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The Death Penalty

Justice Southern Style and other Notes

Missouri officials executed two individuals during 2003—Ken Kenley on February 5 and John Clayton Smith. We extend condolences to people who cared for them, as well as to the loved ones of those persons they were convicted of killing: Ronald Felts, Brandie Kearnes and Wayne Hoewing. We also consider all those mourning the violent deaths of relatives and friends.

The total number of people executed last calendar year was the fewest killed in Missouri since 1992. Smith became the 61st person killed by state workers, 4th most of U.S. states. He also became the 100th individual executed since 1938 (39 people were killed by poison gas from 1938-1965), when county officials took over the bloody business of executing some citizens.

As of February 1, 2004, 895 people were executed in the United States since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1976 Gregg v Georgia decision, theoretically deeming the death penalty constitutional again. Southern states executed 82 % of all the individuals. When counting Missouri appropriately among the states of the South, that percentage enlarges to 89% among all U.S. executions. It would seem that capital punishment: is one particularly vile and contemptible, southern way of saying "justice."

Stephen Funk one of the first public GI resisters against the Iraq war, was freed Feb.4 from a Marine Corp brig after being imprisoned for six months. Funk joined the Marine reserves in 2002, during a period he described as one of personal confusion. But when activated and confronted with military training and the prospect of joining the invasion of Iraq, Funk realized he couldn’t wage war. He filed a claim as a conscientious objector, and went AWOL when the Marines ignored his claim. Hundreds of individuals are believed to have claimed C.O. status during this war and occupation, but U.S. officials aren’t releasing details of such conscientious resistance.

Pilot who Stopped My Lai Massacre Entered into Army Aviation Hall of Fame

The helicopter scout pilot who risked his life to stop the My Lai massacre in March 1968 will become part of the U.S. Army Aviation Hall of Fame this spring. Hugh Thompson landed between American troops and the Vietnamese civilians they were chasing and ordered his crew to fire on the infantrymen if they continued to shoot at civilians he was trying to evacuate. They rescued at least nine people.

Thompson learned last week that he will be inducted into the hall March 25, during the Army Aviation Association of America¹s convention in Nashville. The hall itself is based at Fort Rucker, Ala. At My Lai, Thompson bucked a rampage in which American soldiers tore through a string of hamlets and killed perhaps 500 unarmed civilians. After his reports to superior officers about My Lai, Thompson was for decades treated as a pariah by top brass. It was only after the Army learned he was to be honored by the Vietnamese government, at a 1998 anniversary ceremony at My Lai, that they bestowed on him the Soldier¹s Medal, the Army¹s highest ribbon for action not involving enemy troops.

On February 2, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to revisit the merits of the juvenile death penalty, agreeing to hear oral arguments in the Missouri case of Chris Simmons who was 17 years old at the time he murdered Shirley Crook. His attorneys had hoped the high court would let stand a Missouri Supreme Court decision ruling in Simmons that it was unconstituional to sentence to death individuals younger than 18. The U.S. court’s action could at least, ultimately lead to the overturning of death sentences for 82 prisoners across the country who were juveniles at the time of their crimes.

In July 2003, the Missouri Supreme Court overturned the death sentence of Simmons by a 4-3 decision, sentencing him instead to life in prison without the possibility of parole. During the fall the Missouri Attorney General appealed this case to the U.S. Supreme Court. The U.S. Court will hear the Simmons case in the summer or fall of 2004, with a decision likely to be announced by 2005. Human-rights activists in Missouri and beyond are guardedly optimistic the high court will uphold the Simmons state court ruling-- thereby banning the execution of juvenile offenders in the United States. Since Iran agreed several months ago to at least temporarily halt death- sentencing juvenile offenders, the U.S. stands as the world’s lone nation still openly sanctioning the vile practice. Four Supreme Court justices are on record as opposing the execution of juvenile offenders, but until now they could not persuade their colleagues to reopen the debate. In 2003, the four-member liberal wing of the court issued an unusual statement calling it ``shameful'' to execute juvenile killers. ``The practice of executing such offenders is a relic of the past and is inconsistent with evolving standards of decency in a civilized society,'' Justice John Paul Stevens wrote then. He was joined by Justices David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.

The rhetoric echoes the court's 2002 Atkins decision ruling that it is unconstitutional to execute the mentally retarded. In both instances, the constitutional question hinges on a defendants' ability to understand their situation, and their level of relative responsibility for the crime. Also like the retardation question, this one will involve an examination of whether the country has experienced an “evolving standard of decency” about what kind of punishment is appropriate.

A couple of other national developments have additionally encouraged opponents of the juvenile death penalty: Late last year, Virginia jurors sentenced Lee Malvo to life in prison for his role in the highly-publicized Washington-area sniper attacks. If “death” was found not to be warranted in these crimes, how could any juvenile offender fairly be sentenced to death, the argument would go. Gov. Paul Patton of Kentucky also overrturned the death sentence of Kevin Stanford, who was 17 years old when he committed murder. The U.S. high court used his case in 1989 to uphold the constitutionality of capital punishment for juvenile offenders. Just three states, Texas, Virginia and Oklahoma, have executed 82-percent of the juvenile offenders exeucted since the return of capital punishment, demonstrating the arbitrariness of the sanction. The Missouri Ban Youth Execution (B.Y.E.) Coalition (of which the FOR is a member along with two dozen other groups) will be submitting an amicus brief (a friend of the court document), explaining why “death” is not warranted. If your group would like to sign on to the amicus brief, please conact Rita (573-635-7239) or Jeff (573-449- 4585).

It‘s rather bizarre that President Bush and his administration officials have succeeded in instilling a sense of fear among the U.S. populace. Iraq’s phantom weapons of mass destruction were hyped as evidence of the nation’s aggressive intent. Chalmers Johnson reminds us in a remarkable book, The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic that it is the United States which “dominates the world through its military power. Due to government secrecy, our citizens are often ignorant of the fact that our garrisons encircle the planet. This vast network of American bases on every continent except Antarctica actually constitutes a new form of empire -- an empire of bases… To dominate the oceans and seas of the world, we are creating some thirteen naval task forces built around aircraft carriers. “It's not easy to assess the size or exact value of our empire of bases,” Johnson writes, “According to the Defense Department's annual ‘Base Structure Report’ for FY2003, which itemizes foreign and domestic U.S. military real estate, the Pentagon currently owns or rents 702 overseas bases in about 130 countries and has another 6,000 bases in the United States and its territories. “ That massive total fails to count bases-- in several other nations including in Afghanistan and Iraq, where at least four and perhaps as many as six permanent ones are under construction by U.S. corporations like Halliburton and Brown and Root— designed almost entirely to serve corporate not human interests.