How does the question of capital punishment relate to other social issues? (Examples: poverty, race, education, intelligence, geography, mental health…)
How does the question of capital punishment relate to other social issues? (Examples: poverty, race, education, intelligence, geography, mental health…)
This issue comes up again when she mentions that a member of a parole board was expected to be “loyal to the goernor.” Peer pressure seems to be a real force in the judicial system, present in judges’ decisions, as well as jury members’. The issues of race and socioeconomic bias is stated clearly in Death of the Innocents, but I sadly am not surprised by this bias in jury members. What I fear even more is the biases of people who are supposed to be above all of that. Judges are supposed to be professional, fair, and even-handed. But how can they be when they are ultimately ruled not by justice, but by the pressures and opinions of their electorate?
This was an odd thing to think about, because I had never before questioned the actual judicial system as a whole. It had always seemed the least corruptible of the three branches. It seemed that if all else failed, we would have the courts to save our country from tyranny or injustice. But they, like everything else human, are corruptible and succeptible to evil, and their track record shows that.
So what then would the solution be? If judges aren’t elected officials, then how are they selected? Are they appointed by other elected officials, who have the ability to make those choices based on their own personal motivations/prejudices? I agree with you both that electing judges directly seems to hinder their purpose, because the politics are plenty of motivation to act in favor of personal gain rather than in fairness like judges are supposed to, but that does not go away if they are appointed by other elected officials, who may also have agendas in mind (I am thinking of the Supreme Court here)
So my question is: how can the element of politics and personal gain be removed from the judicial system? That would be a huge step to removing the socioeconomic/racial inequalities, but I’m sure there is not a simple answer, because at this point the two go hand in hand.
The other thing that struck me in the judicial system was just how much influence can be had over juries. That 9 out of 10 eligible African American jurors can be dismissed from the jury pool is absurd. The way things were presented in this book, it seems very easy for the jury to be manipulated into being a certain composition of racial/socioeconomic/etc groups. I don’t pretend to know a lot about the juror selection process, but it seems to me that there is something very wrong with that.
That along with the absurd rules/restrictions (for instance, the 30-day limit in Texas to introduce new evidence – a very restrictive time frame, or the example of an appeal being denied due to one mistyped word) are rather disturbing. One seemingly minor slip-up could affect the whole outcome of a trial or appeal, and with the dismal public defense offered, the effects that could are staggering.
Both the corruption in our judicial system and the structure of it have been shown in a disappointing way here, something I had not really considered before.
Sorry, the whole thing didn’t take. The beginning:
While reading the section about biases in judges, I was struck by the thought that it seems odd that we elect our judges. Justice is supposed to be unbiased, as the symbol of Lady Justice blindfolded implies. But how can judges be fair if they must win the votes of an electorate that can be anything but blind?
I have to agree with you Lucy. I feel that by electing our judges we are doing an injustice to our justice system. I personally believe that it is just asking for disaster.
On page 177, Sister Helen says, “Amnesty International has amply documented that whenever governments are given absolute power to kill ‘enemies’ they invariably kill the weak, the poor, the misfits, and the disenfranchised.”
From other statistics Prejean gives, it’s very clear that poverty plays a huge part in the death sentence. Application of the death sentence relies on poor defense, which indigents are subject to when they are forced to accept a state appointed defense attorney. The death penalty is very rarely, if ever, given to rich people, because they can afford excellent defense attorneys that would be able to easily secure them a life without parole sentence over the death sentence any day.
It’s also disturbing how clearly connected death penalty charges are with race. Prejean illustrated many times how the death penalty is applied mainly for murders of white victims, by minority defendants. This proves that the death penalty is not being applied “equally” for all people-not “equal justice.”
Geography is a major major influence in the death penalty. The South kills way more people than other states combined. The graph on page 227 really gives a clear illustration.
People with IQs lower than 70 (mentally retarded) and people who are clinically insane are free from the death penalty.
I agree with all of the factors you are analyzing here, Suzanna. There is no doubt that a criminal’s status in society plays a large role in the outcome of their trial. Although it is evident that the judicial system is clearly flawed, I question whether or not judges are consciously choosing to execute death row inmates based on their race or living conditions (wealth or poverty). It is more likely that the real reason fewer rich people are convicted of the death penalty is that, as unfortunate as it is, those in poverty commit more crimes and are more often in the wrong place at the wrong time when crimes are commited. Additionally, I would assume that there are more murders of white victims, therefore explaining how death penalties mainly apply for murders of white victims. Statistically, it makes sense why various social issues relate to the death penalty. Again, some of these statistics could be caused by biases in the courtroom, but I think that they are also a result of the way of life in the South, which is why it does not come as a surprise that a majority of death penalty cases occur in Southern states (757 compared to 164 in the West, Midwest, and Northwest combined since 1976). Throughout history, racism has always been more prominent in the South. Also, Southerners are considerably more “right-wing” in their political theories compared to the rest of the nation, a factor in explaining why executions are legal in Southern states, but not in more liberal Western states. Prejean brings up a great point when she asks “how can fifty states, each bound by the same Constitution and Supreme Court guidelines, implement the death penalty so differently?” (227). The only way to fix this problem would be to amend the Constitution and explicitly address the death penalty and either legalize it or outlaw it in all 50 states. Geography should not factor into a death penalty decision.
Suzanna, you mention that people with IQs lower than 70 are exempt from the death penalty. Do you know anything about this law and when it was instituted? The reason I ask is that Dobie Gilllis Williams was executed and he only had an IQ of 65. More injustice in the justice system…
You bring up a couple points that I have general contention with, but everything else you’re saying I pretty much agree with. I wouldn’t say that Prejean is accusing judges of basing their execution standard on whether the accused is poor and black, but that the judge and jurors are making their judgement based around the quality of prosecution and defense. While poorer members of society commit more crimes, that alone doesn’t explain imbalance in the ratios of poor to rich on death row. The real reason is the competence of the prosecution compared to the incompetence of the defense. Our legal system is extraordinarily exclusive. The only people “qualified” to understand it and apply it are people that have spent hundreds of thousands and spent almost a decade in higher education. This prevents the poor from accessing quality defenders because those defenders, more often than not, didn’t spend their 20’s so that they could be underpaid and represent a client that couldn’t possibly pay them adequately. When the accused has such an inadequate defense, then they are going to be on the wrong side of death penalty convictions. Conversely, the rich can afford excellent lawyers that can get them a reduced sentence or acquitted, which accounts for the lack of the rich on death row.
And while there are numerically more murders of whites, per capita, the gap isn’t even close. There are six times more murders per capita involving a black victim than a white victim. The statistical difference is that most murders are in fact, intraracial. Most whites die by the hands of whites and blacks by the hands of blacks. This leads to the outrage experienced when a black murders a white. The crime is rare, and for a society of imbedded and deep-seeded racism, it invokes unique emotions of the society being attacked by the “other”. Coupled with the under representation that I mentioned in the former paragraph, and this can explain the disproportional numbers of poor blacks on death row.
I agree wholeheartedly in your belief that there needs to be a constitutional amendment and that geography should not get to decide who live s and who dies. Well said.
oh yeah and another thing about geography! i thought about how great it is that we all have to read this book for school because it forces us to see these issues in the justice system concerning capital punishment, but then i thought about how people that go to the university of oregon are from oregon, and then people from out of state are mainly from california…and if you look at that map on page 227, you’ll see that the northwest is the least number of executions anywhere in the United States. So we’re all reading this great book, but we all live in a place where executions are pretty rare already, and the real problem is in the South, especially Texas and Virginia. But I highly doubt that universities in the south are assigning this book for their students to read. No way are Southern Universities going to be assigning anti-death penalty books for their students to read…and that’s a problem, that where they could use this book most is probably the last place it will be read.
