While I don't believe that the work of the abolitionist (against the death penalty, in this case) stops at seeking to take away the death penalty and then throwing away the key at all - as might be applied at one point in this article - still it's an important piece. I am particularly inspired by this story of Edward Chapman - who just celebrated the 1-year anniversary of his release - and the people who represented him. Chapman had the strength and ability to forgive those who 'did him wrong' and to fully embrace his present life in freedom despite time lesser folk would have considered lost. Those who helped free him had exceptional tenacity and compassion. Connie, Journey Blogger
NORTH CAROLINA:
Get beyond emotion and put death penalty under a microscope
There is the cliché, "Lock him up and throw away the key." That's the alternative to the death penalty in the state of North Carolina for the crime of 1st degree murder. Presumably, a life sentence with no possibility of parole is what Bob Terrell meant in his recent column, "Flogging, branding, hanging were justice in old Buncombe," (AC-T, March 8), when he wrote that we "mollycoddle" criminals these days rather than flogging, branding and hanging them like in the "good ol’ days."
More thoughtful commentary, from the daughter of a murder victim, appeared in the front page in the story, "Death penalty support declines," on the same day:
"I believe in it (the death penalty) to a certain extent, but I also believe life in prison is a whole lot worse because you have to live with what you've done instead of taking the so-called easy way out," said Heather McConnell.
Not only does a true life sentence fulfill the punitive goals of the criminal justice system, it also fulfills the main legitimate purpose of incarceration: the incapacitation of dangerous criminals.
Not a real deterrent
Proponents of state executions like to cite the "deterrent effect" of the death penalty, but according to statistics collected by the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C. (www.deathpenaltyinfo.org), states with the death penalty consistently have had higher murder rates than states without the death penalty. Moreover, countries without the death penalty generally experience less violent crime than the United States.
Aside from failing to deter crime, the death penalty is also an expensive proposition. It costs taxpayers approximately $2 million to execute someone, or 3 times more than it costs to imprison him for life. 70 % of those costs are accrued during the pretrial and trial stages, often because the prosecutor seeks the death penalty in inappropriate cases to use as leverage in plea negotiations.
The death penalty is applied unfairly or, in legal terms, disproportionately. A jury in one county may give the death penalty under circumstances where a prosecutor in another county might not even seek the death penalty. Some defense lawyers are far better than others. The same truism applies to prosecutors and judges.
The race factor
In addition to these factors, racism rears its ugly head nowhere more devastatingly than in the criminal justice system. Though African-American men comprise less than 6 % of the population, more than 60 % of people on North Carolina's death row are African-American men. If a murder victim is white, the killer is 3 1/2 times more likely to receive the death penalty than if the victim is black.
But perhaps the most compelling argument against the death penalty is the simple fact that some innocent people are convicted and sentenced to die. Human fallibility leads to wrongful convictions. 9 people who served time on North Carolina's death row have been exonerated. In other words, for every 6 executions in North Carolina, 1 person has been released from death row. And nationwide there have been close to 130 exonerations of death row inmates, and there are doubtless more to come.
Admittedly, it is easy enough to read such statistics, be momentarily struck by them and then move on — at least until the innocent person on death row is a family member, a friend or simply someone around whom the statistic yields to a human face.
Indeed, 1 of 2 people released from North Carolina's death row just last year, Glen Edward Chapman, just celebrated the 1-year anniversary of his release on the UNC Asheville campus Quad on the evening of Friday, April 3.
Chapman spent more than 15 years behind bars for 2 murders he did not commit. Thankfully, and in spite of the odds, Chapman was ultimately represented by an exemplary defense team which included UNCA psychology professor Pam Laughon, attorneys Frank Goldsmith and Jessica Leaven and investigator Lenora Topp. Their work on Chapman's case earned them the 2008 Evan Mahaney Champion of Civil Liberties Award from the Western North Carolina chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
A native of Madison, Wis., Philip J. Roth Jr. received both his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Wisconsin in Madison. He opened a law practice in Asheville in 1996 and is currently a cooperating attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina and president of the Board of Directors of the Western North Carolina chapter of the ACLU.
(source: Ashville Citizen-Times - Rick Halperin's Death Penalty News & Updates)
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