Tikkun Magazine, July/August 2008

The Death Penalty Is Losing

By Glen Stassen

AT THIS YEAR'S ANNUAL MEETING OF THE SOCIETY OF Christian Ethics and Society of Jewish Ethics, William Montross of the Southern Center for Human Rights received a long, sustained, and enthusiastic applause--longer than for any plenary address I can remember. This year we met in Atlanta, Georgia, where Montross is a public defender. He gave us a challenge for all spiritual progressives, and for my particular Christian tradition as well.

Racial Injustice

MONTROSS OBSERVED THAT THE "DEATHBELT" STATES (VIRGINIA, the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas) have executed 90% of the human beings who were legally put to death in the United States in the last twenty years--and these are the states where most lynchings took place. Indeed, "Many say that today's executions are nothing more than yesterday's lynchings."

In Georgia, you are 4.3 times more likely to be sentenced to death for killing a white person than for killing a black. Similarly in Oklahoma, Illinois, Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Alabama. Since 1976, fifteen whites have been executed for killing a black person in the United States; 283 blacks for killing a white victim. A Stanford University study concluded that the blacker you look the more likely you are to be executed.

Montross testified: "I saw a trial of a black man in Alabama. The whole jury was white men over forty; the jury was chosen in the morning, with no challenges; everyone in the courtroom was white. The prosecution put on its case. The defense attorney made no defense, but just said to the jury, 'if you can show this man mercy, you are better men than I am.' He got death."

African Americans comprise 26% of Alabama's population, yet only one of the forty-two elected district attorneys is black, and not one of the judges on Alabama's appellate court is black. Of all the states that have the death penalty, 98% of all U.S. chief district attorneys are white, and only 1% are black.

The criminal justice system as a whole is grossly biased against blacks and against the poor. Young blacks have a higher chance of going to prison than to college. In 2002, approximately 791,600 African American men were in prison, and only 603,000 were in higher education. The U.S. makes up 5% of the world's population, but it has 25% of the world's prison population. 48% of those in prison are black. They come out of prison with poor prospects for jobs, or for education. One-third of all African American men in Alabama have lost their right to vote. With the death penalty, once a person is executed, there is no way to correct a wrong sentence. This is a gross violation of the human rights of persons created in the image of God.

Classism

THE GLARING INJUSTICE IS NOT ONLY THE SYSTEMIC racial bias, but also the bias against whoever cannot afford an expensive defense lawyer. Arguing for the death penalty in his book, For Capital Punishment, Walter Berns admits that no one with money has ever gotten the death penalty in U.S. history.

Gary Ridgway murdered at least forty-eight women in Seattle. Eric Rudolph detonated a bomb at the Olympics in Atlanta, murdering two and injuring a hundred. Terry Nichols helped Timothy McVeigh kill 168 people by blowing up the federal building in Oklahoma City. McVeigh was executed but neither Gary, Eric, nor Terry got the death penalty. Why? They were of huge public interest, so they were represented by competent lawyers.

Churches and Synagogues

MONTROSS CHALLENGED US: "I WANT TO REMIND YOU how powerful your voice once was, and to inspire you to find that voice again." The churches led the movement to abolish slavery, the anti-war movements, and the Civil Rights movement. "A delegation of rabbis, with members from places as far apart as Memphis and Nova Scotia, who traveled to Birmingham in 1963, [came to] a mass meeting at the Sixth Avenue Baptist Church to proclaim their support for the movement." The churches (and synagogues) contributed leaders, symbols, inspiration, meeting places, organizers, and the troops. They contributed the moral voice that declared the criminal justice system that was enforcing segregation morally wrong. (My own Jewish brother-in-law, Martin Berger, came with his legal talents to Mississippi, where he got to know Marian Wright Edelman, similarly volunteering her talents.) "Think back--who do you see at the front of the civil rights movement? You see black pastors and Catholic priests and Jewish rabbis--walking arm in arm, down the street--facing racism and hatred and violence as one." We need that leadership now.

In my own books, Capital Punishment: A Reader and Kingdom Ethics, I point out: "The Mishnah ... makes the death penalty almost impossible. ... Modern Israel has never had capital punishment, and the American Jewish Congress says 'capital punishment degrades and brutalizes the society which practices it, and is ... cruel, unjust, and incompatible with [human] dignity and self-respect." Almost every Christian denomination that has spoken on the death penalty, has opposed it as an attack on the value of human life and human rights. So have the Pope and the U.S. bishops. Jesus rejected the death penalty for the woman caught in adultery. The passage usually cited by defenders of the death penalty (Genesis 9:6) Jesus interpreted as a prediction--if we engage in killing people, we will be killed (Matt. 26:52)--and certainly not as a command to kill criminals. Paul wrote: "Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God; for it is written, 'Vengeance is mine; I will repay, says the LORD."' Every instance of the death penalty mentioned in the New Testament is clearly presented as an injustice: beheading John the Baptist; crucifying Jesus; stoning Stephen; stoning other Christians; threatening the death penalty for Paul; Roman persecution of Christians in the Book of Revelation.

