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Jewish World Review May 18, 2005 / 9 Iyar, 5765 When capital punishment is enacted in New England, you know it's about politics By Froma Harrop
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
The lethal injection that peacefully dispatched Michael Ross did
far more violence to New England's sense of self than to the serial killer.
The region hadn't witnessed an execution in four decades. The sight of harsh
Southern customs creeping into their blue-state bastion deeply unnerved many
New Englanders.
Twelve states currently do not have the death penalty. They are
mostly in New England and the upper Midwest. Many others, including
Connecticut, have it on the books but generally don't execute people.
Capital punishment has become a major source of anti-U.S.
feelings in Europe and elsewhere. But most Europeans don't understand that
capital punishment is a matter for the states, and that some states have
been more enlightened than they. The French were chopping off heads 93 years
after Michigan became the first state to abolish the death penalty, in 1846.
Connecticut newspapers condemned the state-sponsored killing of
Ross as something alien to their culture. Connecticut must "be protective of
its integrity," a New London Day editorial said. "In killing Mr. Ross, the
state participates in the very crime it regards as the ultimate offense."
When Republicans campaign in New England, they distance
themselves from the national party. But there's always the temptation to
show their Sunbelt leaders that they can push New Englanders around —
especially on cultural matters, where the people tend to be progressive.
Connecticut's Gov. Jodi Rell, a Republican, could have issued a reprieve to give the legislature time to
consider the matter. Instead, she justified her
non-action by noting Ross' horrible deeds and certain guilt. And she vowed
to veto any bill that stuck down her state's death-penalty law.
Polls did show most people in Connecticut backing Ross'
execution. He had brutally murdered eight women in the 1980s. But when the
polls gave respondents a choice between execution and life in jail with no
chance of parole, only 37 percent chose the death option.
Support for the death penalty continues to weaken in the region
and throughout the country. When Gallup asked the "death" or "life without
parole" question in Houston, the response was a similar 64 percent favoring
life without parole. Houston is in Harris County, known as the
"death-penalty capital" of the United States.
These trends have not stopped Republican Gov. Mitt Romney from
trying to reactivate a death row in Massachusetts. He's come up what he
ghoulishly calls a "gold standard" for capital punishment. To avoid
executing innocent people, he would demand DNA or other scientific evidence
of guilt. Furthermore, he would limit the death penalty to the most gruesome
crimes: killing sprees, murder with torture and deadly terrorist attacks.
There's been no big outcry in Massachusetts for reinstating the
death penalty. But Romney has national aspirations, and forcing capital
punishment onto Massachusetts would be a fresh scalp to present his party's
conservative base. (He's also been pushing laws to sharply restrict
embryonic stem-cell research — economic treason in this biotech
stronghold.)
Demanding there be airtight evidence in death-penalty cases is
pointless when "guilt" is not the point. No one doubts that Michael Ross was
a monster or that his victims and their families suffered without measure.
Exactly. The death penalty certainly does not impress
psychopaths. Ross actually wanted to die. He could have extended his life by
pursuing appeals but didn't. And he asked Rell not to interfere with his
impending execution. So in a twisted way, the governor was doing his
bidding.
As Robert Nave, head of the Connecticut Network to Abolish the
Death Penalty, put it, "We are letting a man who is a multiple murderer ...
commit state-assisted suicide in our name."
Foes of capital punishment need feel only pride for their
principled position that killing is wrong, no matter who does it. Happily,
their ranks are growing in the United States.
And the world should know this: Capital punishment is an
American thing only in certain parts of America. Governors trying to
reinstate it in places like New England are bringing in foreign ideas.
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© 2005 Creators Syndicate |
Arnold Ahlert | |||||||||||
