Mississippi Mess

Earl Wesley Berry is scheduled to be executed May 21 for the murder of Mary Bounds.  Whatever the alleged benefits of the death penalty are in theory, several aspects of this case demonstrate what an ugly sordid mess it is in practice. 

One of the problems in Earl Wesley Berry's case is that he may be mentally retarded.  Or not.  We'll probably never know.  After the US Supreme Court decided in Atkins v. Virginia, 2002, that people with mental retardation could not be executed, the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled that any inmate with an IQ below 75 could have an evidentiary hearing.  But despite meeting the criteria, Earl Wesley Berry was denied such a hearing because one of his lawyers failed to file an affidavit on time.  With capital punishment in this country, life and death often hinge on such technicalities.

Last year, just before Halloween, Berry's execution was stayed by the US Supreme Court because of the pending Baze lethal injection case.  The stay was granted with only 18 minutes to spare.  I wrote then about how this process tormented the families involved.  Earlier this month, Mary Bounds' daughter Jena Watson reflected on that last minute stay:  "It hit us like a brick in October. We didn't expect it to hit us so hard. It was like she'd died all over again."   

The death penalty and the years spent waiting for an execution have kept this family focused on the killer, the crime, and the traumatic death of their loved one, while a life sentence would have allowed them to begin healing years earlier. 

And last month, when the US Supreme Court ruled in Baze on April 16 that lethal injection could be constitutional and effectively lifted the national moratorium on executions, Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood acted swiftly, calling on the Mississippi Supreme Court to set Berry's execution date for May 5. May 5 just happened to be Berry's 49th birthday. 

Was this a coincidence, or a shameless political stunt? 

If the latter, it would be just another example of the way the death penalty, and especially the dramatic spectacle of executions, politicizes criminal justice, which is supposed to be about diligently seeking truth, not a forum for creepy (and probably ineffective) political pandering.  For what it's worth, the Mississippi court didn't accept AG Hood's suggestion, and set the date for May 21.  No hearing has been held on Berry's claims of mental retardation.

You can take action to stop the execution here.

Brian
DPAC

taken from the Death Penalty Blog of ai USA (5/15/08)