13/06/01

The World's View of Executions

One of the things President Bush will discover as he makes his way through Europe this week is that America's moral authority as a global champion of individual and human rights is being seriously undermined by the nation's reliance on the death penalty. Indeed, when Mr. Bush attends a European Union summit meeting tomorrow, he will be visiting an organization that bars admission to any nation that has not banned the death penalty.

 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 underscores this divide. For many Europeans, talk of shared trans-Atlantic values rings hollow so long as America carries out executions.

 Spain, governed by a conservative with a shared interest in Latin America, promised to be a tranquil first stop on what could otherwise be a contentious European tour for Mr. Bush. Unfortunately for him, one of the biggest stories in Spain in the days leading up to the president's arrival involved someone on death row in the United States.

Joaquin Martinez, a 30-year-old Spanish national, was convicted in 1997 of a double murder in Florida. He spent three years on death row before a new team of high-priced lawyers financed by a fund- raising campaign in Spain won him a new trial on the basis of prosecutorial errors. Mr. Martinez was found not guilty at his second trial, and was warmly greeted back in Spain on Sunday. His saga, combined with Timothy McVeigh's execution, has fueled protests against what is increasingly viewed across Europe as America's barbaric infatuation with the death penalty.Among Europeans, capital punishment is a particular public-relations liability for Mr. Bush, given that he oversaw 152 executions as governor of Texas. Also, with the McVeigh execution, he became the first president since John F. Kennedy to preside over a federal execution. Our European allies can no longer be encouraged to draw moral distinctions between the federal and state governments, as they could during the civil rights era.State governments have carried out more than 715 executions since capital punishment was reinstated in the 1970's. Last year, according to Amnesty International, only China and Saudi Arabia executed more people than the United States. Add Iran, a close fourth place, and these countries accounted for more than 90 percent of all executions worldwide. This is not impressive company.  Capital punishment is putting such a stain on American prestige abroad that a group of distinguished Foreign Service veterans has called on states to at least cease executing the mentally retarded. Kyrgyzstan, the former Soviet republic, and Japan are believed to be the only other countries where the mentally retarded are put to death.

 There is some long-overdue movement across the country to ban such executions, and signs that the Supreme Court may soon revisit the issue. Even Mr. Bush said Monday that the mentally retarded should not be executed, perhaps indicating that he will support a pending change in Texas law.

 We are also heartened by the declining level of support for capital punishment registered by opinion polls in recent years, and the continuing effort in some states to impose a moratorium on further executions. Yesterday a jury in New York refused to sentence to death a convicted defendant in the embassy bombing trial. Some jurors were concerned about creating a martyr; others felt life without parole was a harsher sentence.

 A broad reconsideration of the death penalty is required nationwide. It is an unfairly administered punishment whose claims as a deterrent have been largely discredited. It is also, as President Bush is learning, a foreign policy liability.