, and the more "modern" electric chair and lethal injection. The death penalty has been unevenly handed out throughout modern history to minorities, poor people and others who cannot afford an OJ Simpson defense.
According to the Department of Corrections, there are over 30 people on Oregon's death row. The youngest person is 30, the oldest is 44. This is Oregon's fourth incarnation of the death penalty; it having been voted out twice and thrown out by the Oregon Supreme Court once. Our state uses lethal injection. This process has three steps: putting the inmate to sleep, stopping the heart, then finally, the breathing. Washington state still hangs people, Utah offers a firing squad option and nine others use electrocution.
New Mexico is the 15th state to make the move against capital punishment. Is it time for Oregon to be 16th?
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March 25, 2009 |
Karol Collymore | Comments (101 so far)
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Posted by: Joe Hill | Mar 25, 2009 7:24:07 PM
Yes. It is long past time to eliminate the death penalty.
Posted by: Bill R. | Mar 25, 2009 7:35:14 PM
It's long overdue. There was a "Life for a life" measure that fell short of making it to the ballot a few years back. It essentially mandated life imprisonment without parole for aggravated murder, and abolished the death penalty. As a life-long Oregonian I have seen the death penalty voted down in years past. When murderers started getting paroled after relatively short prison terms then the outrage pushed through the death penalty. The "Life for a life" measure had broad based support but was ill organized. The Catholic Church gave it lip service support. Another attempt might succeed.
Posted by: Joe Hill | Mar 25, 2009 7:50:54 PM
I'm sorry, that comment was sophomoric. Of course, yes, the death penalty is wrong, and perhaps many people on here already agree, but that is probably not the question. A better formulation of the question might be: will the Democratic Party suffer a massive backlash from a right wing that is now in disarray - so massive that it would cause serious harm to all kinds of other programs (e.g. education, health care, etc.)?
Gods, that is a truly difficult moral question. Do we do the greatest good for the greatest number by not waking the atavistic thirst for vengeance that acts as a kind of social bonding mechanism in an inchoate, anomie-dominated life-situation for most of the population?
Is that risk worth more than the few lives, almost all of whom would not be admirable, that would be saved if the death penalty were abolished in Oregon?
And what other positive effects would there be from abolishing the death penalty?
Hard questions.
Posted by: Vincent | Mar 25, 2009 8:01:29 PM
I used to be a supporter of the death penalty, but as I've drifted more toward libertarian views in the last few years, my position has altered to the point where I no longer see it as appropriate for the state to be in the business of killing citizens.
Richardson's right when he says it's hard to trust the criminal justice system to be the final arbiter in these matters, especially since, as Karol notes, this country has a nasty history of throwing minority "suspects" in jail, only to find out thirty years down the road, thanks to DNA testing, that they were innocent all along.
So yeah, I wouldn't be sad to see the death penalty go. Getting rid of it and ending the "War on Drugs", which has only served to distort law enforcement and utterly prevented even gram of cocaine or a single ounce of marijuana from getting to the people who want it, would do a lot to restore some sanity to this country's criminal justice system.
Posted by: Col. Kurtz | Mar 25, 2009 9:18:27 PM
Yes. It is never equitably applied. It does deter sociopaths, but like terrorists, the question is if we will adopt their lifestyle.
No doubt, the Lars Legion will trumpet, "Exterminate the brutes"!
Posted by: Judge Judy Garland | Mar 25, 2009 9:22:58 PM
Vincent is correct. The WOD has distorted all debate and sense of justice and has made cultural bias a social policy. Well said, IMHO. We cannot think the system is just, or expect justice, if any part is not just.
Posted by: Bologna on Wonderbread | Mar 25, 2009 9:36:11 PM
Two words: Ward Weaver.
Posted by: Linley | Mar 25, 2009 9:43:16 PM
I am being only slightly flippant when I say I am in favor of the death penalty; as long as the method of execution is death by natural causes (i.e., old age, disease, etc.).
This is not quite so silly as it seems. If the person were sentenced to death, they would have a special status, perhaps setting them apart from other prisoners. But, being sentenced to death, there is absolutely no question that they would be held in prison for life; no opportunity for parole.
