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Dean Carter's columns from Death Row
in San Quentin: Dead Man Talkin'
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Justice Project | Who's
to die? Who's to say? June 8, 2000 CNN editorial |Should
California pay $3M to exute Cary Staynor? | The
case against the death penalty
It is the small injustices
that lead to the big ones -- the ultimate being the taking of
a person's life. The government must not be allowed to get away
with wrongly charging people or wrongly convicting them. Police
cannot be allowed to charge people without evidence, to search
persons or homes without warrants. Warrants should not be obtained
on fraudulant evidence. These violations are increasing in Canada,
as crime rates increase and the police are under pressure to
bend the rules. But we must keep in mind that if the law is to
be respected, it must be followed by everyone including police,
prosecutors and lawyers. injusticebusters
is dedicated to busting injustices where we find them, however
small or large.
It was outrage
against the possible execution of Steven Truscott which spurred Canada to get rid of
the death penalty
Killing
someone is the ultimate -- an undoable injustice. injusticebusters
concentrate on cases which have not gone quite that far -- in
the hopes of preventing undoable injustice. Free speech is the
best method we know to rally intelligent thought from human to
human.
The following
from an American observe:
Live and Let
Die
By: Isaac
Peterson - August 8, 2002 , Liberal Slant
| "Mere factual innocence is no
reason not to carry out a death sentence properly reached."
--U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia -- Herrera v. Collins
506 US 390 1993 |
Someone who
had heard about the Supreme Court's last two decisions about
the death penalty might think we had a new Supreme Court..
A few weeks
ago, they said we can't execute mentally retarded people, and
then that jury had to decide whether someone should be executed,
not a judge. At least the first one should just be common sense,
but some states and the federal government had said before this
that it's perfectly fine to execute someone who probably didn't
have it together enough to really know what they were doing at
the time.
It should have
been plain old common sense. But three Extreme Court 'justices'
disagreed with the decision. If you've been paying attention,
I don't need to name the three. (If you haven't been paying attention,
it was Scalia, Thomas, and Rehnquist. Don't these guys like anything
that doesn't hurt somebody else?).
We like killing
people so much, European countries look at us as barbaric--they
believe that a society's approach to killing people is an indicator
of how civilized they are. In the last couple of decades, we've
built more prisons than schools, worked overtime to fill those
prisons, made more crimes punishable by death, and passed laws
to limit the amount of time someone convicted has to go through
the appeals process, in the name of "law and order"
and being "tough on crime".
In the rush
to halt the "breakdown of civil society", we went overboard
to show how intolerant we are of people stepping over the line.
The assault on the Constitution didn't begin with Ashcroft and
the rest of Bush, Inc. We took a big step in that direction under
Reagan, if not sooner, when we started to buy the idea that we
are "coddling criminals" and being soft on crime when
we paid attention to the Constitutional protections of the accused.
Someone whose case is dismissed or overturned on legal grounds
got off on a "technicality" or had a "slick lawyer."
Regular people
and politicians get impatient when we don't just rustle up a
posse and string 'em from the highest tree. Death row appeals
were taking forever, and people weren't being executed until
decades after their trials. People say it's too hard getting
a criminal executed. But it's supposed to be hard. Our justice
system was set up to make absolutely certain that we have the
right person when we give them the ultimate "time out".
We can go back and fix problems with the process that was used,
but we can't give someone their life back. We're supposed to
do everything we can to get it right the first time. There are
no "do overs" when we execute the wrong person.
It's obvious
now--we're not always convicting the right people. We rarely
used to hear about innocent people on death row being cleared,
but lately it's as common as Geedubya Bu$h saying "tax cuts".
Even some conservative judges are starting to have doubts about
the way we execute our convicted citizens. For decades, some
argued against the death penalty, saying that we're killing more
minority members of society than their numbers say there should
be, but all that happened was a giant sucking sound of officials
yawning--who cares if we're killing minorities? If we keep killing
enough of them, they'll stay in the minority.
It's different
now that we're talking about innocent people being executed.
