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 An Unlikely Pair Fight the Death PenaltyPosted on Jul 25, 2008Donald A. McCartin and Mike Farrell Originally printed in the Los Angeles Daily News. We are an unlikely pair—not “The Odd Couple,” but close. Forty-five years ago, one was a successful lawyer practicing in Orange County, the other an aspiring actor living there because his new wife taught at Laguna Beach High School. The lawyer had lawsuits to handle, papers to be filed, people to be found, summonses and subpoenas to be served. The actor, unable to count on work in show business, ran an attorney service that took care of the lawyer’s business. Both former Marines, we thus knew each other, if casually, for years. Two decades later, the lawyer, then a judge of the Superior Court, had sentenced more men to death than any other in his jurisdiction. He was known as “the hanging judge of Orange County.” The actor had gotten lucky, becoming a member of the cast of “M*A*S*H,” one of the nation’s most beloved TV shows, and was an ardent and outspoken opponent of the death penalty. Today, while coming at it from vastly different perspectives, the now-retired “hanging judge” and the actor, who chairs Death Penalty Focus, find themselves working together again, this time to close California’s death chamber. Don McCartin, having sentenced nine men to death and then watched as the system examined, re-examined and finally overturned all of his convictions while executing none of them, now believes the death penalty is a hideously expensive fraud. It tortures the loved ones of murder victims by dragging them through the years of complex appeals required by the U.S. Supreme Court in an attempt to protect the innocent. He’s aware of the constitutional dilemma created by the tension between the need to protect the rights of the accused in a death case and the desire for some form of justice to be done. But he’s outraged that the mother of Robin Samsoe, a 12-year-old girl raped and murdered in 1979, is now required to sit through yet a third trial of the alleged killer almost 30 years later. A sentence of life without parole would have allowed her to go on with her own life so long ago. Mike Farrell, having seen the harm done by this same system—both to the innocent caught in it, sentenced to death and sometimes executed, as well as to the prosecutors, defense attorneys, investigators, judges, juries, guards, chaplains, killing teams and executioners tainted by it—believes our entire society is harmed by the dehumanization process inherent in state killing. “When stripping away the remaining shreds of one’s humanity and killing him while helpless and defenseless is called `justice’ by the leaders of our state and nation, a lesson is taught,” says Farrell. “Unfortunately, that lesson is being played out today, not only in our cities, but by young Americans in Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Bagram and `black sites’ run by the CIA across the world, again with the full authority and approval of those who pretend to leadership.” After 45 years, we—the judge and the actor, first business associates, then adversaries—now call on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state Legislature to heed the findings of California’s Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice after its two-year examination. We ask them to bring an end to the wasteful, hypocritical, demeaning exercise of capital punishment, and replace it with the safer, cheaper, fairer sentence of permanent imprisonment. Donald A. McCartin is a retired judge of the Orange County (Calif.) Superior Court. Mike Farrell is president of Death Penalty Focus and author of “Just Call Me Mike: A Journey to Actor and Activist.” Previous item: Turn On, Tune In, Change the World Next item: Plodding Down the Information Superhighway Elsewhere: . CommentsAre you a Truthdig member yet? Login now, or register with Truthdig. Add Your Comment |
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By Dudley Sharp, July 29 at 5:25 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
cyrena writes: if the person is locked up for life, they aren’t gonna murder anybody else.
Untrue. Living murderers harm and murder, again, in prison or after escape. Executed murderers don’t. In the modern era of the death penalty, post 1973, over a thousand death row inmates were previously under some kind of legal control at the time they committed their capital murder or murders, which then, put them on death row. About 8% of murderers on death row, had committed one or more murders, prior to those additional murders committed to put them on death row. The 8% is the minimum percentage, reflecting about 800 additional innocents murdered by those we know had murdered before.
cyrena writes: you go off half-cocked on suggesting that capital punishment is a ‘deterrent’ for people committing the crimes to begin with.
No, I the facts show that those who commit murder are, overwhelmingly, more fearful of execution than life. Regarding those that are deterred, not half cocked, at all. All prospects of a negative consequence deter some, without exception. 16 recent stuides, inclusive of their defenses, find for death penalty detrerrence. Half cocked? hardly.
Please review:
“I oppose the death penalty. “ “ But my results show that the death penalty (deters) — what am I going to do, hide them?” “Science does really draw a conclusion. It did. There is no question about it.” “The results are robust, they don’t really go away” “The conclusion is there is a deterrent effect.”. Prof. Naci Mocan, Economics Chairman, University of Colorado at Denver, “Studies say death penalty deters crime”, ROBERT TANNER, Associated Press, Jun 10, 2007, 2:01 PM ET
For some of the recent 16 deterrence studies, go to:http://www.cjlf.org/deathpenalty/DPDeterrence.htm
Review US Senate testimony
Report thishttp://judiciary.senate.gov/testimony.cfm?id=1745& wit_id=4991
By cyrena, July 28 at 7:37 pm #
By dudleysharp, July 26 at 10:39 am
Dudley,
You’re pretty much all over the place in your deterrence argument here. You start out semi-legitimate enough by suggesting that once the murderer is dead, they can’t murder anybody else. That makes some sense, even though it ignores the fact that the alternative is LIFE in prison, and that alternative doesn’t consider that the murder is going to be set free, or even escape. So, based on that, if the person is locked up for life, they aren’t gonna murder anybody else.
