James Ragland has this column in the Dallas Morning News. He begins, "Let the record show that I was against the death penalty before I was for it."
He then recites some of the usual anti-DP arguments (which we have refuted, but I won't go into that now) as reasons one could argue for getting rid of the death penalty.
He then recites some of the usual anti-DP arguments (which we have refuted, but I won't go into that now) as reasons one could argue for getting rid of the death penalty.
I tend to lean that way, too.
Until, that is, a case like Licho Escamilla's comes along, shattering my fragile and idealistic belief that there's a better way to derive justice.
Escamilla, who was put to death Wednesday evening in Huntsville, brutally murdered a Dallas police officer, Kevin James, nearly 14 years ago.
The facts are bloodcurdling: First Escamilla shot James and another officer who -- incredibly -- were trying to keep other men from attacking Escamilla. Then Escamilla, already wanted on a warrant for the murder of a West Dallas neighbor, shot James three more times in the head while the officer lay on the ground.
His terror didn't end there. He attempted but failed to carjack a woman and exchanged gunfire with the officers who chased him down.
A year later, it took a jury just 33 minutes to convict the 19-year-old of capital murder. When the jurors sentenced him to death, he threw a pitcher of water at them.
Bill Hill, the Dallas County district attorney at the time, called Escamilla "evil" and said "we need to do everything we can to protect society from people like that."
Hill's observations must give you pause: It makes you wonder why, if we as a society still embrace the death penalty -- and polls show that roughly 6 in 10 Americans favor it for convicted murderers -- it still takes so long to carry out punishment in a case such as this?
The short answer, of course, is that the convoluted appeals process in death penalty cases takes years and years to complete, typically at taxpayers' expense.
That's understandable to a point: When we're doling out the ultimate, irrevocable form of justice, we must make sure we get it right. There can be no room for error.
Ah, but what kind of error do we need to take the strongest measures to prevent? And for what types of claims is one review enough?
For no-BS, got-the-wrong-guy claims of actual innocence, yes, no one should be executed if there is a realistic doubt outstanding. Any doubt should be resolved, and if it can't be resolved the sentence should be commuted. How many capital cases involve such claims? Damn few.
The Fifth Circuit opinions in Escamilla's case are here and here. None of his claims are claims of innocence.
"We must make sure we get it right." For guilt versus innocence, there is an objective right and wrong. It is right to convict if the defendant really did it and wrong if he did not. For sentence, it is always a matter of opinion. Some people think all murderers should be sentenced to death, and some think none should.
In no case, though, is sentencing an actually guilty murderer to death an injustice on the same scale as sentencing an innocent person to death or prison. Sentencing claims should get one full review (in two parts, direct appeal for claims on the record and collateral review for claims outside the record), and then we should be done. Giving more reviews and more resources to unquestionably guilty murderers sentenced to death than we give to people sentenced to prison with plausible claims of innocence is an absurd misallocation of scarce resources, but that is what we do. Ragland concludes:
The only question I'm wrestling with now is this: What took so long?Too many reviews in too many courts on claims that have nothing to do with actual guilt or innocence.
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