All of a sudden, now we can ask if the death penalty is cruel
and usual punishment. We also need to talk about how so many
innocent people end up on death row. I'm not going to go over
things like mistaken eyewitnesses, racism, or false testimony
from jailhouse snitches for more lenient sentences. There are
plenty of places on the internet that do more justice to that
than I can here. An excellent book about problems with the death
penalty is Actual Innocence by Barry Scheck, Peter Neufeld, and
Jim Dwyer.
We're starting
to look around and wonder if killing innocent people maybe is
"cruel and unusual punishment" after all.
The problem
is, we can't fix the problem without looking at the whole criminal
"justice" system.
It works kind
of like this: Ambitious law students pass the bar, and some join
the staffs of state prosecutors, or the attorney general's office,
which are political as much as legal. Typically, the heads of
these offices are elected, and that's where the fun begins.
When someone
is on trial, the case is filed as "The People vs. Joe Blow."
'The people' means all the citizens in that in that state--against
one individual. 'The people' have all the financial resources
of that state or the federal government, and the prosecutor's
staff and his/her resources.
Joe Blow has
whatever is in his bank account, and probably a court appointed
defense attorney--a public defender making minimum wage..
The state can
take all the time it needs to build or fabricate a case against
Joe Blow--it can take months or years. Public defenders have
to juggle dozens of cases at once, and often don't even actually
meet and talk to Joe Blow until just before the trial. Often
they aren't the best of attorneys, at least judging by the number
of reports of them sleeping through the trial, or showing up
drunk. Think of the reports out of Bush's Texas a little while
ago about inept defense attorneys representing people who had
gone on to be convicted while they were actually innocent.
Prosecutors
make points by getting convictions. When they run for higher
offices, the number of convictions they won is their report card.
A prosecutor without convictions is considered to be somebody
who couldn't get the job done, so the meaner the better. Some
attorney generals even can get reputations outside of their own
state, like Jim Mattox of Texas. In Texas, where everything is
bigger, Mattox got a reputation as a real bastard that was known
outside of Texas.
And we want
prosecutors to be real bastards, especially in high profile cases.
The media covers the real serious crimes 24-7, prosecutors hold
press conferences, the public wants blood, and the only thing
that will do is to bring somebody in. Problem is, we don't always
get the right person, but we don't ask at the time whether we
did. There's too much pressure for someone to fry. Sometimes
prosecutors suppress evidence, police lie or plant evidence,
witnesses get confused, you name it, and it goes wrong. Now it's
not just a legal matter, but a political one, and people will
play politics with other people's lives.
Lots of prosecutors
go on to run for Congress. Lawyers are probably the most represented
profession in Congress, and mostly prosecutors. And they bring
that prosecutorial attitude with them. Remember those warm, fuzzy,
members of the House Judiciary Committee that brought the case
for impeaching Clinton to the Senate? Remember what a fun bunch
those guys were? They were all prosecutors before they were elected
to Congress, and they all have the attitude I'm talking about.
(I don't think it's necessary to be an attorney to be on the
Judiciary Committee. Mary Bono was on it too, with her giant
intellect and a degree in art history). All 13 of the House "managers"
volunteered to take the case to the Senate.
We hear all
the time that we have the best justice system in the world, and
that may be so, but why should we settle for what we have if
we can do better? There's lots of holes in the system we have,
there's still a lot that's wrong.
For example,
it's illegal to be poor in this country. If you don't think so,
try being poor and being on the wrong end of a criminal accusation,
especially one that earns the death penalty. We still have a
system where justice is for sale, and lots of people who can't
pay for a great attorney up front pay through the nose eventually.
How many Kennedys or Rockefellers (or Bushes or Cheneys or Lays)
are in prison, let alone on death row?
For all the
noise we make about how much we value life and liberty, and truth,
and justice, we're all talk. Go back and read the quote from
Scalia. What he said is that even if someone can prove that he
or she is innocent after they've been convicted, well, that's
just hard cheese. When Bush was still playing governor of Texas,
he said he was satisfied that everybody on death row was guilty--that
they'd had full access to the courts. Never mind that lots of
those people had attorneys who were drunk in court or had slept
through the trials, or let the prosecution pull all kinds of
garbage without raising objections; the accused had his day in
court, so tough noogies. When did process get to be more important
than making sure we are doing the right thing?
