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Statement By Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr.
Monday, April 21,
1997
Chicago, Illinois
It is indeed a pleasure to join today
with the distinguished former U.S. Senator Paul Simon and the Death
Penalty Moratorium Campaign in Illinois to suspend all executions in
Illinois until an independent commission can investigate and correct the
misconduct, mistakes and injustice in our death penalty laws and
procedures.
The Death Penalty Moratorium Campaign in Illinois will
work to persuade the Illinois General Assembly to pass a resolution
calling on the Governor to grant temporary reprieves to all persons facing
executions and to establish an independent, nonpartisan commission to
study the death penalty process. The moratorium should remain in effect
until the commissions findings are presented and any necessary reforms
implemented. With nine mistakes made on innocent men in Illinois, this is
a very conservative recommendation.
When the commission
investigates, I believe they will find that some things can be improved,
but not fixed. With the death penalty, mistakes will always be made and
innocent people will always be put to death. In my judgment, the death
penalty should be outlawed period. While the rest of the world is moving
in a more humane direction of outlawing the death penalty, the US is on a
death penalty binge.
My father and I have just finished a year of
serious research and writing on capital punishment, reflected in a new
book, "Legal Lynching", which is a strong case against the death
penalty.
The case against the death penalty is historically,
logically and morally irrefutable. Let me outline just four of my concerns
with respect to the death penalty: (1) racism; (2) inadequate defense; (3)
habeas corpus; and (4) juries.
First, there is the matter of racism
and the death penalty. Illinois, with 67%, has the highest percentage of
people of color on death row of any state. The U.S. average is 48%. That's
morally and legally wrong. Race is at play in who is most often given the
death penalty. Secondly, the death penalty is administered in a racially
discriminatory manner. Who receives it has less to do with the violence of
the crime than with the color of the criminal's skin or, more often, the
color of the victim's skin. Capital punishment is essentially an arbitrary
punishment -- there are no objective rules, guidelines or measurable
standards for when a prosecutor should seek the death penalty, when a jury
should recommend it, or when a judge should give it -- which virtually
guarantees that it will be administered against racial, gender (males) and
ethnic groups in a discriminatory way., and the crime for which they are
given capital punishment -- when blacks kill whites.
Even though
the facts do not confirm the image, the media projects people of color,
but especially young black males, as violent criminals to be feared. This
helps to fuel a tough on crime political climate in the country which both
fuels and feeds off of irrational racial fears. Thus, death penalty
rhetoric has a racist dimension to it. Like crime, welfare reform, law and
order, busing, Willie Horton and Sister Souljah, the use of death penalty
rhetoric as the answer to growing crime, when statistics indicate that
most crimes have actually declined, is undoubtedly a racial code word used
to send racial political signals.
In the 2nd Congressional
District, there was the case of the Ford Heights Four, Verneal Jimerson,
Dennis Williams, Willie Rainge and Kenneth Adams, who were wrongly
incarcerated for 18 years, and one of the young men was on death row for
11 years. If the new habeas corpus laws passed by the Congress and signed
by the President in the 104th Congress had been in place then, the young
man on death row would already be dead.
Second, providing adequate
defense in capital cases is a problem. The promise, in Powell v. Alabama
(1932), is that the Court said any person facing capital punishment who is
too poor to afford an attorney has the right to have an attorney assigned.
It was not until 1962 that everyone received the right to appointed
counsel in any felony case if they could not afford one.
Third,
where life and death are involved, we need to take every precaution to
make sure that no mistakes are made. Yet the new federal habeas corpus law
does just the opposite. Unable politically to change the habeas corpus
laws in a normal political atmosphere, Congress attached new habeas corpus
rules to anti-terrorism legislation in the wake of the Oklahoma City
bombing. It therefore applied the shortened review process to
non-terrorist related offenses which are, nevertheless, capital in nature.
Thus, Congress misled and deceived the American public. With this
shortened process in place, many innocent people will surely be put to
death. The 104th Congress has passed and the President has signed into law
60 new crimes which qualify for the death penalty.
