Next week, the Illinois State House is slated to vote on SB 3539 which now contains a House amendment from Rep Karen Yarbrough (D) which repeals Illinois' death penalty. The bill would then have to go back to the Senate, and then to Gov. Pat Quinn (D) who has not yet announced whether he would veto it.
Illinois has not executed anyone since Governor George Ryan (R) halted executions (and famously commuted all death row inmates at the time to life in prison) back in 2000. His successors in office have maintained the executive branch ban on executions, but since the law is still on the books, prosecutors have still sought, and juries have still imposed the death penalty. While the status quo is better than the State actively imposing capital punishment, in another sense it is the worst of both worlds, as in addition to still being prone to the issues I discussed here, Illinois also has to bear the costs of keeping people on Death Row and the necessary appeals as no convict can be sure the next Governor won't overturn the ban.
Nobody seems very sure whether the bill can pass though it appears to have the votes in the House, and with Democratic majority in the Senate and Illinois being a No-filibuster, majority rule state, it is at least possible. If you're interested in helping out, the Illinois Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty is having a lobby day on January 4th to try and push legislators to pass the repeal. It would be a significant liberal victory to have the fifth largest state make its de facto repeal permanent. Even having the vote is some kind of progress, indicating the issue is alive and on the agenda.
Forgive my late comment on it, but in early November, PBS' Frontline did a fantastic program titled The Confessions. If you haven't heard about the case (I hadn't), I'd really recommend watching or listening to the program, but to boil it down as short as possible, a woman named Michelle Moore-Bosko was raped and murdered in her Virginia apartment in 1997, and through a series of bad police and prosecutorial decisions, seven US sailors were wrongly dragged into it, and four were ultimately convicted on rape or murder charges and imprisoned by Virginia. They were eventually freed on a partial clemency by Governor Tim Kaine in 2009, having spent most of 12 years in prison.
All this happened despite the eventual (but still timely enough) confession of acting alone by a known sexually violent man who had no association with the accused sailors, and had the only DNA from the crime scene. The first sailor was implicated just by the random suspicious comment of someone in Michelle's building (where he also lived) during initial police canvassing and after he was induced to (falsely) confess by sheer psychological wear-down, one by one additional sailors were pulled in as each would be brought in, grilled for extended times by one detective with a long record of extracting confessions, and when their DNA did not actually match the crime scene, they were coerced to name additional people involved and re-state their confessions to match a growing list of suspects, which ultimately reached 8. The case took numerous absurd twists and turns and really the program does an excellent job showing how the State's case against the seven (three never convicted) strained credulity by the end, despite the confessions.
PBS covers many aspects of this preposterous travesty of justice, because it is obvious that many flaws in the criminal justice system aligned to create such a massive error. There is no monocausal explanation, a bad cop, bad prosecutors, bad supervisors, bad Judges and sloppy defence lawyers all played significant parts in the result, but if I had to name the factor which, if absent, would have prevented the outcome while still leading to the eventual conviction of the actual murderer, it is the Death Penalty.
That's how Lawrence O'Donnell pitched this segment on his special show yesterday. And it makes a fair amount of sense. California Democrats have some pretty strong younger statewide candidates, and Kamala Harris is definitely a stand-out:
But here's the thing O'Donnell didn't look at that I think he should have: the rather blatant hypocritical record of death penalty politics in California. Specifically, in 1986, an avalanche of conservative business interest poured money into the state to remove Chief Justice Rose Bird from the bench, along with associate justices Cruz Reynoso and Joseph Grodin. The campaigns against them were based on their rulings against the death penalty... but it was almost six years after that before the first execution in California, and there have only been thirteen California executions altogether since then.
This a far cry from Texas, where they execute people by the truckload. There is no great bloodlust here in California on a regular basis, but it can be drummed up, with enough money, when the need arises. Afterward, however, no one at all seems to have any interest in try to sustain it. It's about as transparently phoney as death penalty politics gets anywhere in the US.
And that's what Karl Rove is trying to use in this race.
