I thought this was a very factual, thoughtful, and impassioned plea for abolishing the death penalty. Unfortunately, Senator Feingold is a Democrat, so the fact that he is also a Rhodes Scholar will perhaps have little impact on his credibility, and will undeniably sully whatever facts he may bring to bear.
Be that as it may, (and being not forgetful of your resistance to lengthy prattle), I, nevertheless venture to engage your attention for what I hope may not seem an interminable passage of time, nor a task without some redeeming benefits accruing to the exercise thereof (cough)...<g>
"Some argue that the discovery of the innocence of a death row inmate proves that the system works. This is absurd. How can you say the criminal justice system works when a group of students -- not lawyers or investigators but students with no special powers, who were very much outside the system -- discover that a man about to be executed was in fact innocent? That's what happened in Illinois to Ronald Jones. The system doesn't work. It has failed us."
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FEINGOLD: Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Federal Death Penalty Abolition Act of 1999. This bill will abolish the death penalty at the federal level. It will put an immediate halt to executions and forbid the imposition of the death penalty as a sentence for violations of federal law.
Since the beginning of this year, this Chamber has echoed with debate on violence in America. We've heard about violence in our schools and neighborhoods. Some say its because of the availability of guns to minors. Some say Hollywood has contributed to a culture of violence. Others argue that the roots of the problem are far deeper and more complex. Whatever the causes, a culture of violence has certainly infected our nation. As schoolhouse killings have shown, our children now can be reached by that culture of violence. And they aren't just casual observers; some of them are active participants and many have been victims.
But, Mr. President, I'm not so sure that we in government don't contribute to this casual attitude we sometimes see toward killing and death. With each new death penalty statute enacted and each execution carried out, our executive, judicial and legislative branches, at both the state and federal level, add to a culture of violence and killing. With each person executed, we're teaching our children that the way to settle scores is through violence, even to the point of taking a human life.
At the same time, the public debate on the death penalty, which was an intense national debate not very long ago, is muted. As the online magazine Slate recently noted, with crime rates down and incomes up, "unspeakable crimes are no longer spoken of, murder is what happens to your portfolio on a bad day, 'family values' are debated through the Internal Revenue code, and the 'death penalty' is [often used as a term for] a tax issue." What has happened to our nation's sense of striving to do what we know to be the right thing? Those who favor the death penalty should be pressed to explain why fallible human beings should presume to use the power of the state to extinguish the life of a fellow human being on our collective behalf. Those who oppose the death penalty should demand that explanation adamantly, and at every turn. But only a zealous few try.
Our nation is a great nation. We have the strongest democracy in the world. We have expended blood and treasure to protect so many fundamental human rights at home and abroad and not always for only our own interests. But we can do better. Mr. President, we should do better. And we should use this moment to do better as we step not only into a new century but also a new millennium, the first such landmark since the depths of the Middle Ages.
Courtesy of the Internet and CNN International, the world observes, perplexed and sometimes horrified, the violence in our nation. When the Littleton tragedy erupted, newspapers all over the world marveled at how readily available guns are to American children. And across the globe, with every American who is executed, the entire world watches and asks how can the Americans, the champions of human rights, compromise their own professed beliefs in this way.
Religious groups and leaders express their revulsion at the continued practice of capital punishment. Pope John Paul II frequently appeals to American governors when a death row inmate is about to die. I am pleased that in a recent case, involving an inmate on death row in Missouri, the Missouri governor heeded the good advice of the pontiff and commuted the killer's sentence to life without parole. That case generated a lot of press -- but only as a political issue, rather than a moral question or a human rights challenge.
But the Pope is not standing alone against the death penalty. He is joined by the chorus of voices of various people of faith who abhor the death penalty. Religious groups from the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, the United Methodist Church, the Presbyterian Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Mennonites, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, and so many more people of faith have proclaimed their opposition to capital punishment. And, I might add, even conservative Pat Robertson protested the execution in 1998 of Karla Faye Tucker, a born-again Christian on Texas death row. Mr. President, I would like to see the commutation of sentences to life without parole for all death row inmates -- whether they are Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, or some other faith, or no faith at all.
