The Disturbing Death of Charles Singleton

On January 6, 2004 the state of Arkansas executed 44-year old Charles Singleton, who was convicted of stabbing a grocery store clerk to death in 1979. He was on death row longer than any other Arkansas inmate. The Singleton case was not unusual in and of itself. Singleton was black and his victim, Mary Lou York, was white. The execution ended in the usual way with attorneys trying in vain to spare their client’s life, and outside agitation from the usual suspects -- Europeans pleading with an American governor to stop an execution. The execution took place in a southern state, where the overwhelming majority of murders and executions take place.

But the Charles Singleton case raised another important issue for the American criminal justice system. Singleton was a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic. His last words were an incomprehensible ramble that made sense to no one but himself.

“The blind think I’m playing a game. They deny me, refusing me existence. But everybody takes the place of another. As it is written, I will come forth as you go.”

In 1986 the Supreme Court ruled that execution of the mentally ill constituted cruel and unusual punishment. The state of Arkansas concluded that if Singleton were given anti-psychotic medication he would be “sane” and therefore eligible for execution. Lower courts ruled in Singleton’s favor, but the decision was later overturned, and the United States Supreme Court let that decision stand.

Another black Arkansan who suffered from mental illness, Ricky Ray Rector, became world-famous upon his execution in 1992. Then-governor Bill Clinton left the campaign trail in January of that year to sign the warrant for Rector’s execution. Rector’s mental capacity was such that when taken from his cell as a “dead man walking” he told a guard to save his pie. He thought he would return to finish his dessert. I try to remember this story when I am told that all black people love Bill Clinton or that he should be considered the first black president. Clinton wasn’t black when Rector needed him. He was just another politician who didn’t want to be labeled soft on crime.

While the number of executions, death row populations, and support for capital punishment have all dropped in recent years, 64 percent of Americans still support the death penalty. That strong level of support is why the punishment still exists. Most politicians are like Bill Clinton on the presidential campaign trail. An accusation that a candidate is “soft” on crime or “coddles” criminals can be enough to finish a political career.

But as with every other issue in America, race is never far from discussions of the death penalty. Blacks are just 12 percent of the overall population but 42 percent of residents on death row. Whites are 50 percent of murder victims but represent 80 percent of victims in death penalty cases. The death penalty is used to punish people of color who kill whites. Black victims of black killers get short shrift from the criminal justice system and the media, unless there is a lurid story line or celebrity involvement. Otherwise, our all too common intra-group victimization goes unnoticed.

Despite a declining national crime rate, too many of us are convinced of the need for the state to become a killer. If America is to be rid of the travesty that is capital punishment we have to ask, “What is the appeal of state sanctioned murder?” Massachusetts has one of the lowest murder rates in the nation, ranking 37 out of 50, and yet its Republican Governor, Mitt Romney, is in the process of devising death penalty legislation. One of the inconsistencies of those who advocate capital punishment is that they ordinarily do not trust government and belittle it whenever possible. The same people who castigate government at every opportunity suddenly become trusting of the institution when it has to decide who should live and who should die. In the conservative mind government is incompetent at best and evil at worst. And yet the same incompetent or evil bureaucrats who shouldn’t be trusted to collect taxes ought to be able to make life and death decisions in capital punishment cases that require the wisdom of Solomon.