From The “American Left History" Archives (April -2007)-The Angels Of Death Ride Again- Down With The Barbaric Death Penalty Now!

Markin comment:

The United States Supreme Court, by a 5-4 vote, has just overturned a Kansas State Supreme Court ruling on the constitutionality of a Kansas death penalty statute. The Kansas court had held that the statute- which provided that where the evidence was equally divided on the question of sentencing a defendant to life imprisonment without parole or death the death penalty should apply- was unconstitutional as cruel and unusual punishment. Apparently the U.S. Supreme Court had no such qualms as it positioned itself just slightly to the left of the medieval Star Chamber. New justices, Chief Justice Roberts and Associate Justice Alito voted with the majority, the usual rogue’s gallery of robed closet Nazis Scalia, Thomas and Kennedy. That should come as no surprise to militants.

The immediate impact on the decision on death penalty cases is to further narrow the so-called technical arguments for appeal on due process or equal protection grounds. There was a time when the legal concept of an ‘evolving standard of human decency’ in death penalty cases was making some headway. That concept seems foreclosed by the U.S. Supreme Court lineup for the foreseeable future The wrangling now seems to be over whether the court will continue to ‘tinker with the machinery of death’ as the liberals on the court will argue or basically let the death machine roll along relatively unimpeded. Remember this, however, not one of the nine current justices, liberal or conservative, has come close to calling the death penalty unconstitutional. Whatever the grounds for argument all militants know that the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment and should be abolished.

A reader might ask what a workers party justice of the U.S. Supreme Court would do. In the immediate case, obviously bloc with the minority of justices to oppose this decision which narrows the legal basis for appeals. He or she, however, would write a separate opinion denouncing the death penalty and use this tribunal as a way to galvanize support. Realistically, although many bourgeois governments have abolished the death penalty, at the point where we had a workers party U.S. Supreme Court justice we would probably have a workers government. As one of its first acts that government would abolish such punishment without fanfare.


In any case, no serious militant should believe that the fight against the death penalty (for the guilty as well as the innocent) depends on court majorities. While all legal avenues, including the U.S. Supreme Court, should be pursued in individual death penalty cases this is a fight that can only be finally won by organizing mass demonstrations and other militant action. Let us do it. DOWN WITH DEATH PENALTY!

*Another Small Victory On The Death Penalty Abolition Front- Illinois Falls

Click on the headline to link to a The New York Times article about the abolition of the death penalty in Illinois.

Markin comment:

Below is a comment made in this space when New Mexico abolished the death penalty in 2009. The main points, the main political points, made there apply here especially the last one- Abolish the death penalty- everywhere!

Saturday, March 21, 2009

*Another Small Victory On The Death Penalty Abolition Front- New Mexico Falls

Commentary
This week, the week of March 16, 2009, Governor Bill Richardson (you remember him from the Democratic presidential campaign trail in 2008 and as a Obama Cabinet appointment gone awry, don’t you?) signed a bill passed by the New Mexico legislature that abolished the death penalty for capital crimes in that state. New Mexico thus joins New Jersey (2007) as the second state in recent times that has overturned this barbaric practice that had previously been on its books. We will take every, even small victory, on this front that we can get our hands on. Kudos.

As a general political proposition it has become apparent that the way that the death penalty will be abolished, short of an early act of a victorious workers government, is through piecemeal legislation in the individual states. So be it. On the federal level one should expect no positive action as the vaunted “liberal’ President Barack Obama is in favor of its retention (as, to be even-handed in our scorn, were then Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee Massachusetts Senator John Kerry- such is the nature of big time bourgeois politics).

That leaves the United States Supreme Court. Well, let’s move on back to that first paragraph about where the locus of action is on the death penalty question-the individual states. One little note though, some of the Supremes have been making noises (especially Justice Stevens) about abolition of the death penalty as a constitutional question. Well, we have been down that road before. I recall that former Justice Blackmon came out against the death penalty and received accolades and awards far and wide, especially from his brethren in the legal community. The only problem with that tribute from this corner is that he did so AFTER he left the bench. Where was the good Justice he when he could have done something (even in a technical sense like granting stays of execution and other legal niceties) about it though? This death penalty question is a quintessential democratic issue but, once again, don’t depend on the “house” liberals to be in the forefront of its abolition. Abolish The Death Penalty Everywhere Now!

*Another Small Victory On The Death Penalty Abolition Front- New Mexico Falls

Click on title to link to "Time" online coverage of the New Mexico Death Penalty abolition fight.

Commentary

This week, the week of March 16, 2009, Governor Bill Richardson (you remember him from the Democratic presidential campaign trail in 2008 and as a Obama Cabinet appointment gone awry, don’t you?) signed a bill passed by the New Mexico legislature that abolished the death penalty for capital crimes in that state. New Mexico thus joins New Jersey (2007) as the second state in recent times that has overturned this barbaric practice that had previously been on its books. We will take every, even small victory, on this front that we can get our hands on. Kudos.

As a general political proposition it has become apparent that the way that the death penalty will be abolished, short of an early act of a victorious workers government, is through piecemeal legislation in the individual states. So be it. On the federal level one should expect no positive action as the vaunted “liberal’ President Barack Obama is in favor of its retention (as, to be even-handed in our scorn, were then Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee Massachusetts Senator John Kerry- such is the nature of big time bourgeois politics).

