Reading the news accounts of the State of Georgia’s
execution last evening of Troy Davis (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/22/backers-of-troy-davis-put_n_976809.html) reminded me of a similar story, chronicled
so brilliantly by author Thomas Cahill in his 2009 book A Saint on Death Row. The
similarities in the two cases are amazing:
-
Persistent and unwavering claims of innocence by
the executed
-
The recanting of testimony by multiple key
witnesses casting doubt on the original verdict
-
A long, drawn out appeals process with failed
last minute pleas to the U.S. Supreme Court and the President
-
International support for clemency, including
Desmond Tutu in the Dominique Green case and Pope Benedict XVI in the Troy
Davis case
Capital punishment, in my opinion, certainly qualifies as
cruel and unusual punishment and should be abandoned. State sanctioned killing is still
killing. The following is an article I
wrote in July of 2009 on this topic and was published in LamLight, the
physician newsletter for the Lynchburg Academy of Medicine.
A Capital Conundrum: Considering the Death Penalty
(Books reviewed or mentioned in this article include: A Saint on Death Row: The Story of Dominique Green by Thomas
Cahill, Ultimate Punishment: A Lawyer’s Reflection on Dealing with the
Death Penalty by Scott Turow, Postmortem
by Patricia Cornwell, The Executioner’s
Song by Norman Mailer and The Green
Mile by Stephen King.)
Capital punishment is an issue which I have struggled with
personally over the years. As a college
student in the early seventies, I was ardently opposed to it. My years at the Medical College of Virginia,
however hardened me to the fate of the capital felon. Two incidents in particular helped change mu
opinion. The first was my brief
encounter with one of the infamous Briley brothers. The three Briley brothers and several accomplices
terrorized Richmond, Virginia in 1979, committing incomprehensible crimes in a
robbery, kidnapping, rape and murder spree which lasted seven months. They were finally apprehended, tried,
convicted and the older two Briley brothers (Linwood and J.B.) were sentenced
to die. In 1984 Linwood and J.B.
coordinated a six-convict escape from the Mecklenburg maximum security prison
in Boydton and were recaptured in Philadelphia and executed the same year. I had occasion to treat one of the Brileys
(as a prisoner) in the Emergency Department at M.C.V. and remember him as eerily
quiet with a menacing presence. I felt I
had come face-to-face with pure evil. I made
sure that plenty of security personnel were with me when I went into the
treatment room. Thankfully I’ve never
had another experience like that one. I
recently had the occasion to talk to the now-retired Richmond detective who arrested
members of the Briley gang. He told me, “When
you looked in their eyes there was nothing there.”
The second event happened in 1987. I was in private practice of Plastic Surgery
in Richmond by then, but was still an associate clinical professor at
M.C.V. I picked up the “Richmond
Times-Dispatch: on my front porch one morning and was shocked to see on the
front page that a neurosurgery resident had been murdered in her home off of
Semmes Avenue in South Richmond. I had
known this young surgeon since medical school days (she was one year behind me)
and she had been a surgical intern when I was a junior surgical resident. My wife knew her at Douglas Freeman High
School and we had been guests in her home.
Needless to say, we were shocked beyond anything words could
express. This young lady was a brilliant
and talented surgeon and a wonderful person.
She was the third victim (out of an eventual five) of serial killer
Timothy Spencer, dubbed “The Southside Strangler.” He was eventually apprehended, convicted and
sentenced to death. He was executed in
1994. As an interesting aside, the
Timothy Spencer trial was the first time in which DNA evidence was used to
convict in a capital case. “The
Southside Strangler” was also the basis for Patricia Cornwell’s first crime
book, Postmortem, which was published
in 1990. The other interesting twist to
the Timothy Spencer case is that he committed his first murder in Arlington, Virginia,
four years before the killing spree in Richmond. Another man had been convicted for that
murder and was incarcerated for five years before DNA evidence proved that the
killer was Timothy Spencer.
During the past two decades, debate over the death penalty
has, like many other moral and ethical conundrums, become polarizing and
politicized. A candidate for public office
who is against the death penalty is branded as “soft on crime” while one who
favors it is often seen as heartless or harsh. Our own Governor Kaine had to answer this
question repeatedly during the last election because his church (Roman
Catholic) opposes the death penalty. He
deftly answered that he would be elected to uphold the laws of the Commonwealth
and would do so despite personal and religious objections to capital
punishment.
The U.S. Supreme Court has waffled on this issue as
well. In 1972 the Court declared in
Furman v. Georgia that the death penalty constituted cruel and unusual
punishment and was therefore unconstitutional.
