|
|
News Commentary from 2006
- Archive
of News Commentary
See all CADP News Commentary links
and excerpts from the years 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003
| 2004
| 2005.
- About
Broken Links
- Oregon
Paper Calls Death Penalty a "Pointless
Law"
The Albany Democrat-Herald in Oregon
recently editorialized that the "death
penalty isn't working," and concluded "that
the death penalty here is a pointless law.
If we’re not going to apply this
law, then getting rid of it would be the
less expensive course." The editorial
cited the possibility of error, the arbitrariness
of applying the punishment to some dangerous
offenders but not others, and the difficulty
of ever getting to an execution as reasons
for ending capital punishment.
(12/18/06, DPIC Update)
- DPIC
Annual Report Notes Death Penalty Decline
The Death Penalty Information Center
(DPIC) 12th annual Year End Report was
released on December 14 and reveals a
broad decline in the use of the death
penalty in the U.S. based on a number
of factors: the public now favors life
without parole over the death penalty;
the number of executions has dropped
to the fewest in a decade, in part because
of challenges to the lethal injection
process; and the annual number of death
sentences is now at a 30-year low. (12/18/06, DPIC Update)
- Texas
Editorials Call for Independent Investigation
of Possible Wrongful Execution
Two of Texas's main newspapers have called for an independent investigation into
the case of Ruben Cantu, who was executed in Texas in 1993. New evidence revealed
in the Houston Chronicle earlier in the year has thrown considerable doubt on
the guilt of Cantu. (9/11/06, DPIC Update)
- Capital
Punishment, 30 Years On: Support and
Ambivalence
Thirty years after the Supreme Court
reinstated the death penalty, most Americans
continue to support capital punishment in
principle - but not necessarily in preference,
given the alternative of mandatory life.
Sixty-five percent in an ABC News/Washington
Post poll support the death penalty for people
convicted of murder. But given life in prison
without parole as an alternative, preference
for the death penalty drops sharply, to 50
percent. ... Compared with an ABC/Post poll
10 years ago, support for the death penalty
is 12 points lower - 77 percent then, 65
percent now. That change has occurred dramatically
among young adults, age 18 to 30 - a 32-point
drop in their support for the death penalty
over the last decade, from 80 percent then
to 48 percent now. The change among older
adults has been much smaller, six points. See
full poll and results (PDF). (8/29/06,
ABC.com)
- Society
Should End this System...Put Murderers
Away for Life
In a recent editorial, the Delaware News Journal concluded that the uncertainties
and delays of the death penalty favor ending the system and replacing it with
a sentence of life without parole. Such a system would better serve victims and
their families, and bring swifter justice. (8/7/06, DPIC Update)
- Death
Penalty Remains Arbitrary
The same week Americans enjoy the 230th birthday of the Declaration of Independence,
they might also consider the meaning of another, less celebratory, anniversary.