Then you go off half-cocked on suggesting that capital punishment is a ‘deterrent’ for people committing the crimes to begin with. The short answer is that it ISN’T. How many murders stop and consider whether or not they’re gonna get the death penalty before they commit murder? They don’t. At least not serial killers and the like. Now a normally sane person who becomes enraged and kills say his or her spouse, “might” be self-cautioned by the consequences of losing his or her own life as a result, (I would be) but those aren’t the people being executed, and the people being executed aren’t the types likely to consider such outcomes.
So, the death penalty does NOT serve as a ‘’deterrent’ and that’s NOT why the US is the only civilized nation that still practices such a barbaric exercise, DESPITE the risks of executing innocents.
No, the reason the US still has this practice is because we are overwhelmingly still a very punitive and vindictive society. It started out that way, when the worst of the worst of the Europeans came over here and immediately began the slaughter of millions of the Native inhabitants. Kidnapping 5 millions others to use in trade and other economic ventures didn’t help. So, it’s simply the “American Way”. Punitive, not preventive. And, current statistics prove that out as well. The US incarcerates a larger percentage of it’s population that any other nation on the planet.
The notion of the death penalty as a deterrent is as non-existent as a ‘ticking bomb’ scenario which has recently been re-cycled as a legitimate excuse for the highest of rights that cannot be abrogated, under any circumstances. The logical reason is that it doesn’t provide for any prevention or deterrence. Same with the death penalty.
The only way that any studies could truly confirm what you’re saying would be to ask convicted murders whether or not they had considered the consequences of the death penalty before they committed their crimes. Even that would only give you half the story, since you’d also need to talk to an equal number of people who would admit that they certainly WOULD have killed somebody, IF they weren’t worried about going to prison or being executed. How likely is that?
Report thisBy alturn, July 28 at 1:57 pm #
I had a girlfriend who went to work at a Playboy club and instantaneously had her personality change for the worse.
We tend to think we are just something clunking around in our physical body but spiritual teachings say we have other bodies. One is known as the astral, or desire body.
When you die (or if you have mastered the art of traveling on the astral plane) you leave your physical body and are centered in your astral body. That body can travel on the astral plane and attach to another person’s if it has a tear / weakness in it. Then commences possession.
So when a murderer is executed, they have a quite alive astral body to travel in - unlike a far weaker one that would be present during normal death. They can find a victim whose weaknesses enable the astral traveler to create havoc with their desires, potentially leading to that victim committing a vile act.
So we will learn other reasons as we spiritually progress to not execute murderers. And to keep bad entities, like that which infected my girlfriend, from being set unnecessarily loose.
Report thisBy peedeecee, July 27 at 1:55 pm #
Canada doesn’t have the death penalty, and that’s fortunate.
“Steven Truscott, Donald Marshall, Guy Paul Morin, David Milgard, Romeo Phillion, Thomas Sophonow, Gregory Parsons, James Driskell….
Canada has had its share of mass murderers. Clifford Olson killed 10 children in B.C.; Marc Lepine shot 14 women in Montreal; Willie Pickton has been charged with 26 murders.
But the nation itself would qualify as a mass murderer, if Canada had not abolished the death penalty in 1976. We would have on our collective hands the blood of at least a dozen persons later proven innocent.
http://www.centenaryunited.com/Jim Taylor/079. Miscarriage of Justice.htm
Report thisBy Jen, July 26 at 10:44 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
I believe that the death penalty is a necessary detourant against the commission of crimes. However, we adminster it like a bunch of hacks. One problem is that the average person who sits on a jury is not likely to be qualified to examine evidence and think critically at the level that is needed for something so important as this. At a minimum, jurors in these important cases should be college graduates and pass a training course prior to sitting on a jury. In addition, public defenders for these cases should be at least as qualified as the prosecuters. They should not be allowed to present opening and closing arguments, because the jurors should be swayed only by the evidence presented, not how well the attorney packages it.
Report thisBy dudleysharp, July 26 at 10:39 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
The Death Penalty: More Protection for Innocents
Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters, contact info below
Often, the death penalty dialogue gravitates to the subject of innocents at risk of execution. Seldom is a more common problem reviewed. That is, how innocents are more at risk without the death penalty.
Living murderers, in prison, after release or escape or after our failures to incarcerate them, are much more likely to harm and murder, again, than are executed murderers.
Although this is, obviously a truism, it is surprising how often folks overlook the enhanced incapacitation benefits of the death penalty over incarceration.
No knowledgeable and honest party questions that the death penalty has the most extensive due process protections in US criminal law.
