This morning, the death row inmate
Stanley "Tookie" Williams was refused clemency from California Governor Schwarzenegger. His last hope exhausted, Tookie was executed in San Quentin prison, north of
San Francisco. His case has attracted global media interest and, since you are no doubt familiar with the details of the crimes for which he today paid the ultimate price, I do not intend to talk of them here.
Aside from the obvious racial aspect, I believe that this case has generated so much press coverage not because of the events that led to him being on death row, but because of the character of Tookie himself. In spite of the persistent questions over his actual involvement in the homicides for which he was convicted, it was his personal transformation - from violent gang-member to principled educator, which seems to have most caught the public imagination.
So, in the aftermath of his death and the inevitable debates that will follow over the continued use of the death penalty in civilized society, we are forced to consider the two critical challenges to this draconian practice that Tookie's life represents: the possibility of miscarriages and the potential for personal change.
It is with respect to both these factors that I intend to examine today's events and justify my personal view on capital punishment. Though there are, of course, other factors that can may be considered, i.e. political (right to life Vs community stability), religious (forgiveness Vs retribution) , or even economic (cost of prison Vs cost of death row processes), and while they no doubt inform the questions I will consider, they produce, to my mind, less conclusive recommendations.
Throughout the blog, references to the ‘death penalty’ will be intended to imply the American model, as distinct from executions carried out in China or Saudi Arabia, for example. This is not just because of Tookie’s case, nor is it the fact the American’s appeal processes constitute an example of ‘good practice in a bad system’, when compared to the many countries in the world that still retain the right to kill their citizens. Instead, America informs the debate by virtue of the fact that it is the country where the rights of the ordinary citizen are most heavily contrasted with those of the death-row inmate.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
While uncertainty exists over whether Tookie actually did commit the homicides for which he was convicted (in the absence of conclusive forensics, the evidence against him was taken from ‘prison snitches’ and right till the end, he made no confessions) there is little doubt that innocent people have been, and will continue to be, killed under the present system. N.b.‘Innocent’, in this respect, means ‘not guilty of the crime for which they are being punished’ as well as ‘not guilty of any crime’- the death row inmate who accidentally killed a bank clerk during a robbery may be ‘innocent’ of the crime of first degree murder, depending on the circumstances.
Allegations of miscarriages of justice are, these days, common place. However, just as it would be naive to think death row houses only innocent men, this does not mean there is no truth to these claims. Thanks to detailed re-examinations of prior convictions (see Radelet & Bedau, for example) we can be almost certain that innocent people have been killed by the America states, albeit unwittingly. This is a fact acknowledged by even the most zealous promoters of the death penalty but not one which has been, historically, known to the public at large.
The general ignorance on this point is crucial because, as famously hypothesis by Justice Marshall, it constitutes a fact which, if more widely known and understood throughout the populace, would precipitate a major change in the legal system. If people knew how things really were, they would not accept them. This is an argument that can be equally applied to other scenarios, from international politics to global trade.
It is now worth briefly turning our attention to why these facts, despite being available for almost 20 years, have not established themselves in the public consciousness and asking to what extent is there a media agenda to remain silent on such issues.
These are big questions and ones that I hope to explore at length elsewhere. However, in anticipation of such an analysis, I can suggest that in the light of the recent telecommunications revolution, most significantly the internet, whatever forces have previously been responsible for shaping public opinions are now threatened by the new, free, world-wide flow of information.
Google ‘Tookie Williams’ and you will find a number of sites not just campaigning on his behalf but also informing their readers of these unreported casualties of the system. They point us to specific cases and seem to ask: How much longer are we going to let this happen? How many more people whose guilt remains in doubt, are we willing to execute in the name of retributive justice?
I think that the rise in this global community, educating each other on issues and increasing national awarness, is at least partly responsible for the large number of participants at today’s vigils.
However, I don’t wish to speculate on whether this trend will continue. Whether the continued advancement in communication technology and web literacy will eventually lead to a critical mass of public opinion away from the death penalty, I am not qualified to say.
The argument taken above, the possibility of miscarriage, is one that could be adopted both by those protestors who claim Tookie is innocent based on the facts of the case (as they see them,) and those anti-death penalty campaigners with more general concerns of ‘potential miscarriage’. These cries of ‘potential miscarriage’ are the product of the uncertainty inherent in any legal system based on ‘reasonable doubt’.
My objection to Tookie’s execution is different. It is based on the same principle by which I object to all executions, even those of the confessed killer. I believe in the possibility that people can change.