On March 4, Houston District Judge Kevin Fine granted a pretrial motion in a capital case and declared the death penalty in Texas unconstitutional. Judge Fine said the state's law violates a defendant's right to due process because of the risk of executing an innocent person. The judge based his ruling on studies around the country and in Texas that indicated, "it can only be concluded that innocent people have been executed....Are you willing to have your brother, your father, your mother be the sacrificial lamb, to be the innocent person executed so that we can have a death penalty so that we can execute those who are deserving of the death penalty?" Green's defense attorneys were pleased with the judge's decision, although they believe the ruling will be appealed and probably reversed. Sandra Guerra Thompson, professor at the University of Houston Law Center, said trial judges sometimes issue rulings that are unlikely to stand up on appeal to start a dialogue in the judicial branch. While Texas has consistently led the nation in annual executions, the state has followed a nationwide trend with a decline in new death sentences in 2009.
Christian Hate Group Kill Mary Magdalene 'Repent Amarillo' Terrorizes Texas Town, Harassing Gays, Liberals, And Other 'Sinners'
An evangelical Christian hate group called "Repent Amarillo" is reportedly terrorizing the town of Amarillo, Texas. Repent fashions itself as a sort of militia and targets a wide range of community members they deem offensive to their theology: gays, liberal Christians, Muslims, environmentalists, breast cancer events that do not highlight abortion, Halloween, "spring break events," and pornography shops. On its website, Repent has posted a "Warfare Map" of its enemies in town.
Calling Repent an "American Taliban," blogger Charles Johnson notes that the group's moniker "Army of God" is a rough translation of "Hezbollah." Led by a man named David Grisham, a security guard at a nuclear-bomb facility called Pantex, Repent first gained media attention in Texas following a campaign to boycott Houston for electing a gay mayor. The group, which is associated with Raven Ministries, collaborates with other Christian groups as well as forced pregnancy advocacy associations like "Bound 4 Life."
According to a new exposé by the Texas Observer, Repent set out earlier this year to destroy a discreet club of swingers they discovered in town. On New Years eve, the harassment began, with Repent members, almost exclusively young men, showing up in military fatigues and bullhorns, blaring Christian music at the swingers' club building. The swingers, made up of "regulars" of middle aged, working class couples, were then stalked at every following visit to the club. Repent not only took video of each member, but obtained the swingers' license plates and dug through their trash, informing neighbors and coworkers of what was once private.
America was outraged in 2007 when pets started dropping dead from melamine-tainted pet food exported from China. Last year, China was even more outraged when melamine-tainted milk killed six children and sickened 300,000, some experiencing acute kidney failure.
Acute kidney failure means a lifetime of dialysis without an organ transplant. Either way, that's a lifetime of serious and expensive medical issues to drop on a baby and their family, for the rest of what will probably be their much shorter lives.
Two managers identified as particularly responsible for continuing to distribute milk they knew was contaminated have now been executed and several others have been jailed, including the former chair of the offending corporation, who has been given a life sentence.
Those who support Progressive causes are in an odd position these days: we're often in the majority on issues that matter; and we're seriously talking about how to turn what, just a few years ago, was a wish list...into a "reality list".
Staying in the majority, however, requires the assistance of centrist voters--and that means, from time to time, finding philosophical compromise with voters we'd like to keep "in the fold".
In years past, the issue of the death penalty has created a considerable chasm between Progressives and centrists; with the one side concerned about the misapplication of capital punishment, and the other convinced that, for the most heinous of crimes, the only way to achieve a truly just outcome is for the guilty party to face the most severe of punishments.
What if we could bridge that gap?
In today's discussion we propose to do exactly that: to create a death penalty process that only executes those who are truly guilty and excludes those who might not deserve to be put to death...in fact, those who might not be guilty of any crime at all.
The near-simultaneous announcements of Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court, and the California Supreme Court's upholding of Proposition 8 serve to starkly underscore the significance of hegemonic warfare in the judicial branch of government. The swift eruption of rightwing talking points attacking Sotomayor was entirely expected, and quite predictable, as seen in the examples cited by Chris. But the hegemonic story behind the Prop 8 decision is a little more obscure.
