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ANALYSIS
Second Thoughts on the Death Penalty
To Kill or Nor to Kill McVeigh
Where the Catholic Church Stands

SECOND THOUGHTS ON THE DEATH PENALTY
McVeigh Case Aside, Support for Executions Is Declining

TERRE HAUTE, Indiana, MAY 26, 2001 (Zenit.org).- The blunders that led to the delay of Timothy McVeigh's execution are rekindling the long-standing debate over the death penalty in America.

The discovery that the FBI had failed to turn over to defense lawyers thousands of pages of reports forced U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft to put off the execution, scheduled for May 16.

Even though it appears that the missing documents were not vital to McVeigh's defense, who openly admits his responsibility for the bombing of the federal government building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995, his lawyers have demanded time to examine them and reserved the right to seek a retrial.

Time magazine, in its May 21 issue, noted that the latest evidence of errors in the judicial system comes shortly after the announcement of an investigation into mistakes made by a police chemist, Joyce Gilchrist, also from Oklahoma. Authorities are now investigating all cases in which she was involved, including 23 death sentences.

McVeigh was already at the center of attention before the foul-up over the documents. About 300 family members of the bombing victims asked to witness the execution; this led to the decision to transmit it over closed-circuit television. About 1,600 reporters were expected at the Indiana federal prison for the execution.

The McVeigh case stands out for several reasons: It will be the first federal execution in 38 years; it involved 168 victims; and the condemned man seems indifferent to the lives lost -- he referred to the deaths of the 19 children in the blast as "collateral damage."

Behind the numbers

Public opinion is in favor of executing McVeigh, polls indicate. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, May 6, a USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll indicates that of the 38% of Americans who say they generally oppose the death penalty, more than half think that McVeigh should be executed. Overall, more than 81% say McVeigh should be executed.

Yet, the overwhelming support for McVeigh's execution masks the reality of declining public approval of capital punishment, the Washington Post reported May 3. About half of all respondents surveyed by the Post favored life in prison over the death penalty. A similar proportion also supported halting all executions until it can be determined that capital punishment is being applied fairly across the country.

The Post-ABC News poll found that support for the death penalty has declined in the wake of falling crime rates and the highly publicized releases of death row inmates who were convicted of murders they did not commit. Overall, 63% favor the death penalty for people convicted of murder, but this is down from 77% five years ago.

Asked which punishment they would most prefer for convicted murderers -- the death penalty or life in prison without parole -- support for legal executions fell even further. Only 46% supported capital punishment, while 45% favored life in prison.

Around the world

Amnesty International says 75 countries and territories have abolished the death penalty for all crimes, while another 13 countries have abolished the death penalty for all but exceptional crimes. Counting those nations where capital punishment remains on the books but is no longer practiced, a total of 108 countries have now abolished the death penalty in law or practice. During the last decade, three countries a year, on average, have abolished the death penalty.

Last year at least 1,457 prisoners were executed in 27 countries, and 3,058 people were sentenced to death in 65 countries, reports Amnesty International. Of the executions, 88% took place in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United States. China alone posted 1,000 executions; Saudi Arabia, 123; the United States, 85; Iran, at least 75. In addition, Amnesty says hundreds of executions were reported in Iraq but many of them may have been extrajudicial.

The U.S. executions brought to 683 the total number executed since the resumption of the death penalty in 1977. More than 3,700 prisoners were under a death sentence as of Jan. 1.

The international campaign against the death penalty is directed against the United States, even though other countries are responsible for a greater number of executions. On May 20 Chinese authorities executed at least 29 people, the Associated Press reported the same day. During recent weeks hundreds of executions have occurred as part of a crackdown on crime.

The AP reported May 18 that the Strike Hard campaign had resulted in 801 executions, by one estimate. Human rights groups have spoken of more than 500 executions since April 11. The estimate of 801 comes from a Western diplomat who counted the deaths reported in the state media in final three weeks of April alone. China keeps nationwide execution figures a secret and has not said how many have been killed.

