Toronto Globe

MAY 12, 2002:

USA:  Digging a grave for capital punishment? - State moratoriums have some in the U.S. predicting the end is near

They killed Lynda Block yesterday. The state of Alabama strapped her into Yellow Mama, as the chair is called, and poured 2,200 volts of electricity through her until a doctor pronounced her well and truly dead.

 The day before, the Governor of Maryland had put a temporary halt to executions in his state, joining what many believe is a swelling tide of government restraint that could see the death penalty eliminated in the United States, not in one grand gesture, but state by state, act by humanitarian act.

 "It's much more than a blip," Dennis Elliott of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty said in an interview yesterday. "The entire terrain on which the debate is being waged has shifted. Now the death-penalty proponents have to defend a system that is irreparably broken.

 "For the 1st time in a quarter of a century their backs are against the wall, and we have the momentum."

 But supporters of the death penalty say capital punishment is alive and well in the United States. And two economists have produced a report that maintains homicide rates actually increase when death-penalty moratoriums are imposed.

 Ms. Block, 53, was the 1st woman put to death in Alabama since 1957.

 She was impassive as death approached, officials said. "She never displayed any emotion," said Mike Haley, commissioner of the Alabama Department of Corrections. "She seemed very sombre, somewhat stoic."

 (9 years ago, Ms. Block and her common-law husband murdered a police officer during an identity check in a Wal-Mart parking lot. Her husband, too, is on death row. The 2 believed most of the U.S. government is illegitimate.)

 Earlier this week, in Pennsylvania, Thomas Kimbell became the 101st person to be exonerated since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. A jury found him innocent when evidence that had been excluded at his 1st trial was presented at his 2nd. He had been on death row for 4 years.

 "With each troubling case, it is becoming increasingly clear that our system of capital punishment is so seriously broken that all executions should be stopped," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.

 Illinois was the 1st state to call a temporary halt to the death penalty. Illinois Governor George Ryan imposed the 1st moratorium 2 years ago, on the grounds that too many people convicted of murder had later been found innocent, in some cases because of DNA testing. In Maryland's case, Governor Parris Glendening cited evidence of racial bias in awarding the death penalty.

 The U.S. Supreme Court is considering several cases that opponents of the death penalty say could eliminate about 1/3 of the 3,700 people on death row. The court must decide whether mentally disabled people should be executed and whether judges should continue to have the right to impose the death penalty when a jury has recommended a life sentence. Besides Maryland and Illinois, 8 of the 38 states that practise capital punishment have at least considered the possibility of imposing a moratorium. And there are bills before both the House of Representatives and the Senate to eliminate it entirely, although it is legally doubtful that Congress has the constitutional authority to do so. Moratoriums might be a dangerous mistake, warn Roberto Marchesini and Dale Cloninger, economics professors at University of Houston, Clear Lake.

 They studied homicide rates before, during and after a death-penalty moratorium that was imposed by the courts in Texas for one year in 1996. The authors reported that the number of homicides increased over what should have been expected while the moratorium was in place, and returned to expected levels once it was reimposed.

 "Politicians contemplating moratoriums may wish to consider the possibility that a seemingly innocuous moratorium on executions could very well come at a heavy cost," they concluded.

 And although opposition to the death penalty is increasing, a large majority in the United States continues to support executions. A 2001 Gallup Poll revealed that 68 % of Americans supported capital punishment.

 Mr. Elliott said there is little chance that the Supreme Court will strike down the death penalty in the foreseeable future, or that President George W. Bush or his successor will impose a national moratorium.

 "The way the death penalty is going to be struck down in the United States is state by state, legislature by legislature, through local organizing," he said.

 Ms. Block may be the last person executed by Yellow Mama. Alabama is one of only two states that still practises electrocution, and the state legislature passed a law recently giving those about to be executed the choice of receiving a lethal injection if they prefer.

Death by numbers

No. of executions in the United States:

in 1989: 16

in 1999: 98

in 2001: 66

States with highest execution rates (per capita):

1. Delaware

2. Oklahoma

3. Texas

4. Virginia

5. Missouri

States without the death penalty:

Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusets, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia. Also: District of Columbia No. of states that authorize death by:

Injection: 37

Electrocution: 10 (required in Nebraska)

Gas chamber: 11

Hanging: 3

 Firing squad: 2

 No. of juveniles executed since 1976: 18

 No. of juveniles currently on death row: 83

 Other countries that execute juveniles: Iran, Pakistan, Yemen, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia

 Percentage of blacks in U.S. population: 13

 Percentage of death row inmates who are black: 43

 Percentage of victims who were white: 81

 Number of botched (serious problems or errors) executions:

 in 1998: 3

 in 1999: 1

 in 2000: 2

 in 2001: 1