This space will be my writings; the first will be on the Death Penalty.
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Valerie L. Cartonio
PAX 290/598
Prof. Hugh Curran
Final Paper
4/26/2020
DEATH PENALTY and Sister Helen Prejean
I received my first letter from the Maine State Prison in 1997, from “Crossfox”; I was a radio Disc Jockey in Portland, Maine. At the time I was producing and hosting a radio broadcast that featured music, news, current events, and social issues of Native American/American Indian/Indigenous People/First Nations. I was covering stories of Leonard Peltier, a known political prisoner from the American Indian Movement. I did not know at the time, but there was a group of Native men at Maine Correctional Center who had been listening to my broadcasts each week that worked in the laundry room. One of the men, “Mouse” had recently been sentenced, and transferred to the Maine State Prison; this is how the men became aware of the programming I was doing around Leonard Peltier.
When I opened that very first letter, I was asked to help. How? How could a radio DJ help incarcerated men/women? I had a few discussions with my then Program Director
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about the letter; he joked, and asked, “Have you ever seen Play Misty for Me?”. This was a film about a listener of a radio show obsessed with the DJ; they would call the station and ask the DJ “Will you play Misty for me”. She continues to become more obsessed, and psychotic throughout the film. I did not see this as funny!
After a few weeks I decided I would do some research in general on Native American incarceration; I then brought this to the airwaves. During this time, I found people across the country that were activists, musicians, and writers that were interested in being interviewed on the radio. I decided to give out the radio station’s address while I was on the air one day…letters started coming from Maine Correctional Center, from the Native men there. Some told their stories, some requested songs, asked questions, suggested topics, and then there were the ones that asked for help as Native Americans who were incarcerated. This is where my work began.
Maine does not have the death penalty:
“ In 1876 the legislature of Maine abolished the death penalty by a vote of 75 to 68.
In 1883 the death penalty was reestablished in Maine.
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Maine abolished the death penalty for a second time in 1887. The movement toward abolition was driven by a botched execution in 1885. Due to a poorly-tied hangman’s noose, Daniel Wilkinson died slowly of strangulation. Wilkinson’s execution was the last in Maine.
A bill was introduced in 1925 to reinstate the death penalty in Maine, but no legislative action was taken on it. Another attempt to reinstate the death penalty occurred in 1937, but once again no legislative action was taken on the bill. Further attempts to reinstate the death penalty occurred in the Maine legislature in 1973, 1975, 1977 and 1979 but all of them were defeated” (DPI 1).
This brings us to the question, where and when did the death penalty begin?
“The first established death penalty laws date as far back as the Eighteenth Century B.C. in the Code of King Hammurabi of Babylon, which codified the death penalty for 25 different crimes. … Death sentences were carried out by such means as crucifixion, drowning, beating to death, burning alive, and impalement” (DPI 2).
“Federal crimes have been accompanied by death penalties since the First Congress’s first crime bill in April 1790” (Little).
(For a more complete history, see attachment 1)
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You may be asking, if Maine does not have a death penalty, why the interest? When I first began my prison work, “My Space” was the social media platform for many. This is where my path crossed with Sister Helen Prejean; some may know of her as the Nun, from the book and film, “Dead Man Walking”. At the time she had a strong media presence, and had a death row countdown on her page, showing who was the next one up for execution, and how long they had. After about two years, I could no longer have this on my page; watching the death meter count down, reading her posts and prayers, and then reading her post after witnessing executions, was just too much for me. You see, I have worked with some who may have received the death penalty in our state, had it been allowed. These are people I have come to know and care about; I can not begin to fathom, if I knew the end would be their execution. Sister Helen was so kind and compassionate; I do not know where she could gather the strength needed to be a support to someone going to their death by execution.