The international press has made remarkably little attention to this latest wave of executions in China. Governments have also been very silent about this as well. Last year, according to Time, the presidency of the European Union, sent the then governor of Texas, George W. Bush, no fewer than eight letters asking for pardons of death-row prisoners. However, the European Union has not said anything about the recent events in China, at least publicly.

Another country that has escaped the attention of the anti-death penalty campaigners is Japan. In a rare report on the situation, the Washington Post on May 2 recounted the suffering of Sakae Menda, who after 34 years on death row was freed when the courts admitted he had been condemned for a crime he did not commit.

Fifty men and four women now await execution in Japan. The only warning they will receive of their death will be the appearance at their cell one morning of guards who will take them to the execution chamber.

The Justice Ministry keeps secret the names of those selected for execution and gives no explanation for the choice. Even when all legal processes are finished, inmates spend years or decades not knowing if they are living their last day. Human rights groups condemn this uncertainty. "It's inhumane. They go through torture every day," said Sayoko Kikuchi, head of an abolitionist group in Tokyo called Rescue!

The Post reported that the Justice Ministry has repeatedly passed over certain prisoners until they are old and frail, in tacit admission that their sentence may have been wrong. Nearly 20 inmates have been on death row for more than a decade. At least 16 are over age 60; the eldest, 83, has been under a death sentence since 1966.
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TO KILL OR NOR TO KILL MCVEIGH
No Consensus, Even Among Victims� Relatives

WASHINGTON, D.C., MAY 26, 2001 (Zenit.org).- Numerous articles have debated whether Timothy McVeigh should be executed. Here is a sampling of the views expressed, which give an overview of the death-penalty debate in the United States.

"Heinous crimes"

U.S. Attorney General John D. Ashcroft explained that he supports the idea of resuming federal executions with the death sentence of McVeigh because those who have carried out particularly "heinous crimes" deserve to suffer the most serious penalty. In an interview published April 28 by the Washington Post, Ashcroft stated that he has no plans to impose a moratorium on the death penalty.

During the attorney general's confirmation hearings in January, he told senators that he strongly supported the death penalty but would "make sure that we have thorough integrity and validity in the judgments we reach." He also described capital punishment as "a way to demonstrate the value of life" and to keep victims from taking the law into their own hands.

Peter Roff, in an April 24 article with National Review Online, defended the death penalty for McVeigh as well as the decision to televise the event to victims' relatives. Roff speculated that McVeigh will be "reduced to whimpering cowardice" at the moment of his execution and that the families of his victims should be able to see this spectacle.

In the May 14 issue of The Weekly Standard, Tod Lindberg disagreed that McVeigh should be executed in deference to the victims' families. If priority is given to the victims, he argued, there exists the risk that "criminal justice reverts to a premodern form, in which adjudication is entirely a matter of satisfying the private claims of an injured party."

McVeigh's execution, in Lindberg's opinion, should not be supported in order to settle a score between the criminal and his victims, but rather because of the damage done to society and the state's judgment that the seriousness of the crime merits the death penalty.

In a May 7 article for the Los Angeles Times, Daniel E. Troy wrote that "innate moral sense" calls for McVeigh's death. Troy argued that McVeigh's crime was particularly grave, he was well-represented in the trial, and there was no question of racial bias in the sentencing. Moreover, Troy stated, it is public knowledge that committing murder can lead to the death penalty and "McVeigh made his choice and should have to live and die with the consequences."

"Executing McVeigh is the best way to affirm Americans' deeply held belief that life is a gift from God and that those who coldbloodedly snuff it out should not continue to enjoy that gift," the article concluded.

Arguments against capital punishment

Among those who have argued against executing McVeigh is R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., editor in chief of the American Spectator. In a May 11 article for the Washington Times, he based his opposition by observing how today the dignity of human life is questioned throughout American society.

"An end to capital punishment might serve as a beginning to a discussion of life in society, in citizenship and in the arts," commented Tyrrell. Moreover, by locking McVeigh away for the remainder of his life, he would be denied the opportunity to "romanticize his crank views and his evil self."