The United States casual imposition of capital punishment is abhorrent not only to many people of faith. Our use of the death penalty also stands in stark contrast to the majority of nations that have abolished the death penalty in law or practice. Even Russia and South Africa -- nations that for years were symbols of egregious violations of basic human rights and liberties --have seen the error of the use of the death penalty. The United Nations Commission on Human Rights has called for a worldwide moratorium on the use of the death penalty. And soon, Italy and other European nations are expected to introduce a resolution in the UN General Assembly calling for a worldwide moratorium.
The European Union denies membership in their alliance to those nations that use the death penalty. In fact, the European Union recently warned Turkey that if it executes the Kurdish leader, Abdullah Ocalan, Turkey would jeopardize its membership application. Just this past December, the European Union actually passed a resolution calling for the immediate and unconditional global abolition of the death penalty, and it specifically called on all states within the United States to abolish the death penalty. This is significant because it reflects the unanimous view of the nations with which the United States enjoys its closest relationships -- nations that so often follow our lead.
Mr. President, what is even more troubling in the international context is that the United States is now one of only six countries that imposes the death penalty for crimes committed by children. I'll repeat that because it is remarkable. We are one of only six nations on this earth that puts to death people who were under 18 years of age when they committed their crimes. The others are Iran, Pakistan, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. These are countries that are often criticized for human rights abuses. And let's look at the numbers. Since 1990, the United States has executed ten child offenders. That's more than any one of these five other countries and equal to all five countries combined. Even China -- the country that many members of Congress, including myself, have criticized for its human rights violations -- apparently has the decency not to execute its children. This is embarrassing. Is this the kind of company we want to keep? Is this the kind of world leader we want to be? But these are the facts for this past decade, 1990 to the present.
Now, let's look at the last two years. In the last two years, the United States has been the only nation in the world to put to death people who were minors when they committed their crimes. We have executed four child offenders during the last two years. Today, over 70 child offenders remain on death row. No one, Mr. President, no one can reasonably argue that based on this data, executing child offenders is a normal or acceptable practice in the world community. And I don't think we should be proud of the fact that the United States is the world leader in the execution of child offenders.
Is the death penalty a deterrent for our children's conduct, as well as that of adult Americans? For those who believe capital punishment is a deterrent, they are sadly, sadly mistaken. The federal government and most states in the U.S. have a death penalty, while our European counterparts do not. Following the logic of death penalty supporters who believe its a deterrent, you would think that our European allies, who dont use the death penalty, would have a higher murder rate than the United States. Yet, they don't and it's not even close. In fact, the murder rate in the U.S. is six times higher than the murder rate in Britain, seven times higher than in France, five times higher than in Australia, and five times higher than in Sweden.
But we don't even need to look across the Atlantic to see that capital punishment has no deterrent effect on crime. Let's compare Wisconsin and Texas. I'm proud of the fact that my great state, Wisconsin, was the first state in this nation to abolish the death penalty completely, when it did so in 1853. Wisconsin has been death penalty-free for nearly 150 years. In contrast, Texas is the most prodigious user of the death penalty, having executed 192 people since 1976. Let's look at the murder rate in Wisconsin and Texas. During the period 1995 to 1998, Texas has had a murder rate that is nearly double the murder rate in Wisconsin. This data alone calls into question the argument that the death penalty is a deterrent to murder.
In fact, according to a 1995 Hart Research poll, the majority of our nation's police chiefs do not believe the death penalty is a particularly effective law enforcement tool. When asked to rank the various factors in reducing crime, police chiefs ranked the death penalty last. Rather, the police chiefs -- the people who deal with hardened criminals day in and day out -- cite reducing drug abuse as the primary factor in reducing crime, along with a better economy and jobs, simplifying court rules, longer prison sentences, more police officers, and reducing guns. It looks like most police chiefs recognize what our European allies and a few states like Wisconsin have known all along: the death penalty is not an effective deterrent.