This decision overturned all existing death penalty laws and
sentences. In 1976 the Court reversed
itself in Gregg v. Georgia. The first
execution in ten years occurred in January 1977 when Gary Gilmore was killed by
firing squad in Utah (a story made infamous by Norman Mailer in The Executioner’s Song, which won the
Pulitzer Prize in 1980.) There have been
many opinions since which further define what constitutes a capital crime and
some restrictions have been placed.
My personal opinion has now gone full circle. I feel that capital punishment is wrong. The two books I am about to review defend
that position. The most important
concept which helped me reach my current opinion of the death penalty, though,
is the principle preached by the late Catholic Cardinal of Chicago, Joseph
Cardinal Bernardin. Cardinal Bernardin
taught a “consistent ethic of life.” The
three main ethical issues confronting society in this arena are abortion,
euthanasia and capital punishment.
Cardinal Bernardin contended that a person should support life “across
the board” and it was inconsistent to be anti-abortion, anti-euthanasia and
pro-capital punishment, for instance.
You can’t pick and choose. Human
life is sacred and should be defended in each of these arenas. My purpose in still reading and deliberating
on this subject were very well put by Scott Turow in Ultimate Punishment. In
describing why he accepted a position on Illinois Governor Ryan’s Special
Commission to Study the Death Penalty, he stated: “I did not hesitate when asked
if I would like to be considered (for a spot on the Commission.) It was important work and would offer me the
chance to systematically contemplate an issue thag had long divided me against
myself.”
Thomas Cahill is a Fordham University-educated philosopher and
historian and has been the director of religious publications for Doubleday
Publishing. He has written five
wonderful books in a series he calls “The Hinges of History” (The Gift of the Jews, How the Irish Saved
Civilization, Desire of the Everlasting Hills, Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea and
Mysteries of the Middle Ages) as well
as a tour guide book to Ireland and a biography of Pope John XXIII. His
most recent book is A Saint on Death Row:
The Story of Dominique Green.
Dominique Green was a young black man convicted in Texas of
murder in the commission of a felony (robbery) and sentenced to death. The author details the harrowing childhood
that Dominique experienced. His mother
was drug-addicted, his father was mostly absent and always abusive and he lived
in abject poverty. He was physically
abused by his mother (burning his hands with cigarettes was standard
punishment) and sexually abused by a family member and subsequently by a clergyman
at a private school. By ten years old,
Dominique was involved in drug trafficking in Houston, mainly to have money to
buy food for his younger siblings. By
sixteen he already had had many brushes with the law. When Dominique was eighteen he and three
accomplices attempted to rob a truck driver.
The driver pulled out a knife in self-defense and in the ensuing scuffle,
one shot was fired and the driver was killed.
The only independent eye witness to the crime could not identify which
of the four boys shot the driver. One of
the four involved (the only white one) identified Dominique as the
shooter. Incidentally, the white teen
was the only one of the four robbers never charged with anything. There were no African-Americans on Dominique’s
jury and his court-appointed lawyer had no experience in capital trials. He was convicted of capital murder. His appeals were denied repeatedly.
Dominique’s time in prison was truly incredible. He became self-educated, wrote poetry, read
voraciously and was inspired by Desmond Tutu’s book No Future Without Forgiveness. This
book helped Dominique overcome his self-hatred.
He used the lessons in this book to help other inmates confront their
own actions and accept responsibility for what they had done. He became the focal point for an anti-capital
punishment campaign waged by the Italian Community of Sant’Egidio, a group
which works for social justice causes.
The apex of Dominique’s death row years came in March, 2004. Thomas Cahill was able to arrange for Desmond
Tutu to visit Dominique at the prison in Huntsville, Texas. That visit was apparently inspirational for
all involved. After leaving the prison,
Desmond Tutu was interviewed by the press and said: “I was very humbled to be
in his presence, because I felt I was in the presence of God. This is not the monster that many would
expect or think, but a human being, a human being who has grown… I’m glad I came. I come away deeply enriched from my encounter
with an extraordinary man.” On the issue
of capital punishment he said that “it is not a deterrent. I think that it is an obscenity which
brutalizes. As a believer, I find it the
ultimate giving up, because our faith is a faith of ever new beginnings. If you execute them, you say ‘I close the
possibility of them ever being able to repent or change.’” Tutu made it a point to shake the hand of every
prison guard. He stated: “They were some
lovely people, but I just wonder what effect working in that environment can have
on people. It’s so destroying – for everyone
there.” This is a theme which Stephen
King developed very well in his novel The
Green Mile. Towards the end of this
short but incredibly moving book, Thomas Cahill states that the question is not
whether or not Dominique was guilty. He
very well may have been. The question in
this author’s mind is: Did Dominique
Green receive a fair trial? He deftly
describes the flaws in the case. Each of
these flaws is generically described in Scott Turow’s book The Ultimate Punishment.