Posted by: Lee Coleman | Mar 25, 2009 10:25:52 PM
NO -- in cases of direct evidence! Punishment and deterrence are more than persuasive philosophical bases for execution in such cases. Circumstantial evidence is another story. As far as I'm concerned, life in prison is far worse than execution.
Posted by: torridjoe | Mar 25, 2009 10:52:33 PM
"Ward Weaver"
I haven't heard of him killing any more girls lately. The whole imprisonment thing seems to be working out on that one.
Posted by: George Anonymuncule Seldes | Mar 25, 2009 10:56:00 PM
Anyone in favor of the death penalty should read "The Top Ten Death Penalty Myths" by R. Gerber (2007), a systematic demolition of all the so-called reasons for it.
http://www.powells.com/biblio/71-9780275997809-0
One of the perverse things about death cases is that they are the, by definition, the most heinous crimes with the greatest emotional drama, which is precisely the class of cases where the workings of the criminal justice system are least reliable and most open to the influence of forces that make bias and mistakes most common.
Anyone who, like Benito Scalia, claims to be OK with the fact that a death penalty state inevitably will kill innocent people should have to nominate members of their immediate families for inclusion in a random pool from which, every few decade or so, someone is randomly killed by the state using the same process as in normal executions. Because that's about what the poor and minorities face in death states --- an arbitrary and capricious process that has all the fairness and predictability of being hit by lightning.
Posted by: pacnwjay | Mar 25, 2009 10:57:08 PM
Great question! I'm certainly ready for it to be gone, though I've had a journey similar to Vincent's.
But I think Joe is right too. Oregon is not Vermont. The Western ethos is a bit rougher around the edges. And I agree there would be a considerable political price to pay for an outright attempt to end the death penalty here.
But other, logical and more easily digested changes could make the death penalty rare and unlikely. Evidence requirements. Sets of circumstances that could be explained as preventing innocents from being exonerated years later by DNA or other means. I'd let a lawyer/judge lead that conversation, but I imagine it could be done.
Posted by: Joe Hill | Mar 25, 2009 11:12:56 PM
Can someone tell the story of how we repealed the death penalty twice by popular vote and then we reinstated it? What cultural changes happened that made such a retrograde motion thinkable?
Posted by: LT | Mar 25, 2009 11:41:04 PM
Joe, a reporter friend of mine once said "There is considerable debate about whether the death penalty is cruel, but no one would call it unusual" as he was discussing the off/on death penalty history in this state.
Posted by: George Anonymuncule Seldes | Mar 25, 2009 11:41:32 PM
If we're not willing to engage the issue directly, then we should at least make some changes:
1) Remove judicial, prosecutorial, and police immunity for malfeasance and misconduct in the conduct of every phase of a death case.
That is, if the court, any member of the prosecution, the police, or their agents are found to have engaged in misconduct or malpractice in carrying out their duties, then they are liable to both criminal prosecution if warranted and to civil actions brought by the defendant's family (or estate), with no statute of limitations. So if you "bend the rules" in a death case, you won't be immune from getting nailed for it, ever.
2) No more buying testimony. The state should not be allowed to offer anything -- not so much as a free ice cream -- to a jailhouse informant. No reduced sentences, no parole recommendations, nothing. The prosecution should be just as unable to buy testimony as the defense.
3) All interviews/interrogations/questioning of suspects must be videotaped with sound from day 1.
4) No use of group lineups (where the victim/witness is shown a group of individuals and asked if the suspect is among them). Only sequential lineups.
5) A mandatory investigation by a neutral forensics team with subpoena power for all felony innocence cases -- cases where a conviction is determined to have been erroneous. The team must have the resources to investigate the police work, the prosecution, and the trial, determine the root cause(s) of the erroneous conviction, and require procedural changes where warranted.
Prosecutors and judges who are found to have contributed to an erroneous felony conviction shall have that noted in the voters guide for any subsequent election for any judicial or prosecutorial office.