Mr. President, let me be clear. I believe murderers and other violent offenders should be severely punished. I'm not seeking to open the prison doors and let murderers come rushing out into our communities. I don't want to free them. The question is: should the death penalty be a means of punishment in our society? One of the most frequent refrains from death penalty supporters is the claim that the majority of Americans support the death penalty. It's repeated so often, everybody assumes it's true. Mr. President, the facts do not support this claim. Survey after survey, from around the country, shows that when offered sentencing alternatives, more Americans prefer life without parole plus restitution for the victims family over the death penalty. For example, a 1993 national poll found that when offered alternatives to the death penalty, 44% of Americans supported the alternative of life without parole plus restitution over the death penalty. Only 41% preferred the death penalty and 15% were unsure. This is remarkable. Sure, if you ask Americans the simple, isolated question of whether they support the death penalty, a majority of Americans will agree. But if you ask them whether they support the death penalty or a realistic, practical alternative sentence like life without parole plus restitution, support for the death penalty falls dramatically to below 50%. More Americans support the alternative sentence than Americans who support the death penalty.
The fact that our society relies on killing as punishment is disturbing enough. Even more disturbing, however, is the fact that the States' and federal use of the death penalty is often not consistent with principles of due process, fairness and justice. These principles are the foundation of our criminal justice system and, in a broader sense, the stability of our nation. It is clearer than ever before that we have put innocent people on death row. In addition, those States that have the death penalty are more likely to put people to death for killing white victims than for killing black victims.
Mr. President, are we certain that innocent persons are not being executed? Obviously not. Are we certain that racial bias is not infecting the criminal justice system and the administration of the death penalty? I doubt it.
It simply cannot be disputed that we are sending innocent people to death. Since the modern death penalty was reinstated in the 1970s, we have released 79 men and women from death row. Why? Because they were innocent. Seventy-nine men and women sitting on death row, awaiting a firing squad, lethal injection or electrocution, but later found innocent. That's one death row inmate found innocent for every seven executed. One in seven! That's a pretty poor performance for American justice. A wrong conviction means that the real killer may have gotten away. The real killer may still be on the loose and a threat to society. What an injustice that the victims loved ones cannot rest because the killer is still not caught. What an injustice that an innocent man or woman has to spend even one day in jail. What a staggering injustice that innocent people are sentenced to death for crimes they did not commit. What a disgrace when we carry out those sentences, actually taking the lives of innocent people in the name of justice.
I call my colleagues attention to the recent example of an Illinois death row inmate, Ronald Jones, who had been sentenced to death for the rape and murder of a Chicago woman. After a lengthy interrogation in which Mr. Jones was beaten by police, he signed a confession. As a class assignment, a group of Northwestern University journalism students researched the case of Ronald Jones. What did they learn? They learned that Mr. Jones was clearly innocent and not for some technical reason -- he just didn't do it. As a result of the students efforts, Mr. Jones was later exonerated based on DNA evidence. Mr. President, our criminal justice system sent an innocent man to death row. Mr. Jones was tried and convicted in a justice system that is sometimes far from just and that sometimes just gets it wrong. And Mr. Jones is not alone. In Illinois alone, three death row inmates so far this year have been proven innocent. Since 1987, Illinois has freed 12 inmates from death row because they were later found innocent.
Innocent, Mr. President, and they were sitting on death row. Innocent, and yet they were about to be killed. Why? Because our criminal justice system is sometimes far from fair and far from just. We can all agree that it is profoundly wrong to convict and condemn innocent people to death. But sadly, thats whats happening. With the greater accuracy and sophistication of DNA testing available today compared to even a couple of years ago, states like Illinois are finding that people sitting on death row did not commit the crimes to which earlier, less accurate DNA tests appeared to link them. This DNA technology should be further reviewed and compared to other tests. We should consider the role of DNA tests in all those committed to death row.
Some argue that the discovery of the innocence of a death row inmate proves that the system works. This is absurd. How can you say the criminal justice system works when a group of students -- not lawyers or investigators but students with no special powers, who were very much outside the system -- discover that a man about to be executed was in fact innocent? That's what happened in Illinois to Ronald Jones. The system doesn't work. It has failed us.
A primary reason why justice has been less than just is a series of Supreme Court decisions that seem to fail to grasp the significance and responsibility of their task when a human life is at stake. The Supreme Court has been narrowly focused on procedural technicalities, ignoring the fact that the death penalty is a unique punishment that cannot be undone to correct mistakes. One disturbing decision was issued by the Supreme Court just a few months ago. In Jones v. United States, which involved an inmate on death row in Texas and the interpretation of the 1994 Federal Death Penalty Act, the judge refused to tell the jury that if they deadlocked on the sentence, the law required the judge to impose a sentence of life without possibility of parole. As a result, some jurors were under the grave misunderstanding that lack of unanimity would mean the judge could give a sentence where the defendant might one day go free. The Supreme Court, however, upheld the lower court's imposition of the death penalty. And one more person will lose a life, when a simple correction of a misunderstanding could have resulted in a severe yet morally correct sentence of life without parole.