Lucy, I was similarly shocked by corruption of courts, mainly Southern, depicted by Sister Helen. While I already had my reservations regarding the death penalty, they stemmed almost purely from a moral standpoint. I doubted whether we as humans have the right to decide on the life or death of our fellow people, the question of whether or not the people whose lives were in jeopardy were in fact guilty was not a frequent concern of mine. I knew, of course, that there have been cases in which the the defendant, previously found guilty of murder, was later found to be innocent, but I didn’t really understand how such things could occur. I assumed that these false sentences were mainly the results of evidence errors (faulty DNA tests, contradictory witnesses, missing evidence, etc.). I never doubted that the lawyers for the defendants were doing less than everything in their power in order to save their clients, and the realization that much of the fault for these false convictions may lie in the American justice system itself is very frightening to me.
Suzanna, you also make a very good point when you say that Southern Universities are almost certainly not assigning The Death of Innocents as summer reading. Though there are other regions of the United States in which the death penalty is carried out with some frequency (namely the Midwest), no other region even comes close to the South, and while I hope that there are Southern communities and schools that encourage careful reflection on such harsh and irrevocable practices, this is clearly not an issue that has captured the attention of the South enough to bring about a true reconsideration of current practices.
I agree this corruption of the system is heartbreaking. I never believed that any citizen of our United States would not hold up one its most important values, that all men and women are innocent to be proven guilty. Its seems where these extreme deaths are present this value of law has been passed over every time. And if a large amount of these people on death row are not being treaty fairly, what about the rest of the legal system. Death penalty cases are only 2% of all circumstances where the death penalty is applicable(from the book). What about the other 98%? How are they being treated? What about other cases in general? This sort of bump in the judicial branch puts in to question how the judicial system represents the common man and what rights have they impeded on a individual as well as large-scale basis.
It seems to me that the prosecutors have this view that criminals are unwanted in society, which unfortunately implies that they are killing the poor or any “undesirable” demographic, according to the statistics. On the surface, the idea sounded right to me. I used to even believe that the whole world should kill off “undesirables” for reasons of overpopulation and whatnot. In reality, there is no person who is truly “undesirable.” Prejean is right in that there is no clear criterion on what makes a person “undesirable” either. [For the sake of discussion, I would define an “undesirable” person as someone who has very little intelligence and, more importantly, does not contribute to society. This is my own bias, of course, but this definition is still very ambiguous.] Nevertheless, as Prejean said, there is no way to predict the “future dangerousness” of any person. Whatever excuses prosecutors may come up with to try to convict someone (by their income, race, health, etc.) are just that. Excuses. Authorized killing, whether the person is guilty of a crime or not, is all a lost cause.
I was not so much shocked by the level of corruption in the judicial system as by how our judicial system is structured. I always thought that that a fair trial would be like a very well cited conversation. Those presented in this book are nothing like that.
In a mature conversation between adults, O’Dell would never have been blocked from giving valuable evidence. He would have been able to easily prove he wasn’t guilty, as he thought he could, by virtue of the fact that he wasn’t guilty. It took the arbitrary rules of a child’s game to cause judges and juries to ignore reality for long enough to let him die. Our legal system, which we trust with the fates of millions of citizens, is a game. That means that lawyers can win cases not because their arguments conform to reality, but because they’re particularly good at playing that game.
This is really disheartening to me, and I see it in other places too. Look at our political debates where candidates are given a minute or two to respond to a national issue that people have written books on. I can’t come up with an argument off the top of my head for every subject I could ever be asked, but that doesn’t mean I’m less qualified to lead than a person that can. Important social rituals like debates and trials should be structured logically, not as games.
I’d also like to say that I don’t really understand Prejean’s point about some “mitigating factors.” I understand letting minors and mentally handicapped people off because they don’t know what they’re doing, but she seems to think that an abusive childhood somehow makes future crimes less serious. Why? I don’t see any logical basis for this. Scalia pointed out that not every abused child grows up to kill someone else, and as much as sentimentality would have us ignore him, he’s right. It’s a choice. If we’re going to let those kinds of people off easy, why not let everyone off, because you could easily make a philosophical argument that people are the sum of their pasts which they don’t have any control over, so they’re not morally culpable for anything they do. Philosophy aside, people need to be accountable for their actions or they do stupid things knowing they can get away with them.
Also, why exactly was Karla Faye somehow less responsible for her actions because she was repentant? Though I wouldn’t have approved of killing her, that would have been because of the moral implications of the death penalty itself, not because of her change. Do we somehow become absolved of our debts, to the justice system or to other people, simply because our personalities shift? Personally, I don’t think so.
I can’t help but feel that part of the outrage at Faye’s execution had to do with her being female. Prejean does make a point of specifically addressing one of the relatively few women to be executed, which added to the pathos of her case. This implies a terrible kind of sexism; that our society views men as more suited to die than the “fairer sex” by virtue of their gender (This view is also evident in the fact that men have to sign up for the draft in case it is ever needed, while women don’t). I would be interested to read what both women and other men think of this.
In response to Lucy’s thoughts on selecting judges:
The fact that we elect many of our judges is certainly absurd. Trusting a party as unreliable as the American electorate to select the impartial judges of our legal system is a flawed notion, at best. However, the other option, appointment, practiced at the federal level, is not without its own issues; chiefly, it’s highly political, and with appointments lasting for life, the stakes behind every appointment are huge (witness the recent and highly contentious confirmation of Justice Kagan on the Supreme Court). These judges are influential, incredibly difficult to remove from office, and most importantly, reflect the biases of those who appoint them. For example, in McCleskey v. Kemp (1987), the Supreme Court upheld the death penalty in a 5-4 vote. Of the five justices in favor, four of them were appointed by Republicans (Nixon and Reagan, both of whom favored the death penalty). The unfortunate reality of law is that judges will be chosen by people who support their views, be they voters or politicians. It would seem the fairest way to select judges involves either dice, spin-wheels, or blindfolded dart-throwing.
As for the social issues of the death penalty in the United States, Sister Prejean proves without a doubt that capital punishment targets the less empowered members of society. By and large, the executed are poor, uneducated, ethnic minorities, and from Southern states. There is undoubtedly a huge racial component to the use of state-supported murder: The Baldus study referenced on page 213 mentions how African-Americans convicted of murdering Caucasians are 4.3 times as likely to face execution as African-Americans convicted of murdering other African-Americans.
One of the social issues Prejean drew a connection to is mental health…which I see a couple people, including Suzanna, brought up. That mentally ill criminals should be automatically exempt from the death penalty isn’t too hard to argue with, but what I found interesting was Prejean’s discussion of how psychiatrists are assigned to insane death row inmates to medicate them and give therapy sessions so that prisons may eliminate the “insane” classification. “This puts psychiatrists in the surreal situation,” says Prejean, “of being called upon to ‘cure’ clients so that state can kill them.” It adds another weird, twisted layer to the debate on the ethics of the death penalty and how it pertains to mentally ill patients.
And William, I can see your point about the whole mitigation thing. But in some ways it seems to me that every person who has committed a murder must be mentally ill in some capacity, you know? And the mitigating factors kind of back up that fact. Now, I’m not saying that just because someone had a bad childhood means they shouldn’t be punished. But maybe, because the human mind is so fragile and vulnerable to these factors, the punishment shouldn’t be as extreme as the death penalty?
I see your point Maddie. I think this issue hinges heavily on why we let mentally handicapped people off for their crimes in the first place.
In my opinion, it’s because our collective moral system is based off of the premise that every evil action is the result of a choice. We can steal, or we can not steal. We can kill, or we can not kill. Mentally stable adults are always capable of making a choice, and thus they should be punished when they make the wrong one.
Others are not in the same situation so they can’t be held to the same standards. Children, for example, have not lived long enough that we can reasonably expect them to understand the difference between right and wrong. A child that commits a crime needs education, not punishment.
Mentally handicapped people are in a more complicated situation. Some, such as people with low IQs or delusions, are like children and can’t understand the difference between right and wrong. Others, however, are all too aware of what they’re doing.
Take Ted Bundy for example. He planned out his atrocities meticulously, and fled from state to state with the express purpose of committing them. He was a very intelligent man. His problem was not that he couldn’t tell the difference between right and wrong, it was that he didn’t care about it. He was a monster, and regardless of how he got to be the way he was, he deserved to die.
