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Deadly Justice – Part 3

In the last 2 posts – Part 1 & Part 2, I strongly advocated the case for retaining the death penalty, provided certain criteria were met. What are the harsh realities of capital punishment? Its not my intention to sweep inconvenient truths under the carpet, especially when they are explosive in nature.

Let’s swallow the slimiest toad – everything else will seem simpler by contrast. Exactly whom do we kill when we impose the Death Penalty? Distressingly enough, the poor have the odds tilted against them, yet again. For, defendants that can afford better attorneys are seldom executed.

This is what US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has to say on the subject:

People who are well represented at trial do not get the death penalty. I have yet to see a death case among the dozens coming to the Supreme Court on eve-of-execution stay applications in which the defendant was well represented at trial.

In a free country, every individual has the inalienable right for legal representation in a trial. If defendants can’t afford a lawyer on their own, the court appoints one on their behalf. Such attorneys are called “Legal Aid Lawyers” & they are paid – admittedly not big bucks – by the state.

In addition to this, flourishing law firms offer free legal counseling for the economically disadvantaged strata. These are called Pro bono publico cases – literally, cases taken up for the betterment of the society. Bar Associations in the US & UK have encouraged lawyers to participate in Pro bono work, to do their part for the society. Some have even published minimum recommended Pro bono hours for lawyers.

Unfortunately, all this sounds better on paper than in reality. Sadly & unsurprisingly, once the numbers are tallied, most law firms fall abysmally short of even the minimum recommended Pro bono hours. When the rubber meets the road – many defendants, especially the poorest of the poor, are woefully under-represented in courts of law.

How does this impact Capital Punishment?

When an attorney wants the court to overturn a conviction or a death sentence, the usual procedure in most countries is a Writ of Habeas Corpus. This is the law by which a detainee can seek relief from unlawful detention. In Death Penalty cases, more often than not, its the lawyer that files the writ. But lawyers appointed by the court to handle the writs of death row inmates routinely bungle appeals.

Justin Fuller, a death row inmate was convicted of robbery & shooting, that resulted in the death of a man. The court appointed Toby Wilkinson to handle Fuller’s appeals. The writ filed by Wilkinson was full of errors. Which isn’t surprising, since Wilkinson copied several portions from a prior writ that he filed 2 years earlier for another inmate, Henry Dunn. He got the name of the co-defendant & the trial judge wrong. He even got the central issue – the evidence – in Fuller’s case wrong. He had blindly copied those sections from Dunn’s writ.

Fuller was executed on August 24, 2006. Wilkinson’s writ was so bad, that his client did not stand a chance.

Quality of counsel is THAT important. It is an important predictor on whose appeals have a better chance with the bench or the appeals court.

What about racial discrimination? After all, human beings interpret the law. Pretending that there’s no racial divide in who gets the capital punishment, will take us nowhere. A statistical study conducted by Law Professor David Baldus concluded that African American defendants are 4 times more likely to get the death penalty, than Caucasians, for similar offenses. The results of this study were disputed by those advocating the Death Penalty, including yours sincerely. But to be fair, how can we sweep aside the fact that 74% of those who got the death penalty between 1995 & 2000 were minorities?

Why is the law so skewed? Another study conducted by Professor Jeffrey Pokorak found the smoking gun. 98% of the Chief District Attorneys are White. These are the key decision makers on when to seek the death penalty. I shudder to think how the Death Penalty is applied in India. What would we find, if our courts were faster, instead of moving at a snail’s pace? What would be the demographics of those swinging on the hang-man’s noose? Would a striking pattern leap to the eye?

Now, do you want to know who doesn’t get the death penalty?

In the year 1924, Richard Loeb & his friend Nathan Leopold, both scions of wealthy families, were busy planning a perfect murder. Murder to them, was an intellectual exercise. Loeb particularly, was fascinated with crime. Leopold held the philosophical belief that legal obligations did not apply to Supermen – as in, those intelligent like him & his friend.

They decided to kidnap a child of affluent parents & seek ransom. One evening at about 5 PM, Bobby Franks, the son of an acquaintance, was walking home from school. Leopold & Loeb lured Bobby to their car, under the guise of talking about tennis rackets. They killed Bobby with a chisel, drove to a marshland, stripped the child & poured acid all over the body to make identification difficult. They systematically stuffed the dead body into a culvert. Upon returning home, they burned Bobby’s clothes.

