Thursday, Feb. 5, 1998----
TEXAS:
Karla Faye Tucker is dead. Her cause celebre lives on.
The day after the most publicized execution in Texas' history,
those who closely followed Ms. Tucker's failed struggle for mercy
predicted that her legacy will not be quickly extinguished.
The captivating tale of the woman with the warm smile who found
God behind bars will linger in the minds of Americans - including
millions who never before gave much thought to capital punishment
- said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty
Information Center in Washington.
"I heard a lot of people talking about this case," he
said. "People heard about it in their churches, from their
teachers, ministers. That's where things change. The media
barrage will leave, but people's thoughts and questions will
continue."
Roger Rathman, a spokesman for Amnesty International, which took
up Ms. Tucker's cause, said she achieved something no previous
death row inmate had.
"She put a human face on the inmates of death row," he
said. "When people think about this process of death and see
a human being, it changes their perception."
Even some supporters of the death penalty said Ms. Tucker's case
brought to light deficiencies in the system that the Texas
Legislature should address.
"It's a shame that the system didn't intervene with her when
she was 10 or 12 or 14 years old, doing heroin and her mother
beginning to use her as a prostitute," said Sen. John
Whitmire, D-Houston, chairman of the
Senate Criminal Justice Committee.
"We have to design a system that would see a Karla Faye
Tucker in trouble and intervene."
Ms. Tucker, 38, killed 2 people with a pickax in 1983 during a
burglary at a Houston apartment. She later apologized for her
brutal crime, saying she was in the throes of a days-long drug
binge at the time.
Mr. Whitmire said Ms. Tucker's case also brought to light what
many perceive as flaws in the state's clemency review process.
The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, which makes
recommendations to the governor on petitions for clemency, turned
down Ms. Tucker's request for mercy - as it had, unanimously,
without hearing or debate, the previous 16 such petitions.
The board can hold a hearing on a petition for clemency, but it
has done so only once in 8 years.
Mr. Whitmire said it's too early to predict whether legislators
will seek to amend the clemency process when they next meet in
regular session next January.
"But my early belief about the clemency process is that it
should be in an open meeting, so you could have input from crime
victims, prosecutors and certainly the person affected," he
said. The senator plans hearings later this year to look into the
board's workings.
State Rep. Allen Place, D-Gatesville, chairman of the House
Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence, agreed that the clemency
process deserves review.
"I think the Legislature probably will look at it in terms
of a variety of things," he said. 1 possibility, he added,
is to specify the criteria that the board should consider when
weighing a clemency petition.
"Right now, what they consider or don't consider is really
left entirely up to them," he said.
While groups such as Amnesty International hoped the world would
see Ms. Tucker's execution as proof that capital punishment is
barbaric and brutish, almost no one in Texas expects a serious
effort to abolish it here.
"My belief is that the huge media spectacle surrounding this
case - and that's what it was, a spectacle - won't make any
difference at all," said
Dianne Clements, president of Justice For All, a Houston-based
advocacy group for crime victims.
"Clearly, the polls indicate that a big majority of Texans
support the death penalty. And I don't see that changing as a
result of Karla Faye Tucker's execution. As a matter of fact,
most people polled thought she should be executed."
Harris County District Attorney John B. Holmes, whose office
sends far more people to death row than any other in the state,
said: "Juries and legislators in this state are doing what
Texans want done. "I guess all the folks in New York and
Denmark and everywhere else who think it's wrong to kill the
Karla Faye Tuckers of the world disagree. But the people of this
state believe that death is appropriate punishment in some cases,
period."
Mr. Rathman, the Amnesty International spokesman, said he fears
that Gov. George W. Bush's decision to let Ms. Tucker's execution
proceed will make
it politically easier for the next governor facing that choice.
There are almost 50 women on death row around the country, he
noted.
"The heat isn't as intense the 2nd, or the 3rd, or the 5th
time around," he said. "I'm concerned that what
Governor Bush did may give a green light to other states to speed
up the conveyor belt of death."