Sister Helen Prejean is of Christian faith; I hope to show examples why the death penalty is wrong and should be abolished, using her work and words of faith. “I realize that I cannot stand by silently as my government executes its citizens. If I do not speak out and resist, I am an accomplice” (Prejean, Dead Man Walking 115)
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When I was first going to the State Prison, I would visit a young man. He was intimidating, as were many we saw. It was a persona they needed to carry to survive. I would often leave the prison feeling frustrated, like I was not getting through, or not gaining trust enough to do any good. One day sitting in the visit room with many others surrounding us, an uncomfortable place to be, we were talking. He made a comment like why are you here, and how long do you think it’s going to last? I think I responded with something like, “I want to make a difference; I just don’t know how”. He said, “you won’t last more than a couple of years; then what?” I asked him what I could do to prove to him I was serious, and this was not a fleeting volunteer gig; it was now a part of my life. What he said next and how I responded surprised even me; Him: “How about you be here when I get out?” – Me: “How much longer is that?” – Him: “15 years.” Me – “Okay.” He was released December 2012; that may not have been the case if this State had the death penalty.
Sister Helen Prejean was given a letter written to someone else, from a man on death row named (Elmo) Patrick Sonnier. She wrote to him and then visited him. He had little time before his date of execution, maybe a week, when he said to her:
“l can have a spiritual adviser of my choice. Will you do it? Ride along into the sunset with me.” (Sonnier, DMW). I can not imagine had these words been asked of me; I do not think I could be there with someone at the last moments of their life and watch the State kill them before my eyes.
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When Sister Helen left her visit with Patrick, she went to the Chaplains office and told her what he had asked of her; he replied: “You’ll have to spend several hours with him every day as his death nears. Then on the day of his execution, you’ll have to spend all day with him.” (Chaplain, DMW)
Sister Helen Prejean was sitting in the witness room on April 5th, 1984, when Patrick Sonnier was put to death by electrocution at Angola Prison in Louisiana. (The Times)
Patrick Sonnier was guilty; he confessed before his death.
The next 2 executions Sister Helen was present for, she believed both men were innocent. Dobie Gillis Williams who was killed by the State of Louisiana Jan. 8th, 1999, was “an indigent black man with an IQ of 65 (Innocents); and Joseph Roger O’Dell who was killed by the State of Virginia July 23rd, 1997, and “ was convicted of crimes a year-and-a-half later based largely on blood evidence and the word of a jailhouse “snitch.” (PBS)
“After witnessing these executions, Sister Helen realized that this lethal ritual would remain unchallenged unless its secrecy was stripped away, and so she sat down and wrote a book, Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States.” (Sister)
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This now takes me back to my first exposure of the Innocence Project through a film and presentation at the University of Southern Maine sometime around 2003-2005.
From “Exonerations in the United States, 1989-2003:
“Overall, we found 340 exonerations, 327 men and 13 women; 144 of them were cleared by DNA evidence, 196 by other means. With a handful of exceptions, they had been in prison for years. More than half had served terms of ten years or more; 80% had been imprisoned for at least five years. As a group, they had spent more than 3400 years in prison for crimes for which they should never have been convicted-an average of more than ten years each” (Gross).
Death Row Exonerations of Innocent Men and Women:
“156 individuals have been exonerated from death row–that is, found to be innocent and released – since 1973. In other words, for every 10 people who have been executed since the death penalty was reinstated in the U.S., one person has been set free.” (NCADP)
This is reason enough to Abolish the Death Penalty. Once the State has executed a person, they can not change that decision even if innocence is proven. These statistics
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are mind boggling; One Hundred and Fifty Six innocent people could have been executed. But, the exonerations don’t stop here…
Seven Hundred People have been exonerated due to wrongful eyewitness testimony! (Netflix)
“On average, there are now over three exonerations per week—more than double the rate in 2011. The number of exonerations has generally increased since 1989, the first year in the National Registry’s database. There are 2,000 individual exonerations listed in the registry as of March 6.” (TIME)
In 1989, DNA was used for the first time to exonerate an innocent man of rape:
“The forensic DNA age dawned with little fanfare on August 14, 1989, when the emerging technology exonerated a hapless high school dropout from a working-class suburb of Chicago of a rape that in fact had not occurred.” (Law NW)
The numbers of exonerations are staggering; those still in prison may be released; those killed on Death Row…
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According to the Bible, and who may be interpreting it, there are many verses that they claim to be about the death penalty. I found that there are as many supporting the death penalty (Old Testement) as there are that do not support it (New Testement).