And there lies the distinction. I think, baring exceptions like people robbing grocery stores that accidentally let their guns off, you’re right about most people that commit murders being mentally handicapped. However, there is a distinction past this, between those that can’t understand what they’re doing and those that can. It’s the distinction between a child and a demon. The former can be exempted from responsibility by our system of morality, and that is why we let them off. The latter can’t, and that’s why we punish them.
The fragility of the human mind is unfortunate, but once someone like Ted Bundy has been made, they have to be dealt with, regardless of how they are made. Because they can understand the consequences of their actions they are morally culpable for them, and because of the severity of their crimes, they deserve the most extreme form of punishment available.
I don’t support the death penalty, but right now that’s mainly because I cannot condone the potential killing of an innocent person. I think there are certain people that would deserve to die if we could be a hundred percent sure of their actions.
I was reading the comments above and felt like responding to them before answering the question myself. Several people mentioned that the election of judges seems wrong, and that appointment would be better but we should also remember that the people doing the appointing are usually elected officials. We have seen it every time a Supreme Court Justice has been nominated, the president has the upper hand, even when the legislative branch rejects candidate after candidate, at some point the president will install a judge of their liking. Elected judges may be biased, but the community in which they are elected is biased. What if there was a lottery of judges and instead of being assigned to a district, they would be called upon. It would not eliminate unbiased judges, but it would ensure that the judges would not have to rule in a manner that would help them become re-elected.
I was raised in Pittsburgh, the city with the highest black on black crime rater per capita, and it seems that every day another murder in another impoverished neighborhood occurs and usually both the victim and the culprit are black. It’s easy to see that the crimes are related to poverty and race but they arent necessarily the cause. The murders are not related to racial tension or socio-economic tension, but seemingly more about the interactions within a social group. I know this isn’t the case all over the country but it seems to be the case here.
I have been exchanging letters with a 23 year old man sentenced to life in prison without parole for being the lookout during a robbery in which the clerk was shot and killed. While he isn’t a death row inmate my interaction with him has made me ask myself why he is serving a life sentence. He wasn’t the lookout for a premeditated murder, he was the lookout for a robbery in which his buddy pulled the trigger. I don’t know much about the trial but I can’t help but think that as a poor black man his defense lawyer was not very good. Now without any defense he spends his time studying law books and writing letters in his own futile attempts
The issues of poverty and race are not just a southern issue, they can happen to anyone anywhere.
William, in response to your comments about Karla Faye Tucker, I agree that her gender played a significant part in the public outrage about her execution. Because society still views women as the “fairer sex,” as you said, it is even more disturbing to execute a female murderer than a male murderer, even though both committed the same crime. I’m not saying that more female murderers should be sentenced to death; I’m suggesting that if life without parole is a sufficient sentence for a female murderer, it should be sufficient for a male murderer as well. The whole issue of sexism in the criminal justice system relates to another one of the discussion questions, the one about watching what you do to see what you really believe. We’d like to believe we live in a society where men and women are treated equally, but that won’t really be true until men and women are punished equally for crimes, required to sign up for the draft, allowed to serve in combat units, etc.
While I don’t think that Karla Faye is any less responsible for her crime because she repented, I believe she could have used her transformation to inspire and help others in the prison system. Allowing Karla Faye to spend the rest of her life in prison “helping other prisoners change their lives” and being “a source of healing love,” as Sr. Helen writes, would have been a more effective and fulfilling way for her to pay her debt to society.
A number of people commented about the connection between race and the death penalty. The example that really struck me was McCleskey v. Kemp, in which the Supreme Court said that racial “discrepancies” in death penalty cases were “inevitable” and that it would be “too disruptive” to the justice system to correct those discrepancies. I know Sr. Helen makes this point repeatedly, but it’s well worth disrupting the justice system if it brings our country closer to upholding “equal justice under law.”
Lastly, I’d like to add that I like Jan’s idea about the lottery of judges; I agree that it would limit pressure from local bias.
In response to people who responded to my post:
Although dart-throwing definitely caught my attention as a way to select judges (but then couldn’t politicians recruit bar frequenters to throw for them?), I was really struck by the idea of summoning judges. It can be discouraging for me to look at a broken system and feel that there is no better way. But if you were to “summon” a judge, then they may not be as accountable directly to their district. They would be one step removed from their electorate as their decisions would not always affect their constituents. It is an interesting idea, but unfortunately we would probably have to rewrite all of Article 3 of the Constitution to make any kind of change. The task of reorganizing a whole branch of the government is daunting, so I have to wonder if it could ever be done.
Aside from the wrongful killing of innocent people, Sister Helen Prejean’s primary argument highlights “the grossly unfair way [capital punishment] is meted out to innocent and guilty alike.” This is where we run into a tangled mess of social issues—leading up to and following a person’s arrest.
Once could individually analyze each element (economic status, race, etc.) but they seem to be inextricably intertwined. When I attempted to verbally illustrate this I epically failed, so I have created a diagram for your viewing pleasure: https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-g_iV1fy5HLc/TlnZKEY-wzI/AAAAAAAAALs/5gsBYitmZcM/s512/Photo%25252082.jpg. Many of the arrows (indicating impact by one social factor upon another) point at poverty. As Prejean makes abundantly clear, if one can afford a good defense attorney, one is unlikely to be sentenced to death. The fact that death penalty cases are determined by juries of real people means that their biases regarding social issues, conscious and unconscious, will always come into play (Malcom Gladwell’s “Blink”, anyone?).
Those are my somewhat nebulous thoughts on this question. In response to what a few others have said:
@William: Mitigating factors, along with “statutory aggravating factors”, must be considered during the second trial to decide on death or life in prison as per the Supreme Court’s ruling to reinstate the legality of capital punishment.
@Lisa: Thank you for bringing up the issue of a defendant’s sex. Jury members and D.A.’s are undoubtedly influenced by our culture’s concept of gender.
@Maddie: I’m a bit of a brain fanatic, so I find your point about mental health quite valid. I think we may have discovered a catch-22: if you commit a capital-punishment worthy crime, your are mentally ill, and if you are mentally ill, you cannot be put to death. Eh, eh?
@Lucy and Clayton: A) I may or may not have laughed out loud at the dice, pin-wheel, blindfolded dart throwing bit. B) We should also consider the fact that District Attorneys are elected. Ultimately, they choose whether to pursue a case to the death penalty and they are definitely influenced by the impact a case will have on their constituencies. This is the arguable cause for so few black-on-black crimes being sentenced to death. Thoughts?
@Jan: I was intrigued by your correspondence with a convicted inmate. That might be a really interesting endeavor for other CHC students.
Lisa, though my reasons for opposing the death penalty are different, I agree with you.
Naomi, I was more puzzled by Prejean’s moral justification for her position, but thank you for the information. It makes sense that she was basing her argument off of legal procedure, though I still disagree with her on which mitigating factors should exempt someone from punishment.
I’d also like to address the opposition to electing judges that has been mentioned. I’m no expert of the judicial system, but I do see some flaws in alternative means of selection. The people that a judge has jurisdiction over are the ones that ultimately have to deal with him or her. That’s why it makes sense to give them a choice in that judge’s appointment. When one group tries to impose its sense of justice on another group, the attempt is rarely taken well. Under a system of randomized judges, people, even people from areas that disapprove of the death penalty, could find their justice systems run by judges with radically different ideologies. That sort of flies in the face of American democratic ideals.
Perhaps I don’t understand the concept of summoning judges, but I assume a problem would occur where people would more or less be able to choose judges based off of their sympathies, which would exempt a lot of guilty people, not just from the death penalty, but from fair punishments too. Am I misinterpreting?
I don’t really have an answer for fixing corruption in the judicial system, but I don’t think scrapping elections is would necessarily be the answer.
William, when thinking about summoning a judge I was thinking that all judges on a certain circuit would have their names thrown into a pool, and before each trial, a name would randomly be drawn. This way someone elected in a liberal district could be the judge for a case in a more conservative district. They would not spend a lot of time there, or serve more than one case, but they would not have the pressure to preside over the court in a manner that would increase their chances of being re-elected. Much like a jury is meant not to have any familiarity with the case or the people involved, judges should not either. A judge presiding in his own district has the ultimate familiarity.
