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January
28, 2003 |
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No doubt you all know that two days before his term ended former Illinois
Governor George Ryan issued a blanket commutation of all the state's
death sentences. Each of Illinois' 167 inmates who were sentenced
to death will now serve life without parole. In addition, Ryan pardoned
four death row inmates after being convinced by evidence and research
that they were innocent.
There is an enormous difference to the families of murder victims
between knowing the killer is in jail and knowing the killer is in
jail awaiting execution. There is security in the latter that the
killer won't ever get out. Governor Ryan took that security away from
the victims' families.
No one can be certain that some of those 167 won't get
out someday.
Some Background
Governor Ryan established a moratorium on executions in 2000, which
meant that there would be no executions even as people continued to
be sentenced to death. He put together a commission to investigate
the death penalty looking at the impact of factors like race, economic
status, mental competency, incarcerated eyewitnesses, and victims'
families' perspectives.
They came to a number of conclusions, many of them reasonable. I agree
that survivors and victims' families should get more help from the
courts. The commission suggested what I see as small but important
steps, including help with bureaucratic issues like getting a death
certificate, applying for social security benefits, and filing insurance
claims. I also agree that it's a problem that those who plead guilty
often do so to avoid the death penalty, and that it works.
But I disagree with Ryan's decision. I think it was misguided and a travesty
of justice.
The Debate
According to columnist George Will, Ryan's actions were "explicitly, even exuberantly, anti-democratic...[he] vowed not to carry out the consensus of the people..." I agree. It's amazing that a governor could wield that much power.
But to me, there is a more fundamental problem. As you know, I am
firmly for the death penalty. I can speak with some confidence, since
I am one of a few who can say he's looked in the eyes of convicted
murderers and serial killers and talked with them at length about
their lives and their crimes.
I believe convicted killers deserve no more mercy than they showed their victims.
Fedell Caffey and Jacqueline Williams were on death row for killing
Debra Evans and her two young children. Caffey and Williams wanted
a baby, and Evans was nine-months pregnant. So they tried to kill
her and, while she was still alive, they cut her abdomen open and
ripped the mature fetus from her body. They then stabbed Evans and
her 10-year-old daughter to death. They took the baby and Evans' 7-year-old
son, whom they later stabbed and dumped in an alley.
Their trials were fair, there was good forensic evidence, and there
is no question Caffey and Williams are guilty. Yet their sentences
were commuted by Governor Ryan in his broad move. So instead of facing
execution, these two will live out the fullness of their lives in
prison. What will they do with all that time?
Fedell Caffey's plea for a pen pal is posted on the Internet, at a
website offered by a nonprofit group called Lamp of Hope.
He'd like to hear from people on the "outside" between the ages of 20 and 40.
The Victims' Families
According to the Chicago Tribune, Evan's brother, Sam Evans, Jr., said of Ryan's decision, "He's seen to it that us and all of the families waiting will never have that final closure...We've been robbed of our justice. He cannot state that there was any error whatsoever in our specific case. It was just wrong. There's no other way of putting it."
I would like to ask Governor Ryan what the families of the victims of those 167 should do now. How should they deal with the reopening of their wounds? How should they handle the loss of what was at least some kind of resolution? The death penalty isn't revenge. It's a punishment the majority of Americans believe is appropriate for the most horrific crimes. It's the only way to be sure those who commit such crimes are not allowed back into society to do it again.
But is it wrong, personally, to want the man dead who slaughtered your son, the police officer? Or who raped and murdered your sister? No. It's natural. Nearly everyone I talk to, whether they're for or against capital punishment, says they know they would have to struggle not to kill that hypothetical man themselves.
So imagine these families, who before Ryan's commutation could at least rest a little easier knowing that monster would not live to hurt another person. Now that guarantee is gone. How can they believe that monster will spend his whole life in prison? Why should they believe it?
And why a blanket decision? Ryan, his staff, and his commission investigated each case. He says he studied them all. He invited the families to speak with him in two separate gatherings, spent time on the phone with some of them. He made individual decisions in four of the cases-those of Aaron Patterson, Madison Hobley, Stanley Howard and Leroy Orange, the four men he pardoned. But not the other 167.
A Bolt of Lightning
Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart has said that
the imposition of the death penalty on defendants in this country
is as freakish and arbitrary as who gets hit by a bolt of lightning.
With that, Governor Ryan quotes what sounds like a profound statement from Justice Stewart, but I think there's a flaw in the logic. The death penalty is not imposed on "defendants" who may be guilty or innocent. It's imposed on the convicted, after they have been duly found guilty.
I emphasize the issue of choice. They chose to kill, many of them more than once, and most of them brutally. They were convicted by a jury in a fair trial. And in 37 states, when the crime meets established death penalty criteria, we choose to execute them. There is nothing arbitrary about it.
Except in the grandstanding final action of an exiting governor.
Checks and Balances
Those who support Ryan's decision often cite the thirteen Illinois death row inmates exonerated and released since the death penalty was reinstated in 1977. They point out that there have been fewer executions (twelve) than exonerations. Adding the four he pardoned, Ryan speaks of them as an indication that the process is fatally flawed:
Seventeen exonerated Death Row inmates is nothing
short of catastrophic failure.
I wonder. The checks on the system seem to have worked in these cases. The seventeen were not executed. Of the four pardoned by Ryan, only Stanley Howard, serving time for another conviction, remains in prison. The other three are now free.
Granted, they spent years in prison for crimes they apparently did not commit. But that has nothing to do with the death penalty as a sentence. If there are problems with the process, and there certainly are, then they should be addressed. But should that keep us from applying the appropriate and legal punishment for the most heinous and brutal crimes?
Governor Ryan's Legacy
I do believe Governor Ryan must be a man with strong beliefs. He is certainly no coward. But he made a terrible decision. He circumvented the rights of the victims and their families, the system of checks and balances of his state, and the wishes of his constituents.
The bottom line is that Governor Ryan showed mercy to the merciless.
He saved the lives of 167 killers, and I cannot agree with
that. |