Posted by: Vincent | Mar 26, 2009 12:07:41 AM
Benito Scalia
I can't tell if you're simply unaware that his first name is Antonin or if you were actually attempting to imply that he's a fascist.
Either way, it's deeply unimpressive.
Posted by: peter cowan | Mar 26, 2009 12:20:07 AM
yes. end it.
Posted by: Bob Tiernan | Mar 26, 2009 12:41:17 AM
George Seldes:
Anyone who, like Benito Scalia...
Vincent:
I can't tell if you're simply unaware that his first name is Antonin or if you were actually attempting to imply that he's a fascist.
Either way, it's deeply unimpressive.
Bob T:
He's just another one of those people who see USSC justices in a black or white sense when it's more complicated than that. In fact, I guess Georgie had
nothing to say when the "fascists" on the court voted
the right way on Kelo while the other five made the "fascist" decision, if that's what Georgie wants to call it. And then there's that Florence, Oregon decision when the drug cops used a heat sensor to "search" a house for a
grow operation, and big, bad Scalia and four others voted to overturn that evidence because he felt that the word "search" means just that, and that new technology must not
be used to get around the good old warrant system which would be needed to make an actual search. Original intent, I guess. In 1789 authorities would have had to make an entry, and over 200 years later they still have to, with a warrant of course. And Justice Stevens, a darling of the blues, disagreed, saying that these warrantless searches ("We're not searching - we're outside in our police van!") were "a reasonable public policy". Just think, another Stevens instead of Scalia and those "searches" would be legal, with no warrant needed.
Not that we ever here the Blues praise people like Scalia and Thomas (and Rehnquist then) on an issue by issue basis. I'd get rid of Breyer and Ginsburg if I could, but when they are on the right side and, and Thomas and Scalia on the wrong side, I notice it and say so. That's why it's complicated. But no, we hear Scalia called a fascist and Thomas an unintelligent Oreo Cookie. Gee, how nice.
Thomas has a better up from the bottom story than Obama ever had -- Obo went to private schools, and was raised by a bank vice president while Clarence Thomas was raised in a crappy house in Dixie with an outhouse.
Bob Tiernan
Portland
Posted by: Bob Tiernan | Mar 26, 2009 12:45:17 AM
Karol Collymore:
The death penalty throughout history has been doled out for crimes from murder, treason, stealing horses, being a witch, marrying a Jew or being a bad slave.
Bob T:
Don't forget in very, very recent years when the Islamofascists known as the Taliban executed women
when they were caught listening to CDs, attending clandestine schools, or showing more than their eyes.
Bob Tiernan
Portland
Posted by: Chuck Butcher | Mar 26, 2009 12:47:12 AM
Arguments regarding the infallibility of the State are pretty hard to make and getting harder.
There is something odd in the idea that it is somehow right for the state to kill one of its helpless citizens.
There is something inherently dishonest in spreading the reponsibility for the act across so wide an area, all the State's citizens, that there is effectively no responsibility for the act.
Hiding the act rather than publicly viewing it means either that the state is ashamed or the people do not have the stomach for it.
There is no evidence of deterrence and alternatives exist.
Safe to say I oppose the death penalty.
Posted by: George Anonymuncule Seldes | Mar 26, 2009 12:49:53 AM
Well, I am deeply unimpressed by a rabid homophobe, who helped engineer a judicial coup by inserting the US Supreme Court into a FL state elections case where the plaintiff could not even show an injury, who then proceeded to write an opinion that was so indefensible that the Court declared that it could not be cited as precedent, who defends the appointment of this war criminal, the worst President in US history by shouting "Get Over It!" at people who try to question the basis for his decision, and who claims to be a textualist/originalist while finding some basis for a "single digit multiple" as a Constitutional requirement for limiting damage awards against miscreant corporations.
In other words, fascist is one of the most accurate things you can call Scalia -- he believes that the State owns the citizen, that it's perfectly OK to run a criminal justice system that kills innocent people, but is always quick to leap to the defense of corporations and that they have rights greater than those of real people.
The merger of corporate power and state power is the sine qua non of fascism, and Scalia is one of its most ardent advocates. His deeply held bigotry and vicious attacks on gays only flesh out the complete picture of a truly odious individual.