Naomi, I seriously recommend some sort of correspondence with any inmates. I was connected through a friend so I don’t know which programs there are for correspondences but I do know that UOregon has the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program
Lucy, It definitely would be hard or impossible to change our judicial system but don’t we have an obligation to try to fix something if we think it is broken?
I think reading Helen Prejeans book and discussing here we seem to focus on what is wrong with our judicial system, but we ignore everything that it does well.
@Naomi about the mentally ill. I agree totally with your catch-22 theory! It seems like a circular argument but it is completely valid. It also brings up questions about the legal process and whether a mentally ill person has the capacity to defend his/herself (as was the case with Joe O’Dell) or even if their testimonies should be heard if they are mentally incapacitated! There are so many layers of complicated legal gibberish in death penalty cases.
A general comment on the judicial system– In my AP U.S. Government class we covered the judiciary branch towards the end of the year. It always seemed to me that the judicial branch was the most isolated of the three. With 9 justices holding jurisdiction over the entire country’s legal system, any and every decision affects history… The Supreme Court decides to hear or pass over thousands of cases each year, changing (and destroying) the lives of many without lifting a finger. Even worse are the justices’ personal clerks, who are unelected secretaries who read through cases and pass the “most important” ones on to the justices to read personally. It seems undemocratic to me, that unelected clerks can make decisions for the highest court in the country and pass over constitutional issues, even if only accidentally.
To me it seems that geography is the most relevant of these issues in both cases. Sister Helen Prejean highlights in both anecdotes the high frequency of deaths carried out by the state that occur in the South. Texas and Virginia have particularly nasty track records. However, most states are in alignment on offenses punishable by death, so where is this inconsistency coming from? It’s hard to believe that Texas has hundreds more homicidal maniacs than any other state… I tend to believe “Denny”, Prejean’s lawyer friend, that prosecutors and judges in certain regions are “enthusiastic proponents of the death penalty.” This seems to me like a huge miscarriage of justice for inmates of death row who may not be in such a situation if they had only committed their crime in a different state. Shouldn’t all state and district courts hold the same standard of carrying out justice?
That makes more sense then Jan. Though I can see how this would eliminate election related bias, I really don’t think it would work. Anti-death penalty judges wouldn’t be the only ones circulated. You could just as easily get a pro-death penalty judge sent to a district that never would have elected him or her in the first place.
Also, elections are meant to give a group the chance to pick a person who can represent them. Under our constitution, we assume that all the power of a government is given to it by the governed. With a summoning system you’d have people from one area deciding how law in another area should be interpreted, which does not fit this principle at all. It would be like people from Texas electing the governor of Oregon.
The way to change the court, in my opinion, is to change how people think, like with anything else in our government.
Jan.. You are completely right, no matter how hard it seems you still have to try. Ghandi once said, “Remember that all through history, there have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they seem invincible. But in the end, they always fall. Always.” This is an important reminder that all throughout history seemingly impossible changes have been made by even the smallest people.
And William, I think you hit the nail on the head in the fact that you have to change how people think. And that is exactly what Sister Helen Prejean has really devoted her life to doing. Pretty cool…
I admit that I was (and still am) somewhat naïve about the intricacies and inner workings of the court system and, like Joseph O’Dell and Dobie Williams, I had a view of the American justice system as infallible. After all, aren’t all the different levels and circuits to catch mistakes and prevent injustice? This book really opened my eyes to the flaws in our legal system and the consequences of such flaws: the death of innocents.
As many others have pointed out, the discrepancies in sentencing and the actions (or inaction) of judges astounded me. It is true that this is a part of our legal system that needs review but what shook me more, and needs just as much examination, are the horrible attorneys assigned to represent the defendants. I have always known that some lawyers are better than others (as in any profession) and less money means a lower “ranked” lawyer but I never imagined that some could be so incompetent as to work against their client (O’Dell’s attorney Ray never mentioned a lot of critical information to him) or as to fall asleep during a trial.
As Prejean mentions in her book, there is a possible option for dealing with ineffective lawyers (pp 208) but it sounds difficult to prove due to Strickland v. Washington (1984). I feel that if there were a way to identify these “ineffective” lawyers before they caused a client to be sentence to death it would do both the defendants and the American Court System good. My family has a few lawyers in it and from everything I’ve heard from them and the general media The Bar Exam is a big deal. I thought this screened out truly incompetent attorneys but obviously not. Perhaps there should be some sort of system in place for reviewing lawyers in order to keep them from slacking off and not representing their client to their fullest. Every once and a while, an attorney’s case could be randomly selected and reviewed by a body of lawyers who look not for whether the case was won but for the effort of the attorney and how they followed protocol.
As Prejean said, those on Death Row often ended up there because of inept lawyers. With lawyers that are halfway capable, the number of death sentences should drop and keeping people off of Death Row is the first step in reducing the number of deaths. More skilled lawyers also mean that they will raise the right objections during trial so as to provide grounds for retrials and hearings later on in the appeals process. I’m not saying that every attorney must be amazing, simply that the 6th Amendment entitles everyone with the Right of Counsel and that that counsel should be somewhat decent and awake during trial.
I believe that the question of capital punishment relates to other social issues in the way that they effect the possible motives, reliability of information, state of the accused, and the accounts of the witnesses. For example, there is the well-known insanity plea (which, contrary to popular belief only appears in 2% of all murder cases). Sadly, race plays into the capital punishment due to prejudice in certain areas of our country. Prejudice can lead to bias juries, false testimony, and unfair sentences. In Dobie’s case, the evidence on which he was convicted seems extremely questionable. The fact that the DNA test taken by GeneScreen were used without a background check on the reliability of the lab causes me to question why the data was used evidence. Furthermore, the all-white jury against an accused African-American man in the South seems like it would yield an unjust sentence. I don’t mean to stereotype, but my dad lived in Louisianna and I have friends who have lived there (both white and black) and, sadly, racism is still present today.
Hi,
So I tried to read through some of these comments but couldn’t read through them all, so forgive me if I’m repeating someone’s thoughts… I agree that there is definitely something wrong with the judicial system. Prejean did a good job of proving that. These problems exist on both sides of the bench.
I agree that electing judges leads to obvious problems… Judges trying to please those who vote for them, rather than trying to run a fair trial. I think the thought behind electing judges is that if there’s a ‘bad’ or ‘corrupt’ judge, he or she would not be reelected. Unfortunately when the whole area that the judge is elected from is ‘corrupted’ it leads to elections of unfair judges… I think that’s why the Supreme Court is appointed for life. That way they don’t have to worry about pleasing anyone, other than, ideally, the Constitution. This method also has its fault though, if a bad egg is appointed, he or she is appointed for life…. so obviously each system is flawed.
Then there’s the problem of attorneys that Prejean brought up again and again. It’s obvious that some of these attorneys have no right standing in a courtroom, and yet there they are, sleeping in the courtroom. I think she mentioned that one state has done a good job of reforming their public defender’s system, though I can’t remember off the top of my head which that was. Anyway, the new system seemed to do a good job of using experienced attorneys to train new ones. I think that would help to improve the overall quality of defense attorneys.
I too was pretty innocent about the misconducts found throughout the United States court systems. Prejean’s novel really opened my eyes to the bribes and fallacies that take place. On page 99 she mentions that district attorneys try to keep juries from knowing about the life without parole option that most states have in place for felony murder. I think at the very least everyone participating in the trial should be able to make a well informed decision about the fate of the convicted.
Eliza: It is a very good theory to be able to determine the ineffective lawyers before the death penalty is ever given, but this would be difficult to put into action. The purpose of the Bar Exam is to weed out ineffective lawyers, but the way Prejean describes it, sometimes the lawyers are not ineffective but rather are corrupted. In the cases of both O’Dell and Dobie, the state attorneys most likely knew that they were innocent, yet they would rather convict someone for the crime that seems to be an easy target rather than leaving the crime unsolved. It is not that the lawyers are inept and cannot find out the necessary information but rather they purposely leave it out in order to win the case. This to me seems like more of a moral issue than an issue of capability.
