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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (2716)	12/16/2005 11:31:42 AM
From: paret	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

Bill Press Spews Lefty Talking Points .............................................................. Schwarzenegger Proves He's Just A "Girlie-Man" Bill Press ^ \| 12/16/05 \| Bill Press [Notice he never names Tookie's victims OR SAYS A WORD ABOUT TOOKIES CRIMES] Nobody really expected Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to commute the sentence of Stanley “Tookie” Williams. Yes, he went through the motions of meeting with Tookie’s supporters. But that was pure political theater, designed to give the appearance of fairness — when, in fact, he’d already decided to appease California’s blood-thirsty pack of wolves. Arnold’s political advisors told him he had to look tough by upholding the death penalty. But they were dead wrong. Refusing to commute Tookie’s sentence from execution to life in prison without parole didn’t make Arnold look tough. It made him look like a great big “girlie-man.” Arnold made a cowardly decision. In capital punishment cases, it’s easy to follow the lynch mob. What takes courage is doing the right thing, even if politically unpopular. Instead of dancing to the drumbeat of death-penalty supporters, Arnold should have followed the lead of another Republican, former Illinois Gov. George Ryan, who commuted the sentences of everybody on death row — because he knew the death penalty itself was fatally flawed. Therein lies the irony of Schwarzenegger’s decision: By trying to uphold the death penalty in the Tookie Williams case, he did just the opposite. He actually undermined the case for capital punishment by proving how unfair, unjust and unevenly applied it is across the country. After all, why did Tookie Williams get so much political and media attention? Not because he was founder of the Crips or author of several children’s books advocating nonviolence. It was for one reason only: because his cause was embraced by celebrity defenders Jamie Foxx, Snoop Dogg, Joan Baez, Mike Farrell and Rev. Jesse Jackson. Without them, we never would have heard of Tookie Williams. He’d have been put to death with no fuss, no muss. What about all the other men and women on death row across America? Surely they deserve the same last-minute chance of reprieve. But they’ll never get it, because they don’t have any movie-star friends. And that’s the big problem with the death penalty. Not only is it unconstitutional (“cruel and unusual punishment”) and immoral (“Thou shalt not kill”), but it is never meted out in equal measure in all 50 states. There are too many variables. Application of the death penalty is, in fact, so fickle from state to state that the nature of the crime committed ends up being less important than other factors: the state or county in which you committed the crime; the competence of the prosecutor or public defender; the whims of the judge and jury; the color of your victim’s skin; and, most important, how much money you have to hire a good lawyer. After reviewing many death-penalty appeals, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg discovered one common denominator: lack of funds for proper representation. As she reports, “I have yet to see a death case . . . in which the defendant was well-represented at trial. People who are well-represented at trial do not get the death penalty.” She’s right. And tragic examples are legion. In Texas, Calvin Burdine was sentenced to death after his court-appointed lawyer fell asleep in the courtroom. In Alabama, Judy Haney was sent to death row even though her attorney was so drunk in the courtroom he was held in contempt and sent to jail himself. Same with race. Minorities are much more likely to be sentenced to death than whites. Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, 43 percent of all executions were minorities. Today, 55 percent of all those on death row are people of color. Both numbers are way out of proportion to the population of blacks, Native Americans, Latinos and Asian-Americans. And, of course, DNA testing has shown that even many people in prison are not guilty. This week alone, Gov. Mark Warner of Virginia pardoned two criminals exonerated by DNA of crimes they did not commit. One had already spent 20 years in prison. Where’s the justice? Even inadvertently, Arnold Schwarzenegger has rekindled a re-examination of the death penalty, which, I am convinced, will lead eventually to its abolishment. Meanwhile, one thing is for sure: As long as we continue to torture prisoners in other countries and execute prisoners here at home, we Americans cannot claim the moral high ground.