USA | Abolish the federal death penalty

The Trump administration politicized capital punishment, going on an execution spree. They accomplished nothing except to strengthen arguments against the practice.

The federal government should follow the example of Illinois and abolish the death penalty.

Many people assume the death penalty is reserved for only the most heinous crimes in which the convicted person’s guilt is beyond question. But that’s just not so.

Before Illinois did away with capital punishment 10 years ago this month, the courts overturned 21 such convictions because the evidence was flimsy to nonexistent. Rolando Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez, for example, were sentenced to die in 1985 for a murder they had nothing to do with. At a second trial, Hernandez was resentenced to 80 years in prison, but Cruz remained on death row and probably would have been executed had an election not changed the composition of the Illinois Supreme Court. Both men ultimately were freed.

Wrongful convictions happened in Illinois even though this state does a better job than some others of providing indigent defendants with decent public defenders. Some of the worst examples of miscarriages of justice in federal and state courts have been in cases in which defendants were represented by unqualified appointed lawyers.

After peaking in the 1990s amid the war on drugs, the number of federal executions has been declining. States also are turning away from capital punishment. Only 18 people nationwide were sentenced to death last year, the fewest since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty for states in 1976. The federal government reinstated its death penalty in 1988.

In 1972, the court struck down all death penalty laws, deeming them unfair. The laws were rewritten, but still were deemed unfair. Nationwide, one person is freed from death row for every 8.3 who is executed. That’s an alarming indictment. On Feb. 18, the Death Penalty Information Center reported prosecutorial misconduct and false testimony were the biggest causes of wrongful convictions.

In July, the Trump administration launched a blitz of 13 federal executions, underscoring how the death penalty can be a political tool. In February, the Associated Press reported authorities have sanitized descriptions of executions, omitting signs of distress seen by media witnesses. The Trump administration accomplished nothing except to make it clear the power of capital punishment should be taken out of the hands of government.

Many states are doing that. In Virginia, which has executed more people than any other state, Gov. Ralph Northam is expected to sign a bill ending the death penalty. If he does, capital punishment will have been banned by 23 states. 3 other states have moratoriums.

The death penalty can lead not only to the execution of innocents, mostly poor people who have no resources to defend themselves, but it also increases the odds innocent people will be convicted. People opposing the death penalty are excluded from juries, which weeds out potential jurors more apt to acquit.

President Joe Biden opposes the federal death penalty. He and Congress should abolish it.

Source: Chicago Sun-Times, Editorial, March 2, 2021

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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde

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Cartoons about Capital Punishment

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Spared execution eight times, oldest inmate in US dies at 101 after 76 years behind bars

Francis Clifford Smith was given his last meal eight times. But after being spared execution each time, he went on to be regarded as the longest-serving prisoner in the US before dying in June at 101 years old. Convicted of murder in 1950 when he was 25, he always maintained his innocence, those who knew him told the BBC. Andrius Banevicius, the public information officer for Connecticut's Department of Correction, recounted how Smith used to feed the birds while in Osborn Prison, earning him the nickname The Birdman of Osborn.

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Japan executes man convicted of killing five in 2009 Osaka pachinko parlor arson

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Texas | A Dangerous Man. At 18, Billy Joe Wardlow took a man’s life. Nearly 30 years later, the state still wants his.

Like any place humans gather, death row has a culture. Billy Wardlow says it's different in many ways from general population. One is in how new inmates are treated. "In [general population], the guys around you would try to find some way to exploit you," Wardlow said. "Death row, with a few exceptions, will often extend a hand of friendship to the 'new boot' so they can get on their feet ... Most of us get together and let each other know what we can send to the new guy." One of the cherished myths of those who support the death penalty is that it is reserved for the “worst of the worst,” those beyond redemption. Wardlow typically sends writing materials, food, clothes, and hygiene products. Recently, after receiving some of these items, a new inmate asked Wardlow what he owed him. "I told him to remember how guys helped him when he saw someone else new," Wardlow said. "Pay it forward, as the saying goes." Sending gift...

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