We live in
scary times, and we can't afford to be innocent and naive any
more. In the last 20-odd years, as I said earlier, we've built
more prisons than schools. We've made more and more crimes federal
crimes punishable by the death penalty. We've cut down on the
length of time people who are convicted have to appeal. We've
made it easier rush people to their final reward. And it's gotten
even worse after September 11, 2001. Now we're saying it's just
peachy if we give up more and more rights so we can be secure.
Things were at least usually done in the light of day before;
now, we say it's cool if it happens behind closed doors, if that's
what it takes. I personally haven't heard one justification that
convinces me that we really are more secure.
"Innocent
until proven guilty" went the way of lime green polyester
leisure suits these last couple of decades. If this is the land
of the free, why do we have a legal system that stacks the deck
against a suspect from the very beginning? We make it as hard
as possible for a suspect to prove his/her innocence--we don't
fund their defense to any large degree, we put all our energy
into keeping them locked up and hamstrung, and some of those
people are innocent. If freedom and justice really are our ideals,
we would be giving everyone accused every chance to prove their
innocence.
The death penalty
issue has been argued for a long, long time, and by people a
lot brighter than I am. But I do believe that any examination
of the process needs to look at how political the process is.
To me, the
best thing we could do is get better at the "shoe on the
other foot" test. How many of us who are really down on
crime want someone they are related to or care about executed
as soon as possible for convenience? How many of us would want
that if we were on death row ourselves? If you wouldn't want
that for yourself, why should it be different for me?
Lots of people
in George W. Bush and John Ashcroft's America may get their chance
to find out how they really feel about the death penalty, when
they get to look at it up close and personal.
Isaac Petersen
is a contributing writer for Liberal Slant.
June 17: Stan Faulder
is dignified but dead. Bush is the new U.S. President. Boycott Texas!
Time ran out for Stan Faulder
Newsworld Tue Jun 15. 1999
HUNTSVILLE, TEXAS - A U.S. federal court in Texas has rejected
a lawsuit intended to halt this week's execution of Stan Faulder.
The lawsuit argued the two decades the Alberta man has spent
on death row is a breach of international law.
Faulder has already bid goodbye
to his family as both time and legal options appear to be running
out for him. The 61-year-old Alberta man is scheduled to be executed
in Texas on Thursday.
Faulder met with his daughter
and sister on the weekend and told them not to get their hopes
up.
Even though two appeals were
rejected last week, Faulder's lawyer isn't giving up.
Sandra Babcock still has several
motions and petitions before the courts trying to save Faulder
from execution. The Texas Board of Parole and Pardons is to vote
this week on Faulder's plea to commute his sentence to life in
prison.
Faulder has been through this
before: over the years, he has won nine reprieves. Last December,
the Supreme Court granted a last-minute stay.
Faulder's life on death row
began more than 20 years ago, after he was convicted and sentenced
to be executed for murdering Inez Phillips, 75, during a robbery
at her home.
In Canada,
we take some pride in the value we place on human life. We spend
a lot of money preserving the basic rights of killers like David
Threinen Clifford Olsen, Karla Humulka and Paul Bernardo. There
is a growing section of the public who see this as a waste of
money and it it probably true that most Canadians would not spend
a lot of emotion grieving if these monsters were put to death.
However,
we can take some pride that this same system kept David
Milgaard
alive and he was ultimately exonerated. There is little doubt
that if David Milgaard had found himself in the same set of circumstances
in the U.S. he would have been executed long before his mother
got anybody's attention.
Right now
there are a dozen David Milgaards on death row.
The Execution of Michael
Moore
March 26, 2001
Dear friends,
This Wednesday, March 28, the
state of Texas is planning to take the life of a man whose name
is Michael Moore.
I am asking you to join me
in one final plea to the governor of Texas, Rick Perry, to spare
his life. All appeals have been exhausted and the only hope now
is for the governor to intervene.
I abhor the death penalty.
