Socialist Action /May 2001
Death Penalty is Racist and Targets
the Poor
By MARK OSTAPIAK
There used to be a beautiful image of a solemn,
stern, and discerning woman who, with blind eyes and an impartial scale,
determined what was the truth. Today this image, quite contrived in itself,
has been betrayed. Through the lens of history, her blindfold is seen to
be translucent; her countenance, sadistic; her scales, tipped by gold.
I'm obviously talking about the Lady of Justice.
But is she deserving of this new image? The answer, unfortunately, is yes.
The justice system and the death penalty in the United States is racist
and classist, and it has become a springboard for political advancement.
This can be seen in the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal,
the Black journalist who has been on Pennsylvania's death row for 19 years.
But Mumia is only one of the 3700 people in the United States on death row.
Over 80 countries in the world have abandoned capital
punishment, including Russia and the former countries of the Soviet Union.
A barbaric and medieval practice, the death penalty seems out of place in
the only two so-called "advanced" industrialized countries in
the world that use it-Japan and the United States.
Japan has half the population of the United States,
so it would be logical to surmise that Japan has at least half as many people
on death row than the United States. However, that is not the case. Japan
has 52 people on death row compared to the United States with 3700.
Just five countries in the world account for 80
percent of all the state killings. China is number one, but the United States
is in that group of five. This comes as no surprise considering that the
U.S. refuses to acknowledge and refuses to sign any international treaty,
and takes exception to any treaty that calls upon the signing states to
abandon the idea of state killing.
The United States also executes children, and is
among the six countries in the world that allow for the execution of juveniles.
The other countries include Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Bangladesh, and Saudi Arabia.
But as a country poised to out do its competitors,
the United States has risen to the challenge in the last 10 years and has
executed more juvenile offenders than the other five combined.
In 1999 the United States executed four juveniles,
and there are at least another 73 waiting to be executed. Presently, 74
foreign nationals sit on death row in violation of the Vienna Convention.
The violation is that they were not informed of their right to counsel from
their homeland.
In 1999 the number of persons executed in the United
States increased by 45 percent. This figure is puzzling when it is coupled
with the fact that the number of homicides has decreased from 20,000 to
16,000 a year. Of these 16,000 homicides approximately 280 get the death
penalty each year.
In other words, only 1 to 2 percent of those who
commit murder get the death sentence in this country. One may argue that
this isn't so bad, 98 percent don't get the death penalty; therefore the
system is fair. But given the nature of the justice system, no one should
get the death penalty and for several reasons:
1) The justice system has been known to make mistakes.
Since the death penalty came back to the United States in 1977, 650 people
have been executed. But 86 have also been released after their innocence
was established or it was ascertained that their trial process was so flawed
there was serious question about their guilt.
2) The justice system is racist. While Blacks make
up 12 percent of the U.S. population, they make up 48 percent of those on
death row. But it's not just the race of the perpetrator that matters; the
race of the victim is equally significant. For example, half of the victims
of murder in the United States are African American but 85 percent of the
people on death row are there for killing a Caucasian.
The overview statistic is rather telling: There
have been about 18,000 people put to death since the first execution took
place in the United States, and of those 18,000 only 37 have been charged
with taking the life of a person of color.
3) The justice system is classist. This is made
evident by the fact that there are no billionaires on death row, no millionaires
on death row, and the number of those from the middle class on death row
is marginal.
So who are these people on death row? They are
the poorest of the poor, the most powerless of the powerless. They are the
product of the worst housing, the worst education, and the worst medicine.
The typical person on death row is a young person
who goes into a convenience store high on drugs, and because of his state
of mind, mis-interprets the actions of the person behind the counter, and
nervously shoots and kills the person.
Yes, they went in there with the premeditated intention
to commit a robbery. Although it is tragic that someone was shot and killed,
isn't it equally as tragic that the people committing these sorts of crimes
have been driven to this often by the poor conditions in which they live
and the financial hopelessness that they know?
People committing these sorts of crimes aren't
committing them so they can bye new cars or fancy boats, or to pay their
representative to legislate a certain way. Often times these crimes are
committed so they can buy food to eat or to get a fix, something to keep
their mind off of their terrible state.
So if a premeditated crime is grounds for the death
penalty, why isn't anyone from organized crime on death row? Classism. They
hire the best lawyers. Poor people are given the worst lawyers. In Texas
last year, for example, the Court of Appeals upheld the death penalty of
a young man whose lawyer slept through his trial.
To put all of this into perspective, we can say
that O.J. Simpson, who spent $5 million dollars on his case, received $5
million dollars worth of justice. Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was allocated $14,000
for his trial, received $14,000 dollars worth of justice.
Mumia needed a pathologist as an expert witness
about the wound he suffered, but the pathologist said, "The $150 that
the court allocated for me to come in and testify, for that kind of money
I don't leave my neighborhood."
And when comparing the number of people on death
row in two sizeable cities, New York and Philadelphia, both with pockets
of poverty and the calamities of urban life, you get a better understanding
of why money is freedom.
Philadelphia, which allocated $14,000 for Mumia's
defense, has 245 people on death row. On the other hand, New York City,
with a population five times that of Philadelphia, has only one person on
death row. New York allocates $600,000 for the defense of death penalty
cases.
Lawyer's associations, including the American Bar
Association, the Pennsylvania Bar Association, and the Philadelphia Bar
Association, have called for a moratorium on the death penalty after having
looked at race and class as factor in how it is administered. The Philadelphia
City Council voted 12-4 in favor a moratorium on these killings due to the
same factors of race and class.
So, there is truth in the statement by one of OJ's
lawyers: "In the U.S. you're better off, if you're in the system, being
guilty and rich than being innocent and poor."
4) The fourth and final aspect of the justice system
and death penalty is the politics behind it-including the fact that it is
used as springboard to further people's careers.
A prosecutor is often ambitious and moving up.
When he is given the opportunity to prosecute a defendant in an alleged
murder he sees a grand opportunity. He caters to the public's feeling of
wanting revenge for a murder, an eye for an eye, so he knows that he will
be cast in a favorable public light in the case of a death penalty sentence.
From there on out, he will be seen as a hero who has ridden society of a
terrible person.
The same was true in Mumia's case. The judge who
presided over his case, Judge Sabo, was up for re-election the next year,
and there was no way he could have won re-election by turning loose an alleged
cop-killer. And the district attorney, Edward Rendell, went on to become
a mayor as well as the chairman of the Democratic Party.
The rulers of this country employ the death penalty
to scapegoat the most downtrodden victims of the capitalist system. Thus,
to be fully effective, struggles against the death penalty and the prison-industrial
complex require mass mobilizations in the streets that are independent of
the parties and institutions of the ruling class.
A victory in saving the life of Mumia Abu-Jamal,
the world's best-known death row prisoner, will have important repercussions
for all prisoners facing execution. Demonstrations involving tens of thousands
have been key in sparing Mumia's life up to now; as his legal appeal enters
a crucial period, we need to redouble our efforts.
All out for the May 12 demonstrations in Philadelphia,
San Francisco, and worldwide! Free Mumia!
Socialist Action /May 2001 |