Justice system seems to be in bit of a swirl

Union Leader ^ | June 30 2002 | Roger Simon

[2Trievers]

KNOW HOW many people have been executed in the history of the United States? No, you don’t. Nobody does.

The Justice Department only began keeping track in 1930. “Until relatively recently,” writes Stuart Banner in his new book, “The Death Penalty: An American History,” “executions were conducted by units of local government and typically produced no official public record.”

It may seem astonishing that the state-sanctioned killing of individuals did not produce even paperwork, but the fact is that unless a local newspaper took note of an execution - and that very much depended on who was being executed - no record was made of thousands of such deaths. The first recorded execution on these shores came in 1608, when Capt. George Kendall of the Jamestown Colony was hanged for being a spy for Spain. Within four years, the death penalty was the official punishment in Virginia for such things as stealing grapes, killing chickens and trading with Indians.

We have come quite a ways since then, but until last week, the United States was one of only three countries - the other two are Japan and Kyrgyzstan - that permitted the execution of mentally retarded convicts.

The Supreme Court struck that down in a 6-3 decision last Thursday, saying that public opinion and public standards had changed in this country and that executing the mentally retarded was now cruel and unusual punishment, which is forbidden by the Eighth Amendment.

“The basic concept underlying the Eighth Amendment is nothing less than the dignity of man,” Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority, citing a 1958 court decision. “The amendment must draw its meaning for the evolving standards of decency that marks the progress of a maturing society.”

So now we are too decent to execute retarded people. Since the death penalty was re-instituted by the court in 1976, about 35 to 44 (studies disagree) mentally retarded people have been executed, however. And it was only 13 years ago that the high court specifically said executing the mentally retarded was OK.

Nor were such executions very unpopular. It was not a political issue when, in 1992, then-Gov. Bill Clinton took time off from the critical New Hampshire primary to rush back to Arkansas to preside over the execution of Ricky Ray Rector, a retarded man, who pushed aside the dessert of his last meal because, he said, he wanted to save it “for later.”

(Asked about the recent Supreme Court decision and his own actions, Clinton said recently: “In the case that I was involved with, there was no question that the man was not retarded when he committed the murder. He was in a shoot-out with the police and sustained a bullet wound to the brain after he committed the murder. I don’t think there’s any question that the Supreme Court made the right decision today because all the criminal law, all the criminal law, rests on the proposition that the penalty should be proportionate to the deliberate intent and the capacity of a person to know right from wrong.)

The justices did not say last week what constituted mental retardation, saving this for the states. Some 18 states already ban the execution of retarded people, and 12 states ban all capital punishment.

Two states, Illinois and Maryland, have temporary bans on capital punishment. In Illinois, the governor feared innocent people might be on death row; and in Maryland, the governor feared race might be a factor in who gets the death penalty.

Shortly after the Supreme Court said mentally retarded people could not be executed, it also said only juries, and not judges, could impose the death penalty.

While the earlier ruling affects about 200 death row inmates who are considered mentally retarded, the latter ruling might invalidate the death sentences of about 770 people.

This has the criminal justice system in a bit of a swirl because it seems as if the Supreme Court might change its mind at any moment.

Today, it says we are too decent to execute the mentally retarded. Tomorrow, it might say we are too decent to execute 16- and 17-year-olds or that, because Death Rows are populated by a disproportionate number of inmates convicted of killing whites, that the system is racially biased.

You will not get a direct vote, but how you feel about the death penalty could make a big difference as to who lives and who dies.

Roger Simon is a political correspondent with U.S. News and World Report.

[SamAdams76]

The first recorded execution on these shores came in 1608, when Capt. George Kendall of the Jamestown Colony was hanged for being a spy for Spain.

Just out of curiosity, what in Jamestown could possibly be worth "spying on" back in 1608?

As for executing mentally retarded people, I think this issue has been manufactured by liberals who want to see the death penalty abolished. I know people who are genuinely retarded ("Downs Syndrome") and they are very pleasant and docile people. No way would they ever murder somebody. They just don't have it in them.

When liberals decry the excecution of the "mentally retarded," we are basically talking about people with low IQs. There is a big difference between somebody who is mentally retarded and somebody who just has a low IQ (or stupid). It should come as little surprise that the people who commit our most violent crimes are usually among our most stupid people. This should not be used as an excuse to get them off the hook.

[Bob J]

I got one for you.

The definition of retarded is an IQ below 70. If the dems can dumb down the educational system enough, soon, the majority of graduates might be leaving high school with an IQ below 70 and then they would achieve their goal of eliminating all executions...heheh.