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News Commentary Archive from 2008
- Archive
of News Commentary
See all CADP News Commentary links
and excerpts from the years 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003
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- About
Broken Links
- Police
Chief Says Death Penalty Hurting Public
Safety
Ray Samuels, a police officer for 33 years and Chief of Police in Newark, California,
for 5 years, recently expressed concern that state budget cuts will prevent important
crime-fighting measures from being passed, while an expensive death penalty continues
to drain the state's finances. (12/23/08, DPIC Update)
- Jesus on Death Row
Mark Osler, a former federal prosecutor
and present faculty member at a conservative
Christian law school in Texas, has written
Jesus on Death Row: The Trial of Jesus
and American Capital Punishment. The book
offers a comparison between the trial and
execution of Jesus and a capital case conducted
in the U.S. justice system. The use of
paid informants, conflicting testimony
of witnesses, and the denial of clemency
in both Jesus' case and in recent
cases in the U.S. are cited as examples
of existing parallels.
(12/8/08,
DPIC Update)
- Death Penalty Distorted Case
A recent editorial in The Journal Star
(Lincoln, Nebraska) expressed the paper's
shock at how the death penalty distorted
a state criminal investigation to the extent
that six innocent people were convicted
of a murder they did not commit. Defendants
were pressured to offer erroneous testimony
through the threat of facing the death
penalty. "The wrongful convictions
show how the death penalty can distort
the search for justice."
(11/13/08, Editorial by The Journal Star)
- Uncertainty
Should Not Lead to Troy Davis Execution
This is a rewrite. In the column originally
prepared for this space, I said that
Troy Davis was scheduled to die today
- to be killed, actually, by an executioner
for the state of Georgia. But - stop
the presses! - that's no longer accurate.
Today, Davis, 40, will still be alive.
Or at least, he won't be dead because
of anything the state did. That's because
on Friday, an appeals court granted him
a stay. If his next round of legal actions
is unsuccessful, Davis will once again
face death. This is Davis' third stay,
his third hairsbreadth escape from execution.
If there is any justice, it will be his
last. Meaning not that he will be killed,
but that he won't, that the state of
Georgia will finally come to its senses. (10/27/08,
The Camera. News commentary by Leonard
Pitts)
- Execution's Doorstep: True Stories of
the Innocent and Near Damned
In her new book, Execution's Doorstep:
The True Stories of the Innocent and Near
Damned, author Leslie Lytle provides a compelling
narrative recounting the harrowing journeys
of five innocent men who spent many years
on death row. Through extensive research
and interviews, Lytle has succeeded in revealing
the deep pain and suffering that such injustice
yields, putting a human face to the recurring
problem of innocence on death row. The book
explores all aspects of the cases, from the
crime and the trials to the time spent on
death row and the difficult struggle to adjust
to life outside of a maximum security prison.
Through the stories of these five men, Lytle
provides readers with a penetrating look
at America's criminal justice and capital
punishment systems, showing their fallibility.
(10/13/08, DPIC Update)
- Death
Row Realism: Do Executions Make Us Safer?
San Quentin's Former Warden Says
No
As the warden of
San Quentin, I presided over four executions.
After each one, someone on the staff would
ask, "Is the world safer because of
what we did tonight?" We knew the
answer: No.
... If we condemn the worst offenders,
like Massie, to permanent imprisonment,
resources now spent on the death penalty
could be used to investigate unsolved homicides,
modernize crime labs and expand effective
violence prevention programs, especially
in at-risk communities. The money also
could be used to intervene in the lives
of children at risk and to invest in their
education - to stop future victimization.
(10/6/08, DPIC Update.
News commentary by Jeanne Woodford)
- Compassion, Certainly, but Justice, Too,
for Troy Davis
The first time, Troy Davis came within
24 hours of death. The second time, he
came within two.
Last year, it was a Georgia clemency
board that stepped in to block his execution.
Last month, it was the Supreme Court. Davis,
the 39-year-old convicted killer of Mark
MacPhail, a Savannah, Ga. police officer,
was granted a stay to allow the court to
consider whether to hear his appeal for
a new trial. A decision is expected today.
... it is evidence of moral cowardice that
we countenance the ridiculous and the obscene
so complacently and complaisantly, never
daring to look too closely at what is happening
here because if we look we might accidentally "see," and
then, by God, we might be compelled to
act, to admit that capital punishment is
incompatible with justice.
(10/6/08, The Camera. News commentary by
Leonard Pitts)
- Troy
Davis' Fate Up To Supreme Court
Troy Anthony Davis was scheduled to
die by lethal injection Tuesday. Two
hours before the state of Georgia was
to execute him, the U.S.
Supreme Court issued a stay until
Monday. It had earlier agreed to hear
Davis' case on Sept. 29, but Georgia
set his execution date six days before
the hearing. ... The U.S. Supreme Court
will consider Monday whether it will
take on Davis' case. If it decides not
to, he will very likely be executed.
... There is no physical evidence in
the Troy Davis case. After the stay was
announced, Davis asked his mother to
have people pray for the MacPhail family,
and to keep working to dismantle this
unjust system. He told her he wouldn't
be fighting this hard for his life if
he were guilty. This is a case of reasonable
doubt. Troy Davis deserves a new trial.
(9/28/08, The Camera. News commentary
by Amy Goodman)
- COINTELPRO
Returns: My First-Hand Experience with
Government Spies
I have been a target of state police surveillance for activities -- in my case
against the death penalty -- that were legal, non-violent, and, so we assumed,
constitutionally protected.