Also, it is not only corrupted lawyers but also police officers that interfere with a fair trial; such was the case with Dobie Williams when the officers gave conflicting testimonies about Dobie’s confession, yet their testimonies were still used against him in court.
@William Leroux
Earlier you expressed your doubts about the “mitigating factors,” specifically that of people with abusive childhoods. I don’t think Sister Helen is trying to convince us that a person isn’t guilty if he or she dealt with incredible hardship. I think she is giving us that person’s humanity. Throughout the book, Sister Helen points out that the government is not just killing an evil criminal, they’re killing a human with thoughts and feelings. If we only think about the terrible crime, it’s easy to support eliminating the source of it. However, if we, like Sister Helen, met such a killer in person and had a conversation, it would be hard to support ending that person’s life.
What really got me was the final quote: David Lawson’s final words as he was being gassed to death, “I… am… a… human… being” (265). When we forget this and condemn a human being to death, we are descending to the level of the killer.
I of course don’t mean to say that you are truly as bad as Lawson or any other murderer, but I do hope you at least reconsider whether anyone “deserves to die” as you say.
Max, I’ll agree that Sister Helen isn’t exactly saying that people with sad pasts aren’t guilty. However, forgiving them for their consciously committed crimes amounts to that. Somehow, because they were in a bad situation, we can ignore the sum total of their actions; as if the people they killed were any less dead because of the path that led to their deaths.
She is trying to show us their humanity. However, she’s trying to show us a certain aspect of their humanity—the part that she and their loved ones see. There is another aspect, an important one, that gets ignored. We make a big deal of the fact that every murderer has a mother and a father and people that love them. But they also have a bond just as strong with the people they killed. It just isn’t a positive one. We can see what their parents see firsthand and make it real in our minds; can we see with the eyes of their victims in anything but an abstraction?
I would support banning the death penalty, but like I’ve said, it would be because any chance of executing a falsely accused person is too high. Prejean makes the only point she needs in her title; The Death of Innocents. The rest of her argument is so layered in pathos it’s hard for me to trust her. I just can’t see how killing guilty people is sinking to their level. The murder of innocents is heinous because it comes out of nowhere; it is a horrible action committed against someone for a selfish and cruel reason, if any. The killing of a guilty person is the natural and understood consequence of said person’s actions. They get the worst possible punishment because they commit the worst possible crime, and we value human life enough to protect it with our most powerful threat.
They’re human beings, yes—but they’re human beings that decided their own petty motivations were more important than another person’s life, and thus chose to devalue the sanctity of their own lives by killing. They knew the repercussions of their actions, and they knew what they were doing was wrong. Adults should deal with consequences, and most of the problems in our society stem from people denying this.
Perhaps I’ll be more lenient when I get older. Right now I’m trying to figure out where redemption fits into all of this. But for now, I can only oppose the death penalty based off of the chance of executing an innocent person. I’d like to make it clear that I’m not attacking you directly, and I’m sorry if it looks at all like I am.
When you privatize legal protection, it becomes less about the protection of justice and more about protecting the track record of a legal firm. A legal firm receives less business if it doesn’t win as much. So the incentive here would be profit, not legal justice, to protect a defendant or represent a prosecutor. Until we see this part of the legal system fixed, how can anyone expect to be represented the way they wish to be? How can someone from a low socioeconomic status expect to defend themselves properly from a prosecutor who can hire the legal firm with the best track record in the state, especially when the attorneys provided by the state don’t even make a comparable salary with those on the private side of the attorney business or have the equal amount of legal training?
As for electing judges, how else should we elect them? Would you rather have the entire process of judge nomination and election be completely indirect, or have you yourself decide who will be interpreting the U.S. Constitution? And who better to decide how the Constitution is interpreted than the people who own it? Justice is a changing standard among societies, and the way we the people wish to have the law interpreted should be represented in our judicial system. Personally, I’d rather be making the choice of judge election and nomination rather than allowing a governor or a panel of non-elected members to make the decision for me.
Hi Max and Will,
Your argument caught my attention, and if you don’t mind, I’d like to pitch in. I see where you’re both coming from: Max, you’re against the death penalty because no one deserves such a punishment, seeing as how everyone, regardless of background or race, is human, and Will, you’re against it as well because there’s too much risk in cutting off the life of an innocent person but you don’t believe the guilty have the right to be forgiven for their past actions.
This is a really hard topic, and it’s really hard to settle between one or the other. But my heart moves me towards Max’s and Sister Helen’s side. I truly believe that everyone deserves a second chance because like Sister Helen said, people come from different backgrounds and they are shaped by their pasts. Whatever their reason, whether anger or bitterness, they are blinded and don’t realize that the crimes they commit are wrong.
Who’s to say, though, that there is no chance of these hardhearted murderers seeing the light and realizing the error of their ways? The death penalty gives them no second chance of becoming the compassionate, soft hearted people they were born to be. It ends their lives early, and I think that’s cruel, to not even know whether they will turn around and yet not giving them that chance.
I realize that we kind of strayed off the question that this discussion should mainly touch on…
Soo (and Will),
First, although it does seem like we’ve strayed from this topic, I think that we can all agree that social issues play so closely with the death penalty that anytime you talks about the death penalty, you must talk about social issues. Will, you yourself said the reason you don’t support the death penalty is due to these issues, specifically that minorities and the poor are disproportionately executed.
I would expand that to remind us that those that not only is this prejudice evident in executions but in indictments. Legal action often isn’t even carried out towards, for example, rich whites who commit crimes against poor blacks. The fact that the problem is so systemic in my mind validates Will’s opinion and allows those who are against the death penalty on moral grounds stand as one.
However, I also think that the “humanity” argument I made to Will perhaps wasn’t clear enough. (I also wasn’t clear in another way: I never meant to imply you were attacking me directly. I just enjoy the debate!) What you saw was a person’s humanity willingly revoked by committing the ultimate crime against another human, murder. That is, killing an innocent human is essentially inhuman. Although I agree that it is a horrible act, I personally do not see it as one that revokes a person’s humanity such that they should be killed. In other words, I, along with Soo and Sister Helen, don’t think that an action capable by a human is worthy of ending that human’s life. It is perfectly valid (and a widely held view) to think that the one exception to a person’s essential right to humanity is committing murder.
I do agree that in a purely pragmatic sense, the racial and economic prejudice is a far more pressing issue because it affects real-world events. It is, of course, valuable to question the moral side as well.
As Prejean stresses throughout the entire book, and as many of you have already discussed, a large percentage of the people who end up on death row are minorities, living in poverty. Because of this, they cannot obtain adequate defense lawyers. If more attention could be given to providing these people with a true fair trial, complete with DNA testing and dedicated defense lawyers, capital punishment would be dealt out a lot less often. Innocents would also be spared. Of course, the other alternative is putting an end to the death penalty.
However, ending the death penalty is only a short-term solution. Whether people sit in prison for the rest of their life or they’re executed, they are not receiving help. As Sister Helen mentions several times, prevention programs would be the ideal solution to reducing the number of prisoners that even end up on death row or serving life sentences. Prejean wrote about a past governor of New York who spent tons of money on reinstating the death penalty during his time in office, when he could have spent it on prevention programs. The death penalty is a punishment that won’t help society progress. Even while people are in prison, there should be rehabilitation programs that they go through so that when they are released, they understand the mistakes they made and can hopefully come out as better people. Maybe this would help positively redirect their lives. I understand murderers and people with life sentences have bigger problems, but even though they stay in prison for life, they can still change their ways and even help other prisoners, as Prejean witnessed with Karla Faye Tucker. I know these views may be too idealistic, but even I do believe they would make some sort of a difference. As Prejean stated, “Every human being is worth more than the worst act of his or her life.” Every life has value, and prevention/rehabilitation programs could help people realize their value.
