Off with their heads!

Three recent capital punishment cases in the news persuaded me to write about this issue. I will start with an outline of the three cases.

Marcellus Williams was convicted of murder in Missouri on the basis of the testimony of his prison cellmate who claimed Williams told him he committed the crime. This "witness" was incentivized by being offered leniency in his sentencing. DNA evidence at the crime scene did not point to Williams. The only other evidence was the fact that Williams sold a laptop belonging to the victim, but the jury was not told that he got the laptop from the incentivized witness's girlfriend. The victim's family did not want Williams executed after they learned the DNA evidence did not match Williams. Nevertheless, Williams was executed after a long-drawn-out legal process ending at the Supreme Court.

Richard Glossip was convicted of murder in Oklahoma based on the testimony of the actual self-confessed murderer, Justin Sneed, who said Glossip hired him to carry out the crime. Sneed was spared the death penalty in exchange for his testimony. Sneed is bipolar and was under lithium treatment at the time of the murder and his was the only testimony against Glossip. Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond has said Glossip's constitutional rights were violated and that he deserves a new trial. The Supreme Court is expected to rule on the issue in June 2025.

Robert Roberson was convicted and sentenced to death in Texas for the 2002 murder of his 2-year-old daughter based on a diagnosis of "shaken baby syndrome". Medical experts now say this diagnosis is not valid and that the child probably died of pneumonia or other cause. Texas courts and the Governor declined to stay his execution, set for 10/17/24. It was halted only when the Texas House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence issued a subpoena for Roberson to testify before them. Texas Governor Greg Abbott has accused the Committee of interfering in the judicial process. Roberson is autistic.

These are just the most recent in a long line of cases highlighting the problems with the way capital punishment is administered in the US. These include inadequate representation, dubious testimony of incentivized witnesses, suppression of exculpatory evidence and other forms of prosecutorial misconduct. These problems are compounded by willful public ignorance and resulting apathy. When a particularly egregious case gets the limelight, there is a brief spike of opposition to capital punishment and sympathy for the individual. This quickly succumbs to the "eye for an eye" mentality rooted in populist sentiment and the public's expectation that the guilty be punished. Police and prosecutors, responding to public pressure, often cut corners to close the case quickly, and the public defenders usually representing the accused lack the means to do an adequate job. That a number of those on death row are exonerated due to the efforts of organizations like the Innocence Project and the ACLU or that the death penalty costs the public more than a sentence of life in prison or that the death penalty does not have a deterrent effect on crime statistics do not seem to make a difference. The ironic thing is that states with "pro-life" governments are the most likely to impose the death penalty and least likely to consider a reprieve when presented with evidence exonerating the accused. The analogy is imperfect, but this is not surprising since they have a similar lack of sympathy for the health and life of the mother on the issue of abortion.

The bottom line is that a dogmatic adherence to ideology comes at a high price. The issue of abortion has more traction with the public than capital punishment for the obvious reason that women far outnumber those on death row, and the latter probably don't get to vote anyway. We should keep in mind that life is more complicated and nuanced than the right-to-lifers would have us believe. Middle-of-the-roaders would do well to consider this issue when they vote.