Death Penalty Support still Strong among Americans

Gallup released a poll today that is a disappointment to all those who have a concern for human rights. With a margin of error of about 3 percent, the poll reports that nearly two-thirds of the population support the death penalty. Even more depressing, a large majority of those who support the death penalty think it is not administered often enough. These numbers are consistent with the results of other polls taken by Gallup since 2001.

Looking more deeply into the poll, there is still little cause for hopefulness. The death penalty is favored overwhelmingly by Republicans, but a majority of both Democrats and Independents also support its use. Over half the people believe that the death penalty is administered fairly in this country, despite the abundance of evidence that race is a major factor in the use of the sentence.

If there is a silver lining for those who oppose the death penalty, is that only a third of the respondents believe that the death penalty is a deterrent. Evidence clearly shows that it is not a deterrent. Perhaps as more people come to understand this fact, we will begin to see an erosion of support for the death penalty in the U.S.

Georgia's Death-Penalty Process Criticized by Justice Stevens

I don't have much time to post today, but I wanted to point people to an interesting article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

The Death Penalty for Crimes against Children

Among some supporters of the death penalty, there has been a call to expand the death penalty to crimes against children. Perhaps the most visible advocates have been Clint Eastwood and Angelina Jolie, who both spoke out in support of expanding the death penalty to include child abductions, rape and other horrific crimes against minors. These ideas don't reside only in Hollywood, however. Recently, Detroit City Council President Monica Conyers made the news when she called for the death penalty for anyone who killed a child.

The idea that crimes against children deserve a more harsh punishment is appealing on many levels. Jolie sums up the argument made most often: If it was my kid, "I'd want to go after" the killers. The rage we feel against those who perpetrate crimes against children is understandable. However, the revenge motive is not a motive for justice, and it does nothing to protect children. Putting someone to death for a crime against a child does not provide a deterrent, and the idea that getting the perpetrator off the street is served just as well by a life sentence as by a death sentence. We need to vigorously resist all calls to expand the death penalty, even in such emotional cases as crimes against children. Instead, we need to work on abolishing the death penalty while finding ways to reduce violence in our communities. That is the real way to keep children safe.

4th Circuit to consider Virginia's use of lethal injection

Virginia and its death-row inmates are back in the news today. Christopher Scott Emmett and his attorneys will argue in front of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals that Virginia's use of lethal injection poses a "substantial risk" of harm and is thus banned under the constitution. This is the first challenge to lethal injection since the Baze v. Rees decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that ruled lethal injection was not cruel and unusual punishment when administered under certain guidelines. Emmett's attorneys think Virginia's methods differ enough from what the Supreme Court allowed that they challenged this ruling.

Emmett and his attorneys are also arguing that the Virginia officials who administer the injections “have performed incompetently,” and they further argue that Virginia administers too little of the first drug and thus inmates may not be truly unconscious. They further propose that a single-drug alternative be considered for executions. They are asking that the Circuit Court send these issues back to a lower court to rule on them.

It seems unlikely that the 4th Circuit will have much sympathy with these arguments, and as long as the Supreme Court says that lethal injection is not cruel or unusual, these executions will continue.

Update

The State Attorney General's office is indicating that they would be open to considering the single-drug, single-injection method indicated above.

Supreme Court Stays Execution in Virginia

Today the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to stay the execution of Edward Nathaniel Bell while they review the claim that his lawyers did a poor job of representing him during the sentencing stage of his trial. In Virginia, there are two stages to a trial. The first determines guilt or innocence and the second determines the sentence in a guilty verdict is returned. During the second phase, prosecutors can introduce evidence that would tend toward a stiffer sentence--in this case, death--while the defense can introduce mitigating evidence.

Lawyers for Bell did not submit any evidence on his behalf, even though they had a psychologist review him. His new lawyers are claiming that this failure to offer mitigating evidence about his childhood and environment was prejudicial to the jury determining his sentence. As one jury member said, "[The jury was] looking for something mitigating, some reason not to sentence him to death, but . . . [we] were given nothing by his lawyers." The supreme court is reviewing whether or not the 4th Circuit Court was correct in rejecting this claim (Bell's petition to the Supreme Court is here).

Virginia has executed 98 people since the death penalty was re-instated in 1976. They have executed more people than every other state except Texas. We should urge Governor Tim Kaine to commute Bell's sentence to life in prison since there is every reason to believe that the jury would have done so had the evidence been presented.