Steven Chapman, writing May 10 in the Washington Times, said the death penalty suffers from a number of defects. It is expensive, for starters. Chapman cites a Duke University study that found putting a criminal to death costs about $2 million more than a life sentence in prison.

As to whether the death penalty is a deterrent for other criminals, the Death Penalty Information Center notes that homicide rates, on average, are one-third lower in states without the death penalty than in the rest of the country. The South, which accounts for 80% of executions, still has the highest murder rate of any region.

And for the argument that capital punishment prevents a person from killing anyone else, Chapman observes that in that respect it offers no real advantage over lifetime incarceration.

More fundamentally, Chapman argued that "the problem is not that McVeigh dies but that the rest of us kill." Society, he said, chooses to execute someone not because of a necessity such as self-defense, "but because we want to." The article concluded by noting that the country should have "advanced beyond the point of thinking that the intentional sacrifice of human life can ever be a positive good."

As to the question of public benefits or relief for the victims' suffering, Franklin E. Zimring, Los Angeles Times, May 11, observed that in "shifting our attention from crime to punishment, the process of execution confers more publicity on the criminal than the crime." Executions could also create new martyrs and spur further crimes, he warned.

Zimring also argued that there is no evidence that surviving relatives feel better or recover faster when a defendant is executed.

The families of the victims

The relatives of McVeigh's victims are divided over his execution. Of the approximately 2,000 relatives of the victims and survivors of the bombing who legally qualify to witness the execution, only about 15% have expressed a desire to do so, the Washington Post reported April 15.

"I don't want to see anyone die -- that's not what I'm looking for here," said Kathleen Treanor, who lost her 4-year-old daughter, Ashley Eckles, and her in-laws in the blast. "But if I don't visibly see this man take his last breath, I will not be able to let go of that chapter in my life."

But Bud Welch, who lost a daughter in the bombing, has become a vocal opponent of capital punishment, speaking across the country. "I went through a period of vengeance for 10 months after Julie was killed," he said. However he came to realize that this would not bring him any peace.

Another testimony was offered May 13 by the New York Times. Patrick Reeder lost his wife in the bombing and he explained how for a long time he wished for McVeigh's death. But after a long and difficult period of adjustment he decided that executing McVeigh is not the answer.

During the trial Reeder became increasingly disturbed by the blood lust he saw in a number of his relatives who favored McVeigh's death. Explaining why he now opposes the death sentence, Reeder says, "It is not about justice -- it is about revenge."
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WHERE THE CATHOLIC CHURCH STANDS
Cases Calling for Death Are "Practically Non-existent"

INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana, MAY 26, 2001 (Zenit.org).- For some time the Catholic bishops of the United States have expressed their opposition to the death penalty. In November 1980 the National Conference of Catholic Bishops published a "Statement on Capital Punishment" calling for the abolition of the death penalty.

The bishops affirmed that such a move would promote values that are important for Christians and could promote the idea that "we need not take life for life." The statement argued that doing away with capital punishment manifests the belief in the "unique worth and dignity of each person from the moment of conception."

The 1995 encyclical "Evangelium Vitae" formally confirmed the Church's resistence to the use of the death penalty. In No. 56 of the document John Paul II observed the growing tendency to limit or abolish the death penalty.

The encyclical did not declare that capital punishment in itself is unacceptable. However it is seen as an extreme measure that should not be done except "in cases of absolute necessity." This would be the case when it is impossible to defend society without putting the prisoner to death, the Pope explained. But these cases, he noted, "are very rare, if not practically non-existent."

The Catechism of the Catholic Church was amended to take into account the Pope's words. No. 2267 now includes the teaching of "Evangelium Vitae" and explains that while the Church does not absolutely exclude the death penalty, non-lethal means are preferred when they are sufficient to defend people's safety.

In a lengthy article in the April edition of First Things, Cardinal Avery Dulles explained that the Church still teaches that the state has a right to impose capital punishment on people convicted of very serious crimes.