As legal scholar Ronald Dworkin recently observed, "[t]he Supreme Court has become impatient, and super due process has turned into due process-lite. Its impatience is understandable, but is also unacceptable." Mr. President, America's impatience with the protracted appeals of death row inmates is understandable. But this impatience is unacceptable. The rush to judgment is unacceptable. And the rush to execute men, women and children who might well be innocent is horrifying.
The discovery of the innocence of death row inmates and misguided Supreme Court decisions disallowing potentially dispositive exculpatory evidence, however, aren't the only reasons we need to abolish the death penalty. Another reason we need to abolish the death penalty is the continuing racism in our criminal justice system. Our nation is facing a crucial test. A test of moral and political will. We have come a long way through this nation's history, and especially in this century, to dismantle state-sponsored and societal racism. Brown v. Board of Education, ensuring the right to equal educational opportunities for whites and blacks, was decided only 45 years ago. Unfortunately, however, we are still living with vestiges of institutional racism. In some cases, racism can be found at every stage of a capital trial -- in the selection of jurors, during the presentation of evidence, when the prosecutor contrasts the race of the victim and defendant to appeal to the prejudice of the jury, and sometimes during jury deliberations.
After the 1976 Supreme Court Gregg decision upholding the use of the death penalty, the death penalty was first enacted as a sentence at the federal level with passage of the Drug Kingpin Statute in 1988. Since that time, numerous additional federal crimes have become death penalty-eligible, bringing the total to about 60 statutes today. At the federal level, 21 people have been sentenced to death. Another eight men sit on the militarys death row. Of those 21 defendants on the federal governments death row, 14 are black and only 5 are white. One defendant is Hispanic and another Asian. That means 16 of the 21 people on federal death row are minorities. That's just over 75%. And the numbers are worse on the militarys death row. Seven of the eight, or 87.5%, on military death row are minorities.
Some of my colleagues may remember the debates of the late 1980's and early 1990's, when Congress considered the Racial Justice Act and other attempts to eradicate racism in the use of capital punishment. A noted study evaluating the role of race in death penalty cases was frequently discussed. This was the study by David Baldus, a professor at the University of Iowa College of Law. The Baldus study found that defendants who kill white victims are more than four times more likely to be sent to death row than defendants who kill black victims. An argument against the Baldus study was made by some opponents of the Racial Justice Act. They argued that we just needed to "level up" the playing field. In other words, send all the defendants who killed black victims to death row, too. They argued that legislative remedies were not needed, just tell prosecutors and judges to go after perpetrators of black homicide as strongly as against perpetrators of white homicide.
In theory, this may sound reasonable but one thing is clear: no matter how hard we try, we cannot overcome the inevitable fallibility of being human. That fallibility means that we will not be able to apply the death penalty in a fair and just manner. We will always run the risk that we will condemn innocent people to death. Mr. President, let's restore some certainty, fairness, and justice to our criminal justice system. Let's have the courage to recognize our human fallibilities. Let's put a halt to capital punishment.
The American Bar Association agrees. In 1997, the American Bar Association called for a moratorium on the death penalty because it found that the application of the death penalty raises fairness and due process concerns. Several states are finally beginning to recognize the great injustice when the ultimate punishment is carried out in a biased and unfair way. Moratoriums have been considered by the legislatures of at least ten states over the last several months. The legislatures of Illinois and Nebraska have made the most progress. They actually passed moratorium measures earlier this year.
I am glad to see that some states are finally taking steps to correct the practice of legalized killing that was again unleashed by the Supreme Courts Gregg decision in 1976. The first post-Gregg execution took place in 1977 in Utah, when Gary Gilmore did not challenge and instead aggressively sought his execution by a firing squad. The first post-Gregg involuntary execution took place on May 25, 1979. I vividly remember that day. I had just finished my last law school exam that morning. Later that day, I recall turning on the television and watching the news report that Florida had just executed John Spenkelink. I was overcome with a sickening feeling. Here I was, fresh out of law school and firm in my belief that our legal system was advancing through the latter quarter of the twentieth century. Instead, to my great dismay, I was witnessing a throwback to the electric chair, the gallows, and the routine executions of our nation's earlier history.