Posted by: Joe Hill | Mar 26, 2009 2:24:55 AM
Scalia would be an excellent argument as to why the death penalty is theoretically intolerable in a just society such as we are trying to be.
Scalia argues that he interprets the Constitution under the doctrine of "original meaning" (which is how Scalia and the Federalist Society tried to rescue "original intent" once that became thoroughly discredited. Now, as a social scientist, I would argue that this whole quest is a fantasy, and that interpretation precedes meaning (c.f. Heidegger et al.) but let that pass. Let's "judge" Scalia on his own terms.
Certainly, you'd have trouble finding "original meaning" in the radical partisan Bush v. Gore. But again, that is sui generis, so maybe it doesn't count and Scalia gets a mulligan. As noted above, even the court was so ashamed of its actions that it declared that there was no precedent here. Let it pass.
I think we have to look to Scalia's opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller (the gun control case) to see how thin Scalia's "original meaning" ideas go. Scalia has to basically twist the clear meaning of the first clause completely away from the second clause, and say, well, over time all of that has not become so important. Hypocrite.
And that is a very roundabout way of saying why the death penalty is immoral. Our highest legal authority is hypocritical and political and immoral. We cannot expect a fair hearing from our highest court. And since that is true, to the best of our ability, we cannot exact a punishment that cannot be recalled. Q.E.D.
Posted by: Irritator | Mar 26, 2009 7:15:52 AM
Most of the time just having the death penalty availble causes a defendant to stipulate to a true life sentence. If there were not a death penalty as a threat then there would be no incentive not to go to trial and put the victim's family through hell not to mention the local resources to try the case, so the reality is then that DAs would plea offer less than true life sentences and murder suspects would get out earlier. Just having the dp as an option is more effective than actually using it.
Someone mentioned Ward Weaver, he agreed to true life b/c the state agreed to take the dp off the table. The greenriver killer (Washington State) cleared many cases and provided some measure of closure to victims' families by agreeing to cooperate on unsolved murder cases if the State agreed not to seek the dp. These are not isolated instances.
Posted by: Eric Parker | Mar 26, 2009 7:42:20 AM
I have never been a fan of the Death Penalty because of this simple fact: Having a Death Penalty does not fully protect the innocent, especially since some innocent people have been put to death (being wrongly accused, wrongly convicted, ect). Life inprisonment does fully protect the innocent in that you will be still alive when they eventaully find the evidence/people that shows your innocence. Maybe, if we do away with the Death Penalty in Oregon, we keep the automatic appeal process...not that Ward Weaver needs it, but it is needed in general to fully protect the innocent.
Posted by: Naseem Rakha | Mar 26, 2009 7:59:06 AM
The death penalty is the dark heart of our justice system: a questionable practice dealt out in the dead of night with few people watching and few people caring.
I have covered two executions as a reporter for public radio. I have been in the small room where they strap the men down, and then hook them to IVs. I have met murders and rapists and child abusers, some of the remorseful about their acts. Some unrepentant. All of them saying the existence of the death penalty had no weight in commission of their crimes. I have met the men and women entrusted to carry out the execution — setting up the chamber, counseling the condemned man, walking him to the room, strapping him down, asking for last words — these people attempt to harden their souls from the darkness of their act. Later, they tell me, they feel haunted. And I have met victims so shattered by loss they have no idea how to pick up their lives. Many of these people believe the death penalty will bring them a feeling of vindication and release. It rarely does.
So the question is, why do we do this? We know there are other paths to justice, and we know there are other ways to heal. We must ask ourselves if we as individuals and a people have the strength and wherewithal to forego a nearly intransigent need for revenge and retribution. The decision requires a deep dredging of our mindsets and goals and a full and compulsory examination of what we want to be when we, as a civilization, grew up.
In New Mexico, the lawmakers faced down the eye for an eye mentality, and won. Are Oregon voters up for the same task? I do not know.