In Ezekiel 33:11 God laments, “As sure as I live . . . I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.”
“Here are some other principles drawn from the Mosaic Law’s procedures:
PROPORTIONALITY
Exodus 21:23-25 establishes that punishment must be proportional to the offense. The extreme sanction of death should be considered only in the most serious offenses.
CERTAINTY OF GUILT
Before a murderer could be executed, two witnesses had to confirm his guilt (Deut. 17:6; Num. 35:30). This was a very high standard of proof. The Bible says nothing of circumstantial evidence.
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INTENT
Numbers 35:22-24 established that capital punishment could not be imposed when the offender did not act intentionally.
DUE PROCESS
Several provisions of the Law ensured that executions took place only after appropriate judicial procedures (see Num. 35; Deut. 17). The issue was not simply whether the accused was guilty, but whether he also had a fair chance to prove his innocence.
We see here Law terms used such as “Certainty of Guilt, Intent, and Due Process”. If you look at the disproportionate amounts of African Americans incarcerated throughout our country, you can quickly see that many that are poor never have a chance to prove their innocence, often because of inadequate legal representation. Our legal system may seem to work for those who can afford good lawyers, who are working for their clients and not for the State. Lawyers are paid very little for court appointed cases; just enough to cover their basic costs, so often little effort or time is put into a case assigned to them by the courts.
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It can be made most difficult when you are a person who is advocating for those who are incarcerated. This holds true with many volunteers, but also with lawyers. In the film “Just Mercy” , Bryan Stevenson is a Black lawyer in Alabama, who especially fights for juvenile offenders not to get life without parole; he also was against the death penalty for those under 18, which is now a Federal Law.
“In a 2005 decision called Roper v. Simmons, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the execution of people who were under 18 at the time of their crimes violates the federal constitutional guarantee against cruel and unusual punishments.” (CPIC)
Mr Stevenson was going to visit his client, who was on death row. For those of you who have not been into a Super-Maximum Prison Facility, it is not one you will forget. Approaching the brick building, you see tall metal fences, covered with layers of razor wire, with another set of fences just like it a few feet in. Inside, you hand your identification to the person at the desk, leave all personal belongings, sign in, and wait.
The smells are a combination of an old gym locker room, and smells of a school cafeteria. There is talking over an intercom system, loud, grinding, clanging sounds of doors, and whines of a search wand, or noises as one sets off the metal detector. As a volunteer, (or lawyer) rather than a visitor, you go through training before ever going into the bowels of the prison. During this training you will be told time and time again, that
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“you are working with inmates who will take advantage of you at any opportunity”. You are told they will tell you any story you want to hear, or anyway they can, they may know will pull at your heartstrings. You are told “we do not need bleeding heart Liberals in here; you are here to do your job and nothing else”. You are also told you are subjected to be searched, and anything found considered to be contraband, could lead to you being stripped searched, and prosecuted “to the full extent of the Law”. Doesn’t that make you feel a little uncomfortable about volunteering behind the bars? It is meant to be intimidating. Back to Mr. Stevenson; in 1988, in the South, racial tensions were still high. He was a Black Lawyer representing another African American man accused of killing a white woman. When he went to visit his client, the white corrections officer pulled him aside, and said, “go in there”, pointing to a small room. He was then told to strip, naked, and he was told “spread your cheeks, squat, and cough”; Stevenson, now humiliated, which is what the CO wanted, was laughed at, and told to get dressed. This is a TRUE story. If a Lawyer can be treated like this by a Corrections Officer, think about how an innocent man on death row, who is black, was treated.