As we've just heard that Judge Sonia Sotomayor has been appointed to the Supreme Court, I am reminded of just how important the "counter-majoritarian branch" really is. With the looming Prop 8 decision expected in just a few hours at 10AM, it can never be said that policy does not emerge from the judiciary. Not matter how the court decides on Prop 8, the California Supreme Court is clearly making policy when it determines whether I am married or not. There is no such thing as merely being an arbitrator, there are always shades of gray, and the requirement for a judge to apply their judgment. After all, it is nearly impossible for one to stand in judgment without, um, judgment....
But here in California, policy is made all of the time in the courts, primarily because our elected leaders have been hamstrung by a disastrous structure of government but also by years of failed leadership on issues like the prison system. Years of the failed ToughOnCrimeTM policy and the unwillingness to put policy over politics left us with an absolute mess. Judge Thelton Henderson, a prominent NorCal district court judge, has consistently made more policy for our state prison system than the elected leaders....
The courts are there to protect those who need protection. The courts are there to block the tyranny of the majority. Hopefully we'll see that today.
Of course, we didn't see that. What we saw, instead, was a form of stealth activism--judges actively destroying California's constitutional distinction between a constitutional amendment (which is subject to majority rule) and a constitutional revision (which is not). That activism, in turn, descends directly from 1986 corporate-funded judicial recall election, in which 3 Jerry Brown appointees were voted out of office under the banner of rolling back judicial activism against the death penalty. After they were ousted, California swiftly reinstated executions... six years later, in 1992
This week, Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico signed legislation repealing the death penalty, replacing it with life in prison without the possibility of parole. Governor Richardson based his decision on a lack of "confidence in the criminal justice system as it currently operates" and the very real possibility of wrongfully convicting and executing an innocent person. By repealing the death penalty, Governor Richardson's action this week eliminates the risk of New Mexico ever executing an innocent person. Governor Richardson should be commended for taking this action.
The question now is whether Governor Richardson will take the necessary steps to eliminate the causes that lead to wrongful convictions. While I agree that life without parole gives New Mexico the opportunity to correct mistakes when wrongful convictions occur, I am concerned about the very real risk that innocent people will be wrongfully convicted and now sentenced to life without parole in New Mexico.
I commend Governor Richardson for his recognition that New Mexico's criminal justice system is "inherently defective." The Governor recognizes the systemic problems that have led to wrongful convictions in New Mexico stating, "[e]vidence, including DNA evidence, can be manipulated. Prosecutors can still abuse their powers. We cannot ensure competent defense counsel for all defendants." Repealing the death penalty can prevent these systemic problems from leading to the execution of an innocent person. The next step is to prevent these errors from happening and sending an innocent person to prison.
From David Kaib's quick hit we learn the good news that New Mexico's legislature has passed a bill banning capital punishment, which now awaits Governor Bill Richardson's decision to sign or veto.
This is of course a postive step, and I'm hopeful that with his Presidential and Cabinet ambitions most likely doomed, due to his looming legal problems, that Richardson will (perhaps akin to former Illinois Gov. George Ryan) have a change of heart and sign the bill. New Mexico isn't alone, as several other states have death penalty repeals that have some level of legislative action beyond introduction.
However, the unfortunate aspect to this, is that it is all happening as a cost saving measure rather than from any decisive turn against the morality of the death penalty. In fact, capital punishment still polls very strongly in America, much stronger than in most other comparable wealthy democracies. In the 2006 GSS, the death penalty for murder was supported by even a bare majority of self identified liberals. So it's clear death penalty opponents have a lot of work to do to turn this around. Inside, I'm going to try and make a philisophical case against the death penalty. It's not wrong just because it's inefficient or expensive, it is fundamentally unjust and immoral.
Laughing Liberally To Keep From Crying
by Katie Halper On Thanksgiving, The Dallas Cowboys beat the Seattle Seahawks 34 to 9. And the day before, when Bush spared two innocent lives, he achieved his own victory of 16 to 1. When Bush pardoned Pumpkin AND Pecan, who were about to meet the same fate as the turkeys televised behind Sarah Palin, he could boast of having 16 presidential poultry pardons under his belt. But Bush has also compassionately conserved human life, once. During his six-year governorship and eight-year presidency, Bush has pardoned one death row inmate, denied clemency over 50 times, and signed death warrants for 155 people, many of whom were innocent, mentally retarded, juveniles, recipients of unfair trials, and/or represented by incompetent and often narcoleptic lawyers.
