Column Memo to Clinton: On Good Friday, declare death penalty
moratorium
By ROBERT F. DRINAN
On Good Friday, when the whole world
is reflecting on an innocent man who was crucified unjustly, President Clinton
should issue a moratorium on the federal death penalty.
Clinton has approved of the moratorium imposed by Republican Gov.
George Ryan of Illinois, but he stated that there are no reasons why similar
action is needed at the federal level.
The president is in error.
There are many justifications for the moratorium. The federal
government now has 21 persons on death row; 15 are African-American. There are
an additional 188 federal prisoners charged with a capital crime; 98 are black.
This disparity in persons of color is worse than in most of the states.
There are also other reasons to doubt whether the 200-plus persons
charged with a capital offense by the federal government have had competent
counsel, due process and fair treatment.
The administration says that a review is underway of the case of
every person charged with a federal capital offense, but its far from
clear that the review will be thorough and impartial. Leading criminal defense
lawyers have written to the president, asking to be informed about the criteria
for concluding that defendants received fair treatment. No satisfactory
response has been received.
Bishop Joseph Fiorenza of Galveston-Houston, the President of the
U.S. Catholic Conference, sent a strong letter on Feb. 9, urging Clinton to
suspend the death penalty. The letter, endorsed by all of Americas
Catholic bishops, echoes the views of a wider group of individuals and
organizations that want a moratorium on the death penalty.
Clinton, consequently, would not be adopting an extreme position
if he decreed a moratorium on Good Friday. He would be reflecting the growing
view that there is something inherently unfair about the process extended to
the 3,500 persons on death row. The process is infected with incompetent
counsel, bias based on race and inadequate access to witnesses and experts for
defendants accused of capital crimes.
Clinton and his advisers will clearly be reluctant to take on such
a controversial issue in an election year. Al Gore and Hillary Clinton have
never spoken out against the death penalty. Political advisers will tell the
president that if he wants to help his wife and his heir apparent, theres
no reason to raise this explosive topic before the election Nov. 7.
But if all that matters is political calculation, why stop at mere
silence? Some persons in the Democratic Party will probably want to set a date
before the election for the first federal execution since 1963. They believe
the Democrats will look strong on law and order if they carry out an execution.
The man scheduled to die does not seem to have many appealing features: Juan
Raul Garza killed three men in his drug-selling mafia and has exhausted all his
appeals.
If the White House denied clemency and let the execution go
forward, would Al Gore and Democratic candidates benefit politically? It is not
clear. Some 70 percent of the American people approve of the death penalty,
although this is the lowest figure in 13 years. But every poll reveals that
when people are informed that the alternative is life in prison without the
possibility of release, only some 40 percent approve of the death penalty.
In Illinois, a dozen death row inmates were released because of
new evidence, making it obvious to even the most ardent supporter of the death
penalty that innocent people were bound to die unless executions were halted so
the system could be reformed. Democratic political gurus seem to feel that in
the absence of such a clear-cut situation at the federal level, halting
executions will hurt the partys candidates.
Here again, however, the political fallout is not as clear as it
might seem. The dramatic announcement of a moratorium, for example, would
surely require George W. Bush to justify the fairness of the 119 executions
carried out in his years as governor. The Clinton administration would receive
applause from the Catholic community and even from the pope. Other religious
groups would join, since the vast majority of religious bodies in the United
States now want a moratorium and indeed the abolition of the death penalty.
Yet there is more at stake than politics, because the death
penalty is a moral scourge. And when the history of its abolition is written,
there could be a footnote about how Clintons courage on Good Friday in
the year 2000 marked the beginning of the end.
If Clinton agrees with the Catholic bishops and declares a
moratorium on the death penalty, he will secure a place in history as an
individual whose convictions, conscience and courage reduced barbarism in the
world.
Jesuit Fr. Robert Drinan is a professor at Georgetown
University Law Center.
National Catholic Reporter, April 7,
2000
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