Sister Helen Prejean has witnessed 6 executions. She runs an organization called Ministry Against the Death Penalty, and is still active today at 80 years of age. She has currently been visiting Manuel Ortiz for the past 10 years; he is on Death Row in Louisiana.
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After meeting with Sister Helen Prejean, “2018, Pope Francis announced new language of the Catholic Catechism which declares that the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person, with no exceptions.” (Sister)
After doing this work for a time, Sister Helen recognized that the families of the victims needed to be heard also. They needed to tell their stories; they needed to be consoled; they needed to know why Sister Helen could be beside someone to their death, that may have committed a horrible crime. Sister Helen feels as I do; we do not have the right to kill another living being. She is not saying that they should not pay for the crimes committed, especially if one is truly guilty, but not by taking their life. I think of the saying “An eye for an eye, makes the whole world blind”; I have heard that Gandhi said this, but read that Louis Ficsher who was a biographer of Gandhi, used the phrase when writing about him.
The Federal Death Penalty was not used for 16 years; on April 7th of this year, has been reinstated. “The 2-1 ruling by a three judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit could pave the way to the Justice Department carrying out the first execution of federal death row inmates since 2003” (Reuters)
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A federal appeals court wiped away a lower court opinion Tuesday that blocked the federal government from executing federal inmates on death row.
“The 2-1 ruling is a win for the Department of Justice, but the appeals court noted that there are still other issues that need resolution, suggesting that the executions will remain on hold while litigation continues.
The case comes after the Trump administration announced last July that it would reinstate the federal death penalty after a nearly two-decade lapse, and the two judges in the majority — Gregory Katsas and Neomi Rao — were both appointed by President Donald Trump.
Attorney General William Barr’s move to reinstate the federal death penalty underscored the stark law and order philosophy of the Trump administration. At the time, he directed the head of the Bureau of Prisons to execute five inmates he said represented the “worst criminals.” (CNN)
This includes the following people: (I use people, the Government used inmates)
Daniel Lewis Lee, Lezmond Mitchell, Wesley Ira Purkey, Alfred Bourgeois, and Dustin Lee Honken. (Justice)
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Lezmond Mitchell was scheduled to be killed by the State of Arizona on Dec. 11, 2019;
“On October 4, 2019, the execution was stayed by the Ninth Circuit in order for the court to review an on-going appeal concerning possible anti-Native American bias in Mr. Mitchell’s case.”
“The government took aggressive steps to exclude Native Americans from serving on his jury, and its arguments to the jury included comments directed against Mr. Mitchell’s Navajo heritage. Mr. Mitchell’s death sentence represents an unprecedented denigration of tribal sovereignty.”(Catholic)
This case is another case of racial misjustice, and compares to the disproportionate numbers of minority populations being incarcerated across the country, but especially in the Southern States. (Catholic)
(More is included in the PowerPoint presentation, along with info. on “The New Jim Crow”)
***If anyone has more interest in the work I used to do I have a Facebook page at:
http://www.facebook.com/MaineNativePrisonProject
I currently write under the Buddhist Sociologist
http://www.facebook.com/BuddhistSociologist
Works Cited
Play Misty for Me – YouTube video. NBC Universal 1971 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9v-q7zr1oSY&has_verified=1
Death Penalty Information Center –
- https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/state-and-federal-info/state-by-state/maine
- https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-and-research/history-of-the-death-penalty/early-history-of-the-death-penalty
- https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/stories/history-of-the-death-penalty-timeline
Little, Rory K., The Federal Death Penalty: History and Some Thoughts About the Department of Justice’s Role, 26 Fordham Urb. L.J. 347 (1999).
