The Death Penalty: A 1% Nonsolution to Crime

We are a people of ritual. We string up Christmas lights against the darkness, trim the wicks on menorahs, break the fasts of Ramadan, gather our clans for sumptuous feasts. In the midst of this season of ritual, another evocative pageantry has been added -- the execution of a prisoner. One week before Christmas, San Diego Superior Court Judge William Kennedy set a date for the killing of Kevin Cooper by the state of California, in what would be the 11th execution since 1978 and the first since January 2002.

Now another familiar ritual begins -- the ritual of society gearing up to execute a man. First, a menacing mug shot of the convicted murderer appears. Then comes the litany of gory details of the crime: the defendant’s frustrated claims of innocence; the anger of the victim’s family; the hopes of the defense lawyers; the certainty of the prosecutors.

As we get closer to the actual killing, we’ll see profiles of the condemned man as an abused child; the anguish of the victims’ families awaiting final justice; dramatic, last-minute legal appeals to the Supreme Court; the clemency petition to the governor and his anguish over his power to administer death -- and his solemn acquiescence to justice. We will read descriptions of the condemned man’s last meal; the strap-down on the gurney and insertion of the needles; the phone on the wall that may ring at midnight; the final expiration of breath; the pronouncement of death; and the sad retreat of hundreds keeping vigil outside the gates of San Quentin.

This is how it will be. It always is.

Kevin Cooper was convicted of killing four people in Chino Hills in 1983. It was a gruesome crime. Four people were hacked to death with an ice pick, a hatchet and an ax. They included a 10-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy; an 8-year-old boy was left to die. In that same year in California, just 24 people received the death penalty -- about 1% of perpetrators -- all of whom still sit on death row.

Those who adamantly support the death penalty argue that all murderers -- not just 1% -- should be executed. But justice, while ostensibly blind, must also be discriminating.

Death penalty proponents claim that the ultimate punishment is reserved for the “worst of the worst.” Those selected for death, however, are usually not the worst of the worst. Like Cooper, who was adopted, abused as a youth and caught in a downward spiral of menial sales jobs and botched burglaries, they’re usually poor and unable to afford a decent attorney. A distressing number are mentally retarded. A study compared California’s death penalty system with the Illinois findings that led that state’s governor to commute the sentences of 167 death row inmates to life without parole and it found California’s system surprisingly similar -- lacking basic safeguards such as videotaped interrogations or standardized DNA testing. “California’s system is seriously flawed and dangerously unjust,” the author concluded.

But the date for Cooper’s execution has been set: 12:01 a.m., Feb. 10. Death penalty supporters argue that Cooper’s killing will deter others from committing murder, though this is a matter of faith rather than fact. No study has ever quantified a link between motivation and murder statistics.

People like John DuPont, Erik and Lyle Menendez and others with resources are never the ones strapped to the gurney and offered as victims to soothe our primitive fears.

But Cooper will be. The execution of the 1% is designed to assure us that our criminal justice system is dealing effectively with crime. Except it’s not, as the recent rise in the FBI’s crime statistics shows.

A far more effective punishment for murder is life without the possibility of parole, which has been doled out to more than 2,700 convicted killers in California since 1977. Only two have been released -- after being found innocent. But something much more primitive in us reacts to the cues each time an execution rolls around. The crime scene is described again, our blood pressure rises, someone must pay. So get ready. After the tree is down and the menorah packed away, we’ll begin the new year with another ritual -- the killing of the 1%.

Jeff Gillenkirk is on the board of directors of Death Penalty Focus, which advocates abolition of the death penalty.