Programs that target troubled youth would be even better, because it could help stop children from ever finding themselves behind bars. I know it affects people’s way of life when they are born in a bad part of town, with parents that abuse them, a dilapidated school, and poor influence from their peers. However, I believe that people can break free of societal expectations. Just because they’re poor doesn’t mean they need to join a gang, or commit crimes, or do drugs. If they work hard, they can get an education, find a job, and reach some level of success. This is what prevention programs should do: help people discover their worth. Give them a safe place to go to make friends and escape the chaos of their home life, at least temporarily. This is what Prejean did when she lived in the St. Thomas Housing Project. Most people who end up on death row have lived extremely rough lives, and I believe more prevention/rehabilitation programs should be implemented.
Also, here is story I just heard about about Governor Perry of Texas being asked to stop the execution of an African American man. Perry is under a lot of political pressure because he is running for election, which makes me believe he won’t stop the execution. Here it is:
http://www.npr.org/2011/09/14/140477573/perry-asked-to-halt-texas-mans-execution
Julia, I completely agree with what you are saying about funding more prevention programs for children and young adults. It reminds me of something I heard on the BBC about inner city gang violence in Glasgow, which was saying that community outreach programs, as well as programs that brought together police and social workers had a far greater impact on reducing gang violence than did the more traditional tough policing measures. Obviously the circumstances are different in the US than they are in Scotland, but I feel that if we were able to prevent young people getting involved in petty crime in the first place, it would drastically reduce the amount of serious crime overall. To me it seems that success is contingent upon giving them options besides the negative ones that they are exposed to in their day to day lives.
Kyle, It isn’t that Karla Fay is less responsible for her actions because she is repentant, it goes back to the “future dangerousness” aspect of death penalty cases. She is now a contributing member of the prison society, she is helping other inmates, and has seen the extreme horror of her crimes. Because she doesn’t have chance of parole she would not be dangerous to the outside world, she would be kept in prison where she would be able to help rehabilitate other inmates.
On Electing Judges: Prejean suggests that judges, like the catholic church, should observe new moral practices in the United States and the world. If they were to do this, she argues, the death penalty would be abolished. If judges, like Prejean suggests, should observe the morality of their citizens, then electing judges would be the perfect way to assure this happens, as they would have to keep their constituents happy. This is exactly what the framers were trying to avoid when they decided that judges on the federal level would be appointed and given life tenure, so that they would have no one to answer to but the constitution and couldn’t be corrupted by politics. This also gives them the ability to watch the new moral phases in the world and the United states and be able to make an unattached decision based solely on the constitution.
On mitigating factors: Abuse as a child definitely should play a role in deciding the mental responsibility of a criminal. However, it does not make the person less guilty. There are many people who argue that no one is responsible for their actions that free will is only an allusion that people have created for themselves and that therefore no one is really “responsible” for their actions. That does not mean that they, like those deemed mentally handicapped, should not be imprissoned. Even if they are not responsible for their actions it doesn’t make them less dangerous.
Maddie I completely agree with what your saying about everyone who commits murder being mentally ill in their own capacity. That is why I would argue that people who have more identifiable mental handicaps and people who are only proven ill by their actions should be treated in much of the same manner: they should be removed from the rest of the world but they should be given treatment and care, not punishment, so that they may have a chance to rehabilitate.
On social issues: I noticed that everyone has been mentioning that those who are poor, uneducated, or of a minority race are more likely to be executed but nobody mentioned that people from these groups are more likely to commit crimes in the first place. I find this to be equal to the issue of prosecution. First of all, unfortunately poor, uneducated, and minority race, are often one in the same. Those that are uneducated are often poor, and those that are poor can’t afford education, and many of those that are poor and uneducated are minority races. This leads to desperation which often leads to crime, which can become bad enough in communities that they become overcome with a culture of crime, such as has happened in parts of chicago, enough so that more people die per year in gang violence than die in the iraq war. Also, men who have fathers in jail are exponentially more likely to do at least some jail time in their lives than those with present dads.
The things I fear most about capital punishment are the biases against those accused. The American Constitution is supposed to guarantee the right to a fair and speedy trial. The trouble lies in the fact that “fair” isn’t definitively determined. An accusation that “a black man killed me” heard by only one witness shouldn’t be enough to accuse a man like Dobie Gillis Williams when there is no true accusatory evidence. A trial in which a man—denied fair access to a good lawyer—is accused of murder on the basis of ‘consistent DNA’ and propositions he lacked the education to counter, shouldn’t be sentenced to death like Joseph O’Dell. Socioeconomic background, intelligence, race and education shouldn’t disadvantage the accused in a court room, but they do.
Geography seems to be the greatest issue surrounding implication of the death penalty. As Prejean writes “How can fifty states, bound by the same constitution… implement the death penalty so differently” (Prejean, 227). Do cultural ideologies really differ so greatly? The Governor of each state has the ability to pardon a death sentence. This occurred in Illinois when Governor George Ryan pardoned 5 inmates. Governor George Allan of Virginia is not so forgiving. Hence, Joseph O’Dell is dead. Should the power to pardon lie in the hands of one person? Should the importance of re-election outweigh that of human life?
I’ve known about issues surrounding capital punishment since I watched a documentary called “A New Hope.” The film follows inmates on death row at the Angola State penitentiary in Louisiana. The film is as informational (and frusterating) as “The Death of Innocents.” http://vimeo.com/9954561 shows a portion of the doc.
@Jan Raether and William Leroux: The alternative means of selection is an ambitious idea. As some of the arguments in your debate highlighted, randomized judges could lead to some conflicts particularly with geographically consistent ideals and sentences. Travel issues would arise, as would problems with pay and an understanding of that state’s individual laws. Unless a criminal crossed a state border, a criminal homicide verdict is generally dictated by state courts unless appealed to higher courts. A state has the right to an autonomous legal system by the constitution.
@Eliza Pierce and Savannah Paffen: I am equally appalled at the corrupt judges and attorneys elected into office and to represent the accused. I believe the “innocent until proven guilty” clause of our constitution should be interpreted to impose the highest background checks on those in the legal system. The fate of the accused should be determined by those believed most morally and intellectually acclaimed to insure justice. Unfortunately, the law doesn’t seem to be dictated by justice but rather politics (pardon my generalizing accusation.)
Eliza, your idea of randomly selected cases is a good one. Additionally, we could convince judges to check and balance each other like we do our government branches. If one judge assigned legal counsel to the accused, and the other to conduct the case, wouldn’t that insure a fairer trial? I understand that there are economic issues with this idea; but the benefits of a fairly represented populace and less individualized political pressure on the judge would outweigh the toll of additional expenditures.
@ Julia Reihs: Your point of prevention and rehabilitation programs is very valid. I agree that America is investing in the wrong path of action against crime. As was illustrated in Prejean’s experience with the Italians, there is little support for the death penalty in Europe—it’s banned in most countries. There are fewer homicides per capita in Europe than in the United States (likely due to larger health care, public aid and criminal rehabilitation fund allocations). This suggests that the fear of death isn’t a deterrent to criminals in the heat of a crime. America needs to change their course of action against crime, the accused and the convicted.
In my opinion, the question of capital punishment cannot be considered without also considering the question of social prejudice. How can we possibly expect our peers to judge one another fairly in a judicial setting when we cannot even accept foreign cultures and concepts in our day-to-day lives? It is naive to think that we can completely set aside all prejudices and preconceived notions when we enter a court of law as a juror or a judge. We can choose to consciously ignore them, sure, but they will still permeate our thoughts subconsciously and subtly guide our decisions. So, ironically, the only way we can make our judicial system “just” is via a jury of our peers that in turn allows prejudice to influence decisions. Therefore, it is impossible for us to make a truly just and impartial decision in a court, making it dangerous for us as a people to decide who should live or die. Sister Helen more or less makes this point in her book when she is speaking in length about Justice Scalia. At one point, she says, he claims he is simply trying to keep the “machinery of death” moving, impartial to every source of influence except the facts of the case. At the same time, however, he uses quotes from the Bible as a large part of his political and moral defense of the death penalty. How can someone who is so heavily invested in the killing of those who are “evil” be impartial to all outside influences? If Justice Scalia was consulted on a case involving a criminal he believed to be “evil”, would he not believe that it is his duty as a Christian to remove this “evil” from Earth regardless of other incarceration options? After all, if they were in jail their “evil” could still permeate and spread to others. It is because we are all so heavily influenced by outside sources that our judicial system is essentially flawed; we are too human for our own good when it comes to justice. And while this margin of influence may be acceptable for the majority of cases, it is too large of a factor to ignore in regards to cases involving the death penalty. The stakes are simply too high. No one should ever lose their life due to the ignorance or bias of others. With this in consideration, it becomes apparent that under humanity’s current condition we are in no position to decide whether someone lives or dies fairly, so it would therefore be very prudent to freeze the death penalty until a solution arises, if one even does.