Naseem Rakha
THE CRYING TREE
Broadway Books, July 7, 2009
Posted by: Eric Parker | Mar 26, 2009 8:09:34 AM
One other item I forgot to mention.
Geting rid of the Death Penalty would eliminate the option of some 'down on thier luck' or 'disturbed' people to use the system as a suicide mechanism. There are some who use the Death Penalty as a way of suicide - simular to those who die of 'suicide by cop'. Why kill yourself with your own hand when you can have the people do it for you?. Eliminating the Death Penalty could result in saving some people from doing some very bad decisions.
Posted by: Roy McAvoy | Mar 26, 2009 8:09:37 AM
The death penalty in Oregon is expensive and really non-existent. It is used only to garner a life sentence guilty plea from those who deserve to be in prison for the rest of their lives. For those few death penalty sentences which are pursued there are endless appeals causing the death sentence to be a more costly prospect in the long run for tax payers. Victims families who do not support the death penalty often argue for a life sentence for the defendant causing inconsistant prosecutions in similar cases.
The probability that innocent persons might ever be put to death is the overwhelming reason to repeal the death penalty. We know it has happened before in other states. One of the great misunderstandings out there however is how many criminals sentenced to death were later "exonerated". In many of those cases evidence was mishandled, illegally gathered, or introduced into the trial inappropriately. While giving just cause to reverse the death penalty or any sentence in all of those cases, it does not automatically deem the suspect innocent.
Posted by: Eric Parker | Mar 26, 2009 8:18:39 AM
"While giving just cause to reverse the death penalty or any sentence in all of those cases, it does not automatically deem the suspect innocent."
Actually, the phrase "innocent until proven guilty - in a court of law" in the Mirada Rights does deem a suspect automatically innocent. That's why a suspect is given those rights.
Posted by: Murphy | Mar 26, 2009 8:31:43 AM
Yes -- for this simple reason: To support the death penalty, you have to agree to at least one of the following claims:
1 -- The judicial system is infallible.
or
2 -- The potential execution of an innocent person is worth the risk to kill the guilty.
I'd also like to ask the supporters of the death penalty, if you agree to the second proposition, how many executed, innocent people would it take to change you mind? One, ten, 37?
Posted by: churchill | Mar 26, 2009 8:33:52 AM
torridjoe:
"I haven't heard of him killing any more girls lately. The whole imprisonment thing seems to be working out on that one"
It's so comforting to know Progressives are out there defending child killers. Hey Joe, maybe you could send 'ole Ward some cash in exchange for his autographed picture. You could hang it in your public employee office.
Posted by: George Anonymuncule Seldes | Mar 26, 2009 9:17:22 AM
@Roy: "One of the great misunderstandings out there however is how many criminals sentenced to death were later "exonerated". In many of those cases evidence was mishandled, illegally gathered, or introduced into the trial inappropriately. While giving just cause to reverse the death penalty or any sentence in all of those cases, it does not automatically deem the suspect innocent."
The Innocence Project had over 120 complete exonerations a few years ago. Not reversals for trial errors (which are rampant). That means that, just in the few cases where the identity of the felon could be decided solely on the basis of forensic evidenc, more than 120 men had been erroneously convicted and, in many cases, sentenced to death. See the film "After Innocence" for a look at a few of these men.
If you read Barry Scheck's book, "Actual Innocence" you will get a lot of information on how known causes of error combine to produce false convictions again, and again, and again. Yet prosecutors and courts suffer no sanction for these cases, where these known sources of error occur (such as "eyewitness identification" -- notoriously unreliable, particularly in cross-racial settings).
You can tell yourself that actual innocence is rare all you like. The fact is that we don't actually know how prevalent it is, because only in a few cases does the existence of DNA allow a conclusive determination. But that large tip suggests a much larger iceberg underneath.
Posted by: paul g. | Mar 26, 2009 9:35:13 AM
Get rid of it.
For the right wing, the death penalty should be eliminated for two reasons.
First, the moral reason: those who support the sanctity of life cannot support the death penalty.
Second, the financial reason: death penalty costs far more than life imprisonment.
And a third reason: opposing the power of the state. We've already seen state incompetence in death penalty cases.