There are 6 women on death row in Texas. 1, Erica Yvonne
Sheppard, is scheduled to die Apri 20.
Mr. Bush said through a spokesperson Wednesday that he had
nothing new to say about Ms. Tucker or her punishment.
"I don't think he's had ample time to reflect on what, if
anything, should be changed," said Karen Hughes, his press
secretary.
"There is ample time between now and the next legislative
session for he and the lawmakers to think through that."
(source: Dallas Morning News)
VIRGINIA:
Could Richmond's murder rate be so high in part because the death
penalty is so rarely sought here?
Could Danville's aggressive pursuit of the death penalty play a
part in why it has a lower murder rate?
Maybe so, says Richmond Commonwealth's Attorney David Hicks.
Opponents of the death penalty and even many supporters question
its value as a deterrent to crime. But, Hicks said, "I
wouldn't dismiss it out of hand.
"As a matter of fact, we probably are going to go more
aggressively after" more cases in Richmond.
Richmond has had some of the highest murder rates in the nation
during the past decade.
In 1994, the city's murder rate of 79.1 per 100,000 residents
ranked it 2nd nationally; in 1995, the rate of 57.9 ranked it
3rd. The FBI has not provided ranking data for the most recent
years, but Richmond's 112 murders in 1996 (rate of 54.6) and 140
murders in 1997 (rate of 68.3) may keep its ranking high.
By comparison, Danville had eight murders in 1994, 3 in 1995, 9
in 1996, and 9 in 1997. Its rate per 100,000 for those years
would be 14.9, 5.6, 17.2 and 17.2 respectively.
The death penalty, Hicks said, is "not a magic pill, but
it's something I would not dismiss without consideration."
Hicks said he believes the death penalty has a deterrent effect.
"I know some say it doesn't and they'll cite
statistics."
But, Hicks said, a key question cannot be answered by statistics:
"How many people did not pull the trigger in a robbery
because the thought went through their mind? We don't know."
Just as the abolition of parole gives some criminals pause, Hicks
said he believes "death is a deterrent to folks who may say,
'Hey, prison ain't no big deal.'
"So, I think it does have a deterrent effect."
Victor L. Streib, dean of the Petit College of Law at Ohio
Northern University and an expert on capital punishment,
disagrees.
"This issue has been the subject of an enormous amount of
careful, scientific research, and we know beyond any reasonable
doubt that the death penalty has the same or less deterrent
effect as life in prison," Streib said.
"We also know that very, very few murderers think rationally
before they act, weighing in a cost-effective manner the various
possible punishments.
"Many politicians continue to say that they believe that the
death penalty is a deterrent, but we should treat those beliefs
in the same manner as we do beliefs in Santa Claus, the Easter
Bunny, a flat Earth and that the Cubs will win the pennant next
year," Streib said.
1 of the few academics who disagree with Streib and agree with
Hicks is Paul Cassell, a professor of law at the University of
Utah.
"When we remove the issue from the emotion swirling around
the death penalty, people agree that if you punish something more
severely, the incidence of that crime will go down," Cassel
said.
He points to heightened attention and stiffer punishments being
aimed at domestic violence and environmental crimes. "The
folks who want to reduce them say, 'Let's jack up the penalties
and we'll see the crime rate go down.' Why should that suddenly
disappear when we go to premeditated murder?"
He said, "1 of the things people say is, 'Murderers don't
think ahead of time, it's an impulse kind of thing and deterrence
wouldn't work.' " But, he said, capital murders are
premeditated murders.
"And that's exactly the type of crime for which deterrence
ought to operate. Now, that's not to say that deterrence is going
to be perfect...but if even a few murders are deterred, that
means innocent lives have been saved," Cassell said.
However, William H. Fuller III, Danville's commonwealth's
attorney who is viewed as a tough prosecutor by his peers across
Virginia, is not sure that the pursuit of capital punishment in
Danville and Richmond has much to do with murder rates.