It is the ultimate act of evil. Not simply because it is the
premeditated taking of a human life, but because it is an act
of the State, a cold and calculated, sanctioned act done in your
name and mine. It reduces all of us to the gutter level of the
low-life scum who commit murder for revenge, greed, or fun. Actually,
we're worse. Because we, and our elected government, are supposed
to be acting with a sense of moral purpose, to seek solutions
to conflicts with a rational head, to be an example to our children
and the rest of the world that there is a higher purpose to our
lives.
Instead, because we detest
killing, we kill. Because we think it is wrong to take another's
life, we take another's life. We are clueless to the fact that
we are the laughing stock of the rest of the civilized world
(over 110 countries have outlawed the death penalty since we
brought it back 20+ years ago). Yes, we have a right -- a duty
-- to protect ourselves from those who would do us harm. That's
called locking them up, and in some cases, throwing away the
key. If it's punishment we are seeking, then, in addition to
life sentences, have them perform functions in prison that benefit
the society.
But if we simply want blood,
well, I'm sorry, not on my dime and not on my hands. Feeding
revenge can only create more sickness in our society. Isn't it
enough we have a quarter-billion guns in our homes to prove to
the world the level of our unstable behavior?
I come from a state, Michigan,
that in 1841 became the first English-speaking government in
the world to abolish the death penalty. We are one of only ten
states in America that refuse to participate in state-sanctioned
murder. All attempts to introduce the death penalty in Michigan
have been beaten down by overwhelming margins. Even the right-wingnut
governor is anti-death penalty.
Earlier this year, the New
York Times did a survey and found that the states that don't
have the death penalty have a LOWER murder rate than the states
that have capital punishment. That's right -- in 8 of the 10
non-death-penalty states, not only are fewer people killed every
year than in places like Texas (which executes its citizens with
what seems to be a certain glee), but the murder rates in all
10 of these states have dropped significantly in the last 10
years. Those who say that the death penalty is a "deterrent"
should ask why it is that in the kill-happy 40 states you have
the greatest chance of losing your life to a murderer on the
streets or in the home.
On top of all of this, it is
chilling to think of how many innocent people we have put to
death. The recent revelations across the country of death row
inmates who were falsely convicted -- 11 out of 22 in Illinois
alone -- should be reason enough for even those of you who are
pro-death-penalty to stop these executions. Who wants to take
the chance that even ONE innocent individual is put to death?
Who can absolutely guarantee that every single one of the 3000+
people awaiting execution currently in the U.S. is absolutely
guilty of his or her crime? If you can't, then you must join
with me in calling for a moratorium on the death penalty across
the nation. There is no other way.
When I received an email from
Michael's relatives asking for my help, it was a bit weird and
shocking to see a subject heading that read, "MICHAEL MOORE
TO BE EXECUTED MARCH 28." They asked that I help them stop
his execution. I said I would. I do not care about Michael's
guilt or innocence as I write this. For all I know he's guilty
as guilty can be. But that is not the point. The point is that
WE must not be the guilty ones in condoning the taking of HIS
life. I realize this is a very long shot, stopping his execution.
This new governor of Texas is cut from the same bloody cloth
as his predecessor. It brought no solace in the campaign last
year to see Bush's opponent, Mr. Gore, enthusiastically endorse
not only the death penalty, but Bush's mass executions during
his 6 years as governor. And we all remember an eager Bill Clinton
who interrupted his 1992 campaign for president to rush back
to Arkansas to preside over the execution of a retarded man.
No, I don't have much hope.
And it's not just the politicians from the two sides of our one-party
system. It's the American people. Whereas on virtually every
other issue -- the environment, the need for labor unions, a
woman's right to choose, etcetera -- every poll shows the majority
of the American public taking the liberal/progressive position,
it is on this one issue of the death penalty where the majority
of Americans still sides with the right wing. But that support
has dropped from 70% to 57% in the last two years. People are
wising up to the randomness and injustice of this heinous act.
Perhaps there's some hope.
In the meantime, would you
take a second and send a letter to Governor Perry on Michael
Moore's behalf. You can do so by clicking one of the URLs below,
or by going to The Nation's website, where they have a letter
already prepared.
No human being should be killed
in our name -- or, in this case, with my name.
