Governor Calls Practice ‘Anti-God’ : Anaya Spares All Inmates on New Mexico Death Row

In an order unprecedented for nearly two decades, Gov. Toney Anaya on Wednesday commuted New Mexico’s entire Death Row to life imprisonment and urged the abolition of capital punishment because it is “immoral and anti-God.”

“Let us put an end to this macabre national death march,” he told a Thanksgiving Eve news conference in the state Capitol in the shadows of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. “It is inhumane, immoral, anti-God--and is incompatible with an enlightened society.”

Anaya’s action spared five men, all killers, from death by lethal injection. He commuted their sentences despite polls showing that 70% of Americans and 75% of the voters in New Mexico think murderers should be executed.

Prisoners and their families thanked him for his mercy, but most other reaction was sharply negative.

At his news conference, Anaya was flanked by six bodyguards, five more than usual. Aides said they feared for his safety. Telephone calls to his office ran 20-to-1 against his decision, but press secretary Tom Sharpe said neither the governor and his family nor anyone on his staff received any threats.

In an interview with The Times, recounting months of political and moral agony over his decision, Anaya, a Democrat who leaves office Dec. 31 and cannot succeed himself under the state constitution, said he expected Gov.-elect Garrey E. Carruthers, a Republican, to challenge his action in the courts.

Carruthers, who campaigned on a promise to make executions his first order of business, said he disagreed with Anaya’s commutation, had urged him not to take the action and would ask the state’s current and incoming attorneys general to find out what, if anything, he could do to reverse it.

Atty. Gen. Paul Bardacke, a Democrat and proponent of New Mexico’s death penalty law, said Anaya seems to be “on solid ground.” However, Bardacke said a legal challenge was possible. “It’s even possible that a legal challenge could be successful. But he has substantial legal support.”

Atty. Gen.-elect Hal Stratton, a Republican who favors the death penalty, agreed. “I think there is little that the new governor can do.”

The last governor to commute an entire Death Row was Winthrop Rockefeller of Arkansas in 1970. He spared the lives of 15 men, and Rockefeller’s action withstood all challenges.

Anaya said he had considered commuting the death sentences to life imprisonment without parole, but decided against it because New Mexico has no such penalty. Specifying “no paroles,” he said, might have given challengers a legal foothold.

But, he said, “these men will never again set foot in society.”

By adding their cumulative sentences, he said, he had determined that four out of the five will almost certainly die in prison; the fifth will not be eligible for parole until he turns 65.

Anaya’s commutation won praise from church groups, prisoners’ rights organizations and the American Civil Liberties Union. W. G. Gilbert, 60, of Hartsville, S.C., father of New Mexican Death Row prisoner William Wayne Gilbert, 37, convicted of kidnaping, rape and murder, said tearfully that he called Anaya and “told him thanks.”

The other four prisoners who received commutations are:

Richard Reynaldo Garcia, 3l, convicted of armed robbery, escape and killing a prison guard; Michael Anthony Guzman, 24, convicted of kidnaping, rape and murder; Joel Lee Compton, 33, convicted of murdering a policeman, and Eddie Lee Adams, 24, convicted of kidnaping, rape and murder.

Anaya agreed to be interviewed before Wednesday’s announcement on the condition that his account remain confidential until he made his order public.

As he recalled, his personal preoccupation with capital punishment began during the gubernatorial primaries of 1982. “I was at a public forum with the other gubernatorial candidates, Republicans and Democrats. The setting was a church in Albuquerque, I forget the exact name.

“In the audience were many, many church leaders, priests and others. And they raised the issue of capital punishment. Every one of the other candidates tried to outdo the others in terms of how tough they would be.

“I was the only one who spoke out against the death penalty. I indicated I would not permit anybody (on Death Row) to die during my term of office. It was kind of a spontaneous response.”

Anaya’s stand was not popular with the clergymen. “They were not pleased. There were some exceptions, but I walked away from there with a very empty feeling.”

Capital punishment did not become a big issue in that election. Anaya, the seventh of 10 children who grew up in an adobe house with dirt floors, no electricity and no indoor plumbing, won on a wave of idealism that gave him a large majority and made him the highest-ranking Latino elected official in the United States. He was mentioned as a potential running mate for Democratic presidential nominee Walter F. Mondale.

But Anaya, a Roman Catholic, stood firm on his promise to stay executions. “I believe that only God can give life and only he can take it away,” he said. “For the state to presume to kill is barbarous, as murderous as the common criminal.”

In time, Anaya recalled, he became increasingly conscious that the New Mexico constitution gave him the authority to commute sentences, as well as to stay them. What, he asked himself, did his opposition to capital punishment mean if he only stayed--or postponed--death? Should he commute--or prevent it--instead?