Therefore, actual innocents are more likely to be sentenced to life imprisonment and more likely to die in prison serving under that sentence, that it is that an actual innocent will be executed.
That is. logically, conclusive.
16 recent studies, inclusive of their defenses, find for death penalty deterrence.
A surprise? No.
Life is preferred over death. Death is feared more than life.
Some believe that all studies with contrary findings negate those 16 studies. They don’t. Studies which don’t find for deterrence don’t say no one is deterred, but that they couldn’t measure those deterred.
What prospect of a negative outcome doesn’t deter some? There isn’t one . . . although committed anti death penalty folk may say the death penalty is the only one.
However, the premier anti death penalty scholar accepts it as a given that the death penalty is a deterrent, but does not believe it to be a greater deterrent than a life sentence. Yet, the evidence is compelling and un refuted that death is feared more than life.
Some death penalty opponents argue against death penalty deterrence, stating that it’s a harsher penalty to be locked up without any possibility of getting out.
Reality paints a very different picture.
What percentage of capital murderers seek a plea bargain to a death sentence? Zero or close to it. They prefer long term imprisonment.
What percentage of convicted capital??murderers argue for execution in the penalty phase of their capital trial? Zero or close to it. They prefer long term imprisonment.
What percentage of death row inmates waive their appeals and speed up the execution process? Nearly zero. They prefer long term imprisonment.
This is not, even remotely, in dispute.
Life is preferred over death. Death is feared more than life.
Furthermore, history tells us that lifers have many ways to get out: Pardon, commutation, escape, clerical error, change in the law, etc.
In choosing to end the death penalty, or in choosing not implement it, some have chosen to spare murderers at the cost of sacrificing more innocent lives.
(1) The Death of Innocents: A Reasonable Doubt,
New York Times Book Review, p 29, 1/23/05, Adam Liptak,
national legal correspondent for The NY Times
copyright 2007-2008, Dudley Sharp
Report thisPermission for distribution of this document, in whole or in part, is approved with proper attribution.
Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters
e-mail sharpjfa at aol dot com 713-622-5491,
Houston, Texas
Mr. Sharp has appeared on ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN, C-SPAN, FOX, NBC, NPR, PBS, VOA and many other TV and radio networks, on such programs as Nightline, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, The O’Reilly Factor, etc., has been quoted in newspapers throughout the world and is a published author.
A former opponent of capital punishment, he has written and granted interviews about, testified on and debated the subject of the death penalty, extensively and internationally.
By nrobi, July 26 at 3:05 am #
This story evokes memories of the television show, The Odd Couple. Two people holding the same position, but from differing viewpoints and for different reasons.
Report thisBoth reasons and viewpoints are valid, and both speak to the need for change.
Mike Ferrell, a leading anti-death penalty activist. has for many years, worked the political side of the streets, because of the fame that Mash accorded him. He has made excellent use of that fame to bring attention to the inequities of and the injustice that is the death penalty.
Former State judge, the Honorable Don McCartin, sees the injustice of the death penalty from a different perspective altogether. He has seen the families of the victims of horrendous and often horrific crimes, have to relive those crimes every time there is a new trial or hearing. The well-meaning justice system, has chosen to allow many types of appeals of a death sentence so that an innocent person, wrongly convicted has the chance for exoneration or at least a lessening of sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Judge McCartin, explains and rightly so, that the expense of and carrying out of a sentence of death, creates within the community a black hole of emotion that cannot be filled and grows bigger and wider as time goes on.
There is no justice that comes from the death penalty, it is revenge at its worst and state sponsored revenge at that. Should we as a society, that is growing out of the dark and middle ages, allow ourselves to mete out revenge on the context of revenge? I would hope that we can all see the light of day and change our attitudes towards the death penalty at last and allow for changes in the justice system so that there will be no more killing in our name let alone my name.
By felicity, July 26 at 1:40 am #
I’ve had a bumper sticker on my car for about ten years that says, “don’t kill for me, I’m against the death penalty.” Through the years my car has been keyed and I don’t know what else but it sure is a mess by now. Interestingly, I don’t think anybody’s ever tried to rip the sticker off.
The point is that the threat of abolishing the death penalty seems to evoke a rage reaction that seems so out of proportion to what is being suggested. Perhaps if those ‘fears,’ whatever they are, can be allayed our chance of ending the barbarity will be better.
Report thisBy BillKarwin, July 25 at 10:11 pm #
I’m glad there are experts working to end this. It’s wrong for a civilized society to practice capital punishment on so many levels.
Report thisBy cyrena, July 25 at 7:26 pm #
Well, this is wonderful news!!
I don’t believe that Scwartzie is gonna sign it, since he’s been perfectly willing to carry out these sentences. But, we can get rid of him too, especially since he can’t manage a budget well enough to pay state employees. He’s just decided to reduce their salaries to the federal minimum wage of $6.55 an hour, even though the California minimum wage is $8.00.
Still, this is excellent news from this unlikely team.
Report this