Not Anti-Crime

By Keith R. Schmitz

Once again Wednesday night, the applause that Hee Haw candidate Rick Perry got when his death penalty orgy was mentioned at the GOP presidential debate proved why these folks have to keep reminding us that they are Christian. Otherwise we'd have no way of knowing.

But what I don't get is the assertion that the death penalty is anti-crime.

It's not for two reasons.

First, the research is rich with proof that it is not a deterrent, except in John MacAdams' world. Compare crime rate in Rick Perry's death penalty paradise and Wisconsin which banned it 162 years ago. You can't.

But the other problem is that often the wrong person goes to glory compliments of the state. So for those who are in the tough on crime crowd, doesn't putting the wrong person to death mean that the real culprit goes free? How is that being tough on crime, especially when in many cases the execution closes the books on the case?

That's not just brutal, that's stupid.

Deadlines

By Keith R. Schmitz

Here's a disturbing aspect of the decline in news staffs.

According to The New York Times as reported on the PoynterOnline site:

Lawyers opposed to the death penalty have in the past provided the broad outlines of cases to reporters, who then pursued witnesses and unearthed evidence. Now, lawyers tell Tim Arango, they have to do more of the work themselves and that means it often doesn't get done.

Needle and the Damage Done

By Keith R. Schmitz

Time Magazine reports support for the death penalty is ebbing.

'bout time. America gets smart.

Death Penalty Referendum, the folkbum recommendation: Vote NO November 7

Should the death penalty be enacted in the State of Wisconsin for cases involving a person who is convicted of first degree intentional homicide, if the conviction is supported by DNA evidence?

There are many different reasons to vote against this non-binding, advisory death penalty referendum, not the least among them (for me, at least) a resistance to state-sanctioned killing. If there is killing to be done, it will not be in my name. I may be a godless, soulless, artless liberal, but I believe that every human life--from murderer to Iraqi civilian to Michael J. Fox--has value, and I have no right to say when that value becomes zero.

But beyond that, the people behind this referendum are using it, using voters across the state, for their own ends--exploiting them, as some might say. Those ends have little to do with the wording of the referendum question. For one, the referendum is timed to create the largest impact on turnout: Originally scheduled by the State Senate to drive up conservative turnout in the September primary, by the time the Assembly got a hold of the measure, Scott Walker had dropped out, leaving no top-ticket Republican race in the primary. So the Assembly changed the date to November, figuring higher conservative turnout then couldn't hurt.

The people behind this were also hoping the timing would correspond neatly to the trial of Steven Avery, a trial that has been delayed by developments since the legislature's setting of the measure. As originally conceieved by supporters, the ballot question would have asked about multiple murders (as reflected in some of the initial official analysis), but after Avery allegedly murdered his single victim--and his case became very high profile--that changed, too. The supporters, again, used what they had for the greatest political gain.

And it's clear this week that regardless of the actual wording of the referendum, supporters in the legislature will do whatever they want, anyway. Renee Crawford points us to an article in Sunday's Wisconsin State Journal where the lead sponsor of the referendum makes it clear (my emphasis):

Sen. Alan Lasee, R-De Pere, the referendum's lead sponsor, cautioned against reading too much into the resolution's wording.

Lasee said the ballot question with its DNA clause is meant to poll voters on a general concept--how would they feel about the death penalty if safeguards could be built in to avoid convicting innocent people? It has never been his intent to limit the death penalty to convictions involving DNA evidence, he said.

He included the DNA clause to defang opponents. "It was my hope that this would dispel some of the fence-sitters from saying that the sky is falling and that someone is going to be wrongly convicted," he said.

Asked how seriously voters should take the resolution's language, Lasee said, "Voters can read into or out of it whatever they want. The bottom line is, 'Should the death penalty be reinstated, with or without DNA testing?'"

(Aside to John McAdams: You sound a little bloodthirsty in that article, too.)

I don't think I'm being too cynical here; it's pretty clear that the sponsors of this referendum don't actually care that much about justice, about the value of human life, or, for that matter, the intelligence of the voters themselves. Regardless of whether or not you are willing to sanction state-sponsored killing, you should be insulted by this. This state was pretty forward-looking to have abolished the death penalty back in 1853--150 years before the recent round of moratoriums. But that doesn't mean a thing to the reactionaries running the legislature. So tell them how much they are wrong, and vote no on November 7.

Backward

A long time ago, on a blog far away (and long since defunct), I used to debate badly outgunned conservatives on a variety of topics. Once I even debated my arch nemesis, back before he had a last name, and I kicked his butt. One of the first battles there--not one I was on--was over the death penalty; you can find it all here (plus the archive of my head-to-head with Owen).

The Republican position in that death penalty debate was, essentially, "If we can employ every tool at our disposal to make sure that no innocent person is put to death ever, then we can kill with abandon and happy consciences!" The advisory referendum passed out of the Wisconsin State Senate today has a lot of the same flavor. Republicans want our permission--this thing is really only lacking the "pretty please"--to throw the switch if they can guarantee only really guilty, really bad people will die.

The Republican's opponent in that old debate--the late, eloquent, saintly, and deeply missed Dan Champion--could not stomach that argument. He saw through the idealism and perfect-worldism of his opponent to the core of what makes these extreme Republicans salivate for death:

In my book, God can go ahead and impose the death penalty whenever He chooses.

Um… just not fallible humans. That’s been my point all along: human failure. Human weakness. Human compulsion for revenge.

Ah, revenge. [. . .] As a retributory tool, death works wonderfully. The desire for revenge is the dark secret in all of us. It has, I suppose, been so since the beginning of time. It is human nature to resent a hurt, and each of us has a desire to hurt back. [. . .]

By exacting revenge on criminals as a society, that society drops to the social stratum of its dregs. We are then playing on the murderer’s terms, by their rules, and we cannot win. Official revenge is no better than Hatfield and McCoy revenge, and the results are no less odious.

Even if it is perfect, it is still wrong.

Wrong does not have factors you can control for, DNA evidence that makes it okay, or any level of permission granted by voters to obviate its wrongness.

Wisconsin is my adopted state--don't get me started on what's going on in Ohio right now--and I have on a regular basis been proud of much of what goes on here. The state's motto, "Forward," means something to me. It means, among other things, not going backwards. That sounds glib; I don't mean it to be.

Consider what Wisconsin Republicans have been up to over the last few years (no links--my head hurts):

• They want to bring back the days of the Old West with concealed weapons
  
• They want to stifle the most promising--and most profitable--lines of biomedical research
  
• They want to bring back the death penalty, which Wisconsin saw fit to abandon in 1853
  
• They want to kick gay and lesbian citizens to the curb through their hateful anti-marriage amendment
  
• They want to dismantle the public schools and protections for victims of malpractice
  
• They want to make it as hard as possible for non-white, non-landed citizens to vote

And so on. This is the face of the elected Republican party in Wisconsin: Bloodthirsty, reactionary, cruel, heartless.

This is why they fear Tommy Thompson, why they still haven't granted him a speaking slot at their convention: He's a big doofus, but he is none of those things. Neither are the voters of Wisconsin, and those voters would have shown Mark Green the door.

We need to start going forward again, with one voice against these people. Vote no on their backwards agenda; vote for forward in November.