Death Penalty Reprieve for Garza

* I am relieved that the state did not kill Juan Raul Garza (“Clinton Stays Execution for Racial Study,” Dec. 8). As a citizen and taxpayer, I am complicit in what the federal government does (just as I am complicit in the murders of those we kill here in California).

However, I am deeply grieved that President Clinton neatly sidestepped his responsibility when he delayed Garza’s execution. Rather than accepting the role of the president who oversaw the restarting of federal executions, he pushed it off on the next president. Clinton did oversee the vast expansion of the federal death penalty to include many more offenses, but apparently he could not stomach the responsibility of putting that policy into effect. He could have acted bravely and honorably and commuted Garza’s sentence. He could have declared a federal death penalty moratorium. In the end, he did not do nearly enough.

CHRYSANTHI SETTLAGE

Whittier

*

Re “Race Must Not Decide Who Will Live and Who Will Die,” Commentary, Dec. 7: Isn’t it interesting that Angela E. Oh is so utterly concerned with statistics on race that she made the biggest mistake of all. Not once in her informative commentary did she mention the crime Garza was convicted of. Isn’t that an integral part of discovering the truth?

Maybe Oh needs to take off her blinders and discuss the big picture.

T.J. CHRISTIE

Los Angeles