WORKING CLASS OPPOSITION TO THE DEATH PENALTY IN AMERICA
a statement of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism

There is growing opposition to the death penalty in the United States. According to a Harris poll, support has dropped from 75% to 64% from 1997 to 1999. A July 2000 NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that 63% favor a suspension of the death penalty until questions about its fairness can be studied. While the primary reasons may vary from person to person, we are generally united in opposition to the state killing by rule of law, in our name. For many of us, the death penalty is immoral and goes against our most fundamental beliefs about how a society should be built.

Why does the United States need the death penalty? Why, for example, do the countries of Europe not have the death penalty while we continue to do so? Countries of Europe have long traditions of politics rooted in labor - they have strong democratic, socialist, and communist parties that, in addition to struggling for the rights of workers and the poor, have been at the forefront of struggles against punitive and oppressive measures like the death penalty. The U.S. devotes more and more of its resources to the expansion of the police state.

Funding for the education system and for community services and infrastructure is consistently cut back, while more and more prisons are built. Politicians decry rates of crime and violence in this country but put forward policies that do not attack the problems at their sources but instead serve only as a political bandage to cover a gaping wound. The problem of course is that the wound continues to eat away at the health of the victim - society - and the bandage meanwhile smothers the rights of minorities, the poor, and working class. The death penalty kills the person instead of the crime - a system rooted in democracy and justice would attack the causes of that crime.

We believe there are two fundamental reasons people interested in expanding democracy should be opposed to the death penalty in the U.S.: it is biased against working class and poor people and it is unfairly applied to nationally oppressed people - especially African Americans and Latinos.

CLASS AND THE DEATH PENALTY

The importance poverty plays in whether one receives a death sentence or not is undeniable and simple. Ninety percent of those on death row could not afford to hire a lawyer when they were tried. If a defendant in a capital case is working class, poor, or indigent, he or she plays against the stacked deck of the death penalty system.

Shaka Sankofa (Gary Graham) in [then-Governor] George W. Bush’s Texas is a case in point: Sankofa had no money to hire an attorney and was forced to rely upon public defender Ronald Mock. Mock assumed Sankofa was guilty, did little or nothing to challenge the prosecution’s meager evidence, and did not search for evidence of Sankofa’s innocence. Although witnesses were accessible to say that the person they saw kill the victim was not Sankofa, Mock put none of these people on the stand.

Mock has represented numerous defendants in Texas capital cases; the vast majority received the death penalty. He has frequently been disciplined for misconduct and for mishandling criminal cases. Although there was no physical evidence that linked him to the crime, Sankofa was sentenced to death, and was executed on June 22, 2000.

A competent lawyer makes all the difference in a capital case. While most public defenders are good and work tirelessly for little monetary reward on behalf of their clients, the truth is that a significant proportion of them are incompetent for capital cases and are terribly overmatched by the prosecution that has the backing of the state and the added motivation of "get tough on crime" politics. There is no functioning adversary system in capital cases - the prosecution has full state funding and resources while a poor defendant relies on public defenders, who have nowhere near a similar level of funding and resources.

RACE AND THE DEATH PENALTY

While the U.S. population is 20-25% people of color, 50% of the inmates on death row in state prisons are Black and Latino. When one focuses on only the African-American population, the racism inherent in capital punishment is even clearer. While only 11% of the American population, over 40% of those on death row are African-American. Two out of every three inmates on federal death row are African-American.

It is not surprising that in a country as racist as the U.S., the lives of people of color are held as being worth less than the lives of whites, by those who make the decisions of life and death at the state and federal level. One needs only to consider geographical disparity in rates of execution: three of the states with the largest death rows and the highest numbers of executions annually - Texas, Florida, and Virginia - also have very long and strong histories of racist oppression.

The racist disparity in the American death penalty is seen also when one considers the race of the victim in a murder case, and whether the accused is given a death sentence or not. Defendants in Georgia, for example, are over four times more likely to receive the death penalty if the victim is white than if the victim is black. Well over half of black defendants given the death penalty for murder would not have received it had their victims been black. In other words, race of the victim and race of the defendant determines to a very large extent whether one lives or dies in a capital case.