Thirty years ago, on July 2, 1976, a divided US Supreme Court upheld Georgia,
Florida, and Texas laws that promised an end to the arbitrariness and discrimination
that had rendered capital punishment unconstitutional four years earlier. After
the Supreme Court's decision, the 38 states using the death penalty have employed
different criteria to measure aggravating and mitigating circumstances. However,
all empower juries to use such a formula to decide who deserves death and who
does not. After 30 years, it is time to evaluate the impact of the laws. (7/10/06, DPIC Update)
- Former Publisher of the Chicago Tribune
Calls for End to Executions
The criminal justice
system is too deeply flawed to entrust
with the decision to kill a particular
person in order to make a point (for that
is what deterrence and retribution come
down to). Odd then that people who believe
in the free market because government cannot
make the right decision about how to allocate
resources don't all rally to the abolitionist
cause. ... Peculiar that the Republicans
who wanted to privatize Social Security to
save it from bureaucrats and politicians
are eager to let government agents in the
form of police, prosecutors, judges and juries
decide in the face of profound factual
and moral ambiguity that this one should
die while that one should live. (7/10/06, DPIC Update)
- Deepak
Chopra Writes About the Death Penalty
Under what possible moral scheme can a civilized country consider this anything
but barbaric? Our prisons are called penitentiaries (from the root word 'penance')
because over two hundred years ago it was felt that an enlightened society must
move beyond Old Testament revenge for wrong-doing. Now we have slipped back across
that moral boundary, and the saddest thing, in this boom time for building more
prisons, locking away more non-violent criminals, and handing down maximum sentences,
is that we have learned to condone cruelty almost as if it didn't exist. As if
it was a good thing. (7/10/06, DPIC Update)
- The
Failed Experiment
Hardly any other civilized place does this anymore. In the past three decades,
the number of nations that have abolished the death penalty has risen from 16
to 86. Last year four countries accounted for nearly all executions worldwide:
China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United States. ... The question isn't whether
executions can be made painless: it's whether they're wrong. Everything else
is just quibbling. And most of the quibbling simply boils down to trying to make
the wrong seem right. (6/26/2006, Newsweek. News commentary by Anna Quindlen)
- No
Death, But Life Sentence for Moussaoui
If America had killed him, he would have
been a martyr, a potent recruiting tool
for terrorists. By refusing to bestow
martyrdom on Moussaoui, the jurors in
Virginia have made a critical advance
in the "war" on terrorism.
They've ratified the moral imperative
of non-violent justice.
(5/4/06, Editorial by The Daily Camera)
- Death
of Martyrdom: Though Tempting, Moussaoui
Execution Isn't the Answer
This
page has long opposed the death penalty.
But the nature of Moussaoui's allies makes
the pursuit of the death penalty here particularly
senseless. If the American government kills
him, he will be a martyr, a rallying point
for other terrorists. If the fight against
terrorism is indeed a "war" that
we truly hope to "win," the
Moussaoui trial shows, again, that we are
very far astray. Will more killing, even
under the imprimatur of the state, shorten
or lengthen the war? His death will not
slake their thirst for blood. But his lifelong
incarceration would kill the dream of martyrdom.
(4/14/06, Editorial by The Daily Camera)
- The Myth of Closure
What's the empirical basis for the
government assumption that all, or even
most victims of terrible tragedy will find "closure" through
protracted trials and executions? ... Schieber
testified that a single-minded government
focus on executions shifts the focus away
from other, more meaningful legal reforms
that might better honor victims and support
their families. This jibes with Henderson's
empirical data, which suggests that more
than anything - maybe
even executions - the families of
tragedy victims ultimately need answers.
They need to know "why." Perhaps
it's no accident, then, that so many of
the 9/11 families who are avidly following
the Moussaoui trial say they are not doing
so in the hopes of a death sentence.
(4/2/06, The Daily
Camera. News commentary by Dahlia Lithwick.)
- The
Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account
of Wrongful Executions
The
book
contains
the stories
of two
men I believe to be innocent who were executed
and whom I accompanied to their deaths. The
stories are going to break your heart. Then
there's the story of the Supreme Court and
the appeals courts which deny constitutional
rights and rubber stamp death sentences without
ever allowing a fresh hearing of the evidence.
I encountered Justice Antonin Scalia in the
New Orleans airport (would you believe he
goes duck hunting with my brother Louie in
Louisiana?). My encounter with him opens
the chapter entitled "The Machinery
of Death." The last chapter is called "The
Death of Innocence" and tells stories
of jurors and prosecutors and judges and
wardens and politicians who get tainted and
corrupted by the death penalty. In the end,
with government killings snaring both innocent
and guilty alike, we all lose our innocence.
My hope is that this book will help us bring
about the end of the death penalty. (http://www.deathofinnocents.net/) Order
book from Amazon.com (and benefit CADP)
News | National
News | World News
|
|
|
|
|