Now is the Opportunity: Change is Already Happening

OPPOSITION TO THE DEATH PENALTY IS NOW GROWING. ILLINOIS GOVERNOR GEORGE RYAN pointed out that the error rate in Illinois for convicting persons to death had reached over 50%, as thirteen people have been exonerated and twelve have been put to death." He commuted all the remaining 167 death sentences to life. More recently, New Jersey has now abolished the death penalty.

The U.S. Supreme Court suspended the death penalty because of extensive evidence of racism and class bias. But then in 1976, they gave the go-ahead again. Yet 100 persons who had been sentenced to death since then were exonerated by April 9, 2002, because they were found to be erroneously convicted. With DNA evidence proving large numbers of convictions false, people are increasingly aware that the death penalty is biased, unjust, and full of errors.

The majority of Americans now say they prefer life without parole over the death penalty (Los Angeles Times, Dec. 15,2006). It costs $12.3 million to execute someone, but $1 million to keep that person in jail for life. A life sentence allows an erroneous conviction to be corrected--as it was for that 100th exonerated person, Ray Krone, an innocent U.S. mailman who had been imprisoned for ten years, waiting for execution for a murder he had nothing to do with.

When Gallup has asked only the question, "Are you in favor of the death penalty for a person convicted of murder," without mentioning the alternative of life without parole, support for death increased while the United States was fighting World War II, eventually reaching 69% during the Korean War. But during the more peaceful times of the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations, support for the death penalty dropped dramatically to a minority of 42%. Then during the national frustration over the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandals of the Nixon administration, combined with presidents who took a more self-righteous and punitive attitude, support grew steadily to 80% in 1994. Then it dropped to 63% during the Clinton administration, but rose a bit to 69% during the W. Bush years. Support seems to depend on whether the United States is at war, on economic frustration, and on the spirit of the presidential administration. If our next administration does not engage in new wars, and does not voice a self-righteous urge to punish, we can expect support to decline further. Already a majority prefer life without parole.

In 2006, executions dropped to a ten-year low, down to fifty-three (they had been ninety-eight in 1999) Texas killed most of those--twenty-four out of the fifty-three. But even in Texas, the number of death sentences handed down by courts dropped 65%, in the ten years from 1996 to 2006. As the Los Angeles Times reported, "Public opinion seems to be changing."

We Will Win in Stages

WE WILL WIN THE VICTORY OVER THE DEATH PENALTY IN STAGES: IF ANOTHER STATE commutes or abolishes the death penalty, as Illinois and New Jersey did, this adds momentum. Thus one place to battle is in state legislatures and with state governors.

Many states are not giving out death penalties or are giving out far fewer ones. Thus another place to battle is in the court of public opinion, classrooms, churches and synagogues, and the media, all of which affect juries and prosecutors.

Data show the death penalty stimulates imitation, so states that kill criminals experience more homicides. But data also indicate there are effective ways to decrease homicides (See Kingdom Ethics, chapter 9). We all need to learn and to teach what does work to prevent murders.

The related problem is class and race bias throughout the criminal justice system. Here the battle is for justice in sentencing generally, including drug sentencing, and adequate funding for the public defenders. Churches in Georgia organized to visit the courts and the prisons, were shocked by what they saw, and persuaded the state finally to get a public defender system.

The Supreme Court is the eventual target. The new DNA evidence of many erroneous convictions, combined with the clear evidence of racism and class bias, combined with the shift in public opinion and in presidential leadership, can provide persuasive pressure. It may take some new appointees.

Montross is calling for churches and synagogues to visit the courts and prisons, and to mobilize our members to push for justice and human rights in the criminal justice system and against the death penalty. We are entering a time of hope for change. Will we answer?

Glen Harold Stassen is the Lewis B. Smedes Professor of Christian Ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary. His Kingdom Ethics won the Christianity Today award for best book of 2004 in theology or ethics.

RELATED ARTICLE: ENDING THE DEATH PENALTY IN NEW JERSEY

BY JOHN GOODWIN