Net een onskuldige is een te veel....

In Amerika het 'n intense debat losgekom oor die goewerneur van Texas, Rick Perry, 'n kandidaat vir die presidentsverkiesing, se opmerkings oor hoe foutloos en hoe onberispelik die voltrekking van die doodsvonnis in Texas is. In vandag se New York Times word 'n videogreep hieroor opgeneem met, net daarna, 'n deel van die debat oor die groot probleme wat rondom die doodstraf bestaan en hoeveel onskuldige mense al ter dood veroordeel en tereggestel is. 

Terwyl Perry vertel dat daar onmoontlik enige twyfel oor die teregstellings kon bestaan, is dit ontstellend om te sien dat die statistieke wys dat hy nie eerlik is nie. Trouens, dit is skokkend om te sien hoe mense onskuldig veroordeel en selfs tereggestel word - soos uit inligting wat hier onder opgenoem word. 

As die syfers klop en daar mense is wat onskuldig doodgemaak word, is dit al genoeg rede om nie die doodstraf toe te pas nie. Een onskuldige slagoffer is al genoeg rede waarom die doodstraf immoreel is. 

As 'n mens die gegewens bekyk, is dit des te meer boeiend dat ons land, met al sy misdaad, nie die doodstraf toelaat nie, terwyl die V.S.A. dit nog verduur. En as 'n mens kyk hoe die gehoor van Perry hom toejuig, en dit terwyl hulle in 'n sogenaamde "liberale" staat soos Kalifornië woon waar doodstraf nie toegepas word nie, is dit duidelik dat baie mense totaal onbewus is van die probleem dat onskuldige mense nog tereggestel word. 

Dit verwonder my altyd hoe voorstanders van die doodstraf aan onchristelike veronderstellings vashou: hulle gaan uit van die standpunt dat mense onhervormbaar is. Hulle hou vas aan die beginsel van weerwraak. Origens het mense nie 'n vae idee van hoe ingrypend dit is om in 'n tronk te sit nie. Miskien loon dit baie mense om Foucault se beroemde en epogmakende werk oor die geskiedenis van die wêreld se gevangenissisteem te lees (Discipline and Punish) juis om te besef watter wreedheid daarin ingebou is. Dit is net as 'n mens so 'n boek lees dat 'n mens besef dat selfs "lewenslange" tronkstraf iets is waaroor 'n mens baie versigtig moet praat.

Dit is beslis nie gewild om teen die doodstraf te wees nie. Trouens, 'n mens kan jouself besonder ongewild maak as 'n mens die doodstraf as onmenslik en, belangriker nog, as onchristelik beskou. Maar, soos met spiritualiteit is dit in die geval van die doodstraf ook die praktyk wat die deurslag gee. Ek onthou hoeveel mense in 2001 geskok was toe 'n Afrikaanse vrou, Mariette Bosch, in ons buurstaat, Botswana, ter dood veroordeel en tereggestel is omdat sy skuldig aan moord bevind is. Vele mense, goeie mense, het toe begin sê dat dit teen hulle grein en hul gevoel vir menslikheid ingaan. Dit is een ding om te praat oor mense ver van jou wat doodgemaak word. Dit is ook een ding om moordenaars van onmenslikheid te beskuldig en dan in die proses 'n mens se eie menslikheid prys te gee deur hulle daarvoor met die dood te vergeld.

Een van die grootste toets vir iemand se spiritualiteit is myns insiens hoe daardie persoon oor die doodstraf praat. 



Hier is 'n gedeelte van die berig in vanoggend se New York Times oor hierdie saak:


WILLIAMS: Governor Perry, a question about Texas. Your state has executed 234 death row inmates, more than any other governor in modern times. Have you… 

(APPLAUSE) 

Have you struggled to sleep at night with the idea that any one of those might have been innocent? 

PERRY: No, sir. I’ve never struggled with that at all. The state of Texas has a very thoughtful, a very clear process in place of which — when someone commits the most heinous of crimes against our citizens, they get a fair hearing, they go through an appellate process, they go up to the Supreme Court of the United States, if that’s required. 

But in the state of Texas, if you come into our state and you kill one of our children, you kill a police officer, you’re involved with another crime and you kill one of our citizens, you will face the ultimate justice in the state of Texas, and that is, you will be executed. 

WILLIAMS: What do you make of…

(APPLAUSE) 

What do you make of that dynamic that just happened here, the mention of the execution of 234 people drew applause?

PERRY: I think Americans understand justice. I think Americans are clearly, in the vast majority of — of cases, supportive of capital punishment. When you have committed heinous crimes against our citizens — and it’s a state-by-state issue, but in the state of Texas, our citizens have made that decision, and they made it clear, and they don’t want you to commit those crimes against our citizens. And if you do, you will face the ultimate justice.