They then called the Franks over the phone & told them that their boy had been kidnapped, but safe. The family had to pay $10,000 as ransom, to be delivered at a certain drugstore. Before the Franks could proceed further, the police called them. A laborer had seen a leg poking out of a culvert & they wondered if it could be the body of Bobby Franks.

How did the law catch up with Leopold & Loeb? Here are some sordid details – A pair of horn-rimmed glasses belonging to Leopold was found on the body. Their ransom note matched a type-writer in Leopold’s law school. Their alibi – that they were picking up girls on the day of the murder – fell apart. Leopold & Loeb confessed their crime.

But they had a formidable weapon in their arsenal – top-notch defense attorney Clarence Darrow. He built a complex case of Psychology, Nature (how his defendants had no control over how they were made) & their Extreme Youth. He eloquently painted a bleak picture of the endless, soul crushing life in prison his young charges faced. When Darrow finished his summation, the judge & the spectators were moved to tears.

Leopold & Loeb didn’t get the Death Penalty. Macabre crime, damning evidence & the icing on the cake, confessions. Its the same law, but a great lawyer can make a big difference – literally – between life & death.

Summing Up

Its no wonder that to many kind-hearted gentle people, the law seems arbitrary. But I have a question for these people: Does it matter terribly that the rich wriggle out of the death penalty? Shouldn’t it matter more to us, that those with mitigating circumstances get better legal assistance & thus avoid the noose, the injection or the electric chair?

We don’t have to dismantle the death penalty because – the path leading up to it – has short-comings. That seems like a non-sequitur to me. We can eradicate something only if we poke enough holes in it. Collectively, we need to figure out how to plug the gaps in providing legal aid, so that the sentencing process becomes more equitable & less arbitrary. Perhaps lawyers that routinely spew out shoddy writs & ruin the appeals process can be disqualified by discerning judges.

I see a growing trend to scuttle the difficult.

Too many “normal” people use drugs? Think many reckless, irresponsible people are detained at foreign ports of entry because they had drugs on them? Make drugs legal, it is eating up too much time from the law & order machinery. Let them focus on “more serious” crime.

What I think about drugs is tangential to this thread, but I think the reasoning listed above is simply the product of poor logic & hazy thinking. Legalizing drugs should solely be based on its effects, determined scientifically & empirically. I submit that we should apply the same standards to Capital Punishment.

As usual, I’ve run out of space. I don’t have enough space to cover the 8th amendment, so let me adjourn that to the next post.

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Wellness – it is in the mind too

This is my 3rd article for the Dignity Foundation’s magazine for Senior Citizens. I didn’t publish the second one containing some basic methods to research health issues, which may be too elementary for our readers.

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This time i want to cover the wellness aspects of our mind.   But before that I want to thank Ms. Sunita for following the instructions from my previous article and leaving me a comment on my blog.

The physical health of Senior Citizens gets a lot of attention, which is quite good. But what i find worrisome is the scant disregard for mental fitness which in my opinion is much more important.

For the purpose of this topic, i put the Senior Citizens that i come across into 2 buckets – the happy kind, who are quite positive, enthusiastic and energetic,  and the unhappy kind who are anything but.

Both kinds have the usual health issues – diabetes, hypertension, arthritis etc.  Interestingly, i found that the happy kind took the routine health issues in their stride, whereas the unhealthy kind, were unable to handle them without stressing out.

A revelation came to me when I dug deeper into this stark contrast. The happy kind seemed to focus a lot more on their minds than on their bodies, perhaps unknowingly. While they did do their regular exercise and regular tests like most senior citizens, it is what they do with their minds that is telling.  I boiled them down to 5 important activity clusters:

1. They take an active interest in things – news, cinema, politics, environment, neighborhood issues like any responsible citizen.

2. They take the opportunity to learn new languages, solve puzzles like Sudoku, join a toastmasters club, learn music, blogging – or anything that exercises their minds.

3. They do not brood over their life’s problems and regrets except as a way to draw lessons that they can pass onto others.

