Brave Look at the Death Penalty

The appallingly inadequate legal representation received by far too many death penalty defendants has been the criminal justice system’s dirty little secret since 1977, when the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the reinstatement of capital punishment. Defendants have been condemned although their lawyers slept in court or were drunk or didn’t know the law. Illinois Gov. George H. Ryan brought the issue to the fore last month, acknowledging gross miscarriages of justice in the trials of several death row inmates. He vowed a moratorium on executions in Illinois until an inquiry is completed into the state system, which since 1977 had sentenced to death 13 men who later were exonerated.

The actions of Ryan, a Republican who has said he believes in the death penalty, came after Northwestern University journalism students uncovered evidence that three men sentenced to death were innocent; the students’ investigation proved that the crimes were committed by others. The three--one of whom came within two days of execution--have since been freed. Later, other death row convicts were found innocent, some on the basis of DNA evidence.

Ryan has taken a courageous step toward restoring standards of justice to what have become, in too many states, almost kangaroo-court capital proceedings. Governors in the 37 other states with the death penalty ought to muster the political courage to follow his lead.

Very few death row inmates get the kind of high-profile defense that, for instance, Timothy McVeigh had at his trial. McVeigh was sentenced to death in 1997 after his conviction in the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building, a heinous act of terrorism that killed 168 men, women and children. His lawyers were skilled and prepared, and the press monitored his trial daily.

Most people on death row are poor and minority and not nearly so fortunate as McVeigh in terms of legal representation. In Texas, with a death row population of 458, second only to California’s 551, there is no statewide public defender system; judges appoint lawyers to represent indigent defendants. One appointed lawyer repeatedly snored during his client’s trial. Others have missed key deadlines or failed to even investigate the case.

In many states, lawyers receive a flat fee for representing clients in capital crimes, no matter how complex the case, or are compensated at a rate so low--$30 an hour in Alabama--as to discourage case preparation. California’s defense and its appeals process have their own horror stories and are underfunded; however, they still are better than most. In some states, lawyers have failed to interview any witnesses in capital cases, never read their state’s death penalty statute, spoken only once with their clients or arrived at the courthouse drunk.

These grotesque examples have prompted the American Bar Assn. to rightly call for a national moratorium on capital punishment and for the adoption of guidelines on the appointment and performance of lawyers in these cases. Even the most enthusiastic defenders of the death penalty will agree that the ultimate punishment must be administered fairly, that to execute an innocent person is an abomination.