Posted by: Dave G | Mar 26, 2009 9:36:46 AM
The majority of executions around the world are carried out by just a few nations, including China (more than half), Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United States. Civlized nations do not perform executions.
Posted by: Irritator | Mar 26, 2009 9:52:05 AM
The number of exonerations for actual innocence in the last 20 years in the State of Oregon? Zero. Washington? Zero. The Pacific NW is not Chicago, Texas or Louisiana. Not that it can't happen here, just that there is no recent proof that it has.
Number of Oregon convicted child killers set free for procedural error (took too long to go to trial)= one (Halberts of Clackamas County). Number of people who were convicted of murder who then were released and murdered again? No doubt it is several times the number of "innocent" people who were actually executed on death row. Oregon law indirectly acknowledges this fact since one of the few ways to qualify for Agg Murder (the only type of homicide where the dp is in an opition) in Oregon is having been adjudicated for a murder and then being released and murdering again.
The DP is not a conservative vs. liberal thing. "Progressive" Obama is in favor of expanding it to child rapists. The poltically "conservative" Catholic Church which harbors and protects these same rapists is opposed to the DP.
I am with Obama on this one. The rest of you progressives can join the pope.
Posted by: Robert Collins | Mar 26, 2009 11:19:31 AM
I have a mixed point of view on this one.
I agree that too many people who were innocent have been put to death; the advent of DNA evidence has shown that.
I used to oppose the death penalty because I think that life in prison without the possibility of parole is a worse penalty than death. I know it would be for me.
But, there are institutionalized criminals who have spent more time in prison than out who really don't find being in prison objectionable. For some gangs it is in fact a required rite of passage.
Here's an idea: How about we let the convicted take their pick, death or life in prison without the possiblity of parole?
Posted by: Jeff Alworth | Mar 26, 2009 11:25:45 AM
I appreciate some of the heartfelt comments on the thread--Vincent and Naseem in particular. I would add that the death penalty isn't really about law enforcement (to suggest we need it is to suggest we're not competent to handle crime, a basic premise I refuse to accept), it's a statement of values. Other countries have abandoned it because they don't wish to sign onto the values of executioners.
To be a country that executes is to suggest that not all human life is valuable. Although religious folks have opinions about this, it's not actually a religious statement. It's a statement of very basic human principles: not all human life matters in this country. This is a kind of medieval barbarism that enlightened countries (I mean that in the sense of the enlightenment) have long forsaken.
If we are a country that doesn't value human life, what are we capable of? Torture? The killing of innocent civilians? You see, we can't easily sesquester one act of barbarism from another.
Although I disagree with many, many public policies of the United States, only this one makes me genuinely ashamed. Why are we standing with dictators and thugs rather than joining the community of democracies? Oregon, at least, should make the effort to do the right thing. It's long, long past time.
Kudos to Governor Richardson.
Posted by: Bob Tiernan | Mar 26, 2009 11:27:11 AM
George Seldes
In other words, fascist is one of the most accurate things you can call Scalia -- he believes that the State owns the citizen, that it's perfectly OK to run a criminal justice system that kills innocent people
Bob T:
Again, if that's the way it's ingrained in him then he would have had no problem with the government using warrantless "searches" on residences to find grow operations (when so much of what is done in the name of the War on Drugs is rubberstamped) -- actions that when followed up often lead to people getting killed by police--even retired pastors when the wrong apartment is raided. Justice Stevens thought it was okay.
George Seldes:
but is always quick to leap to the defense of corporations and that they have rights greater than those of real people.
Bob T:
Yeah, like his Kelo ruling (joined by the other three big bad conservatives, but not the other five). Corporations love eminent domain, once it became twisted by government, and government loves it, too, so they can pick winners and losers. Sorry, George, but Ginsburg and friends helped the corporations and Scalia and friends preferred that they not get the aid of government force. You're seeing too many things in black and white again.
Oh wait, is this where you break in and write, "But it was a conservative ruling". No, it wasn't. The only people who say or believe that are embarrassed progressives.
