Pope Asks Bush to Stay Murderer’s Execution

Pope John Paul II has appealed to Republican front-runner George W. Bush to stay the execution of a Texas man scheduled to die by lethal injection on Tuesday for a murder he committed while he was a juvenile.

The pope’s intervention, just a few days before the Iowa caucuses kick off this year’s presidential race, puts the spotlight on Bush’s strong support for the death penalty. One hundred fourteen executions have been conducted in Texas during his five years in office, more than under any other governor since the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1972.

Moreover, the pending execution of Glen C. McGinnis, who shot and killed the owner of a dry cleaning shop nine years ago when he was 17, also focuses attention on the fact that the U.S. is one of only five nations in the world that permit executions of individuals for crimes committed while they were minors. The other four are Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan and Saudia Arabia--some of whose regimes are frequently criticized by the U.S.

“Committed to upholding the sacredness and dignity of each human life, the Holy Father prays that the life of Mr. McGinnis may be saved through the compassion and magnanimity of yourself, Mr. Governor, and through the [Texas] Board of Pardon and Paroles,” the papal letter states. The pope appealed to Bush in a letter sent by the papal nuncio in Washington on Jan. 14, but made public Thursday.

The letter stresses that the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the U.S. signed, bars the death penalty for crimes committed before the age of 18. And the pope referred to McGinnis’ “troubled childhood.” The son of a drug-addicted prostitute, McGinnis was severely abused by his stepfather, according to his attorneys.

Bush maintains that the death penalty is a useful deterrent to murder. In response to proposed legislation in 1998, the governor said that he opposed making it possible to execute someone for a crime committed under the age of 17.

Bush’s press secretary, Linda Edwards, said that the Bush campaign had received a separate letter from the European Union, urging that McGinnis’ sentence be commuted to life imprisonment. Edwards said the governor would respond to the pleas but did not say when.

The pope has intervened in about 30 previous cases in the U.S. A spokesman for the U.S. Catholic Conference in Washington said only one of those appeals has succeeded. A year ago John Paul II persuaded Missouri’s Democratic Gov. Mel Carnahan to commute the death sentence of Darrell Mease.

Since 1985, Texas has executed seven offenders whose crimes were committed while they were juveniles (including two while Bush has been in office), more than any other state. There are 70 individuals on death rows around the U.S. for crimes committed when they were under 18, according to the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington. California law prohibits the execution of anyone for a crime committed before the age of 18.

Since 1997, Iran is the only other nation that has executed an offender for a crime committed as a juvenile.

There is no sign that if Bush rebuffs the pope’s plea--as he has done on previous occasions, including the 1998 execution of born-again murderer Karla Faye Tucker--that there will be any political downside, according to both Republican pollster Whit Ayres and Democratic campaign consultant Bill Carrick. According to a Gallup poll conducted last year, 71% of Americans favor the death penalty and support for it is even stronger among Republicans.

None of the Republican presidential contenders opposes the death penalty; the Democratic aspirants, Vice President Al Gore and former New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley, also support capital punishment. But as a sitting governor, Bush is the only candidate who has to deal with the issue day to day.

Moreover, since Texas will be conducting executions throughout the year--with seven scheduled in January alone--the issue will continue to surface, as will criticism that capital punishment is administered inequitably in the Lone Star state.

The current case stems from the 1990 murder of Leta Ann Wilkerson. An all-white jury in Conroe convicted McGinnis, an African American, of shooting her once in the head and three times in the back and stealing her car and $140 from the dry cleaning shop where Wilkerson, white and the mother of two, worked.

The jury rebuffed pleas for mercy from attorneys for McGinnis. The lawyers said that McGinnis’ stepfather had beaten him with a baseball bat, raped him and burned him with sausage grease.

In response, prosecutor Peter Speers told jurors that “the kind of therapy that ought to be prescribed for [McGinnis] is the kind of chemotherapy available up at [the prison] called a lethal injection.”

The conviction has been sustained by several courts, including the federal appeals court in New Orleans, which spurned contentions that McGinnis’ rights had been violated because the only three blacks on the panel of 102 potential jurors in his case had been excused.

McGinnis’ attorneys have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stay his execution, contending that international law prohibits the execution of people convicted for crimes committed before they were 18.

When the U.S. Senate ratified the political rights treaty in 1992, it attached a clause saying the U.S. reserved the right to impose capital punishment under those circumstances. McGinnis’ pro bono attorneys, Niall MacLeod and Ross D’Emanuele, contend that the “reservation” negates the purpose of the treaty.

The U.S. has been severely criticized by Amnesty International and other human rights groups for permitting the execution of juvenile offenders.

In 1989, three years before the international treaty was ratified, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it was permissible to execute people for crimes they committed when they were 16 or 17.

By statute, Bush has only the power to issue a 30-day reprieve. In Texas, clemency can be granted only by the state’s Board of Pardon and Paroles.

The board has granted clemency only once since Bush became governor, when doubts were raised about the guilt in the one case for which Henry Lee Lucas, a confessed serial murderer, received the death sentence. That came in June, 1998, in the case of Henry Lee Lucas, a confessed serial murderer. Bush indicated that he thought the sentence should be reconsidered after Jim Mattox, the state’s former attorney general, said an investigation by his office raised serious doubts about Lucas’ guilt.