4. They renew their interest in cooking, taking care of grandchildren or taking care of a pet.

5. They do not focus too much on their appearance except to make sure they look and feel healthy.

On the other hand, the unhappy kind, didn’t do most of the above. And because their minds are not in top shape, even a trivial health issue seems to immobilize them. It is difficult for them to do even their day to day chores, which over time leads to illnesses like depression.

Which kind are you?

If you want to make a start towards a healthy mind, try Sudoku – it is an invigorating math puzzle that appears in almost all daily newspapers and it does not require anything other than basic arithmetic skills.

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Deadly Justice – Part 2

In September 2008, I wrote Part -1 on my series on the Death Penalty. Events transpired – death of someone I cared about, Srilankan war, our trip to Singapore & Raju Garu (Sigh!). For an extremely focused person, I get extremely distracted. Since the series on Srilanka is more or less at its mid-point, I thought now is as good a time as any, to write my next post on the Death Penalty. A humble request – Please read the 1st part of the series before reading this post, to maintain continuity.

Let’s start off with why penal systems were adopted in the 1st place: Because it makes it easier to seek restitution. A Restorative System of justice can be used, when the crime is not a perfidy. Either through mediators or with their attorney’s assistance, the victim & the offender can debate what kind of compensation would set things right between them. In its simplest form, if an item has been wrongfully taken by the accused, s/he can restore it to the rightful owner. But this system of justice is unusable to resolve violent crimes.

Let me make a proposition to the opponents of Capital Punishment. What if we impose the death penalty only in the most extreme cases? Such as repeat offenders? Like serial killers?

Ted Bundy had the distinction of being one of the most notorious serial killers of all times. Handsome, suave & intelligent, Bundy had no problem in attracting the attention of women. Once they were alone with him though, he bludgeoned them with a crowbar & strangled them. When they were unconscious, he brutally raped them. He left their naked dead bodies in wooded areas. Sometimes he lay down next to their decomposing bodies for a day or 2. His last victim was a 12 year old girl. Her dead body was found, throat sliced. He confessed to killing 28 women, but it could be as many as 100.

Bundy’s attorneys tried in vain to stay his execution or to even commute it to a life sentence. They begged the families of his victims to write a letter to the Governor of Florida, seeking clemency for Bundy. Every single one of them refused. The law isn’t blind. Ted Bundy was executed on Jan 24th, 1989.

Which brings us to my #1 reason for supporting the Death Penalty – What about the victims? Or their families? In our zeal to protect the rights of  convicted criminals & to uphold the cause of humanity, aren’t we forgetting the justifiable emotions of the near & dear of the slain?

When someone you love has been murdered brutally, it is completely normal to seek revenge. Civilized countries adopt criminal laws & vest the power of sentencing with a handful of authorities – judges or regents. This prevents the society from devolving into an anarchy – otherwise people will attempt to settle scores through vendetta killings. Death penalty gives closure to the families & friends of the victims, thereby preempting vigilantism.

People that oppose the death penalty think imprisonment is punishment enough. “Let’s lock them up for the rest of their natural lives. We’ll deprive them of their freedom, plus they can’t kill anyone else, can they?” I think that’s rich – offering the perpetrators a chance to live to a ripe old age, with board & lodge provided by the state, learning useful crafts in jail, even attending community college, penning their memoirs. Chances that their victims will never get.

Some gentler souls may even opine that a life term could be commuted, to say 10 or 15 years behind bars. That should be enough punishment for a criminal to atone for his/her sins, right? They can return to the general population to lead a normal life, right? Wrong, Dead Wrong. When someone takes a human life in the absence of mitigating circumstances, they forfeit their rights to lead a normal life. The proverbial milk of human kindness is wasted on them.

It was the year 1985. Joe Atkins was on parole from the penitentiary, after serving 10 years for killing his half-brother Charles. Armed with a machete, a pistol & a gun, he broke into his neighbor’s residence. He cut the phone lines, then proceeded to kill 13 year old Karen Patterson, who was fast asleep in her bed. He chased Karen’s parents, who escaped fortuitously. When Karen’s mother took refuge in the Atkins home, Joe killed his own father Benjamin Atkins. It was his father that had pleaded with the parole board to release Joe ahead of schedule.

This time, Joe Atkins was not only convicted, but also executed.