(7/21/08. AlterNet)
- Estimates of Wrongful Convictions by
Those Involved in the System
Researchers Marvin Zalman, Brad Smith, and
Angie Kiger of Wayne State University's Criminal
Justice Department recently published a study
in the Justice Quarterly on the frequency
of wrongful convictions. (7/21/08, DPIC Update)
- Experts from Both Sides Say Data Does
Not Support a Deterrent Effect from the
Death Penalty
Legal scholar Cass Sunstein and researcher
Justin Wolfers recently joined in an op-ed
piece in the Washington Post responding to
the U.S. Supreme Court's citation of their
work in Baze v. Rees, the decision that approved
lethal injection and opened the way to recent
executions. Justice Stevens had cited Wolfer's
research as evidence of the lack of deterrence
of the death penalty while Justice Scalia
cited Sunstein's writings indicating a "a
significant body of recent evidence that
capital punishment may well have a deterrent
effect, possibly a quite powerful one." Both
Sunstein and Wolfers say the Justices "misread
the evidence" to "support their
competing conclusions on the legal issue." They
explained the nuances of the evidence on
deterrence and the death penalty and how
no study on the topic can support a strong
conclusion. "The best we can say is
that homicide rates are not closely associated
with capital punishment." They added, "In
short, the best reading of the accumulated
data is that they do not establish a deterrent
effect of the death penalty." (7/7/08, DPIC Update)
- So Why Is Killing OK Now, Exactly?
So
they are going to kill Sir
Mario Owens.
The argument could be made, I suppose -
outside of the legal one just concluded
- that this is a good thing. It probably
comes as no surprise that I am undoubtedly
living on the wrong side of the argument's
popular view. Excuse me, sue me or whatever,
but I just think killing is killing, inexcusable
and worthy of damnation in the eyes of
God, Allah, Buddha, Yahweh and every other
manifestation of the Creator, no matter
what name or legal principle you want to
hang on it. (6/18/08, Rocky Mountain News.
Opinion by Bill Johnson)
- A Commuted Sentence, and a Life Reborn
Ten days ago, I took a trip I wouldn't
have predicted. This is a story about a
near-execution, a graduation and a decision
by former Gov. Jim Edgar that has delivered
unexpected consequences. It's a story about
rising up and reaching down. In January
1996, Guin Garcia, an inmate on Death Row
at Dwight Correctional Center in Downstate
Illinois, was on the verge of execution.
(6/16/08, DPIC Update)
- The Death Penalty Returns
Roughly 15 death
row prisoners are scheduled to be put to
death between now and October, according
to the Death Penalty Information Center.
This flood of executions is the result
of the Supreme Court’s ruling
that upheld the constitutionality of a
troubling form of lethal injection. The
next few months, as states put their machinery
of death into overdrive, are an ideal time
for the nation to rethink its commitment
to capital punishment. (5/7/08, Editorial
by the New York Times)
- Christians Concerned about Execution
of Innocent People
A recent poll by NationalChristianPoll.com
found that two-thirds of active Christians
who oppose the death penalty are concerned
about judicial error that could lead to
an innocent person being executed. The
poll also found that of Christians who
do support the death penalty, 60% do so
because of biblical teachings. According
to a Pew Forum poll from 2007, the strongest
supporters of the death penalty are white
evangelicals, with 74% approval. However,
John Whitehead, president of the conservative
Rutherford Institute, remarked , “It's
anti-evangelical to kill people. Christianity
is redemptive. But you can't redeem people
by extinguishing them." Overall support
for the death penalty is at 62% according
to the 2007 Pew Forum poll. Most Protestant
churches and the Roman Catholic Church
oppose capital punishment, though many
of their members support it.
(2/25/08, DPIC Update)
- Execution
Film Gets Good Reviews
"The Execution of Solomon Harris" recently
screened at the Sundance Film Festival,
where it was very well received. The
film has also been accepted at the South
by Southwest film festival in Austin
Texas, as well as AFI, Dallas and others.
The film is fiction, but was inspired by
a true account. It concerns the human dilemma
that occurs when an electric chair fails
to deliver a lethal shock. (2/14/08, CADP)
- We
Should Be Ashamed
Imagine losing 10 years of your life
in a Colorado prison. Imagine suffering
that terrible existence knowing you were innocent of
the crime for which you'd been convicted.
Imagine losing all those years because
a prosecutor withheld evidence from your
lawyers that might have exonerated you.
Then imagine how we'd all feel if this
person had been executed for the crime
he did not commit. ... Tim Masters' case
is a nightmare. Imagine if it were you
or your child caught in this web of incompetence
and deceit. If Masters hadn't been 15
years old at the time of the crime that
he did not commit, he might have been
dead by now, at the hands of the state
of Colorado, rather than just the victim
of 10 years in a prison cell he should
never have occupied. We Coloradans have
some soul-searching to do over our justice
system. That's the very least we can
do after the terrible injustice our state
has done to Tim Masters. (1/23/08, The
Denver Post. Editorial commentary by
Gail Schoettler.)
- New Book Explores Death Penalty Myths
In The Top Ten Death
Penalty Myths, professors
Rudolph J. Gerber and John M. Johnson explore
ten arguments used to support the death
penalty and provide readers with current
research and studies challenging these
arguments. The authors show how "political
and community leaders have used myth and
emotional appeals to misrepresent the facts
about capital executions.” Each chapter
begins with a statement in support of the
death penalty based on themes such as deterrence,
victims and their families, and costs,
and then analyzes the original statement,
offering research to counter it.
(1/14/08, DPIC Update)
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