For some — in this case, opponents of the death penalty — this was sort of a double whiplash moment, a gasp within a gasp that may have been more confusing than mobilizing. Because which was more disturbing (or heartening, depending on your political view)? Perry’s unbowed defense of the “thoughtful” trial process in Texas and the clear expression of his untroubled mind in the face of possible moral doubt and complexity (i.e., Have I facilitated the death of an innocent human?)? Or the audience applause that bracketed the exchange, the rousing audience cheers for an aggressively applied death penalty? In California, mind you, not Texas.

Let’s look at the applause, the “execution cheer,” if you will. Because any number of analysts might have expected Perry to say what he said, but the cheer was a surprise — a welcome sort for some, but unwelcome for others.



This is the digital age, so let’s begin with an immediate outburst from Andrew Sullivan, who during his live blogging of the debate, wrote:

9.48 pm. A spontaneous round of applause for executing people! And Perry shows no remorse, not even a tiny smidgen of reflection, especially when we know for certain that he signed the death warrant for an innocent man. Here’s why I find it impossible to be a Republican: any crowd that instantly cheers the execution of 234 individuals is a crowd I want to flee, not join. This is the crowd that believes in torture and executions. Can you imagine the torture that Perry would authorize? 

Thank God he’s doing so poorly tonight. 

The next morning, Sullivan’s former colleague, The Atlantic’s Ta-Nehisi Coates, seemed somewhat less rattled, though hardly cheerier. “Apparently people were shocked by the applause here,” he wrote. “The only thing that shocked me was that they didn’t form a rumba line. It’s a Republican debate. And it’s America.” He continued:

Perry’s right — most people support the death penalty. It’s the job of those of us who oppose the death penalty to change that. 

It’s worth remembering that no Democratic nominee for the presidency in some twenty years, has been against the death penalty. This is still the country where we took kids to see men lynched, and then posed for photos. 

We are a lot of things. This is one of them. 

Glenn Greenwald at Salon found it unwelcome, too. Actually he found it “creepy and disgusting.” (Greenwald, like Perry, is direct.). In a link-laden broadside, he wrote: 

[I]t’s hardly surprising for a country which long considered public hangings a form of entertainment and in which support for the death penalty is mandated orthodoxy for national politicians in both parties. Still, even for those who believe in the death penalty, it should be a very somber and sober affair for the state, with regimented premeditation, to end the life of a human being no matter the crimes committed. Wildly cheering the execution of human beings as though one’s favorite football team just scored a touchdown is primitive, twisted and base. 

All of that would be true even if the death penalty were perfectly applied and only clearly guilty people were killed. But in the U.S., the exact opposite is true; see here to read about (and act to stop) a horrific though typical example of a very likely innocent person about to be executed by the State of Georgia. That Perry in particular likely enabled the execution of an innocent man — as well as numerous other highly disturbing killings, of the young and mentally infirm — makes the cheering all the more repellent. That the death penalty in America has long been plagued by a serious racial bias makes it worse still. That this death-cheering comes from a party that relentlessly touts itself as ”pro-life” and derides the other as The Party of Death — and loves to condemn Islam (in contrast to its war-loving self) as a death-glorifying cult — only adds a layer of dark irony.

That whole “perfectly applied” thing — the goal of which requires the person being put to death to actually be guilty — also troubled others. Marie Diamond at Think Progress Justice undertakes a thorough debunking of the idea that everyone executed in Texas in the past decade or so was guilty: 

[D]uring Perry’s tenure as governor, DNA evidence has exonerated at least 41 people convicted in Texas, Scott Horton writes in Harper’s. According to the Innocence Project, “more people have been freed through DNA testing in Texas than in any other state in the country, and these exonerations have revealed deep flaws in the state’s criminal justice system.” Some 85 percent of wrongful convictions in Texas, or 35 of the 41 cases, are due to mistaken eyewitness identifications. 

Those exonerations include Cornelius Dupree, who had already spent 30 years in prison for rape, robbery, and abduction when DNA evidence proved unequivocally that he was not the man who had committed those crime. Tim Cole, the brother of Texas Sen. Rodney Ellis (D), was posthumously pardoned a decade after he died in prison when DNA evidence proved his innocence. The total failure of the Texas courts to protect these innocent individuals reveal a system plagued by racial injustices, procedural flaws, and a clemency review process that’s nothing but a rubber stamp on executions.
 
Leading the country in wrongful convictions probably should give Perry a moment’s pause about the reliability of a criminal justice process he described last night as “thoughtful.” … 

And he may well have already executed an innocent man. The case of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in 2004 for the arson deaths of his three daughters and maintained his innocence until his dying day, will likely continue to haunt Perry throughout the campaign. Several scientists and forensics experts have questioned the evidence that led to Willingham’s conviction, but Perry “squashed” an official probe into his execution.