https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/ulj/vol26/iss3/1
Helen Prejean (2011). “Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States”, Vintage
https://www.azquotes.com/quote/1335839
Dead Man Walking, script
Dead Man Walking, Quote
https://www.azquotes.com/quote/1335839
Prejean, Sister Helen. Dead Man Walking ,Vintage 1993
Hodge, James. Staff Writer. Sonnier executed for double murder. The Times-Picayune. April 5, 1984
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/angel/articles/timespicayune45.html
PBS Frontline: The Case for Innocence
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/case/cases/
Prejean, Sister Helen. The Death of Innocents. Vintage, 2005
Samuel R. Gross, Kristen Jacoby, Daniel J. Matheson, Nicholas Montgomery, Exonerations in the United States 1989 through 2003, 95
J. Crim. L. & Criminology 523 (2004-2005)
National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty
http://www.ncadp.org/pages/innocence
Prejean, Helen. Dead Man Walking, pg. 115
https://www.azquotes.com/quote/1335839
Barone, Emily. “Wrongly Convicted” , TIME Innocent: The Fight Against Wrongful Convictions Single Issue Magazine – February 17, 2017
The Innocence Files, NETFLIX Series 2020, Trime Crime Documentaries
https://www.netflix.com/title/80214563
Warden, Rob. First DNA Exoneration: Gary Dotson , The rape that wasn’t — the nation’s first DNA exoneration. Bluhm Legal Clinic Center on Wrongful Convictions.
http://www.law.northwestern.edu/legalclinic/wrongfulconvictions/exonerations/il/gary-dotson.html
Prison Fellowship
Capital Punishment in Context: The Death Penalty for Juveniles
https://capitalpunishmentincontext.org/issues/juveniles
Applebome, Peter. NY Times writer, Alabama Releases Man Held On Death Row for Six Years , March 3, 1993
Sister
Hurley, Lawrence. U.S. appeals court hands win to Trump plan to resume federal executions
Ariane de Vogue. “Appeals court wipes away lower court ruling blocking federal executions” , CNN April 7, 2020
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/07/politics/death-penalty-appeals-court/index.html
US Dept. of Justice. Federal Government to Resume Capital Punishment After Nearly Two Decade Lapse, Press Release, July 25, 2019
Catholic Mobilizing. Lezmond Mitchell
catholicsmobilizing.org/event/lezmond-mitchell
Attachment 1:
The History of the Death Penalty
*Eighteenth Century B.C. – first established death penalty laws.
*Eleventh Century A.D. – William the Conqueror will not allow persons to be hanged except in cases of murder.
*1608 – Captain George Kendall becomes the first recorded execution in the new colonies.
*1632 – Jane Champion becomes the first woman executed in the new colonies.
*1767 – Cesare Beccaria’s essay, On Crimes and Punishment, theorizes that there is no justification for the state to take a life.
*Late 1700s – United States abolitionist movement begins.
*Early 1800s – Many states reduce their number of capital crimes and build state penitentiaries.
*1823-1837 – Over 100 of the 222 crimes punishable by death in Britain are eliminated.
*1834 – Pennsylvania becomes the first state to move executions into correctional facilities.
*1838 – Discretionary death penalty statutes enacted in Tennessee.
*1847 – Michigan becomes the first state to abolish the death penalty for all crimes except treason.
*1890- William Kemmler becomes first person executed by electrocution.
*Early 1900s – Beginning of the “Progressive Period” of reform in the United States.
*1907-1917 – Nine states abolish the death penalty for all crimes or strictly limit it.
*1920s – 1940s – American abolition movement loses support.
*1924 – The use of cyanide gas introduced as an execution method
*1930s – Executions reach the highest levels in American history – average 167 per year.
*1948 – The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaiming a “right to life.”
*1950-1980 – De facto abolition becomes the norm in western Europe.
*1958 – Trop v. Dulles. Eighth Amendment’s meaning contained an “evolving standard of decency that marked the progress of a maturing society.”
*1966 – Support of capital punishment reaches all-time low. A Gallup poll shows support of the death penalty at only 42%.
*1968 – Witherspoon v. Illinois. Dismissing potential jurors solely because they express opposition to the death penalty held unconstitutional.
