I have to admit that if anyone had asked me even if you years ago
whether I thought I'd ever see the day when a major political party in
the United States would openly advocate for the abolishment of the death
penalty, I would have laughed and asked: "Are you nuts?".
Let's
face it...America loves the death penalty. By conveniently subjective
interpretation of
circumstances, it morally justifies that basic primitive need for
vengeance. In fact, most who demand nothing less than death will only
too eagerly quote the Bible "An eye for an eye" arguing that therefore
this
measure of justice is sanctioned by none other than God himself. So what
if the inconvenient truth is that this same chapter of the Bible also
dictates
that those who disrespect their parents "shall be put to death" (Exodus
20:17) and those who commit adultery must be put to death, and other
crimes
too. But our society wouldn't advocate that, so this part is
ignored.
Then there's what the Bible says in Deuteronomy 19:15-20, clearly stating that if an
innocent man is condemned to death by false testimony, those responsible
for this injustice must be put to death so that others will know that
condemning an innocent person will not be tolerated. In recent years
hundreds of innocent people have been conclusively exonorated through
DNA evidence, yet neither the witnesses that gave false testimony
or the prosecutors who only too often do know the person was innocent and
prosecuted him or her anyway have never - not even once - been held
accountable.
When it comes to capital punishment, truth and justice mean
nothing as often deciding whether the state will deliberately
take the life of a person under the pretense of administering justice
has very little to do with the crime the defendant has been accused of.
Rather, it is about the politics of death and a particular prosecutor's
own political ambitions. Nobody can credibly argue that only the "worst
of
the worst" get the death penalty. Rather, the overwhelming weight of
the
objective evidence shows that the primary elements applicable in
deciding
who will live and who will die is socio-economic...only the poorest of
the
poor will face the death penalty - and even then, they will only face
actual execution if the victim was white as our legal process eagerly
facilities racial discrimination - black lives do not matter
when the victim was black, and they know this.
After over a generation of
fanatical support for the death penalty and repeatedly seeing all
honorable and morally ethical politicians all but publically burned at
the stake when they voiced their opposition to the death penalty, I was
flabbergasted recently to learn that the Democratic Party (Hillary
Clinton) has now publically declared its intent to campaign for the
abolishment of the death penalty.
But they're still many in the Democratic party who are not happy
- some will even abandon the party in protest. Still, I just never
thought I'd see the day when any political candidate, much less a major
political party, would call to have the death penalty abolished.
How did
this come about? Perhaps the Democratic party is merely exploring
society's own views towards the death penalty as it becomes
increasingly unpopular among voters who have seen a legal system
corrupted by deliberate imperfection and a growing consensus that our
legal system is only too willing to execute innocent people.
Myself, I
certainly do not credit Hillary Clinton with the adoption of this resolution
to abolish the death penalty. Although I do respect Hillary for many things, I
cannot ignore the fact that Bill Clinton single-handedly is responsible
for more innocent men and women facing execution than any other person.
I'm glad you asked how I could say, that will explain. It was in
1996 that then President Bill Clinton signed into effect what is known
as the "Anti-Terrorist and Effective Death Penalty Act" (AEDPA) which
was
primarily intended to expedite executions by eliminating any meaningful
Federal court review of State imposed convictions and death sentences.
By
signing the AEDPA into law, Bill Clinton made it only too easy for the
states to carry out executions - in fact, under the 1996 AEDPA it even
made
it impossible to prove your innocence with new evidence. Although
technically the AEDPA did allow for "successive" federal court review if
new evidence of innocence could be presented, in the past 20 years since
Bill Clinton signed the law into effect, not a single death sentenced
prisoner has been allowed to prove their innocence under this law.
To be honest, having Hillary Clinton as
president scares the crap out of me - but not quite as much as Trump. Those of us who have been around awhile
know that when Bill Clinton was questioned about his position on the
death penalty while running for president in 1992, his response was to
rush back to Arkansas, where he was still the state Governor, and ordered
the execution of a mentally incompetent prisoner - to prove he was more
than willing to kill.
What if Hillary Clinton proves to be cut of the
same cloth? Although the Democratic
party has now formally adopted a resolution to campaign against the
death penalty, this resolution would have no binding effect on Hillary
Clinton's
exercise of executive power once she's in office. When the time comes
to nominate federal judges to the bench, will she choose judges who
oppose or support the death penalty? When the
time comes to preside over the execution of a federal prisoner, will
she give the go-ahead while shrugging her shoulders and claiming that
she's just doing her job?
But they say that "Hope Springs Eternal" - and
what I would like to think is that at the end of the day it's not 1996
anymore. And we are not the same society we were then. When Bill Clinton
was President America's support for the death penalty was at an all-time
high, and for better or worse, Bill Clinton was a quintessential politician and if he
had to send a thousand innocent people to their death to win office he
would. And in 1996 nobody really cared.