He sought advice from Robert Sanchez, the Catholic archbishop of Santa Fe. “I raised it with him in a very private, personal conversation. I did not get a sermon based on, ‘Here’s what you’ve got to do, and here’s why you’ve got to do it.’ It was more like, ‘I understand who you are, Toney, and I understand that you have a grip on what’s involved here. If spiritually I can ever help you, come back to me.’ ”

Did Anaya ever seek out the archbishop for such spiritual counsel?

“I never did.”

But that was hardly the end of his discussions with the clergy. The Committee to Stop Executions, headed by the Rev. Bruce Rolstad, a minister of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), came in to talk to him. “Toney Anaya wasn’t going to execute anyone while he was in office, and we appreciated that and wanted him to know that and told him that,” Rolstad said. “But we said, ‘We need to go beyond that.’ We raised the question of commutation.

“His response was, ‘I need support for that kind of action. I really need to have people out there who are supportive of that. Can you help me on that?’

“And we said, ‘Yes, we could.’ ”

Early in his second year in office, Anaya was interviewed by the National Catholic Reporter, an independent Catholic newspaper. “My aides and I are now going through a review of policy,” he told the paper, “a step toward, perhaps, a policy of commuting sentences to life imprisonment.”

That caused an uproar.

“The Legislature met,” Rolstad said, “and they were going to strip him of the power of commutation and change the law to make it easier to get the death penalty.” But, said Mara Taub, a fellow committee member and representative of the Coalition for Prisoners’ Rights, “what happened was the Legislature fought about the budget the whole time--and went home having done absolutely nothing.”

By then angry fighting between Anaya and the Legislature had become commonplace; his administration was in trouble. And his stand against capital punishment was only one of the ever-growing number of reasons.

He had left the state often--to help Mondale, to aid Latino causes and to promote economic opportunity. He had done things too liberal for New Mexico’s conservative voters--declared the state a sanctuary for refugees from Central America, for instance. He had dropped people wholesale from state boards and commissions and replaced them with his own appointees, often with women and Latinos.

Governor Investigated

Mining and oil had gone from boom to bust, and he was having trouble balancing the state budget. Two state officials were indicted and convicted in money scandals. Anaya, a vocal critic of President Reagan, came under investigation himself by a Republican U.S. attorney and by the Internal Revenue Service.

By the end of his term, Anaya would tie for fourth in an Albuquerque Journal poll of New Mexico’s eight biggest problems. His voter approval rating would fall to 12.2%. Albuquerque Living magazine would interview him, submit the transcript to psychologists and publish an article describing him as a sad and lonely man with few close friends, a man who had lost touch with his family and who pleaded his innocence of any wrongdoing by saying he would kill himself if he ever betrayed the public trust.

During the midst of this trouble, in the late summer of 1984, Anaya traveled to Albuquerque to talk to the New Mexico Conference of Churches about the death penalty.

Present were the leaders of virtually all of New Mexico’s large denominations. The governor offered a position paper outlining his stand and, this time, the clergymen seemed to like what he had to say.

Archbishop Sanchez did not attend. But he sent a representative who carried a letter to the governor. It said that, while the Catholic Church had no doctrinal opposition to the death penalty, it counseled against executions because they encouraged an anti-life attitude, seemed to be reserved for the poor and minorities and apparently did not serve as a deterrent.

Anaya seemed heartened, Rolstad said, but he looked tired. “We sensed that he was really depressed about his tenure in office and the struggle that he was going through. I think he was at the lowest point in his administration.” Rolstad said he and other church leaders feared that Anaya might resign.

Others, including Taub, the prisoners’ rights advocate, thought he might be impeached. “Certainly there was talk of impeachment,” she said. “There has been several times.”

Moreover, 1984 was an election year, and legislative seats, though not the governorship, were at stake in New Mexico. A commutation might cost Anaya and his party a lot of important support.

“If I do it now, just before the elections, what kind of impact is that going to have on those who are running for the Legislature?” Anaya said he asked himself. “What kind of a Legislature am I going to wind up with and what impact will it have on other programs that I need to be concerned about? What kind of impact will it have on the kind of legislation--or constitutional amendments--that flow out of the Legislature to eliminate the governor’s power to commute, or to restrict it?”

He had two years left in office. If he commuted then, and if his power to commute was eliminated or restricted as a result, what would happen to any additional prisoners who might wind up on Death Row?

Nor did his hesitancy end there, Anaya said.

“After the election it was a question of, ‘Well, you’re getting ready for the Legislature. We’ve got many, many other issues that you’ve got to be concerned about--proper funding for education, day care, drug abuse, everything else. What do you give up for what you get if you commute?’

“Frankly,” Anaya said, “I often asked myself if I was being hypocritical about it. ‘If you feel so strongly about an issue, and you know that it’s right, then why not do it?’ Then I would balance that off with, ‘If you don’t do it, or at least not right now, because of the adverse consequences, then that is really being a true leader.’