Perhaps the major reason this is so is the nature of the jury system in capital cases. If one is against the death penalty, one cannot serve on a capital case where the death penalty might be the sentence. As a result, only advocates of the death penalty, who very often are also pro-prosecution, serve as jurors in death penalty cases. African-Americans are much more likely to be anti- death penalty than whites, thus reducing the chances of their serving in death penalty cases.

WORKING CLASS OPPOSITION TO THE DEATH PENALTY

On Friday, November 11, 1887, the four Haymarket Martyrs - accused, with no evidence, of a police killing - were hung in Chicago. Their real crime was fighting for workers’ rights - they were leaders of the 8-hour workday movement for Chicago workers. A fifth man who was to have been hung with them mysteriously died in his cell the day before. November 11th became known as "Black Friday."

The death penalty in America has been used by the government to extinguish political opposition - people and ideas - that it deems too dangerous. The death penalty is promoted by candidates who want to appear "tough on crime," while true capital crimes committed by CEOs of major companies that poison, maim, and kill hundreds of thousands of poor and working class people each year go unpunished. The death penalty is a weapon aimed at the poor, and particularly at poor people of color.

The death penalty in the U.S. goes against the very principles upon which this country was supposedly founded. It is used by the ruling class to create a punitive and hysterical political atmosphere, in which any semblance of justice for poor and working class people is consistently trampled upon. Along with an ever- expanding police state and skyrocketing growth of the prison population, the death penalty is part of an arsenal used by the ruling class to perpetuate a culture of violence and fear.

For those who oppose the death penalty, there are numerous points of opposition, often moral and religious. However, the fundamental problems with the death penalty in American today are that it is a weapon against class and race and therefore can never be an instrument of any system of justice.

The Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism joins with all those who struggle to end the death penalty of any grounds that further the strengthening of democracy in our country. We call on the federal government and all state governments to legislate the repeal of the death penalty where it remains a statute. Pending the end of death penalty sentencing, we call for immediate moratorium on its execution by state and well as federal order.

CURRENT LEGISLATION, STATE BY STATE

ALABAMA Alabama’s SB7 (Sen. Sanders) provides for a moratorium on the death penalty and provides for the implementation of certain procedures for imposing the death penalty.

CONNECTICUT Connecticut’s SB413 (Sen. Handley) suspends executions in the state pending the completion of a study on the use of the death penalty.

DELAWARE Delaware had legislation last year; has not been reintroduced.

ILLINOIS Illinois’ HB2930 is an 18-month moratorium bill. There is a moratorium currently imposed by Gov. Ryan, who is under a fierce attack by opponents.

KENTUCKY Kentucky’s SB38 (Sen. Neal) imposes a five-year moratorium on executions and requires the Criminal Justice Council to make recommendations on the imposition of the death penalty to the 2003 General Assembly.

MARYLAND Maryland’s HB 563 (Del. Marriott) enacts a two-year moratorium during a race study commissioned by the Governor.

MISSOURI Missouri’s SB55, HB 68 (Rep. Liese) creates a death penalty commission and imposes a three-year moratorium on executions.

NEW JERSEY New Jersey’s A1853 (Assembly mem. Steele) imposes a two-year moratorium on the death penalty and creates an interim study commission.

NORTH CAROLINA North Carolina had legislation last year, has not yet been reintroduced. A study commission has recommended that the state’s General Assembly pass a measure to enact a moratorium on executions.

OHIO Ohio’s HB733 (Rep. Smith) imposes a moratorium on executions and creates a commission to review and study the imposition of capital punishment.

OKLAHOMA Oklahoma’s HB1013 (Rep. Toure) imposes a one-year moratorium on executions and requires the State Sentencing Commission to study the death penalty and issue a report.

PENNSYLVANIA Pennsylvania had legislation last year, has not yet been reintroduced.

TEXAS Texas’ HB720 (Rep. Dutton) enacts a two-year moratorium and creates a nine-member commission to study the death penalty and report to the Texas Legislature in 2003.

VIRGINIA Virginia’s SB1135 (Sen. Marsh), HB2664 (Del. Morgan), HB2764 (Del Almand), and HB2799 (Del. Devolites) bills are similar: propose a moratorium on executions and provide for a state-commissioned study and report on the death penalty.

WASHINGTON Washington had legislation last year, has not yet been reintroduced.

[Information is courtesy of Equal Justice USA.]