Lungren Response on Death Penalty
Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren’s reaction to the resolution by the American Bar Assn. calling for a moratorium on executions in the U.S. (Feb. 4) raises a question:
When the country’s preeminent organization of proponents and practitioners of law determines, after years of study, that apparent injustices in the application of the death penalty demand a halt to the practice until their concerns can be satisfactorily analyzed and possibly remedied, and when these concerns echo those of the International Committee of Jurists, the U.N. and international human rights organizations, how is it that the chief law enforcement officer in the largest state in the union, whose commitment to the concept of equal justice for all must be assumed, chooses, instead of supporting his colleagues in this most reasonable position, to go on the attack and impugn the integrity of the organization, its motives and its methods?
Could the answer be politics? Are we witnessing a rather barefaced demonstration, on the eve of a gubernatorial campaign, of the politics of death? If so, don’t we deserve more?
MIKE FARRELL, President
Death Penalty Focus of California
San Francisco
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