In May of 2000, a moratorium on the death penalty was passed in the city of Buffalo Common Council. The council members voted to ban the death penalty in Buffalo until the matter is reviewed further. This moratorium came as a response to the growing national question of the fairness, effectiveness, and constitutionality of capital punishment. Buffalo, along with many other cities and states in the US, is catching on to the fact that the death penalty is not effective.
As the number of inmates executed steadily increases each year in this country, more and more people, from common everyday citizens to the president of the American Bar Association are voicing opposition to capital punishment. In recent years, a number of nations around the world have changed their policies on capital punishment. In June of last year, former Russian President Yeltsin commuted the death sentences of all inmates on Russia's death row. Canada and South Africa also recently abolished the death penalty, leaving the US to stand in the minority along with countries such as Iraq and Sudan, which are known as human right violators.
Most people who oppose the death penalty do so for moral or religious beliefs. Although these reasons are sufficient for a majority of opponents, several secular arguments for abolition are now taking the spotlight. Even those that have absolutely no moral objections to the death penalty are calling for its end.
The Race Factor
It is no secret that the death penalty is used unfairly with respect to race. Countless national studies have proven that minorities are more likely to receive the death penalty than white people. On September 12th of this year, Attorney General Janet Reno announced that after studying data compiled by the Justice Department, she was "sorely troubled" by all of the racial disparities in the use of federal death penalty. This was said after the data released indicated that almost 75% of the people considered for the death penalty in federal cases were minorities.
The same thing occurs in almost every one of the 38 states that implement the death penalty. According to a July 2000 study done by the NAACP, minorities make up 54% of all inmates on death row nationwide. While black people only account for 12-13% of the US population, they alone represent for 43% of death row inmates.
A study by the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) revealed that 83% of all capital punishment cases involve white victims, even though only 50% of all murder victims are white. A black person convicted of killing a white person is over 80% more likely to be sentenced to death than a white person convicted of killing a black person. While racial prejudice has always been a major concern for death penalty opponents, it is only today that people are starting to listen to and actually care about the studies' results.
High Costs
What most people don't know is that sentencing a defendant to death is more expensive than keeping him or her in prison for life. The difference is an average of approximately $2.2 million. Because of the seriousness of their possible sentence, defendants being considered for capital punishment have extended Constitutional rights. They must have a dual trial, one to establish guilt and another to establish the need for a death sentence. Due to factors such as extensive jury selection, their trials tend to last considerably longer than others. Defendants are also guaranteed an immediate appeals process. This becomes quite expensive and the average taxpayer is left to foot the bill. There are currently about 3,700 men and women on death row costing in excess of
$8 billion.
A cost-effective alternative to capital punishment is a life without parole sentence. This option only requires one trial and is usually void of costly automatic appeals.
New York District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau was quoted as saying, "[The death penalty] extracts a terrible price in dollars, lives, and human decency...it fuels [society] while draining millions of dollars from more promising efforts to restore safety to our lives."
The Courtroom Circus
According to the law, every person is guaranteed the right to a fair trial. This guarantee is supposedly extended further when it comes to trying a capital case. Historically, however, it has been the opposite for most inmates on death row. Prior to 1972, when the death penalty was abolished by the Supreme Court case Furman v. Georgia, the system in place was inadequate. A statute of the state of Georgia allowed the jury to have complete discretion over the determination of guilt as well as the sentencing. This led to careless errors in convictions and sentences. The Supreme Court found this to be a violation of the Eighth Amendment, thus declaring every state's death penalty statutes unconstitutional. Each state had to individually rewrite their death penalty statutes.
Many problems persist to this day. Reports of tainted, false, or missing evidence, bad defense lawyers, questionable jury selections, and many other factors have been common since 1976 when the US reinstated the death penalty under the 'revised' and 'improved' statutes. Calvin Burdine, an inmate on Texas' death row has been trying to get a new trial since the '80's. He maintains that his court appointed lawyer actually fell asleep during his trial. The public defender did not pose any objections throughout the case, and called an unusually low number of defense witnesses to the stand. Courtroom witnesses, including members of the jury and the court secretary, affirmed Burdine's claim that the defense attorney was asleep at times throughout the trial. Burdine's execution date has been put off five times by different appellate courts in Texas. However, he still has not been granted a new trial.
