Death Penalty Fight Refocuses After 9/11

In the weeks following the 9-11 attacks, many Americans began embracing spirituality as a method of coping with unfathomable fear and hurt. At the same time, however, cries for retribution were heard. The religious fervor, it seemed, was of the eye-for-an-eye variety, rather than "forgive thy enemies."

A shift in the political climate paralleled society's demand for justice, by any means necessary. Just when opponents of capital punishment were beginning to make headway in the fight for a moratorium on, and eventually, abolition of the death penalty, the wheels of justice began to spin backwards.

U.S. lawmakers pushed the Patriot Act through legislative channels with previously unheard speed, despite the bill's questionable violations of civil liberties and human rights. As the U.S. government geared up for trying and executing terrorists, nations around the world denounced the U.S.'s byzantine death penalty policies. France and Spain both balked at extraditing terrorist suspects to the U.S. because they could face capital punishment (France had previously done the same in the case of James Charles Kopp, charged with the murder of Amherst, New York abortion provider Barnett Slepian). Even Cuba, long a target of U.S. criticism for its repressive treatment of political prisoners, set a de facto moratorium on executions. (In 1999, Cuba reportedly executed at least 21 prisoners, 14 less than then-Governor George W. Bush oversaw in Texas that same year.)

The notion that the U.S. may be on a different page from its "first world" allies on capital punishment made news as President Bush traveled to Europe last year, even as a media frenzy regarding the Timothy McVeigh execution raged at home. Bush was met by protesters both on the streets and in the upper-levels of government.

A June 13, 2001 New York Times editorial underscored the European view of U.S. policy: "While viewed primarily in this country as a criminal justice issue, capital punishment is deemed a human rights matter in other democracies. The fact that Timothy McVeigh was executed the same week that Mr. Bush arrived in Europe amplified this divide. For many Europeans, talk of shared trans-Atlantic values rings hollow so long as America carries out executions."

"The rest of the civilized world is decisively turning away from the death penalty," says David Kaczynski, Executive Director of New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty. "Even Milosevic in the Hague and those responsible for the genocidal murder of a million people in Rwanda will not face execution for their unimaginable crimes. There is a growing world consensus that we must rise above the murderers and hold ourselves to a higher standard, else we run the risk of cheapening life and turning justice into ritual vengeance. The way we punish such murderers says less about them than it says about us."

In a changed world, foreign criticism of the death penalty continues as the U.S., in turn, justifies its war against the Taliban based on that regime's human rights record. Gawain Charlton-Perrin, in her article "Are You Ready to Dance on Osama's Grave?" (Salon.com, 12/14/01), points out the hypocrisy of the United States waging a war in the name of both revenge and of human rights.

"Consider the fact that we are one of the few Western democracies that has yet to abolish the death penalty," she writes. "Ours is a country in which quite a few citizens celebrate the execution of convicted criminals -- not just with quiet satisfaction, but with parties held outside prison walls as the condemned receives a lethal injection. It is perfectly acceptable, apparently, for Americans to be happy and relieved on these occasions."

Abe Bonowitz, director of Citizens United for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (CUADP), is careful not to compare the U.S. legal system with that of the Taliban. "The Taliban apparently had some very strict rules of evidence and trial. Their problem was just that everything was punishable by death! What it boils down to is the fact that we here in the U.S. have a similarity with the Taliban-we use the death penalty."