But more importantly, this concept of “Imprisonment as a Punishment” is fairly new. Historically speaking, prisons & jails were holding areas for the prisoners. They were housed in dungeons or incarcerated otherwise, till the state’s penal system decided their fate. For the most part, jailing wasn’t considered a punishment in itself.

So if we kill repeat offenders, murderers for hire & cold-blooded murderers who kill for gain, how many of you would stand up to be counted in support of the death penalty? What if I say, we’ll pay heed to mitigating circumstances?

Let’s not kill 1st time offenders: If the crime is very brutal and/or involves multiple murders, let’s give them life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. We won’t kill the mentally ill, they need medical attention. So if a deranged woman heard St Stephen’s voice urging her to kill her neighbor – because he’s actually Beelzebub – we’ll institutionalize her, not fry her.

Now, let’s skate on thin ice. What about the mentally retarded, in other words, people of diminished culpability? The UN Commission for Human Rights adopted resolutions in 1999 & 2000, urging countries not to impose the Death Penalty on people suffering mental impairment – which includes retardation & illness. In recent years,only 3 countries executed the mentally retarded – Japan, United States & Kyrgyztan.

In 2002, US banned the execution of criminals with an IQ < 70. Border-line retardation isn’t considered a serious enough mitigating factor, an interpretation that I agree with. As long as the defendant understands cause & effect, as long as they knew they were taking a life, they are responsible for their actions.

Here is another case for your purview:

15 year old Valessa Robinson was a wild girl. She wanted to marry her 19 year old boyfriend Adam Davis. Adam had a mile-long rap sheet & he was fresh out of jail. Valessa was besotted with him & wanted to have his baby. She came from a respectable family & her mother Vicki Adams was deeply concerned. Valessa had repeatedly run away before & counseling had failed. Vicki planned to enroll her in Steppin’ Stone Farm, a boarding school for troubled girls.

So one day, Valessa killed her mother with Adam’s help. She held her mother down, while Adam injected laundry bleach into her veins. That did not kill Vicki. So, Adam stabbed her to death. They disposed of the body, stole Vicki’s credit cards & mini-van. They drove around aimlessly, using Vicki’s ATM card freely, getting tattoos, jewelery & drugs. 6 days after the murder, the police arrested them.

The law isn’t as trigger happy as people like to think. As heinous as her crime may be, as monstrous her behavior may seem to us – the law in most countries frowns on executing minors. Valessa was sentenced to 20 years in jail. Adam Davis was sentenced to death.

Unfortunately, cases like Valessa’s use escape routes provided by the law. Given a choice, I’d like to strap her to a gurney & administer a lethal injection. But, my moral indignation has to take a hike, since the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child expressly prohibits Capital Punishment for juveniles. Almost all countries – except Somalia & the United States – have ratified that article. But in reality, 5 countries executed juveniles in the past 4 years – Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Yemen & Sudan. The dubious distinction of being the biggest executioner of children belongs to Iran.

As I said, the death penalty isn’t given to everyone.

Summing Up

Why should we deny our negative feelings? Are anger, bitterness & fury always bad? They seem real enough to me. And it behooves on us to act on them in a just manner. Yes, Retributive justice promotes revenge. But, punishment is meted out by an unbiased group of judges & jury, after sifting through the evidence. The victim’s dear & near can’t circumvent due process. Isn’t that good enough?

Is the death penalty harsh? Should it be abolished under the 8th amendment of the US constitution – is it really a cruel & unusual punishment? What are the harsh realities of implementing capital punishment? And more to the point, what do the experts in criminal justice have to say? For lack of space, I’ll cover all that & then some in a subsequent post.

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American politics and religion

Barak Hussein Obama will be sworn in as America’s 44th president on the 20th of January 2009. There has been some unneeded controversy around his middle name ‘Hussein’ and if he will take oath using his full name including ‘Hussein’. And I am glad he took the dignified route of using his full name.

This incident made me think about the place and importance of religion in American democracy and politics. The current religious affiliations of members of the senate and house of representative show that they are all of a Christian denomination or practice Judaism. That’s it – No other religion!!.

America has achieved an important milestone by crossing the racial divide with Obama’s election. What about religious divide? When will America be ready to accept a Muslim or a Buddhist or an atheist as their leader – even as a senator or house representative? What is it going to take for Americans to mentally break-through this religious shackle?