The state relied on testimony from an accomplice. This was an accomplice that had a tremendous
amount to gain by providing this testimony (his own freedom.) Dominique did not receive adequate representation. His original jury had no
African-Americans. His appeals were not
handled in a proper fashion because he did not have the money to hire
appropriate attorneys. By the time he
was being helped by the Community of Sant’Egidio too much time had passed. There was zeal on the part of the prosecutor
to convict Dominique, in part, because he was involved in a tough re-election
campaign. Thomas Cahill wrote notes
after his first meeting with Dominique Green.
In those he wrote: “Dominique is where he is for two reasons only: he is
poor and he is black.” Dominique Green
was executed by lethal infection in 2004.
In Ultimate
Punishment: A Lawyer’s Reflections on Dealing with the Death Penalty Scott
Turow elaborates on what he feels is wrong with the current capital punishment
system. First and foremost, he points
out the number of convicted capital felons who have subsequently been found to
be innocent. Since 1976, for every seven
executions (486 in total) one person on death row has been proven
innocent. Turow says: “But when it comes
to an institution as idealized as justice, I doubt most Americans are comfortable
with the trade. For the majority of us,
the prospect of executing someone who is blameless casts a special pall over
the death penalty. The fact that capital
cases are uniquely prone to error calls either for safeguards we have yet to
institutionalize – or even fully conceive of – or for renewed reflection about
whether to proceed with capital punishment at all.”
Secondly, Turow raises the issue of whether the state should
be allowed to kill its citizens under any circumstance. Historically this has obviously been misused
by many governments. Thirdly, Turow
addresses the rights and wishes of the victim’s families. It is assumed by many that execution of the
criminal “brings closure” or that the criminal deserves it (death). The Illinois Commission sought data to
support this premise, but found mostly just the opposite. Interviews with family members of the
Oklahoma City bombing after the execution of Timothy McVeigh gave quite mixed
opinions. Some family members felt that
the pain of losing a loved one was not affected by the execution of the perpetrator. There are actually some studies that show
that survivors only experience more emotional turbulence in the wake of an execution. The victim’s family in the Dominique Green
case actively worked to have his sentence commuted to life in prison.
Turow then dismisses the concept that the possibility of
execution can act as a deterrent to serious crime. The data clearly show that states with the
fewest executions have the lowest levels of capital crimes. There is no deterrent factor. Turow confronts the issue of racial
bias. The Illinois Commission hired a
research firm to establish the validity of the common opinion that racial bias
plays a role in the death penalty. Turow
writes: “There was indeed a race effect, it turned out, but not what popular
beliefs might suggest. Killing a white
person made a murderer three and a half times more likely to be punished with a
death sentence than if he’d killed someone black.” One of the justifications for the death
penalty is always that it is cheaper to go ahead and execute the prisoner than
keep hinm in prison for his entire natural life. The Illinois Commission also analyzed this
argument and found that if you factor in all of the costs associated with
mandatory appeals and court reviews, the cost of the death penalty is actually
greater than the cost of life imprisonment.
Finally Turow brings up the concept of “Moral Proportion.” That is, is it just for someone such as
Dominique Green, possibly guilty of an unplanned act of homicide, to receive
the same punishment as a John Wayne Gacy or a Richard Speck (premeditated serial
killers)? Is this justice?
There is an excellent seven-minute video at the web-site www.thomascahill.com which has interviews
with Thomas Cahill and Dominique Green and summarizes Cahill’s book quite
effectively. I suggest that you watch
it.
In writing this article it was not my intent to proselytize
or change anyone’s opinion. I think it
is important, however, to continuously examine our own opinions regarding moral
issues such as capital punishment. Those
of us that are physicians are often thrust into positions of community
leadership and, rightly or wrongly, our opinions on issues of life and death
are held in high regard. I hope that at
the very least I’ve given you reasons to think about the role of the death
penalty in a modern society. Both Cahill’s
A Saint on Death Row or Turow’s Ultimate Punishment are great places to
start this contemplative process.
No comments:
Post a Comment