From my perspective, Tookie’s guilt (or lack of guilt) is a secondary issue. Even if future technologies eliminated all doubt from convictions, I would still object to the death penalty in all cases. In the remainder of this blog I hope to explain this stance and show why, in my view, Tookie’s life is a justification of my faith.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tookie was almost the definition of the reformed character. Over the course of his incarceration he transformed himself from a violent, anti-social young man into a highly creative, anti-gang campaigner. He told children of his past; he wanted them to learn from the mistakes of a misspent youth .For this he received widespread applause. He became, in effect a living challenge to everything he used to be.
For the twenty-something years Tookie spent on death row, going from one lengthy appeals process to the next, he would have had ample time to reflect on his deeds and contemplate what he would have done differently. He had the opportunity to educate himself and, in a very practical sense, give something back to the society from which he had taken. We can ask ourselves, to what extent was the man who started that journey of change two decades ago, the same person who was put to death today?
It is slightly ironic that, by having such appeals, the US has, in trying to minimise the possibility of mistakes, only served to create an inhumane system of allowing the defendant the time to change while remaining unwilling to recognise and respond to that change. This is simply not an issue in countries such as China and Saudi Arabia, where appeals processes are severely limited and killings carried out shortly (sometimes instantly) after verdicts. The only stays of execution in such barbaric regimes are those taken to sharpen the blade or reload the rifle.
It could be argued that the release of some children’s books does not absolve one from a time spent in criminal pursuits and that Tookie should not be given any preferential treatment over his less literate (though not necessarily less remorseful) fellow inmates. This, of course, a perfectly valid point but it only leaves us to question: What could be done, given the confines of his life behind bars, to demonstrate a significant change in his character? If we deny to others the possibility of change and redemption what cost does this have to society?
As I have mentioned elsewhere a lot will depend on your thoughts about humans in general. If you think that some people are just ‘bad seeds’ or even inherently evil, and that they are predisposed to commit terrible acts to those around them, then you may quite legitimately conclude that they will always be this way and view their deaths as a relief to society.
I think, however, that not only is this view deeply superstitious, it is not even (to the best of my knowledge) backed by conventional religious teachings. The Bible may say that we are born with original sin, but it doesn’t claim that any of us are created with a uniquely heavy burden.
With the possible exception of psychopaths (whose existence can be viewed from a medical perspective and who should be in secure hospitals), noone is born with an innate violent, anti-social tendencies. This is not just the view of the idealistic liberal, it is one based on the realities of our evolutionary inheritance – we are social creatures and those that couldn’t get along with others in their group were simply outperformed a long time ago. N.b. This is not to say that inter-species conflict does not exist in other social animals – it does. However confrontations are characterized by both the adoption of strict rules that protect individuals and the willingness not to hold grudges. The male Stag, for example, will fight another when challenged (i.e. for status) but the hostility will end as soon as one exhibits a submissive posture and the defeated foe will not be treated differently to the rest of the social group as a result of the encounter.
By broad measure, our personalities can be seen as flexible adaptations to the world around us. The existence of killers in our societies could be attributed to many environmental factors, from childhood abuses to substances misuse, o, more generally, to a culture of aggressively competitive consumption and the existance of technologies that make homicide easier then it naturally would be.
I'm not implying that the inmate is not responsible for the crime they have committed. Our society creates many types safety nets which are intended to help those with problems before they turn to crime. If they choose to ignore these, they do so wilfully. However, once a person has fallen through the holes and, as a result, been subjected to an appropriate punishment, does this does not mean there is no way back for them?
If we are presented with a an prisoner, such as Tookie, who invested their time incarcerated into improving themselves, and, in spite of conditions being against them (let’s face it, prison isn’t primary school), have become a person who, should we meet them under alternate circumstances, we would consider them a worthwhile human being – what then does this mean to us?
I’ll begin by saying what it shouldn't mean. It shouldn't mean that we start campaigning for a prisoner’s release just because they have, for example, completed a correspondence course of advanced ethics. Even if the prisoner grows as a result, custodial sentences exist for practical reasons. Parole boards should remain in place but they should not be viewed as judges on the matters of humanity.
In my opinion though, it does mean that we must re-examine our relationship with the death-row inmate by answering some fundamental question: Do we, as a society, have a responsibility to accept people for, not only who they were, but who they have become? Can we bring ourselves to accept the possibility of change in others as see it? What would it mean to kill someone once we have accepted this change within them?
Tookie is dead now, and even if subsequent evidence clears his name, this will not bring him back. Instead his life, both in and out of prison, should be one seen as one that dramatically demonstrates the potential for growth in all of us. He showed us that the social spirit can rise up in even the most dehumanising conditions.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home