The U.S., The World Court, and the Death Penalty
The World Court has ruled that the U.S. must stay execution of Mexican prisoners, pending a review of whether certain rights were extended to the prisoners. Predictably, this is a high-profile issue between the U.S. and Mexico. There are currently 54 Mexican citizens on death row in the U.S. system.
Jim Haefele has been doing some writing on Hyperbole about John Ashcroft's crusade to install the death penalty wherever possible, so I won't rehash that here. But I do wonder what the limits of Ashcroft's power are. Will his thirst for the death penalty be allowed to endanger U.S. and Mexican relations? Will it lead to yet another embarassing U.S. defiance of the World Court? One wonders if Ashcroft answers to Bush, to the American people, or to his God.
I believe there is a gradual change in this country's attitude toward the death penalty. Perhaps not so much on the ideological level, as more Americans have probably seen crimes that they feel are worth of death since, oh, September 2001. But I believe on the practical level, there is a growing recognition that the sentence is not, and cannot, be carried out fairly or accurately sufficient to ensure that no innocent people are killed, or that the sentence isn't applied disproportionately to minorities. I thought the actions of the Illinois governor, who suspended executions in his state due to increasing fears (realities, actually) that the sentence was unfair, were particularly courageous.
I am steadfastly against the death penalty; it's one of the few issues I never really waver on. I'm not saying some people don't deserve to die; I'm saying states shouldn't be in the position of making that choice, because they will always, somewhere along the way, screw it up. Vengeance isn't worth paying that price, in my book.
However, I am not so steadfast that I didn't chuckle when I read the story about the inmate in Virginia who recently misinterpreted a Virginia Supreme Court decision to say that he couldn't be tried for death by the state. In reality, the decision said something else entirely, but because this guy was an arrogant idiot, he decided that since he felt he couldn't be put to death, he would write a letter to tell the investigators, jurors, victim's family, etc., how he had really committed the murder for which he was tried. He basically gave a graphic description of a horrible murder, and peppered the letter with words like "I thought I would show y'all what a bunch of stupid motherf*ckers you are by telling you what really happened. Too bad you were all too stupid to figure it out..."
So, the authorities get the letter, which legally holds up as a confession, and the guy gets sentenced to death. I'm not saying I support the state death mechanism in Virginia; I'm just saying his execution might not be the one I would choose to go protest.
10:11:17 AM 
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