And why are they not ready yet? And why has India been able to accept and elect leaders of various religions? Example – George Fernandez – a Christian elected multiple times and of course the current Prime Minister who is a Sikh (though one can argue that Sikh is just another derivative of Hinduism). We have had many non-elected Muslim leaders such as Dr. Abdul Kalaam as well.

Here is one theory – India, at various times has been ruled by Islamic rulers and has been colonized by Christianity affiliated countries such as England, France and Portugal. So, historically and culturally, we have been accustomed to being ruled by non-hindu leaders.

Or are we politically more mature as a country when it comes to politics? I highly doubt this. We would still blindly vote for anyone with ‘Gandhi’ or ‘Nehru’ as a surname.

As glad as I am about the religious tolerance that India has shown in politics, I am hoping that this is not just a surface level attitude but a deeper level understanding of politics and governance. Given that we have seen goondas and shady elements elected, I am afraid it is the former.

(Sidebar1: If Martin Luther King Jr. was alive today, he might have perhaps modified his “I have a dream” speech to include religion as well and here is my version – I have a dream that my daughter will one day live in a nation where she will not be judged by the color of her skin or the religion of her choice but by the content of her character.)

(Sidebar2: Of course, there has been no non-Christian American president yet. I do know that Mayor Bloomberg is a Jew. Could Mr. Jindal have become the governor of Louisiana if he had maintained his identity as a Hindu? Bobby Jindal claims that his conversion to Christianity was an intellectual process and the words in the bible “jumped out to him” and he felt as though they were just written for him. The cynic in me thinks that the dynamics of American politics made the words jump out to a savvy Bobby Jindal. 🙂 )

Ganesh

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Blog Pongal #3 – Best posts of 2008

2008 proved to be a great year for our blog. Not only did we complete 4 years of blogging , we also hit the mega milestone of 1 Million Page Views.

Read the Millenium Bat Awards from Jan 2008 – this laugh riot from Priya Raju to kick off the Blog Pongal, our annual feature to celebrate Pongal – the harvest festival.
Imagine the transformation that can take place when a society puts their language down in a written script. Sujatha Manivasagam, in Feb 2008,  shared the inspiring story of Sequoyah who helped his native Indian community to do just that.

Parents murdering their daughter for a flimsy reason?! One would like to think that happens only in Bollywood movies. Read NK Sreedhar’s poignant post on the subject from March 2008.

India’s caste system always promotes a heated discussion. My post on the caste system from April 2008 is no exception. Incidentally, it was the 10th post in the Real History of India series which generated quite a few stimulating discussions.

Can passion be taught? This is a question that has intrigued me for several years. Thanks to the community on this blog, in May 2008, we laid the question to rest with a convincing set of answers.

In June 2008, the internet was agog with the idea that technology is making us dumb. I had to jump in to support technologists with “I am stupid and the Internet made me so” .

Ganesh Vaideeswaran captured the essence of  “What is Patriotism” in July 2008 with some must read comments.

In August 2008, Dr. Abdul Fakhri asked the rhetorical question “Can a man be a friend of feminism” with a thoughtful post.

Can you become a historian by accident? Priya Raju, in Sep 2008, wrote about her unique hobby that makes her the Accidental Historian.

Is the instinct to support your own ethnic group more powerful than the instinct to support your own gender? In Oct 2008, NK Sreedhar raised this thought provoking question on the eve of the US Presidential elections.

Why do some parents force children down certain career paths? Sultana Fakhri, in Nov 2008, asks for a Sorting Hat to help children decide their careers.

Nov 2008, also marked the start of Priya Raju’s in-depth analysis of the Real History of Sri Lanka in a series that now has 5 posts.

If one were to take an unbiased look at India of today, it will be easy to conclude that we need optimism by the shiploads to see it survive. And survive it must, for it shines as the lone beacon of freedom in the third world. Ganesh Vaideeswaran shares his Hopes for 2009 in an emotional post in the aftermath of 26/11. Amen.

Dear bloggers, commenters and readers,

Hope you enjoyed 2008 as much as we did. Thank you very much for making SAST Wingees a vibrant hang-out in Cyberia.