Calvin Burdine's situation is not an isolated incident. Most inmates on death row are there as a result of poor defense work. That is not to say that they are innocent, however, for most of those that can afford high-priced or even adequate representation, the death penalty is almost never an option. In 1997, CNN did a loose study of 30 murder trials in Texas. Of these cases, 15 of the defendants had public defenders; the other half had their own attorneys. All 15 defendants represented by public defenders were sentenced to death. The death penalty, however, wasn't even sought by the prosecution in the other 15 cases. Defendants who cannot afford their own attorneys often get stuck with overworked, understaffed public defenders who are paid next to nothing and, at times, seem to stop caring whether they win or lose a case. Opponents of capital punishment feel that this is a direct violation of the constitutional guarantee of "equal protection under the law."
Innocence and Death Row
The strongest arguments against the death penalty arise from the possibility of innocent people being sentenced to death. Not only do abolitionists use this as a platform, but so do people who are in favor of the death penalty in theory. It is now known that, throughout the last century, about 400 innocent men were sentenced to death in this country, 23 of whom were actually executed. Since 1972, 80 men have been released from death row after successfully appealing their cases. However many states' laws do not guarantee a new trial based on new evidence after a certain amount of time has passed. This means that newly discovered evidence that can prove an inmate's innocence can be deemed as arbitrary. Only the governor of the state in question can intervene in these situations, but often they do not cooperate.
A majority of murder convictions are decided by the testimony of eyewitnesses. Juries are very likely to listen to and be swayed by an eyewitness, even though their testimony may be inaccurate. Witnesses are sometimes coerced by overzealous police officers or prosecuting attorneys. In a study done by the Innocence Project (a New York based group of lawyers who work pro bono at trying to prove inmates' innocence by means of DNA testing), of 62 cases of wrongful convictions, 52 were results of mistaken identification by a witness.
Eyewitnesses are not the only victims of coercion. Recently, the New York Times reported a case in which detectives coerced a mentally handicapped man into admitting he had raped and killed a young woman. In 1982, Earl Washington Jr. was convicted of murdering Rebecca Williams in Virginia. The sole evidence in the trial was his questionable confession. Washington spent the next 17 years trying to get a new trial. Throughout the years, his case caught the eye of a number of lawyers who read the transcript of the interview in which he confessed. They noticed that police were blatantly telling Washington what to say. He was only days from execution in 1994, when the Governor L. Douglas Wilder commuted his death sentence. Washington was instead sentenced to life in prison. Earlier this month, Washington filed a petition for a pardon. He and his lawyers are awaiting the arrival of a DNA test, which they maintain will prove his innocence.
Abolitionists as well as some supporters, feel that the execution of one innocent man is enough to prove that the death penalty should not be used. They point out that the death of an innocent man at the hands of the state is just another form of murder.
The False Deterrence Belief
During the hearing on the moratorium in Buffalo's Common Council, a few council members spoke out in favor of the death penalty. One member said, "I will vote 'no' on this moratorium because I feel we must send out the message, 'if you commit murder in New York State, you will be put to death.'" The notion that the death penalty deters crime has been around since its creation. Perhaps in the time of Hammurabi or even in Colonial America, the death penalty did reduce crime. Public executions were commonplace and their prevalence was enough to instill fear in would-be criminals, especially murderers.
Between 1967 and 1976 there was a ten-year hiatus on the death penalty. Abolitionists discredit the deterrence theory by pointing out that, during these ten years, the murder rate remained constant. There was no sudden surge in crime. Currently, 12 states do not have the death penalty and none of them are suffering from high murder rates. In fact, most of them have lower murder rates than the states that do execute prisoners.
Changing Trends
Politicians who opposed the death penalty tended to do so quietly in the past because they were afraid of being criticized by their more outspoken political opponents. Former New York Governor Mario Cuomo always opposed the death penalty, but was overshadowed by the constant criticism of criticized by Former President George Bush. Governor Pataki has threatened Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson with removal from office for not imposing capital punishment.
As the current presidential election draws nearer, however, many citizens are calling for a debate on capital punishment. A July editorial in the New York Times noted that a "strong and evidence-ridden" argument against the effectiveness of capital punishment, may be what Al Gore needs to defeat George W. Bush. Bush, as the Governor of Texas, has signed more death warrants and executed more inmates than any other governor in American history. This is the complete antithesis of his campaign theme of "compassion."
With support for capital punishment dwindling from all sides, it is only a matter of time before some major changes take place. It is important that US citizens educate themselves in order to become an active part in this process.
*Note: The author would like to thank Charles Culhane, co-instructor at UB's American Studies Department and organizer of Buffalo's Moratorium for his input in the article.
