The Death Penalty Debate

The Court of Appeals, the highest court in the state, has ruled that the state's capital punishment law is unconstitutional. This has suspended the death penalty in New York and no doubt will fuel debate in future elections.

"DEADLINE," a documentary that sheds significant light on the complexities surrounding this volatile topic, is to premiere in a special two-hour episode of "Dateline NBC" on July 30. The film, by Katy Chevigny and Kirsten Johnson, documents the gripping drama of the clemency hearings that the outgoing governor of Illinois, George Ryan, opened in late 2002 for some 170 inmates on death row.

Mr. Ryan, who was a tough-on-crime, pro-death-penalty Republican, was faced with evidence that the state criminal justice system was riddled with error and that 13 inmates sitting on death row were innocent.

The documentary follows the governor as he makes one of the most difficult decisions of his life - to ignore the findings or transform capital punishment in Illinois. He had only months to make his decision and "Deadline" captures the dramatic events as they occur.

The efforts of lawyers, journalists, and civic and political leaders influenced Mr. Ryan's amazing decision, and the film may stimulate similar crusades throughout the nation's capitals.

New York is a state that hasn't had to deal with the issue of the flawed application of capital punishment since the death penalty was reinstated in 1995.

Only four capital cases have reached the Court of Appeals, and all four lives were spared.

I asked Daniel Donovan, the Staten Island district attorney, about the court's decision.

"Naturally, we are disappointed but I believe that legislators are currently looking into modifying the law to make it meet constitutional standards," he said.

The court's 4-3 decision blocked the potential death sentence sought by the prosecutor for Ronell Wilson, who is accused of executing two undercover detectives last year on Staten Island.

Many people who object to the death penalty say capital punishment is unfairly applied and thus racist. They point to cases where millionaire defendants had the resources to hire exceptional legal representation and avoid convictions. The majority of those on death row, they claim, are minorities who couldn't pay for an adequate defense.

I suggested to Mr. Donovan that perhaps laws should be amended so that anyone facing the death penalty be provided with supplemental assistance. He informed me that in New York State no lawyer is allowed to defend a death penalty case unless they have been certified as "death" counsel. This means that they must have special training and experience so that there will never be any excuse for inadequate counsel in this state.

Inevitably, the death penalty debate will raise the question of whether capital punishment can ever be considered moral. It is still the taking of a human life.

Many Catholics are under the belief that the church is against the death penalty because Pope John Paul II has expressed his desire to see an end to capital punishment. The pope is expressing a personal appeal and is not speaking ex cathedra (meaning from the "chair of Peter"), which would make this pronouncement infallible.

On this issue, the catechism of the Roman Catholic Church states:

"Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.

"If nonlethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity with the dignity of the human person."

In most cases, nonlethal means are sufficient, but what do we do with the Ted Bundys of the world who are captured and escape to kill again? What about the inmates who kill in jail? What do we do with killers of police officers, who are the first line of defense against an anarchic society?

Most importantly, we need to address a complete overhaul of our entire penal system. I'll never forget sitting in a coffee shop on West 72nd Street and hearing a young man in the next booth tell his friend that he would probably be sent up soon. "But it's easy time. I can do it standing on my head."

Many denizens of the ghetto or the barrio find a prison environment preferable to struggling for their meals on the street. In jail, they have clean beds, television, and exercise equipment, and savvy convicts know where they can score recreational drugs, pornography, and sex.

That Chris Rock has reduced prison rape to the term "tossed salad" in a comedy routine should be unacceptable to any civilized society. I don't think anything about prison should ever be considered "easy time."

While legislators ponder how to fix the language of the law to pass constitutional muster, vulnerable inmates who are victim of rape by HIV-positive cellmates are given automatic death sentences.

Iron bars should not erase the humanity of the incarcerated, be they on death row or otherwise.