Catholics Divided on Cardinal’s Call to Suspend Death Penalty

Like many Roman Catholics in Los Angeles, Rema R. Perlas backs Cardinal Roger M. Mahony’s plea to Gov. Gray Davis to impose a moratorium on capital punishment and to study how fairly the penalty is meted out in California.

“Let God be the judge,” said Perlas, a lifelong Catholic and a member of St. Basil’s Catholic Church in the Mid-Wilshire District. “Our job is to forgive,” she said, “not playing God ourselves.”

Perlas said she hopes that the governor accepts Mahony’s appeal, and that the moratorium and study will ultimately lead to abolishing capital punishment in California.

She said faith tells her that redemption is available to everyone because it is a gift from God to those who repent and ask for forgiveness.

“Even a man who has killed someone has a chance to change--to purify himself,” said Perlas. “Who are we to judge that some people cannot be rehabilitated?”

Her view was echoed by a number of Catholics interviewed Friday from the Mid-Wilshire District to North Hollywood.

Koreatown businessman Joseph Cho, a member of St. Paul Catholic Church, said events such as the corruption scandal in the Rampart Division of the Los Angeles Police Department should make the public worry about the administration of justice.

“I think having a special commission investigating the system will be very instructive, not only for the public but for the inmates, too,” he said.

Dorothy Green, a longtime member of St. Joseph the Worker Catholic Church in Canoga Park, disagreed with the archbishop’s position.

“Sometimes the crime is so heinous and you can’t think of the crime being forgiven,” said Green.

Green’s position is in line with a 1997 Field Poll that found 71% of Catholics statewide favored the death penalty, compared with 74% for the rest of the population, according to Mark DiCamillo, director of the Field Poll.

DiCamillo said support for the death penalty reached its peak in 1986, when 83% of Californians supported it. That was the year Chief Justice Rose Bird and Associate Justices Joseph Grodin and Cruz Reynoso, all liberals, were ousted from office by voters after a bitter campaign.

Mahony, in a letter to Davis and in a speech to the National Press Club this week, said the administration of the death penalty is biased against minorities and the poor.

The cardinal Thursday suggested that the governor follow the example of Illinois Gov. George Ryan, who halted executions in his state earlier this year. Ryan’s action was prompted by cases in which death row inmates were found to be not guilty.

Davis, who is Catholic, supports capital punishment, and his spokesman reiterated Thursday that he would enforce the death penalty law.

At St. Charles Borromeo Church in North Hollywood, Ed Kraft said it was time that Catholics spoke up against the death penalty.

“Because most of the time Catholics lay back,” said Kraft, 69, of North Hollywood, after noon Mass. “Only one person has the right to take life and that’s God himself.”

Kraft said he also opposes capital punishment because it is disproportionately applied to minorities and the poor. He said people who commit violent crimes should be kept in prison, where they can reflect and repent.

But Kraft said he doesn’t expect the governor to accept Mahony’s proposal because the death penalty remains popular.

“It’s the votes that count,” he said. “Whatever the polls show, that’s what [politicians] are going to do.”

Mary Beth Legg, a longtime member of St. Charles, said she believes there are many people on death row who didn’t get fair trials.

“Studies seem to prove [capital punishment] doesn’t deter people,” said Legg, of Toluca Lake. “I do believe people who have done horrible crimes should never get out of prison.”

Virginia Gutierrez said opposing capital punishment is consistent with Catholic teachings.

“It goes along with the pro-life ethic. The human life is our greatest resource,” said Gutierrez, 48, of Sylmar.

“[Otherwise] you’re closing the door on any chance of hope or redemption of that person.”

Sheriff Lee Baca, who is Catholic, said the death penalty should be used conservatively, for a narrow number of murders involving mutilation, the murders of police officers, hate crime murders and repeat murderers. “If you kill another person under special circumstances, you have to be prepared to give up your own life,” Baca said.

He also said the death penalty is necessary to deter vigilantism, “where families will take it upon themselves in the heat of anger to exact the [death] penalty.”

Baca said arguments that the poor and minorities disproportionately suffer the death penalty are not grounds for getting rid of it.

Reynoso, now a UCLA law professor, said the administration of justice in California as a whole is “a lot better” than elsewhere but scrutiny of the system by an impartial panel would benefit the state.

“My own view is that a society has a right to protect itself,” said Reynoso, who was brought up as a Catholic but has been attending a Baptist church with his wife for more than four decades. “In some circumstances the best protection may be the death penalty, if resources [are not available.]”

But, Reynoso said, implementation of justice has to be fair to everyone.