Thanks.
www.michaelmoore.com
THIS EVIL THAT TEXAS
DOES
On January 9, 2002, Texas executed
Michael Moore, the 257th execution since the death penalty was
resumed in the state in 1982. This execution was carried out
despite the fact that Moore was the recipient of poor legal assistance
during both his original trial and his first state habeas appeals.
His original habeas attorney admitted to such in writing.
But I am not writing this essay
to just comment on the poor legal help that Mr. Moore received
at the hands of the Texas "injustice" system. I want
to comment on the evil that Texas does. Yes, there is no other
accurate way to describe the Texas execution machinery. While
it is necessary for society to protect itself, it is unnecessary
for it to execute someone to do so. Long-term incarceration is
a viable option for punishing a criminal and protecting society.
Therefore, when a society continues to carry out unnecessary
executions, this can only be described as evil borne of vengeance.
Another evil aspect of the
Texas death penalty process is that it is premeditated, cold-blooded
murder of the highest order. Very few prisoners on death row
have committed premeditated murder. Frequently the murders occurred
in a moment of anger or fear. Often the perpetrator was high
on drugs or alcohol. Many perpetrators are mentally ill, retarded
or brain-damaged. However, when the state kills, it is methodically
done with a very clear mind. It is reminiscent of Nazi Germany.
It is, clearly, evil.
Furthermore, the execution
of prisoners in Texas is evil because it has been clearly demonstrated
that the criminal justice system is fraught with economic and
racial biases and has many other problems. The fact that there
are no wealthy folks on death row is no accident. You get what
you pay for in our legal system. Recent improvements in the crimial
justice system to improve legal defense for the poor will not
help those already on death row, the great majority of whom were
poor and had ineffective legal counsel. To continue with executions,
when this is well-known, can only be described as evil.
In 1997, the Catholic Bishops
of Texas stated that the state was usurping the sovereign domininion
of God by carrying out death penalty. Usurping the sovereign
dominion of God can only be described as evil.
Unfortunately, since Texas
is carrying out these executions in the name of all its citizens,
we are all participating in this evil practice.
Texas has about 450 people
on its death row. It is time to end the evil.
David Atwood
From :Canadian
Coalition Against the Death Penalty -
On March 17, 2001 Tripod, a
subsidiary of Lycos, Inc. deleted ALL 12 MB of the Canadian Coalition
Against The Death Penalty's webpages from their server without
notice. Hundreds of webpages of legal materials for people about
to be executed have been deleted. The international support campaign
for Jimmy Dennis, a case of actual innocence on death row in
Pennsylvania has been entirely wiped out. Fortunately most of
the materials are mirrored at other locations. We have tried
contacting Tripod but have received no response. All we know
is ccadp is no longer an authorized member of Tripod. when we
try to log in it just says our account has been deleted and we
may have somehow violated their terms of service. After 4 years
of membership, claiming we made a violation of Tripod's Terms
of Service, they have refused to respond to our inquiries. As
far as we know, never before has a worldwide academic resource
of this magnitude been subject to such actions, an irreplaceable
resource for the legal community, visual and print media, the
academic community, as well as concerned individuals involved
in the struggle for human rights worldwide. We have received
numerous emails about our page being down from both abolitionists
and news media, however we have no response from tripod yet,
so have not yet issued a formal statement to the media to explain
what happened to our page, at this time we don't know. Except
to say it has been deleted, and Tripod refuses so far to tell
us why.
If you wish to contact Tripod,
please contact them at: abuse@tripod.com
Maybe they'll tell you why
CCADP was deleted, as they're not telling us ! Also you may wish
to contact Lycos, Tripod's parent co. to see where the pages
have gone. Mailing addresses and phone #'s for Tripod and Lycos
are hard to locate on the net, and trying to locate the individuals
who run the departments who are responsible for deleting our
pages even harder... Anyone who may be able to provide this info
please email ccadp@shaw.ca so we can send formal mail, fax and
phonecalls to express our outrage at this unprecendented action,
and try to get an official statement from Tripod for the reasons
CCADP was Texecuted. In the meantime...Our page is now being
mirrored at two locations: http://members.nbci.com/ccadp/homepage.htm
http://members.home.net/ccadp/
|
Truth can never be
told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd. William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell
