Deadly Punishment

"See that you do not look down on one of these little ones. . . If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? . . . In the same way, your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost." [Matthew 18: 10-14].

I was in law school several years ago. There was a Legal Aid clinic in the law school. Students could volunteer there for academic credit. One of the guys I knew was helping to represent a man accused of a horrific murder.

I asked this other student: "HOW could you represent a man like that?" He said, "This man is up for the death penalty. I would rather save one man from deadly punishment, and let others accused of lesser crimes receive a penalty of life in prison." I realized that this student was trying to save the one lost sheep.

I asked, "But HOW can you draft legal arguments in favor of a man accused of murder?" He replied, "We are all innocent until proven guilty in this country. Everyone has the right to a vigorous defense.  Besides, Maybe he IS guilty? I say, What if he is innocent?"

Later, in the early 1990's, the Innocence Project was born with well respected defense attorney Barry Scheck, in conjunction with the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University. With the advent, and legal acceptance of, DNA testing, suddenly there were men being set free from death row, who were there for crimes they did not commit. I began to deeply doubt the justice of the death penalty.

Then, a few months ago, there was an article in the New York Times [August 29, 2011], describing "decades of research demonstrating that traditional eyewitness identification and procedures are flawed, and can send innocent people to prison." And yet, in so many court cases this inherently flawed "eyewitness evidence" is the heart of the case!

This so-called "eyewitness testimony" was recently the center of a Georgia case against an African American man, Troy Davis, who was tried for murder. Troy Davis admitted that he was at or near the scene of the crime that night. BUT there was no weapon found, there was no DNA evidence linking Mr. Davis to the crime. And yet, Mr. Davis was executed by the State of Georgia. Belatedly, seven out of nine the "eyewitnesses" claiming that Mr. Davis was the perpetrator later admitted that they lied, because they were threated by the real killer.

This is not only an injustice. It is an outrage! It is a shame to see an innocent man waste many years of his life in prison. It is a tragedy if he dies for a crime he did not commit.

Not only that, it is getting harder for defendants in violent criminal cases to obtain fair representation. Many defense attorneys in the worst violent criminal cases are receiving threats. This was the case in the horrific Cheshire, CT home invasion case. Walter C. Bansley III is the defense attorney for Cheshire home invasion defendant Joshua Komisarjevsky. Since agreeing to represent Komisarjevsky, Bansley  has lost friends, he has lost clients, he has had bricks thrown through his law office and he has had to move his office to a secret location.

So why would any attorney take a case like this? In an article in the Hartford Courant [September 15, 2011], Bansley is quoted as saying: "Why do it? Because I think the death penalty is barbaric. When it comes to this case, Komisarjevsky doesn't deserve the death penalty and there needs to be people like us to stand up for him. I don't think as a community we should be killing anyone under any circumstances."
 
Don't get me wrong. I hate what the Cheshire defendants did. (I was a victim of a violent crime myself and I live with the traumatic effects every day.) And I do not think that there is any doubt that the defendants committed this crime, since they were caught fleeing from the scene. But enough people died that day in the Petit home in Cheshire.  Enough.

How would imposing the death penalty in this case make us any better than what these defendants did on that day?

For a complete list of the countries still allowing capital punishment, please access the public page for this blog at www.spiritualdevotional.tumblr.com

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