Arkansas Blog: The unfair death penalty

A group pushing for a moratorium on the death penalty in Arkansas notes efforts to set aside the execution date recently set for Frank Williams by Gov. Mike Beebe. In his case, the group notes the disparity in death sentences in his part of the state based on race.

NEWS RELEASE

Death Penalty Study and Moratorium Campaign July 23, 2008

LITTLE ROCK – Attorneys for the first inmate scheduled to be executed in Arkansas in four three years have petitioned for a reduction in his sentence to life imprisonment without parole.

Governor Mike Beebe, in the first death warrant he has signed since taking office 19 months ago, directed on June 20 that Frank Williams, Jr. be put to death by lethal injection on September 9.

The state’s effort to execute Williams and his lawyers’ attempts to spare him come amid new research indicating Arkansans have profound misgivings about capital punishment– its fairness, its expense and, notably, the strong possibility that innocent persons can and have been put to death.

Although 70 percent of Arkansans questioned in a scientific public opinion survey initially endorsed the death penalty, their support shrank dramatically – and their ambivalence soared – when provided with information about the criminal justice system’s flaws and when offered options to execution.

The Kitchens Group of Maitland, Florida questioned 500 registered Arkansas voters by telephone in late February in behalf of the Arkansas Campaign for a Moratorium on the Death Penalty. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 4% with a 95% confidence level.

The Kitchens pollsters discovered that although strong majorities believe the death penalty is both just and a deterrent to future homicides, support for capital punishment shrivels to less than half among those questioned when they are informed that 126 individuals awaiting execution have been proved innocent in only the last 12 years. (Since the research was done, there have been three more individuals proven innocent and released.)

Similarly, almost 40 percent of death penalty advocates said they were less likely to endorse capital punishment when told that no reputable study had established that executions have a deterrent effect.

Nowhere did Arkansans demonstrate significant – if unstated – doubts about the death penalty, however, than when questioned about its equity:

-- Eighty-three percent (83%) agreed that affluent defendants are less likely to be put to death;

-- Seventy percent (70%) believe that the legal system treats the affluent better than the poor;

-- Fifty-nine percent (59%) believe that poor defendants are more likely to be put to death than those with significant assets;

-- Fifty-one percent (51%) concur than blacks accused of killing whites are more likely to be executed than whites accused of killing blacks.

Among several other notable findings, fully two-thirds of the Arkansans questioned said they support creation of a blue-ribbon commission to study capital punishment – its fairness, its costs and its impact on victims’ families.

Such a study is not likely to come before Williams faces the executioner’s needle. Williams – poor and black – is also of limited intelligence, say his attorneys, who have filed a 41-page brief in his behalf. Although they do not dispute that their client in fact killed his former employer, they note that Williams and the four other men awaiting execution for crimes committed in the same judicial district are all black, and that all were convicted of killing white men. There are no whites on Death Row from the same district who have been charged with killing blacks.

*Currently the number of prisoners released from death row is 129.

Comments

The Parole Board has sent a number of casses to the Governor that are with merit for sentence commutations. So far, he has ignored the vast majority of them. Why even spend the money for this state agency if their review and recommendations are not binding or at least weighted. Makes no sense what so ever. Oh wait! I know.. it takes courage to do what is right, much easier to go along to get along,,,, silly me!

Posted by: jai | July 23, 2008 04:37 PM

Mike Beebe is: (in this order)

1.) A lawyer
2.) A Democrat
3.) A Governor
4.) An Arkansan

As long as he keeps thinking like a lawyer, especially under Arkansas law, many things that should change will not. Creative lawyers in Arkansas find new careers soon. Tired lawyers run for office.

Posted by: Roderick A. Bryan | July 23, 2008 05:34 PM

About the best summary I've ever read Roderick.

Posted by: eLwood | July 23, 2008 05:57 PM

Well, since they can't adopt a homosexual child, I believe that we should -- um -- burn 'em.

Posted by: Louie | July 23, 2008 06:07 PM

Is that the number of Arkansans? If so, that's terrifying.

Posted by: Eureka Springs, AR | July 23, 2008 06:40 PM

Well, don't think this is Beebe apologetics but I'll take a lawyer over a baptist preacher for a governor any day.

Posted by: Zarathustra | July 23, 2008 06:42 PM

Just what we need another study about capital punishment. We only have an ad nauseum number of them always coming to the same conclusion that we ought to end it. Can't you come up with something different? I don't view capital punishment as a deterrent so I'll concede that on the front end. It is just punishment by the state levied by due process. It punishes for the unlawful taking of a human life and prevents that person from one day taking another life. Theodore Bundy broke out of jail and took an innocent 12 year old girl's life in a brutal way before he was finally executed. You can't guarantee that someone who murders will not murder again unless you execute.

Posted by: strangelove | July 23, 2008 08:13 PM

I am for capital punishment. I believe in the, An eye for an eye theory. Kill, Rape, Kidnap, Bank Robbery, all should be executed. And to whomsoever thinks I have no idea what I'm talking about, I have had a relative who was into the Bank Robbery thing. James Black Gang during the 1960's. David L. Walters, the #2 man in the gang, was my mothers second husband. He died in prison when I was seven years old+-. He was 28 years old. In Florence they called him Big Dave, no one messed with him. But it didn't help when after already spending fouteen years in prisons and Juvinile Halls, he was sentenced to 35-36 years without the option for parole. My mother told him she would not wait and wanted a divorce, Dave ended his life with a prison sheet around his neck.
James Black was paralised from gunshots by the Az. Police. "Little Dave" was flat out killed. They kidnapped the bank Pres. to get away, they got what they deserved. If I had had to vote on sentencings, I would have voted for the death penalty. NO ONE out there can state they would not want someone killed for raping their child. If they do, they either lie, or are not much of a parent. NO ONE out there would like to try out for the "Chair" if they knew their actions would guaruntee them a shocking seat. The death penalty is the most hardline deterent there is. Screw up the wrong way, and it's simple, your frickin' DEAD! (And if it hurts, I couldn't give a rats @$$).

Posted by: JNYJ | July 23, 2008 09:04 PM

I am against capital punishment even IF I believed our most competent citizens were running our courts. That said, I believe many inmates are in jail in Arkansas due to false convictions and some remain there because as Bob Dylan once said: "Justice is a game."

If someone is on death row for murdering my entire family I have the hope that by keeping them alive and locked in jail for their entire life two things might be accomplished.

1.) This person might gain insight into why they did what they did and become a peaceful repentant inmate.

2.) This person may reveal to the rest of us why they did what they did so that we may gain insight into lessening the chances of such things happening again.

If there is ANY CHANCE of either of these two things EVER happening , the death penalty should be abolished.

Posted by: Roderick A. Bryan | July 23, 2008 11:18 PM

PS
Frank Williams is from my hometown. We played football and ran track together. Also, I had an uncle who was a bank robber that never got caught.

Posted by: Roderick A. Bryan | July 23, 2008 11:22 PM

Arkansas Blog

The unfair death penalty

Comments

Post a comment