That leaves the United States Supreme Court. Well, let’s move on back to that first paragraph about where the locus of action is on the death penalty question-the individual states. One little note though, some of the Supremes have been making noises (especially Justice Stevens) about abolition of the death penalty as a constitutional question. Well, we have been down that road before. I recall that former Justice Blackmon came out against the death penalty and received accolades and awards far and wide, especially from his brethren in the legal community. The only problem with that tribute from this corner is that he did so AFTER he left the bench. Where was the good Justice he when he could have done something (even in a technical sense like granting stays of execution and other legal niceties) about it though? This death penalty question is a quintessential democratic issue but, once again, don’t depend on the “house” liberals to be in the forefront of its abolition. Abolish The Death Penalty Now!

Another Small 'Victory' In The Death Penalty Struggle

Commentary

Forgive me if I accuse the august justices of the United States Supreme Court (at least those who have been able to move beyond 1791 on a legal decision) for having severe cases of schizophrenia. Or, in any case, they should be subjected to analysis for that possibility. Several weeks ago the Court, by a 7-2 decision (including some of the majority in this child rape death penalty case commented on here), agreed that the current manner of administration of the lethal injection used by most states that have the death penalty on their books did not offend against the cruel and unusual punishment clause of the American Constitution. Moreover, there were so many opinions issued, as each justice tried to parse his or her way through that legal thicket, that I feared for the paper supply at the Court.

Now, on Wednesday June 25, 2008, the Court, by a 5-4 decision, has held that those states that permit the death penalty in cases of child rape without the murder of the victim cannot impose the death penalty for such actions. In the Justice Kennedy-authored opinion the majority found that, heinous as this crime may be, without more this is cruel and unusual punishment. (Kennedy also authored the majority opinion in the Guantanamo detainees federal courts access decision last week. His law clerks must be working overtime these days as he tries to atone for his many legal sins committed over the last several years.) This decision is in line with an attempt by a least a few members of the court to limit the scope of the death penalty without actually abolishing it. Other cases in recent years include forbidding the execution of mental incompetents and minors.

When I commented on the Guantanamo case I mentioned that such a decision is a victory, if a small one, for us. This child rape decision is a ‘victory’ in that same sense. Nobody feels anything but contempt for a child rapist. Nasty little factual aspects of cases like these cause one to gulp when we use the word ‘victory’ here. Nevertheless to the extent that we are unable today to eliminate the state’s ability to impose the death penalty- our ultimate goal- then anytime a legal decision reins in that capacity it is a victory. Not in the way that we would claim a victory if Mumia Abu Jamal, for example, was freed- a case of a wrongly convicted innocent man that we are conspicuously trying to fight and win and have put resources into- but I think you get the drift of my comment. Really though, the best way to insure a real victory for our side (and get rid of some of the underlying causes of these ugly child rape cases in the world), is not to depend on the good offices of Justice Kennedy or any other Justice to rein in the death penalty, but to create a workers party that fights for a workers government.

A Short Note on the Death Penalty- The Supreme Court Oral Arguments

Commentary

One of the first, if not the first, issues that captured my passions as a young neophyte liberal politico was the fight against the death penalty. This fight seems like a never-ending battle that has had its own ebb and flows. In my youth here in Massachusetts that fight reflected the fact that no one had been executed in the state since 1947, and we wanted to keep it that way. It also reflected for me personally a fight in memory of Sacco and Vanzetti, the two Italian anarchists framed and executed in the 1920’s by this very same state of Massachusetts. Since then there have been a couple of serious attempts (one almost successful) to reimpose the death penalty. Current Republican presidential candidate and ex-Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney attempted to lead one of those efforts. He failed.

The ebb and flow of the fight against the death penalty here has also been reflected nationally as there have been periods when more states added this statute to their books, especially for heinous crimes directed at particular groups of persons like governmental officials or their agents. Lately with the successes of the Innocent Project and better scientific methods, such as DNA testing, that will stand up in court there has been something of a slow down in that trend. Recently New Jersey banned the penalty and others may follow.

This brings up today’s subject, which is a little comment on the work of the United States Supreme Court. Last week the Court agreed to accept a case to determine whether any crime other than murder, like rape, can be considered a capital crime and therefore subject to the death penalty statutes for punishment purposes. Most importantly, on Monday January 7, 2008 the Court heard oral arguments on the question of whether three dose legal injection, a method used by most of the 37 states that have the death penalty on their books, is cruel and unusual punishment under the United States Constitution. A moratorium, of sorts, on executions in the states has been in effect nationally pending a decision in this case.


If ever a death penalty opponent needed ammunition for the argument against the death penalty a reading of the transcript of the oral arguments in this case is all that is required. Getting down to the technical details of the process of injection and whether the subject human being is, in effect, being tortured by the state before taking his or her life is an almost surreal and Kafkaesque experience. That will, however, probably not deter this august Court from finding that such procedures are not cruel and unusual. The original intent theorists like justices Scalia and Thomas, aided by their dear friends justice Kennedy and the two Bush appointees, will find that anything short of drawing and quartering, a common practice in the 18th century, does not “shock the conscience” of humankind these days. Thus, our fight goes on. Abolish the Death Penalty Now!