Cardinal Dulles explained, however, that even in the past "the classical tradition held that the state should not exercise this right when the evil effects outweigh the good effects." So the question as to whether the death penalty should be carried out in today's conditions is a prudential determination based on an analysis of the circumstances.

"The Pope and the bishops, using their prudential judgment," explained the noted American theologian, "have concluded that in contemporary society, at least in countries like our own, the death penalty ought not to be invoked, because, on balance, it does more harm than good."

Since the publication of the encyclical, John Paul II has repeatedly called for an end to the death penalty. He has also sent numerous messages to U.S. governors calling for clemency to be exercised. In January 1999, during his visit to St. Louis, Missouri, the Pope appealed for an end to the death penalty, saying it was "both cruel and unnecessary."

The Pope sent a letter to President George W. Bush asking him to spare the life of the Oklahoma City bomber, Timothy McVeigh. A White House spokeswoman said that Bush had no intention of trying to grant clemency, the Associated Press reported April 29. Claire Buchan explained that while "the president has great respect for the Pope and this is a tragic situation, he also had no intention of stopping McVeigh's execution."

American bishops appeal for clemency

A number of bishops have also appealed for clemency for McVeigh. Archbishop Daniel M. Buechlein of Indianapolis, Indiana, a member of the Pro-Life Activities Committee of the U.S. bishops' conference, published a statement May 15 in which he affirmed that the death penalty is no longer an apt way for society to protect itself from criminals.

Archbishop Buechlein argued that capital punishment devalues human life and does nothing to advance society. Executing McVeigh only "continues the cycle of violence" and is not a solution for the anger and grief of the victims, he stated.

In an April 5 statement, the archbishop had expressed his horror at McVeigh's crime and noted that "many believe no criminal is more deserving of the death penalty."

Yet, he argued: "In recent times, the death penalty does more harm than good because it feeds a frenzy for revenge, while there is no demonstrable proof that capital punishment deters violence." Such revenge "neither liberates the families of victims nor ennobles the victims of crime." The most honorable way to commemorate McVeigh's victims, concluded Archbishop Buechlein, "is to choose life rather than death."

Signs of change

The sustained opposition by many to the death penalty is having an effect in the United States. The Chicago Tribune reported May 6 that Illinois Governor George Ryan is opposed to continuing the death penalty. Just two months after starting as governor in 1999, Ryan reluctantly gave the go-ahead to the death penalty for Andrew Kokoraleis.

In January 2000, Ryan suspended executions in the state, because of concerns over errors in the prosecutorial system. Last month, during a speech to law students at Loyola University, the governor said that he personally "couldn't throw the switch" on McVeigh. Ryan also raised questions about whether he could execute anyone even under a "flawless" death-penalty system.

According to the Tribune, Ryan's change of heart over the death penalty is notable given his reputation as a Republican "conservative law-and-order politician."

In general, U.S. public support for capital punishment is dropping, while doubts about the credibility of court evidence are increasing, according to an analysis published May 22 by the Wall Street Journal. The number of people annually sentenced to death in the United States has fallen in three of the last four years for which statistics are available, to 272, in 1999, since peaking at 319 in 1994 and 1995.

In the states of Arkansas and North Carolina, authorities have tightened up standards and augmented public funds for the legal costs of those accused of crimes liable to the death penalty. Florida this year became the 15th state to bar the execution of mentally retarded inmates. And Governor Jim Gilmore of Virginia, whom President Bush made chairman of the Republican National Committee earlier this year, has signed a statute to improve defendants' access to DNA testing.

Just last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Texas House voted to create the state's first standards for court-appointed lawyers. And the U.S. Supreme Court this fall will consider whether to bar the execution of mentally retarded inmates.

In the apostolic letter "Novo Millennio Inuente," published Jan. 6, John Paul II repeated his call for a "new evangelization" (No. 40) that is needed to proclaim the Christian message. This should be done "in such a way that the particular values of each people will not be rejected but purified and brought to their fullness." The continuing debate over the death penalty is just one of many challenges awaiting Christians in this mission.
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Copyright 2001, Innovative Media, Inc.