*1970 – Crampton v. Ohio and McGautha v. California. The Supreme Court approves of unfettered jury discretion and non-bifurcated trials.
*June 1972 – Furman v. Georgia. Supreme Court effectively voids 40 death penalty statutes and suspends the death penalty.
*1976 – Gregg v. Georgia. Guided discretion statutes approved. Death penalty reinstated
*January 17, 1977 – Ten-year moratorium on executions ends with the execution of Gary Gilmore by firing squad in Utah.
*1977 – Oklahoma becomes the first state to adopt lethal injection as a means of execution.
*1977 – Coker v. Georgia. Held death penalty is an unconstitutional punishment for rape of an adult woman when the victim is not killed.
*December 7, 1982 – Charles Brooks becomes the first person executed by lethal injection.
*1984 – Velma Barfield becomes the first woman executed since reinstatement of the death penalty.
*1986 – Ford v. Wainwright. Execution of insane persons banned.
*1986 – Batson v. Kentucky. Prosecutor who strikes a disproportionate number of citizens of the same race in selecting a jury is required to rebut the inference of discrimination by showing neutral reasons for his or her strikes.
*1987 – McCleskey v. Kemp. Racial disparities not recognized as a constitutional violation of “equal protection of the law” unless intentional racial discrimination against the defendant can be shown.
*1988 – Thompson v. Oklahoma. Executions of offenders age fifteen and younger at the time of their crimes is unconstitutional.
*1989 – Stanford v. Kentucky, and Wilkins v. Missouri. Eighth Amendment does not prohibit the death penalty for crimes committed at age sixteen or seventeen.
*1989 – Penry v. Lynaugh. Executing persons with “mental retardation” is not a violation of the Eighth Amendment.
*1993 – Herrera v. Collins. In the absence of other constitutional grounds, new evidence of innocence is no reason for federal court to order a new trial.
*1994 – President Clinton signs the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act expanding the federal death penalty.
*1996 – President Clinton signs the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act restricting review in federal courts.
*1998 – Karla Faye Tucker and Judi Buenoano executed.
*November 1998 – Northwestern University holds the first-ever National Conference on Wrongful Convictions and the Death Penalty. The Conference brings together 30 inmates who were freed from death row because of innocence.
*January 1999 – Pope John Paul II visits St. Louis, Missouri, and calls for an end to the death penalty.
*April 1999 – U.N. Human Rights Commission Resolution Supporting Worldwide Moratorium On Executions.
*June 1999 – Russian President, Boris Yeltsin, signs a decree commuting the death sentences of all of the convicts on Russia’s death row.
*January 2000 – Illinois Governor George Ryan declares a Moratorium on executions and appoints a blue-ribbon Commission on Capital Punishment to study the issue.
*2002 – Ring v. Arizona. A death sentence where the necessary aggravating factors are determined by a judge violates a defendant’s constitutional right to a trial by jury.
*2002 – Atkins v. Virginia. the execution of “mentally retarded” defendants violates the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
*January 2003 – Gov. George Ryan grants clemency to all of the remaining 167 death row inmates in Illinois because of the flawed process that led to these sentences.
*June 2004 – New York’s death penalty law declared unconstitutional by the state’s high court.
*March 2005 – In Roper V. Simmons, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty for those who had committed their crimes under 18 years of age was cruel and unusual punishment.
*December 2007 – The New Jersey General Assembly votes to become the first state to legislatively abolish capital punishment since it was re-instated in 1976.
*February 2008 – The Nebraska Supreme Court rules electrocution, the sole execution method in the state, to be cruel and unusual punishment, effectively freezing all executions in the state.
*June 2008 – Kennedy v. Louisiana. Capital punishment cannot apply to those convicted of child rape where no death occurs.
*March 2009 – Governor Bill Richardson signs legislation to repeal the death penalty in New Mexico, replacing it with life without parole.
*March 2011 – Governor Pat Quinn signs legislation to repeal the death penalty in Illinois, replacing it with life without parole (DPI 3).
Prison POD 