Fourth, juries
in capital cases are a problem. You must be a registered voter to be
called for jury duty. Blacks have lower registration rates and, thus, are
underrepresented in the pool from which jurors are chosen. Prosecutors
often try to get all-white juries when blacks are prosecuted by using
their preemptive challenges to remove blacks from the jury. Most juries
must be death qualified, which means that any prospective juror opposed to
the death penalty as a matter of principle is automatically barred from
serving.
To sum up these arguments and crystalize the issue: what
if Susan Smith's lie had been believed and not detected, and an innocent
black man had been arrested under community pressure to find the real
killer of the children; an arrest which was the result of shoddy or
dishonest investigative work; and what if this poor black man was
appointed inadequate, inexperienced and under compensated counsel; with
all blacks stricken from the jury; also denied expert witnesses because of
the lack of funds; with all those who do not believe in capital punishment
dismissed from the jury; found guilty; displeased with his counsel, but
unable to hire another competent attorney after conviction; and faced with
a shortened review process to prove his innocence because of a changed
habeas corpus law -- all of this outside the public light of media
attention. What do you think the chances of this poor innocent black man
would be of ever seeing the light of freedom again, much less of
living?
Personal or impersonal revenge through application of the
death penalty is not a proper role of the state. There is an alternative
to the death penalty where the ultimate penalty is appropriate -- life in
prison without the possibility of parole. Such a penalty protects society,
is punitive, is cheaper, is safer -- mistakes can, in time, be corrected
-- and is morally sound. My objection to the death penalty is largely
moral and religious -- we should not play God, assuming omniscience and
taking from others what we do not have the power to give, life
itself.
Yes, we must be tough on crime. But, since the most base of
human emotions and irrationality are often involved when a crime has been
committed, we must also make sure that we are even stronger on justice,
sometimes tempered with mercy, in light of the aforementioned issues
involved in the death penalty. An error here is literally a matter of life
and death which can never be
corrected!
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Post
Press Conference Facts:
RACISM: Between 1976, when the Supreme
Court reinstated the use of capital punishment, and June 1996, 330 death
row inmates have been executed. A disproportionate number of these
executions have occurred in the South. While 11 southern states contain 26
percent of the nation's population, they have carried out 83 percent of
our nation's executions. Is it merely coincidental that 53 percent of all
black people just happen to live in these 11 southern states? In Alabama,
for example, a state with a 25 percent black population, 71 percent of the
people executed since the death penalty has been reinstated have been
black.
RACISM: On August 23, 1980, Clarence Brandley, a black
janitor at Conroe High School in Conroe, Texas was arrested for the murder
of Cheryl Dee Ferguson, a well-liked vibrant 16-year-old white
cheerleader. The small town was understandably fearful. The police officer
interviewing Mr. Brandley and his white janitorial partner said, "One of
the two of you is going to hang for this." Turning to Brandley, the
officer add, 'Since you're the nigger, youre elected." Mr. Brandley was
convicted twice and given an execution date of January 16, 1986, later
delayed until March 26, 1987. With the help of "60 Minutes" and others,
Mr. Brandley was finally found innocent and released.
PROVIDED
COUNSEL: That was the promise guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment to the
Constitution 187 years earlier -- i.e., In all criminal prosecutions, the
accused shall...have the assistance of counsel for his defense. The
reality is much different than the promise! Those facing the death penalty
in court usually have inadequate counsel to defend them in our adversarial
judicial system. The Constitution does not necessarily require that all
defendants be provided counsel after conviction. Once on death row, most
capital offenders cannot afford to hire their own attorney and the state
is required to provide only one, and that one is usually an inexperienced,
ill-trained and under-compensated counsel for death penalty cases. In
reality, most on death row have no attorney at all.
EXAMPLE #1: We
must all remember Charles Stewart in Boston and Susan Smith in South
Carolina. Why were the first statements out of both of their mouths --
about murders they had committed -- that a black man did it? Why are black
men in particular, and people of color or cultural difference in general,
guilty until proven innocent? Why did we rather automatically assume that
Arabs were responsible for the bombing in Oklahoma City? In the case of
Charles Stewart and Susan Smith, it was because even at their lowest and
most irrational moments, their cultural instinct and the cultural climate
told them that the best way to get away with it and misdirect the
investigation, was to blame a black man!
-30-
Click
here to read more of Congressman Jackson's Issues and
Positions.
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