Bob Tiernan
Portland
Posted by: George Anonymuncule Seldes | Mar 26, 2009 11:33:18 AM
@ paul g: one more reason: People who are always talking about how government can't even run a two-car parade without screwing it up should be terrified at the thought of giving government the power to kill.
(And although people here have not responded to the suggestions that we eliminate immunity for prosecutors and judges who are found to have committed misconduct in death cases, that suggestion usually elicits the response that you have to allow these officers the right to make "mistakes" -- to grant them immunity for their official acts -- or they will be overly cautious and not zealous in carrying out their duties. In other words, people actually do believe that the system REQUIRES that the folks in charge be able to make errors, even when those errors result in killing innocents.)
Posted by: Douglas K. | Mar 26, 2009 12:05:25 PM
Another reason to kick the death penalty: it can be used to threaten guilty pleas out of innocent people. This is not speculative and not something that happened "somewhere else."
In January 1990, Keith Jesperson (later known as the "Happy Face Killer") murdered a woman named Taunja Bennett. The cops found her body, but had no leads. Shortly after that, an apparently disturbed woman named Laverne Pavlinac who heard about the murder on the news wanted to get rid of her (apparently abusive) then-boyfriend, John Sosnovske. She told the cops he was the killer and he had confessed to her. (Previously, she'd tried to turn him into the FBI for a bank robbery. The feds saw through it.) There was NO evidence against him at all, just an uncorroborated confession by an angry girlfriend. (Pavlinac did try to manufacture some evidence along the way, without success.) Pavlinac kept changing her story with the cops, making it fit closer and closer to the evidence as she got more facts from them, and finally changed her story that she was a witness, and then an accomplice, to the killing.
And there was still NO evidence to link either of them to the crime. Just one hair on Bennett's body that wasn't hers, didn't necessarily belong to the killer, and (being pre-DNA testing) couldn't be tied to anyone. But it could have been Sosnovske's hair, or any of thousands of guys with similar hair, and it might have belonged to someone she'd brushed against walking down the street. But -- armed with an unbelievable, uncorroborated, constantly-changing, and then recanted confession by Pavlinac -- and a hair that probably wasn't Sosnovske's -- the District Attorney took Pavilinac to trial and won a conviction. She was sentenced to ten years as an accomplice.
That in itself makes me worry about the standards some jurors apply when asked to make a finding "beyond a reasonable doubt."
But then Sosnovske was brought to trial, and charged with the death penalty. Knowing that neither he nor Pavlinac had anything to do with the crime, and knowing that she had just been convicted on essentially ZERO evidence, and facing death ... he pleaded no contest and accepted a life sentence in prison.
They served five years in prison. Public review of the case, coupled with anonymous confessions by Jesperson, made it clear they were innocent and convicted on almost no evidence. But they stayed there until Jesperson actually came forward and turned himself in, and backed up his confession by telling them stuff only the killer would know (like showing them where he threw Bennett's purse.) Even after all that, it still took a few months to get Pavlinac and Sovnoske out of prison. Seems it's pretty hard to get a conviction overturned on a mere technicality like being actually innocent.
That was all right here in Oregon. Innocent people convicted, death penalty used to coerce an innocent man to accept life imprisonment. He'd probably still be there if the real killer hadn't come forward. And if he'd maintained his innocence and stood trial, he might well have wound up on death row.
Our system is too error-prone to trust with life-and-death decisions. We rely on people to implement, and -- as the Pavlinac/Sosnovske case shows -- it's possible for every check in the system to fail. Even here in Oregon.
Posted by: Torridjoe | Mar 26, 2009 12:40:01 PM
I don't recall defending Weaver...just his indefinite sequestration from society. It appears your beef is some misguided emnity towards public employees, in a last refuge of ad hominem that says, "I have no substantive rebuttal, so I'll just lash out (inaccurately) at the commenter.
Bob T, the Kelo decision was both wronggheaded AND conservative--it elevated private property rights over clear Constitutional precedent backing eminent domain, and in any case ignored the states' perogative to handle their own eminent domain laws.