In a country where “Equal Opportunity” is kind of our alma mater it’s discouraging to think that we have so many impoverished people and that many of them are at the end of not just the economic system but also at the end of the judicial system. Before reading this book I didn’t really think about the conflict that is the death penalty or how social standing would be such a critical part of it. As Suzanna said, we’ve never really been exposed to this problem because of growing up in the North West. I’m from a relatively small town and this isn’t really a common discussion point. A good example of how our area of the country doesn’t really award murders, rapists and such with the death penalty, as opposed to the southern states, would be my cousin.
My cousin was convicted of Accessory to Murder in California. He was a gang member, not exactly a contributing member of society, and Hispanic. In his trial the death sentence wasn’t really ever considered as his punishment. Had he been in Texas I’m sure that the death penalty would have been at the top of the list of possible punishments with his social standing and race.
Also just a couple of months ago a Mexican man, and illegal immigrant, was given the death penalty in Texas for murder and rape. Rick Perry refused to listen to the Presidents request to allow the man to contact the Mexican consulate, which in itself was a breach in what the Vienna convention had decided on for protocol in a situation like that one. Reflecting on what Julia said, it’s plain to see that Perry care’s more about his election than human life.
It really seems that the reason that these people are being executed is because they don’t hold enough importance in the eyes of their community. Prejean’s rocking the boat by showing that all of these people aren’t just monsters. I just don’t understand why these Southern states are so bent on the death penalty. It seems like it’s becoming more of cultural thing, which is frightening.
I tried to read all the comments so I’m sorry if I repeated any previous thoughts, just trying to get mine out there.
Before even reading the book, I had (and still have) pretty passionate feelings against the death penalty in general. After reading the book, I was absolutely stunned and depressed at the fact that I had previously put so much trust into a judicial system that is so horribly flawed. I am embarrassed to admit that although I had heard about wrongful executions, I assumed (naively) that things would work themselves out through the courts. Clearly, I probably could not have been more wrong.
Because many of these social issues are intertwined, they all have an effect on capital punishment. The first issue that comes to mind is intelligence–seeing as intelligence often effects one’s financial status, education level, poverty, achievement, employment and crime. It is well known that crime is more prevalent in lower socioeconomic areas and it isn’t fair but makes sense that the prosecution would go for the death penalty more in a situation where they were likely to win–a case where there is feeble defense. Just because the accused have the ‘right to an attorney’, I learned that that basically doesn’t mean anything as in the case of the lawyer who slept through parts of the trial and was not replaced because it could not be determined if he fell asleep during the ‘important parts’. In our world, money is power. Those that do not have the ability to pay a lawyer or have the intellect to research have no recourse. That is seen clearly in cases of capital punishment.
I agree with Lucy, as well. By electing our judges (presumably to judge in the way that we see fit, therefore putting pressure on them to have a very black or white opinion on an issue like the death penalty–a very not black or white issue), we are practically ensuring that the popular vote pro/against the death penalty will prevail as opposed to those judges being able to step back from their personal beliefs and actually judging on a case-by-case basis.
I was not surprised, however, at the social issues surrounding the death penalty. Especially race, geography and socioeconomic status. I find it utterly disgusting that courts would seek the death penalty in cases in which they can take advantage particularly of the lack of money of the accused to defend themselves. I was so appalled at the story of O’Dell who was allowed to defend himself with no formal training. It stuns me that had he the financial means, he would probably be alive now.
I think that the issues of race and geography pretty much go hand in hand. Everybody knows that racial prejudices and tensions are more apparent in the South, so it seems obvious to me that Virginia, Texas and Georgia would have very high rates of state executions. (Especially because of the issues illuminated by Prejean about more black men being killed over the murders of whites. In the South, it seems that some horrible murder happens, and the police go running around looking for the first black man with a history of petty crime they can screw over.) Also, because the ‘good ol boys’ that are in power in those states and the south in general are really interested only in keeping their power, it doesn’t surprise me that governors don’t do anything to stop the executions. It saddens me that human beings can live with themselves (let alone celebrate) knowing that they played any role in the taking of a life–guilty or not.
Julia, I couldn’t agree more with you on the topic of redirecting funds in a more productive manner to both the inmates and society. The idea of rehabilitation gets tricky for me, though, when I think of who would run the organization. The wardens? The spiritual advisors? Volunteers off the street? I think it’d be difficult to have a clear focus when it comes to judging whether one is “rehabilitated” and ready to be released into society; personally, I wouldn’t want any religious affiliation leading the brigade. People find redemption through their own means, and I think a rehab program should assist inmates in finding their own form of it.
Perhaps this isn’t a social issue per say, but I was astonished to discover that the US is “the leading executioner of juveniles in the world and far out of sync with the human rights practices of most other countries” (210). As is stated in the text, studies have shown that murdering-juvenilies have “often been victims of abuse, which argues for the state’s duty to heal and rehabilitate rather than kill” (210). The word “often” is vague at best and is certainly no excuse for taking one’s life, but it still leads to a question: as a country, how unforgiving are we with children? How can we deem a juvenile a hopeless case that’s not worth a lifetime in jail but immediate death? We are grossly under-qualified.
I agree that the running of rehabilitation programs is tricky, especially when the option of religious involvement is introduced. In my opinion a potentially good option would be to involve many different types of people, in hopes of reaching different groups of at risk individuals. As an example, it could be really effective for some to have social workers involved, where as others might respond more positively to other rehabilitation programs.
I’m not sure exactly how a program such as this could persuade people who don’t want to change to get involved, but I think that if there were a broad range of different paths people could take more would likely become motivated to change their habits. Also, I think that law enforcement definitely does need to play a role, as well as others where the emphasis is less on punishment, and more on future change. Possibly other reformed convicts could play a role in these programs.
I definitely feel like this is far easier said than done, but at the same time if it motivates some criminals to change in my opinion it’s worth it.
Supreme Court Justices—all federal judges, in fact—are appointed to their positions for life, without the possibility of spontaneous salary fluctuation. The Federal Judiciary was designed that way specifically to eliminate peer pressure, as it applies to the Courts and their rulings. Although federal judges become appointed by individuals who are subject to the pressures of election, incentive for those judges to rule as their appointers want does not exist. This separation from elected officials is what makes the United States Judiciary the fairest in the world.
Having said that, the differences between State and Federal Judiciaries being used as an excuse for unfair judicial practices and outcomes is not accurate. While it is true that Texas’ elected judges may decide cases based on their electorate’s desires, their opinions are inferior to those of the Federal Court system which, as I just explained, is immune to “popular passions.”
On another note, the argument that “juries can be selected by prosecutors specifically to expose racial and class bias” is also not accurate. The last time I checked, defense counsel in capital cases is able to dismiss potential jurors without giving reasons, as well. If your frustration lies with the fact that many public defenders are incompetent, then your focus should be the reformation of public defense standards—not the abolition of capital punishment.
It did not surprise me that the majority of people sent to death row are poor minority. I was reminded of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, the idea that certain necessities are required for an individual to be motivated to reach other needs. Maslow’s Hierarchy is often depicted as a pyramid with the basic necessities (water, food, and sleep) at the bottom level. Without this base, it is difficult for individuals to become motivated to achieve other needs, such as safety, security, and acceptance. If someone has an unstable base other aspects could also give way to being fractured. Along with this, the poor frequently cannot afford adequate defense.