By Natasha Minsker, Death Penalty Policy Director, ACLU of Northern California
A panel of experts, including 10 law enforcement officers and prosecutors, unanimously agrees that California's death penalty is utterly broken. To fix it, we'll need to spend over $200 million per year. The current failed system already costs over $137 million more each year than our alternative of permanent imprisonment. Today's report forces all Californians to ask: how much we are willing to pay for our death penalty when we have an alternative that punishes criminals and protects our communities without making us bankrupt?
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First, if we decide that we simply can't part with a system that we now know drains critical resources from public safety budgets, puts innocent lives at risk, harms murder victim family members, and is applied unfairly, then we need to commit to spending over $200 million in tax dollars every year to make the system operational on the most basic levels.
The Commission estimates that in order to make the system function, we would have to spend nearly $100 million more each year to pay for more prosecution and defense lawyers, and more court staff to handle the enormous volume of death penalty cases and appeals. When you add that to the money we already spend, it totals $217 million a year. On top of that, the State Auditor recently concluded that it will cost almost $400 million to build a new death row housing facility at San Quentin, on ground that is literally sinking into the sea.
Considering California's fiscal crisis, spending all of this money is not only unlikely, it's impossible.
And none of these proposed reforms would adequately address one of the most troubling flaws in California's death penalty, the racial and geographic disparities that call the very fairness and justice of the system into question. Despite evidence and testimony from several researchers indicating that race and place play a significant role in determining who lives and who dies, proposed reforms to address these issues are noticeably lacking from the Commission's report. Reforms that would begin to address those flaws would certainly cost more.
Our second option, according to the Commission, is to acknowledge that we have the most extreme death penalty statute in the country, resulting in an insupportably large death row population, and that we can't afford a system this big and bloated.
We all agree that we want a criminal justice system that delivers justice fairly. The overwhelming demands of our current death penalty system, however, overburden courts, lawyers and public safety officials at every level, jeopardizing the foundations of our justice system. The Commission suggests that we could limit the number of crimes eligible for the death penalty in order to ease some of the burden. This would still cost more than $100 million a year, depending on how much smaller we make the "smaller death penalty."
While both of these options provide a healthy dose of reality about how large and unmanageable our death penalty is, the Commission report also highlights the fact that we already pay many millions of dollars on the current failed death penalty, and that a cheaper, more effective system is not only feasible, it's already in place.
Few people realize that condemning someone to permanent imprisonment costs California taxpayers millions of dollars less than sentencing him or her to death. We have had the option of permanent imprisonment for as long as we have had the death penalty, and it's proven itself to be a more functional system that serves as a severe, but cost effective, punishment.
Which brings us to our third option, according to the Commission: replace the death penalty with permanent imprisonment until death, and save millions of dollars for public safety programs that actually work to punish criminals, protect the public and help victims. This would cost us less than $12 million, a savings of more than $200 million a year over option one.
The Commission does not come out and officially endorse this or any other option. In some sense, that's a cop out. On the other hand, the Commission puts the decision right where it should be: in the hand of the voters. It's time for those of us who are writing the checks to fund the system if to ask if it's really worth the price.
Here are the top stories in criminal justice reform, taken from the Justice Newsladder.
Nine DNA exonerees told their stories at the Texas state Capitol last week, underscoring the state's need for an innocence commission; Texas has had 33 DNA exonerations, more than any other state, and yet Dallas County is the only one of Texas's 254 counties that stores biological evidence in all criminal cases. (dallasnews.com)
Amnesty International reported yesterday that China is the world's top executioner. From ITN News in the UK:
But as with everything else in life, there are unseen ties that link China's use of the death penalty with the United States' use of torture in conducting the "war on terror".
With all the debates going on, don't you sometimes wish that you could argue with the candidates yourself? Thanks to modern technology, Lee Camp can. This week: he takes on Mike Huckabee.
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