“But then I’d ask myself, ‘Are you just making excuses? Is it just that you don’t want to bite the bullet?’ ”

Anaya felt the squeeze tighten as three of the five prisoners on Death Row formally asked him for stays: Ricky Garcia at the end of 1984; and William Wayne Gilbert and Michael Guzman in 1985.

When Garcia asked for a stay, the governor heard from Michael Francke, his chief of corrections. As a criminal court judge, Francke had sentenced Garcia to die.

“I think my position on the death penalty has pretty much been tested,” Francke recalled. “It’s not a cocktail party position. I believe that, first, maybe the death penalty doesn’t stop murders, but it stops (individual) murderers (from killing again). Second, I do not think it is inappropriate to focus on the victims. I advance the retribution argument.”

Prison Staff Viewpoint

Francke, who also is a Catholic, sent the governor a memo. “As secretary of corrections, I was concerned that he not take action against capital punishment because it provides and is viewed by the prison staff as a protection against assaults and murders of the staff by the inmates.”

Anaya sought seclusion. “Yes, I did pray about it. There were times that I would wake up at night. I would usually just lie in bed and think about all the pros and cons, the consequences one way or the other. And on those occasions, especially in the privacy of my home and in the privacy of my bedroom, I would pray again.

“I wouldn’t wake up my wife and discuss it with her. I wouldn’t call a friend and discuss it with him. I wouldn’t call up a priest and seek guidance. I would just keep my own counsel, keep my own conscience.”

Anaya stopped short of a commutation, but he granted Garcia a stay.

Next came William Wayne Gilbert.

To stay or commute, stay or commute? recalled Harvey Fruman, then the governor’s executive assistant and now a judge on the New Mexico Court of Appeals. “It was right before Easter, and the governor was thinking of doing it on Good Friday, if he did it. It would have been a commutation for all five. He came close.

“It was in his office. I can’t remember if any others were in the room besides him, me, perhaps Shirley Scarafiotti, his chief of staff. He wanted to make a decision. He was serious and deep in thought. He was either pacing or standing behind his chair, with his arms folded over the back of the chair.”

The office was quiet, Fruman said.

“No one was trying to interfere or force him to go for it. He walked to the window and kind of looked out, gazed out, not seeing what was out there. I think he needed some stroke out of the blue, something to make him feel, ‘Yes, this is right. I can do it.’ ”

Anaya said: “I remember the time. It was almost as if I was reaching out that window for some guidance.”

But Gilbert, too, got only a stay.

So did Michael Guzman, later that same year, a few days before Thanksgiving.

Guzman begged for his life. He pleaded in a letter to live so he could meet “the people I hurt and ask for their forgiveness. Mr. Anaya, I ask you for your help in letting me live and prove to the people of New Mexico that I do care.”

Anaya talked with former New Mexico Public Defender Janet Clow; current Public Defender Jacquelyn Robins; Henry Schwarzchild, director of the Capital Punishment Project of the American Civil Liberties Union; key members of the Legislature; his wife, Elaine, who also opposes capital punishment; their children, and one or two close friends.

“But the real soul searching I’ve done personally,” he said.

The winter of 1985 became the summer of 1986, another election year. And capital punishment became one of New Mexico’s larger issues.

Candidates Use Issue

“Everybody was using it, not only the gubernatorial candidates but a number of judicial candidates, everybody who felt they could make hay out of it,” Anaya said. “It bothered me. The candidates were getting the people into the frenzy of a lynch mob.

“I felt they were deceiving the people of the state into thinking that simply by carrying out executions we suddenly could eliminate the criminal problem. To the contrary, the criminal problem continues to grow because we don’t do anything about preventing crime, or working with our kids or doing something about drug abuse and alcohol abuse and child abuse and domestic violence and poverty.

“I asked those I consulted with, ‘Should we just go ahead and commute now and force these candidates to start talking about what they are really going to do to attack crime, because they will no longer have the death penalty question? It’ll be gone.’

“I came extremely, extremely close.”

Once again, Anaya said, he thought about what a blanket commutation by a Democratic governor might do to his party’s judicial and legislative candidates. And once again he declined to take the step that would forever put five human lives beyond the executioner’s reach.

Even now that the step has been taken, Anaya the man agonizes over the reasons for Anaya the politician’s delays. “I don’t know if I was less than honest with my own conscience, with my own convictions.

“Was I really a man of my convictions right down to the bitter end? Or was I a man who permitted his convictions to be tinged a little bit once in a while because of political considerations--by some notion that you have got to look at the bigger picture?

“I don’t know. And that’s something that will probably bother me from time to time.”

Times researchers Doug Conner and Joyce Penny contributed to this article.