The Democrats and the Death Penalty: 
Why Gore and Bradley Had Nothing to Debate

by Hank Williams

Vice President Al Gore:
“I do support the death penalty, but I. . . I. . . and I do not support a moratorium at this time. Senator Bradley’s attacked me for not supporting the death penalty enough. . .”

Democratic Party Presidential candidate Bill Bradley:
“The most important thing that we can do now to deal with the disparity in the application of the death penalty with African Americans is to pass the racial justice act, which would, indeed, reduce that disparity.”

In other words, both of them support the death penalty, which was halted in 1972 because it was found to be unfairly applied and calls for a moratorium are growing again nationally because it has again been found to be disproportionately applied to minorities and the poor.

If one looks at Bradley’s quote, his ideas are truly frightening. He is more concerned with reducing the disparity in application of the death penalty, rather than making sure innocent people are not punished or stopping a practice that has drawn condemnation of the United States from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the United Nations.

The death penalty and criminal justice as it is currently applied is actually in violation of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The now-famous “Death Row 10” in Illinois were released from prison and exonerated upon the finding of gross police misconduct, including torture to force confessions and inadequate legal representation, all of which violate the UN treaty.

The frightening part about all this is that it took an investigation by journalism students at Northwestern University and the Chicago Tribune to find the facts that have condemned the entire judicial system in the state of Illinois.
Gore’s defense for not supporting a national moratorium on the death penalty was the following: “I think that the record that the—the governor of Illinois confronted was kind of different from what it is nationally, so far.”

Or is it? Following on the heels of the Illinois moratorium, legislators in several other states, including Pennsylvania, have recently called for a moratorium. There is also the recent scandal involving gross misconduct in the Los Angeles Police Department’s Rampart Division in which officers engaged in theft, forced coercion of testimony, and gang-style execution of people in custody, often covered up by planting weapons or drugs on the victim.

At the heart of the issue is the country’s rightward political shift, led by the conservatives, but followed closely by those who position themselves as being at the forefront for social justice. Consider this quote from Democrat Andrew Young, former mayor of Atlanta and a key figure in the civil rights struggle alongside Martin Luther King: “I obey the laws of the land and [the death penalty] is the law of the state of Georgia, and it certainly isn’t likely to change in my term as governor.” (Atlanta Journal –Constitution, 9/11/89)

And this is from a man who once defied the laws of the segregated south. Young made that statement in his gubernatorial bid for Georgia, and his rhetoric grew even stronger : “The state has got to have the right to put mad dogs to death.”(US News and World Report, 3/26/90)

The Clinton-Gore administrations and the Democratic Party have adopted tough on crime positions as a party line. More executions were carried out in Clinton’s first term in office than in all 12 years of Reagan-Bush combined. Clinton’s 1994 Omnibus Crime Bill extended the death penalty to drug kingpins, and killers of either police or Federal law enforcement officers.

1996’s Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act went even further, limiting habeas corpus appeals of death row inmates to one year after conviction, setting arbitrary time limits for the filing of appeals, and forcing Federal courts to accept state court decisions in many cases. As Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, of recent movie fame, has pointed out, that law would have made it impossible or him to win his freedom and might even have put him to death.

Gore and Bradley did a good job of bobbing and weaving around the issues but the record speaks for itself. They might bill themselves as being more compassionate than Bush and McCain, but that’s not good enough. Just ask Anthony Porter, recently freed from death row in Illinois. You still can because activists won freedom for him and used his case to push for a general moratorium. If you’re concerned about justice and fairness and are counting on the Democrats, then you’d better look elsewhere.