'TIS NOT THE SEASON FOR THIS

by

Thomas A. Horkan, Jr.

December 2, 1999   

   The holy season of Advent is here, preparing for the celebration of Christ’s birth.  A new millennium is just around the corner. So, what thoughts occupy Florida government these days?  Death row and executing people, that’s what.

   One proposal now under discussion is a rule to end contact visits with family members or loved ones.  Another would require prisoners to choose between death in the electric chair or by lethal injection.  A third is to "speed up" executions.  All three of these deserve discussion.

   No contact visits.  Contact visits allow prisoners and their families to meet person to person and to touch each other.  The Department of Corrections has been working on a rule to ban them.  Why end them?  Well, there have been contact visits for them as long as anyone can remember, without any problems.

   But one or two other states ban them, and who knows when something bad may happen, suggest those wanting the change.

   One mother, whose son has been on death row 19 years, wrote:   "Regardless of what their crimes were, they are still human beings and need to know that someone cares about them.  Without being maudlin, a hug and a kiss and a pat on the shoulder have been a human necessity since childbirth.  If the men there feel that they are still part of their families, they handle themselves accordingly.   They are not boisterous, abusive in language, rude to other visitors, nor in any way deserving of having a piece of glass separating them from their loved ones."

   Another lady wrote about the multiple gates, barred doors, and metal detectors that she had to pass through, and the points of identification and searches that occur before one is allowed into the area of contact visits with a loved one.  She points out that there is no chance of smuggled contraband or other mischief and no chance of escape.

   Florida has two options for those convicted of first degree murder -- life imprisonment without any possibility of parole or the death penalty.  There are about 380 people on death row awaiting execution.  Those inmates have been sentenced to die, but surely, we don’t have to further separate them from their parents and families.  We will be judged by the way we treat the least of our brothers and sisters, and the Lord told us that this includes prisoners.  This rule should not be adopted.

   Take your choice:  Die in the electric chair or by lethal injection.  After three botched executions, even the U. S. Supreme Court has questioned whether Florida’s method of electrocution violates the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.  Not our public officials, however, who want to keep the electric chair.  In order to execute people while the Supreme Court deliberates the case, they propose to give prisoners the option of electrocution or lethal injection.

   In Florida, justice takes a back seat to politicians' fears that they might be seen as soft on crime.  The people sentenced to death are not the worst offenders, but the dumber ones, the slower ones and those with the least effective lawyers.  An article in the American Bar Journal advised lawyers whose clients were accused of involvement with others in a murder to run not walk to the prosecutors office and make a deal.  It said that the first one to make a deal will be free in a few years, while the others will get the death penalty. The problems of fairness, justice and yes, even innocence, in death sentencing are receiving increased attention in the press and in academia.  Sooner or later, government will have to deal with them.

   "Speed up" executions. This is perhaps the worst proposal.  The state of Florida and the federal government have already limited court appeals by death row inmates, and now some are proposing to "speed up" the cases even further, innocent or not. The St. Petersburg Times in July reported on 20 people sentenced to death in Florida who were later found to be innocent. One man, James Richardson, a migrant worker, spent 19 years on death row, facing execution twice, but receiving stays.  The real murderer later confessed and Richardson was freed.

   The Florida Legislature this year appropriated $1 million to pay Wilbert Lee and Freddie Pitts for their wrongful death sentences after 23 years on death row.   Pasco County paid Earnest Miller and William Jent for wrongful prosecution for murder after they spent nine years on death row, only to be saved by stays of execution.   They were saved over the objections of the state.

   The long delays in death penalty cases are caused primarily by the faults in the law and the way it is administered.  There have been 1,000 death sentences since the current law was adopted in 1972; over one-half have been reversed.  One example of the problems:  A man on death row today has long been seeking to have modern DNA testing of the evidence used to convict him more than 10 years ago when DNA science was primitive.  The state of Florida has objected to the modern testing because of similar limits previously adopted to "speed up" the process.  Is this the action of a state committed to justice?

   If the death penalty makes any sense at all, it would be limited to the worst murderers, after they receive a fair and just trial. Our present system, and the political pressures that drive it, make that goal seem impossible. This is not the time to make things worse.