Fuller questions the deterrent value of the death sentence,
because it takes so long to execute someone and because so many
young killers don't stop to think before they act.
He believes the rate at which police solve crimes in a community
and the community's attitude toward crime are far more important.
Danville has 1 of the state's highest crime clearance rates,
while Richmond has 1 of the lowest.
In 1996, the most recent year for which state police figures are
available, Danville's major crime clearance rate was more than 40
%. Richmond's, in contrast, was just over 14 %.
"These drug-related murders are hard to solve, and they have
so many of those in Richmond," Fuller said.
(source: Richmond Times-Dispatch)
IOWA:
Death-penalty supporters conceded Tuesday that a narrowly crafted
bill under consideration by a House committee may not apply to
certain types of serial killings.
Also, House drafters said they struck language previously
approved by a Senate panel that would have included sexual
orientation among the factors a jury deciding a death-penalty
case would have been advised not to consider when determining if
capital punishment was justified.
Provisions were kept in the bill to have a trial judge, at the
defendant's request, instruct jurors that race, color, religious
beliefs, national origin, or the sex of the defendant shall not
be considered in deciding whether a sentence of death is
appropriate, said Rep. Chuck Larson, R-Cedar Rapids. He said the
sexual orientation reference was removed because that stipulation
is not included anywhere else in Iowa law.
The developments came to light as a House subcommittee began work
on a bill seeking to reinstate the death penalty in Iowa for the
1st time since 1965. A public hearing on the issue is slated at
the Capitol and Larson hoped the panel could forward the measure
to the House Judiciary Committee soon.
However, opponents charged Tuesday that backers were trying to
"railroad a bill through" the Legislature. Foes also
said the debate is more about assuring an election-year vote on
the issue than about carefully crafting a law that would be
workable and applied equitably in a state that currently boasts 1
of the nation's lowest crime rates.
"This is a very difficult thing, and we're rushing it
through, and we shouldn't do that," said Rep. Minnette
Doderer, D-Iowa City. "They've almost narrowed it too much.
It's so complicated that I'm not sure what it says."
Larson conceded that a provision applying the death penalty to
those who commit multiple murders when they occur roughly at the
same time or in an immediate sequence may not be applicable to
serial killers who space out their crimes. He said the matter
could be looked at when the issue comes before the whole
committee, but he did not want to broaden the provisions too much
for fear of losing supporters.
"It is my intent to pass a narrow version, a limited
version," he said. "I believe this is an appropriate
1st step."
Meanwhile, Republican legislators who vote against reinstating
the death penalty shouldn't fear reprisal from party leaders but
may face voter anger, Gov. Terry Branstad said Monday.
Branstad used part of his weekly news conference to rebut last
week's claims by death penalty opponents that GO legislators are
being pressured
to vote for capital punishment or risk losing support or money
when they seek re-election.
"I don't think we ought to have a litmus test for who we
support," he said. "I don't operate that way, never
have."
Branstad said he thinks most Iowans support his call for a
limited death penalty to punish offenders who kill a rape or
kidnap victim, commit multiple murders or kill someone in prison
while already serving a life term.
"I'm going to tell you there's been a number of people that
have lost elections over this issue," he said. "This is
an issue that people care about."
Branstad said he is encouraged by support for the death penalty
in the General Assembly but is unsure of its chances this year.
Opponents say there aren't enough votes for approval in the House
or Senate, but they have criticized what they call pressure
tactics and a "smear campaign" as the issue moves
closer to a vote.
Patti Brown of Iowans Against the Death Penalty said Republican
House leaders are pushing a vote this session, win or lose,
merely to portray Democratic opponents as soft on crime in the
fall election.
(source: Des Moines Gazette)
IDAHO:
A bill creating a system to help counties with the burden of
appeals in death penalty cases was easily approved by a House
committee. It would take $830,400 in the 1st year to pay for a
state public defender's office, and another $74,300 for equipment
for the office.
(source: USA TODAY)
Rick Halperin
AI-Texas
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