I found it shocking that there was a big discrepancy between the number of individuals sent to death row for killing a white person and the number for killing a colored person. To declare racial disparities “an inevitable part of our criminal justice system” seems as if the Supreme Court will not even try to reduce this occurrence. I am grateful that Sister Helen Prejean is educating readers about this racial discrimination within our justice system. Hopefully it will spark conversation.
Kyle, I think you make a really good point about Justice Scalia’s bias in his beliefs and practices. It seems like this is increasingly becoming a problem in the US; instead of working together and trying to find common ground among different views, politicians would rather argue themselves to death than compromise and risk ‘losing,’ which results in inconsistent, biased policies.
Austin and Jan, that’s really interesting to consider. It’s interesting to hear your opinions of the effect of location on sentencing in your experiences.
It seems like the social inequalities that come up with death sentence cases are the main reasons that the entire ‘death sentence debate’ exists. We can be morally opposed to the idea of executing a criminal, but the unequal treatment of criminals creates a concrete, undebatable, reason to abolish the death penalty. Prejean tossed out many disturbing statistics that highlighted the discrepancies of who received the death penalty based on race, education, and location of where the crime occurred. When we hear that the death penalty is not distributed equally, we can no longer support the constitutionality of the practice.
The death penalty relates to other social issues in two main ways. The first is discrimination shown in who receives capital punishment and who doesn’t, especially when the same crime has been committed. For example, African Americans are more likely to receive the death penalty for a crime than Caucasians are. Those who are unable to afford decent defense attorneys are also more likely to be sentenced to death than those who can pay the appropriate fees, and those who have committed a capital crime in the “death belt” of the south tend to be in more danger of execution than if they had been accused of the same crime somewhere else in the US. The second way that social issues relate involves those who society believes ought to be ineligible for the death penalty, usually based on mental state or age. People often say that those who are suffering from mental illnesses should not be able to be put to death by the government, and the same is usually said for children, even though juveniles have been put on death row in the US.
Prior to reading the novel, I never really questioned the penalty. It was Sister Helen’s that showed me that I can no longer not take a stand on such as issue when lives of s are on the line. I could not believe the corruption and how far prosecutors would go. I mean, I live in the United States of America! I was shocked by Sister Helen’s description of the relations between poverty and race that are connected to the penalty. I feel that IF, we condemn individuals to then the process to do so should be just and fair, for we claim that we are dealing out “justice” for the families of the victims. If poverty and race are linked to the majority of those on row and those who die, how can justice be what we claim it to be? The majority of us don’t trust or agree with all of our governments decisions whether that is how they spend money or support wars yet we wholeheartedly have placed trust in this same system to determine who should live and who should die? It saddens me to think that some believe that the “least of these” should die rather than American dollars be spent to keep them alive and rehabilitate them!
I skimmed through the discussion, but I didn’t have a chance to read everyone’s responses thoroughly so I’m probably repeating something that someone already said or I’m probably deviating from the discussion and I apologize if that’s the case.
The issue of capital punishment relates to social issues all throughout the book and it serves as one of the main themes throughout each story told. In the story of Dobie Gillis Williams, the relationship between capital punishment and race along with geography, poverty and mental health play a key role hindering Dobie from getting a fair trial. There was racism present in Dobie’s trial starting with the fact that this took place in the south. In response to Sonja Knipper’s husband claiming that his wife’s dying words were that a “black man is killing me”, I think Dobie’s mother made a good point when she stated “…how on God’s green earth could any dying person, about to face the judgment throne of God, waste their last breaths saying stuff like that about what race a person was…” (19-20). Altogether, it just seems as if there was racism from the start. And the fact that nobody ever questioned whether Mr. Knippers was lying or even considered him as a suspect in the murder sheds light on the way that this society in this certain region thinks. This was a Caucasian man claiming that an African American man had killed his Caucasian wife. According to this society, this was the type of thing that African Americans did. And once Dobie went to trial, the prejudice didn’t go away.
In the case of Joseph O’Dell, geography and poverty played a role. I think Prejean’s story of a white man who couldn’t get justice in the courts was effective because it showed that race wasn’t the only big issues in the court system. The effects of poverty as well as the fact that O’Dell was convicted in the state of Virginia—with its ridiculous 21 day cutoff date for presenting any evidence of innocence.
I don’t know how to go about solving this issue because everybody has their own biases one way or another. But it seems as if the first step would be to realize and acknowledge that there is subjectivity in our court system…specifically in certain regions. When former Governor George W. Bush stated that “although states such as Illinois much have problems with a faulty death penalty system, he was certain that in Texas no innocent person had ever been sent to death row, much less executed” (250). This, logically, didn’t make sense to me. Why, as Sister Helen pointed out, do we have the same Constitution all across the United States, yet we run our court system so differently? And why are so many people put on death row in the southern regions than in any other regions? I guess acknowledging that there is a problem isn’t enough because, as mentioned in Prejean’s book, the court system acknowledged that racism was present, yet they justified it by saying that it was inevitable and could not be fixed. I do agree with this somewhat though. Subjectivity is inevitable, yet I also think that there are steps that could be taken to help make court systems fairer.
@William: I also agree with you about what you said earlier in the discussion about mitigating factors and how Sister Helen seems to think that being abused as a child makes crimes less serious. I thought this was kind of a weak argument on her part. I think in this case, it has less to do with the crimes that people commit and it all boils down to human compassion. This whole book seems to have an underlying factor of human compassion…is it ever okay to execute any human being even if they commit horrible crimes?
I agree with Suzanna Akins about how it is interesting that we are reading this book at the University of Oregon, where students are coming predominately from areas where the capital punishment system is rarely used in comparison to other regions of the country (oregon and california). Its great that we are able to debate about how the justice system that relates to capital punishment because if we were in the south, this topic might not be discussed in as open of an arena. Its possible that when you are surrounded by the problem, you become desensitized to the issue, which is concerning since really the south is an area that should be most discussing the problems with the system. Just goes to show how geography is so important in relation to the capital punishment system. It not only affects the likelihood of executions, but also how the people who live there get to discuss the issue.
I think that Sister Prejean makes it clear in her book that all of these social issues are often related, even today. Most people consider things like racial discrimination relics of the past, but actually they are relevant in contemporary society. As is seen in the case of Dobie Williams his minority status, lower intelligence, lack of education, low socioeconomic status, and his unfortunate location in the deep south were all important contributing factors to his supposed false accusation. The same goes for Joseph O’Dell; even though he was white, he was still affected by the other social inequalities mentioned above. Many people may assume that these issues are irrelevant but many of them affect the decisions that judges, juries, and prosecutors make during these trials. For example, a rich, white judge who grew up in the deep south with racial prejudices is very likely to not even consider the innocence of someone like Dobie because all he sees are these social issues represented in this one man. What is it to him if one more faceless vagrant is taken off the streets and put in jail, even if he is actually innocent. After all, these judges and prosecutors often say that even if they didn’t commit the particular crime in question, they will commit something similar if left on the streets.
You would hope that in this day and age, our capital punishment system would be fair, just, and without biases, unfortunately that’s not always the case. Because it’s humans, humans that have their own opinions, prejudices, and judgements, are not perfect, and sometimes incapable of making decisions without taking their own personal biases into account, making the decisions on who lives and dies, issues like poverty, race, education, intelligence, geography, and mental health are going to be an influence. We as humans take comfort in seeing someone similar to us. It’s easier to relate or feel sympathy for someone who is “like us”. When we see someone who is “different” we feel scared, uncomfortable, or let our pre-formed opinions sway our decisions for us.
I agree with Clara Dawn Piazzola. The issues of the death penalty and who it is applied to are extremely prevalent in the book. The issue of race and how the death penalty is issued at a far higher rate to African Americans than it is to Caucasians is a serious issue in our country. Also, the issue that Sister Helen presented of the amount of poor people receiving the death penalty is horrible to think about. The fact that 99% of those sentenced to death were poor is really key in showing the injustice of our courts and the court system in America. Jihelah Greenwald also brings up a good point by bringing up the fact that an important issue in the death penalty debate lies in who it is placed upon, the mistreatment of criminals, and the problems that lie in the evidence presented in each case.