Posted by: churchill | Mar 26, 2009 12:58:49 PM
Torridjoe - indefinite? Don't count on it. Im sure he'll be part of some progressive rehabilitation program in the future. Back out in the community.
Hang your autographed picture of Ward with pride.
Posted by: joel dan walls | Mar 26, 2009 1:17:15 PM
I oppose capital punishment because I don't think the state, as representative of We The People, ought to be in the business of killing people. I'm not willing to give anyone, including Ward Weaver, a lethal injection, nor am I willing to give my proxy to someone else to do it.
I also assure you, dear reader, that there are always going to be guys like Ward Weaver who scare the bejeesus out of me and should not be walking free.
A great deal of the rhetoric around the death penalty seems to reflect a fundamental confusion between justice and revenge. Everyone has, at some point, felt the desire for revenge, which is perhaps a sort of primal, instinctual desire. Justice is something that engages the human faculty for reason, however.
Tiernan sez: "we hear Scalia called a fascist and Thomas an unintelligent Oreo Cookie."
"BENITO SCALIA": That's brilliant satire, got to remember that. As for Thomas, will Mr. Tiernan please tell exactly when he has read a characterization of Clarence Thomas as "an unintelligent Oreo Cookie" on Blue Oregon? And who made such a statement? Because it's got the distinct flavor of a strawman claim, Mr. Tiernan.
Posted by: Bill R. | Mar 26, 2009 1:23:33 PM
The death penalty is not about protecting society, it's about exacting vengeance, and using an anonymous executioner to do it. If the real value is protecting society, and the bottom line value for most Americans is that, then life imprisonment without any possibility of parole for capital crimes is cheaper, easier, and more just.
Posted by: Ian McDonald | Mar 26, 2009 1:40:52 PM
Is it time for Oregon to be 16th? To bend the question slightly: I'm not sure about the timing. You could argue that the death penalty will whither on the vine, without any formal attempt to eliminate it. How much effort, in the current environment, is it worth right now?
But I'm surprised by the level of death penalty support expressed in the comments here. I would encourage fence sitters to read the article about Roland Burris in New Yorker article this week. Burris (the Blagojevich appointed Illinois senator), as the state Attorney General, pressed for the execution of two men in a high profile murder case, in order to establish tough-on-crime bona fides. The two men were found innocent based on DNA evidence. The case is very creepy, partly because Burris, to this day, has no apologies for seeking their execution.
Find the article here
Posted by: Pat Ryan | Mar 26, 2009 2:19:01 PM
Yes, it's time to repeal the death penalty.
I don't buy into Jeff's definitions of barbarians vs. civilized people. In a world of absolute certainty regarding verdicts, I'd favor thinning the herd without a qualm. Some people are so badly damaged and such a threat to the rest of us, that they no longer fit my definition of human.
Guess that makes me a barbarian by Jeff's measure.
However, the "one innocent life" argument is the bottom line for me and I wind up favoring "life without", as legal perfection is impossible to achieve.
Posted by: t.a. barnhart | Mar 26, 2009 2:23:10 PM
yes
Posted by: Eric Parker | Mar 26, 2009 2:56:05 PM
"The death penalty is not about protecting society, it's about exacting vengeance"
Which is why we need to get rid of the Death Penalty. The 'eye for an eye' mentality eventually ends up with no one having any eyes left to see the mistakes of the past.
I guess this is where we get the saying 'Justice is blind'?
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Posted by: Douglas K. | Mar 25, 2009 7:16:22 PM
It would make economic sense to do it, given the high cost of carrying out a death sentence -- which almost never happens anyway, at least in this state.
But this is one of those emotionally-driven issues that will be determined on election day by whichever news story is foremost in voter's minds. If the latest news is about a guy who kidnapped, raped and murdered six children, they'll vote to keep it. If the big current news is about a flood of people freed from death row after being exonerated, they might be more willing to get rid of it.
Personally, I want the death penalty either (1) eliminated, or (2) subject to a heightened standard of proof that makes erroneous convictions impossible. I'm skeptical that option (2) can ever be achieved, given the tendency of humans to screw up even the most idiot-proof systems, so I'll go with option (1).