A Confounding Question of Life or Death

Many years ago I shook the hand of a killer.

It happened inside the walls of San Quentin. When a prison official and guard brought Lloyd Earl Jackson into an interview room, I automatically, unthinkingly, extended my hand.

We had exchanged some letters, after all, and I was thrilled he had agreed to an interview. For a 24-year-old reporter dabbling in the “In Cold Blood” genre of journalism, meeting a man on death row was heady stuff.

Jackson hesitated and then softly grasped my right hand. I suddenly had a sick feeling, remembering his crimes.

Jackson had strangled two little old ladies.

*

Sixteen years and some appeals later, Lloyd Earl Jackson is still alive on death row. I think about him from time to time--and now because Timothy McVeigh has made Americans once again consider the wisdom of the death penalty.

McVeigh murdered 168 people and the jury decided that, as punishment, his own life should be taken. However one feels about the death penalty, this can hardly seem like justice. To advocates of capital punishment, McVeigh’s fate surely must seem too small a price. Opponents, of course, see it as yet another example of the sort of vengeance that cheapens life for all of us and perpetuates the cycle of violence.

And everybody, meanwhile, is free to worry whether strapping McVeigh to one of those horizontal cross-shaped platforms and giving him a lethal injection will promote his martyrdom among militia loonies. Who knows? Maybe this is what McVeigh, with a stoic demeanor, had in mind all along--a kind of suicide bombing in slow motion, protracting the ritual and with it his fame. After the jury rendered the verdict, he mouthed the words “It’s OK” to his family.

Assume that McVeigh thinks he’ll be dying a hero’s glorious death, promoting his cause to the bitter end. Would that change America’s attitude toward the death penalty? Should it?

Actually, America has many attitudes toward capital punishment. Most states have it, some don’t. The executioners in some states are busy, in others years pass between official killings. Most Americans, polls and elections show, are in favor of capital punishment and think it should be used more often. A steadfast minority oppose it under any circumstances.

And then there are those of us who aren’t quite sure what we think.

About a year ago I told a friend that, although I once was strongly opposed to the death penalty, I’d become “wishy-washy” in recent years. She was appalled. This soul, you see, wouldn’t hesitate to light a candle to protest the execution of somebody who killed a class of kindergartners. She told me she could understand people who forthrightly favor the death penalty. Ambivalence, it seemed, smacked of moral cowardice.

Maybe there’s something to that. Or maybe ambivalence is the sanest attitude of all.

Years ago I was more sure of myself. It was easy to oppose capital punishment in the abstract, to vote against it on the ballot (and lose). Certainly I saw no compelling evidence that the death penalty deterred others from murder. To add to the reasons already stated, eliminating the death penalty would eliminate the possibility that it would be administered unfairly. The rich get off, the poor fry. In the very worst-case scenario--a very real scenario--an innocent person is executed. There are many instances of people convicted of capital crimes who were later found innocent. (For just one example, ask your local video store for a copy of the Errol Morris documentary “The Thin Blue Line” concerning a notorious Texas case.)

Another argument appealed to me as well: Why should the rights of the political minority who oppose the death penalty be trampled by the state? Is it fair that people who oppose the death penalty be automatically excluded from juries in capital cases? Is it right that such a profound moral question be left to a simple majority vote, like a sales tax?

Over time my passion waned. Pragmatic notions challenged lofty principles.

Certainly there’s no doubt about the guilt of the vast majority of people on death row. Certainly it costs many millions to incarcerate them and feed them--and millions more to handle all those jailhouse appeals. Certainly there seem to be evil, malignant creeps who have it coming; I’ve never lost any sleep thinking about them. Certainly there are the feelings of the victims’ loved ones to consider--and most often, it seems, they see the murderer’s death as a step to move on with their own lives. To them, especially, the crime isn’t an abstraction, but flesh and blood.

The families of the two elderly Long Beach women Lloyd Jackson murdered told me that it only seemed fair that Jackson be put to death. Sixteen years later, it must seem like justice denied.

*

For awhile there, I’d talked myself into my old idealism. An hour later I talked myself back into ambivalence.

It’s odd, really, that Timothy McVeigh would put a new focus on the continuing debate over capital punishment. There aren’t too many terrorists on death row. More typical are criminals like Lloyd Earl Jackson.

A couple of years ago, a Glendale attorney contacted me and explained that she was handling Jackson’s latest appeal. She wanted a copy of that old story. I dredged it up, sent it to her and suggested we meet.

I thought an update on the Jackson case, largely forgotten, might make an interesting column.

But she declined. The lawyer said she didn’t think media attention, at this late date, would be in the best interest of her client.

Scott Harris’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Readers may write to him at The Times’ Valley Edition, 20000 Prairie St. , Chatsworth 91311, or via e-mail at scott.harris@latimes.com Please include a phone number.