Mr. President, I haven't forgotten that experience or what I thought and felt on that day. At the end of 1999, at the end of a remarkable century and millennium of progress, I cannot help but believe that our progress has been tarnished with our nation's not only continuing, but increasing use of the death penalty. As of today, the United States has executed 584 people since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976. In those 23 years, there has been a sharp rise in the number of executions. This year the United States has already set a record for the most executions in our country in one year, 84 -- the latest execution being that of Thomas Lee Royal, Jr., who was executed by lethal injection just last night by the state of Virginia. And the year isn't even over yet. We are on track to hit close to 100 executions this year. This is astounding and it is embarrassing. We are a nation that prides itself on the fundamental principles of justice, liberty, equality and due process. We are a nation that scrutinizes the human rights records of other nations. We are one of the first nations to speak out against torture and killings by foreign governments. It is time for us to look in the mirror.
Two former Supreme Court justices did just that. Justice Harry Blackmun penned the following eloquent dissent in 1994:
"From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death. For more than 20 years I have endeavored indeed, I have struggled along with a majority of this Court, to develop procedural and substantive rules that would lend more than the mere appearance of fairness to the death penalty endeavor. Rather than continue to coddle the Court's delusion that the desired level of fairness has been achieved and the need for regulation eviscerated, I feel morally and intellectually obligated simply to concede that the death penalty experiment has failed. It is virtually self-evident to me now that no combination of procedural rules or substantive regulations ever can save the death penalty from its inherent constitutional deficiencies. The basic question does the system accurately and consistently determine which defendants 'deserve' to die? cannot be answered in the affirmative. . . . The problem is that the inevitability of factual, legal, and moral error gives us a system that we know must wrongly kill some defendants, a system that fails to deliver the fair, consistent, and reliable sentences of death required by the Constitution."
Justice Lewis Powell also had a similar change of mind. Justice Powell dissented from the Furman decision in 1972, which struck down the death penalty as a form of cruel and unusual punishment. He also wrote the decision in McCleskey v. Kemp in 1987, which denied a challenge to the death penalty on the grounds that it was applied in a discriminatory manner against African Americans. In 1991, however, Justice Powell told his biographer that he had decided that capital punishment should be abolished.
After sitting on our nation's highest court for over 20 years, Justices Blackmun and Powell came to understand the randomness and unfairness of the death penalty. Mr. President, it is time for our nation to follow the lead of these two distinguished jurists and re-visit its support for this form of punishment.
At the end of 1999, as we enter a new millennium, our society is still far from fully just. The continued use of the death penalty demeans us. The death penalty is at odds with our best traditions. It is wrong and it is immoral. The adage "two wrongs do not make a right," could not be more appropriate here. Our nation has long ago done away with other barbaric punishments like whipping and cutting off the ears of suspected criminals. Just as our nation did away with these punishments as contrary to our humanity and ideals, it is time to abolish the death penalty as we enter the next century. And it's not just a matter of morality. Mr. President, the continued viability of our justice system as a truly just system requires that we do so. And in the world's eyes, the ability of our nation to say truthfully that we are the leader and defender of freedom, liberty and equality demands that we do so.
I ask my colleagues to join me in taking the first step in abolishing the death penalty in our great nation. Today, I introduce a bill that abolishes the death penalty at the federal level. I call on all states that have the death penalty to also cease this practice. Let us step away from the culture of violence and restore fairness and integrity to our criminal justice system. I close with this reminder to my colleagues. Where would our nation be if members of Congress were followers, not leaders, of public opinion? We, of course, would still be living with slavery, segregation and without a woman's right to vote. Like abolishing slavery and segregation and establishing a woman's right to vote, abolishing the death penalty will not be an easy task. It will take patience, persistence and courage. As we head into the next millennium, let us leave this archaic practice behind.
Thank you, Mr. President. I ask that the text of the bill be printed in the record following my remarks. I yield the floor. |
